Black Saturday

On Black Friday morning I opened up my email to find about 50 messages and all of them were from retailers offering up holiday door busters (which, maybe should have a new name when they're for on-line stores. Portal busters?). I deleted all of the sale messages. I get so overwhelmed by all the offers that I just can't begin to sift through everything to separate the good deals from the bad deals. I'm also convinced that if I wait something better might come along. Sometimes I'm right about that.

The one thing I did do was to order our holiday cards because there was a 15% off deal at Minted on Thanksgiving Day. While everyone else was watching football, I jumped on the computer to order the cards and get the discount. Imagine my irritation when one of the 50 messages I received on Friday was from Minted with a promotion of 20% off holiday cards. As Sister would say, "Son of a biscuit!"

As for actually going to the stores on Black Friday, the thought never crossed my mind. The Baby will get homemade lip balm (a real thing) before I stand in a seven hour line for a Doc McStuffins doll.

Last week a friend mentioned that she was going to remodel her kitchen soon and was planning to get all her appliances on Black Friday. "That's so smart!" I said, even as I was thinking that I'd rather host a children's archery party at the High Art Museum than shop for appliances on Black Friday.

Small business Saturday is a more manageable concept and I would have liked to patronize some of our great local businesses, but instead I was stuck in the monkey house with one sick monkey and two cranky monkeys. I also learned that the only thing worse than having a kid with strep throat is having a kid with all the strep symptoms, but a negative strep test, and a doctor who tells you to expect a phone call the next day because he can't imagine that the test won't turn positive. Don't these doctors understand that if the Baby doesn't start antibiotics until Sunday, she can't go to school on Monday?!  When you've been with your children for eight solid days this is significant.

The Baby spent the day being sick or well, depending on which condition suited her purposes.

The Baby: I want to go outside and play.

Me: You're sick, sweetie. You need to stay inside.

The Baby: (screaming) I'm not sick! I feel okay! I weelly, weelly, weelly want to go outside.

Me: (defeated, worn down by the whining) Fine. At least put on some shoes.

 Cut to five minutes later. Baby's screaming grows louder and louder until she appears, shoeless, hurling herself against the back door.

The Baby: [The Boy] tackled me! He tackled me and I'm sick! I'm weelly, weelly sick and he tackled me. (tears, carrying on)

Sigh. You know, I've always thought that as you get older you become more and more like yourself. So, if your tendency is to be critical of others, you will become super critical of everyone as you get older. I think this theory also applies to families who spend a lot of time together without organized activities or outside influences. In our case, the Girl, who is a natural instigator, will instigate more. For example, the house next to us is for sale and the Girl told the Boy that the realtor and the clients viewing the house yesterday were burglars. (This is funnier if you saw the people who could not have looked less like hardened criminals.) The Boy becomes more violent; tackling and tripping his sisters. He also gets more randomly ridiculous. He stuck the Baby's hairbrush into her cup of lemonade and then sucked the lemonade off the brush. Why?  I have no clue. The Baby becomes more sensitive and likely to dissolve into tears if someone looks at her. As you can imagine, this makes for a charming dynamic.

It also dovetails unpleasantly with the salient features of my personality and the K's personality. The K gets impatient and frustrated with the children more easily and quickly than I do. I'm not sure if it's the children becoming more like themselves that makes him even more impatient and more frustrated than usual, or if it's his personality traits becoming more pronounced, but it is decidedly un-fun for all. At heart, I am an introvert who likes to have time alone. I also like everything neat and tidy. To misquote "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," I'm not obsessive, I'm just drawn that way. When everyone is cooped up in the house it's pretty hard to get any alone time and it's impossible to keep anything neat. So, then I get cranky and the children feed off of the crankiness and we all end up arguing and the children end up crying. Usually I'll remember that I'm the Mom and that job confers some responsibilities, like pulling it together when you feel like hiding in the basement with your iPhone and a snack. Typically, I'll come up with some random thing to distract everyone. This is why our Elf on the Shelf has been creating mischief for two days already and why my children spent some time watching several iterations of the "Gangnam Style" video on YouTube.

  
Words to live by!  I have to think that I wasn't the only parent who resorted to entertaining children with the South Korean video over the long Thanksgiving weekend, since Saturday it pushed past Justin Beiber's "Baby" for the most watched YouTube video of all time. Poor Justin. First he splits with Selena Gomez, then he gets surpassed for YouTube supremacy by a video in a language that the vast majority of the viewers don't understand.

So, things could always be worse! Ah, schadenfreude. It always makes everything better. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

   

Sick Day

My throat has been hurting over the last few days. I didn't mention my sore throat to anyone, because I failed to negotiate any sick days into my mom contract, so I was hoping it would magically get better. Each morning I'd wake up hopeful, then I drink some water and feel like I was swallowing razor blades. Here's the thing about being a stay at home mom: you can't get sick. I know, I know, that's not realistic because everyone gets sick. But, if you look at the facts, you'll see that I'm right.

You can't get sick because first of all, you have no time to visit a doctor. When I call my regular doctor I can't ever get a same-day appointment. I find this to be ridiculous because after a few days you'll either be better or you'll be hospitalized, so what's the point? Your other option is a doc-in-the-box, but during cold and flu season you'll wait for two hours to be misdiagnosed. So, just forget about going to the doctor unless you are truly at death's door, and, in that case, just skip the doctor and go right to the ER. Second, if you think that you'd feel better if you just lay quietly on the couch watching HGTV and Bravo all day, think again. There is laundry and dinner and drop-off and pick-up and when the kids get home, they'll want to watch Dora or Wild Kratts or Spongebob and they'll jump all over you and whine about needing juice or pretzels or they'll clog the toilet or knock the pictures off the wall while jumping on the bed. Things will get out of control fast. You know it's bad, when this starts looking like your best option:

Knowing that the cards were stacked against me, I set out yesterday morning to get myself diagnosed and treated in the 2.5 hours I had between dropping off the Baby at school and having Thanksgiving lunch with the Girl at her school. My first stop was the CVS Minute Clinic. Whoever named the Minute Clinic was clearly unaware of the meaning of the word "minute." Hour Clinic, Day Clinic, Eon Clinic all would have been more apt names for the nurse's station tucked in the back of the CVS. There were eight names before mine on the waiting list and a sign said that I should calculate 20 minutes for each person. When I realized that, at best, I would be spending the next 1.5 hours in CVS, I beat a hasty retreat.

My next stop was a local urgent care center. Again, this place was misnamed as no one moved with any sense of urgency and no one seemed to care. I would rename it the Slow Indifference Center. Maybe I'm just bitter because they confirmed what I already expected: I had strep throat. This makes me the Benjamin Button of illnesses. No joke. When I was 26 I had shingles, which is a condition most common in people over the age of 60. You can't even get the vaccine unless you are over age 50. Strep throat, on the other hand, is most common in children ages 5-15. When I'm in my 70's I expect to have a terrible case of colic.

The easy part should have been getting some medicine now that I was diagnosed. However, that's not the case when you're allergic to the two drugs that are most commonly used to treat strep throat. You know it's a bad sign when the nurse practitioner asks:

"how allergic are you to penicillin and cleocin?" 

Me: "I break out in hives."

Nurse: "But, you don't go into anaphylactic shock?" 

Me: "Well, no, but I don't really want to take the risk that I could this time!" 

She looked irritated and sent me out with a prescription for something that she though might work and instructions to get a new toothbrush and to call my dentist about how to disinfect my lovely bite guard.

 
When I went to pick up my prescription, I had about 15 minutes before I had to be at the Girl's lunch. Another bad sign: when the pharmacist need to talk with you before she'll fill your prescription. According to the pharmacist, because of my other drug allergies, I had a 25% chance of being allergic to my prescribed medicine. Her suggestion was that I have someone present with me when I take the medicine in case I had a severe reaction and needed assistance. So, I texted Mom who agreed to come over with her anti-allergy kit of Benadryl and an Epi-Pen and stand at the ready when I took the medicine.

In the end, I got my prescription and I didn't have any reaction. Also, Mom wanted to help so she folded two loads of laundry and I ate frozen yogurt for lunch. And, this morning I woke up and only felt like I was swallowing small thumbtacks instead of razor blades, so I think I'm on the mend. I have a few hours left while I'm still contagious, during which time I am available to commit germ warfare Jeffrey Amherst-style against criminals and evil-doers. Have a great day!