I feel like I’m surrounded by stupid people lately. Not the people that I know and love, just the random strangers. First there were all the idiots yesterday who were so appalled that a two year old would *gasp* cry and shriek (and they were subjected to it for under two minutes) in a freakin’ family doctor’s office, god forbid.

Then today I crossed paths with two winners. One was a guy collecting money for some organization. I didn’t quite catch which one because I was hurrying to get into the store. He held out the can and asked for a donation. I had $15 on me, a ten dollar bill and a five. I sort of needed them. I had no change. I apologized and said I had no change. He sneered at me and barked, “oh of COURSE you don’t, how lucky for you!”

You know, I might have gone back and dropped a buck in his can on my way out. But not after that crap! Way to charm people, buddy!

The other guy pissed me off so much that I may or may not have gotten rude. I had to go out in the early afternoon. The sidewalks aren’t knee deep in snow, but there’s enough of it and the slush that my little umbrella stroller won’t cut it. We do have a larger one but we don’t have it here (George keeps it in his parents’ garage) because I can’t carry it and Breanna down all our stairs.

So, I took her out in the little sled we have. I bought it for five bucks when Hayley was about this age and strangely, this is the first time I used it. Breanna freaked out at first whenever cars would go by but then she enjoyed herself and had a great time grabbing at the snow as we zipped along.

I was purposely walking on the inside of the sidewalk for two reasons – one, if she happened to topple out, she wouldn’t roll into the street, and two, it would help protect her from getting sprayed by any slush that might get thrown off the street by cars. As we’re heading along the sidewalk, a man was walking towards us. He wasn’t an elderly man, he was maybe ten years older than me, if that. And he was walking on the inside.

He was also looking straight at us. I’d cut him some slack if he was just unaware of our presence, but no. He saw me, he saw that I was pulling a sled, and he saw that I was turning around to talk to Breanna. I, being a decent person who would do this very thing if roles were reversed, expected him to step towards the outside of the sidewalk and go around us.

No.

He kept walking towards us and then he stopped dead in front of me and looked at me with the full expectation that I would move because GOD FUCKING FORBID he should have to go out of his way by a couple of inches to accomodate someone with a small child on a sled.

I looked at him and said, “oh no, PLEASE don’t trouble yourself to MOVE, I’ll just go around you as soon as I drag this SLED WITH MY KID IN IT out of your goddamn way.”

And he turned as I passed him, smirked, and shrugged his shoulders before continuing on his way.

I may have called him a fucking asshole as his important self walked off, but I won’t admit to such a thing. Ahem.

Seriously, it’s the holiday season. Where’s the holly jolly? Is everyone drinking expired eggnog?

Being sick was a nightmare but what’s frustrating after the fact is all the catching up you have to try to do. I missed a couple of days of work so I had to catch up on that. The apartment which had been so clean post-party was experiencing that, er, “not so fresh feeling” so I had to catch up on housework (George was awesome about helping keep things under control but he was also under the weather at the time). I fear I may never catch up on laundry unless I just throw everything out and start over.

And I finally caught up on photos. Thanks to an online friend who is of German descent, I’ve been celebrating St. Nicholaus Day since Hayley was a year old. We accidentally did it a day early but no one cared much; we set out Hayley and Breanna’s empty shoes by the door on the 4th and then when they woke up on the 5th, their shoes were full of fun little trinket type gifts. I was not well at all so Hayley had all her stuff out and open before I could even turn my damn camera on, but I managed to get Breanna. There is a small photo set over here, and then after I took the last picture I crawled back into bed.

Even better, after over a week, I finally got the birthday party photos up. That includes the Caillou cake which I did indeed draw freehand with some of those squeeze tubes of icing.

When Breanna saw the cake, she yelled, “Caillou!” so I knew I had done a decent job!

My favorite of all the gifts she got was the little Dora the Explorer nightgown and I think the cuteness of this picture explains why.

The rest of the photos are here.

*******
We also played doctor catch-up today. Somehow they ended up getting their check up appointments today even though Hayley has been five since September and Breanna turned two last month. Whoops. It went well and everyone is healthy. Hayley is still almost popping off the height charts for her age, and Breanna’s just above the middle of the chart for her weight so everything is pretty much status quo. Hayley did really well and Breanna did just fine until she had to have her MMR and Prevnar vaccinations.

Oh, the screaming.

Usually when there are two needles to give to a young child, they get another doctor or nurse to come in and they each take a side, doing it at the same time so that they don’t have to stick a poor little creature two times in a row. Sadly, no one was available so the doctor had to do one and then the other. If Breanna could have gotten ahold of an assault weapon… Sheesh. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled when we go back for the booster early next year.

I felt so bad for her. She completely melted down in the waiting room while I was trying to get her into her coat. That was fun because some people were giving me dirty looks. Which is why I turned to Hayley and asked her, loudly, to “please hurry up and get your coat on so we can leave so that these people can stop staring like they’ve never seen a child cry from being in pain and afraid.” Assholes.

The best part was when we got into the elevator. It was me, the girls, George’s dad, and some guy in his 20s. The door closed, we hit the button for the main floor and we promptly got stuck between floors. The guy said, “um, I don’t think we’re moving. Does it feel like it’s moving to you?” Trying not to panic I said, “no, I think you’re right.” We tried buttons and nothing happened. I looked at him and said, “this must be exactly what you’ve always wanted, to be trapped in an elevator with a screaming two-year-old.” At least he laughed. I pushed the panic button, the bell rang, and then we started moving again. Thank God. I’m not exactly claustrophobic but I’d probably freak out in a stuck elevator after about the first minute.

So far things are fine. Both girls are asleep (I can hear Breanna snoring like a machine over the monitor – there should be a law about kids catching colds right after gastro!) and I gave Breanna some Motrin because she was feeling a bit warm. She should be okay for the rest of the night.

And on that note, I think I’m going to head to Japan with my copy of Memoirs of a Geisha. It’s been a long time since a book has totally captivated me like this one has!

We know drama in this household. And while it’s occasionally funny to see the sheer amount of fury and rage that can be contained inside a tiny body, I sometimes fear for the future. There are just over three years between the two girls. At some point in time, they will both be volatile, hormonal, freaked out teenagers (like I once was) and I could just weep thinking of those days. Already, Breanna has learned a little phrase from Hayley: “Go ‘way”. We hear it regularly.

One of the most frustrating things in her life is that she wants to do everything herself but can’t actually do them all and so she lives with the internal battleground. She’ll start getting frustrated because, for instance, she can’t get a shirt on. She start stamping a foot or grunting angrily. I’ll bend down to help her. And then I hear, “NO NO NO! Go ‘way!” and she runs away. Then she gets angry because I leave her alone and she’s ticked off that I’m not helping her. Round and round we go in the endless circle of I-can-do-it-no-I-can’t-no-don’t-help-me-why-aren’t-you-helping-me?!

Eventually she hits peak tantrum level. And that’s when it’s hard not to feel a combination of amusement at the drama and terror at what that will look like at age 15. Because right now when Breanna has a tantrum, it usually ends with her running away, possibly shrieking, and then she will throw herself across something – the couch, a bed, or even onto the floor. It’s not so she can continue tantruming, rather it’s done in that teenage drama queen huff, and then she just lies there, head buried in her arms, and possibly thinking that there is nothing in this world as horribly unfair as a very lame PARENT.

I believe that particular photo was after I refused to let her have chocolate ice cream for breakfast. I am an oppressive mother, what can I say?

I look at her and I look at Hayley with her own brand of high drama flair and I can see the future with one or the other rolling her eyeballs mightily, huffing, “Mo-oooom” and flouncing to throw herself across her bed, pissed off that her damn mother won’t take her to the mall to get her bellybutton pierced like all her friends are doing.

From our home to yours.

If our family was made out of elves.

You’re welcome. I can hardly see from laughing so hard I cried.

And I’m pretty sure that light isn’t an oncoming train!

Today I have felt human the entire day. I was tired and I’m still weak from not eating much this week, but I’m better. Thank GOD. I made myself toast for breakfast, ate applesauce a few times, and for lunch and supper I made myself a bastardized version of Congee. Congee is a traditional Chinese dish which is basically rice porridge. It’s often served at breakfast but can be eaten any time. The basic recipe is a small amount of rice and a large amount of water. You’re supposed to use real rice but all I had was the instant kind. Luckily I found a recipe where someone had used leftover cooked rice and I figured it should work since instant rice is basically pre-cooked rice anyway.

I used half a cup of rice and three cups of water. I brought them to a boil and then turned it down one notch so it would keep boiling but not bubble over. It takes about 20-25 minutes of boiling for the water to reduce and then I was left with a small pot of porridge goodness.

When you get it in Chinese restaurants (*real* Chinese restaurants, not fast food court takeout crap) you can get countless varieties – it can come with chopped chicken, sliced beef, fish, combinations thereof, vegetables, seasonings that are spicy or sweet, whatever. But if your stomach is upset, just the plain Congee with a bit of salt and pepper to taste is great. It doesn’t have much taste but it feels wonderful in your tummy and it’s guaranteed comfort. I can’t believe I haven’t eaten it in about ten years.

So anyway, after eating it for lunch and making more for supper, I feel much better. I have a serious lack of protein in my body right now so I’m hoping to take care of that tomorrow, but at least everything I ate stayed where it was supposed to. I’ve also been drinking a lot of water and some ginger ale so I’m not dehydrated any longer. I may even have a cup of tea soon but NO milk in it. That Kraft Dinner episode scared me right off of dairy until I’m 100% sure that it’s safe for me again. I figure if I don’t have any more trouble, I should be okay to have some coffee tomorrow but not until I come back home.

We’re going to hit a second hand bookstore tomorrow because it’s been forever since I’ve been in one. I have four great books on my desk right now that I got for free, basically, because sometimes my reviews get me Amazon gift certificates as a thank you gesture. Free books? Woo! I got myself Memoirs of a Geisha which I’m almost 100 pages into right now and I love it. I wish so much that I could just curl up with it and read it without interruption because that world is so foreign to me and I’m loving every word of it. I also really want to read Wicked next, and then move through my other two, Love in the Time of Cholera and The Other Boleyn Girl, but just because I finally have some books that I want to read doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to go to a bookstore and find some more, especially since they’re cheaper.

When George and I worked at the studio, there was a secondhand book and CD store around the corner from us and we used to go there regularly (he took me there on our first date, total keeper). I could easily spend over an hour in there. It wasn’t big but it was well organized. There was another one downtown but it was total chaos in there with fiction and non-fiction and horror and bodice-rippers all piled pell-mell onto the shelves. While that can be fun if you have a lot of time to browse, the one near the studio made it a bit easier to narrow down your searches. I loved sitting on the floor in the corner and pawing through the horror novels and the young adult stuff. I miss that store.

So tomorrow should be a good day for bookworms, I can’t wait – and thus there will be no coffee with milk before I go because I don’t want to have to rush straight back home!

And just when I thought I was in the clear, I was so wrong. Gastro 3, Sherry 0. This feeling is exactly why cats crawl into a tight dark space to die when it’s their time. Not that I feel like curling up to die but I would indeed love to curl up somewhere dark and quiet and warm and not come out until this thing is truly over.

Word to the wise: If you’re just getting over gastro, do not under any circumstances eat Kraft Dinner no matter how comforting it sounds. It may taste wonderful going down and give you some strength but then the dairy you forgot about (because you’re a frickin’ moron) will hit your stomach and you will be so violently ill that it will be a miracle that neither kid wakes up from the commotion.

Also? The color-free Pedialyte is the nastiest, most vile substance I have tried to choke down since I had to take some kind of icky medicine when I was a kid. Buckley’s tastes better. Next time we buy Pedialyte you can be sure we’re getting the fruit punch flavor just in case I actually have to drink it too.

Good night.

(Hi Holidailies readers! I promise I don’t usually write endlessly about being sick. Better entries soon. I hope.)

Well, the gastro that Breanna caught was pretty damn contagious seeing as how I came down with it too. Can I just say that gastro sucks?

Luckily she seems to be better, having eaten something real last night (a small bit of chicken) and some more food today. I’m not what I would call “well” at this point but I’m certainly better than I was in the middle of the night. For two days I had minimal sips of water (probably dehydrating myself tremendously, but I just couldn’t get it down more than just a sip here or there), a very tiny bowl of chicken noodle soup, and two small bowls of applesauce. Tonight for supper I had a toasted bagel and that was possibly the most delicious thing I have eaten ever. It was so good to put something solid into my stomach, and the gingerale I’ve been sipping in between small cups of water has helped too.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the day after that, at which point I’ll hopefully feel a lot more human that I have the past 48 hours.

Just when I thought I couldn’t laugh tonight, I found this entry and ended up snorting so hard I think i may have hurt myself.

Well, it just sort of continued from where we were last night. Breanna was sick again twice in the night, and two more times today. On top of that, I feel horrible myself. I can’t warm up no matter what I do (I’m waiting on a kettle to boil right now in the hopes that tea will help), my stomach feels very volatile, and my legs are a giant ache.

The hard part really is that while feeling like doing the cat thing and crawling into a closet to die, I actually have to take care of someone else who is also sick. On the other hand, it’s not all that bad. Hayley (who feels gosh-darn-dandy thankyouverymuch) is in school for a large part of the day so she’s entertained at least, and Breanna isn’t a newborn who wants to be walked around all day – she spent most of the day sitting on my lap while I did my best to work as much as I phsyically could, and she also slept on me while I laid on the couch. And at least we’re keeping each other warm with body heat.

Plus George is really helpful even though he’s under the weather himself – he’s under orders to take it easy for the next few days but he’ll still get Hayley what she needs or hold Breanna if I need to pee.

So we’re surviving, but honestly I’m hoping this is a short-term gastro. Speaking to my friend about it this evening, I found out that there’s one going around our area and some daycare facilities were even shut down because the staff was sick and the toys and surfaces all needed disenfecting. Still, I’ve seen Breanna perk up a few times today so hope prevails. Tonight, about ten minutes after she had puked again, she was lying on a towel on the couch watching some cartoons. Hayley started making fart noises (what, that isn’t standard in your home too?) really loudly and even though I was down the hall putting fresh sheets on the bed, I heard Breanna burst into gales of laughter. When Hayley stopped, Breanna weakly called out, “again ‘Aylay, again!”

Only in our family can fart humor still be totally appreciated even while you’re sick.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning to a ton of snow (that’s not the surprise, we knew it was coming). George and I were debating whether or not to send Hayley to school seeing as how we couldn’t see much of the street and it appeared that we no longer had sidewalks. We put the radio on and discovered her school – and most of the other elementary and high schools – were closed anyway, so we quietly went back to bed and everyone slept past eight this morning. Yay, snow day!

I have to admit, my once-teenage-self was jealous because not once in my life did our schools ever close. Kids today, so pampered!

The second surprise was less pleasant. As Breanna watched “Go Diego, Go” before bed, I was cleaning up the toys and she decided to come see what I was doing. Completely out of the blue, she suddenly started gagging and then she promptly puked all over the (new!) rug, her toy, herself, and me. So that was fun.

She was okay until I carried her to the bathroom to wash her up, and then her OCD kicked in when she noticed some was on her. She can’t stand things on her hands, so she started crying and saying, “off! OFF!” I wiped her down and tossed her in a bath, and she perked back up right away. Still, it took a lot out of her because it took her no time to fall asleep. She’s been restless in her sleep and George and I had to pause our movie three times so I could go check on her but each time she conked out again within two minutes. Poor baby, it was her first time actually vomiting.

Let’s hope she’s better by tomorrow!