New app addiction...crud

So thanks to my friends, J and B, I am now addicted to a new app called "Quiz Up". In the few short hours I have had it on my phone, I have already gotten in a "General Movie" trivia match with what I am imagining is a 12 year old girl with an ipod Touch in Great Britain. I may not know what Miley Cyrus said in a Nicholas Sparks movie, but I can crush the, again imagined 82 year old from Canada, in Indiana Jones questions. Don't try me, Ethel. The downloading of this app was very poorly timed as I am attempting to get Thanksgiving cooking and cleaning and prep underway as well as serve as the carpenter's helper to the hub in the bathroom remodel. It is not so easy to speed answer who played "Fredo" in The Godfather while using a crowbar to hold the cast iron tub up and away from crushing hub's hand. You think the necessity of a downstairs toliet would be in the morefront of my mind...not knowing that Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert were in It Happened One Night. But yet, I kept answering...and answering....until that creepy little British 12 year old beat me to the quick on a Fight Club question. Ego bruised, I had to put the phone down and walk away for a few minutes. But as soon as I finish writing, I will continue in my quest for Quiz Up domination of children a fraction of my age. They need to be schooled on something. When you play movie trivia, lady, you are in my house...right after I make some dressing to put in the freezer.


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Glutton for punishment

Today was super deep psycho cleaning day at the ranch today. In my explanation to the kids, I told them it would be better to do it now than when they were off for Thanksgiving Break and fun people were coming to play. This persuasvie reasoning was very effective for all of about 15 minutes before the fighting started. Sorting and scrubbing and cleaning and grubbing for an hour and a half. I pitched and tossed crap all morning. Then I made the dumbest decision that I have made in quite a while...and that's saying something for me. I decided that it was the best idea and right time, at 1:30 pm on a Saturday afternoon before Thanksgiving, to go to the grocery store and take three children shopping for turkey day supplies. Wow. Best. Decision. Ever. One child had a spontaeously sore foot that hurt at the most opportune times for her. One child felt the need to whip out coupons for everything in the weirdest places. As I looked for Ritz crackers, I hear, "I have a great coupon for corn pads. Do you need any corn pads?". "No, honey. We don't need any of those." "Well, it doesn't expire until March, so you're good if you need it." "Okay. I just need Ritz crackers for the broccoli casserole right now." Then the last child discovred the wealth of recoverable coupons right underneath the shelves. Apparently people don't want to bend over and look under there to find their dropped coupon. So he basically scooted along the shelf line, reaching under the shelves, finding coupons and yelling, "Hey, Sissy? Is this a good one?". "Yes, bubby. That's a great one. Keep digging!". "Uh, no son. The floor is dirty...please get up." "Here's another one. And what's this, mom?". I look up from my list to see both of his hands up: one with a coupon for Triscuits or something and the other hand with two, yes two, RAZOR BLADES. I calmly took them from him, decided to retire him from the coupon scrounging/floor mopping with his pants business and proceeded to look for the store manager. He was very conerned about the boy's discovery and thanked me for letting him know. We continued shopping, one limping, one rattling off "I have a coupon for that" and one saying, "Razor blades...ra--zor---blaaaades" over and over in some sort of Spanish/Snidely Whiplash kind of accent. If I could have burrowed deep back into a pocket of the paper towels, I would have. Instead I lost my gimpy child and her little cart somewhere in the cleaning supplies, had to double to find that she had gotten trapped between two rather buxom grandmotherly women deep in converstaion about the merits of Dawn vs Palmolive. The poor kid looked a little stressed, so I safely extracted her nd we sought asylum in the frozen vegetables. By the time we left the store, over two hours had gone by...and it felt every bit of 7. The cashier was so very kind to us all, I know we must have looked rough.

We got home. Gimpy put her feet up. Coupon kid studied the receipt with great fervor. The boy kept saying, "Ra--zor---blaaaades. Razor blades." All I know is this: the dressing and other stuff I am making better be good after all that.


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I want to binge...that's all

Tis the beginning of the season of busy-ness and stress. Schools and church and extracurriculars decide that this is the time to stuff in every possible activity and program, you know, fit 29 hours worth of activities into a 24 hour period. Trying to decorate the house, get all the last minute projects done, teacher gifts prepared, presents bought and wrapped while keeping an ounce of sanity is pretty hard. And now, thrown into the mix is my demon of a friend who recommended a program for me to watch. She knew as soon as she gave her rave review that I would have to watch at lest one episode to proved her wrong...and then one more to solidify that decision...and then a third to try to have an open mind...and then a fourth to realize that I need to find out what happens in episode five...which causes me to cuss said friend, look at the clock and realize that I went from coffee after drop off to it is almost time to get in the pick up line. Now I have to wait to view season two and catch up on the current season. In the midst of all the stuff, I really want to binge watch Homeland. I want to sit under my snowman down throw, put my feet up on the ottoman and watch Carrie and Brody and Saul thrill the audience with mystery, action and deceit. I am absolutely hooked. There will be time over the holidays, I hope, to hide away and watch. Maybe I'll even let the hub come in there with me.

I'll end with another weird question the boy has cooked up today. He is currently sitting in the floor playing with his Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars. He asked the hub, "So Dad? When you crash and flip cars over, why do your windows pop out? Have you had to put them back in the car yourself?". The hub, puzzled by the out of context question seeing as how he is in the bathroom ripping out the floor and not watching the Hot Wheels session, says, "Well, son, I've never flipped a car before. But they do that for safety. Why do you ask?". "Just needed to know, that's all." He's got a million of them. Come on over. I'm sure he'll tailor a question just for you. Night all.


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An exercise in temper control

Eight months ago when all of this illness business started with S, we made a trip to our allergist in hopes that we could get some answers. After a three hour appointment, the conclusion was that of mild asthma and a slight mold allergy. Hellfire, we live in East Tennessee. Who doesn't have a touch of that business? So when we went again to the allergist a month ago to have testing to see what caused this:



...they had not reviewed the paperwork we had worked so hard to get them ahead of time to review. Okay, so review them and get on with it. Nope, we got a "Come back one from now." Felt kind of like "NO SOUP FOR YOU!". A special scratch test was to be made and administered upon our return. Yesterday, I received threee different phone calls and had the appointment time and location changed three different times. Annoying, but okay. Well today was the return and we pulled her out of school early. The hub and I were very excited, in a weird way, to find out the results. After this long, we just want an answer. Welllll, apparently a month was still not enough time for them to properly and thoroughly read the results. After a series of rapid fire questions about other allergy possibilities by me, the NP went to talk to the doc. She arrived back 30 minutes later to tell me that they would not be giving any skin tests today. The doctor had decided, after reading her biopsy results from MAY that he has had for over a month, that she needed a patch test instead. When I inquired as to when she could have that done, I was told another month. S immediately shot me a look like, "Oh crap. Mom's gonna hurt somebody." The NP felt that as well and immediately started apologizing. While I did not burn bridges, I made sure the NP and the doc were very clear about my disappointment with their "studying the material ahead of time" skills. I just want to find out what caused the reactions that were so very severe, especially knowing that reactions from here on out are going to be even worse.

Strep Boy returned to school today and seemed to do just fine. He talks a big game, but I heard not one protest when he was asked to go to bed. And speaking of bed, no one will get a protest out of me. Night all.


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The boy can milk it

The boy was home today with, as they call it down here in the Volunteer State, "The Strep". By the way the kid acted, you would have never known he was sick. He was slow to get up this morning and was a sweaty mess, so I knew his fever had broken. Breakfast was interesting as I felt the need still to keep everything separate in terms of the girls away from the boy while they were eating. His coat was being cleansed of strep germs, so he wrapped up in a "vintage" WIggles sleeping bag and got packed in the car for drop offs. When we got home, he took full advantage of the fact that he was sick and got to watch television during the week. One can watch only so many minutes of Avengers cartoons or Spiderman. We paused to work on homework a few times and then he felt so faint, cough cough, that he had to watch some more Hulk. Then I bundled him back up to just get some fresh air and take a little ride. During this time, he said that it would probably be a medically responsible decision to get him a milkshake to soothe his sore throat. Good grief. After all that verbiage and effort, I kind of felt obligated. So he got one and I am sure it did help soothe his throat. The afternoon was nice with him. He certaily makes me laugh. I'd love to spend another one like it, but simply because we have the time...not because of illness.


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Aw come on...really?

So thumb report...the day after home surgery. My phone apparently rang during staff meeting today, but since I work in the fortress of solitude, it did not register. As often is the case, I forgot that I had set the phone on silent and went about my work day clueless, okay more clueless than usual. So when I looked at my phone and saw that I had missed a call from a number I did not recognize and that did not leave a messge, I figured they would call back if they really needed me. Then when I picked the youngers up at school, the boy looked rough. Really rough. I knew he was sick by the way his eyes looked. Through a series of shuffling kids around, I got the two oldest taken care and was on my way to the pediatrician's office. Our favorite nurse took care of him and, of course, had to do all the dirty work by giving him a strep and flu test. He did ask her if she would have to "touch his uvula" with the long cotton swab. That gave Nurse K pause to look at him like he had grown a second head and then ask, "Who taught you that word?". That's my boy. Between that and trying to get a urine sample from a child who could barely support his own weight due to his streppy-fevery headache, I was a twitchy mess by the time we got out of there. They gave him a good healthy dose of motrin while we were there, so once that kicked in he was like a new man. The NP's determination was that his ripped nail on his thumb may have picked up strep infection from some random surface(the school is bubbling over with it)and it kind of manifested itself in the thumb and elsewhere. He never had a sore throat. He thought he had an ear infection. Either way, it was not the FLU, which would have officially put me in the home where you could come and visit me, bring me books without staples, crayons and soft foods, while singing me nursery rhymes. November was a sucky month last year and I pray it won't be quite as bad this year. We'll hope we can avoid another child with a broken wrist this time.

Now I'm going to pick up S from dance rehearsal, feed her some hearty soup at home, make sure everybody is taken care of for the night and collapse. I may even watch an episode of Homeland if I can stay awake. It is my new obsession...I am trying to be strong and not binge watch. Try it. It is very engaging. Night all.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Aw come on...really?

So thumb report...the day after home surgery. My phone apparently rang during staff meeting today, but since I work in the fortress of solitude, it did not register. As often is the case, I forgot that I had set the phone on silent and went about my work day clueless, okay more clueless than usual. So when I looked at my phone and saw that I had missed a call from a number I did not recognize and that did not leave a messge, I figured they would call back if they really needed me. Then when I picked the youngers up at school, the boy looked rough. Really rough. I knew he was sick by the way his eyes looked. Through a series of shuffling kids around, I got the two oldest taken care and was on my way to the pediatrician's office. Our favorite nurse took care of him and, of course, had to do all the dirty work by giving him a strep and flu test. He did ask her if she would have to "touch his uvula" with the long cotton swab. That gave Nurse K pause to look at him like he had grown a second head and then ask, "Who taught you that word?". That's my boy. Between that and trying to get a urine sample from a child who could barely support his own weight due to his streppy-fevery headache, I was a twitchy mess by the time we got out of there. They gave him a good healthy dose of motrin while we were there, so once that kicked in he was like a new man. The NP's determination was that his ripped nail on his thumb may have picked up strep infection from some random surface(the school is bubbling over with it)and it kind of manifested itself in the thumb and elsewhere. He never had a sore throat. He thought he had an ear infection. Either way, it was not the FLU, which would have officially put me in the home where you could come and visit me, bring me books without staples, crayons and soft foods, while singing me nursery rhymes. November was a sucky month last year and I pray it won't be quite as bad this year. We'll hope we can avoid another child with a broken wrist this time.

Now I'm going to pick up S from dance rehearsal, feed her some hearty soup at home, make sure everybody is taken care of for the night and collapse. I may even watch an episode of Homeland if I can stay awake. It is my new obsession...I am trying to be strong and not binge watch. Try it. It is very engaging. Night all.


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