Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Another reason to hate the dog

The trip back from Ohio, well, at least from Rockford, IL onwards, I was pretty sure I had strep throat. As soon as we rolled into town, dropped the oldest at her play practice and got to our house I made plans to go to Urgent Care. After a nearly 2 hour wait at Urgent Care the quick-strep test came back positive, just like I expected.

Since I didn't get my first horse pill in me until 10pm Monday night I figured I'd be contagious (not to mention still in pain with every swallow) and had better plan on taking a sick day on Tuesday. I was sort of looking forward to a day of napping, wallowing in my bed and watching some brain-rotting daytime TV.

Shortly after a bath and a change into my sick-day duds (an old pair of sweatpants) I noticed my least favorite pet (Miley the dog) had decided to take a gigantic dump on our front walkway. Lovely.
So, I grabbed a plastic bag and went out the front door with a pair of my loafers slipped on my bare feet (and of course, no coat) ...only to see Miley nudge the front door shut in her excitement. And I'd only unlocked the deadbolt..so the bottom lock was still locked...and I was now locked out at 10:30am in below zero weather with no cell phone, no keys, no socks, no coat and a plastic baggy of dog poo.

Luckily my neighbor to the East of our property was home. So I trotted over to her house (a 3 minute brisk run in my loafers) and from her house I eventually tracked Jeff down at work. He knew the combination to the hidden key outside our house - so after one more cold walk and fumbling with the lockbox a bit, I was back inside safe and warm...and back to enjoying my sick day.

Monday, February 04, 2008

Kids say the darndest things

3 is a pretty fun age. Mr. Man says some pretty funny things.
Don't get me wrong, the other two are funny, too..but they are funny in a sassy, more sophisticated way now that they're school aged and hence, masters of sarcasm, comedic timing and the knock-knock joke.
Mr. Man just surprises me with how much he understands at such a young age.

Last night as I was tucking him into bed we had the following conversation:

Me: Good night sweetie. Sleep good.
Mr. Man: I don't wanna go to school tomorrow.
Me: I know. It's hard to go back after being with mommy and daddy all weekend - but you'll have fun. Maybe you can play in the snow with your friends! It's going to snow!
Mr. Man: No. I gonna have hiccups* and be puking so I can stay home tomorrow.

It seems awfully advanced to me that at 3 years old he already knows that if he could feign sickness he could avoid going to school and spend the day home with mommy or daddy. I'm sure I didn't figure that out until like..5th grade?!

(*the last time he had a stomach bug he thought hiccups caused him to throw up. Now he seems to associate hiccups with being pukey.)

This morning he was protesting having to go to school and kept telling me: "But, mommy, I have a cough!" (we've all had a mild case of the sniffles, but he didn't cough once this morning and he is in fact quite well).

Once we got to school and I was trying to get him settled in his classroom he wanted more cuddles. His wonderful teachers were helping to distract him (best to re-focus him on playing so that he wouldn't notice me slipping off to work). His teacher offered to cuddle him and he said: "no". She offered him some breakfast and he said: "No, I not hungry." So, they said he could go choose a center (aka: find some toys to play with). He seemed to consider that for a moment. So, she said: "Ok, go wash your hands and you can decide what center..." to which he protested right away:
"But I don't got any germs on them!"

He's got an answer for everything.