Finally

I think I've figured out why I can't cook and it clearly is NOT my fault.

I had high hopes of mastering fine cuisine when I was young.

I told every mall Santa for years that I NEEDED an Easy Bake Oven. I circled one in every Sears catalog that I can remember.

BEHOLD!! The makings of a culinary genius!!

I dreamed of those tasty, tiny cakes that I would create, and of course eat.

Okay, full disclosure...I probably would have eaten the batter long before it made it to the cooking ability of that 40 watt light bulb but that's not the point.

The point is that Santa failed me and therefore I can barely boil water.

Then it happened! While strolling through Lowes. What?! Doesn't everyone window shop at home improvement stores?

I talked my husband into this....

Cozy! Yes?

Lets recap....plastic? Check!....light bulb? Check!

It's practically a grown up Easy Bake Oven! So there Santa Claus, I'll buy my own damn oven!

The last couple of days at our house have looked like this...

BREAKFAST!

And this...

DESSERT!! I'm practically the Cake Boss now!

And Thanksgiving may or may not look like this in a few days....

Dinner may be just a little late!

 Thank you Thomas Edison for inventing the light bulb and finally giving me the opportunity to cook like a pro!

Observations

Spending the day with Lily today was both amazing and exhausting, mostly amazing though.

And you can learn A LOT about life from a 2 year old.

Like, breakfast tastes a million times better when it's off someone elses plate.



Furniture shopping is infinitely more fun with a tiny person.

It only took Grandpa (or Papa as she might be calling him) 12 tries to get the car seat fastened. Good thing too cause Plan B was to strap her to the luggage rack on the top of the car. Kidding, kinda.

It's perfectly acceptable to break into dance in the middle of a furniture showroom if an appropriate song starts playing.

It takes Our Girl approximately 2.5 seconds to turn her blankie upside down to find the tag, stick it in her mouth, and suck on it.



When it's time to take a nap, just let it happen.

And NOBODY makes her Papa happy the way she does. When she looks at him, the look on his face is priceless. She pretty much has him wrapped around her small, syrup covered finger.



Faces

In my quest to become pretty, happy with my skin  have clear skin for the first time in my life (or since I was 12 anyway) I went to a dermatologist.

I started with the "this helps EVERYONE" washes.

Not only ineffective but stinky and it bleaches out colored towels :(

I considered a medication with evil, nasty, could be life changing side effects. Picked up the prescription, signed the appropriate "I will not sue you if blah, blah, blah happens" paperwork then promptly changed my mind and decided against the medication.

I've bought every OTC skin wash, cream, gel and soap available. The last was this one which didn't work either but had a very cool scrublet (I love that word) attached to the bottle.

My sister who has skin eleventy billion times nicer than mine goes to a different dermatologist and bought a whole skin clearing system. 

I'm not yet sure whether my skin is clearer (to be fair, I've only used it about a week) but I do know that it DRIES out every drop of moisture.

My face is starting to resemble....



Maybe not exactly like this. Minus the snout, teeth, beady eyes, tail, crazy sharp toe nails....okay maybe nothing like this but DRY!!!

I think an industrial strength moisturizer is in order. STAT!

Speaking of faces. I got a call from my kid's friend yesterday evening.

In one breath I heard OMGCHRISBROKEHISNOSESPLITHISEYEBROWANDISBLEEDINGALLOVERTHERECCENTER!

Translated...My kid was playing basketball at the rec center and collided with another player. He was BLEEDING.A.LOT!! What do you want us to do with him?

I met them at the Urgent Care Center and after being cleaned up (which happened  before I arrived..YAY!!) I found him with a towel on his chest. A red towel which I was informed was NOT red before he used it. I have seen less blood at a murder scene...on TV of course. We couldn't even throw it in the trash. It was BIO HAZARD!!!

It looked like this...

Four stitches and Boy Scout knots later he had a prescription for antibiotics, a tetanus shot and orders NOT to remove the stitches for 5 days. He also is gonna have a pretty cool scar.

I totally could have watched a YouTube video and sewed it up too.

After someone else cleaned up ALL.THE.BLOOD!!!

Bouncing Along on the Crazy Train

We've been playing the health insurance game this year. I'll take deducibles for $1000 Alex.

My, OMG I'm having a heart attack/stroke/some other equally scary episode BUT wait NO you're just having a freakin panic attack, ER visit in January set us up to meet our family deductible (which we hardly ever do) so now we are paying much less to have overdue doctor visits. It's a doctor visit free-for-all up in here!

It's been a couple of years since my last lady bits, leave no crevice unexplored visit. So I went....on my lunch hour. Cause nothing says it's lunch time like a doctor burying his arm to the elbow in your girly flower. Oh, and let's not forget the small talk that you're expected to banter during said violation. It's hard to chit chat when at any time the doctor could grab your tonsils and remove from them from your nether regions. The phrase "you can get dressed" never sounds sweeter than when it's announced after this put-it-off-as-long-as-you-can visit.

That was about 2 weeks ago. In our family, ignorance is bliss where medical junk is concerned.

This morning when I turned on my cell phone there was a message from Dr. Vajayjay's office. Oh crap! I stared at the phone with a deer caught in the head lights look while my brain processed the possible scenarios. I immediately called only to find out that the nurse wasn't in the office yet. How could she leave a message saying that my results were back and we need to discuss my options and then just go home FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT???

I may have called a couple (and by couple I mean 278949 times) BUT I did only leave one message (sounding surprisingly like I had my shit together). It took a WHOLE HALF HOUR after leaving the message that I finally reached her. In that 30 minutes my anxiety level shot from Oh, everything is fine to  OMG, if she says the word biopsy there will not be enough medication on this planet to keep me from losing my ever-lovin mind!

I once got a quick peek at my medical records at Dr. Awesome's office and saw that the diagnosis (listed right after hypochondria) is GAD. Which Dr. Google defines as Generalized Anxiety Disorder but in my mind it will always be GAH! As in, GAH when will she stop googling symptoms?!

Anyway, Dr. V's nurse just wanted to know if I thought I might have symptoms of blah, blah, blah (NOTHING that requires removing body parts or treatments that require nasty with a side of horrendous side effects). I confirmed that Dr. V and I had already discussed the possible symptoms and that he had written me a prescription that I have already taken and that my girly bits are as good as baby unicorn breath.

I am happy to report that EVERYONE in our household is well but these episode of Diagnosis Roulette suck!!

Reason #46545 That I am NOT Mother of the Year

I don't do sick! I especially don't do sick kids who are mine.

I know, I'm horrible. I feed them, love them, don't make them eat lima beans or brussel sprouts and I slip them $20.00 more times than I can count BUT a nurse I'M NOT.

Short term sick, I can fake my way through. But anything past .5 hours and I'm OVER IT.

How do people with medically fragile children do it? They must have magic powers or powerful medication (for them, not the sick child). Really, they deserve trophies, super hero capes and exotic vacations!

My oldest is having some stomach issues that required a short hospitalization earlier this month. Everyday for the last several weeks I have called him to ask how his tummy is feeling. My brain is thinking please say "I'm ready for an all you can eat buffet of extra hot chicken wings". So far that hasn't happened. He's staying with his father (which for the record, I HATE). Apparently he is a much more nurturing parent than I am. I'm figuring he can step up now cause God knows he was no where to be found during all the parent teacher conferences and trips to the mall for school clothes.

My youngest has migraines. I'm not a totally terrible mother, I give him migraine medicine when he has one BUT I also make him go to school. It should be noted that he throws up with his headaches and I still send him to school. Duh, there is a nurse at the school!

When he woke up with a headache this morning (only 4 days into the school year) I gave him medicine and sent him to catch his ride to school. It was about 6:45 this morning. By 7:25 the school was calling me to pick him up. I did. I didn't even make him walk home. Take that, ex-husband who thinks he's the perfect parent! When I got there, the nurse lectures me for sending my kid to school (on the 4th day) feeling like he was going to throw up. In my defense he didn't actually hurl at school. It's not like I sent him to a building full of thousands of kids with a raging case of  *insert nasty contagious disease here*. It was a freaking headache, which the medication would have stopped if given just an hour or so. She tells me I can bring him back when his headache is gone. Whatever!

I bet they're not gonna be so thrilled that I'm taking him out of school for 4 days to go on a cruise. A cruise which I demand NO ONE be sick on!

Ouch!

It's no surprise to anyone who knows me that I've had headaches F.O.R.E.V.E.R. Not just headaches but headaches! Stay in bed, in the dark, with the covers over my head and pop prescription medicine like Pez headaches.


Not such a big deal when I was single or newly married but throw a kid into the mix and I don't care how much it feels like your body is going to start hurling everything you ate since you were two years old, that kid has to eat. 


Kids are like super spies! I don't care how fine you tell them you are when they are 3 or 4 they smell weakness and POUNCE!


It didn't take me long to channel this ability and teach my 3 year old toddler to rub my forehead until the pain was bearable. His little hand would massage my forehead for a whole half  hour of cartoons without batting an eye. I think I had the only pre-kindergarten child on the planet that would stand in the door of my darkened bedroom and ask me if I had a headache. Whether I answered or not he would crawl up next to me and start rubbing my forehead. He saved me from scooping my brains out through my ears with a melon baller many times.


Fast forward 17ish years and he is the only person who can massage away a headache that is threatening to dislodge my eyes from their sockets and send them sailing across the room. And he still knows when I have a headache long before I ask him to rub my forehead.


The only times in my life that I didn't have headaches was both times I was pregnant. I think that's called the Michelle Duggar Headache Relief Plan. Not very practical for me. I'll just stay with the visits to Dr. Awesome and the forehead massages that my first born has perfected.

Organization 101

I bought a new purse!

Yes, again. And no, I didn't need it. Geeez, you think just like my husband.

It's big and beautiful and PLAID. I'm all about plaid. Or polka dots! Ooooh, or ruffles! Kinda sounds like I'm not picky huh? I totally am though. Unless it's on sale (and my new one was)...then I'm a little more forgiving of a not so perfect purse.

Anyway I thought this new one was perfect until I put all my junk in it and it swallowed my stuff like a giant black hole.  Turns out is too big.

Enter Amazon dot com. Do you know they have companies that make purse organizers?! It's a little purse that has LOTS of pockets and fits into a bigger bag with no pockets. Perfect solution, right?

My sweetie was not impressed. Apparently a $20.00 sale purse with an $18.00 organizer to make it work is not a good deal. Of course that's just his opinion which in my opinion doesn't mean a hill of beans (especially after I already bought both).

 Clearly, it's MUCH easier to find my important stuff. Stuff like Xanax and my Tide stain stick. Just don't ask me to find it fast.