Where did the time go???

Wow! I can't believe I have neglected this poor blog for so long! I'm a stay-at-home mom with three kid-free mornings a week! I have no excuses for this negligence! WHAT KIND OF BLOGGER AM I?!?!

Ok, now that I got that rant out of the way, I can move on.

So Fall has fallen all around us. The colors are beautiful, the firewood is stacked on the porch, the sweaters are out of storage, and our pumpkins have all been chewed up by our resident squirrel.

This is the same squirrel that eats our porch decor, poops on our lawn chairs, digs up my potted plants, and generally seems to live to taunt me. Today, the little stinker jumped from the porch railing to the window ledge with a Very Loud Crash. The result of this was that in the middle of my diligent working on my novel for NaNoWriMo this morning, I nearly dropped my computer and my heart jumped out of my chest.

The little fuzzbutt then proceeded to stand plastered spread-eagle against the window looking at me for the length of time it took me to locate my heart on the ceiling and cram it back into my chest. With what I swear was a smug look on his face, the little rat turned around, stuck his posterior up at me and pooped on the window ledge. He then looked at me over his shoulder, stuck out his tongue, and bounded off the porch. I am totally not kidding you.

Well, he may not have stuck out his tongue actually, but I know he would have. The intent was clear.

So anyway, Fall is here. Winter is on the way. Do squirrels go south for the winter?

Snow, Hail, Sunshine...

I have been having a great few weeks! I am cautiously optimistic about this though. The last few times I got overzealous about feeling good, I crashed pretty hard soon after. I spent the first week or so tentatively feeling about my limits - can I skip a nap, walk up the hill instead of drive, get more than one chore done per day? In my flair-ups, if I tried any of these things during a good spell, I'd crash immediately after. So you can see why I was a little hesitant to push anything to far.

So far, I haven't tanked out. I have been pushing a little farther each day. I started working out at the gym, and swimming up at the pool. (I figure I should probably get myself into shape for that triathlon and bike ride...) I have been doing laundry and cleaning my house. Those are things I haven't done in months! I know you're probably getting a great mental image after that last statement, but fortunately, we've had many, many generous and wonderful people helps us out this last year. Even with the laundry and house cleaning.

So now that I have been plugging along for the last few weeks and seemingly making progress, I am upgrading myself from cautiously optimistic to hopefully excited. And that leads me to the title of this post.

We've had the wackiest weather here in the Northwest lately. Yesterday, the morning started out dark and gloomy, and at one point, it actually snowed for a bit. Not too long after that, we had a 45 minute long hail shower. It was actually kind of pretty (until you stuck your nose out in it and got frost bit!). I had the whole day pegged in my mind. It was a stay indoors and lament the loss of Spring sort of day.

But then, just when I had given up the idea of venturing outside, the sun peeked out. An hour later, the sky was the most beautiful, clear blue with a scattering of fluffy white clouds. And the best part, when you stepped outside, it wasn't cold anymore. It was that sink into your skin all the way down to your bones kind of warmth that you can only get from finding that perfect spot in the sun. The kind of warm sunniness that makes me think cats may be the smartest of us all.

So next time I do have a flair-up, and it seems like it's lasting forever, I'll remember the way that sun felt. I felt it warmer and deeper and more clearly because I was coming out of the hail and snow.

Words of Wisdom

Last evening, I walked into the dining room and interrupted a long standing ritual between my husband and my eldest son. It's certainly not the worst thing in the world, but this particular ritual I could live without. It bothers me on several levels, but mostly it's visceral. The boys apparently get a very big kick out of removing the belly button lint out of their dad's navel...

This has been going on for a while. I don't know when it started, but I suspect it had been going on for some time before I became aware. The testosterone faction of the clan knows how eeewwwwy I find some of their male bonding activities, and they try to spare me for the most part. And I can live with that.

Unfortunately for me, this time I stepped right into the middle of this age-old tradition. (Well, age-old to a seven year old...)

And this time, they caught me making my 'I can't believe I share a house and toilet with these heathens' face. I tried to stop it, but it all happened so fast. You try keeping your nostrils from flaring, your lips from twisting all funny and your tongue from sticking out at the same time you try to keep gagging noises from popping out of your mouth. It's HARD! That's a lot of concentrating!

I reacted, and instead of getting annoyed with me like they usually do when I interrupt these bizarre rituals, Big Guy turned to me and said in the voice of a Jedi master, "Mom. You have to understand the joy of the fuzz."

And then he wandered off.

So today, with all the chaos and chores and rushing around, I leave you with this. Stop what you are doing, take a deep breath, and take a moment to understand the joy of the fuzz.

Whatever that means.

But we might fall in looove!

Okay, so posting this online is the sort of thing that will get me in serious trouble when the boys start showing serious interest in girls. Well, more serious than what they show now... Ok, I guess that's not saying much Anyway, it's also the sort of thing that will have lovely blackmail points for when they start showing serious interest in girls...

hee hee hee

That warning/disclaimer/teaser out of the way, I can now relate to you the following conversation which was overheard by a mom friend of mine. My son (who will remain nameless in order to ensure equal opportunity privacy or blackmail, depending on how you look at it) was a little late for class. When Doodle Bug arrived, he was greeted so enthusiastically by his friends, one in particular, that he blurted out, "That's enough! Any more and I will just fall in looove with you! And I am WAY too young to fall in love!"

Hilarity aside, I love how they are so free to show how much they care for each other. My son consistently greets his friends with hugs and kisses, proclamations of love, and other joyous exclamations. If I were a bit more effusive with my feelings, I wonder what the response would be? Maybe I should let people know more often how much I appreciate them, miss them, love them, or what have you. Maybe I should do it without the full bodied invasion of personal space that seems to go over in my son's world though.

Any one who has been near a four year old knows exactly what I mean.

Jelly-legged quivering heap of goo! FUN!

So for all of you who don't yet know (probably all of you, knowing me), I have signed up for the Danskin Triathlon AND the 175 mile MS bike ride (not to do at the same time! I'm not totally crazy!)

I won't say I am biking to help MS like so many other people say. I would rather bike to help get RID of MS. Honestly, I think MS is getting all the help it needs all on its lonesome. It doesn't need anymore help. It needs a good, old kung fu kick to the tushy is what it needs! I want MS to feel like I'm sure I'll feel at the end of the ride.

So if you want to help MS, help it feel like a jelly-legged quivering heap of goo that is, check out my page at the MS society.

And oh yeah, support my ride!

Thanks!

Quick update

So I am back on the IV steroid roller coaster. I just got home from day four of a five day course. I did get horribly sick from it yesterday, but sedatives, anti-nausea meds, and a slew of other remedies later, I was floating along just fine.

My neurologist just isn't happy with my lack of progress, hence the latest attempt at steroids. I will finish the IV portion tomorrow, and then have a two week oral taper. I also get to be sedated for as much of it as I need, so at least I won't feel as bad as I did yesterday... Woo yay!

They did take out my IV port on Valentines day so that The Doctor and I could go out to dinner sans tubes and bandages for our big date. I felt good that night and we had a lot of fun talking about everything non-medical and kid. We even made it over to Cupcake Royale to get a few of my favorite peppermint chocolate cupcakes. I did pick up a few for my wonderful Ballard treatment nurses. They are so great there; the best I have ever worked with! They deserve a little Cupcake Royale everyday!

So here is my medium long quick update. I am about to go crawl back into Big Guy's bed (since sleeping in my bed in the middle of the living room just screams JUMP ON ME! to the kiddos...), and pull the covers over my head. I may not even have to take a Lorazapam tonight! Yay for the little steps!

A relapse from relapsing?

So after my three day steroid infusion (that really sounds like a drink!) right before Thanksgiving, I swore I would NEVER DO THAT AGAIN! The steroid infusion, not Thanksgiving. I felt so awful, so miserable, so ill, so sick (see where I'm going with this?) that it really didn't seem that it could be worth it. To top it all off, I didn't notice any change in my symptoms. At first.

Veeeerrryyy gradually, in fact so gradually that a moving glacier might have outpaced us, I started noticing some of my symptoms receding. It's now been about two months, the amount of time they did say some people take for the steroid to take effect, and other than the fatigue and the memory stuff, I am doing significantly better. I am no longer limpy and trippy, and I have most of my mornings back. I am able to get a few things done most days, which for me is a huge comfort.

I still feel wiped out most afternoons, and I still take a three or four hour nap almost every day. I still struggle to get anything done in the evenings, but even that doesn't seem as dire as it did before. I also started some other meds and increased dosages on others (actually my doctors did, just to clarify so you don't get the wrong idea...). So now I don't have to race to the bathroom every fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds. Hurray!

I guess the lesson I've learned here is that like every other time in my life, I am a slow learner. Ha ha ha. No that's not what I learned. Well actually, maybe I did learn that too. No, I think I can say I learned about trust - my doctors DO know what they're talking about when they say try this, it'll probably work, God when he tells me that things will not stay the way they are when times are tough, friends who let me lean on them when I can't take care of myself or my kids or my house, and myself when I need to take time to let myself rest and put everything else to the side for a while. Trust is a hard thing to do, but if a slow learner like me can do it...

Mizz Poopy hands

So I laid Tater Tot down for her nap today, already well past the normal time, and she had an absolute hissy fit. "I don't NEED a nap! I don't WANT a NAP!!!" All this just confirmed that while she indeed may not want a nap, she definitely needed a nap. So down for a nap she went.

All was quiet for about forty minutes, until I suddenly heard her furious shriek of "MOMMY!!! COME NOW!" which I did my best to ignore. After this went on for some minutes, increasing in fury and volume, I finally decided to check it out.

I opened the door to see her standing in the middle of her room, hands waving in the air, quivering with rage and indignation. "There's poop on my hands!" she growled at me. Sure enough. Those waving hands were both completely covered in poo. She looked like she'd been having one of those mud masks at the spa, except this didn't smell like rosemary and mint...

Further inspection revealed that not only hands, but dresser, bookshelf, door knob, pillowcase, etch-a-sketch, and floor had also had dookey um, bestowed upon them. What a fun way to spend an afternoon for mommy!

Princess Tater did get to have a spa treatment out of the deal. She had a bath, had her nails scrubbed, clipped and buffed, her hair done, and got a body polish out of the deal. Plus her room got a mini makeover! Fun! This better not start a trend...