Lather, Rinse... oh my.

The heck with good days. How can you tell if your toddler had a GREAT day???

Look closely. Very closely.




The lighting is bad but that is ONE DAY'S DIRT, washed off of His Shortness just barely a half-hour ago.


Now excuse me, please. I gotta go get the scrub brush. Again.


No wonder that child was asleep five minutes after his bath!

Answers

Somewhere, I once read that God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no.



She's got colon cancer.



Although its a large mass and fully blocking the intestine, it hasn't metastasized. They can't stage it until she's had an endoscopic ultrasound to determine how far its penetrated the intestinal wall.

So she'll start with chemo to shrink the tumor and hopefully kill the cancer cells before she has surgery.

Who knew that a horrific case of food poisoning could possibly save a life? But for a popular fast-food meal on her way out to Aunt F's funeral - she of the cabbages - my mother would have suspected nothing. She had no pain, no symptoms... she's young. But that fast-food meal was bad, and the distress it caused didn't go away and her doctor became worried.

And so she had to have a colonoscopy, which we are learning, freaks people out enough that they refuse to consider having one.
But she relented, so she has the chance to beat this.

And now that the worst shock is over with, we can plan our attack.

Waiting.

For what seems like forever, I waited.

First, it was to learn if my son had accumulated enough credits.

Then, to be certain he'd passed the last math course.

And last, for the DAY.

And then this past wednesday, my son graduated high school and my heart almost broke with pride and relief. Its been one hell of a fight to get him back on his feet and back on his way. The wait was so worth it.


And now I'm waiting again, for different answers, answers to darker questions.

My mother had a colonoscopy the very same day and they found a mass. They did a biopsy and a CT scan and told her its genetic, but because of her medications, she can't remember what they referred to. We know she'll require surgery, whatever is going on.

So.

Its kind of draining, going from one emotional extreme to the other, back and forth. Forgive me if I'm a little distracted this past week.

I'll be sitting over here, waiting.

Let's see now...

When Short Stuff and I get home in the afternoons, I'm more than ready to ditch the business suit and pantyhose in favor of frumpwear... er, clothing more suited to racing around like a lunatic with a gleeful toddler.

Since the toddler in question is lightning quick and climbs like the monkeys he loves, its better to bring him into the bedroom with me while I change.

Unless you happen to be standing there in your unmentionables as you're trying to get your pantyhose off and you hear the whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr of the venetian blinds being yanked skyhigh... the venetian blinds which normally prevent anyone walking past the front of the house from being able to see into your bedroom.

And you drop to the floor in a horrified crouch and crawl toward the the window cord as your child waves frantically with one hand as he pounds on the window with the other to get the attention of the Perfectly Polished group of Uber Mommies strolling past with their perfectly groomed perfectly perfect dogs.



Pride of the neighborhood, that's me.

Short Stuff can count to twelve (depending, of course, on whether he wants to), which has become part of the bath time routine, counting the stairs as we go. If he's in a good mood, you can ask him what number comes next and he will tell you. If he's in a GREAT mood, he will give you answers such as "What comes after five?"
"Ohhh. Hmm. Grandma."

He and I are on our own for most of the weekend, since my husband is valiantly trying to complete the work on his property. I find that nearly every single time, Short Stuff is the cure for what ails ya. We began our morning in bed with our cups... mine a stoneware mug of strong coffee, his a sturdy sippy of soy milk. Neither of us speaking, just leaning into each other and a vast mound of pillows. What a great way to start the morning.

My parents found a vintage Radio Flyer bicycle and this thing has to be the smallest two-wheeler EVER. They refurbished it and brought it over tonight and Short Stuff is infatuated with this thing. He spent the better part of the evening climbing on and off of this thing like a monkey. Since I knew they were bringing the bike over, I took his Shortness to Target this morning to shop for bike helmets. I knew he had a generously-sized cranium but good lord. Toddler sizes did NOT fit. We now have a gorilla-sized bike helmet and a rinky-dinky bike. Seriously, the training wheels on this thing are smaller than my palm.





We also had to find a new pair of shoes for someone, since his disappeared at the sitter's during the week. She has torn her house upside down trying to find them, and on Friday, we think we maybe have figured out where they went... seems a certain somebody has figured out how to work her kitchen trash can, reeeeeaaaaally quietly while Sitter is getting lunch on the table. How do we know this? Because she discovered her TV remote control in the trash can and J has been fascinated with the concept of trash. Ah well, he was about to grow out of them anyway.



Sitter really had a tough week. Did I mention that we had the Dreaded Fingerpainting Episode? Medium of choice was NOT paint. He got the wall, every inch of the pack and play, the floor, the other wall, himself, more of himself, even more of himself, ohmylorddidyouROLLinit??, the books, the bedding... and when I arrived to pick him up, he was very pleased to announce that "I POOP!!" The poor sitter looked like she needed a drink.

I could use one myself. Although we had a fabulous day, I swear he has more energy than both of his siblings ever did... and that's combined. I also discovered today that in the same amount of time it takes me to walk from the family room to the kitchen table to set down a cup, the little monkey dude can scale a seven foot bookcase. From behind the Super Yard Gate, no less.

I'm beginning to suspect that I might need to consider hiding my car keys.

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Fabulous. The FIOs issue still isn't fixed, and I'm still trying to read, comment and post using buttons about the size of your average pillbug, on a screen about 1.5 inches tall. If, after 15 phone calls, the issue is not resolved tomorrow afternoon, I am going to be sorely tempted to freak out.

Anyway.

I'm in a funk.

For one, I took a risk and well... I don't think you can say it failed, since I got up the guts to try, but it didn't have a happy ending. I attempted to extend an olive branch to someone who used to mean a lot to me and it was met with frozen silence.

I will have to accept this.

For two, there's a situation at work that's causing more tension and its required a lot of effort to sidestep and avoid being dragged into drama.

The rest of it really isn't worth mentioning. So I won't. And besides... fiddle-dee-dee, Scarlet, tomorrow is another day and all that.

This is only a test...

If this had been an actual emergency, you would have recieved further instruction. This is only a test. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.



So. My husband claims that he doesn't dream and never has. I maintain that he just doesn't remember them when he wakes. Except last night....

Apparently he had snuggled very close in the night. Cute, right? While he was cuddling up, he began dreaming that he was in a house with his friends. And it caught fire. And my husband, concerned for his friends' safety, screamed out warnings.

Except he really did shriek ''FIRE'' at the top of his lungs.

Two inches from my face. People, there is no sleeping through THAT. The flood of adreneline through my body was instant and effective. I was off that bed and bursting into our son's room, bent on rescue, before I realized that there was no problem beyond my husband's volume control.

I suppose its a bit unfair to be annoyed at him for a dream, but oh, couldn't he have dreamed about bringing the sleep-deprived wife coffee and chocolate instead?? And maybe a nice back rub?

I'm just going to count my blessings that he wasn't dreaming about stomping on spiders.

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm

Now that I have returned to the Land of the Internet, I can shamelessly whore out some pictures of my cuties from our trip.

The drive out was educational. I learned many things, notably that Short Stuff really WON'T sleep in the car more than about 20 minutes, no matter how long the trip. (Or, as we learned from last summer's ill-fated drive to the beach, what time you make the drive. We left at midnight, thinking he'd sleep the whole way, right? Wrong. SO wrong.)

I also was reminded that he really hates holding still, and he fillibustered the entire way on The Evils of Carseats and Why He Should be Let Loose. And since he's still not mastered the english language, he held forth in the universal toddler language of Shriek.

Also? My daughter had PMS. What I won't do in pursuit of relaxation, hmm?

Judge for yourself if it was worth it.

That first morning came EARLY.

Sitting on the front porch with his sister...

playing a little zim zam...

And so is born his fascination with "trackers"

Long walks with his sister were great fun

As were the face-making episodes

Gardening with his grandmother

Relaxing? not one bit. But Short Stuff had an absolute BLAST. So it was worth it.