it’s not about you

Polaroid is getting out of the Polaroid business.

O

M

G

!!!!

via the nytimes.

We had big plans for this weekend, what with the extra day off and all. Everything started off with a bang on Friday night. I was reading a book to Judah and Joshua and Killian were chasing each other in the back. I heard Killian fall and then heard him scream. He apparently went face first onto the floor and busted his lip pretty bad. I got some ice for him and Joshua held him while I applied ice to his mouth. He didn’t like that at all.

After a few moments, I got a look inside his mouth and noticed that not only was he bleeding from the lip, but that he was bleeding from the gums right where one of his upper teeth was. I also noticed that it looked like the tooth had been pushed back - it wasn’t lined up with the other one - and I wiggled it. It felt loose.

I called the kids’ dentist, who’s a really nice man and as far as I can tell, a good dentist. He told me to take my thumb and push his tooth back into place for a good ten seconds, and that Killian wasn’t going to like it one bit. He said the tooth would either be fine or it could discolor and/or die and then we would have to take steps depending on the severity of the injury. We’re supposed to monitor his tooth over the next month to see it turns a brown or grey color and if it looks like there is any infection in the root. He told us what to look for. So that was that. Killian woke up Saturday morning, looking like he’d had a bout with Rocky around the mouth. Despite pushing on his tooth - and he wasn’t thrilled about that - it remains further back that the other one.

We also decided to switch rooms with the kids since we had the bigger room and they had the smaller one. We never use our room during the day, but I am constantly in the kids’ room all day, as that’s where they spend most of their time playing. Once a few buckets of toys are spilled out, it gets kind of cramped.

We had thought about using the whole three days to slowly transfer everything over, but once we got started, we had everything moved by the time the kids went to bed on Saturday. We’re still tweaking the arrangement of the furniture, but so far, this is going to work out much better.

Having all the major furniture switched on Saturday turned out to be a huge blessing, because Judah woke us up, and by “us” I mean Joshua, at 1:30 Sunday morning with a 102 degree fever and spent the rest of the night and the next day in our bed. She was feeling pretty wimpy. I stayed home from church and took care of her.

Joshua decided to sleep with Killian last night to give Judah and me more room in the bed. I wanted her close by in case she got sicker during the night. I was awakened at 2 a.m. by Joshua calling for help because Killian had thrown up all over himself, Joshua, and the bed. I sat with Killian in the bathroom, stripping him of his puke-covered clothes, while Joshua stripped and changed the bed and got himself new pajamas. No sooner than they got settled back down in bed together, than Killian threw up again, hitting not only the towel Joshua had laid down, but Joshua and the sheets and himself again. So we got up again and stripped everything and changed everything.

Judah decided to take that moment to fully wake up and say she was hungry. She kept puppy-dogging me and I had to keep sending her back to bed. I took her temperature, which was spiking, and gave her a dose of Tylenol. Everyone crawled back into their beds. There’s something about sleeping with a feverish preschooler - she wants to sleep ON TOP OF YOU. Then, when she rolls over, she takes all that great heat with her, so you’re left shivering from the difference. Judah didn’t sleep much after all of that, and about an hour later, woke up from a half-doze and suddenly popped off the bed, announcing, “I’m going to get some breakfast!” she was halfway out the bedroom door before I could get her to crawl back in bed.

Killian came toddling in at five a.m., and crawled in bed with me, laying his head down on my chest. I thought it was sweet, until he started lifting up my shirt, looking for a snack. I refused to nurse him, due to the vomiting, and he screamed bloody murder for a while as Joshua padded in and extracted him, taking him back to their room. Of course, Judah thought this meant she could get up and declared, “I want a hot dog for breakfast!” I made her lie back down.

We managed to keep the kids in their rooms until about 8:15 this morning, when I told Judah she could go play quietly in her room for a little while. Shortly after, Killian came toddling into our room again and I decided to see if he could nurse and keep it down. Joshua headed off to the kitchen to make some breakfast and to START THE COFFEE, and as soon as he turned the corner, I heard him holler.

Apparently, ants had found their way into the kitchen through a crack along the window and a thick black line of ants was snaking its way down the frame, across the backsplash and across the counter, and swarming all over the compost bowl, which we had forgotten to take out the night before.

While Joshua was wiping ants and trying to deal the with compost, I was standing next to him, holding Killian in my arms and watching, when - you guessed it - Killian hurled all over me. So there’s Joshua, his hands thick with ants, trying vainly to contain them as they are quickly spreading across the counter, and me, covered in vomit from shoulders to feet, trying vainly to catch everything with my hands.

After the ants had been vanquished and Killian had been bathed, and I had changed clothes and we both stood there with a cup of coffee in our hands and two full loads of vomit-soaked laundry in the hall, while Joshua made oatmeal, I asked him “Aren’t you glad you have this three day weekend, so you can kick back, take it easy, and just relax a little bit?”

Sometimes you just have to make a choice to laugh.

We often still get mail for the previous residents of our flat. We usually just stick it between the gate and the wall next to the mailbox and the postal worker takes it back. We’re pretty familiar with the names of previous residents, though occasionally, there is some junk mail for a name we don’t recognize, probably a long-lost resident of yesteryear.

Yesterday, we received a card AND a package for the same person, this time for a totally different name. What was strange is that we have (a) never received mail for this name before, (b) we have lived here for what? six months now? and are getting mail for a new person, (c) they were a package, and a personal greeting card, both handwritten, (d) they were from two different people.

I mean, the odds of someone sending a package to the wrong address, after we’ve been here for six months AND it’s not Christmas - isn’t that kind of weird? I wrote, “not at this address - return to sender” on both pieces and put them back out for the postal worker. They were picked up no problem.

Then, this afternoon, I saw a man in a minivan pull up into our driveway. Wondering who it was and why he was here, I watched, as he checked something on a clipboard, and then as he got out and walked around to the other side of the van to open the sliding door. He then proceeded to pull out this GINORMOUS balloon bouquet, with balloons reading, “Congratulations!” and “Get Well!” and “It’s A Girl!”

I knew it wasn’t for us - cause I have NOT just given birth - and I knew it wasn’t for our upstairs neighbor either. He saw me from the window and smiled and waved. I opened the window to say hello and asked him who it was for, and he gave me our address. I shook my head and said I didn’t think so, and then he recited and spelled out the same name of the person we got mail for yesterday! I told him no one by that name lived at this address, and he repeated it. I told him we got some mail for that person by mistake recently, but that it was the wrong address.

He looked very confused, but he dutifully got in his van and retreated to a parking spot on the street, where he pulled out a cell phone to double check. I saw him check his clipboard, then our house number, and look up at our windows again, and I’m sure he was wondering what was going on.

Yeah, me too. Someone gave out the wrong address. This is going to be, albeit a minor headache, a pain nonetheless. Maybe I should just start keeping the (obviously) baby gifts? I could use me some Target gift cards…

Yesterday, Judah had a REALLY rough day. I’m not exactly sure what was going on with her, but everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, was sending her into fits of angry tears.

I picked her up from preschool yesterday, and usually, all the children are sitting on the front steps together singing a song while waiting for all the parents to arrive. When I walked up, I couldn’t see Judah, who is usually right in the middle of everyone with a huge grin on her face.

I heard her call my name but I couldn’t see her and I thought maybe something had happened. Her teachers told me that she refused to put her shoes on and that she was still inside, and that they weren’t making a big deal out of it. Confused, I went upstairs to see what was going on when Judah melted down. Apparently she didn’t want to leave her first day back to preschool. Which doesn’t surprise me, because when I dropped her off that morning, she wouldn’t even give me hugs and kisses good-bye. I think she’s four going on fourteen.

When we got home, all the way through lunch and afterward, it was the same thing. Everything sent her over the edge. I kept sending her to her room and making her sit in my comfy chair until she would calm down, only to have her melt down all over again at the next injustice of the world - Killian wanting to do what HE wanted and not what SHE wanted.

I finally made her go lie down on my bed and gave her an afghan as some covers, which, of course, she immediately threw on the floor to spite me. She screamed at me for about 20 minutes through the door, and when she finally calmed down, I went in to talk to her. I tried to ask her what was going on and why so was crying and so upset. She kept saying she just wanted to play, or just wanted to read that book, or whatever, and I told her I didn’t understand why she was crying about it all.

After a while, I told her I wanted to her lie down on my bed and rest, and maybe take a nap, and that while she did it, I wanted her to talk to Jesus and tell him how she was feeling and ask him to help her have a happy heart.

At that she began to cry again and I asked her what was wrong, and she said she couldn’t talk to Jesus because she couldn’t see the sky. I told her that she could talk to Jesus no matter where she was, and that God was everywhere. She then said that God didn’t live here and so she couldn’t talk to him. I asked her where God lived and she said, whimpering,

“God lives in Texas.”

Classic. Yeah, so I don’t really have a response for that.

So I told her again that I wanted her to talk to God, and she said she didn’t want to. So I said that was fine, and she could lie there and just listen for God to talk to her. At this I left the room and went in the kids’ room to play with Killian. After about 15 or 20 minutes, I heard her calling me. I went in to see what she needed, and she turned to me and said,

“God’s not saying anything to me.”

“YOUR ATM CARD IS READY, KINDLY CALL ME.”

I’m sorry, do I look like I have the word “sucker” stamped across my forehead?

…is in town.

And I get to go see her!! Woo hoo!!

I missed her last time she was here. I’m taking one of my books and hopefully will get her to sign it. Maybe I can get a pic, too. We’ll see.

I’m blogging from the Bay Bridge. At 60 mph. Behind a wifi-enabled bus.

God, I love this town.

I just crossed the 20,000 word threshold.

i hear the 20,000’s are novel purgatory. I’m beginning to see why.

But, damn. It feels good.

Thanks to all who donated to my Write-A-Thon fundraising. I got sponsored for the rest of the amount and got to go. I wrote over 5,000 words while I was there and met some really cool people.

More later.

I just broke 10,000 words! Woo hoo!

Too bad I still have over 8,000 to go to catch up with today’s word count.

Anybody want to babysit?

So…

I was looking at my stats and noticed that someone found my blog by searching for, “is it bad to leave a gas stove on all night?”

Really? You had to google that? I can give you a quick answer:

YES.

It is BAD to leave a gas stove on all night. Let’s all pause for a minute and hope that question was merely hypothetical, shall we?