Recently in Wife/mother/woman crap Category

If you are eating lunch right now, go away and do not come back until you are finished. Today I'm discussing something that doesn't jibe with eating.

For the past three days Ewan has had a fever of over 100 degrees. Its peak was 103.9 (fevers in little kids are only dangerous when they hit 105) yesterday and I dosed him with Motrin and held him for three hours while applying a cool wash rag to his face. He's also vomiting, yeay! - all over the kitchen, the boys' bathroom, our bed - and I've spent the better part of this week in an attempt to find food and drink that will stay on his stomach. I've gotten about six hours of sleep in the past two days; this morning Chris let me sleep in while he took care of Ewan after Ewan threw up all over the bed again at four this morning. I think Chris was afraid of how I shuffled around the house like a zombie and refused to wear a bra.

That shuffling noise wasn't coming from my feet.

The yeah funtime journey! began Sunday night when Ewan awoke with a shriek. We both bolted into the room like we were brandishing pitchforks and storming Frankenstein's castle; when Chris scooped him out of his crib he noticed that Ewan felt hot. Fever: 103 degrees. I called our pediatrician's emergency exchange; we're giving him Motrin; I took him to the pede Monday; we're just waiting until the virus is finished with his little body. Ewan is listless and feverish for the most of the day; Monday night after a dose of Motrin his stomach gurgled and I knew what was coming, yet had no time to do anything about it. I braced myself as he spewed all over me, the kitchen table, the floor, the stove, the refrigerator, and anything else with a surface. It was awesome. Liam gagged and ran out of the room; I sat for a moment in total vomit-covered disbelief.

Of course all of this coincides with deadlines and the monster is baaack! This is the last cycle before the OB visit, folks, and then embarrassing displays of hormonal instability over! I first noticed that my symptoms were a few days early while at the reunion. One of the drunk stoners threw a little tantrum because I took the seat he wanted and I rose from the table in a way befitting my dramatic southern roots and growled "By all means, don't let me get in the way of you getting totally sauced, since I see that in ten years' time your goals are still the same. WAY TO AIM HIGH!" Then I gave the Fonzee thumbs-up and flashed a razor grin.

For added good measure, because I was on a roll, I called up my cousin - whose dead car was left in our drive for seven weeks with no phone calls as to when or if it would be gone and we've been unable to finish dry-walling the garage or pull Chris's car inside - and said "You need to get this car because the monster is here this week AND I MAY SET IT ON FIRE." Honestly, sometimes controlling the hormones is like putting a leash on fog. And the cramps! During college I had mild endometriosis wherein I curled into the fetal position for several uninterrupted days until a prescription offered me walking-upright hope. The past several days have not been entirely unlike those.

Our mothers have swooped in, eager to help as we mostly keep them on the bench due to our naively independent parenting style. The boys' one-day-a-week sitter started back to school this week which means I'm considering hiring a college sitter OH THE FUN; so Chris's dad took the boys swimming while Chris's mom is here tending to Ewan while I fulfill my contractual goodness. Of course because she is here, his fever went down and he hasn't puked since this morning. OF COURSE.

Sometimes you just have to laugh at Murphy's Law.

I love my boys and still pine for a daughter, but every now and then something comes along that causes me to reevaluate my blessings and thank God for totally NOT giving me a daughter. Among these things are dating, dating, the whining, the borrowing of my clothes without asking, dating, those freaky little My Little Ponies, and play make-up.

When I was a little girl my mother bought me a large plastic bust of a Barbie head with cornsilk hair and her very own makeup. No amount of effort or makeup could ever make my Barbie look like one of the models in my mother's Good Housekeeping magazine; in fact, the Barbie head resembled a hooker-clown.

My friend's daughter recently received a gift of play makeup from her (the friend's) mother-n-law. I noticed it because she looked like she might have been beaten up at the circus.

My friend told her MIL: "Next time get her REAL makeup instead. This stuff's impossible to get off. Plus she looks like some sort of freaky streetwalker. You know I had to get this stuff off with tool grease?"

Chris spent a few minutes longer than usual on his requisite black shirt-n-jeans outfit this morning because MTV is in town on a press junket for a forthcoming artist who's working with one of Shock City's artists. They're all meeting this afternoon. Chris got all girl and asked me which of his identical black vintage concert shirts he should wear. For a fleeting second, I felt as he probably does when I ask him to decide which heels I should wear: The beige or the taupe?

"Oh my gawd, THEY'RE BOTH BROWN."

"No, one is BEIGE and one is TAUPE. They're not entirely brown."

"You know that this whole renaming of the colors is a big fashion scheme in order to get women to buy the same stupid thing several times, right?"

"That's just blasphemous."

This past week I've been ridiculously crabby. Before I continue, a service to the male readers - ATTN. MEN: I am about to talk about PERIODS on my website. Avert thine eyes if the discussion of menstruation and the accompanying hormones bothers you.

Anyway, I've always noticed that my hormones go girls gone wild, wild meaning slightly homicidal, at the onset of every cycle. Lately though, I think it's becoming worse. I've always chided women who blame their normally witchy behavior on PMS but after I had kids my PMS began morphing me into the female Ken Shamrock. And the only reason I know who he is is because Chris likes to watch Ultimate Fighting because we've been living in this small town too long and are becoming hoosiers as a result.

Last week my hormones pinned me against the wall. One event in particular set it off, and I hate to be vague but it's required at this point otherwise POOP + FAN. This event caused my tongue to fork and I was curt and unreasonably witchy for the rest of the week. In addition, my seventeen-year-old cousin decided to come home at 2 a.m. that's TWO IN THE MORNING, THAT'S THREE HOURS PAST CITY CURFEW, the curfew of a city she's NEVER driven around in, EVER. I growled demonically into the phone to the people she was out with and resisted the overwhelming urge to drive 45 minutes north to where she was - 25 minutes away from the place she was supposed to be - and THROW DOWN kuntry-style. After we waited up for her - me pacing the hardwood floors in my stilettos (we attended a big Greek wedding while she went to a concert) - I lectured her about all of the raping! murdering! mugging! robbing! stabbing! and carjacking! that goes on in this city. I was all "THIS IS NOT THE SMALL TOWN FROM WHENCE YOU CAME." I also put a scary emphasis on the importance of answering one's cell phone when their older cousin, who's charged with their care, calls to check on their well-being.
If she were my daughter I would've tied her to the kitchen table, but alas, she is not.

Not so much a help with the whole PMS thing.

Usually I have unbearable cramps - I had a mild case of endometriosis which subsequently vanished after my second pregnancy - but for the past year I've had nothing but fatigue and harsh mood swings. The mood swings aren't so much "swings" as they are death-defying free falls into the fieriest pits of hell. I recognize what's going on and I take care to reign in my mood. My body runs like clockwork and I meticulously chart my body's schedule so I can immediately identify why I feel the need to scream and dismember puppies. I've also cut out any and all caffeine and unnecessary sugar from my regular diet and am eating healthier than usual. Chris and I've discussed it; I plan to meet and discuss the situation with my OB because WOW.

I've been hesitant to discuss women's mood swings and the treatment of such - be it natural or medicinal - publicly because in doing so you're TOTALLY ASKING FOR IT. I'm most concerned with the "suck it up" response because I HAVE BEEN SUCKING IT UP and all of the sucking is giving me a headache.
I'm just curious about all of the options out there. Maybe I should embark on an exercise program. I flirted with yoga once; I bought a DVD and tried to do it at home but the boys were all "HUMAN. JUNGLEGYM." When I was able to do it I felt great afterwards. It's just near impossible to find regular help with the boys aside from our neighbor-girl whom we have watch the boys for a few hours once a week while I work.

So in conclusion: I'm not depressed. I'm just beyond cranky once a month and I'd like to make that better.