Believe in the Flowers.

Carol of the Zombie Jesus!

I realize that's a bit of a frank statement for some people, but the honest part is that it's TRUE: life has a tendency to be a bitch more often than not.


There's shopping to be done today, and so much cleaning and picking up to do that I'd be lying if I said I was happy to be awake. A couple of days ago I had a random, unpleasant experience involving vomiting at 1:30 in the morning, and for some reason I'm still relatively drained. I blame it on the fact that I haven't eaten breakfast yet - in fact, the only one of us that has eaten anything is the kid, and his breakfast consisted of a couple of bites of oatmeal and some milk. This child eats like a bird, and I'm surprised half the time that he hasn't just poofed out of existence after imploding on himself. There's nothing to him, if you just look at him, but he's actually a little above the 50th percentile for weight, which makes no sense because this child has BONES that you can SEE and FEEL. Mind you, most of this discomfort and complaining comes from an overweight woman that can't remember when she last wore something that wasn't considered "XL" or "plus-sized". Maybe it's a personal problem.

I think I'm going to do what I can to get the rest of the fam-dam going - Husband is playing Grand Theft Auto III with the kid in his lap, and none of us are even remotely prepared to "face the day". But at this rate, we have no hope of accomplishing anything if we don't get our exhausted asses in gear.

I'll likely hop back on later to say something snotty about Octo-mom.

We had spent the last couple of days planning what today would be like. It's our ninth anniversery, after all - nine long years ago today, we started "going out". I was originally going to post something long, thoughtful, and insightful, but for now I'm going to suspend that post for something a bit more cynical and realistic. Today calls for it.


This morning we woke up blissfully knowing that it would be the last night we would spend on the dreadful air mattress that has been, in one form or another, our only sleeping arrangement since June of last year. Two fat people and a very squirmy, space-hog of a toddler do not belong on one single queen sized air mattress, and this new mattress was the whole reason The Kid has a skull fracture in the first place. We were told it would be in last Thursday or Friday; when Saturday came with no news, Husband called the store and asked when we could expect it. We were told today, somewhere between 4 and 5 PM without a doubt. I became understandibly cynical when 4:30 rolled around with no new information, and my concern was justified when I called the store at about 5 to inquire as to the status of our $800 some odd investment. I was told that the delivery van was just heading back from a city about 45 minutes away and it would be upwards of another hour before our mattress was brought to us - but, of course, not to worry because it would be here tonight. I felt bad for calling and asking, but at least I got some semblance of reassurance that everything will be in order, given time.

That isn't the worst part of today, though. We were going to go to a sushi place in town - not that I can eat the stuff, but Husband won't eat sushi either and instead boasts about their teriyaki chicken - and then come home and watch a movie ("Zack & Miri Make A Porno") and then, with The Kid at my mother's house, hopefully get to christen our new bed. I know, perhaps a lot of information for those with sensitive imaginations, but it's the damn truth and I'm not ashamed - for once! - to say it. 

Only, it rained today, meaning my mother is none too keen on watching said Kid because of the numerous leakage problems her house has. On top of that, this morning Husband partook (partaked?) in our orange juice and for some reason has since been suffering the ill side effects of what seems to be food poisoning. The juice is gone, as is the rinsed-out Snapple tea bottle he was using, but he has thrown up at least once and has had numerous other stomach problems all day that have basically ruled out any hope of our enjoying our anniversery evening beyond at least being able to sit at home.

I think that this sums up nine years of a relationship rather well: you can't predict 99% of it and can plan all you want, but somehow fate will find a way to mess things up sufficiently enough to make you question your sanity.

Like making you watch "Pat the Bunny" for hours on end.

So here I am, with a box of Puffs with Vicks and The Kid asleep behind me on the loveseat. I've had some chocolate milk, my "allergies" are continuing their transformation into "sinus infection from Hell", and I still have a lot of cleaning and picking up to do before we (hopefully) get that wonderful call letting us know that we are privledged enough to be getting a bed delivered today. A real, functional, useful, comfy bed that isn't inflated.


Sorry, The Kid just woke up.

Anyway, I have cleaning and picking up and rearranging to do that I have no interest in doing. If I lean over too long, my head hurts and I feel generally more icky, but that doesn't help me pick up the laundry that has mysteriously found its way to the floor in the bedroom. It's a slow process, especially since picking it up also means rearranging all of the clothes that are already stuffed into our "closet", because the damn thing is out in the open and while we are typically messy people, I really don't like the idea of strangers traipzing into our house to decide that we live in a pigsty. Sadly, The Kid - who is still rather ill - won't be making this day any easier, and Husband is out doing work-type things today, likely getting to enjoy the beautiful weather to at least some degree. I wanted to take The Kid out for a walk, since it's already almost 60 outside, but at this point I don't seriously see us getting out until Husband gets home close to 5 PM, when the sun is already setting. This is a pipe dream at best, and because of it I'm seriously considering opening some of the windows that don't have plastic over them yet. 

Of course, window opening won't happen unless this whining, incredibly ill, completely discontent child manages to feel better long enough to let me finish cleaning so I can take a shower so we can even go for a walk in the first place. Dear God, at this point I just want him to stop whining so I don't feel like I suck so much!

I will admit that there is a significant amount of guilt associated with going over a month without posting anything, even a meager update, to a blog that I know at least a couple of poor souls read (even though I'm sure they have better things to do with their time). I have excuses, pathetic as they are, and most of them revolve around the alien creature that has contently taken over my body and any semblance of coherent thought. I had blissfully forgotten about the maddening mood swings, the crazed hormonal imbalance that is pregnancy, and thus had forgotten how to deal with the depression that comes along with all of this. I argued with myself for some time about the appropriate response to my hormones; do I blog anyway and risk alienating a number of readers who think I've gone over the edge and emo, or do I take a short break and recollect my thoughts? I took the latter route, although I will say that a lot has been missed thanks to this "break."


Namely, last Tuesday (January 27th), The Kid was in an accident.

I shouldn't say that he was IN an accident, so much as there was one; no cars were involved, but we were shopping at a local furniture store and he fell off of a flight of stairs thanks to unsecured rails. It was one of those fluke of nature things, where, naturally, in the two seconds he had let go of my hand, he slipped between the posts and fell some seven or so feet straight down onto his back. The floor beneath was concrete, and needless to say there was some injury suffered. We had a horrible time with our local hospital, which included arriving by ambulance with our little boy strapped to a full body board, then having to wait half an hour before anybody even came in to look at him. Nine hours later we were driving 45 mph down the highway to St. Louis Children's Hospital, aware only that our son had a slight sub-something hematoma (a bleed beneath the skull) and a c-shaped fracture along the sutures in his skull. A drive that should have taken 2 1/2 hours became closer to 3 1/2 thanks to horrible weather conditions south of us. Thankfully, things have turned out all right; we stayed one day for observation and were released to come back home the following day. Other than a nasty headache, The Kid has been doing reasonably well, with no significant changes in personality or mood.

Of course, that wasn't enough: within a few days, he developed an upper respiratory infection that has ended in Azithromyacin, finally prescribed by his pediatrition after two days of no sleep and little food intake, a lot of throwing up, and a horrible temperature (103.4) that resulted in a useless visit to the emergency room (we were told, "It's just a viral thing, give him Benadryl"). He's still sick, but doing better when all things are considered. The downside is that now I'm getting sick, too, and am certainly feeling the effects of what I am positive is a sinus infection. It's a couple of months late for the season, but I hope it won't be all that bad.

So I'm still struggling with a lot of internal guilt, as is Husband, though we both know that nothing the past week has given us is at all our fault. Someone thought all of this needed to happen, and it has, and everything has more or less turned out okay. The Kid's skull is still fractured, but will heal on its own given time. Illnesses come and go, and come the end of July I will hopefully be able to rid myself of at least a little of this hormonal insanity - only to likely deal with more for different reasons.

No news on when we get to go for our "big" ultrasound to find out the gender of Kid Two; my assumption is that it will be sometime at the end of the month or beginning of March. We're hoping for a girl, because it'd be a lovely change of pace, and I can't think of any good boy names.

Otherwise, we're doing all right. Which, I guess, is all we could ask for right now.