Category Archives: Illnesses

Disjointed cinematic thoughts

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“What is with your health?” my husband asked, watching me blow my nose for the hundredth time. “Maybe you need more protein.” I looked at him silently, then raised my eyebrows lasciviously, and burst into giggles. Because I am all grown up and mature like that.

My sinuses feel like they are out to get me. My very lovely yoga teacher, who is also a nutritionist, advised me to stay away from sugars to obtain maximum immunity from illnesses. It was working really well until the Christmas season and its demands on me to consume my body weight in mint chocolate. So I’m back on my no-sugar plan because frankly, pressing my hands dramatically against my sinuses and complaining is getting old.

But back to my protein giggles. My standard of humour is very low. Someone slips on a banana peel? Hysterical. A wedding singer drops the F-bomb in the movie Old School? Side-splitting. But even I did not find The Hangover funny. In fact, I felt like I morphed into some prim elderly lady who is continually shocked by the downfall of society. “A baby in a car with no car seat? That’s just not funny. I mean, that’s irresponsible. I know it’s a movie. I know. But it’s just stupid.” I ended up going to bed mid-movie in protest, which is where I wanted to be anyway – it was past nine o’clock.

We’ve been watching a lot of movies over the holiday. It’s been great to catch up on films from the last decade or so. I gave my husband the X-Men trilogy for Christmas and I now have a small crush on Wolverine. “I can see why Hugh Jackman is so popular!” I kept saying, in step with people newly relieved and annoyed that the whole Y2K phenomenon was such a hoax.

My husband – without me – watched the new Star Trek movie. I have never once seen an episode of Star Trek, and it occurred to me that it is an entire cultural phenomenon that I know absolutely nothing about. Nothing! I grew up with two brothers, both of whom were into superheroes and Star Wars, so I have a whole untapped mental catalogue of information pertaining to those topics, but I have no clue what Star Trek is all about. “Are they like, aliens traveling around in space ships?” I asked my husband. He stared at me for a few moments, then said, “Yes, Nicole. That’s what it’s all about. Aliens traveling around in space ships.”

All of which is to say, I need some more sinus medication. And maybe some protein! Tee hee.

Happy Festivus!

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This is not really a ranting type of blog. I’m not so much a ranting girl. But it’s Festivus! Grievances must be aired.

I have a major grievance against people who send their contagious kids to school, or allow their contagious kids to be in confined public spaces with other non-sick children. Especially the week before Christmas. Even when Santa is visiting the pre-kindergarten class. Especially when the contagions are of the vomiting variety. Jake is feeling much better – heartbreakingly skinny, but better – but now Mark is unwell. Today I had two things to accomplish: I needed to take the dog to the groomer’s and I needed to buy groceries. It’s minus 20 and I didn’t think that taking out one recovering child and one potentially vomiting child was a particularly good idea, so I accomplished both tasks before my husband left for work. Which meant I went out while still in my sweaty yoga clothes. And I didn’t have makeup on. This might not be a big deal to all you “I couldn’t be bothered with makeup” girls, but I apply a nice fresh coat of lip gloss prior to walking my dog, so going to the grocery store makeup-less and sweaty is actually a big deal for me. Blah, blah, vanity, blah, blah, I know. So here is the chain of events: a still-contagious child is brought to the pre-kindergarten Santa visit, and I end up in the grocery store with no makeup. No good can come of that.

I read a magazine article about a woman who spends thousands of dollars a year buying Christmas gifts for 150 people. I don’t have a grievance against that, per se, but at the end of the article the woman says that Christmas Day is a great time to get ideas for the next year’s gifts, because people are always talking about what they wanted and didn’t get. Really? Who are those people? I have a grievance against those people. Someone gave you a gift and it wasn’t what you wanted? It’s a gift, you asshole. A gift. You want something else, go out on Boxing Day and buy it.

Hey, it’s kind of fun, this ranting thing! Too bad it’s not Festivus every day.

Other grievances which just irritate me so much I don’t even want to spend my mental energy on them include the words Gosselin and Balloon Boy, people who don’t have children but have very strong opinions on how children should be raised, people who have road rage in parking lots, and elderly people who really should not be driving who are driving gigantic vehicles which almost run over you when you are walking with your four-year-old in the Co-Op parking lot. Although, my mother-in-law tells this hilarious story about an elderly lady who drove through her beauty parlor window – no one was hurt, but the ladies sitting under those big hair dryers were pretty shaken up. Evidently the woman meant to put her car in reverse, although it seems like that would have been just as disastrous, an elderly woman speeding in reverse through the parking lot.

Happy Festivus, everyone! Feel free to air your grievances!

Christmastime…is here….

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Nearly every year that we have been together, my husband and I have gone to Banff for a night around Christmas time. It’s a lovely tradition – Banff is so beautiful at Christmas with the lights, and the snow, and the mountains – and that is what we did this weekend. This was the first time since having kids that I was actually relaxed about leaving them, despite the fact that Jake was unusually clingy when we left (foreshadowing).

I called a couple of times when we arrived and my mother assured me everything was going well, but she mentioned Jake seemed quiet (more foreshadowing). Reassured by my phone calls, my husband and I proceeded to have a lovely night away. Walking by the river! Hot-tubbing! Dinner in a restaurant! Drinks and (very bad) live music at a pub! So much fun, and I was so happy, somewhat drunk, and full of that Christmassy-feeling.

When we got home the next day, the boys came to greet me at the door. Jake took one look at me and barfed.

I tried not to take it personally.

Last year, Christmas vacation was marked by all of us getting colds (mine lasting a spectacular FOUR WEEKS), Mark spending Christmas Day barfing, and Jake getting a high fever and ear infection that culminated in a perforated ear drum. This chain of illness was kicked off by…get this…Jake barfing while we were on our Banff trip! So I’m a little worried that history is going to repeat itself. Which is silly. What good can possibly come of fretting about getting sick? If we’re going to get sick, we’re going to get sick. No use in worrying.

But what if that is my destiny forever? What if one day we have a germ-free Christmas and I’m all “Christmas just doesn’t seem like Christmas without any vomit!” (Sorry, Louisa May Alcott).

Ah well. Jake seems better today – not normal, mind you, but better. So I guess I will hope for the best and not spend any energy worrying about it.

Back to normal – sort of

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I have been off my game, people. I have had one of those energy-sucking colds that, coupled with the copious amount of cold medication I have been taking, has left me wandering in a fog of my own making. I’m wondering, what day is it? What time is it? Oh, do the kids need to eat? Maybe I should make lunch. Things that come naturally are coming to me very slowly. Also I have been sleep-deprived, and, irritatingly enough, not because of the kids. For two nights in a row I took “nighttime relief” cold medication. I should know better. I’m always lured by the medications’ claims “so you can get some rest”. More like, “so you can have hallucinogenic dreams that will have you waking every hour or two wondering what the hell is going on in your brain, and then keep you up for a couple of hours only to crash 20 minutes before it is time to get up.” I haven’t taken NyQuil for years because I once had a NyQuil-related crazy dream about leprechauns and unicorns-turned-flesh-eating-monsters and dancing trees that caused me to wake up screaming when my husband absent-mindedly patted my back.

I feel better today.

Monday was a bad day. It was minus 25 and there were enormous snow drifts everywhere, one of which claimed my car when I dropped the boys at school. After trudging through knee-deep snow, helping the boys out of their 10 pounds of winter clothing, and trudging back, a couple of moms helped push my car out (thanks ladies!). Then, because that clearly was not enough excitement for one day, I drove to Wal-Mart. I needed more cold medication, but more importantly, I had to get stickers for Jake’s class sticker gift exchange which was to take place the following class. I chose a gender-neutral sheet of puppy stickers.

Later, I noticed Mark with all his craft supplies. He was making a picture, and had opened the stickers, the ones, as I said, seething with rage, I HAD GONE OUT IN THE FREEZING COLD AND SNOW TO GET FOR JAKE’S SPECIAL CLASS.

Big deal, right? Except for me, in my cold-addled state, it really was a big deal. I had to take deep breaths. I had to say, with my teeth gritted, that next time, please ASK before you use stickers. I used every ounce of self-control to not spiral into a screaming, shrieking, bad bad mother. I remained calm but inside, I was a mess. Because of a 99 cent package of stickers. I could see myself, in the moment, and I was struck at how ridiculous a situation it was, that I was so enraged by my child using stickers that he thought I had purchased for him.

I managed to go out again, and purchase another package of stickers. I decided to gift wrap them, as instructed, immediately. I gathered the gift wrap and noticed something in the bag with the gift tags.

Stickers. A package of stickers I had purchased a month earlier, thinking that I should buy them for the sticker gift exchange, so I wouldn’t leave it to the last minute.

You can imagine, then, how I felt.

We interrupt this Christmas spirit to bring you colossal bitchiness!

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This dress really wants to go to a party!

I look forward to my husband’s company Christmas party for months. I look forward to dressing up, talking to grown people, and eating food not prepared by myself and which is generally very tasty. I also look forward to the open bar. Months in advance I think about this party, because after all, there is no “stay-at-home mom” Christmas party, and even if there was it would probably just involve Starbucks and our nice jeans.

I even bought a dress for the party! I haven’t worn a skirted article for at least five years, since the appearance of my python-like varicose veins, but in the spirit of “love your body 2009” I actually purchased a dress, which I planned to wear with thick tights and boots to minimize the vein visibility. I was getting very excited.

You can probably see where this is going. Yesterday morning a monster of a blizzard began, complete with white-out conditions and massive drifts of snow, forcing us to cancel our plans. Boo. Around 2:00 yesterday it became apparent that no, we were not going to go, I started sulking and immediately donned yoga pants, a sweatshirt, and gigantic fuzzy slippers. Rob felt sorry for me and offered to watch When Harry Met Sally with me. Score! My favourite movie, which he will never watch due to my incessant need to repeat the dialogue throughout the film. (“They don’t make Sunday”. “Why not?” “Because of God.”)

So that was nice. Then this morning I woke up with a sore throat and headache due to the commencement of a minor cold, and also the general malaise that is associated with the commencement of my “ladies’ holidays”. I felt awful, so I did what any smart woman would do: attempt to make 6 dozen gingersnaps with the kids. Suffice it to say it was a bad idea. I ended up baking only half the cookies, putting the rest of the dough in the freezer for a more appropriate day. But then the kids wanted pancakes for lunch and, due to my guilty feelings for snapping at them more than once, I agreed. I mis-measured several times, burned the first couple, and then shrieked, “IT’S YOUR LUNCH!” in response to Mark’s innocent “What’s that weird smell?” query. So no Mother of the Year awards coming my way today.

Rob got home soon after this fiasco and I went straight to bed, passing out for a solid 90 minutes. I feel somewhat better but now the kids are jonesing to make a gingerbread house tonight! I need to channel my inner Christmas spirit. Help!

GROSS

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When I got home early this morning, Mark met me at the door to inform me that he was “a little bit sick”. He certainly didn’t look sick, his colour was good, he ate a good breakfast, but my husband did mention that both boys woke up coughing. I thought about a reader comment about coughing and RSV and I thought I would keep them home for the day. Then they didn’t cough even once the whole day, which was fine. I took it as a mental health day. But after lunch Jake started acting strange. He didn’t want to eat much and was rubbing his head a lot. I started to worry. No fever. Still no eating. He was clingy and wanted to be hugged and held a lot. I started self-medicating. Don’t worry – I wasn’t stumbling around drunk or anything. I mean I ate a couple of chocolate chip cookies with leftover Halloween candy chasers. I was starting to feel a bit stressed.

Now, for the sake of readers who are not parents, or who may wish to become parents, or are maybe pregnant or with young infants, I will not go into great detail about the origin of Jake’s lassitude. I will only say that sometimes young children like to, shall we say, withhold certain body functions, and that sometimes leads to, shall we say, undesirable results.

Oh! Did I mention I also washed the floors today?

So now that it is past 7:30, I say screw the chocolate. I am going straight for the wine.

The pediatric dentist is HOT

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Was that me who was bragging about how well my children adjusted to the end of Daylight Savings? After only one day? I think in Greek mythology that would be known as hubris.

I am going to spare you the tearful, fighting-with-one’s-brother, collapsing into a teenage-angst-type-sulkiness details and instead talk about something pleasant. I took the kids to the dentist yesterday! Did I mention that their dentist happens to be quite attractive? Like, hot? I’m always somewhat surprised that the waiting room isn’t full of slavering moms in various stages of cougardom, with various degrees of cleavage showing. I myself dressed up to take the kids; by dressed up, I mean I wore my knee high boots with heels and my toffee lipstick, as opposed to the more neutral shell shade. And…we got there and were informed that the dentist was sick today, and would we mind seeing his colleague? His much older, unattractive colleague? Of course we didn’t mind.

Now, I had promised not to write about the “f” word until I actually get the “f” word, and I’m not going to, but I’m just going to say that if you go to the pediatric dentist and he is sick and every single toy and book that they use to distract kids and make the dentist’s office a happy place is being sterilized, and one dentist is doing the work of two dentists, well, you may be waiting a while doing low-tech games like I Spy and repeating silly rhymes over and over. Which is exactly what we did. And because I have boys, a lot of silly rhymes were of the gross bodily function theme. Anyway, the checkup itself went just fine, despite the fact that every time we go there seems to be at least one child being ax-murdered in the background. At least that is what it sounds like. But now that I’ve written that down, it will probably be my child doing the child-from-The-Exorcist impression next time – because that is called hubris.