Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Six O'Clock Already

April has been one damn thing after another over here. After the sewage, I had another crippling migraine complete with vomiting, confusion, and unbelievable pain.

"Am I going to die?" I asked.

"No," I was assured. "You're not going to die."

Sure enough, I'm still here. But then, guess what? Shef is sick with strep again, and the basement needs a few more go-rounds with bleach.

Thank goodness there are only two more days of this month. I've convinced myself that May is going to be a whole new world.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Hear the Thunder

This morning, I went down to the basement to do some laundry, but instead what I did was discover an inch or so of standing water with toilet paper floating around in it. And presumably some other stuff in it, too.

First, I called Dan. He said to call the plumber. They said they'd come over in a bit. And then, I called some of my friends so they could feel bad for me about the crap in my basement.

Molly said she felt bad for me, but that she thought that the time she had one single rat in her basement was worse than my basement full of crap.

"I don't think that's true," I said.

"It is," she said.

"Why?" I asked, thinking of the hours I'd have to spend scrubbing shit off the basement floor.

"Because!" she said. "It's a, a...RAT."

I guess, but I still don't agree.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Good Old Days May Not Return

Last week, I registered for the Twin Cities Marathon. I haven't run a marathon in six years, so this will be a true test of my fortitude.

Luckily, I've already begun training - I've got a half-marathon next weekend and a couple of triathlons on the calendar for the summer. And since I've already started training, my feet have already gone from reasonably tolerable to completely nasty.

The other night, Dan and I were sitting on the couch watching Friday Night Lights, the best scripted show on television.

"God," Dan said. "Your feet are SO GROSS."

"Yeah," I said. They are just really disgusting. I've got this thick nail on my left second toe which has started oozing blister fluid. There are some dried up blood blisters on the side of my right foot. The nails on my pinky toes are already starting to go. And, of course, my big toes are huge. Totally disproportionally so.

"Your big toes look like they belong on someone three times your size," Dan said, curling his upper lip. "GOD! They're GROSS!"

What can I say? It's true, and the whole situation is only going to get worse.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

I Just Love Your Flashy Ways

Mac is 10 months old now!



And, no, it's not your imagination: he's still the same size as he has been for the last four or five months. In fact, in this photo, he's wearing the exact same outfit he wore for his four-month shot. Granted, he has gained about three pounds since then.

That doesn't seem like a whole lot to me, but the kid appears completely healthy. He babbles all the time, does a few tricks when he feels like it, takes single steps if it strikes his fancy, and eats all kinds of things.

Here he is with some prunes in his hair:



I'm sorry, but not just every kid can look that cute with prunes in his hair.

Friday, April 10, 2009

I Want to Be the One Who Walks in the Sun

Wow, it's been a terrible week.

After all the strep, I got a wicked three-day migraine plus a ruptured ovarian cyst. Both of these caused a lot of pain.

Today, the painkillers seem to be working appropriately, and I'm no longer so sensitive to light that I cover my eyes when sitting near a window.

This weekend is supposed to be beautiful, weather wise, and I'm thinking that if I'm still well, it's likely I'll be in an excellent mood. I might *MIGHT* even participate in my family's egg roll and egg hunt, but that sort of depends on how I'm feeling at the exact moment.

Monday, April 6, 2009

My Baby, He Don't Talk Sweet

It was a terrible weekend at our house.

For one thing, on Friday morning my mom came over to babysit while I rode my bike in the basement for 30 minutes. Afterward my legs ached all day and I developed a sore throat.

Hmmm. I thought.

Then, on Friday night, I wasn't sleeping. The sore throat was raging.

Darn it! I thought.

On Saturday morning, I looked in there with a flashlight and saw some white spots.

Crap!

Later, I took myself to the Target Clinic to get a test, and sure enough, it was strep.

Then, I made Shef get a test because even though he has no symptoms, that strep had to come from somewhere. He cried and refused to open his mouth, but finally they got the swab in there.

Positive! I knew it.

On Sunday night, I got some kind of massive stomach attack. I popped a Zantac and lay on the bathroom floor in the fetal position. It subsided eventually.

Meanwhile, Mac was all out of sorts. Crying in the night for long periods of time, even when we held and bounced him. He seems to have developed conjunctivitis. And I'm betting on an ear infection. We'll see the doc in 45 minutes.

It's no wonder the house is a mess.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Mama Said Knock You Out

Sheila and I signed our preschool boys up for this little gymnastics class at the Y.

I'm always calling it the "little gymnastics class" because it's really pretty stupid. The kids don't seem to learn anything. The teacher has been absent three of eight classes. She rescheduled the last one because she was going to Mexico, which she told me seven or ten times. She also doesn't seem to have any knowledge of gymnastics or experience in teaching it. I mean, as far as I can tell.

For the last class, the kids did a "performance." I'm not going to lie: Sheila and I just laughed through the whole thing. The kids were trying hard, but I'm pretty sure they would have done just as well on the first night as on the last.

At the end, everybody got certificates with gymnastic lady clipart on them.

I watched the teacher rifle through the stack. I could see that there was no Shef certificate in the bunch.

"Shef!" she called out. "What's your real name again?"

"Thomas," he told her.

"Ok," she said, looking at each certificate again.

I could see that there were no certificates that said Thomas.

"We're going to have to change this one," she told me, pulling out a certificate that said Ian, "because he doesn't go by his first name."

"Okay," I said, laughing a little.

She came back in a few minutes with SHEF written in big sharpie bubble letters over the Ian.

I laughed some more, but Shef didn't seem to mind at all.