Trash Can Olympics

 My 5 year old, my little punkin doo, has always been healthy. That kid that never gets sick.  Then Kindergarten happened. She has been sick more this year than she has been her entire life.  All 5 years of it anyway. She has had  a couple of pukey viruses, but she had never been puked on.  She is the rock star of health! That is until last week.

I get ahead of myself, so let's start with three weeks ago shall we? Alright.  I received a call from school while at work.  The school called again, and I noticed they had called.  So I rush to the break room to call the school back.  I am already running worst case scenarios in my head.  Oh no! I missed the call! They think I am a horrible working mother because I waited to call them back until the second call! They are going to call CPS on me because I did not call back immediately! I knew that my baby had probably puked or was sick! So when I call the school back, my call is transferred to the school nurse, which cannot possibly, in any scenario, be good.

The nurse advises me that my little darling has indeed puked, but she is so proud of her because she made it to the trashcan and did not puke on herself, anybody else or the floor.  Yaaay LPD! Gold medalist right there in the Trash Can Olympics! Apparently making it all the way to the trashcan is rare among the kindergarteners!

So I leave work and go get my sick LPD from school.  As we are leaving the school, we are at the front door, and I notice that she has turned a rather telling shade of green.  She told me with a nod of her beautiful blonde head that it's coming again.  I told her to run back to the clinic.  Off she goes, and she accidentally takes the long way around through the office to the clinic.  She once again makes it to the trashcan. Needless to say the nurse takes me aside and exclaims how utterly extraordinary it is that she made the trashcan twice before getting sick. Whoo-hoo! Training paid off! Double Gold Medal in the Trash Can Olympics! My poor baby meanwhile is  feeling like poo, and burning up.  On the way outside, she asked to sit outside on the bench in the 35 degree weather to cool off.   My baby is like Hubbie the Dearest, she burns up.  Recently, as I have started having hot flashes, I can finally relate.

So I took her to my mawmaw-in-law for safekeeping and spoiling.  I return to work. After she cooled down, she felt better.

Fast forward to this last week. I get another call from the school.  When I called back, this time I was upgraded to being directly transferred to the principal.  She advised me that my child was okay, but there was an incident. First of all, never say that to a mother because worst case scenarios start running through my head. Like head injuries, broken bones, sexual harassment, and blood.  Lots of blood.  The principal dilly dallied to the point that I had. To ask if my child was alright.  Yes, Mrs. Gingerssnaps, LPD is fine.  The boy sitting behind her on the carpet, vomited. On your child.  We immediately put a clean shirt on her and are washing her other one, but we just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to bring her a change of clothes. Okaaay.....
I ask her if my child got sick, and if she was embarrassed or anything by it.  No. Okaaaay..... So then the principal let's me know that she wanted to call me personally to let me know, because she would want someone to call her if it happened to her child.  I told her my child was well adjusted and would be just fine in the lent T-shirt until hers was dry. Second of all, that rocks that the principal is that awesome! But unless my child is crying, dying, bleeding, unconscious, or unresponsive, I will gladly take the short version chatty Cathy. Wow, I never knew the sweet woman talked that much!

On Wednesday morning, my child woke at 5am to a cramping and hurting belly. She got up and had some juice and a red popsicle. I would like to take a moment out of my story to just say thank you to the popsicle makers of the world for cherry red Popsicles. Gods of the popsicle universe right there. I have never had a more pleasant kid vomiting experience.  My child is bag and can trained, so bleeek into the bag and then dispose. I have never smelled sweeter puke than red popsicle puke. So we have definitely patted ourselves on the back for our puke receptacle training.  Three out of three! Poor baby! She puked on her snow day! Then she missed two days of school and we found out she had strep! Poor lil punkin doo! Mommy loves her lil gold medalist!

But now seriously, can't all parents have trash can training with their little ones? Seriously.  I did, it is not that hard! My poor baby is like the Nancy Kerrigan  of the trash can Olympics.  Someone else had to try to sabatoge her good health, and puked on her. If my kid can make it to the trash can so can yours! But for now at least, LPD holds two gold medals in making the shot. And another one at home. Poor kid catches everything going around. Of course it might be easier on her attendance record if someone, let's say, oh I don't know didn't puke on her!

Hugs and Kisses,

Ginger

Mrs. O'Hara, Puking, Momma's Bible, Towels, and 3000

 I am PMS'ing.  I have only PMS'd two to three times in the last year.  As to why, well you need to read A Scrape, A Burn, 6 incisions, 4 units of blood, and a Little Heart Shaped Surprise .  So  we are in the process of moving.  Well, sort of.  There's a catch you see, we actually haven't started.  Moving that is.  I started.  And it sucks.  After having gone all but one month in the last eight, without the womanly curse, Mrs. O'Hara if you please, she is so not welcome back.  Especially now, when I need to be busting my booty putting away all the Christmas everything, and then packing to move.  By the end of the month.  Mrs. O'Hara came to visit the day before yesterday while mini-vacationing at my dad's house in WV.  The visit was planned, but I extended it a couple of days, to avoid the inevitable packing and moving.  Ugh.  My hubbie came up to spend the night with myself and the 4yo at my daddy's.  It's like after having been apart for five days, my one remaining ovary, which is no longer connected to anything, said, "whoa, hold up, I can still party like a rockstar!  I smell the hub testosterone!  I smeeeeellllllll it!"  Creak, groan, pinch, cramp, smoke emitting forth out of the hoochie girl, and whamm-o, it's kicking again.  I'll be damned.  Everytime I mention being gloriously rid of Mrs. O'Hara, bam!  It's like she hears me!  She says," Oh no my dearie, your not done yet!  You thought you were done? Oh sorry! HATE to be an inconvenience(insert wicked grin and evil laugh here)!" So while I don't feel like doing anything but laying in bed, I have been running errands.  For the last six days. Ugh.  And I have been a little sensitive. I am sure my MIL is reading this going,"you call that sensitive?"  Sorry MIL, love you!

 
 So anyway, while at the father's, we had a 4yo puking incident.  As soon as we fell asleep.  I woke up to a cough.  Not just any cough, THE cough.  The one that means, here it comes, the big one!  And it was one of those lovely ginormous ones.  The kind where the child's dinner was not digested.  Yup big ol' non digested cheese globs.  Yummy.  All over the sheets, the comforter ,pink and white jammies, four pillows, three blankets, two afghans, and all over the brand new pink pillow pet. ( Feel free to sing along to the tune of the Twelve Days of Christmas!) So needless to say, Dad and I did not get any sleep that night!  We were up washing everything off and out in the sinks, and the dreaded stench of the inside of my child's stomach invaded my nostrils and stayed there. Ugh.
 
 So the rest of the night, I am reliving washing the puke out of my child's clothes. No sleep for dear old mom.  Every time she coughed or made a noise, I was right there, under her face with a peach trash can.  I did not want puke all over, well... everywhere again.  Plus we were running out of blankets! I decided to go through my mother's books, while I was on yak detail.  My mother's bookshelf is right beside her bed.  She passed away a year ago to the day on Thanksgiving Day, of last year. My mother had a habit of putting tissues to mark her page in a book, when she was out of bookmarks.  So I decided I was ready to look at the last things my mother had been reading.  Several books were about love, several about health, some she had started and never finished, and there were many containing poetry and verse, which she loved.  And then there was her green bible.  I opened her bible, curious as to what I might find.  I found all of the usual things, obituaries of long gone relatives, programs from wakes past, and my grandfather's funeral program.  Then as I was flipping through to where the pages fell open, the book fell open to the twenty second and twenty third Psalm.

  There was a blood stain on the left hand side, where the twenty second Psalm was located.   There was an elongated strip of dried blood starting at the top, and one single dot at the bottom.  Tears just started silently falling from my eyes.  I knew my mother had been here and read these pages before she died.  I later discussed it with my dad, and we decided she had probably been reading her bible one day, ad had a nose bleed.  I cannot describe the feeling I had had as I read the words that my mother had been reading.  I knew instantly what she was feeling.  Here is an excerpt from that page;

The Holy Bible: King James Version. 2000.

The Psalms

22

A Cry of Anguish and Song of Praise
To the chief Musician upon Ai'jeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
1	My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Mt. 27.46 · Mk. 15.34   Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2	O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;