Elves

Children, you all worked very hard this morning. Thanks for being awesome kids. Great job!  

Aaron spent 2 hours blowing leaves out front and the kids played and played outside with the neighbor friends. We ended our day with dinner as a family at Steak and Shake and Reese, Quincy, and Corbin crashed hard on the drive home. Delightful and productive Saturday. 

Also

Dear Santa, 

My floors want one of those roomba robot vacuum things for Christmas, pretty please. 

The one where my house is the zoo

Round two of marker-covered baby. This time, it was Corbin's creation. 

"But we are being tigers, mom! That's why we needed orange stripeses to be tigers!"

I love you, naughty, creative, tiger cubs. 

I thmell thumpting...

You're about to turn the corner and find a big mess in your bathroom:

The red flag:
Me: Corbin, why do you smell like shaving cream? And hey...is that lotion on your shirt? What are you eating?

Cookie Monster

Happy Friday, everyone!

An update

We went to the doctor.
Neither of the girls complained of sore throats or had any of the typical symptoms, but both Reese and Quincy have strep. This happened almost exactly the same week a year ago, and both times, our pediatrician said that she wishes more people would take their kids to the dr. when they throw up, rather than assume they're fine after 24 hours, because more than half the time, it is not a stomach virus or a 24 hour tummy bug, it's strep. Two years in a row of the only symptoms being middle-of-the-night throw up and/or poop issuses makes me a believer.

Our diagnosis':
Both girls have strep.
Reese has a double ear infection.
Corbin has a burst eardrum and an ear infection, and the bacteria has caused his eye to get infected and nasty looking.
We are grateful that Aaron is feeling fine, since he had a schedule packed with meetings he couldn't miss, today.
Wonderful, wonderful Kasey watched my kids on her lunch break today so I could get into the doctor today, too, bless her!

Drugs have been ordered and everyone will hopefully start feeling better in the next 24 hours. Until then, there is a mountain of very stinky laundry taking over my hallway that makes me wish I could just throw everything away and buy everyone new clothes and new bedding, just so I don't have to do the wash.

All is well....or will be, soon. :)

The Circus Called...

I'm throwing up.
Reese is throwing up.
Quincy is throwing up.
Corbin cried all evening, which leads me to believe he wasn't feeling well, and will be throwing up shortly.

Corbin fell onto a stick yesterday (on his face) and now that eye is nearly swollen shut.

Quincy and Corbin got into a push and shove match with a door between them and the results were Quincy's forhead splitting open and a big, fat goose egg.
It's been a day.

When it rains, it pours. Tonight at my house, it is pouring vomit and I'm at breaking point.
I'm so hiring an army of cleaning ladies to come sanitize my house next week.

Stay Puft

I just discovered Corbin playing quietly in his room.
And by "playing quietly", I mean I found my little glutton hiding in the corner after eating 3/4 of a box of Cocoa Puffs in one sitting.

Playing with him now just feels like a booby trap. I mean, that's a lot of Cocoa Puffs!

He is currently running around, giggling, and showing off his bloated belly. It's hysterical, and I am literally afraid to squeeze or poke him. If I wrestle him too much, he'll blow, and I'll be sorry.

Alas, he is going to explode eventually and it won't be pretty.

in other news...
Happy Valentine's Day, Aaron!
I move we save ourselves from our little ticking time bomb of a son and go for Plan B: Operation Get-A-Sitter-Tonight and give her a really big tip.

Update: well, we didn't escape fast enough. 4:56 pm (so close!) take cover, folks. It's a bad one.

Where the Wild Things Are

This took 2 minutes. I sent the kids to take showers and get in pajamas, while I finished preparing dinner. (chicken piccata. Yum. Recipe here.)

What you can't see in the shot are the dirty contents of the white basket, dragged to every room of the house, blood and bandaids in the kitchen, or the happily satisfied faces on my very naughty little heathens streaking behind me.

Yep. Streaking.

Somewhere between getting undressed and actually getting into the tub, a roll of wrapping paper was pulled down the hall and my (easily distracted) children realized they could "ice skate" on it in their slippery socks.
Socks were all they were wearing at this point. Classy.

All while I naievely oohed and ahhed over my stove top masterpiece in the kitchen, and even made a lovely facebook post about the lovely day and my lovely kids and the lovely giggles I could hear coming from them in the hall (red flag, meg! red flag!) and how lovely they are at Christmastime.

"Lovely ice skating" was actually naked "ice skating" and it quickly became naked "slip n slide", and naked "slip n slide" turned the fate of all activities that involve my son:

Wrestlemania and someone crying. Or as we call it: Kung Fu Corbin.

A wrapping paper tube fight broke out in the bedroom.
Reese appeared in the kitchen with a giant paper cut on her stomach.
Wrapping Paper Slip n Slide was banned in the Willy House.
Q screamed a lot.
Corbin "Hoooooooooy-YA! Hoy-YA!"d until the cardboard tube battle ended.

The children were fed dinosaur chicken nuggets, and went to bed without showering.
Aaron and I devoured the chicken piccata in silence, took this picture, and cleaned up a 2-dozen-paper-snowflake-mess inthe kitchen,
Then we wrapped a few presents with pieces of the "slip n slide".

Things I Survived

I threw my back out yesterday. I've narrowed the cause down to either wrestling with Corbin or lifting the freezer by myself to level it. Either way, It hurts like nothing I've ever experienced, and I spent my day changing ice packs and hittin' the ibuprofen.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We took a small outing to the library, this morning. Corbin's behavior there could be compared to that of a fire breathing dragon in a ...well a library still works for this comparison. The good news is that I scored 2 movies (Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life to add to our Christmas movie collection) and 3 hard cover books (The Secret, The Glass Castle, The Thirteenth Tale) for $8 total from the For Sale section in the back. Hopefully, it will take me a month or two to get through them, because it's going to be as long before we are welcomed back into the library with a smile from the ladies behind the counter.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

During naptime today, Quincy wandered out and said, "Mom, there's poop in my room."
Me: Poop? In your room? Why? Hey. You've got chocolate on your face..."

Wait.
Noooo.

I went back to her bedroom.

no.
No.
NOOOOO.

It was like a minefield.
I don't even know how she did it, I really don't. More than anything, though, I wish she hadn't tried to clean it up herself.

With ALL of the clothes from the dirty hamper.

and her bedding.
and the curtains.
and Reese's bedding.
and all of the stuffed animals from Reese's bed.

No surface was left untouched.
Is I scrubbed (which my back did not appreciate) and started a 2nd load of laundry (this is not including the pieces I simply threw away because there was just no coming back from the devastation), I looked around and seriously considered just closing the door and boarding that bedroom up.

Why, Quincy? Whyyyyyyyyy???!!!!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We fed the sister missionaries dinner the other night. As soon as they entered the kitchen, the girls ran up to them and announced, "Guess what?! We have a rat in our kitchen!" Nice.

Stay Classy San Diego.

Clue.

Well it worked fine yesterday and early this morning.
I guess he was going for a slow and painful death.

Fancy new phone, I am taking this as a hint that I didn't deserve you. Because you do. not. work. this morning. Like, at all.

I will miss you, but will probably replace you with a $20 POS.

This agonizing morning has been brought to you by Corbin.
In the kitchen.
With the dishwasher.

Sympathy

Reese threw up on the bus, today.

It was stopped at our street, and she threw up on a half dozen benches as she tried to hurry and make it up the aisle to get off.

If only she could have lasted 2 more minutes. 1 more minute, even.

My heart is broken for her.

Everyone has a school vomit story. If it isn't your own, it's about that kid that threw up on your bus that one time.

It's been 15 years and you haven't forgotten. I know I haven't forgotten about the time it happened to a kid on my bus.

I am holding onto hope that this won't be the case for my little Reese.

When she goes back to school, I plan to drive her for a few days to ease the sting of the awkward social recovery. I know I can't protect her from every bad experience, but if there's anything I've learned in 3 pregnancies, it's to have compassion for the girl with puke on her shirt. She knows it's there, go easy on her.

Anyway, she isn't really getting any better, either. No fever, but she's thrown up 5 more times in as many hours, each bout as bad as the one before. She can't keep even a tiny sip of water, gatorade, or a bite of soda cracker down. She begged me to put her to bed at 5:30, but came out covered in her own mess at 7.

Praying that she will feel better soon, and that the other children will not get sick.

Did I mention Aaron is in Orlando all week? We miss him.

***The photo is from earlier this month. The kindergarten classes held a big wedding for letters

Q and U (since they're always together). The boys dressed as quarterbacks and the girls dressed like brides. So cute! ***

Five Alarm

There's nothing quite like a good middle-of-the-night kid vomit to make me really relish my position in the trenches of motherhood. Gross.

Don't be jealous.
It's good to be me, today.

Sugar Coated

The world beyond our doors looks delicious, today.
A sugary, white frosting fell during the night and continues to drift down from the sky and stick to every iced surface as little flakes of coconut dusted atop a cake.


Even my deserted garden beds appear mouth watering again, since everything looks like one big frosted doughnut.

Reese was just delighted when she woke up to the surprise, this morning.
If only school had been canceled so she could stay home with us.

Winter has offically begun.
Those who are not fans of Winter say, "Aye".
Aye, Aye, Aye. (<----all three of those are from me.)

I kind of hate snow, but I've been trying to see the silver lining in it, and every year the snow grows on me a little more. Today, the silver lining was easily found when I felt how tickled my daughters were by the sight of the first snow. They've longed for months for the snow to return and stick on the ground. And just like they do when a cake is taking an hour to bake or when we're on a long road trip, they've been ringing my ears since October with,

"Is it time?

"Is the snow coming, yet?"
"When will it snow?"

"When will it be time?"
"Is it time?"
"Is it ready?"
"Are we there yet?", "Are we there yet?", "Are we there yet?"

...
...
...


"How about now?"

I awoke to the wake of destruction caused by my sick day. Aaron did a swell job caring for me and for the children, and even purchased a new vacuum and sucked what looks like an assorment of woodland critters from our living room carpet, and I am very grateful for his service. But it's a reality that the aftermath of any Mom getting sick is always a category 5.

It appears that while I was "snowed" with meds, my home was frosted.
With a mess! A HUGE mess. A Monday House x 10

Toys, clothes, dishes, everything, everywhere, on top of everything. Covered in a layer of everything. Smelling of diaper and fringed with kleenex.

So it would be easy to wake up irritated with the disaster.

But, thanks to the absolute joy brought to my children by the fluffy confections falling outside, my walls are bursting with optimism that today is going to be wonderful.

I think we've all got a sugar high.

And if I've got a frosted mess that is sprinkled with these faces, well then...

looks like that cake is finally ready. Yum.

The world beyond our doors looks delicious, today.

Do You...

Ever have the kind of day where your purse/diaper bag is so dirty/full of crap that you'd rather just get a new one than clean it out?

I kind of feel like that about my whole house, today.

Dear Aaron,
You're wearing your last clean pair of socks, this morning. Let's move. And buy more socks.

Hugs,
Wifey.

Be Grateful {3}

Aaron put cabinet locks on a few of the cabinets last night.

We've always had a lock on the cabinet under the sink, because we store soap and plastic bags under there, but I've always left the others unlocked.


While this does mean I have to admit that I am not the WonderMom I once tried to be, that somehow managed to keep her babies out of the cabinets, I am perfectly happy with being "Lazy Mom who doesn't have to spend hours a day putting everything back in her cabinets".

I'm ok with that.

I take back everything I ever said about the "crazy" mothers who go nuts putting locks and padding everything in their homes so they are "baby proof". I always thought it was because they were either A) lazy parents that didn't want to watch their kids, or B) paranoid parents who think their kid is destined to break thier neck if they are allowed to have any fun or use their imaginations. Now, I see that it is really just parent C) they are just tired of playing the role of "storm tracker" and only put the locks up to prevent mass desruction, and save themselves a few hours of damage control every night.

I only have a few locks up, now...but I already can't believe I survived two other toddlers without them. Maybe the girls didn't get into stuff as much as Corbin does.

Or maybe I just had more energy back then. (see Hurricane Quincy).

Either way, Cabinet/drawer locks. Brilliant.
Today, I am sooo grateful for them, and embarassed to have once been too proud to use them. Who has time to pick toothbrushes out of the laundry basket? Today is the first day in a month that I did not need to empty out the blender that Corbin habitually fills it with wooden train pieces. Corbin happily moved on to other things (toys), and I feel like I've been handed a bunch of free time.

"...In the lane, snow is gistening."

While shaking a dust covered shirt over her Care Bear Castle,

Reese: Come outside Cheer Bear, it's snowing!