Yawn. Num.

We had an interesting Memorial Day weekend. The kids both got sick on Friday night, so for the first half of the weekend, there was a lot of sleeping going on around here.






Then they both started to perk up a bit by today, and were able to resume their previously adored pastime of stuffing their faces every chance they get:

A boy and his cob.

A funnel cake and Mommy's giant head.

They also both did an extremely impressive job barfing, but somehow I forgot to grab my camera to capture that particular moment on film for posterity. Bad Mommy. It was a fun night, though. Nora somehow managed to puke in her sleep and not wake up, therefor not waking us up (although we were probably awake sopping up Tate's 17 yarf puddles already), so walking into her room the next morning was simply an olfactory delight. Smelled just like daisies.

But like I said, they both perked up enough by today for us to go to a outdoor festival where we spent the afternoon basically putting Tate's life in the hands of scary people with questionable personal and dental hygiene practices as he rode the rides, and paying like $35 for a hot dog. It was a nice afternoon though.

I was able to escape on Saturday night, thanks to my dear husband, and go with some friends to see Night Ranger play in concert at the festival. You know. Night Ranger? That...band? From like the '80s? They play that awesome song "Sister Chistian" and...uh, some other stuff. It was a really fun night.

Sunday we went to a cookout in the neighborhood for a bit. We loaded the kids up on Tylenol and dashed out of the house to take advantage of their drug-induced agreeability and docility. The kids and I were back in the house fairly early on in the evening, and Eric took his turn staying out imbibing in a few beverages. That's how we have to do now. We take turns having fun. It's so much easier and cheaper that way.

So hopefully Tate's fever stays under control and we don't have The Hospital Disaster Part 2. I still break out in hives and a cold sweat when I think of our last experience. If we ever have to check Tate back into a hospital, I'm bringing a flask of vodka with me.

Are You Stinking Me?

Things have been so mellow around here, I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe or something. Tate has been so...human. He hasn't banged his head or tried to pull someone's ear off in forever. No shrieks of "LISTEN TO ME, MOM!" or "NO, OK?? NO! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?". Now it's all "Oh, Norey, did you get hurt? Let me kiss it." or "Mommy, I just love you." or "I can't go poopy on the potty. My booty has no poo in it." Ok, the last one is kind of random but he said it, and it was funny. Maybe because it was said in the same tone of voice that one would use when saying "Oh, me, look at the lovely weather outside."

He still gets kinda feisty in the car though. We were sitting at a red light for the big 2.1 seconds and I heard a big huff and a "Oh my gosh, are you STINKING me??" I'm assuming the little road rager meant to say "kidding" instead of "stinking", but the point came across very well. Nora has added to the road-rage repertoire by yelling "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of her little lungs. So her vocabulary currently consists of "Hi", "Dada", and "GOOOOOOOOOO." Although I think she's starting to pick up my irritation with Bob's barking at people or dogs or leaves or ants, because when he barks, I'll oftentimes hear a little "BA!" floating out of the front room in a tiny little voice. "BA!!!!" I like to teach my kids really useful stuff. Like how to yell at old people in cars and canines.

Tate is still a singing fool. He sings all the time. Nonstop. There is always some little ditty wafting through the house. Most of the time it's the ABCs or Twinkle Twinkle or Wheels on the Bus, but he's also proficient at making up his own little ditties. The other day I heard "Bob the Builder Loves HuHot", "Ababala Chocolate Milk", and my personal fave "Schmooke Luka Dee". They're always to the tune of an existing song, he just becomes Alan Menken in a 3-year-old form and comes up with completely new, random, usually nonsensical words. And usually while he's tootling about wipers on the bus going "skish skish skish" or asking how to get to "Sefase Street" or trilling about his friends Luke and Emilie going to the park with sticks and Katie Couric, you'll see his own personal little number-one fan behind him with her arms in the air swaying back and forth with a look of rapture on her face. You kind of expect to see a lighter in one hand and a plastic cup half-full of warm, flat beer in the other.

So things have been nice around here. Other people have started to notice Tate's change in general demeanor too, so I really think I'm just not fooling myself here. My friend was with us at the park the other day, and Tate was being all charming and non-fiendish and she just looked at him and said "Tate, what's with all the...niceness lately??". The times, they are a'changing. It's the dawn of a new era.

Maybe.

You Should See the Other Guy

So Tate accidentally got smacked in the eye with a book yesterday. He looks like he got in a bar fight. Come back to this blog in about 18 years and I'll probably have a picture up of him sporting a pretty similar shiner:




I figured since we were at a park, the sun was shining, and both kidlets were acting somewhat human, I'd try and get a picture of the two of them, shiner and all.

Almost...

Not quite...

Awwww. The cuteness, it overwhelms.

Believe it or not, this last picture is not of Tate throwing a hissy fit. He wanted me to take a picture of his neck. So I did. The look of long-suffering agony and anguish was his idea.

I'd write more, but my eyes are still burning from Paula Abdul's unbelievable orange-ness beaming through my TV screen at me. She looked like an Oompa-Loompa. My retinas will take some time to recover. Plus I'm tired. All this watching of "American Idol" and "Dancing With the Stars" and "The Bachelorette" and, uh...I think that's it...really takes it out of a girl.

Beep Beep

We finally got Tate his big birthday present. Hey, he didn't realize that it was almost 2 weeks late. That's the good thing about 3-year-olds...they don't understand a lot of stuff. Take a look at him whoopin' it up in his phat wheels.

"Hellllllp!"

Later, losers.

It was pretty humorous to watch Nora's little radish-top ponytail flowing in the breeze as they speed away down the cul-de-sac at 3 mph. It took Tate awhile to get the hang of it though. He would throw the 'stang into reverse, back all the way down the driveway and into the street, and then instead of throwing the car into "drive" (or "crawl", more accurately), he would get out of the car and attempt to pick it up and manually turn it. Since the car weighed about 14 times as much as he did, he didn't experience a whole lot of success in this endeavor. At least he got some good, frustrated tantrums out of the deal, though.

Once he figured out that he cannot lift something the weight of a small horse, he finally let us show him the magic of the gear stick and then there was really no stopping the kid. Especially since Eric rigged it so the car would not only go in "turtle" mode, it would also go in "rabbit" mode. Tate would step on the gas, the tires would squeal, and they'd go hurtling off into the distance until they were just a little read dot with a ponytail sticking out of the top. That sucker can motor. Eric and I would stand in the driveway and listen to Nora's exalted "ZEEEEEE!!!!"s as they went careening around the circle. I was dying laughing. Tate looked like a total natural, hanging his elbow out of the door, looking over his shoulder as he threw 'er into reverse...the whole deal. Pretty soon I'll look out the window and he'll be taking the Town and Country for a joyride.

The best part was when he got out of the car, came up to Eric and said completely of his own accord, "I love my car, Daddy. Thank you so much for the car." Yeah, I guess Mommy's chopped liver, but still...it was a charming and sweet moment.

Oh, and Nora has learned how to open our back screen door, scuttle out onto the deck, back herself down the stairs and trot over to our swingset a good 50 feet away, all without telling Mommy. Awesome. She's gonna be feisty, that one. One of these days she'll start storing a few of Daddy's brewskis in the Little Tykes playhouse and inviting the other toddlers over for a night of beer and cruisin' in the Cozy Coupe, looking for action.

"I'm My Own Best Friend!"

Nora:

Barf:

Seperated at birth? I hope not. I don't need to be giving birth to any half-man, half-dogs. But the hair and the ears are kind of eerily similar.

Who's Yo Momma

We had a nice weekend. Nothing too exciting, but there were really very few meltdowns, tantrums, chucking of large objects at other people's heads, moments of public humiliation, etc. That's a success in my book.

On Saturday we took the kidlets to a thing at Lambeau Field. It was just some event type...thing for kids. They got to do such things as...


...pet a goat and get really excited!

...and get tattoos and not be too sure about it!!

After that, I went in to work for an hour, and was so grateful to my client for being female, clean, and not a disgusting nasty old perv, I gave her like the best massage EVER. Because, you see, my last client before that did not give me those same considerations. I had my first true experience with a dirty old man in my massage room, and it was not cool. I have no desire to see a grandpa's schlong. Apparently he thought I was simply DYING to see it and proudly put it out on display. Barfo. But anyway. This female client on Sat tipped me $15. Clean people are awesome.

After that, we went to a bowling alley. Here's Tate bowling. He did it for a whole 8.5 minutes. Then we went into the game room and he threw an 8.5 minute fit because Eric told him he'd be able to get him a koosh ball out of the claw machine thingie and he couldn't. I don't know how on earth Eric ever thought he'd be smarter than the claw machine, but whatever.

My Mother's Day started with breakfast in bed. Breakfast in bed consisted of Tate tiptoeing into my room at about 8 am, thrusting a semi-stale cracker in my hand and whispering "Happy Birthday, Mommy. I love you", before scampering back out. It was the best cracker ever. After that we went to church where Nora discovered the joy of slamming the kneelers against the floor and Tate randomly yelled out "Luke! EMMMMILLLLLIEEEE!!!!" at the most quiet times of the service. He did not actually see Luke and Emilie at Mass, he must have just been remembering some awesome time with them or...something.

Then we had brunch, came home, I put Nora down for a nap, Tate and Eric left to go watch baseball in a bar (yes, really. We take our 3 year old to bars. So what.) and I gave myself the best Mother's Day present ever, which was a nice long nap on the couch. It was kickass.

Somehow, though, I still had to clean up the kitchen. I mean, it had been like 3 days, so it was kind of dire. I had SPECIFICALLY been holding out on cleaning up until today rolled around because there was no way I would be made to actually clean on my day, right? Wrong. Sigh. Oh well, I'll just return the favor and make Eric scrub the toilets on Father's Day.

Happy Birthday, Tater

It's been a crazy 3 years around here. I don't know how a little baby can go from here:

stop here:


here:

and here:

and end up here, in the blink of my eye.

That little guy has definitely made the past three years...oh, let's say...stimulating. Had he been born 3 hours earlier, on Cinco De Mayo, I would have pushed for naming him Paco. Hey, why not. Paco Sonnenberg really has a ring to it, you gotta admit. But he held out, and May 6th has never just been a random date on the calendar to me since.

No doubt has there been lots of frustration and head-butting, but the absolute joy that he can bring to me usually (usually) overrides all the scream-worthy moments. He's smart, cute, sweet, and funny. Really.

Happy Birthday little Tater-bug. I love you.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeech.

I decided to face all my demons, fears, and apprehensions yesterday and make another foray to the grocery store while outnumbered by my children. Any remnant of common sense has pretty much be relegated to a small, desperate, fading voice in the back of my subconscious at this point, so it's quite easy to ignore.




Tate once again decided that he should have his own cart. I again ignored the little sing-song in the back of my brain going "You're an iiidiot, you're an iiidiot, you're an-" (that was me stomping on common sense and bringing it's song to an abrupt halt) and said sure, fine, whatever. Let's make this trip one to remember. It's been a good week since our last adventure that cumulated in me quivering in a corner.




Tate picked the Demon Screecher Cart From Hell. Seriously, as we were walking around people were covering their ears and cowering under the potatoes. It sounded like a gigantic rat was screaming as someone dug it's entrails out with a spintery wooden spoon that had a rusty nail on the end. My ears were practically bleeding by the end of it. Then to add to the cacophony Tate decided to merrily sing "The Wheels on the Bus" at the top of his voice. It sounded a little something like this"

"SSCCCCCREEEEEEEEEEThewheelsonthebusgoSQQQQQQQQQEEEEEEARRRRRRRsaysmoveonbackmoveonREEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSQQQQQQQQQQQthemommysonthebusgoshhshhshSHHHHHHHARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGQQQQQQQQQQ"


It was a lovely medley. People alternated between laughing at Tate and shuddering in sheer despair over the never ending auditory torture they were subjected to as they desperately tried to pick out a nice cut of pork tenderloin and get the hell out of there.



Check-out was fine. Tate likes to take all the stuff out of his little cart and put it on the belt himself. It's a good way for him to help. It's a great way for me to realize that apparently we're buying 3 bags of nasty barbecue flavored Cheetos. I don't think so, pal.



Leaving the store, I turned my back on Tate for 1.3 seconds to try and convince Nora that hanging out of the cart by her little toe wasn't such a good idea and he jetted. I had a slight moment of "Oh-my-God-where-is-my-KID??" until a kindly elderly dude teetering past me pointed me to the gigantic freezer where the bagged ice is kept. Apparently not only is it an ideal home for ice, but also for slightly wacky almost 3-year-olds. I got over there just as his little rump was disappearing through the door. He's gonna be the next kid to get stuck in one of those claw machines at Wal-Mart or something.



Well, Nora is currently wandering around with no shirt on and gigantic slimy nuggets of mandarin oranges in her hair, her pants and diaper are falling down so she's showing off her impressive mini plumbers crack, and she has a piece of ravioli stuck to her cheek. Tate just started howling in panic because he dislodged his little Cars toilet seat and almost fell into the big toilet. It's a high-class day here at our house. High Class.

Paaarrr---tay.

So I thought by tonight I'd have the energy to write this huge long blog about Tate's birthday party yesterday.



I don't.



Too much sitting around gabbing today with various people. Too much imbibing in rum and Cokes. Too much running after Nora trying to keep her from A) drinking 3-year-old rainwater out of a random bucket B) gallumping into the street and C) falling headfirst off our swingset into a pile of rocks.



But it was a great time. Tate had a blast and so did the 20,000 other kids that came. Or 17 kids. I don't know. Once you get more than three 2-year-olds in one spot they all kind of blur together into a giant larvae of insanity. The party went as well as I could have hoped. Well, I forgot knives. Oh, and I accidentally got those stupid trick candles for his cake. Poor Tate will never trust another birthday candle as long as he lives. I felt bad. He just...kept blowing.

So thanks to everyone who came and made the day special. I have no pictures to share at the moment because our camera was lost, but I will at some point. I enlisted my brother-in-law, who takes pictures at every given opportunity, to capture the day. Tate smiled? Click. Tate ran around? Click. Tate breathed? Or looked at another kid? Or moved his pinky finger a millimeter to the left? Click click click.

It was a great day.

The Toys Are Out to Get Me

So a pair of plastic toy keys almost made me drive off the road today. Good times. They are the keys of Beezelbub. They somehow floated up from the depths of Hell and landed in our unsuspecting minivan.

I had tossed them at Nora for her to gnaw on while we tooled around, since her behemoth molars are still causing us all to go through pure hell, and she held on to them for about 2.3 seconds before chucking them to the floor, just beyond me reach. I think Tate is holding late-night seminars on how to do such things as this, designed to drive me insane and make car rides as absolutely unlovely as possible. This week's lesson: Chucking Toys Into the Back of the Monstrous Minivan. Next week: Screaming Randomly Like a Chimpanzee Being Ripped Into by a Hippopotamus Just as Mom is Trying to Back Out of an Extremely Tight Parking Spot, Causing Her Foot To Jerk on the Gas Pedal and Almost Flatten a Blue-Hair Walking Behind the Car. I'm afraid to think of what tidbits of wisdom he'll dole out next. He's got quite the stash.

So the keys are on the floor and I'm cruising down the highway when all of a sudden I hear "SQUEAL!! CRASH!! ARGHHHH!". Yeah, the keys make noises like a twelve-car pileup. It's lovely. They emit these particularly hair-raising sounds when you press the button on the key ring part. Noises are also emitted when you breathe near the keys, look at the keys, or think about how you want to chuck the keys into a fiery inferno and do a happy dance around the fire as they die a slow death. And of course, since I could not reach the keys (Nora must have gotten an "A" from Tate in that lesson), I had to listen to the sounds of random cars involved in some type of smashup like 50003 times. And EACH TIME, I would reflexively slam on the brake because I thought someone was about to crash into me or the guard rail or something. Those keys are the dumbest thing ever.

Except for the puzzle that makes noise when the lights go on our off. Nothing like being home alone at 11 pm, turning off the lights in the family room, and hearing come out of the pitch-blackness "VRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!! SQQQQQQQQQUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" Or when you take a step too close to a certain horrible, vicious, sadistic stuffed dog and cause the ground to vibrate or shake or something (just me that makes the floor rumble when I take a step? Great. Awesome.) and that makes the dog come alive and say "PLAY WITH ME! LOVE ME! YOU STUPID BITCH! I'M COMING TO CLAW YOUR EYES OUT! RIGHT AFTER YOU SQUEEZE MY PAW SO I SING ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT!!" That thing is alive. It starts talking at the most random times when no one is near it. Except me. It's fooling with my head. It's making me crazy. The stuffed dog wants my soul.

Don't ever wonder why I refuse to buy my kids any creepy stuffed clowns or weird puppets or anything. Their toys already freak the hell out of me. They don't need any help from Doodles the Killer Klown.

My Boy Likes to Potty All the Time...

...potty all the time, potty all the ti-iiiiiiime.

Ok, well, not all the time, but I'm in a giddy cloud of potty-related giddiness. I'm taking whatever I can get these days. Last week, Tate trotted by me, went into the bathroom and locked the door. I could hear him take his pants off, undo his diaper, and then make noises like he was either climbing up on the toilet, already up on the toilet and trying to make magic happen, or trying to pull the toilet out of the wall. I was hoping for options 1 or 2. So I knocked on the door and we had this exchange:

Me: "You ok in there, Tate?"

Tate: "Mom! I need privacy! I'm going potty!"

Me: "You got it, buddy. I have no desire to interfere with your potty adventures."

Tate: "Mom. Go. Away."

He didn't actually do anything, but I was psyched that he actually went in there of his own accord. He did it a few more times over the next few days, and I found that with each time, he felt the need to shed more clothes until he got to the point where he just climbed on the throne buck-ass naked. Again, no problem. Whatever it takes. If he needs to channel George Costanza to get the magic done, more power to him.

He may need a little more guidance in some respects though. He handed me a DVD while we were in the car yesterday and told me it had pee on it. Apparently his aim was a little off. I do not know why there was a DVD on the floor next to the toilet, but again, people...I just let him do whatever the toilet gods call him to do in there. I'm but a mere mortal. And since I'm so lowly, it fell to me to be the one to actually clean the pee off the DVD so he could watch it. Thank you, Lord of the Commode, thank you. Nothing like wiping off dried pee to really make me feel like I have a true calling in this world. I'm the Dried Whizz Wiper-Offer.

Anyway, we were in the car because we took a trip to go visit my grandma and uncle. It's about a four-hour drive. It's pretty much like you'd think it would be, knowing me and my spawn. Since Eric drove on the way there and it fell to me to be the Constantly Turning Around and Handing Goldfish Crackers, DVD Cases, Cups of Water, and Various Toys, Books and Other Objects Designed to Shut Kids the Hell Up bitch, I decided that Eric should have a turn being the CTAaHGCDCCoWaVTBaOODtSKtHU bitch. So I drove home. It was fine except for the torrential downpour that followed us wherever we went, and when we had this exchange as I was pulling out of a parking lot after we stopped for lunch and making a left-hand turn onto the street.

Me: "'Doo, doo do....here I am, calmly about to turn left as soon as this other dude turns out of the road. Man, I am a wonderful driver."

Eric "DUDE, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING???????"

Me: "WWWWWWWHHHHHHHAAAAAAAT????? What, what WHAT??"

Eric: "Oh, I was talking to that other guy. I wasn't talking to you."

Me: "Don't SAY things while I drive! You know I HATE that!"

Seriously. What a douche. We almost drove into a street sign. I HATE when Eric talks while I drive.

And Nora woke up this morning with the personality and basic likability of one of Satan's minions on crack. Then I looked into her mouth and saw four molars the size of my head poking through her gums. Honestly, you could have parked a Hummer on these things. I'd be pissed the hell off, too. I kept putting Orajel on there and she would keep grabbing my finger and trying to get me to put more on it. Still addicted to the stuff, I see. She needs an O-hit every now and then, just to take the edge of...you know how it is. She can stop any time she wants, really.

I also choose to believe that the Gigantic Molars from Hell are the reason she insisted on persistently flinging things all over the car as we drove. I thought we'd end up with a cracked window or deep, gushing head wound on one of us unsuspecting, pathetic parents before we got home. That girl's got an arm. And four new teeth.

My Family Is Weird

Today Tate came up to me with a handful of Thomas the Train wooden track pieces from his train table. There was a lovely little track set up on that table at one point, then Nora swooped in from the sky and destroyed it like a little baby Godzilla. I kind of expected to see little airplanes buzzing around her head as she tore apart Thomasland, roaring and squealing with delight. Nothing quite like a creature hell-bent on world domination and destruction who's wearing overalls with little hearts and flowers on them. Kind of softens the blow.

Anyway, Tate seemed to be about to hand me all his train pieces and I thought he'd want me to go reconstruct the tracks.

Me: "Do you want Mommy to build you a track, honey?"

Tate, as he makes a sharp left and continues around my chair: "No, it's too hard for you. I'll get Daddy to do it."

Awesome. He thinks a few pieces of wood with a tab on one end and a hole on the other are simply too much stimulation for my feeble mind. Better not strain Mommy's brainpower by asking her to construct an oval!!

Nora has started doing this over dramatic, Oh-Lord-Whatever-Shall-I-Do-Life-Is-So-Hard-For-A-One-Year-Old thing. Whenever I dare to put her down in the family room and walk away to the faraway, unreachable land of Kitchen, she starts wailing and plops down on the floor where she positions herself so she's laying on her stomach with her face buried in the carpet and her arms and legs limp by her sides. Then she screams like a monkey on crack. So we just have this languishing, faceless blob on the floor, shrieking. It's quite funny. Most kids kick and roll around due to the inhumanity of it all, but she just lays there like a paralyzed slug. Well, a slug who's got the lungs of a gigantic rooster.

Let's move on to Eric. He's got curly hair, as many of you know. Now, on a normal day, he keeps it pretty well under control. He throws some gel in it and it looks fine. Today was not a normal day, I guess. It was rainy and damp out, and he forgot to put anything in it after his shower. He also put on a v-neck sweater with a v-neck undershirt under it (he claims that's all that was clean. Whatever). Therefore, you could see his like 4 chest hairs poking out, plus his thin gold chain that he always wears. He looked like this dude:

Seriously. His hair was that high. We went to go pick out new glasses for him and I kept calling him Disco Stu in the store. He thought it was funny for awhile, then he didn't. But trust me, it was pretty freaking funny every single time I said it. I know I laughed. It was either laugh or cringe in embarrassment at being out in public with Q-Tip Man From 1975. I had to stay strong and fight through the potential humiliation.

How I ended up with these flakes in my family, I do not know. Good thing I'm so wholesome and normal. Otherwise who knows what would go on around ere.

Exulte, People!! We Did It!

As we all know, today was picture day for the kidlets. As we all know, just about any time I try and do something with the kids where I'd prefer a happy outcome, it usually ends up in tears, bloodshed, and/or dents in the wall from Tate running into them out of sheer irateness. Really, who would expect today to be any different?

We headed over to Aubrey at her great little studio to get the party started. And seriously, people, if you live in the Green Bay area and feel the need to photograph your kids (or yourselves, or pets, or plants, or shoes, or...whatever. I don't know, people take pictures of weird things), there is no reason not to go to Aubrey. (http://www.photobyaubrey.com/) She knows what's up. She has fruit snacks! Oh, and she takes great pictures, too.

Nora and I got there first. Eric and Tate were on their way back from Milwaukee and were going to meet us there. Nora took a little while to warm up and pry her face away from my neck and allow Aubrey to look at her, speak to her, or generally acknowledge her presence in any way, but once she got warmed up, she did great in her little ballerina outfit.

Then Tate got there. Yeah. He took one look at the situation, realized he was somewhere where he would be expected to at least partially behave and cooperate, and blew his shit, hardcore. He ran his ass straight of there and didn't stop til he careened headfirst into the wall. Now that I think of it, I probably should have checked for any damage. To the wall, I mean, not Tate's head. I think he's built up a layer of steel under his forehead. You could bounce a bowling ball off that thing at this point.

Me: "Tate, do you want to go sit over here on this chair?"

Tate:"NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOARRRRRRRRRRRCCCCCGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHBBBBBBBLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAHRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTTIMGOINGTOEATYOURBRAINS!!!!!!!!!"

It took a loooooong time to calm him down. Fruit snacks saved the day. Thank the Lord for Tonka fruit snacks. After he digested those, he graciously allowed us to escort him into the studio. He then climbed up on a chair, sat down, and turned around. Now this would have been great if we were doing a photo study called "Tate: A Boy and His Ass", but that's not really the look I was going for. After awhile, he would peek over his shoulder. Smile? Nah. He looked like this guy.

But thanks to Aubrey and her infinite patience, and the sugar rush from the fruit snacks, Tate finally started to warm up and crack a few smiles. Then he got REALLY comfortable and started spitting on the chairs. I didn't really feel the need to capture that on film, though. Inevitably, though, once Tate start warming up, Nora started melting down. We got some awesome shots, though...I was really happy with the end results.

How kickass are these.

Yeah, that last picture? That's pretty much our life, summed up in one shot. Hair pulling. That's it. That's what we do. Pull hair. That sucker's getting blown up and hung on the wall in the front hallway to warn all ye who enter here. Hair. Pullage.

I Know, I Know.

It's been a week since I've given all you people more reason to laugh at me. To shake your heads and wonder why I'm not clinically insane yet, given the children I have and general life I lead. Sorry. It's just been a week of the usual monotony, the same struggles and showdowns. Getting up at 5:45 and not going to bed until 10:30 because I need just a couple more minutes of alone time. Trying not to crush Nora with my gigantic body as I lay on her to get her to stay still for more than .02 seconds so I can change her diaper. You know. The usual.

Here's fun, though. Tate has started calling me Melissa. And it's PISSING ME OFF. All I hear now is "What are you doing, Melissa? Can I have some milk, Melissa? STOP IT, MELISSA! MELISSA! GET OVER HERE AND GET ME SOME SPONGEBOB MAC AND CHEESE, NOW!" I tend to ignore the last two types of requests. I fetch Spongebob for no one, least of all a 2 year old who needs to learn that his mother is the person most deserving of respect and utter adoration in his life. I mean, hello, I am pretty awesome.

Nora is...clingy. I know it's just because of the aforementioned awesomeness of me, but hello. I would like to be able to walk more than 2 feet before falling over because there is a little body wedged in between my legs with a death grip on each shin. If I don't pick her up right away because I'm doing something stupid like, oh, cooking dinner (I've heard somewhere you shouldn't have little kids around open ovens when they're at 450 degrees. I might be making that up, though) or getting dressed (ever try to put a pair of jeans on when holding on to a little person who's trying to climb into your mouth? It's not as easy as you'd think. Especially when the jeans are fresh out of the dryer and you gotta do the jump-up-and-down-squat-and-try-and-tuck-your-muffin-top-into-the-waistband-thing).

I have been going to the gym regularly, though. I'm one of those people who will go to the gym for an hour, and then rush home and hop on the scale. Then I will see that I did not magically lose 10 lbs in that hour and go downstairs and break open a bag of Lay's to soothe my chunkified self. I'm getting better at not doing that, though.

So, really, not a whole lot going on. Sorry for the boring blog entry, but I got tired of people whining and grumbling and pathetically pleading with me. I mean, have a little self-respect, people. It's just lately I haven't been feeling the creative juices sloshing around in me all that much. I try to think of what to write and it almost feels like a homework assignment or something. And anyone who knew me when I was in school knows I did not like homework and therefore didn't really...do it.

But fear not. The kids are getting their pictures taken tomorrow and you know that experience is going to most likely be chock-full of opportunities for you to laugh at me. I will strive to not let you down.

Happy Birthday, Norey Pants

Ok, her actual birthday was yesterday, but Eric was working last night and I was dragged, kicking and screaming, to the NKOTB concert. I mean, I'm so above that kind of teeny-bopper dreck. I TOTALLY did not stand up on my chair and start squealing like a little girl when they were a mere 7 feet away from me. Then when I touched Danny, Donny and Joey I did NOT almost pee in my pants from sheer glee. Totally did not. I mean, God. PLEASE.

Anyway, back to my little girl. I can't believe she's one. I swear it was just yesterday she looked like this:

And then I turned around 2 seconds later and she had grown to this:

And now, today...we've molded her into the epitome of class, elegance, and pedigree.

Heh. Yeah, I got a cupcake, bitches. And this shit is good.

I don't know how she went from trying her damnedest to off me during childbirth (which I've pretty much forgiven her for)to all of a sudden being a year old. She walks and babbles and is all...human-like. She points! She waves! She scampers up the steps, cackling with the knowledge that she should be doing no scampering of the sort! She has a personality! And I love it!

Happy birthday, little girl.

Cute. And Not.

Awwww......

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

I may just be the meanest mom in the world, putting that picture out there for the world to see, but day-um, that is a bad picture of a cute baby. Holy crap. She looks like some kind of chub monster zombie type person who just ate a lasagna made out of human remains. See, there's someone's brain matter hanging out in her hair up there. And smeared in her hair above her left ear? That would be someone's spleen goo.

Here's another cute one to help cleanse your brain palette of the one you just saw.

In other news, Tate is on the mend. This means that he's tired, crabby, and capable of going from chill to Oh-My-God-He's-Possessed-By-Some-Kind-Of-Demonic-Being in the span of 4.3 seconds. We've had some doozies. They're usually followed by him passing out on the couch or up in his room. It takes a lot out of you, screaming and kicking like someone's trying to remove your eye with a spork. Anything can set him off. He turned into some kind of nightmarish incubus at Wal-Mart yesterday because I asked him to stop yanking on my hair. I know, right? I'm such a bitch.

We made a quick exit from Wally World and when we got to the car, Eric spied a bike lock in Tate's sweaty little paw. The child had officially began his life of crime. He plundered a bike lock.

Really? A bike lock? We sat Tate down and had a stern talk with him.

Eric: "Tate, if you're gonna steal stuff....you gotta at least make it something good."

Me: "Yeah, I could use a diamond necklace. Hell, I'd settle for a new package of socks or a nice casserole dish (see my entry about my girls weekend last month) or something. I don't freaking need a bike lock!"

Tate: "I stole?"

Eric returned the bike lock to Marv, the 104-year-old man who stands guard at the front door (and apparently doesn't do a very good job of it), and we slunk out of the parking lot.

I'll let you know what he moves on to swiping next. Mother's Day is coming up next month.

Well, That Totally SUCKED

Tate and his giant green paw.

Our adventure has ended. We came home last night with no surgery needing to be had. The Great Tate Hospital Incident 2009 is over. It was not fun.

Tate woke up yesterday morning at 4 when they came in to take his vitals. He then proceeded to cry til about 4:30 when he fell back asleep. Then he woke up at 5 when someone came in to prick his finger. Cue another half hour of crying followed by being taken over by sheer exhaustion and succumbing to sleep. Then Eric called at 6:45. After that, we were up for good. Well, I had pretty much been awake since 4. Believe it or not, the couch that converted into a bed was not so comfortable. It felt like sleeping on soggy Styrofoam. And I didn't even want to let myself think where that pillow had been before. Blech.

Basically the day played out like this: Tate would cry and scream for a couple hours, which would get amped up a few notches each time a nurse came in, he would throw his cup at us 59 million times, then pass out from fatigue. As soon as he would fall asleep, the hands of fate would decide to poop on our heads (can hands poop? Whatever), and then nurses would need to come in to take vitals, some volunteer would absolutely HAVE to stock the closet, the bathroom would need to get cleaned, etc, etc. So Tate would wake up after sleeping for about 15 minutes, look around, take a deep breath and start yowling again for the next couple hours. Seriously. I thought I was going to lose my mind.

He did enjoy getting pulled around the hallways on a wagon with Nora, though. We milked that for a good 45 minutes.

When the doctor finally came in, he said the fever was gone, the white blood cell count was almost back to normal, and the tonsils that were so swollen they were almost touching the previous day had shrunk down significantly. Apparently the antibiotics he had been on earlier just didn't work and weren't killing the bacteria or whatever the hell was causing all this. Getting a continuous dose of a different antibiotic and some type of steroid did the trick.

This better not happen again, is all I can say. I don't think the nurses would allow us back, for one thing. Our room was right next to the nurses station so they had front row seats to the concert Tate so thoughtfully provided from his bed. I also don't think they really appreciated getting sippy cups of apple juice chucked at their heads.

I felt so bad for him. He was completely confused, terrified, pissed off, what have you. I think it will take awhile for him to get back to normal...he's still extremely pale and lethargic. It's 9:32 am and he's already taking a nap on the couch. Well, the 45 minute tantrum he threw this morning might have contributed to making him a wee bit weary.

You gotta admire his sheer dedication to his art of tantrums. He will soon be known as a legend in his field, I believe.

So Here We Are...

...at the hospital. Whee. I'm sitting here looking at my little guy sleeping in his hospital bed while I'm wide awake and not tired in the slightest. It's been a day. A DAY.

Basically, we took him to his pediatrician again today and she did more blood work (boo) and determined he didn't have mono (yay!), which was something she was thinking it might be. After taking a few looks at his throat, she made us an appointment with an ENT specialist to take a look-see. Tate hated being at the doctor again and made this pretty well known by smacking her whenever she tried to look in his mouth. Or ears. Or tried to listen to his heart.

At the ENT, Tate decided he hated being there too and screamed bloody murder when the doc said he wanted to look into his throat. This actually was helpful, though, since the doc could see clear into the back of his throat while Tate was squalling in his face. He said the tonsils looked absolutely horrible, and with his white blood cell count still being double what it should, and his fever still being crazy-ass high, he thought that getting the tonsils out might be the way to go. He mentioned just getting it down right away as an option, or getting Tate set up on an IV and antibiotics first to try and get the fever down before doing anything. So here we are. The process of getting to this point was horrible.

As soon as we got to the hospital, Tate flipped his shit when he realized he had been tricked into going to a doctor AGAIN, and just went ballistic. Nurses would try and take his temperature and he freaked. Try to listen to his heart... freaked. Getting his blood pressure was a joke since it was off the charts what with the screaming and flailing about and all that. Then came the truly horrible part. They had to do more blood work and put an IV in.

The nurses basically said that if either Eric or I were going to have issues with being in the room for that part, we should leave. Yeah, that would be me. I knew I would be a wreck, and therefore scare Tate even more. I went out in the hall and heard him start to scream. I went farther down the hall. The screams followed me. Through a set of doors...and I could still hear the screaming. It was tearing my heart out. I heard my baby screaming in terror and fear and I could. Not. Fix. It. It was unlike anything I've ever felt before...I felt completley helpless and guilty and scared and sick to my stomach. I could hear him scream "STOP! STOP! ALL DONE! ALL DONE, PLEASE!" It was the "pleases" that really tore me apart. It took about 20 minutes to get everything done, but it felt like an eternity of staring at the pattern on the hallway wallpaper and pretty much feeling like shit. All Eric said when I got back in the room was, "That was horrible."

When I came back in, he was hooked up to an IV and his entire hand was wrapped in bright green gauze. He's got a neon green paw and is NOT amused. But he seemed to forget about it after a bit. Still won't let the nurse do his blood pressure, though. We'll see what happens tomorrow. My brain is pretty much shut off at this point.

Poor baby.

Updater on the Tater

It's been an interesting 24 hours around here. I last posted that Tate seemed to be getting better, was up to his usual evil overlord ways, etc, etc. However last night around 6 pm he was acting awfully listless and droopy so I decided to take his temperature again. Yeah, so...

Thermometer: 106.0

Me: CLUNK.

Seriously? I didn't think it was possible to get a fever that high. Wouldn't that entail you like, turning into a blazing ball of flames or something? A HUNDRED AND SIX??? So I took a deep breath and stuck the thermometer in his ear again. 105.8. And again. 105.8. Ah. Well, that's much better.

I went into my patented "Oh-my-God-what-do-I-do-do-I-call-Eric-or-the-doctor-or-an-ambulance-what-do-I-do-whatdoIdowhatdoIdo" mode. I paged Eric at work, putting 911 in front of our number so he'd know it was urgent and he told me to call the nurse hotline. Which any clearly-thinking person would have done first, but as we already established, I was not in clear-thinking mode. I was in "Omgwdiddiceortdoaawdidwdidwdid" mode.

When I told the nurse that his temp was 105.8, she said that ear thermometers weren't always the most accurate so I had to do it the other way. The yucky way. Let's just say Tate was THRILLED about that one. As he was screaming, the nurse dryly said "Well, he's obviously coherent, at least." Rectal temp was 105.4. The nurse paused, and then said "Yeah...I'm gonna have you bring him in". Good call.

I called my friend Aimee and she came right over to stay with Nora, like an angel, and Tate and I took off to urgent care. Oh, but before all this happened, he yorked chocolate milk all over the floor. Almost forgot about that. So then of course while we were in the car, Tate was acting perfectly normal, yelling at red lights, huffing at having to wait for our chance to turn left...the usual. I always get all paranoid that I'm going to get my kids to the doctor and the fever will magically be gone and they'll practically be up doing a jig on the table and I'll look like a prime nincompoop.

But when they took his temp, it was 105.4. The nurse didn't even seemed fazed by it. I just wanted to be like "DUDE! It's almost 106! That's the temperature where the body basically starts cooking itself!! Let's get a little concerned, here!!" The doctor's diagnosis? Tate is prone to frequent, high fevers. He called it "Persistant Fever Syndrome". I called it "I Could Have Told You That, Pal." He said it would probably go away in a couple days, and most likely would come back again at some point. Then he said goodbye. So that was just great. Totally cleared up my worries. Poof. Gone. Ha.

So now I don't know. We go back in to the doctor tomorrow, and they may run more tests to start ruling things out. Or they may not. I feel like I really need to ask for something to be done to get this figured out, but I don't even know what that would be. A 2 year old should not have that high of a fever for that many days in a row, this frequently.

What I do know, though, is that I have awesome friends. The number of people who have called, emailed, Facebooked, etc, to check on Tate just blows my mind. It's a huge comfort to know there are that many people who care about my little dude.

And on another high note, my good friend Jodi's little girl Gabby had her surgery today and it went really really well. So many people have been thinking and praying for her and it's such a relief to have it all over and done with. She's such a little trooper. Rock on, Gabs.

Gimme an F! Gimme an R! Gimmie a U! Gimme...

...eh, never mind. "Frustrated" is too long to spell out like that. Plus I'd probably get confused and throw a random "Q" in there somewhere.

So Tate's been getting the high fevers again. Yesterday morning and Sunday night it got up to almost 105. Not cool. I can see getting high fevers every once in awhile, or low-grade fevers fairly often, but not topping out at 105.3 at least once a month. We went to the doctor and poor Tate ended up having to get needles jabbed in both arms to get blood drawn. My fault. I have shitty veins and I guess I passed it down to my son, along with my razor-sharp wit. You take the good with the bad. However, I can say with absolute certainty that there are few things as heart-wrenching as seeing your baby being held down on a table with terror in their eyes as they yell for you in complete panic. I was a wreck. A wreck who was holding Nora who was sucking on her finger, sticking it in my ear and then dragging it across my cheek. That wasn't so enjoyable either. Although at that point I was so upset that she could have been sticking boogers into my mouth and I wouldn't have noticed.

So then we waited for 90 minutes. Tate lay on the floor in a feverish mass of toddler, and Nora pulled every single thing out of the drawers under the examining table. She also enjoyed weighing herself, playing with the stirrups on the table, trying to grab used latex gloves out of the hazardous waste bin, draping herself in a gown, and chewing on electrical wires under the desk. The girl knows how to have a good time in any situation.

We found out that Tate's white blood cell count is too high and he has some sort of infection. He's on antibiotics. I'm fairly confident in saying that we will be going through all of this again in a matter of a month or two. It happens so frequently, and he just gets so enervated because of it that it's truly hard to watch. He's like a lump of goo on the couch who every so often requests a glass of water or a cracker.

He is definitely feeling better today but is still not 100%. He has bravely mustered up the energy to inflict small amounts of torture on the dogs and his sister periodically , so he's definitely on the right path to recovery. I just wish I knew why these fevers kept happening. I don't like them.

You suck, fevers.