The Raw Chicken Conspiracy

All you mothers know what I'm talking about here. It's the phenomenon where you've just come off a quasi-vegetarian diet, so you decide to actually fix chicken for dinner for the first time in well over a year. Forgetting the conspiracy, you nonchalantly open the package of chicken breasts, take 'em out, put them on the cutting board, and get your hands all over their sliminess while cutting off all the gnarblys (as co-worker calls them), and paring them into more manageable, kid-friendly pieces. Suddenly, elbow deep in salmonella and other funky bacteria juices, you hear the call/scream from the other room. ONE of the children has just gone poopy and needs you to wipe, or he/she ran around the corner WITH SCISSORS, banged into the armoire, and has an open, gushing wound OR more simply, your hair tie falls out and suddenly all your hair falls in front of your face--you can't pull it back due to the sliminess, but you can't leave it DOWN, either, 'cause then you're getting HAIR in your dinner!!!!

AUGH!!!!

The first event happened to me last night. I completely forgot about the conspiracy. And even worse, I KNEW the kid was on the potty. I kept checking and checking on her, but after no go for several minutes, I thought "Oh, I'll just start dinner while I'm waiting for her." Oh yeah. There's a REASON you don't want to start dinner until AFTER potty time. 'Cause Lord help you if you leave that kid sitting there for more than 15 seconds after they've gone. Not only does their butt get stuck in the butt insert, but then they start freaking out and might, just might, start viewing potty training as a scary, freaky event, stop doing it, and then not re-learn it again for another six months! It's a precarious time! You CAN'T screw it up!!

My friend Sybill had the second event happen to her. I completely forgot her words of foreboding and how she now wrangles every kid (she now has four) into one small circle and barks, "Whatever you do! Don't move! I'm touching the chicken now!"

Yes, I fell victim to the conspiracy again. But I remember now. I'll be more diligent now.

Dog Tired

Another exciting weekend of painting. Yes, I got brave and decided to get up on that ladder. John was busy with other household maintenance. I couldn't stand walking past that half-done room. So, another coat of orange, and one coat of blue at the top. Sounds scary, doesn't it? But actually, it looks quite nice. When we slap on that outer space border, it should bring it together (along with the comforter) quite nicely. If not, I don't care. I just want this room done! (Worse comes to worse, Keith could always become a Broncos fan. Ick!)

When not painting, I was tackling the non-stop laundry. Seriously, WHERE do all these clothes come from? Even when I attempt to do a load a day, I STILL can't keep up. There is absolutely NO reprieve here!

I also bundled up the kids and let them play out in the snow yesterday. They had a ball. Until Keith accidentally got hit in the face with a snowball (um...by ME). We all tried to be careful after that, but it's not easy for a seven and (almost) five-year old to control their aim--especially when the snow was just powder--and then the seven-year old realizes just how much the five-year old hates it! Izzy had a lot of fun picking up snow and throwing it at me. "I got you!" she'd say. What fun.

But, oh, I was completely achy and exhausted last night. I tried going to bed early, but I still couldn't sleep. Then the alarm didn't go off this morning. Then the mini-van wouldn't start (probably from sitting in the cold garage all weekend?). So then I was late for work--um....more than usual.

Yeah, I'm beat.

Rooms and Contracts

I actually got another coat of paint up in Keith's room on Saturday. I'll have to do a third though, because you can still see a little pink showing through here and there. John has to do the top 1/4 of the room, which is being painted a different color. Anyone who knows me knows I should NOT attempt painting while standing on a ladder. While it would be amusing for most bystanders--or maybe America's Funniest Home Videos--I'm in no mood to go out with a back injury just now. So, here's hoping we get more done this weekend and maybe get the kid his bedroom by his the time he's five--um, in four weeks.

Sunday we were feeling a bit boxed in, so we took the kids to the science museum. John and I get bored with it when they haven't changed exhibits and planetarium shows in a while, but the kids still have a blast there. That wore us all out so much, we ALL took a nap. No Sunday painting, sorry.

It's snowed every day this week with more coming. I'm not minding it since it's just been steady and nothing major. Three years ago we had over 100 inches of snow in just January alone. I'd HAD IT with snow by this point that year!

I'm in a union here at work, and we're going through contract negotiations right now. As always, it gets pretty ugly in the early stages. Right now we've got one department that's probably getting shut down (really not new news since our company is building a new customer service center in Florida right now), and the company is even talking about taking away the work MY department does. They are claiming no lay-offs, but I'm not sure what my department will DO if they take away those responsibilities--unless of course the company REALLY means that they are going to make our jobs non-union and force us to go management. THAT would be interesting. I'm trying not to worry or speculate too much yet since many proposals get dropped or changed or "forgotten" before the actual contract gets signed. Anyway, there may be big changes coming my way by the spring. We'll see....

Playing Catch-up

It's been a very busy week in the Q household, so I've been slackin' on the blog lately (not so much as OTHERS, though!). Here's what's been goin' on.

Let's see, I had Monday off work for the MLK Holiday (which meant I had to put in a couple of hours OT on Sunday), and since Mary was also off school, I kept all three kids home with me. I'm glad I did. The weather was so crappy, I didn't want to go anywhere. So I decided to take advantage of nap-time and actually take a crack at painting Keith's room--which hasn't been touched since October. Between all the fall yard work, not quite liking the initial design, and just general laziness, we just haven't even walked in there (except to hide a x-mas gift) for a while. I only got one coat of paint done (hey, there's only so much you can do when you're limited to a 2 hour sleep session), but at least SOMETHING has been done in there. Maybe over the Sat/Sun naps I can manage to squeeze in a little more painting this weekend. Not holding my breath.

Tuesday night Mary had her first violin concert. Of course, we couldn't HEAR her since there were 20 OTHER first and second-graders playing simultaneously, but she seemed to do pretty well from what we could see. Izzy spent the whole concert (which lasted less than an hour, thankfully) fidgeting, chatting, and flirting with the people sitting behind us. I was quite frazzled trying to keep her "contained." Methinks next time we'll attempt to find a baby sitter.

I got some bad news this week from my kin in Oklahoma City which makes me reflect on my life and how different it could have been if my parents had stayed there. Or maybe my parents were good parents after all (no way!). Well, I'm pretty thankful that they must have done SOMETHING right, and my brother and I turned out pretty well. You go, Folks! ;-)

Notice to all: I went ahead and "penciled in" June 21 & 22 as vacation days for Geekfest. If I have to take the kid out of school for her last day: so be it. She's only in first grade. These are the years I can still get away with it! If we don't go that weekend, that's fine--I thought I'd just go ahead and mark it just in case.

MR would be jealous of our snowfall. Still not Rochester norms, but at least we can use the snow thrower if we want to. John's been working a lot of late hours this week, so he hasn't used it yet--but the option is there! Maybe he'll catch up this weekend.

Back to Business

The Girl Scouts have finally gotten it together and scraped together a troop for Mary and me. And what a troop! Basically, they're putting all the "leftovers" from our school district into this one troop. (I guess most of the troops around here were just too full for newbies.) So far it looks as if I'll have girls from three or four different elementary schools--and they range in age from kindergarten to third grade! Thank goodness another mother volunteered to be the co-leader right away. There is no way I could have handled that kind of hodge-podge troop on my own. But with only five months left in the school year, I'm hoping it won't be so bad. How weird that I will have to teach all the fundamentals to one half of the room while at the same time get the other half ready to bridge to the next level! Well, THIS will be interesting!

More barfing flu sitings

Mary's teacher and HER daughter had the barfing flu last week. Not even a six degrees of separation going on here, folks. Soon we will all be DOOMED.

DOOMED, I SAY!!! DOOMED!!!!

Ugh, is that why I don't feel well today?

Took having three kids for me to become a hypochondriac.

Going on a Treasure Hunt

We are supposed to register Keith for kindergarten this week (already?!). One problem: can't find his birth certificate. Actually, I can't find ANYONE's as they are all kept together in a pink manilla folder along with the kids' social security cards and our marriage certificate. I KNOW I had the darn thing last July--in fact the week we moved--'cause that was when I had to pull out Mary's birth certificate to register HER at her new school. The folder was not in all the obvious places, so this weekend I determined I had to begin the search.

I probably spent two hours Sunday looking for that darn pink folder. I started by going through all the "computer desk" boxes that are still piled up around John's computer desk. That would be the obvious place for it, since that's basically where we keep the darn thing when we're actually unpacked and organized. Then I started on the piles of boxes in the basement--just in case the folder got set in one when they were all sitting in our den and then got moved down there.

This is what I found:

1. My elusive address book (yay!)
2. Keith's most-missed Spongebob slippers
3. AAA batteries (needed for Mary's mermaid toy she got for X-mas)
4. A dead mouse (poor thing probably hadn't been there too long....)
5. The baby books
6. Our photo albums and miscellaneous to-be-hung-up pictures

What I did NOT find:
1. The @#$% pink folder with all our important stuff

I finally told John "I give up. You can search later." I figured I would just register Keith without the birth certificate and take it over later when/if we found it (or had to order another copy from City Hall).

Later, after the kids had gone to bed and I'm folding laundry upstairs (the never-ending cycle), John comes up and throws a big pink folder in my lap. "Took me five minutes!" he claims triumphantly. Where the freak was it???? In the stupid "computer desk" boxes piled around his desk--in the VERY FIRST ONE he looked at. WHY didn't *I* find it?? No clue. I SWEAR I looked in every single one of those boxes (and multiple times over the last week and half since I've known I needed it).

*sigh* Must be the sinus headache that I've had for the last MONTH.

I give up.

Borg Germs

Resistance is Futile.

Izzy didn't take to her antibiotics. She was fine in the morning, but every evening, she would just crash and become feverish, clingy, and just plain miserable. We got her in to the doc Saturday morning, and sure enough--her ears hadn't cleared up AT ALL. The borg germs had assimilated the antibiotics and taken over. The doc gave her a prescription for a much stronger drug. After her first dose, she was immediately 100% better. Poor kid.

Our New Year's was spent playing Mario Kart and Guitar Hero with Mary and Keith. We watched the ball drop, then everyone went to bed. Not as exciting as New Years' past but still pretty fun.

John and I are now officially off the quasi-vegetarian diet--at least for another year. Frankly, I don't think we will eat much meat this year, either, but we're keeping the option open. We jumped the gun a day and used our Outback giftcard we got from John's Dad on New Year's Eve day. John ordered a steak. Remembering the LAST time we did this, and how my body did not take to the switch from no-meat to meat too well, I was more cautious and ordered the tilapia (most excellent).

So far my only "resolutions" are to start mall-walking again (did it for almost a year straight before my walking buddy stopped, and then I started to lose interest), and to continue to work on my patience/temper with my kids (the short patience always leading to the sharp temper).

Side note: another co-worker has fallen victim to the barfing flu today. Not good.

At least my cold is waning.