Funny

I was thinking I might blog about the innauguration. But really, isn't that what everyone is blogging about? And while that is certainly an historic event, I have some historic news of my own. Quinn told his first potty joke yesterday. Yes, at the tender age of 2 years and 4 months he has discovered that human waste is funny. And what was that funny joke, you ask? I was getting ready to change his diaper and I told him, "I think you have a pee-pee diaper." He said, "Pee-pee diaper. Pee-pee." Then he looked at me, smiled, and sang, "L-M-N-O-Peeeeee!" Then he laughed and laughed and laughed. You might not think he's funny, but he knows that he is.

Lazy days

I'm still getting over my latest cold. Zoe seems to have discovered an endless supply of fresh germs at Preschool because I've pretty much been sick non-stop since she started. But today was kind of nice anyway. Scott had taken all the kids except Zaven over to his mom's house for the long weekend. Zaven stayed here basically to take care of me. But I didn't really need it today. I'm at that stage of the cold where you feel fine... as long as you're not doing anything. So I stayed in bed all day reading Gregor the Overlander, one of Caly's favorite books. I did do some productive things. I folded the laudry for Zaven to put away. And I clipped coupons from yesterday's paper. But mostly I just rested. I forgot how good it feels to be well rested.

Tomorrow I have shopping to do and errands to run and children to watch, but today it was enough to just sit and rest.

My Family

Lately, all I've done is bitch about 2009. And seriously, it deserved every word and more. But I really don't want to be that person. You know, the person who'd bitch if you hung 'em with a new rope. I don't really like it when all someone can do is complain. So today I'm going to just talk about the nice stuff. And there is a lot of that, too. So no sarcasm today. No complaints. Just things I was thinking about.

Today Zoe asked to skip preschool. She normally loves it, and even though she was the one who wanted to stay home she later regreted it and was sad that she hadn't gone. But I enjoyed sleeping in with her. She's taken to sleeping in bed with Scott and I, and last night in the middle of the night she started talking in her sleep. I responded, hoping she'd say something understandable, and all of the sudden she started telling me a story. "She broke in two pieces, but I had people glue so I glued her back together. So she started carrying the wood. But she dropped the firewood and it started to fall. So I got a big strong net. Strong enough to carry firewood and I caught it. She said, 'You're so fast and strong! Who are you?' And I said, 'I'm Zoe, your sister. Who are you?' And she said, 'I'm Caly! I would beat up a bear for you!'"

Caly IS a great sister, so maybe she would beat up a bear for Zoe. I know she would try if she thought she needed to to keep Zoe safe. Caly's fiercely loyal. And she's sweet, but not syrup-y sweet. She's also funny. It's in a subtle, quiet way though. You don't realize how funny what she says is until about a day later. I mean, you'll laugh at the joke, but the next day when you think about it again, it's even funnier. But Caly has that quality. She'll do or say something that's obviously nice, or funny, or smart. But later, when you're not distracted by all the talking and laughing going on, you'll realize that it wasn't just nice, it was selfless. It wasn't just goofy, it was sarcastic. It wasn't just smart, it was astoundingly well thought out. You just don't notice it at the time because she's goofing off.

Zaven is funny too, but in a rubber chicken sort of way. He'll try to tell a joke and you'll laugh, but you're laughing because HE is funny, rather than because he's made a funny joke. It's not exactly laughing at him. It's more like laughing because of him. He's like a slightly less fuzzy Fozie the Bear. Actually there's a lot more to him than that. He's much more mature and adult than most people give him credit for. He works hard, thinks things through and tries to learn from not only his own experience by from listening to what people tell him. And he and I are the most alike in personality in our family. We like the same books, the same movies, the same food, etc, so I think that if/when he reads this he'll forgive me. He likes Fozie the Bear.

Quinn is hard to describe. There's still so much hidden. I do know he is far shyer than he seems. He acts outgoing and self assured most of the time because he's certain that it's safe to be that way. When he's in an all new setting, or in one where he remembers a bad experience, he is painfully shy. Plus, he doesn't really say much yet and I only understand a fraction of what he says. But he sings. He sings all the time. Right now his favorite song to sing is Yellow Submarine. I'm going to try to record him this week. It's so amazingly sweet to hear him sing. I hope he never stops.

Scott is also hard to describe. He is simultaneously the smartest, most mature person I have ever met... and a 9 year old. Zaven may have gotten the Fozie part from Scott. Scott giggles at all the potty jokes on TV, chases his sister with small critters he catches, and plots to put mice in people's cars. But he never misses a day of work, even when he should be in the hospital. He knows something about every topic I ever thought to bring up because he reads endlessly about anything and everything that interests him. And he always puts his family first. Always. And I cannot imagine my life without him.

I am so blessed to have these people in my life. I truly am.
But I promise to be more of a smart ass next time.

Finally! A nice day.

So far 2009 has been a wild year, and we're not even two weeks into it. Everything from kidney stones to dead goldfish. But today was actually a nice day. The house is still a wreck from Christmas. Heck, I still have decorations up! But there wasn't much choice. I've felt bad for a week. So today I sent Scott over to his mom's house with Caly and the babies while Zaven and I stayed home to clean up and try to get a little progress. We didn't get a whole lot done, but we did have a nice time. We mostly tried to keep the laundry going and take the trash out and stuff like that. I have about 25 loads left to go. But the dishes are caught up and that's always nice. Anyhow, we worked a few hours (not much cause I just couldn't seem to get in gear) and then I decided to just spend some time with him. We've really not got to see each other much lately and he'll be leaving home in just a few years. And no, I don't expect him to boomerang. Caly probably will, but Zaven loves being away from home. He was gone all summer at Upward Bound and called me once. Once. And only then cause I made him promise. So I decided to just spend the evening doing stuff he wanted to do.

I signed him up for his own blog (the Zaven files ) and helped him tweak the colors by editing the html. Then I took him to town to hit a few stores that he's been begging to go to for months. We hit the book store and the arts and crafts store and stopped by Blockbuster to rent a few movies. We got The Matrix and Hancock. We both have the exact same taste in books and movies so I knew he'd love them. Then we stopped by the grocery to get a few of his favorite foods for dinner and came home.

So, the house is not much cleaner, and life is not much saner, but I got to goof off with my son and that made it a very nice day.

Just a quick update

I'm feeling a lot better today. It was still a crazy day... from tripping and getting a big bruise on my knee, to being late to pick up Zoe, to a really stupid manager at Rite Aid. So 2009 is still not my favorite year. But, I think I passed the stone because I'm not in any pain. And my cold sore is finally starting to heal. So I kind of feel normal again. And Zaven finally found his retainer (the night before we pick up the already ordered replacement, LOL). So I think that maybe it was just the first week of 2009 that sucked. I'm going to put it behind me and start fresh.

Anyhow, I'm feeling OK tonight and hope all of you are too.

Nope, still sucks.

So for the past three days I've felt pretty crappy, but I figured it was left over from being dehydrated. Only no matter how much water I drink, I still feel bad and I'm still a little dehydrated. So then last night, I started getting sicker. And then I realized. I've got another kidney stone. I'm having the urge to pee all the time, but it's not an infection because it doesn't burn when I do pee. I'm having cramps. And last night my kidney started hurting. Put that all together and you have a small stone. Great. Just great.

No, I'm not going to the doctor. Kidney stones can be hugely painful, but they aren't normally dangerous. If you have one, they give you an enormously expensive cat scan to verify that it is in fact a kidney stone, then give you pain meds and send you home to pass it. If it blocks the flow of urine they'll treat that, but otherwise you're on your own. I got the cat scan last month, and I still have drugs from last time. Plus I have none of the signs of it blocking urine flow. I have had that happen, and trust me, you can't miss it. You puke. Not once. Lots. Til you have dry heaves. And it doesn't get better or go away until your kidney works again. So if I went to the Dr, all that would happen is more doctor bills.

Maybe, just maybe, a little bit better.

Well today sucked just as bad as yesterday or the day before, but it seems to be turning around in the last hour or two. I woke up this morning with a cold sore, probably brought about by a combination of stress and the endless sneezing and nose blowing I did while cleaning under Caly's bed. The day progressed with abdominal cramps and general malaise. In other words, I felt like shit all day. But after finally figuring out that I was probaby dehydrated (despite drinking a half gallon of water) I drank even more water and felt a lot better. So I headed upstairs to help Caly some more.

She and Zaven had made a lot of progress cleaning her room so I sent Zaven to watch the babies while I took a turn helping. Under her bed was already done, as were the drawers in her dresser, her bookcase, and most of the pile of junk we'd pulled out from under the bed. I left Caly to the pile since it was the dustiest part, and I tackled her toyboxes. I emptied them both into the floor then started putting the stuffed animals back in. I got through all the animals and got down to just the knickknacks and doodads. I shoved all that stuff into the pile she was going through since none of it belonged loose in the toybox. Looking around, I realized there wasn't much left that we hadn't sorted. This posed a problem since that meant we were running out of places the DS could be. There was only one corner of the room we hadn't been through. It has a small covered bin in which she keeps some of her clothes and her overnight duffle bag on top of it. I could see a few papers had fallen behind the bin so I knew she hadn't cleaned there. I told her to check that area before I headed back down to get dinner started. She said that she knew what was in it since it was all clothes. But I told her that Quinn might have shoved the DS in there and she needed to check anyway. So she lifted the duffle and there it was! Hooray! I'm so relieved. But the thing is, the duffle was full. I don't think Quinn could have lifted it, and I know Zoe wouldn't have bothered with it since there weren't any toys in the area. Caly is certain of where she put the DS so I know she didn't accidentally set the duffle (which has sat right there for weeks) on top of it. So that only leaves one scenario. The friend who was visiting hid it there when he realized that we'd be going through his stuff to look for it. He knew he couldn't take it home and it was too risky to put it back where he'd gotten it so he put it in her room hoping we'd eventually find it.

Edit: I forgot to add that Scott was able to figure out the problem with the dishwasher so it's working now. So maybe things really are getting better?

X...IX...VIII...

OK, so you may not know this about me, but I'm strange. I'd like to say quirky or eccentric, but really, I'm just strange. On New Year's Eve I heard a joke on the radio making fun of the tradition of getting drunk and trying to count backwards. The comic said he wondered if it dated back to the Romans. "X ...IX ...VIII ...VX ...Wait! Shit! I'm out." I got tickled and told Scott and he kids about it and of course we had to try it. (It's hard!) But Caly also wanted to say "Rabbit!" as her first word in 2009. Years ago I'd read in a Trixie Beldon book that if "Rabbit!" is the first thing you say in a month, the whole month will be lucky. When I told Caly about it, she decided that if it's the first thing you say in a new year then the whole year should be lucky. Of course this is difficult to do because even if you're watching on TV, there's some time lag. It's only a few seconds, but it's there. And if you're counting down, the first word you might say in the new year could be "Two!" or "One!" or in our case "II!" or "I!" So we ended up counting:
"X ...IX ...VIII ...VII ...VI ...V ...IV ...Rabbit! ...Rabbit! ...Rabbit! ...Rabbit!" I should say we tried to do it that way. It's harder than you'd think. I'm pretty sure we screwed it up because so far 2009 has sucked.

So far in 2009 we've lost a retainer, a Nintendo DS (which may have been stolen by a friend), and the game in the DS. This happened right in the middle of a major endevor to sort the off season clothes in our basement, so we had boxes all over the house, clothes everywhere, and barely room to walk. We stopped sorting that stuff and headed upstairs for a major cleaning to try and find the missing items. I've filled 2 entire 45 gallon trash cans with just plain trash from Zaven and Caly's room. Not stuff they no longer want, just trash. They both have trash cans... apparently under the bed is a more acceptable place for trash. Anyhow, we're more than half done but I had to stop because my allergies are going nuts. So we decided to wash all the dirty laundry that was under there, too. That will take a long while. There was a LOT. But at least the washer is working. The dishwasher quit this morning. And the bathroom doorknob broke. It won't lock anymore. I bought a new one guaranteed to fit all doors... except mine. And to make it fit would be a major undertaking because part of the old lock system (the part that inserts through the edge of the door) has a screw broken off in it. So I can't take it out, which I would need to do to drill the new hole. Did I mention that 2009 sucks?