YOU KNEW I'D BE BACK

Don't worry - I didn't succumb to the evil green onion e coli rampage. I've just been extremely busy the last week, I haven't had time to even think about putting together any tangible thoughts. But I'm back now - so all is good.

Since I left off, me and the hubby got the Guitar Hero package. We spent Friday and Saturday night jamming. I had to laugh at how addictive this game actually is. That and me and Jarrett have a "friendly" competitive nature between us. Actually he kicked my ass in most face offs. The only time I could kick his when it was a complicated song like Santana or Metallica's "One". I told him this means I have more raw talent. Plus he played before when I hadn't - it's no wonder he dominated. His friend's found out that we have it, and actually invited themselves over this week-end. Not sure how that happened: seems one guy said "Hey I'll come jam with you" and then texted another one to join in. I said, "Wow nice of them to let us know they are coming". Sheesh! You will laugh when I tell you that I decorated my guitar not with the standard rock n roll stickers that come with the set, but rather with Karis' Hello Kitty stickers. Yes you read right - I put Hello Kitty all over my guitar! So I'd like to see the look on the guy's faces when one of them is forced to play on the Hello Kitty guitar. It may be a little immasculating. I think it's funny as hell. I might even offer to paint their toenails when they are between sets.

Sunday afternoon I was invited to a friend's house and she had a spa party. It consisted of new age tranquil music, a glass of white wine, and a facial, and hand and foot treatments! AHHHHH!!!!! My pores are refined, my face is dermabraised and supple, my hands look like I don't wash dishes, and my feet don't look like cloven hooves. All in all, it was a good time. PLUS I didn't have to contend with any children whatsoever! Of course the ackward part was at the end, when the hostess was trying to pimp out all the products. I loved the line, "All these products are valued at $650.00 - but if you buy into the plan, you can get it all for $150.00". I mean c'mon! I'm more than happy to go to London Drug and buy my Vichy stuff. And I'm not so old yet that I need special cream for crow's feet. Give me some time before that phase of my life. I jokingly said, "Whatever a cream can't fix, botox can". Watch, the next invite I'll get will be to a Botox party.

The girls will be out on Spring Break starting in T minus two days. Ahhhhh, 13 glorious days in a row with my children. I sound like a cold-hearted bitch. Actually I'm at a loss how I'll occupy Kierra that whole time. Whenever she's bored, she gets busy. Busy to her means being destructive and making me want to hit the liquor cabinet. Jarrett was kind enough to take a day off to help break it up a bit. I was initially hoping to go to my parents for Easter/Spring Break, but when that plan fell through, I knew I was going to have to go solo.

Anyways, that's about it for me. I'm trying to think of reasons why I shouldn't make the trip to the dry cleaners to drop off Jarrett's shirts, but since I can't - I best be on my way. Cheers!

DEATH BY ONIONS

I am currently under the weather. After another famed Kierra "taco night", Jarrett and I both succumbed to the wretchedness of food poisoning. Before you think "hell I'm never going to her house for dinner", let me get one thing straight. It wasn't my fault! It was the blasted green onions! It is the only logical explanation because the kids ate everything we did EXCEPT for the green onions. They are fine -no explosive diarrhea, no projectile vomiting, no pounding headaches. WE didn't get off so lucky. I started to feel ill half-way through my massage last night. At first I passed it off as nothing, got home around 8:00pm and thought I was going to vomit on the couch. I ate about a truckload of Tums trying to soothe my boiling stomach. My darling husband complained he has "gas", and asked how I felt. I just layed on the couch with my eyes closed. I soon went to bed and found out soon enough Jarrett had it worse than me (he ate more of the onions), as he spent most of the night throwing up in the basement bathroom as to not wake the rest of the family. Unfortunately for him, he didn't quite make it there in time, and spent a good forty minutes cleaning up his mess. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to clean it up for him because I'm not good with puke messes. Case in point: if one of my children is throwing up in the toilet, I'm throwing up in the bathroom sink alongside. This morning so far consists of running to and fro from the bathroom, and feeling like my stomach is eating itself. FUN!!!

I will say yesterday did start off having the potential of being a lovely evening. First off, I managed to get my crafty little hands on a Nintendo Wii system quite by accident. I've been looking for one for the hubster for months, but to no avail. They are hard suckers to get a hold of (unless you want to be completely ripped off on Ebay). I was in Wal-Mart Monday afternoon and all of a sudden, like a voice from the Heavens, an announcement was made that a shipment of Wii's just came in, and it was first come, first serve! I grabbed Karis' hand and dragged her to the electronics - dodging between other frantic mother's with small children, who were bounding down the aisle like gazelles. I managed to be third in line. The patrons were mostly women - all looking to buy this system for their A) son, B) husband or C) significant other. We all laughed how crazy it was that we were so insane about buying one - yet none of us would give up her spot. If the fire alarm had gone off, most of us probably would have sat there with our hair on fire, waiting with our Visas. It didn't matter if babies were crying or a child lost his shoe back in the Hallmark card section. All that mattered was receiving the coveted game system. They just took them straight out of the crate, and put them in bags for purchase. $285.00 later - I was the proud owner of a Wii (this is such a sad statement .... really it is).

The funniest part was going through the store afterwards since I had shopping to do still (and had to find my discarded cart from before) - was the men in the store that weren't fortunate to get in the line before they all sold out in about ten minutes flat!!! They could see the black letters "w i i " through the bag, and were longingly looking at the bag. It was almost dirty in a way. I felt like Indiana Jones or something - ready for this tribe of crazed husbands to take me out for my bag. People asked if there were anymore - I shock my head and considered trying to make a buck off this Wii. I mean surely I could make at least $100.00 in 10 minutes time? However, I re-thought it, because I really wanted to surprise Jarrett. This would be the one thing he'd never expect.

When I gave it to him last night, he laughed... he almost picked up an XBox 360 on the way home for work!!! He wanted Guitar Hero III but you can only get it around here for the PC or XBox. He resigned to the fact it's either the XBox or nothing. Since his huge Guitar Hero blister (I mean boys night) - he has been absolutely insistent that we get this. Don't think I didn't try to get Guitar Hero. I went canvassing the local stores but I was laughed at by numerous salespeople. I was told unless I was standing at the door when they opened, on the day the shipment came in - good luck! REALLY? Are people this crazed? (says the woman who just ran through Wal-Mart like a psychiatric patient). Jarrett had a huge smile and probably looked the way I looked when he gave me that Louis Vuitton purse. His smile quickly became loud cussing, as he spent the better part of two hours trying to figure out why it wasn't hooking up properly. I suggested having a receiver, a switch box, stereo system, ipod docking station, and DVD player hooked up already could make it a trickier issue than he originally thought. I actually went to bed at 10:00 (already feeling nauseous), and he woke me up around 11:00 to brightly declare "I got it hooked up!" He actually made me get out of bed, so I could watch him play the Simpson's Game. This didn't do wonders for my stomach though, since I already feel like blowing chunks. However, we did go online to Ebay and bought a new Wii Guitar Hero III bundle with the second guitar for $235.00. So in less than 24 hours, I spent $520.00 on my husband.

I try not to think of the starving children in Africa.

I also try not to think about tacos.

PARADE OF CHILDREN

WOW! The last few days have been complete and utter chaos. Yes, I did get a good snooze in after my last posting. Thank you Melatonin!!! However, I needed the Z's .... you'll see why in a minute.

Thursday I started off my day very leisurely. Kierra had just left with her therapist for Kids Day Out, and I was hand-painting some crafts for the twins new bedroom. When I get a call from the twins school. I answer and the receptionist tells me my friend "A" needs me to go pick up her daughter at her pre-school because she is having a medical issue. I guess after dropping off her daughter, she was taking her son to school, and she started to get vertigo and feel faint. She got to the school and had them call me, her emergency contact. A few months ago, I got a call from the same friend who had passed out and hit her head at home. I had to call the ambulance then. So I get Jenna and Karis into the minivan, get over to the pre-school, and pick up the daughter. Then I go to the other school, to go pick up the son from Kindergarten. I figured I better do it while Kierra was still out with her therapist since I only have three carseats in my car. Have you done the math yet? I had two kids, picked up one, and was getting one more.

I get to the school and "A" has called a cab to take her to the doctor's office. She tells me to take the booster carseat out of her van and shove it in mine. I say great! Until I realize the space between the two carseats on the third row is way too narrow. And of course, the middle seats are buckets, and one is out of it since we never use the thing. WHOOPS!! So I say, "Now what do I do?" She tells me to just strap him into the seat between the carseats without the booster, it's only 10 minutes away from home. I'm freaking... he's not restrained in a carseat? But what other option do I have now? I can't even carry the second bucket seat out of the basement if I wanted. Her husband is in the air to Toronto.... So I tell her O.K., but if I get a ticket she's paying for it! (I find out after that as long as your child is over 45 lbs, they can sit in the car like that, even though not recommended - which is good from that standpoint). So I buckle this poor kid in so tight, he can barely breathe, and drive half the speed limit home.

About an hour later, she calls to say her doctor told her she had a panic attack, and he's putting her on some med's. I told her come to my house and she can hang with us. She gets there, has a bit of a meltdown, and we try to get a hold of her husband. He just flew for four hours... and he gets off his plane and his wife tells him "turn around"... and he humps it over to the ticket counter to get onto the next flight home... another four hours in the air. She also has no vehicle because it's still at the school (although she can't drive anyways). I decide to take the twins to school, go get her prescription, and give her a phone and tell her "sit on my couch, don't move and call me if you have any problems. I can't take all five kids with me in the van. After all this, she feels okay enough to go home. Since she lives next door I say ok, and she's to call if anything goes wrong. Her husband's plane was delayed two hours, he didn't get home until 9:00pm!

The next day, I'm getting the house organized because I have another friend's son coming over for lunch and I'm taking the three of them to school (the girls are in the same class as him). The night before Jarrett has to haul up the second bucket seat for the van, so I can put his booster seat into the van (I didn't like driving around a child like that). Around 9:30am, I get a knock on my door. It's "A"'s husband who says they are going to pick up the van, could I take their daughter for a bit since her carseat is in the van. I say sure, send her downstairs with the girls. The husband comes back, without the van, telling me that "A" had another panic attack while driving to go pick up the van... so the van is STILL at the school! So me being nice tell him why don't they leave their daughter with me for a bit, so "A" can take her med's and settle down for a bit. This turns out until 15 minutes before the other boy comes over, I get a fifteen minute reprieve, and then get my new tenant for lunch. For the next hour I get a taste of what having triplets would have been like, stuff all these kids into the van, and take them to this church, because they are having rehearsals for a play they are doing later that night. I get to the church, basically toss three children out of a still-moving van (I'm just kidding) and now I only have one. One little girl who harrasses me continously where we are going. I can't give her back to her mommy ... because I AM her mommy!!

Two hours of "ME" time at home, and I run back to the school to collect my children. Then that evening they had their concert, so we had to doll up the twins, shove everyone back into the minivan, trying to manuveur around the stupid second bucket seat in everyone's way. I tell Jarrett "would you take this freakin' thing out?" and he does, and knocks my side mirror out all to hell. SIGH - we get to the concert and the line is insane! Our neighbor-husband is there with his son and "A" stayed home since she was tranquillized. We decided to adopt him for the evening (well Karis did), and he sat with us for the next hour and half for this performance. I will add now it started at 7:00 pm, and my kids go to bed around 7:30pm. So we watched, it was cute. Karis did a insane jig everytime music came on - most parents were watching her instead of their own kids. At 8:30 - I collect my girls and Jenna is standing next to a classmate that is wearing the exact same frilly peach dress as her! Oh lord! Who would guess? I mean I bought it two years ago? So Jenna is lamenting about having this major fashion faux pas happen to her. We tell our friend we'll swing by the school, and Jarrett can drive his minivan back to the house for him. Get home, brush our children's teeth by putting all their faces smooshed together and making one broad brushing motion - and tuck them in. I swear - less than five minutes and they were ALL sleeping!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

So this concludes my last two days of panamonium. I hoped you enjoyed reading this - moreso than I enjoyed living it! Lesson in all this? There is none LOL.