Cheaters r dumb

This was one wonky weekend, internets! As you know, our weekend started Friday with a barfy kid. I had big plans to attend a national cake competition on Saturday and I wasn't sure that was going to happen. But Rogit was up and requesting spaghetti for dinner by Friday evening, so, other than worrying all day about whether I would start with the spontaneous puking, Saturday ended up being a great day.

Well, it was a great day if you don't let the fact that someone flat out stole the cake design Rogit did for his 4th birthday and entered it into the show as their own ruin your day. That's right...some twiznit copied my boy's ingenius idea and got a 2nd place ribbon out of the deal. I wanted to leave a picture of the original next to her cake with a little note to say "THIS is what it was SUPPOSED to look like!" Yeah, I know...bitter much? grrr Rogit was incredibly mad when he saw the pic of Copy McCheaterson's cake. He didn't understand why someone would steal his idea. Cheaters stink.

By the time I made it home Saturday evening Dexter had started with the puking. But by Sunday morning he was fine. The Canadian started with the ralph-fest Sunday morning and I was feeling pretty gross. But I made it through the day without losing my beer battered cheese curds. I thought I had escaped it but wouldn't ya know it, today is worse than yesterday so I fear the worst may be yet to come.

I will not puke. I refuse to puke. I shall.not.puke. Oh please, pretty please, with sugar on top, don't let me puke.

Top 10 things to know about children and vomit

1. A child will appear completely healthy when they are asking if they can crawl into bed with you for a snuggle. All will be well until you fall asleep.

2. Vomit is attracted to emetophobes.

3. Vomit wakes you up quickly when it hits you at full force in the middle of the darkness.

4. Children only vomit on a day when the emetophobic parent is home alone with said children.

5. The sibling will soon follow...but only when you least expect it. No matter how many buckets you spread across the house.

6. You will be sick...but only from worrying about whether or not you will catch the bug.

7. 42" tall child will get the couch.

8. Sick child won't want to be alone...5'6" parent gets the loveseat.

9. Child will appear to have puked all they can puke...until you finally allow yourself to fall asleep.

10. Child will only request all the food and drinks that are worst for a sick tummy. You'll spend your day breaking hearts for keeping food from a child who looks like Starvin' Marvin.

____________

Trivia!
What's the worst possible thing that can happen to a child who has already lost 4lbs in the last 2 months?

Be the first to answer correctly and win!...(the satisfaction of being the first to answer correctly)

____________

Favorite quotes for the day:

"I feel as hot as the desert under this blanket."
"I hate being sick. I just wish it was a fun frolicking day."


Have a fun frolicking day internets! May your noodle soup not fly out of your nose. (Trust me on this one.)

M-O Elementary...producing eating disorders since 1984

Rogit has always been a picky eater. He has always been a skinny little guy, verging on something you might see in a commercial involving Sally Struthers. But his dad, The Canadian, was the same way. I mean the man had a 28" waist when we got married. It has taken me 10 years to put some meat on his bones. Rogit eats well at home, but has never eaten well in public. In restaurants he freezes up because he's afraid he'll gag, or something might not taste right. At the dreaded playdates he continues to play while the others eat so he won't have to eat food prepared by someone else. The child has issues, I know, but nothing he wouldn't grow out of if left to work through it in his own time. But this school doesn't believe in natural eating habits.

A little background. I attended the same school, started Kindergarten in 1983. Back before they invented Pre-K and decided our children shouldn't experience any childhood outside of school. But I digress. Our cafeteria food was horribly disgusting. I remember the boiled potatoes literally bouncing like a SuperBall if you "dropped" them hard enough. There was some nastiness they called burrocks that looked like they'd been stuffed with the lunch lady's dog's vomit. No matter what kind of horrid slop they served, we were expected to eat every single bite of it. Full? Who cares. We clean our plates here, and we do it in 10 minutes or less. (And we wonder why left there with horrible eating habits.) I remember my friend throwing up all over the lunch table in first grade, only to be forced to clean it up herself and get a fresh plate of food, which she was expected to eat before she could leave the room. I took my lunch every.single.day. I took my lunch so I had decent food, and because the teachers didn't inspect what I had eaten before I could go to recess.

So when Rogit started school last year I sent his lunch. I knew he wouldn't eat the school food, and I knew they'd force him to do it. And I was right, that policy hadn't changed a bit. But something had. Now they inspected the lunches brought from home. They told them what order they could eat their food in, and they weren't allowed to go outside until they cleaned their plate. There were tears in the lunchroom, tears at home, and my child who loved school changed into the child that screams and clings to his mother's leg, begging her not to leave him at that horrible place. We made it through the year but he suffered physically and emotionally. He was literally skin and bones by the end of the year. I had never been so glad to see Summer break arrive. As soon as school was out he started eating again. He ate like he hadn't eaten in...oh NINE months maybe?? He gained weight, he gained muscle back, he was vibrant and energetic, and closely resembled that bubbly little guy I had sent to school on the first day.

Fast forward 4 months and here we are again. My child has lost 4lbs since August 16th. FOUR pounds! He is 5 years old! There should be no talk of weight loss at this point. He's moody and exhausted and comes home each day to grab a snack and crash on the couch for several hours. It's infuriating. I have complained until I'm blue in the face, but it seems that decades old habits are hard to break. Especially when no one sees the need for the breaking. I am seriously at such a loss as to what my next step should be. I'm all ears if ANY of you have any suggestions. Until then, only 8 more months to go. I'm not sure what will be left of him by then.

too much cake, my kid sees bruce willis, and memories I never knew existed

Most of you know that I decorate cakes in my not-so-spare time. But I think it's time for a break. I know, I know...who needs a break from cake? But it is starting to affect my children. Rogit sees everything in cake, and he's a cake snob. No, Wamalart sheet cake will never be good enough for him again. And play-doh? Why make anything out of play-doh when you can make it out of fondant and put it on top of the fridge to harden and attract flies? His birthday is in a couple of weeks and he has changed his ideas for his cake, ohhh about 100 times, since January. Yeah that's right, I said JANUARY. The child is obsessed! I thought Dexter was immune to the insanity. He is, afterall, too busy throwing frogs and underwear on the roof, and sliding down the concrete storm shelter in his underwear. But yesterday, as he passed by me on his way to some unknown building project, he pulls from his pocket a key ring with a set of alan wrenches hanging from it and says, "MOM!!! I got it! We could use these for CAKE!!" It was like he had discovered fire. He'll never be the same again. Last night I found them both in my caking room stealing bits of fondant, Rogit making spiders and crabs, Dexter making Bigfoot footprints. My boys are cake nerds. What have I created.

Dexter, while he's not dealing with frogs and underwear and cake, is starting to freak me out a bit. My parents had a neighbor who had a sudden onset of health problems last week. Mom had called to tell me on Tuesday that his organs were failing and they didn't expect him to make it through the night. All of this occurred over the phone so Dexter couldn't have heard her end of the conversation, nor would he even know the man's name or where he lived even if he had heard it. Wednesday came and went, Thursday rolled around, and we still hadn't heard if he had passed yet. We were leaving my parents' house Thursday afternoon and as we drove by the neighbors' house Dexter said, "Someone died at that house today." Mom and I just looked at each other, I can't even pinpoint the emotions and the thoughts that all fired through my head at that moment. We asked why he thought that and his answer was, "Because the bad man came today." Creeped us right.the.heck.out. We tried to brush it off and mom dropped us off at home. She went back home and called an hour later to let me know that the neighbor had indeed passed away Thursday morning. I'm not sure what I believe when it comes to ghosts and such, but we at least know there are angels and demons, the scripture spells that out for us. And I've heard so many times that children see many things that we don't simply because of their innocence. So who knows what my little guy saw. Whatever it was was enough to let him know that someone had died, a concept he had not been able to grasp before that very instant. And apparently someone came for him...terrifying to say the least.

OK, let's lighten this up a bit. When I was little, my Grandpa Mc. was someone who was larger than life to me. He and my dad took me fishing, taught me how to shoot a gun, he showed me how to pour homemade sinker, all those things a Grandpa in Oklahoma should teach you, if you're lucky enough to have one like him. We lost my Grandpa Mc. way back in 1989. Back before every family had 3 cameras and a camcorder, before there were digital cameras that let us snap 200 pics at every family gathering. We have some pictures of him, one of which sits on my mom and dad's hall table, and my boys know who he is from that picture alone. Grandpa is one of those people that I sincerely regret my boys not being able to know and love. Last night, out of the blue, my dad shows up with a DVD of a home movie from a family BBQ with my Grandpa's sister and all of their relatives. I knew he was hoping Grandpa made it on there somewhere. I made a copy and sat down to make sure it worked on my television, and lo and behold, there was Grandpa Mc., talking and smiling, as if I could reach out and touch him. It really hit me kind of hard, I guess because I never knew any video existed of him, so I never thought I'd see him or hear his voice like that again. I will cherish those 2 minutes of video for many years to come.

The waiting...

When I was pregnant with Rogit I made the brilliant decision to ride in a cramped Jeep Cherokee from Oklahoma to central California. The nausea, the swelling, the high blood pressure, the everything...it all started on the way there in May and never looked back until October, when Rogit made his appearance a month early. My doctor gave me a good cussing and put me on bedrest pretty early on, so I was left with few choices to pass the long days while The Canadian was at work. I needed conversation, I needed interaction with people, but I needed it from my couch where I sat on my butt all day. (I'm convinced this is when said butt started to spread out of control, but that's another story). So I found all of those things, with the animated creatures in Anyaville, situated in a quaint little meadow somewhere inside my Nintendo Gamecube.

I spent many MANY hours with this game. We played until our town was as big as it could get, we had upgraded our house and the local store, we caught all the bugs, we caught all the fish, we stocked the museum, we had some serious fun. Then Rogit came along and required our undivided attention, as babies tend to do, and the wee folk in Anyaville were neglected, some even moved away as the weeds began taking over the town. When we finally hit our parenting groove we started playing again, but we had done pretty much all we could do with it. Then the rumors began swirling...could it be? Animal Crossing 2??

Yes! But only in Japan.

We were crushed. It went into the box and never saw the light of day again.

Fast forward to 2007. One day Rogit spots the Animal Crossing case in the game cabinet, asks to play, and it starts all over again. Now he's just as in love with Anyaville as The Canadian and I. It's so much fun to watch him play, but The Canadian and I, as 30 as we are, still wish for a new game.

It only took 6 years. But would ya take a look at this!

We're so excited it's embarassing! We've waited this long, so November 16th seems right around the corner. Don't disturb this family over Thanksgiving break. We'll be sending our kids to Memaw and Poppa's house so we can get our game on.

Er...we'll be having family game week! Yeah.

I am so ashamed.

For his 4th birthday...an anatomy book perhaps?

Dexter walked into the kitchen this evening, crying big crocodile tears and rubbing his elbow. He looks at me with those big blue eyes and says...

"Momma...my nuts hurt."

I think we have some work ahead of us with this one.

Sucking too hard on your lollipop

So I think I may be the only person in the world who hasn't heard that song, or even that expression, before today. I don't really hear any music that doesn't come directly from Noggin or Disney anymore so I shouldn't be surprised. When I first read it I thought, ohhh that can't mean anything nice...I mean when 50 Cent references lollipops in his music it's nothing I'd want my kids understanding, if ya catch my drift. But I'm a sucker (jeez...no pun intended) so I looked it up. Here's what good ol' UrbanDictionary.com had to say:

sucking too hard on your lollipop - 1. dwelling overly long on a subject to the point of being obsessive.
Example: Woman: "It's been a week since my date and that guy hasn't called me back yet!" Friend: "You're sucking too hard on your lollipop, girl. Let it go already!"

Well wouldn't ya know it? Not only is it not dirty, but it's 100% me. The perfect description of what it is that brings me down, makes me depressed, and keeps me from enjoying life. I can't let things go. I don't hold grudges so much as I dwell on people and things that have hurt me, things that worry me, and most of all, what people think of me. Yep! There it is again...evidence that I have the disease to please...I'm a people pleaser in it's ugliest form. Somehow that keeps getting thrown in my face this week. I think perhaps I better take it to heart and start doing something about it.

And maybe I'll just go out and buy me a bag of DumDums. Appropriately named I do believe. Only dumdums waste precious time sucking too hard on their lollipop.

All about me, in 150 words or less.

Born and raised in Oklahoma. Daughter of a Baptist preacher and awesome mom. Town of less than 300. Class of 20 something. Valedictorian (life peaked here apparently) in 1996. College at Oklahoma State University. Met The Canadian online. Long drawn out INS visa process. Married August 1, 1998. Right papers not signed. Annulled marriage. Remarried on August 23, 1998. Apartment burns September 1998. Move in with parents. Tornado destroys house May 3rd, 1999. Move to new apartment. New apartment floods. Move to new apartment. New apartment has gas leak, we nearly die. Move to new apartment (losing count at this point). Degree in English/Technical Writing, December 2000. Job search for a year in lousy economy. Start a family instead. Rogit is born October 2002. Build a house, move again, October 2003, hopefully for the last time. Dexter comes along November 2004. Thank God everything has settled down. Life is good.

Back in the blogosphere

I realized today that it has been almost 2 years since I last wrote a blog post. I also realize that nobody has missed it but me, but here I am anyway. It isn't that my life has gotten any more interesting, and it isn't that I have more intelligent things to talk about. It's just about me missing this outlet, for all the random things that go through my mind on any given day.

I've met a lot of really awesome people over the last year, the majority of whom I know only through the internet. They don't know a lot about me or how I ended up where I am today, so I'm going to devote the next day or two to a little History of Me, if you will. So stick around, ya might learn something about me, whether you want to or not.