There has to be some better way to gauge how sick a kid is and to figure out what to do. I’ve been thinking of inventing a new kind of thermometer, a TherMomEter, that tells you the things you really want to know. Here are a few of things it might say on the display: [read more @parenting]

“My favorite part of the stinkin’ long appointment in the 3’x4’ holding cell came when the doctor leaned in quietly with his little light to peek at Laylee’s throat. She held still. She stuck out her tongue. She said, “Aaaaahhhhhh.” And just as he was crouching ….” [continue reading at Parenting.com]

The tree’s body lay on the living room floor for about 24 hours before I performed some drastic surgery with a cordless drill and some photo-hanging wire, restoring just enough of its health to prolong its life through the Christmas season.

While the tree was getting better, Wanda and I were getting worse.

My throat hurts. I have an earache. Wanda is coughing and sputtering like a hoopty old car with a hairball. Her nose is full of fluids and so is her eardrum. She has her first ear infection. So, at less than three months of age, she’s starting her first round of antibiotics. Yippee!

I’ll tell you this though, she’s the jolliest little sick person I’ve ever known. She will cough, sputter, splurk and sneeze and then look up at me with her little red eyes and grin. Makes my whining seem a little pathetic. My nose isn’t even running. I just don’t feel good. It’s kind of sad when you have to look at your infant for advice on coping skills.

Dan’s been fighting a sinus infection for weeks.

Magoo’s got an on-again/off-again relationship with a nasty cough and a fat boogie nose.

I’m fighting a sore throat.

Wanda’s rocking her cold and ear infection.

Laylee is the last man standing. I’m just waiting for her to come down with a mild case of the ebola virus.

Sometimes you have to face facts. Sometimes your fake Christmas tree is just dead. You should not try to resuscitate it. You should not try to meld the stand back together with Super Glue. You may end up gluing your fingers to the tree and then to each other while the tree lies lifelessly in a pool of its own ornaments on the baby’s tummy-time blanket.

A $20 fake Christmas tree from Rite-Aid does not owe you anything. After 5 years of service, sometimes it’s best just to say, “Thanks. It’s been a good ride. Ho Ho Ho Croak.”

Dan and I were recently watching a TV commercial about some facial lotion that claimed to renew your DNA or possibly restructure it. We were flabbergasted. What a load of… Well, if a lotion could do that, it could also likely turn you into a mutant. Maybe it could alter our DNA in a way that germs would bounce off our immune systems like little hail pellets and we’d live out our lives happy and plague-free. I’d buy that lotion. [read more at Parenting.com]

My parents were out visiting from Montana this weekend and we wanted to hang out with them in a relaxed way, a way that didn’t involve driving into downtown Seattle to see something quintessentially Seattle-like.

Instead, we ate steel-cut oats, played games and explored the Titanic… in Redmond. Country Financial is sponsoring a free traveling exhibit of artifacts from the world’s most famous shipwreck and it happened to be in Redmond this weekend. I was pumped to go. I think my parents were a little less than pumped but they just wanted to hang out with and spoil Laylee and Magoo so they came along for the ride. Maybe their reticence was due to the fact that my dad had a premonition he wouldn’t make it out of the exhibit alive.

There’s something about that boat that’s always fascinated me long before Leonardo DiCaprio cavorted around on the silver screen. I’ve seen movies, documentaries and pictures about the events surrounding the disaster and the efforts to recover the artifacts from the ship and I’ve always wanted to go down in one of those bubble ship things and, I don’t know, look for ghosts and jewelry and such.


The exhibit was set up in a mall parking lot with a few huge semi-trucks linked together to form an impromptu museum. We got our picture taken in front of a backdrop of the grand staircase and each of us was given a boarding pass with the name of an actual passenger on the Titanic. They told us that at the end of the exhibit we could find out if our passenger survived or not. Is it just me or does Magoo look a bit trepidacious about spending his Memorial Day weekend entering things called “exhibits” that look like giant trucks smooshed together, where the chance of survival is highly unlikely?

In a fun gesture, the exhibit organizers gave local bloggers special treatment, letting our group skip the lines and giving us permission to take pictures inside, although picture taking was not allowed by people who do not publish their thoughts, opinions and whims online. The coolest thing they handed out to the geeks in attendance was a certified piece of coal that was actually retrieved from the titanic. I’m not sure what to do with said piece of coal. If I had a coffee table, maybe I could put it on there on some sort of special gilded dish and wait for people to ask me about it. In all likelihood its usefulness will only come next time I play Two Truths and a Lie at a sleepover party and I’ll say, “I have a piece of coal from the Titanic in my sock drawer.”

As we entered, I heard one tween boy rush ahead, “Come on mom. Let’s just hurry through. I just want to see if we survived.” Laylee and Magoo seemed equally unimpressed by the artifacts although they peeked inside each case and listened intently as we explained what an iceberg was and how the ship crashed and sunk. They have a great and strange love of all things morbid.

In the end, everyone but Papa survived. Pretty good odds, I’d say considering the odds of the actual passengers on the ship.

This sign puts a lump in my throat:

Go to the site and have a look to see if they’re coming to your town. It was a cool exhibit and the price was right. It’s a great chance to teach your kids a little history and maybe instill in them a healthy fear of ice. It may be good in a watered-down glass of ginger-ale when you’re pregnant but when you least expect it, it’ll tear a hole in your hull and send your one true love on a one way trip into the frigid drink.

*Besides the lump of coal in my stocking, some silly putty and the chance to cut in line, I was not compensated for attending or writing about this exhibit. I just appreciate a company willing to support the arts and education in these tough financial times so I’m giving a shout out to Country Financial.*

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And I have the ability to bear children.

So I’m pregnant, right? The cuteness of the babies being born in my area recently, combined with the slow decline in my all-day pregnancy sickness is causing me to be more excited about the 5-inch little guy growing in my gut.

There are great things about being pregnant. My favorite one is that suddenly my potbelly is all part of the cuteness that is a child-bearing woman. Soon I will get to feel the baby move inside and be sure that’s what I’m actually feeling, which is something that never gets old.

I don’t like the sickness but the rest of it is pretty darn okay. I love the kids’ excitement. I love how tenderly Dan takes care of me. He becomes downright gallant. I love imagining the baby and planning for it.

In regards to Lassie and how similar we are, I will tell you a story. Yesterday a group of friends were playing at a local ball field with our kids, confused by the appearance of this strange golden orb in the sky but intrigued enough by its warmth to venture outside to experience it.

The kids ran wild and the moms drifted in and out of conversations, everyone sort of taking care of everyone else’s kids. Suddenly I looked up and saw one of the three-year-olds standing at the top of a cliff-like rock wall about 2 stories up, sort of wobbling back and forth and grinning. Her mom was across the field with my children. We all sort of yelled at the toddler to stop where she was.

“FREEZE! I’m coming.”

My inner Lassie came out and I shimmied up the rock wall to where she was standing, happy as can be. I picked her up (not with my mouth) and carried her down almost to safety when I slipped on a patch of mud, twisted my knee and ankle and went tumbling down the rest of the hill. She was scared but fine. My small person was fine in his water bed due to the ample padding I provide but I was in a fair amount of pain.

Then I got home and realized it was my night to make dinner for the families in my dinner group. So I spent 2.5 hours on my feet making chili and cornbread, only to be reminded by Eve that we were going to have a pizza dinner that night with our preschool group. At that point my ankle was in ridiculous pain and I wondered, “Did this ever happen to Lassie?”

I seem to remember her limping along at times but then the next episode, she’d be fine and well-groomed. Well if today’s the next episode, I am not fine and certainly not well-groomed or even showered. I woke up with a sore throat and cough in my chest. Magoo’s is worse but mine feels like it’s heading that way. And my foot is still really sore. I’m limping around a bit but mostly lying on the couch and elevating it while Magoo watches TV. I don’t remember Lassie ever needing to hold Timmy down while he screamed like death and child abuse, pin his arms to his chest and shove saline solution up his nose so he would stop crying about how bad his boogies hurt.

I’m sure she would have, if called upon. I just don’t remember ever seeing that episode.

Not only did no producer come in and bathe me or brush my hair but I didn’t even get a fresh bandanna. (So I’ve looked it up and can’t find a picture of a bandanna on that collie but I swear I’ve seen one. I think it was red.) The good news is, I have the dinner I made last night to eat today and my kids are very sweet when they’re either pathetically ill or completely physically exhausted. Some other times too.

Laylee spent the day at “Track Camp” at the High School, running laps and learning how to throw a discus and shot put. Apparently they let her use both hands, which I appreciate since apparently they were using the same equipment the high schoolers use. She’s dog-tired but still willing to fetch things for her ailing mother and pathetic little brother.

I hope tomorrow’s episode finds me with a clean shiny head of hair, new clothes and a spring in my magically-healed step.

I’m still pretty sick. Laylee’s been home sick for 3 days. Dan’s home sick. It’s not fun but everything passes, right? At Parenting today I’ve written about how I let my ick and frustration almost take over my parental decision-making skills. Pretty scary.

[Read more at Parenting.com]

Do you remember a while back I wrote a post about the level of sheer carnage occurring with my brawling preschoolers? Well things have calmed down through the months. The kids have stopped the smackdown and their attention spans have stretched to include schoolish activities lasting up to 15 minutes in length as long as the mother who’s teaching does a pretty elaborate song and dance routine to keep them engaged. It’s been going pretty well.

There are six moms in my group and we all take turns teaching our group of 3-year-olds from a purchased curriculum, complete with activities and pre-cut craft projects. Then we get 5 weeks off to run errands, go to doctors’ appointments or simply lay around the house bonding with our much loved inter-uterine parasite.

This morning the kids arrived at my house and I was optimistic. I was ready. I’d even vacuumed the floor and laid out all the supplies.

Over the last few days Laylee and Magoo have set up a spaceship playhouse under the stairs, under the staircase with the 8-inch wooden beam along the outside of it. It’s a cramped space and they’ve pushed the couch up against the opening so there’s only the teeniest space for them to climb in and out of their hideout. I decided to let them leave it up for a few days and the preschoolers were thrilled.

15 minutes into the playdate, one sweet teeny 3-year-old smashed her nose at full speed into the wooden beam while jumping around inside the spaceship. Blood was EVERYWHERE. The poor kid was in pain and completely traumatized by the red dribbling all down her clothes, the couch and smeared all over her face. I ran her into the kitchen where I sat on the floor, holding her and sent Magoo to get a full roll of toilet paper and my cell phone.

The bleeding was intense for someone so tiny and in a soft voice she kept saying, “I want my mom.” But her mom was unreachable and I was the next best thing.

While I tried to stop the gushing, the other kids ran around like total insane sun-starved maniacs from the rainy northwest who CANNOT HANDLE ONE MORE DAY TRAPPED INSIDE. They were squawking, sword-fighting and hitting the walls, the furniture and each other with various objects.

Then another one started screaming. Poor little S-Dawg with the cast on his arm and the brand new baby brother at home had smashed the back of his head on the wooden beam and was howling in pain. All the other kids came running. “S-DAWG SMACKED HIS HEAD.”

One of my most basic parenting instincts kicked in and I decided that hemorrhaging trumps concussion so I called out comforting words to the poor little guy while rocking the bleeder and changing her compresses. Meanwhile the other children, forgetting their fallen friends, went all Lord of the Flies again.

Eventually I got her cleaned up and convinced her to change into some of Laylee’s clothes. She insisted that the shirt be pretty enough or she’d remain happily in her gore. If she were 3 years older, she’d be Laylee’s very best friend.

I dealt with Head Wound Boy, outlawed the space ships, outlawed the swords and light sabers and got everyone to chill while I googled “how to remove blood from upholstery” and followed the listed instructions.

We started preschool over an hour late today but all the children were alive or at least clinging to life when they left my house. That is my story.

We’ve wanted this baby for a long time. In Proud Daughter of Eve’s comment on my last post, she referred to a post I wrote back in August of 2006 about feeling ready for another baby after weaning Magoo.

My heart was ready but my brain and body weren’t. If you’ve read this blog for long, you know I had a rough time after Magoo was born. You can follow this link to read the whole story but the Reader’s Digest version is, I was overcome with severe panic and anxiety disorder a week after his birth that caused a near complete breakdown and required serious medical intervention.

He was also a huge baby, 10lbs. 8oz., and he ripped my body apart. I used walkers and canes and those little motorized carts at the grocery store, needed Dan’s help to dress myself, and went through some intense physical therapy.

It was rough. We fought through it and when I wrote that post in 2006, I was mainly physically recovered and on brain meds and feeling good and really ready to continue our family. The timing just didn’t seem right. Although my doctor told me that I could get pregnant on the medication with little chance of even minor effects on the baby, I wanted to be drug free and proud before we tried again.

A little over a year later I was off my meds and feeling great. I started working out and we began trying for a baby. In November of last year, I had what we think was an early term miscarriage and all the postpartum symptoms came flooding back. It was hard to want to keep going with our family plan and the idea of living life as a family of 4 became very appealing to me. I told Dan I thought I was done. He sweetly and calmly told me he didn’t think so. I knew he was right. Our family is not complete yet.

The thought of waiting another 3 years to wean off medication before trying again was too much to take and I went back to my doctor to hear more about the studies and what they revealed about the safety of my anxiety meds. Satisfied, we went forward with our plan.

When I’m trying to have a baby, I become sort of obsessed with pregnancy tests. I firmly believe that the more tests you take, the higher chance you have of becoming pregnant. Just keep taking them and one day one will be positive.

In early January, it was that test-taking time of the month so I took a couple without achieving my desired results. A couple of days later I was dropping Magoo off with Eve on my way to a doctor’s appointment and I asked her if she had any spare tests lying around I could borrow. Then I did a stupid thing and asked her if I could use her bathroom. It wasn’t until after I’d peed on the stick that it occurred to me it may be positive. If it was positive, then Eve would find out before my husband. Not cool.

Of course it was positive and I called frantically from the bathroom, “Can I borrow your phone?”

“AAAAAAAAAA!” she screamed as she passed the receiver through the crack in the door. I dialed all of Dan’s 10 phone numbers and he answered none of them. Crap! So, I exited the bathroom and walked for the front door of the house without a look in Eve’s direction. “I will not speak to you at this time,” I mumbled.

She followed me to my car, screaming like an excited cheerleader. I carried the stick in my purse for the rest of the day, too excited to think how disgusting that was. And soon I got a hold of Dan and we rejoiced and freaked out a little and I called my naturopath, my OB and my brain doctor. The team was in place.

Brain meds were closely monitored. I was immediately put on progesterone because my levels were far too low for a pregnant woman and we scheduled my first ultrasound for the 8-week mark. Almost as soon as I started the progesterone, I began to feel nauseous and sick with the most miserable heartburn I’ve ever experienced. Honestly I hate that stuff with a passion.

At the ultrasound, I was fairly sick but doing alright. Until we got a look at the baby. It was teeny, much smaller than expected. This meant that either my dates were wrong and I was pretty sure my dates were not wrong or that the baby wasn’t growing as expected. I tried to hold it together until the doctor left, telling me not to worry, that we’d just check again in 3 weeks to see if it had grown 3 week’s worth. Then I fell apart. I think I cried for 5 hours until I felt peace. Then we just waited.

Each day I got sicker to the point where I was throwing up sometimes several times a day. The heartburn made drinking water painful and I had no energy, barely keeping down enough calories to function. The first trimester of my pregnancy is brought to you by PBS Kids and the Wii.

I wanted to blog about what was going on but didn’t want to explain everything if things didn’t work out. I also have a hard time telling strangers about my baby when it still looks like a translucent seahorse with an alien-like melon head and nubs for arms. I want to be sure it’s human before I announce it from the rooftops… er internet tops.

So three weeks later, I returned to the doctor to check in. The nursed asked how I’d been doing. “Well, I’ve been really sick,” I complained. She smiled her nursely smile that says, “All pregnant women feel sick,” and nodded reassuringly. Then I got on the scale and she kept sliding the weight down and down. I had lost 12 pounds in those three weeks. “Wow!” she said, looking me in the eyes, “You’ve been REALLY sick.”

“Yeah.”

The ultrasound showed that the baby had grown even more than expected in a three week period and it waved its little flipper hand things at me wildly while its heart beat strongly and I felt my whole body relax.

I’m due sometime in mid September. My sweet Wicked tickets are for the first week in September so hopefully I will have stopped barfing by then and not yet have dropped my load. The day after the show seems like a fine due date to me.

Weight Watchers refunded my money and it turns out that the pregnancy bulimia diet is a much more effective form of weight loss than WW ever was so I guess it all worked out in the end.

I’m still sick. I’m still spending more time lying down than standing up. I eat crackers a lot and sometimes they stay down. I’m grateful and nervous and excited all at once. And don’t get me started on the kids. Never in the history of the world have two kids been more excited about a coming sibling. First of all, its presence allows them to play video games until their brains rot, one of their greatest wishes. Secondly, they’ve been begging for a baby for years, wondering why everyone else gets a baby but us.

They weigh in on names. Laylee likes Lucy and Daisy, Summer, Spring and Faller. Magoo is partial to names that remind him of “good sings” like Big Cheese, Light Bulb and Fred.

I’m not sold on any real names yet but I’m already coming up with internet aliases. I’m thinking Kip for a boy or Wanda for a girl. Is it wrong that I think of their blog names first? Don’t answer that.