Shell's Life

I apologize, I'm running on very little sleep again, so if this post sounds as if it has been written by a three yr old that's why, or at least that's the excuse I'm using!


My daughter has asthma, seasonal allergies and eczema.  Apparently they generally come in threes and she was blessed with them all.  Hopefully she'll out grow them and the eczema isn't too bad, although that may be because I lather her up with loads of cream as soon as she gets out of the bath everyday.  At least she's good about it, she now just grabs her towel, throws it on the bed and lays on top of it as if to say, "I know we're doing the whole grease monkey thing, so let's just get on with it."  Her allergies this week have been atrocious though and neither of us got much sleep at all last night.  She gets drainage (yeah, gross) when she lays down at night, which causes her to cough, which last night caused her to vomit.  Ah, the joys.  I ended up sleeping in her bed with her, which let me tell you, sharing the bed with a 5 yr old is like wrestling a live octopus.  Lord.


So, moving along with the rest of the life of Shell.  I know, you're all anxiously waiting on the edges of your seats to know what I've been up to for the last week.  Well, Nora began kindergarten in August.  I am now the "Room Mom" for her class.  Yeah, I don't know exactly what that means either, but her teacher sent me a note saying she put me down for it and if I could please go to the meeting, which I did and then ended up as the Volunteer Coordinator for the PTO, as well.  *shakes head*  Today at some point, I'm going in to the Associate Health Clinic of the hospital here and getting my TB skin test done, which I'm guessing takes an entire minute to do, turning in my immunization records and then I'll have a short orientation and should be good to go to begin volunteering there on Mondays and Wednesdays. 

Hurricane Nora

So, a friend of mine posted the other day about he and his husband's imperfect relationship and how he is a bit of a mess maker.  I related and felt for his husband when hearing this, because my hubs is a bit of a slob, as well and I was thinking about all the things he does and ways he doesn't clean up after himself or pretends he can't do something so that I'll just do it for him.  Seriously though, is it all that difficult to move the dishes from the sink into the dishwasher or put the empty cereal box in the recycling or put your dirty socks in the laundry?  Really?  These are things I do simply out of habit, so when it's not done I find it to be a tad annoying at times.  Having said that, I realized this morning that I should thank my lucky stars my husband does what he does and that he is not as messy as a 5 year old.  You see, my child is a disaster.  I know, aren't they all?  However, she is more of one sometimes than others.  Normally my day begins by cleaning up whatever chaos she has left in her wake the night before.  Last night though, I walked into her room and was so stunned I stood there for a few minutes taking it all in.  She has a tendency to wake up at night and eat or play, or what have you.  No worries, I have bells on the doors, just in case she decides one night it would be a good night to take a stroll!  Last night I went to bed about 9:30pm (What?  I'm old!), woke up at 11:30pm, checked in on her and went back to sleep until at 2am, when I woke up again and once more went in to check on her.  Now, sometime in those 2.5 hrs I was sleeping in between my wee love decided to get up from her bed, grab some snacks and throw herself a bit of a party in her room.  Toys were everywhere, books were out of the shelf, puzzles were on the floor...I almost passed out.  It was clean when I went to bed, I cleaned it!  At 2am I, of course, turned myself back around, crawled into bed, closed my eyes and prayed it was all a bad dream.  Alas, it was not.  When I asked her this morning what in the name of God happened in there last night she proclaimed that "the vampire team came in, Mama.  It was scary, but it's ok, I kept us safe."  Uh huh.  *wide eyes*  Vampire team?  Lord.  Where does she get this shit?

Back

Well, I'm back from a weekend away with the wee one, which can't really be classified as anything other than comically disastrous. Still fun though, thankfully.

The ride home was a bit rainy and windy, but it was off and on, so again, not too bad. Other than the half hr drive through the middle of nowhere Florida, where I really really had to go to the bathroom and there was honest-to-God nowhere to stop. I actually considered pulling over on the side of the road, in the rain and running into the woods (yes, I was that desperate), but then I remembered a rather unfortunate incident when I was ten and on a car trip with the fam. I had to go to the bathroom then too and after much begging and pleading convinced my father too pull over. He did, at which point I jumped out and over the guard rail, hunkered down to do my business and upon standing, with panties still around my ankles, mind you, slipped and rolled head over feet down the hill to the gulley below. It was a high point in my life, obviously. One that I recollected as I was debating doing just that and decided very quickly against that course of action! No worries, I made it. LMAO. I don't need depends just yet, people! Give me a few years!

Anyways, upon arriving back home, I found my husband with my very pathetic dog who had apparently been starving himself since I left Friday afternoon. My husband said he was refusing to eat anything and the food and water in his bowls was the same food and water I put in right before leaving. It's ok, my poor pup is no longer on in starvation mode. I went and sat down by his food bowl and hand fed him. He ate it all in a matter of minutes.

Going back to the car ride I was telling you about though, during it my daughter was asking questions about those less fortunate. She's been asking more and more questions like that recently and we were discussing it in detail and during the conversation, I explained again how if you have more than you should give more to those in need. She agreed, but the whole conversation kind of reminded me of this Phil Collins song, which is one of my all time favs.

Attack by Pancake

Tonight, since my husband is working late and it's just my daughter and I, I asked Nora (my daughter) what she wanted me to make her for dinner.  "Pancakes, Mama!" was her rather enthusiastic reply.  Shocking.  9/10 times she will request pancakes when I say she can have whatever she wants.  Maybe I should just start taking the pancake mix out and then asking her, just to be polite.

So, there I am, in my "Mama mode" making her favorite chocolate chip (the chocolate is a must) pancakes and sporting my rather ruffle-happy, cherry pie apron. And all was well, until I handed her the fresh out off the skillet breakfast treat and she forked a piece on the side (you know the little extras you get sometimes when some of the batter decides it doesn't want to join in with it's other pancake batter friends) and somehow launched the hot doughy morsel at my face.  Accidentally, mind you, which is why I wasn't having a fit when said pancake piece hit me in the mouth.  Now, that wouldn't be bad, just a rather hot mouth to pancake contact.  However, those chocolate chips I was talking about?  Yes, well, one raging, I swear lava-filled, piece stuck to the direct middle of my top lip and seared the crap out of it!  I now have a chocolate chip sized burn on my lip.  It's even puffed up a wee bit to let me know it's going to blister soon.

Oh and yes, before anyone asks, I did tell her it was hot before I gave it to her.  More than once!