There’s not much that I dislike more than making an doctor’s appointment, sitting in the waiting room, waiting in the exam room and then having the doctor tell you that a) there’s nothing wrong with or b.) there is something wrong with you but there is nothing that can be done for you.  So I avoid the doctor as much as I can…

Well…

I think motherhood makes you crazy.

I can remember being in college, knowing that all I had was a cold, and my mom telling me I should go see the doctor.  "Mo-oom. (rolling eyes)  There is nothing wrong with me."  When sick with "a cold" I will only take myself to the doctor when the pain is so great that I KNOW that something else is amiss.  I admitted myself once when I had such intense ear pain I couldn’t sit still (ear infection–now I know why babies make such a fuss) and I pulled into an urgent care once when I was driving because I could hardly turn my neck to see where I was going (strep throat).

But when it comes to my children, I am all to ready to see the doc as soon as possible.  To a point I guess.  In the past two weeks, I have made two appointments for Sugar to see a doctor, and then cancelled them less than 2 hours later.

Last week, Spider was lying around like a zombie with a fever and I wasn’t going to take her in until she said she had to go potty and then couldn’t.  Thinking possible UTI, I made an appointment, took her in they told me it was a virus, not the flu, and she was better the next day.  Of course, last year she had pink eye for over a week and I didn’t take her in because it started to look better, her brother comes home with a screaming earache, I take him in and am told that Spider has pink eye.  (It looked better, I tell you!)

So NOW, Sugar has the same fever/virus as Spider did last week.  Same comatose behavior, lack of appetite, BUT her eyes are red and her fever seems higher.  (Hence the made and then cancelled appointment yesterday.)  Web MD says it’s the flu, in the which case (perhaps it isn’t) there isn’t anything the doc can do anyway and I don’t need to be spreading it around.  But MAYBE it’s pink eye and somehow she’s the only one that got it?

GAH!

I think I just need my own medical degree.  Yep.  That’s what I need.  

Wanting to vomit

Not knowing why, not pregnant

Aunt Flo Visiting

Spider has had a runny nose for what seems like three weeks now.  Finally last Thursday she got goopy eyes too.  It was pretty miserable in the usual way– she woke up a lot, was clingy, and we couldn’t go anywhere lest she LEAVE A TRAIL OF DISEASE.  But really, she just had a cold right?  Why take her to the doctor? 

I hate going to the doctor so I can pay $20 to have an expert tell me everything is fine.

So, we never went.  She seemed much better a week later– on the mend, but not fully recovered, so I was feeling all right and seeing an end in sight.  

And then her brother, the well child, comes home screaming about his ear.  Now, Engineer cries a lot, let’s be clear about that.  But not non-stop, uncontrollably for 45 minutes while grabbing his ear and saying that it hurts.  Appointments were made immediately.

After Engineer told the doctor he did not want any shots and that she should inform the rest of the staff of his request, it was determined that he had an ear infection.  On a whim I asked our pediatrician to take a peek at Spider.  The quick diagnosis was pink eye AND an ear infection.

Good thing the boy got sick, eh?

So then I was really feeling bad about exposing some other kids to her illness when I thought she was on the way to recovery.  And one of the preschool parents was like, no big, whatev, and another parent looks at me and goes, "Oh, I am going to be SO mad if my daughter gets pink eye."

After the stab to the heart, I was like, really?

Her daughter must have never had it before, as I might have felt that same way had I never experienced it.  I mean it sounds all nasty and scary, and it’s fairly contagious and gross, but when it comes down to it, it’s kind of like a glorified cold. Only you wake up and can’t necessarily open your eyes due to the goops sealing them shut.  (Nothing a warm washcloth can’t remedy!)

I just think of all the illnesses to get ticked about, pink eye doesn’t really make the list.  I would much rather have my kids have a case of "the EYE" than a case of "the VOMIT".  And I guess that’s the moral of this post for all you parents out there who are going to be "so mad"–Miss Stephanie say: Fear the pukes, be chill about the pink eye.  (Just wash your hands and keep your fingers out of your corneas.)

And don’t borrow my two year old’s mascara.

Engineer has to catch the kindergarten bus at 8:40 am every morning.  It is an effort most days to get him fed, dressed and out the door, because he takes life at a leisurely pace and I like to sleep in.

I woke up yesterday at 8:35.

Oops.

And of course, the boy was NOT dressed nor had he eaten breakfast.  And he was in no rush to do so.  We have a rule at our house that you eat breakfast and then you get dressed right after.  It would have been the other way around, but the rule was the for the whole family, and I personally like to eat my kix in my jammies so I insisted breakfast first.  Anyway, since Engineer is a RULE FOLLOWER, my asking him to get dressed while I made his breakfast was just plain insanity. 

He cried, protested and yelled at me.  

I put his waffles in a tupperware and he cried harder because he wanted to eat them at home.

Engineer and I were both frustrated, angry, irritated and emotional.  We got out the door and he was sobbing, freaking out because it’s cold and just being stubborn and I was yelling at him to get moving.  I practically drug him up to the bus stop, and left him there crying while my neigbor stood there with her son, thinking the kinds of thoughts you think when you see someone yelling at their kid.  I stomped down the hill without a hug, a kiss or a nice word for my baby.

I got home, sat down, took a minute and started feeling the guilt.

It overwhelmed me to the point that this Mary Kay lady, gathered up her two other children, drove to the school in my pajamas and no makeup to apologize to my six year old son.  Moral of the story?  I should have just let him eat at his own pace and then driven him to school since I ended going up there anyway.

Sheesh. 

Sorry for the details, but it is true.

I am finally coming around this morning.  The witches brew in my stomach seems to have settled and I actually slept all through the night.

Saturday I got home from a friend’s house with chilly chills.  It was a colder day than it has been, so I kind of chocked it up to that except that my knees hurt really bad.  And by the end of the day I was curled up in bed with a miserable headache and sore legs and I could hardly walk.

And then the vomit.

Charming comes in and says, "hmm, headache, shivering, vomiting.  You must be in love."

Until Spider tossed her cookies too and he comes in and announces, "I think you have the flu."

Give that man a PHD.

And so I woke up every half an hour either to vomit, spew forth some other fluids, or just feel like I needed to.

And come Sunday everytime I acted on the desire to eat, my stomach would remind me that the only work it was planning on doing that day was the work of keeping everyone out.  Except for maybe a little sprite and tiny doses of gatorade.

Sorry for the details and that this is my grand blogging return, but there is just something about serious alterations in body functions that just needs to be shared. (C’mon who didn’t hear your childbirth story in the first three weeks?)  And at least on the internet, I can pretend that people actually want to know the details.  If you skim or gloss it over, at least I feel like I have shared it with you.

Well, I’m off to find some way to keep my head from floating off…. 

Oh yeah, and Spider is totally fine. 

I am.  It’s been written in stone.

So ever since we moved back to the rainy place, I have not once had my entire house in a state of cleanliness, I have accrued numerous late charges for past due bills, I have forgotten to help my son turn in homework more than once and have been generally disorganized and forgetful.  I should probably stop reaffirming this by blogging it and talking about it, but I think acknowledging it might help?

So I signed up a couple of weeks ago to buy six loaves of bread for a homeless shelter service project we’re doing it at church.  I figured I could commit to bread.  Casserole, baked goods?  No way, too much effort.  So bread it was.  I mentally noted it for many days.  I wrote it down.  I told the hubs.  It is on my big calendar: SIX LOAVES OF BREAD.  I got an email a couple days before, followed by a phone call (I kind of brushed the gal off, because geez.. I am SO going to remember) I even reminded myself the DAY OF that I needed to go to the store to get the bread.

Come 5:30 I get a knock at the door.  Whoever could this be? I think.  

Not-forgetful woman(in a hurry): Stephanie, did you get the loaves of bread?
Me: No.
Not-forgetful woman: Okay, I’ll just run to Safeway.  

And then she bolts.  Leaving me feeling like a heel listening to the pouring rain.

My word.  What is wrong with me?  I can’t even do service by buying bread? 

I am so not joking.

Thursday night we went to a local farmer’s market and then to dinner.  On the five minute drive home that night, Sugar fell asleep– not having peed in several hours and with cherry stains on her cream colored dress. I was bummed I wouldn’t be able to use my mad stain removal skills until morning, but glad we had one less child to try and force to sleep that night.

Of course, the combination of Sugar not having peed recently, and an ill placed, holey matress protector assured that she would pee the bed in the night. At 5:45 she woke up from the accident and after following the protocol, I tossed her clothes in the sink, unrinsed and we went back to bed.

At around 9 am I figured it was time to get at the stain removal.

Only there were no more stains.

The pee bleached them away. 

Isn’t that the weirdest thing ever?  And slightly gross?  Anyone ever have a similar experience? 

I grew up here in the Rainy Place.  I love the rain. I love listening to it.  Watching it.  It makes me want to curl up with a bookand a blanket and eat popcorn. Of course, when I was a kid, that would have been a great thing to do on the weekend, or after school when there was no other obligations.  On a regular Monday though Friday day, Mom kicked me off to school, rain or not, and I was fine with that.

But now as an adult, day after day, it rains.  The kids are out of preschool.  I have no playdates, and a gallon of gas costs more than a watermelon.  I’ve got no mom (ok, I’m here) in my house telling me to get off my bum and get moving.  And as much as I love the rain, I am withering.

Too much water tends to drown things.

I need the sun, and I need it now. 

I never knew I was so much like a sunflower. 

I spent most of yesterday out running errands.  Feeling green, I bought some organic tampons and chlorine-free bleach (among other things).  Since I didn’t need to use the tampons when I got home, I decided to try a wash with the bleach.  I was unconvinced that the tree-hugger bleach was capable of my toxic bleach’s germ killing power so I decided that a hot water wash would cover all my bases.  And it did indeed cover more than that.

It covered my garage floor.

I imagine in Heaven (or where ever it is that He lives) that God said to himself, "I think Stephanie needs to clean out her garage.  I  know she will never just do it on her own, so I am going to give her an excuse."

How helpful.

I walked in the garage, for reasons still unknown to me, to see water spurting from my hot water heater and flowing down my garage floor.  I called Charming immediately who told me to turn off the water supply, which I somehow managed to figure out.  I then sent out two emails for help and started to panic.  Charming had asked me if I could handle it, and I said I could, but I quickly im’d him saying I could NOT DEAL WITH THIS.

A mild anxiety attack started to set in.  I was shaking and my heart was pounding.  I just had no idea what to do.  Charming asked me to call people, but I couldn’t.  It’s hard to understand this if you’ve never suffered from a mood disorder, but I could not pick up the phone.

And then the phone rang.

"Hi, this is (gal from church that I don’t know very well) and I still have that brand new water heater in my garage that I can give you for cheap, and you ought to call so and so and let me call some other people to see what we can do."

Nice. 

An hour later I tried calling a few plumbers and had no luck. (One number I called was actually a private residence– a story for another time). And then the phone rang again.

"Hi this is (son of someone at church) I am a general contractor, let me come look at that water heater tonight so we can figure out a way to get you some hot water."

Wow.

As for the rest of the day, I had one friend come over and buy some product and offer up her shower, another came by and took a load of laundry and another friend volunteered to come over and help with the cleanup and she took a load of laundry home too as well as opening her home for showers.

Think I’m being watched out for? 

I don’t really believe in coincidences.  That water heater sat in that woman’s garage for three years before she sent out an email saying she needed to get rid of it.  I think it no coincidence that she still had it a few weeks later.  That water heater was meant for me in this moment, I am pretty sure.  Because God knows I don’t have any more cash for these kinds of things, and that I am working on getting our financial house in order while still paying our tithing on a regular basis.  And God knows that sometimes I feel like no one at church likes me and he sent those ladies to serve me so I could remember to stop eating worms.

At first I was mad about the water heater breaking, but now I know, God just wanted to show me a little love.  And I hope that when your water heater breaks, you have a community like the one I have.  I am so grateful that I have it.

Going to get your new driver’s license and your new vehicle registration is not something I would recommend with PMS.  Do not go at the end of the month, around lunch time, when you have PMS.  Do not go if you do not know EXACTLY where it is.  You will get lost, curse your gps and curse your anxiety.  Do not go with PMS.

Do not take children.

If you have to take children, leave Sugar at least one with someone else. 

Do not go with PMS.

We went yesterday and I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

We waited at the DOL for an hour– and I almost couldn’t get my license because I didn’t have my proof of address.  (It’s a rule that I must always forget something.)  And then on the way to the DMV I got hopelessly lost, and I started to totally lose it.

At least the children were well behaved and incredibly patient.  I know Sugar would have made it a nightmare so I am glad she was with a friend.  

Four hours of my life that I will never get back.  

But at least I am registered and at least I didn’t cry like I did when I got my Utah license.  I guess that means I am happy to be here.