Girl VS Treadmill

Since the beginning of 2008, I have been religiously using the treadmill in my living room.

It takes some planning, on a daily basis, to keep the Boy and the Girl occupied as I do this but we have worked out a good system. I put their morning cartoons on, get them drinks and snacks, turn on the bathroom light (because the Girl won't go in there in the dark which means getting off the treadmill to turn on the light if she needs to go while I'm walking), make sure I turn the TV up loud enough for them to hear it over the mechanical roar of the treadmill and make sure I have the remote in case I underestimated the loudness, have the phone handy, etc., etc., etc.

You get the picture.

So, on Saturday, I have everything set up PLUS the Man is home so he can tend to the needs of the kids for the 45 minutes I am otherwise occupied.

Often, the kids stand at the end of the couch, which is right at the end of the treadmill and chat with me while I huff and puff. Often our conversations are like this, "Mom, why is your face red?", "Mom, how much longer?", "Mom, are you crying?" (No honey, it's sweat, not tears.), "What's sweat?", "Mom, why are you breathing like that?"

You get the picture.

Well, on Saturday, the Girl, in addition to needing me to converse with her, also needed me to have a drink of tea from her tea set. Ok. I can do that.

She hands me the cup. I drink. She takes the cup, loses her balance and falls off the couch, through the front of the treadmill, right under my feet, while I am walking.

Well, panic ensues. The Man comes running, yelling, "Shut it off! Shut it off!" We're both scrambling to pick her up while she bounces along on her face on the rough, moving surface of the treadmill. It happened so fast, but seemed to be slow-motion at the same time.

You get the picture?

No?

Well, here they are.

She got road rash on her nose, cheek, lip and forehead.



The pictures don't show how red it actually was.

But, as is usually the case, the Girl bounced back really quickly. She was ready to pose a few minutes later.

"Show me how tough you are, Baby."

"Arrrr. Me tuff!"


Now, I didn't get away unscathed. I got road rash on my knee pretty good but not good enough to keep me from finishing my 45 minutes!

Here's my knee.

You would think this experience would keep her far, far away from the moving treadmill, right? Wrong. A few minutes later she was at my side asking if she could come on the treadmill with me.

Never a dull moment, eh?

The face of chicken pox.

Until November 2007, I was a chicken pox virgin. I have never had the pox, I have no siblings and these 2 kids are my only kids, so while I had heard of chicken pox, I had never actually gotten within arms length of them. That is until that fateful day in November.

It all began innocently enough. The kids and I were up doing our morning thing, nothing out of the ordinary, until, that is, I noticed a weird, red spot over the boys left eye. "Hmm..that's weird," thought I, "Never seen anything like that before." I called The Man at work to ask him if he'd noticed anything weird on the boy. "Nope, nothin'," he replied, "Except, for the spot over his eye where I scratched him with my watch when we were wrestling last night." "I think it got infected," says I, "it's all weepy and swollen this morning."

We were so naive.
The time came, as it inevitably does, to get out of our jim-jams and into our civvies (get dressed) and that's when it hit the fan. The boys previously unmarred body was now marred . . . with chicken pox, and lot's of' em! Well it seemed like a lot at the time, but as the days wore on we would soon learn the true definition of "covered with chicken pox".

The day progressed as usual, giving us false hope that maybe it wouldn't be so bad, y'know, maybe he'd be one of the ones who didn't really get that sick.
Ya. Right.

Spoke waaaaaaaaaaaaayyy too soon.

Poor guy. Look at him. This was the day he felt the worst.


He had them everywhere, in his mouth, nose and eyes, his hair, legs, arms, back, groin . . . there wasn't any part of him that didn't have chicken pox on it.

He definitely looked the worst here.

Day four brought obvious signs of healing and he was getting a bit of his spark back.

We HAD to get out a bit so we went out into the fresh snow and bright sunshine. I think after awhile, being cooped up is hardest part of being sick. It was great to get out of the house, even for a little while.


There it is! You can see the light coming back into his eyes! The worst is over!
Healing . . .

Healing . . .

The ones above his eyebrow left a scar that I'm sure will fade over time but are still pretty noticeable. Makes him look rough and tough and hard to bluff and handsome to boot! (Just like his daddy!)


And finally, a bright light in the gloomy darkness of chicken pox-ness, a beacon of hope, if you will . . . a birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY !!
The boy turned 4 today!

We had a small party with a few friends.
We played "Count the scars" and "Name that scab", ate soft, bland food and gave out goody bags containing calamine lotion, oatmeal and children's Tylenol. A great time was had by all!

Ha ha! Just kidding!

We did have company that day though. One of the boys friends, the daughter of my "farm-case" friend (see my previous post if you don't know who she is), spent the day with us because she was also in the process of getting over chicken pox and couldn't go to school or to the sitter's, so she came and hung out with us. It was great to have her here, she was a much needed distraction for 2 house-bound siblings and their referee mother.

That evening, we had a small party with the 4 of us and Grandma. Any excuse to have cake!


The boy got a Playmobile set which he was uber-excited about. He's a nut for animals so this was totally up his alley.



He healed up really nicely over the next few days. You can see that the one in his eyelashes is healing up and his eye lid is no longer swollen.


By this point he is all healed up. The only remaining evidence of the pox are the scars over his eye. It did take over a week to get all the scabs out of his hair. I didn't realize how many were in there until they were all dried up. (Which says something about how often I brush his hair, but that's another discussion for another day. Ha ha!)


So, there it is.

Our harrowing tale of Chicken Pox infection and survival. Definitely a Hallmark movie in the making. (:

Wile E. Coyote. Super Genius.

I celebrated a milestone birthday this month and on the actual day of my birth I was in a BIG city celebrating the milestone birthday of my Metis Sister. I had a blast and when I get some pictures, I'll tell you all about it. Trust me, you don't want to miss the juicy details.

Anyhoo, I have been home, recovering from the fun and frivolity, for a week now and am just getting over the sleep deprivation and sore stomach muscles from laughing my ASS off with a bunch of crazy, booze soaked chicks.

I should have known something was up when the man offered me a sleep-in-day today. Offered it.
We don't do that. We typically use the sleep-in-day as currency to get other things we want from each other. We barter it, not offer it. That should have been clue #1.

Then when I got up this morning, he had been cleaning. Ya. Cleaning. Should have been clue #2.

I asked him why the phone was left in the bathroom, like he had been having a conversation that he didn't want to risk me overhearing and had inadvertently left the evidence of his sneakiness on the bathroom counter. He said he had been talking to my mom and that she was coming over on the afternoon. For those of you who are still counting, those are clue #'s 3 and 4.

I was a little freaked that my mom was coming over. It is a Saturday, after all. We RARELY EVER see her silver-headed self on weekends, especially the most hoarded of weekend days, Saturday! I started having paranoid thoughts, "Why is she coming here? It's Saturday, for god sakes! She never comes over on Saturday, even when we ask. Oh my god . . . somethings up. She's coming to deliver some kind of news. It must be bad if she has to come and deliver it in person on a Saturday."

As the morning continued, the Man kept suggesting that I have a shower. Every time I mentioned something I was going to do, like run the dishwasher, start some laundry, eat breakfast, he would say, "That sounds great. Why don't you have a shower first?" I finally relented and had a shower. I was in no condition to argue, what with my paranoid, angst-ridden brain swirling with worry about what bombshell my mom was coming over to lay on us. Besides that, I was all sweaty from walking back and forth to the calendar to confirm that it was, in fact, Saturday. Shower nagging = clue #5.

When I emerged from the shower, all dewey and angelic-looking (read: wet, wrinkly and water-logged) the girl was waiting for me with her finger pressed to her lips saying "Shhhhhh momma. It's your birfday." "My birfday?" I said, "What do you mean it's my birfday?" The Man, having overheard this exchange emerged from the shadows with a belated birthday card for me, decorated with stickers and pen scribbles, proclaiming his embarrassment over having not given me a card for my birthday. Ok. Clue #6. In my defense though, the girl, who is 2, still thinks it's Christmas. There is still snow, after all. So her whispered announcement of my birthday is truly not to be unexpected. A 2 year olds grasp of times and dates are relative. You gotta love them for that.

Then, a friend, who lives out in the boonies and "spends the whole damn week in town and sure as hell isn't going to come back in on my days off" shows up at my door, unannounced and unexpected (by me, anyway) with her 2 little girls in tow. "Hey!", I exclaim, "What the hell are you doing here?" To which she replies, "I had to make myself scarce at home. My dad is butchering pigs." Clue #7!!!

The alarm bells should have been ringing by this time because if you knew this friend of mine, you'd know that she is a mild-mannered, book-keeping, number-crunching accountant-type by day but when 5 o'clock rolls around she is a calf-pulling, chicken-butchering, butter tart baking bitch. She is a farmer trapped in an accountant's briefcase, she's a farm-case, a close relation of the nut-case. AND, as if I needed to provide MORE evidence of my dunce-ness, she could have been at home doing the GST for the farm, y'know, crunching numbers and shit, and instead she was IN TOWN. *shaking head* How could I have been so blind? Not to mention, and I really shouldn't mention this, her eldest innocently asked me, "Who else is coming?" Coming? Here? When? (What'cho talkin' bout, Willis?) *sigh* I'm thick sometimes. (I dare say, I am genical sometimes, but that's another topic for another day.)

Lastly, the Boy, who is on his bunk bed looking out his bedroom window, exclaims. "Mom! Someone else is here! Quick! Look! It's formerly-fat-Cousin-who-is-now-skinny and her husband and their kids!" (You remember my policy on names on my blog, right? I was going to call her kinda-fat Cousin but that seemed too passive aggressive, same with still-pretty-fat Cousin, so formerly-fat-Cousin-who-is-now-skinny will have to do for now, soon she shall be known as formerly-fat-Cousin-who-is-now-skinny-but not-as-skinny-as-me! Plus, I have height on my side. I'm taller than her by like 10 inches. She's quite . . . um . . . how do I say this nicely? . . . squat. Yeah, that's it. She's squatly. And, as if I need more on my side, I wear jealousy-green much better than she does.)

Anyway, I digress.

Remember a few posts ago I said that I'd cut it the hell out with the epic posts? Well, forget I said that.

Ok. Now I digress.

So, I answer the door and there they are, "What the hell are you doing here?", I ask. "Just visiting," replies the husband of my Cousin. "Happy Birthday!", Cousin exclaims thrusting a card (empty, without money in it, I will later find out) into my hand. "Thank you," I say, still completely oblivious, masterfully exhibiting my genetic connection to the "obliviatum dunder-head-ikus monkey", now long extinct.

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"Wait a minute . . . are you guys here for my birthday? Am I having a party?"

The lights go on, the proverbial lights not the real lights, (Wouldn't this have been sooooooooooooo much funnier had all of this transpired in the dark! The real dark, not the proverbial dark.) and I slowly come to the realization that my dear, sweet, shower-nagging husband has planned a surprise birthday party for me!!!! He even made extra sure not to let me be surprised in my grubby old pajamas with my hair sticking out in 16 different directions and remnants of yesterdays mascara still shadowing my blood-shot, bleary eyes! He tricked me into basking in the attention of my friends and family with a clean face, styled hair a shirt that was neither holey nor slept in. He SURPRISED me! He planned and orchestrated and had my mom bring 2 pans of the best damn Skor cheesecake this side of the alfalfa field! He loves me and I love him!

But if he ever fuckin' tricks me again, I'll kick his ass!

Hello. My name is procrastination.

Well ho-lee shit!

Where did the last two days go??

I said on Tuesday that I would be back on Wednesday and here it is Friday and I am just getting back here. What the hell?

Well, at least I came back.

Right?

Since you're here, we might as well look at more Christmas pictures.

For some reason I don't have any pictures of the boy opening his presents. (Can you say Mommy guilt?)

It must be because I was helping him to open his and he was flying through them at warp speed!

I'll have to stage some at a later date. *wink*

Here's the rest of the gang opening their loot.

My mom broke her popcorn bowl about a month ago. Since then, I have heard the heart-breaking story of it's demise too many times to count. We got her a stainless steel one as a replacement. Hopefully, she can't break it.


The Man got the Bourne Ultimatum on DVD. He's seen it 4 times in the theatre already. He's watched it twice since opening it on Christmas. I think he has a crush on Matt Damon.


My dad came for Christmas. The last time I had both my parents around at Christmas was 7 or 8 years ago. It was really nice to be all together. He took a lot of naps. I think we played him out.


J got a gift that she LOVED. She thinks it's from us. It's not but we're not going to tell her that.


The girl got a Princess dress up set from Grandpa. She was so excited. She had to put on some jewelery immediately and get a little sass on. Isn't she adorable?
No. That's not bias, it's obvious. Ha ha!
She was so happy that she was dancing without even realizing it.


Here are the Man and the boy constructing his triceratops skeleton. Very small pieces and a totally movable, fully jointed skeleton in the hands of a four year old makes for many opportunities to re-construct the skeleton. Ha ha!


My dad and the kids during their first attempt at putting the marble maze together.



Half an hour later . . . racing marbles! Way cool toy!


This is a game that has a skeleton that pops out and steals the gold coins you accumulate. You can see by the look on the Man's face that the anticipation is just as much fun.
Oooooohhhhh, scary skeleton.



As you can see, we had a great Christmas, lot's of laughs, lot's of presents and (too much) good food. I should have asked Santa for some bigger pants.

I have been trying to have this video play here but I don't know how to do it, so click on the following links to watch one of my favorite comedians. Totally cracks me up. He was friggin' hilarious. (Mitch Hedburg - RIP)

There are three parts and some over lap, but it's worth it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBiNriy87OA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VHMXG9XNoU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgt1jnkpe7E


Laugh . . . and think of me.

Later, y'all.

Another one bites the dust.

Another Christmas, that is.

Merry Christmas
from the boy and the girl!

We had the BEST Christmas and I hope all of you did, too!

The kids slept in until about 8:00 am, I was up at 6:30, which is totally unheard of for me, so I had a chance to get a half a pot of coffee into me before I needed to be coherent.

The kids had SO MUCH fun. The first thing the boy did was check to see that the reindeer ate their snack. He was pleased to find the banana gone and the carrot mostly gone. He figures they must have really liked it by the way the carrot was gnawed on. ;) Santa ate his snack and left a chocolate orange for the family. The boy had been wanting to try one for awhile so he was very excited which was followed by disappointment when he found out that whacking it on the table would not cause things to fall out of the ceiling like it does on the commercials. I, personally, am grateful that a woman in a bubble bath didn't fall from the ceiling when I whacked that orange on the table.

Here they are with Santa's goodies the night before.


Here's what they found the next morning.

Santa is a good eater and as you can see, he drank all his chocolate milk.

Oh, Christmas Tree, oh, Christmas Treeeeee . . .
how something something sooooomething
(the words escape me . . . )

Here are the humble beginnings of our pretty little tree.




The finished product. Tah - Dah!!




There were no presents under the tree until this morning (it was piled just as high on the other side) so here's what the kids woke up to.


Fun, eh?!?


And here's what I woke up to.


Fun too, eh?!? Ha ha!

(He's such a good sport. I love him so much. *batting eyelashes*)

So needless to say, the kids had a blast opening their gifts. First they opened their stockings and then they started in on their presents. We just made piles for each of them and let them go to town!




It's late, but I have more to add. I'll finish it up tomorrow.

Goodnight!