I think I'll take up smoking again

Seriously.
What the hell is so bad about smoking anyway. Cut a few years off my life? The gorky years in a crummy stinking nursing home wearing a diaper? Talking to my imaginary dog about my imaginary trip to Hawaii?
Seriously!
Settle in, this is a long one.



We have a lot going on and coming up. There is the trip to Chicago to the home of the Most Spoiled Children on the Planet, along with visiting children from out of state, and a Show. This involves 3 days of travel, 2 overnights at my parents house, and many, many deviations from our regularly scheduled weekend of staying home and trying to not kill each other. Aside from the traveling part, I was looking forward to seeing some of the family from another state and doing some fun things in the city. Genea does not like anything new. She has the rest of her life scheduled to be exactly the same as yesterday. I learned the hard way, the realllllly really hard way, that cuing Genea in to an impending schedule Change does only one thing, and that one thing is to freak her out from that moment until approximately 1 week and 2 days after the Change. (There actually is a pattern there for those of you with sharp eyes ....see she will include the Change in her repertoire of scheduled events for the following week assuming the Change is a permanent addition to her schedule no matter what I tell her different, therefore her last freak out will be 2 days after she realizes the Change will not be repeating. Which is another Change).

Then, 2 days after our return we are leaving for a week to visit the other grandparents. Big Change. With a scary new thing. Flying. On an airplane. And folks, I know this is strange but you probably would not be to this paragraph if you were not expecting some strange payoff. You would have changed the channel by now as it were. Check out this one--- Genea has spent the past year believing her previous parents are living on an airplane. Oh yeah, no typo's.

No one knows where she got this idea, but somehow when she officially came to our home to live she put them on an airplane that never landed. Evidently, this was all part of the Magical Thinking that young children will develop to explain something traumatic to themselves. Every time she noticed an airplane for a year, she told everyone in her range that her Non-Mom and Non-Dad were on it. Even Teena would say it. Now, I slowly and carefully landed the aircraft across about six weeks over the summer, and released the Nons.(I was going to call them the Others but I remembered that whole plot line has been used elsewhere.) Notice the word "I". "I", may have landed them, but I have no idea where Genea put them. And she is not telling.

So, not to change the subject or anything, but moving right along. We have a lot to cover.

About a week ago, I noticed Teena going potty more than usual. She usually waits until the last possible second and springs up from whatever fascinating life altering activity she was doing to ricochet off the walls getting to the potty and fyi, get out of her way. But I saw her going a few more times than is her normal one day, and then she had a peeing accident. So I called the Doctor and made an appointment for the same day and Teena proceeded to stay away from the potty for the next 4 hours. I was sure the office staff at the Doctor would be snorting at my overreaction as soon as we turned the corner with the nurse. But, I was right, she had a UTI. Well she was thrilled. And so excited to be taking medicine! She basically felt ok so she was just happy to get to go out. Notice that a change in routine makes Teena happy. Then she got to have special juice. What the hell is so special about her juice? It better be ef'in' special for $12.00!!! Regular store cranberry juice is from concentrate and all the brands had sugar and a bunch of other stuff in them. So I went to a health food store- why do these stores always smell icky? Anyway, REAL cranberry juice with an actual cranberry, is pricey and incidentally, disgusting. Turns out there is a great reason for adding all that other stuff.

Yesterday, Genea came home from school and said she felt sick. I felt her forehead and it was warm. I had The Husband look at her throat because she said it hurt. I will get strep if there is one single germ in a 20 mile radius. I even had Scarlet Fever this past spring. That's why I had him look. Throat was red. Call the Dr., because we have all these trips out of town coming up! Sure enough, strep. More medicine. Nothing gets my Mommy Gene fired up faster than one of MY babies in pain. I will kick any ass necessary to save my babies from pain including an invisible germ. That was yesterday.

Now today, the girls are so excited to be home together unexpectedly that they are behaving like the Mexican Jumping Beans they used to sell at gas stations in the 70's. So I hear. Teena is devastated that her medicine is all gone and Genea gets to take it now. I finally realized I should probably separate them or they will both be sick. Of course I am feeling run down and sickish but I can't tell if that is my normal feeling shitty or if it is sick-shitty. Unexpected bonus now, our trip to Chicago is cancelled. I was going take Teena and go by ourselves but it turns out no one wants us anyway. Since we could be carrying a Death Plague across state lines.

With all these great times, I have been thinking, what would really make this all even better, is to start smoking again. Ahhhhhhh.

Several hours into this post, the girls will not be separated. The best I can do is to make a pillow wall between them and hope the germs don't jump up and race over. Genea should not be toxic anymore anyhow.


Does either of them look sick?
Teena is starting to feel warm.