Caloden

My father and I are not very close. It's not an animosity thing and I love him deeply. He just worked a ton when I was kid, he had his own law firm and that required most of his time and energy. He gave us a cushy life, took us lots of neat places and provided us with a great education. He is currently eyeing retirement and I think as a result he is starting to loosen up around me. He enjoys his Merlot as much as I do and we will often have a glass or two and chat while my kids run amuck around his house. Mine are his only grandchildren since my brother, God willing, will likely not breed. So the wine offering comes my way on a weekly basis, and who am I to turn down that sort of thing. Tonight we were sitting, though not sipping since it is Friday and Lent to boot, and he shared a few legal tidbits about his week. It was a bit of a bitch in his courtroom this week, my parents are going on a trip tomorrow and I think he needed to gossip in his own uptight way. He and my mom shared a few stories about people I don't know and then he got down to the business of the humorous judicial hooha. Tonight the topic was names. Yes. He had a fellow named Eddie Born-with-a-tooth.

"Native-American?", I asked.

"Yes, and then there was another." He paused here, as if gauging whether or not this was proper chat to share with the daughter who he still thinks of as 10 years-old.

"Laura Big-Beaver." He said with a completely straight face.
I almost peed my pants at that one. "Seriously?" I doubled over laughing.
"Yes, no matter where you grow up, that one's gotta smart. " he replied.

We live in a fairly small town. When stopping in the post office or grocery shopping it is likely that I will catch up on gossip and spread a bit of my own if I feel so inclined. With Loren entering teenhood, Cassidy growing like a weed and Devon consuming a huge tub of yogurt a day, I am usually a daily shopper. This means the cashiers know me, know what and how I buy, know my kids etc. Tonight when I had to run out for more juice bars -sore throat soothers- one of my favorite cashiers walked up to me and said in her gravelly smoker's voice, "Hon, you look like hell warmed over. Are the kids all right? Where are they? What's up?" I proceeded to tell her about the RSV, the pneumonia, the ear infections. Most people recoil from me when I tell this tale and warn me to step back a few steps, lest I contaminate them and all their kin. Instead, bless her soul, she threw her meaty arms around me and gave me a big, long hug. I almost burst into tears right there in the produce section.

I am all out of whack right now. On a usual day I am lucky to get half way into the whack suit, but with last week being Spring Break and now all three kids home sick this week, I am becoming seriously deranged. When I used to have a Real Job out in the Real World my mother had to deal with this sort of thing because I could only take so much time off from work. But now that I am a The Professional Laundress of Socks I must tend the sick little vermin. As a result I am all out of synch. 

 In the mornings Devon is up promptly at 6 as he pokes his head over the crib and starts by asking me politely with a "Mai-Mai?" If after a few requests I do not stir he begins to yell it at ever increasing decibles until I haul my ass up, scoop him out from his nest and trudge downstairs. Yogurt for him and coffee for me. Then Matt is off to work and I wait for the big two to descend the stairs. Once they are up I have to distribute inhalers, cough syrup, antibiotics and breakfast. This conitnues for the duration of the morning until Devon is readys with his nap. Now for the most part this is a given routine, minus the drugs, on most days. But since I have been giving Devon the sleepy cough medicine at naps, he will slumber for more than three hours straight. Now with this time I could scrub my gnarly kitchen floor, locate all stray socks, catch up on all my posts. But do I? Hell no. I have been napping. I have been crawling into Loren's bed, reading a bit of a book and then sleeping for more than an hour and a half each day this week. I justify this by rationalizing that I need my strength to deal with Cassidy in her sick mode, but really I am just lazy. So now, after several days of glorious naps it is now 2 a.m. and I am wide awake. At 6 a.m. I am going to be hurting and then when Cassidy and Loren wak up I will be hurting some more. And by the end of tomorrow not only will I be whacked but I will likely be whomped as well.

A good parenting tip, or realization if you will, is that not all childproof medicine caps are indeed childproof. This morning while I was taking a sinful and forbidden moment in the bathroom for selfish grooming pruposes, Devon reached up onto the computer desk where I had carelessly left the codeine cough medicine the doctor prescribed for all the demon coughs eminating from my kids. In the two minutes I was in the bathroom, with the door wide open so that I was able to listen for any sudden changes or anomolies, he was a able to paw the bottle, somehow push and unscrew at the same time and pour a lovely, sticky red puddle of deadly codeine juice all over the floor. I poked my head out as I suddenly realized he had grown silent -only to find him quietly giggling as he simultaneously rubbed red goo into his belly and skated in the puddle. Thankfully he had not injested any. But I do think I acquired another inch of gray roots in my hair and some serious Lousy Mother Points.

Since early January we have visited our family doctor on almost a weekly basis. Other than the pharmicist, he is my most frequent social contact. If that doesn't get me a pity brownie, I don't know what will. Today I stopped in for our weekly visit with Loren, Cassidy and Devon in tow. Usually it is just Devon, but since the other two have been languishing around the housefor the past few days and coughing out their guts, I thought they might enjoy the social interlude. All was fairly well. No temperatures. Loren was diagnosed with RSV. Then Cass got up on the exam table, got the RSV trip and then as he listened to her lungs, the doctor paused and had a slight frown and muttered, "Hmmm."

Now since Devon's diagnosis, nothing sends a chill through my soul faster than a doctor's frown and that queit, pondering Hmmmm. He stood up and announced that her lungs sounded like somebody fastening and unfastening velcro. Pneumonia. Then Devon got the once over and was diagnosed with RSV -with a side order of an ear infection. No wonder he was screaming after his morning bath today. A trip to the radiologist confirmed Cass' pneumonia.

Once home I dispensed with antibiotics of varying strengths for Devon and Cassidy, codeine cough medicine for all three, Tylenol for all three and an inhaler for Cass. I took Devon upstairs, read him his stories, sang him his song and tucked him ito his crib. As I shut the door he said, "Bye-Bye!."

Other than one load of laundry, washed twice due to technical difficulties, I have accomplished not a thing today. No posts. No exercise. No major Spring Cleaning. I am so weary from snot, barf, coughing and nasty diapers. The one bright spot is that there is a new Hugh Grant movie coming out in a few weeks. It has been ages since he has had a movie, I really don't think Bridget Jones II can be counted as a creditable item in the HG repertoire. So really, when all is said and done, the horizon looks good.

A good thing is always to remove the disposable diaper from the pants before tossing said pants in the washer. If this is not done, the resulting mess is formidable. Not that I would know.

My children have been sick off and on since the beginning of the New Year. I am so sick of sick that I could almost barf, how ironic. Since I have the range of offspring, I get the distinct pleasure of observing how illness affects the various age groups, a sort scientific project.

  Being sick brings out the hugginess in Loren. His basic nature lends itself well to affection, but being under the weather seems to give him the inclination to randomly throw his arms around me, hold me as tight as he can and cough in my face.

Lady Malady inspires the diva to emerge in Cassidy. Her needs are always substantial, but the drama of weakness and coughing give her reason to make constant demands from the couch. I can't really blame her, that's how I approach the whole thing when I am ill.

And as with toddlers, Devon doesn't quite grasp the whole thing. Before his Tylenol kicks in he cries at every little thing. But once medicated he is ready to go and is happy for about 40 minutes until a coughing fit grips his little lungs and starts him crying again.

We're going to go see the doctor again today. A round of appointments for the whole herd. At this point I might just ask him for the cough medicine that knocks them out cold. If they could all just sleep at the same time for about 6 hours,  I could hack the boa hugs, the finger snapping from the couch and the random crying fits. If not, I might just go on strike. I might go pitch a tent in the park and wait for Social Services to come collect them all.

I got smacked around in the cyber world today. Not the whallop of a beating that MIM took last week, but nor was it the sort of spank that makes you want to bend over and coyly ask for more. All day long my mail box has been littered with every sort of comment ranging from "hhhhm, that's interesting." to " you obviously don't know shit." There was also a dig at my daughter and her appearance that hit just a little too close to home for me to even be nice. So am I smarting from it all? Well, I was. But then I went to buy a bottle of wine, got a little kooky and opted for some raspberry Smironoff instead. Nothing hurts now. No sir.

Tonight I am housesitting for my parents. They have traveled over the mountains to Denver for both business and pleasure. They were kind enough to take Cassidy with them and in an effort to pay it forward, I am hosting three of Loren’s friends for the night. A filling dinner, ice cream, a pay-per-view movie and the X Box are enough to keep the young teen crowd content for a few hours. My parents have a tall, open house and so most every comment can be heard from one of the upper lofts where I have been pretending to work all evening. At one point I heard Cooper, one of the odd duck friends say in response to a commercial, “Why do girls wear those pants that have words on the butts?”

Josh, the other odd one, threw in, “Yeah, I don’t get it. Why do we care if their butt says Hot Stuff or Angel. It’s only their butt. Ick.”

Butt, Kidd and Loren are boys on a somewhat differnet track. I heard Kidd reply, “Man, I think it’s cool.”

To which Loren said, “Oh yeah, I like it. It looks really good.”

Am I wishing this house were not so un-private? Have I not pointed out to Loren time and again the work involved in rearing a toddler? Is their Norplant for boys? Or maybe they are just appreciating the female figure for its artistic value….