We're all sick.

Again.

It's been never ending this season.
If I'm not popping a couple Advil myself, I'm wiping my 50th snotty nose of the day, or wrestling a child, WWF style, to the floor to administer some form of medication.

It hasn't been fun.

And with every one else, it's alright - Pretty much your run of the mill sick behavior - teary, tired, lethargic behavior.

But not with Chloe.

Healthy Chloe is a force to be reckoned with, but she holds no measure to Sick Chloe.
My hands shake as I even type the words....

When Chloe is sick, we all go into survival mode.
We shout out orders for more tissues from the top of the stairs like army seargeants. We crawl on our bellies with Tylenol bottles in our mouths and water sippies cupped in our hands to avoid the things that are probably being thrown or are spontaneously combusting around us. There are noises you've never heard and veins you never knew you had that will appear on your forehead.
It becomes a war zone. We wear helmets and hasmat suits.

The worst of all is that she cannot handle the feeling of her nose even STARTING to run. This means that every 5 seconds, she puts on a petrified expression and shouts, "Mama! Mama! I NEED A TISSUE!!!!!!" to which I respond by wiping NOTHING and then repeating all of that again in just a few seconds.
We've tried responding calmly that it doesn't appear her nose is running, but that only brings on writhing and crying and wringing of her hands with screams of,
"I can't do it myseeeeeeeellllllllf! PLEASE! Heeeelllllllllllllllp meeeeeeeeee."





She becomes demanding, telling us what we "have" to do and saying things like, "I just can't eat my dinner. I'm in too much pain."

Yeah.
True story.
We rolled our eyes, too.

Besides all this, we've been majorly cooped up. I feel like this old house cat I used to housesit for named Chelsey. Chelsey wasn't ever let out and would sit at the cracked window for hours with her nose pressed against the screen just trying to at least breathe some fresh air. The owner would always warn,
"Don't open the door too wide. Chelsey will bolt."

I feel Chelsey's pain.

The other day I got out for two glorious hours with my mom to do some shopping and I felt like I was in a musical where birds sing along to your tune and there's dancing in the streets.
Where random street vendors hand you fresh bouquets without expecting payment.

But then I returned to mayhem.

Justin's eyes were bugging out of his head and as I opened the door I immediately heard Chloe yelling, "Daddy!!!! I need my nose wiped!!!"
"I'm coming!" he said.
Then he fake cried for a minute.

At this moment, the dog spun by.

And poor Alena, with all of her pre-teenness just asks to go to her room a lot and has begun locking the bathroom door to get just a minute of peace.
Sometimes I want to ask if I can come in there with her and maybe we could just sit and fiddle with bath toys and plot our escape.

The other day we climbed into her bed together and a few seconds later heard Chloe approaching and my first instinct was to say, "hide." or pretend to be asleep as if I were 5. I just didn't want to get up and get a tissue.

Justin has spent all his days off helping take care of the girls and me. He doesn't do well with being confined, though. It's never long before the need for a project takes over. He needs some way of physically working out his stress.

This time that need worked itself out in the way of him completely ripping out all the plants in the back yard while I wasn't looking. He says he's going to expand it so there's more room for the kids to play. This is a great idea, actually, at least in theory - I just was surprised to one minute gaze out the slider to my back yard and it's full, soft Heather and climbing potato vines, and then the next, look out and see this:



But - I have chosen to trust. Trust and hope this is not a repeat of what we now call "The Cafe Door Incident"
I don't even think I need to explain.

He reminded me that I get the indoors as my domain, and he gets the outside.

Right about now, I'm not so sure I WANT the indoors to be my domain.

I'm just hoping all this sickness means we'll have a really healthy summer. I need to believe that. I'm actually clinging to that hope for dear life.
I've just got to get out.
My skin is starting to look pale and ashen from lack of sun like I'm some sort of mole person. Even my fabulous Neutrogena 3 in 1 under eye conceiler is struggling to conceil what I've got going on.

I wouldn't trade it, though. Not even for the days of sleeping in until noon.

To coin John and Kate: It might be a crazy life, but it's our life.

Now, if you'll excuse me - I have a nose to wipe.

Rejoining the Land of the Living

Yeesh.

What a crazy last couple of weeks.
I have concocted a theory that my body rejected peace and quiet and alone time like a donor organ because the day following my much touted "Kerri Day" began the worst two weeks of my life.

It started with a headache that spread into the world's most painful double outer ear infection. I have never been in so much pain. Never. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy - or even John Lithgow.
I would honestly rather be strung upside down and whipped WHILE in labor with twins than ever go through that again.
The ear infection led to cellulitus in my face and neck and my ears swelling shut completely - so much so that they had to insert a wick to get the medication in. I know. It's gross. I could have been a TLC special.
"Woman Without Ears"

I spent a solid two weeks bed ridden with a heating pad on one side of my head while ear drops soaked in the other.
After starting page 3 of my medications spreadsheet, I realized that this is what it would feel like to be 80 years old. I can tell you, it's not fun.

Golden years, they are not. They're more of a mustard yellow.

At the height of my misery, I spent over an hour in Memorial Hospital's ER on one of the busiest nights they've ever had. They had just had 4 helicopters land and it was apparently a bum sleepover.
I finally decided to go to Community Hospital's ER instead after watching one lady dry heave for an hour, then ask to bum a smoke.
It was just too much to bear that AND to sit next to a shifty-eyed gangster who suspiciously wouldn't take his right hand out of the waist of his coat.

I'd rather die of an ear infection than a gun shot.

Commmunity wasn't much better, though it was empty. The check in window was fogged over. The nurse had zebra nails. They had a dot-matrix printer. I think they made my hospital bracelet out of dry noodles and scotch tape.
I really realized why it was empty when they walked me down the hallway to my room (Which hadn't been cleaned from the previous patient) and noted the mint green tile walls.

**NOTE: Mint green tile walls are never a good sign. The only times I can recall seeing mint green tile walls are in movies that involve
a)zombies, b)serial killers, c)haunted, empty hospitals of torture.**

They did give me good meds there.I didn't even know Advil came in 800mgs.
This was helpful to drown out the blood curdling screams of the lady down the hall who was being brought in by an army of cops while she shouted, "They busted my ******* face with a ******* flashlight!"
Nice.
The nurse felt it time to tell me that this was the hospital for the mental institution and the county jail.

I was really glad to go home.

So, in the days following, I have been seeing a specialist. Thank goodness. He has helped me immensely. I have nothing but praise for him. The only comical thing about him, though, is that he REALLY wears one of those headbands with the big metalic circle thing that I've only ever seen cartoon doctors wear. I didn't even know they were real.
They are.


So now, after 7 prescriptions, 3 trips to the doctor, one trip to urgent care, 2 different ERs, 3 trips to the specialist and 2 weeks worth bed rest...I'm proud to say I'm rejoining the land of the living. Slowly.

It's a good thing because I was teetering dangerously close to looking like Shrek.

I'm glad that I know for a fact that should I ever become seriously ill and NOT be able to take care of myself, I can count on my BFF Lisa to fly to the U.S. just to do things like pluck unruly hairs and keep my legs shaved. I'll never be fully let go. It's important to have an "In-case-of-emergency-Plucker" in your life.

So yesterday I got a haircut, I painted my nails, and I put on the ever important under-eye-conceiler.

I'm practically as good as new.

I still can't hear out of my right ear all the way, but I'm trying to figure out why that might not just be a GOOD thing. I can't hear my name being called a hundred times. I can't hear Chloe shouting, "NO TESSA!" I can't hear the alarm. I can't hear the phone call that will tell me that my car warranty is about to expire.

All good as far as I can tell.

And I learned that the family really CAN do things on their own. I don't have to cook every dinner for them to survive. The world will not crumble if Mommy needs a nap.
They all pulled together and got stuff done. My mom and Justin were champions.
Life can go on without Mommy there to do it all every second of the day. That's a lesson I really did need to learn. It's the knowledge I'd eluded for so long that had driven the original Kerri Day to be so needed.

This tells me another Kerri Day may be just around the corner. And a well deserved one at that.

pirouettes and puffy eyes

Well, we started out this glorious day with a bang.

Literally.

It must have been some sort of transformer outside, because the power was out and when we called PG&E, they told us that it was most likely not going to be back on for about 5+ hours. Awesome. I had to get ready for the day and didn't know how I'd do it. We don't realize how much we rely on power.

The main thing I noticed was how gravely I had taken my blow drier for granted. I was able to take a shower, but not much can be said for the makeup job I did in the dark or the hairstyle I settled on.
What was funny was that when I see a woman out in public with the hair I had today, I judge them.
I shouldn't, but I do. I think, "The wet look went out in the early 90's. Time to get a copy of InStyle and soak it in."
Today, that woman was me. Don't be so quick to judge. Lesson learned.

I piled the kids in the car in my typical manner of making myself into a human pack mule, carrying 2 bags, a travel mug, someone's leftover breakfast, A change of clothes for Chloe, Tessa's bottle, and the Two Ton Toddler herself. In one load.
I rolled up the garage door by hand and was on my way to Chloe's first real ballet class.

I was mentally trying to shake off the hectic feel from the morning and was looking forward to seeing the dancing. Hearing the laughing. The soft, sweet music. The sound of small feet on the wooden floors.

I had filled out the papers, gotten her all dressed up - hair in buns and all - and she was yammering on and on about how she was going to be SO beautiful and she was going to "dance like a princess". She'd talked about ballet for months.
We were all excited.
Afterall, it's not just ANY activity that gets me out of the house alone with three girls before 10:00.
(My friend Angie will tell you this is true, as she can attest to the fact that she has dropped by on MORE than one occasion to find me still in pajamas at noon with at least one child wearing only a diaper.)

We got there, rushed in, payed the money, took Chloe to the door and she REFUSED to go in.
I finally convinced her after some prodding, but even that only lasted about 5 minutes, and then she came running out bawling, telling me she didn't want to do ballet because,
"It's too stinky in that room."

I looked at Alena as if to say, "Can you BELIEVE this?" only to have Alena respond,
"It's true. It smells gross."

Oh LORD give me strength to raise three daughters....

So, I went to get my possibly non refundable money back for the class and the costume and the registration as several other parents looked on me with pity in their eyes only to turn back around and find Chloe had apparently recovered from her olifactory abominations and was pirouetting around the entry way without a care in the world.

It figures.

Oh well. This means we have time to go shopping. (With the children)

What was I thinking?!

I wish I would have called to memory the fact that the only way a person can shop with Chloe is if they have a good 6 hours to spare. Chloe is the s l o w e s t walker. Ever.
You will spend half your day looking behind you and telling her, "Chloe PLEASE come ON!" but when she sees you stop and turn, she will stop dead in her tracks to maintain her distance.
She should have been born in Iran, I guess. She would eat it up if it was MANDATED that she walk behind.

Add to this that while you are busy looking behind you at Chloe, Tessa will no doubtedly be pulling everything off of every rack as you walk by without you knowing and either eating it or hiding it.
I have had to send Alena back in to more stores than I can count because I find that Tessa shoplifted some item and stashed it in the stroller under her thighs. (A great hiding space if you're in the 120th percentile)

I just feel like we cause a scene everywhere we go.

Tessa's screaming and writhing, trying to escape. Chloe's still back at the CAR, practically.
And did I mention it was an outdoor mall, because then it started to rain. Hard.

WHY do I even try to do this? Why didn't I just do what I usually do and stay HOME for three days in a row not even going out to get the mail?

Now picture me, with my scary done-in-the-dark mascara running down my face, my hairstyle that I won't even bother describing, darting from store to store like a maniac just wishing for ONE moment where I can try something on for myself while simultaneously pushing Tessa and yelling for Chloe.

This is not the shopping days of yore.

I remember a time when I could shop for hours. When I didn't feel like I was on some sort of speed date with myself. A time when I didn't glance at my reflexion in the window of a store I passed and for a second think I saw Christopher Lloyd before I realized it was ME, wild eyed and frizz headed.

Ahhhhh.
I need a babysitter, a couple hundred bucks and a deep tissue massage.

And maybe one of those multi-strand necklaces I've had my eye on just for the icing on top...
Because we all know a mommy sitting rocking in the corner and drooling on herself is no good to anyone. And besides....Who would make dinner?

Welcome to the Funny Farm

About the fifth time Alena said, "This family is just NOT normal" last week, I started to realize, maybe it wasn't just her being her typical pre-teen self.

Maybe she was right.

I don't know what tipped her off the most, though.

Was it Tessa and her new favorite game of pulling tampons out of my purse and walking around casually with them in her mouth as she went about playing like normal?

Was it seeing Justin, dressed in his basketball jersey from Sports Day at work, shooting ghost free throws to himself in front of the bathroom mirror - in the dark when he didn't think anyone was looking?

Was it Phoebe spinning around and around and around and around, then throwing up, and starting to spin all over again?

Is it the cat who neurotically pulls out his own fur in big fur clumps all over the floor?

Was it how Chloe relates literally EVERYTHING she is doing or saying to some sort of cartoon episode?
The other day, Tessa was trying to grab one of her toys and she ran away screaming, "Swiper, no swiping!"

Is it how my mom is constantly fearing low tire pressure and is positive that every cow in every pasture that is lying down for a nap has surely met their demise, and just loves to ask, "Is that cow dead?"

Poor Alena. No wonder she's been retreating to her room.

That in itself is a worry, however.
I've noticed this girl has serious hoarding tendencies.
The other day I took a trash bag in there, on a mission to get rid of some junk and came out an hour and 2 trash bag loads later feeling like I'd just survived Normandy.

I think she had held onto every McDonalds Happy Meal toy she'd ever gotten.
She had wrappers and half used erasers, string and lone googly eyes, plastic animals with body parts chewed off.....It was like I'd found the Bermuda Triangle.
I'm worried that one day I will have to send in rescue dogs to find her and they'll drag her out from a pile of newspaper clippings or something. For this I record Hoarders on our DVR and make her watch it, all the while saying, "Now what lesson have we learned from this?" with hope brimming in my voice.

No. This family definitely isn't normal.

Actually, this whole neighborhood is a little wack-a-doo, when I think about it.

Next door we have the 40 year old man who wears one of two things: Duck hunting rain gear with a matching camo rain hat, or gangster paraphenalia. He only emerges from his house the second the mail gets here to get his mail, grabs it, and that's it.

Across the street, we have a half-way house chalk full of loonies and one scrawny dog who's owner kisses and rolls around with the dog on every lawn but her own. I'm pretty sure they're in love.
She used to use ours until I confronted her one day and scared her off.
After rolling, the dog usually poops as the owner looks all around the cul-de-sac to make sure no one's looking, then grabs the dog and darts back inside to avoid cleaning it up. It's no mystery who's poo that is, Lady.
It's either yours or his.

At the end of the street is the Grand Master of Strange - Dale - who I'm quite positive has OCD.
Dale is CONSTANTLY doing one of 3 things: Doing touch-up-paint on his house, changing the oil in a car he NEVER drives anywhere, or separating old bark from new bark in his side yard by hand and then standing over it and surveying it for what seems like hours.
He always has a red plastic party cup in his hand while doing these things, and I'm just wondering how much of a party it could be when you are doing those things.
To each his own, I guess.

We spent the whole first year in this house wondering what on earth he was doing as we saw him just standing, head bend down, staring at his plain bark yard. From the appearance of all the "work" he was putting in, you'd expect Better Homes and Gardens to be doing a piece on some lush garden that was about to erupt at any moment, but 2.5 years later, here we are with the same side yard as always- 5 water saving shrubs and bark. Old and new. Which are separated. By hand. In piles. For hours.

So, see Alena, we're not that strange. Normal is all relative, right?

I'll take my spinning, free throw shooting, Dora exclaiming, hoarding, tampon chomping, dead cow reporting family any day.

The Revolution

2010.

I never thought I'd be so happy to see a year end and another begin.
Not that there was nothing good about 2009, but MAN am I ready for some changes.

Yesterday as I walked around the track at the school, (when I wasn't eyeing the sketchy looking hoodie-wearing guy leaning up against the chain link fence),
I was thinking;
What do I want this year to be? What resolutions do I have?

I came to the conclusion that I have many. Probably too many to ever realistically keep, but isn't that's what resolutions are supposed to be like?

So here they are:

*This year, I will be healthier. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I will eat less cheese and more
lettuce.
*I will use the jogging stroller to actually JOG, something that is foreign to me thus far.
*Sometimes, I will choose tea instead of coffee, as to stop the cycle of coffee, Tums, coffee, Tums.
*I will be realistic as to which things I own that I actually use, and if I don't, they will go. I have
seen Hoarders too many times to not let that sink in. No pig pen in 2010. My new motto.
*If I have a need, I will express it. No more expecting people to read my mind and then getting
mad at them when they don't do what I want. Sometimes mommy needs an alone trip to
Barnes and Noble to look at hair magazines, and that's OK.
*I will make attempts to go to bed earlier. You really can't complain about being tired all
the time when you regularly go to bed at midnight.
*I will avoid public frump at all costs. Fashion is important. I already feel crazy half the time
but if I'm crazy AND frumpy, I will be one step away from an under-bridge mumbler.
*I will make valiant attempts at remembering who I really am. My likes. My personality. Me.
2009 had the memories of that getting a little blurry. This year will be different. Being a good
mom doesn't mean total sacrifice of self.
*I will keep the car cleaner. If I see a Ritz on the carpet, I will not leave it there to be smashed to
bits by toddler feet, I will clean it before it turns into a total disaster area.
* I will yell less and breathe more deeply.
* I will buy diapers before we are down to only 2 left in the whole house. A very dangerous
scenerio with two small children who eat a lot of fruit...
* I will be more loving with my words and actions remembering that other people like hugs just
and kindness just as much as I do.
* I will smile more, dance more, play more.
and MOST importantly
*I will be an active participant in my own life. LIVE more instead of watching from the side lines
and feeling sad about getting older and life flying by. Forget that. There's so much more living
to do. I may FEEL like I'm 80 some days, but I'm not. This chick's still kickin'.

So here goes, 2010. May we join hands and run into a field full of daisies together.

Um. No.

So. Here I am. Finally doing this.
For now.
It's pretty common for me to start doing something and then get side tracked with Chloe screaming that Tessa's getting something she has or to have to stop because Alena needs help on her 60th project of the year.

Don't get me wrong. I love my life. I love my kids, and most of the time, I love my family as well.
Here is a picture of us:
Justin is my husband. We've been married almost 5 years, dated for 2 before that. We met when a friend tricked us into meeting on St. Patty's Day and we were together ever since.
Only afterwards did we admit to eachother that I was drawn to his dark skin (the darker the berry....) and he was drawn to my still half full plate of corned beef and cabbage.

Thus began our romance. Firey. Funny. Crazy-making. Never dull.

I came into the relationship already having Alena, my then 3 year old, who is now 10 going on 20. Alena has no idea why she should not be allowed to wear makeup, drive her own car, and move out. She is not bogged down with details like that she has no way of making money except for the random birthday check from a distant aunt, or that she would actually be fined if she had 50 puppies, like she says she will one day have.
For now, I will let her live in her dream world, because that is what you do when you're 10.

We tried for over a year to have a baby, once we got married. After a very exciting positive pregnancy test came a very painful miscarriage that truly changed my life.
The very next month, I was pregnant again.

Chloe.

Chloe is a lesson in being very careful what you not only ask but BEG God for.
She evokes passions both good and bad. There is no one like her on this entire planet, and for that I am thankful. God knew better than to make her twins.
She's smarter than she should be, cuter than should be legal, and most days I fear that she ACTUALLY drive me insane.
Padded walls. Pill cups. Restraints. The whole nine.

Before I had time to stop my head from spinning with Chloe entering the world, then came Tessa. The baby we USED to say we hardly even knew was there.

Not any more.

Tessa is barely a year old and is practically in a 6x.
She bowls over anything or anyone who gets in her way. She gets into everything. She EATS everything. For this, we lovingly refer to her as "Destructo"

She's squishy and cuddly and absolutely darling.

They all are. Which is a good thing, because otherwise I would most likely ship them off to a distant land.

Phoebe is our dog. She is a Boston Terrier, and she spins. ALL the time. Around and around and around and around until she's dizzy then she throws up. Awesome. The vet told us he thought she might have a brain tumor. We got a second opinion. That vet said no tumor. Just OCD.

Great. Just what I needed.

So most days my life sounds like this:
"Chloe, Mama said no screaming! What? What did you say? I can't understand you when you're whining. No, Tessa! Tessa, NO! Get out of there. Where did you GET that?! Give it to.....Tessa....come back here. Don't eat that, it's diaper cream! PHOEBE! STOP SPINNING. Go lay down! You have to take a nap because Mommy's tired. Why? Because I said so!"

Perhaps writing will be Mommy's time-out.
Maybe this WILL be good.
Time will tell ----- For now, I have to go. I hear the sounds of destruction as we speak.

K