Another week, more randomness

Well, I'm going on about one and a half weeks of this bad cold. It started off as just a lot of sinus drainage in my throat, then developed into a cough. For anyone who has given birth to multiple children, you may know that when the coughing starts, the bladder control tends to fail (sorry if this is TMI - it's one of those things we don't discuss in polite company, but most of my friends wouldn't fall in that category LOL!) So I've just been having SO much fun this week. There was the 3 am coughing fit that led me to sleep on the couch. The headache that popped up yesterday afternoon and has just finally gone away this morning. I've had to run kids to all sorts of activities every evening this week. I finally took some medicine that seems to have helped yesterday, however I have this really wonky metabolism that doesn't seem to process medication well. I didn't even take a full dose and I could barely get myself out of bed this morning (and the meds I took are supposed to be non-drowsy HA!) I am taking things very easy today to try to maybe kick this cold a bit more as it has really been slowing me down. I am not one of those strong women who handles pain and sickness well, I'm a wuss, and I've been tired for about 20 years straight since I gave up caffeine. With any luck I'll be back to myself by the start of next week. And if not, I'll muddle through, I just won't be very happy about it.

Had a very interesting conversation yesterday on one of my many car rides. I am listening to an audiobook, which I do quite a lot given the amount of time I am driving around. The current one is a thriller, not too bad overall, but the "bad guy" uses some slightly salty language sometimes. He was chasing a woman and calling her a bitch. This led to a conversation with the 6 & 7 year olds, who were in the car with me, about the word bitch. They wanted to know where it came from, why it's a bad word, why people would be insulted if you were calling them a dog, it went on for about 10 minutes. I am really hoping that I made it clear that they aren't to use that word and if they do it is a bad word and they will be in trouble. That then led to a discussion of the word hell, and when they can use it and when they can't - it was a surprisingly reasonable discussion to be having with two first graders. They really wanted to know the origin of all bad words, which I couldn't and wouldn't really get into with them, but it made me think about the grand scheme of the situation. Here I spend a lot of time telling my kids what words are bad and that they can't say them, but I never really explained why, and I wonder if it will make a difference to them down the road that I answered their questions to the best of my ability. Or, maybe the whole conversation was just two young boys trying to see how many times they could say the word bitch before their Mommy lost her cool. I'll probably never know.

I don't really have much else on my mind, other than that I am pretty sure I am going to head upstairs in a few minutes to try to sleep off what remains of the medication in my system. Of course, that means my cold symptoms may come back, but I'm going to try to be an optimist and pretend I am just starting to get better. I am looking forward to a good few days. The Cardinals pulled off the wins David had been hoping for, so he'll be in a good mood for a few days. I don't have a million things on my agenda for the next few days (only half a million, but I'll take it!) The weather is decent, my house is only in partial disarray, and I am enjoying the new TV season. Maybe there won't be too many other random things that pop in my head for awhile (or at least if they do, I won't really remember them because I have medicine brain!)

Feeling Ill and Wasting Time

I don't regularly "blog", I don't have the time or the energy. But every once in awhile, I just feel the need to write something. I recently entered a submission in an essay contest, not because I really wanted to win (though that would be cool!) but because I wanted to see what I could come up with. I have been a bit under the weather all week - stuffy/runny nose, gunk in my throat, not sleeping well, so I am not really motivated to do all the things I SHOULD be doing around my house. Yes, I am a procrastinator among procrastinators, and I won't be changing any time soon. As a result, I felt like this would be a good time to sit down and put some thoughts out into the universe that have popped into my head throughout the day today.

1) My children, I fear, will NEVER learn how to load a dishwasher. They may be book smart, but not one of them can figure out that you can't just throw the dishes randomly into the dishwasher and expect them to get clean. Maybe it's a genetic thing as their Dad isn't the best at loading the dishwasher either (I know, that doesn't explain Tommy & Amya, but I'm going to go with it anyway). And along that line of thinking, children, PLEASE thoroughly rinse off your plates and bowls that have had the following items on them: eggs, oatmeal, rice, broccoli. These things either don't really come off in the dishwasher, or if they do they just stick to all the other dishes and cause me a great deal of consternation when you put them back in the cabinets dirty.

2) I believe strongly that I am not going to have another day as long as I live without some sort of yuck being stuck in the back of my throat. It's a chronic thing, I've tried all sorts of medicines and remedies, nothing seems to work. As a result I am always miserably trying to clear my throat without sounding like a dying, emphasymic 85 year old man. I usually do not succeed.

3) If that which does not kill us makes us stronger, I believe I should be up there with Superman by now, along with the majority of my friends and family. Maybe I should go try to leap a tall building in a single bound - who knows, maybe it will work (have YOU tried it lately). Ok, wishful thinking, I know - I can barely lift my head off the pillow in the morning, I doubt very seriously I could take on a locomotive, but a girl can dream!

4) I saw a preview the other day for a movie coming out called "I Don't Know How She Does It". This is a movie I will never be able to watch. First of all, there is something about Sarah Jessica Parker's face that gives me the creeps. I am not trying to be catty, she just looks kind of scary. More important though, I hear that expression entirely too many times in the course of my life to watch a movie that will remind me of the chaos that is my own life. Every time someone says, "How do you do it?" or "I just don't know how you do it with so many kids!" I want to scream at them "I have no idea how I do it! I just do because I don't have a choice!" Well, I had a choice, and I chose to make this my life, but I take things one day at a time, hell, one hour at a time some days, and just hope everyone stays alive through the day and I don't curl up into a ball sucking my thumb and crying myself to sleep (ok, I don't suck my thumb, but I've been pretty close to the ball and the crying thing WAY too many times). I am not a super motivated or organized person. I come by it naturally (has anyone met my mother? God knows I love her but I am her daughter!) I probably, in the grand scheme of things, should not actually be in charge of turning six small human beings into responsible, caring adults. But I am, so I try to make the best of it. I'm not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, heck I'm the first to admit I'm barely adequate, but I have an amazing husband who keeps me sane, keeps me off the bottle, and keeps me from strangling the little darlings who call me Mom every day. The long and short of it is, though, I don't want to see a movie about someone who has my same problems - I like comedy and action, not depression and reality smacking me back and forth in the face screaming "Having fun yet?"

5) I really should have been a TV critic. Then I could get paid for doing the thing I enjoy most in life. It's not that I'm a couch potato slug who just zones out in front of mindless moving pictures on the big box in my family room - I genuinely enjoy the story crafting of all the shows I watch, they make me think, even the goofy mundane comedies. I would read more to get the same effect, but I don't read particularly fast, I fall asleep almost immediately when I read, and my imagination is not nearly vivid enough for it to have the same effect which is why I can read horror novels by the dozens but not watch horror movies because they steal a bit of my soul every time I watch them. We have a friend who is an excellent sports analyst, and he writes some weekly email updates about things like Notre Dame football for a select group to read. He doesn't do it for a living, though he really could, but he has fun with it. That's how I am with TV. I could seriously go into an in depth analysis of the characters, storylines, filming styles or almost any show I watch on a regular basis and be an extremely happy woman. Never going to happen, but I'll keep watching all my shows anyway, just in case!

6) I hate laundry. And dishes. And paperwork. I have decided that the number of trees that are cut down each year to provide all the paper that comes in and out of my house must be staggering. At any given point in time, in any room of my house, you can find a pile of papers that need to be looked at or sorted or filed or sent somewhere - it's pretty ridiculous. I sometimes watch these movies about the end of the world, or at least of civilization, and the main thing that pops into my mind is "How nice would that be not to have to care about all the flipping papers any more?" Yes, I am a pathetic human being who needs to get a life.

I think I have gotten most of what is on my mind out of my system for now. I have a bagel in the toaster that is calling to me, though it is also reminding me that after I eat it I will probably have more phlegm in my throat because of the cream cheese I won't be able to resist shmearing on it. I guess that's one of those things you just have to be prepared for in life, though, deciding that the cream cheese is worth the few extra gags that will come as a result. Maybe tomorrow I will get something more important accomplished that getting my random ponderings out of my system before tackling the evil laundry. And dishes. And paperwork. But don't hold your breath on that!