Immunizations, my foot

I sit here typing from Day 3 of quarantine. No everyone calm down, it is not the Shauntee Virus, geek check to all Heroes fans out there. Its the Pox. Not small or monkey, just chicken. In what Web MD refers to as a breakout infection (a person who has been immunized against it but gets it anyway), Innie has a small case of the Pox. Tuesday he kind of had a fever and a sore throat, we drugged him up and sent him to bed and thought nothing of it. The next morning it appeared he had a cold sore in his lip. I laid down the law for him, no sharing any one's cups, don't touch a lot of people, and wash your hands a lot more. As I am giving him his eye drops for his pinkeye infection he is getting over, nice right, I notice a bump on his forehead, still ignore it. We are now at the door rushing to be on time for the bus stop and getting Bug to preschool. Innie comes up to me and lifts up his shirt, "Its real itchy right here." He points to this general area of spots. I lift up his whole shirt and there they are in all their glory. Back and belly.

Well, no school for Innie. I get the other two to school. Call a nurse, she informs me that we all don't have to go into quarantine since they have had they immunizations and Dan and I have already had it. But they don't want to see us at the doctor's office to confirm that its the pox, thank you very much. "Oh, you'll be able to tell for sure in the next couple of days. Just bring him in if it looks like he is getting an infection."

Now DD is the school courier pigeon and I am a de facto home-schooler. We work on stuff that the school sends home during the day and I try to keep him busy besides that. We have done a little extra stuff, like studying the latest map from National Geographic that is about dinosaurs and making times table charts to hang on the wall of the craft room by where the kids do their homework. Other than those few burst of creative learning that we have had, its lots of legos and TV.

Yesterday, in DD package was get well cards from Innie's whole class. They were so cute. Some were funny. Innie remarked at one kid calling him his BFF, "that kid called me mean two days ago and now he thinks we are best friends, that's funny." He called him mean because Innie noticed that he had a sandwich in his lunch and most days he has other stuff, how rude of Innie. The best was the story a girl put in about when she had the pox and her sister teased her by always saying. "Boc, Boc" to her, she didn't think it was funny. We loved the idea and have been bocking at him ever since.

There was a lot of admonitions to not scratch, which I found interesting. Either a lot of kids have had it and know or the teacher said something. And why have so many kids had it, haven't they been given the shot too? Does this thing not work at all? Dan and I are so paranoid every time we see the other two scratch we are lifting up their shirt to see what they were scratching and we have been like groomer monkeys on each other, "Do you see anything?" Every itch makes me jumpy. Its the Pox, I tell you, the Pox. Although, we haven't had to deal with that much with Innie. He has been so good. I am pretty sure this is a light case but still I haven't seen him scratching once and he always comes to me and tells me where it is itching and waits patiently for the lotion to take affect. Such a weird little angel boy.

Here is the picture of Innie holding all his get well cards that we put in his Thank you card he sent back to school with the mule, DD, today.

Thanksgiving Pictures

After dinner nap? Not quite, these two didn't even make it to dinner. Bug didn't even wake up when it was time to eat. My sister picked him up and put him back down and barely even a stir or a whimper came out of that little guy. He went on to sleep another hour and a half on that couch with us all around not even trying to be quiet. Bright side, no "Eat that" threats through out all Thanksgiving dinner. No complaints about no wanting to. Thanksgiving dinner was wolfed down in quiet gorging, the way the founders intended it.

Later that night, here they are in time-out for ripping a curtain rod out of the wall in their cousin's room while they acted like rabid monkeys.

The kids with my Dad, AKA Ukki to the kids. The next Monday as they left for school and the day he left back for SLC. Bug got over his old-person prejudice long enough to admit that he was going to miss him and complain about him having to go home at all.

Randomness

I have some random questions I need some answers to. I have had them floating in my head forever now while I was in the kitchen, going oh, I'll put that in the blog. So instead of any orderly fashion or anything that makes sense I am just going to throw it out there to get it out of my skull.

Why are they billing episode 11 of Heroes as a Finale? Aren't seasons supposed to be 22 episodes long? Does anyone know something I don't? After the horribleness of last season and having to say goodbye to Gilmore my new obsession is Heroes. Its on season 2, they aren't deserting me too?

I called Dan on Nov 5 and left him a voicemail, he claimed to have never received it. I was all attitude at him about it and like whatever. Then when he was standing right next to me on Nov 11 his phone beeps out of his pocket out of nowhere. Its my voicemail. Where was it? What kind of adventures did it have during it 7 days of traveling from my phone to Dan's? Did it get stuck in someone else's phone before it realized it shouldn't be there? Or worse did it get stuck in someone? Yuck. Should I not think about a lost voicemail this much?

I picked up my Dad from the airport last Friday before Thanksgiving. I brought Bug with me so Dan could put the house back in some semblance of order before we got there. After we got him and we had been in the car with Ukki (grandfather in Finnish) for about 30 minutes Bug says, "If I think Ukki is old and creepy, I am gonna have to run away." When we finally got to our house, Bug informs me and Ukki that, "I don't think he is creepy." Does that mean he still thinks he is old? And where did my four year old get the idea of running away?

Why is the month before deployment so awful? Poor Dan. If he wants to do something that doesn't include me I want to freak out. "You are leaving for 15 months, don't you want to be with me?" Its like being pregnant, I am so psycho. The poor man can't spend every minute before he leaves with me but I feel like following him to the bathroom. I have a meeting to go to tonight and all I can think about is the time its taking away. I can't cram 15 months into one but can't seem to stop trying to.

We are still not done with the kitchen. But all the steam is gone. We are doing finishing work now but the list is still really long. And we keep running into those problems that you don't plan on like the laundry doors don't fit now that the floor is higher, so we have to get new doors. Now our goal is to just get it done before Christmas and Dan leaving.

There, I hope you enjoyed it being spewed at you all at once, now to the meeting I don't want to leave Dan for, what I baby I am becoming.

Renovation Madness

I am now officially going crazy. We are three days behind schedule on the kitchen and out of town family descends for Thanksgiving tomorrow. TOMORROW? What were we thinking doing this the weekend before my Dad comes? We thought we could get the tiling done on Monday. We laid the last tile last night at 9:30 p.m. We still haven't grouted. Or sealed. Or finished painting the cabinets. Or finished taking off the wallpaper on the top half of the wall. Or painted the bottom half. Or put anything remotely back in its place.

Right now we are eating in the craft room off of my craft table. The kitchen is in the living room which is completely filled up and the kids haven't step foot in the kitchen since last Thursday. They just stand in the doorway and play that sick car game, "Are we there yet?" "Can we come in yet?" NO! I will tell you, stop asking, stop asking, please make them stop asking. We finally decided last night to do a formal ribbon cutting ceremony for them for when they can come back into the kitchen since they are so dying to come in.

Meanwhile, in the past week I have only posted twice. Showered, I am ashamed to say how little I have showered. Been sleeping six hours, I am a solid 8-9 hours girl (very cranky person). Not eating well, have not worked out at all. Haven't been able to get the primer off my hands and arms for 24 hours. Don't think I have brushed my hair today. Stop using full sentence a while ago.

My Dad comes tomorrow and we will not be done, I have accepted it. My KY sister and her boys are also coming too. The thing that is really started to bug me though is... you know that when family comes you clean more for them than you ever do for your own family? When am I going to do that? The washer and dryer are in my living room. I spend a good part of Tuesday at a friends house doing laundry, the only break I've had besides Sunday. I haven't done any house cleaning.

One last thing, the kids are also neglected. We get them to school, hot lunch all week. They leave, we're in the kitchen. They come home, we're in the kitchen. They go to bed, we're in the kitchen. They sit at the little opening just to talk to us while we work. How sad.

Thanks for reading my rant. My back hurts, my arms hurt, my knees hurt. When will the madness end? Not today, break over, back to painting I go.

Three Kiddo Stories

Here are some of those things that kids do and say. There is one for each of my kids for the last couple of days.

Innie... 8 years old (turns 9 in Feb.)

We are driving in the truck at night and for some reason DD wants to book that Innie has even though neither of them can read it since it is so dark. Also, for some reason Innie won't give it to her and is relishing in the noises he is making his sister make. And now DD is complaining because he's not doing anything with the book so why won't he just let her have it? So I finally put my two cents in, "If you can't think of anything to do with it why not let your sister have it?" He responds in a very sweet, too sweet tone, "I can hug the book." DD starts to cry. I have officially taught one of my children sarcasm. Actually at that moment I turned to Dan and said, "I'm so proud."

DD... age 6 (turns 7 next month)

We are in day two of kitchen renovation, this is yesterday, and its time to mix some mortar for the subfloor. Dan brings out the mixer bit that fixes onto a drill, it is a huge beater thing that looks just like a hand mixer's little beaters. DD's eyes get huge and she jumps all over us, "Can I be the one to lick that when you're done?"

Bug... age 4 (turned 4 in July)

Background info, he is a Daddy's boy, I mean Daddy's boy. I am so low on the totem these days its not even funny. I used to pick him up and ask,"Are you my Buddy-Buddy?" He would always say yes and hug me. Then Dan left for the summer and since he has come back I am nothing. And I am more than a little jealous. All day long its just me and him, we do all sorts of fun things. I am so much more of a relaxed and better mom these days than I ever was when I had three pre-schoolers. I take him to the gas station and let him help me pump. Before I had a strict "you all stay in the car and you're going to not fight, kick, scream if you know what's good for you" policy. I don't spoil him but lets just say we might be border line with our youngest.
So we again are driving in the car and they are all acting up and I issue my vague, "Knock it off or you'll be busted," threat because I can't think of anything to take away off the cuff. So Dan says, "Lets bust their heads." We then threaten to bust everything from arms, legs, butts, eyeballs, and brains. When we stop we realize Bug is chanting in the back, "Kill Mom, Kill Mom." over and over again. I go, "Hey what's that about?" He says, "You were gonna bust my brains." My reply, "Well, Daddy wanted to bust your eyeballs." I thought I had him with this one since Bug prays everyday that we not poke each other in the eyeballs, we are not sure why. My smile was triumphant when he chanted, "Kill Dad..." but it quickly faded because the whole thing he said was, "Kill Dad, I mean Snuggle Dad, Snuggle Dad." I am back on the bottom.