Dear Virus From Hell That Seems To Have Taken Up Permanent Residence In My Body,
You’re not welcome here. It’s been ten days; either knock me out cold for a few days or leave. This dragging on is wearing thin. And now Tom has it too, as well as a possible recurrence of shingles. I haven’t been to the rec center since you arrived, and I’d kinda like to go back. I like lifting weights and I miss it. However, going now would certainly result in my head tumbling off my neck and rolling around the running track. That is a hazard to the other guests, and so I stay home, hacking and snurfling and cursing you.
Giving up NyQuil because the hangover from red wine is considerably less,
HackCoughSnort

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Dear Tom,
I know you’re sick. I know you’re under a lot of stress. But I truly thought you were going to spontaneously combust the other night. Perhaps it was the NyQuil borking with my perspective,  but the fact you didn’t burst into flame was actually a surprise. I could actually see it happening, was waiting for it, actually. Glad you’ve stepped away from that precipice. And today’s crack about “isn’t cold and flu sex supposed to be really hot?” was truly funny. But, alas, no, it is not. Unless one of the participants has a fever. I know we get two and a half glorious hours alone in our house tonight, but unless we both suddenly knock this virus, it’s going to be pizza, movies, and cough syrup.
Love and kisses,
HackCoughSnort

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Dear summer camps,
Please have openings. I know I’m several weeks behind schedule in getting the boys registered, but I really need them in camps this summer. They certainly won’t be all day every day, but for the sanity of the home, they gotta get out of the house. I’m a much better mom when they have activities for which I am not solely responsible. And our travel this summer consists of driving to Iowa for a wedding and then on to Chicago…right at the very beginning of the break. It’s going to be a very busy summer for me, and they need to be occupied.
Please take my money and my sons,
HackCoughSnort

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Dear sweet new computer,
I love you. Still haven’t named you, but know that you are my very favorite computer ever. I love how you don’t crash, I love how you’re so speedy and efficient, I love that my stress level has gone down since you entered my life. I think I may have even lost a few inches around my waist. You’re so pretty and special.
Love every one of your circuits,
HackCoughSnort

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Dear #gtchat,
You’re starting now and I need to hop on. I love how much I learn every week and the connections I make. It’s a wonderful resource and one I do not like to miss. Thus I have finished here.
Off to chat with my tribe,
HackCoughSnort

Have a great weekend, and be sure to visit the other participants in Dear So and So and Friday Fragments!

Dear eyes,
You’re getting old, aren’t you? You’re making me take full advantage of the zoom/enlarge feature of the new computer. You love it when I borrow large print books from the library. You make me squint, you dislike it when I go from close work to far, and you really hate it when the boys stick stuff thisclose in front of you to see. Can we stop with the fun and games? I mean, I love the enlarge feature of the computer, but I’m tired of feeling old. Gimme ten years. No, twenty. No, I take that back. Don’t.Change. Reeeallly don’t care to have bifocals.
Squinting as I re-read,
Blinky

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Dear A,
Grandma and Grandpa are coming for an unexpected visit this weekend. In fact, they’ll probably be here before I finish this post. You don’t know they’re coming; we didn’t even know for sure until Wednesday and thought we’d keep it as a surprise. Here’s the thing, kid. We haven’t seen them since Thanksgiving, when you had a world-class meltdown at their house, and Grandpa suggested we seek therapy. Ya think you could hold it together til Monday, bud? I’m still recovering from the whole music concert incident on Wednesday, not so sure I would handle a repeat meltdown in front of the grandparents very well.
My liver and I are begging,
Mom

(addendum: they did indeed arrive before I finished this post, and if this gets up on Friday, it’ll be a miracle)

(second addendum: it’s now Saturday afternoon and this still isn’t up)

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Dear Colorado Board of Education,
You rule next week on whether to override the district’s denial of our charter school application. Please choose wisely. Pretty please with sugar on it. With sprinkles, whipped cream, and a side of MYSANITY biscotti.
Wanting to work on a charter school and not have to find a full time job for private school tuition,
Jen

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Dear delightful spring weather,
I know you’re janking with me. Yes, it is warm and sunny today (catch the note that it’s now Saturday?), but I know that it’s a faux spring and a blizzard is likely to kick us in the teeth between now and May. Maybe even twice. So thank you for allowing me to sit outside and soak up the rays, but I still don’t trust you.
Glad I put on sunscreen,
The solar-powered mom

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Dear Fogo de Chao,
I love you and your enormous salad bar and your unlimited skewers of fifteen different kinds of meat.  I love that you participated in Denver’s Restaurant Week, so two of us could eat for $52.80 and not nearly twice that amount. I love you. Can we be BFFs? My arteries aren’t as thrilled, but I’ll give you a promise ring and everything.
The mere thought of bacon for breakfast this morning made me green,
Jen

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Dear cold that’s trying to take over my life,
Bugger off.
Drinking ColdNip like water,
She who sounds like a phone sex operator
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Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

I suppose I should back up a bit.

Tonight was the 3rd grade specials showcase. A chance for the kids to show off what they had learned in art, music, PE, and computer lab. The PE teacher was going to lead them through a dance with the parents, the art teacher displayed the Carnivale masks they made, the computer lab teacher let the kids show off the Power Point presentations, and the music teacher had a little program of three songs with hand chimes.

And our son, spawn of two formally trained musicians, re-freaking-fused to participate.

We’ve been trying to gently encourage him to move out of his comfort zone. To push himself a little. I worry that by giving in to him too often that he’ll grow up to never try anything that’s uncomfortable or different. So we brought him to the showcase tonight and it just went downhill from there.

A curled up in the hallway by the music room and tried not to dry heave. For fifteen minutes I talked to him, cajoling, sweet-talking, encouraging. His music teacher (someone I went to grad school with…sigh) tried to talk to him; she knows he’s a strong singer (on pitch). The principal tried talking to him. His friends asked him if he was ok.

And he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get up and walk into the music room. Couldn’t go into the gym to sing. He has the strongest will of anyone I’ve ever seen, and he managed to convince himself that he couldn’t do it, that he would literally get sick if he did. He was well past fight-or-flight.

The principal, God love her, took him to watch the kids sing. I stayed in the hallway to breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

I eventually made my way in, and sat behind A. I was still too raw to sit with him. And once the kids started singing, the tears flowed.

This was the world I envisioned, the one with happily singing kids and proud parents with video cameras. How I envied the families in the audience, calmly enjoying an evening’s entertainment. I had to turn around and face the wall to hide my quiet sobbing; thankfully I was back far enough that no one could hear me. That is not my world, and won’t be. Our oldest son will always march to the beat of his own drummer, and little I do can change that.

Once the music and PE part of the evening was over, A dragged us to the computer lab (with only the briefest of stops in the art studio). And proceeded to show us every.single.thing. that the Mac could do. The computer lab teacher was so happy with his work.

I know, in the grand scheme of things, that this is not a big deal. I know there are other parents out there with much bigger problems, much more difficult kids. But I think the challenge here lies in appearances. By all accounts, A looks entirely “normal.” And he’s not. He is so smart, but his intensities set him apart and make life difficult for him. I’m honestly at a loss as to what to do. Things had been going so well for him lately.

Tomorrow is another day, one in which I clean for an unexpected visit from my in-laws.

It is the furthest I will be from February for another trip around the sun.

It’s the little things.

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I need a name for the new computer. My friends have sent in some good suggestions, but I want a few more. I’m about to just name it Dude, but since I call my boys Dudes, don’t know if that will work. Help me name my new sexy toy!

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A real, live post is up over at Hopeful Parents today. Something well thought-out, with a beginning, middle, and end. Not the random snippets that are here tonight.

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If the earthquakes that have been hitting suddenly break apart the earth a la Pangaea, know that I’ve loved our time together. I’m saddened by the destruction in Chile, but oh-so-glad that the tsunami seems to have taken it easy on Hawaii. I didn’t realize until this afternoon how badly I want to go back there, and wanted it to be in one piece (or rather, seven islands) when I return.

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February? Go away already. I can’t begin to express my joy that tomorrow is the last day of the month. It has been 27 days of bad news, and it needs to end already.

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Anyone seen my mojo? Is it off partying with yours? I’d really like it to return. I’m hoping that Monday will mark the end of its extended vacation and I can return to feeling…oh, I don’t know…human again.

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And if there’s anything more exciting than doing laundry on a Saturday night, don’t tell me. Not sure I could handle the excitement.

4th Commandment: Honor your father and mother

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We trekked into church for the first time in several weeks today. Tom has been traveling on the weekends, and while I’m a strong woman, I’m not strong enough to get the two boys to a church 35 minutes away by 9:15 on a Sunday morning. Getting them there would require Bailey’s in the coffee, and then I couldn’t drive, so yeah, there’s the reason right there I didn’t bother. Tom had a rehearsal, I had to pick up music, and we thought we should probably make an appearance before the fires of hell burn brighter for us. Or something like that.

The boys are generally pretty good during the service, but they do get antsy after awhile. So they usually make the trek to the basement bathroom at some point, usually mid-sermon. I let them go, and my last words to them are always, “Come right back.”

Uh-huh.

They didn’t come back, they didn’t come back, they didn’t come back. Finally, right as Tom was about to go downstairs and crack some heads, J thumps upstairs (yeah, we’re so proud) and stage whispers at about 95 decibels, “A’s hurt (mumble mumble), nose, downstairs.” Tom hurries downstairs to check on him…

and doesn’t come back, doesn’t come back, doesn’t come back.

Sigh.

Is it too much to ask for a quiet, meditative service? This is why I play the liturgy any chance I get. I get to sit up behind the choir, no one talks to me, I can enjoy a quiet hour. Ahhh…

So, just as I was about to head downstairs to make sure body parts were all where they were supposed to be, Tom brings A back up with a bloody nose. Only my child could get a bloody nose at church going to the bathroom.

Turns out that the boys took their respective leaks, then snuck into the preschool that’s in the basement. And discovered a New!Teeter!Totter!

See where this is going?

A got smacked in the nose farting around on the teeter totter instead of returning to the service.

And got a bloody nose.

And a lesson on karma.

With a heaping side of the 4th Commandment.

As Mom always said, God’ll Get Ya, Every Time. And now I have proof.

And then I figured out why my mojo escaped. Because of this:

That is Princess the PMSing Laptop. Don’t know if I’ve ever posted a picture of Her Highness the Bitch (thank you iPhone, with your reliability and grace). I can’t really explain how her slow demise is making my life miserable, but lemme see if I can try.

• Something inside the machine, under the left hand, has been making a wet (!) gurgling sound. I smacked it last night, rather hard, and it stopped. I can say with a great deal of confidence that the sound will return today.
• Click…1,2,3,4…28,29,30…window opens. And lest you think I’m counting quickly, allow me to remind you that I’m a professionally trained musician and can keep a damned (see, there’s the swearing again) steady beat at 60 bpm. The shortest count is about 4 seconds, the longest well over 30 and then she crashes.
• I’ve been working on updating my resume. Four hours on Tuesday, two and a half of which were just waiting for her to catch up. I tried to continue last night, but got so frustrated I went and started working on our taxes at 9:30 at night. I need to have Le Resume in tomorrow for a volunteer position I dearly want.
• Working on the taxes is taking forever because half of what I need is on this machine and getting it out is like pulling teeth from a rhino…difficult and painful. See the irony? As soon as taxes are in and we have a refund (pleasepleaseohGodplease), she can be replaced. Wait a second…methinks she knows this…hmmm…
• Supposedly I have wicked fast internet now. I have not seen any indication of this, simply because the computer is too slow. Swear to GOD once she is replaced I’m getting fiber-optic internet, just so I can dance like a wood sprite with the joy of it all.
• It’s a good thing I have mad touch-typing skillz. The letters are wearing off the keys one by one. Eh, who needs an “n?” I only have two in my name!
• Have I mentioned the constant crashing?
• I got my inbox down to zero a week ago; right now I have roughly 80 emails to process and/or answer. Same with posts in my reader, except there the number is well into the hundreds. I don’t like the feeling of my large intestine trying to throttle my brain because of the length of time it takes to accomplish a single email, so I’ve been avoiding it.

So, all in all, I’d rather brush my teeth with a rabid porcupine than sit and work in front of this machine. And on top of it all? We have our “Come to Jesus” meeting this afternoon with the school about accommodations for A.

Applying keyboard to forehead in 3…2…1…

First and foremost, I allegedly have super fast, whoosh-my-hair-back internet now. I can’t tell, because Princess the PMSing Laptop has relapsed and is slowly dying. As I type here, I have no cursor, can easily write an entire sentence before I see what has been written, and can click on a window/tab/anything and count to at least five before something happens. So today I offer up this heartfelt prayer:

Dear IRS, after last year’s heart-attack-inducing “We owe HOW MUCH???” incident, we changed our withholdings and are praying for a refund. Please let there be a refund. Any refund will directly carried to the Apple Store and exchanged for a computer that actually works. (Wow. Imagine that, a computer that works. What’s that like?) This will stimulate the economy and I will be regarded as a hero for aforementioned stimulation. You can thank me later. Off to gather tax info for my accountant, Jen.

I poisoned myself went for dim sum last weekend. Thought I was doing so well, avoiding the wheat items and eating the rice items. Uh, no. I managed only to heavily glutenize myself and have been wiped since about Tuesday. Took me the better part of three days to figure out WTF I did to feel so bad. I’m still recovering, as evidenced by the fact that I slept until 9 this morning. That was partly due to a dog with a sudden case of I HAVE TO PEE!!!!! at 4 this morning, and partly because the boys didn’t want me to find out that they had dragged A’s mattress downstairs to watch TV. They are now using it as a trampoline as they watch Garfield. Please pity me.

If you haven’t been participating in the Twitter #gtchat chats, you’re missing out. Yesterday’s topics were Asynchronous Development and Twice Exceptionalities. Because I was still setting up my new modem/router (seriously, can anything concerning computers be easy for me for a change?) I missed the entire 2e chat. Grumble, grumble…but transcripts have been posted. Asynchronous development here and 2e here. Chats are every Friday at noon EST and 7pm EST. Details can be found at Ingeniosus and new topics to be voted on are posted every week.

This post is taking forfreakingever to write. I hate this POS laptop. I type insanely fast and I’m into a half hour here. (edit: it’s five hours later and I’m still working on this, simply because my frustration level keeps shooting through the roof)

Missy, bless her heart, left me not one, but two awards this week. I have to combine the blog list ’cause I will kill my computer if I link back to 22 bloggers.

Along with the award comes . . . R-U-L-E-S.  Here they are:

A. List 10 things that make you happy.
B. Try to do at least one of them today.
C. Tag 10 bloggers that brighten your day.
D. For those 10 bloggers who get the award, you then link back to my blog and create your own “makes you happy” list.

Ten things that make you happy…ordinarily this wouldn’t be hard, but I still feel like crap from the gluten poisoning and that tends to make me less than happy. Let’s see what I can come up with.

1. Sunshine in February
2. Any temp over 50F in February
3. Coffee with friends
4. Wine and Whine with friends
5. Pandora
6. When the boys genuinely love on each other
7. A hot shower after a hard workout, not that I’ve had the energy for that this week
8. My iPhone…because IT WORKS (hear that, you miserable POS? You can’t miss it, I’M TYPING ON YOU!!!!)
9. When the dog farts and I’m in the other room and don’t have to breathe it in. Never happens, because she’s always under my feet. But I hope.
10. Monday mornings, when I can kick the boys out the door to school.

In the tradition of this award, here are the rules I must oblige by in order to pass it on:

- Put the logo on your blog or within your post.  Check.
- Pass the award onto 12 bloggers.  Check.
- Link the nominees within your post.  Check.
- Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog.  Check.
- Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.  Check.

I’m only linking to 6, because, again, my computer would keel over…I’ve been working on this post for too long…I’m tired and want to go lie down.

1. Nancy at Away We Go. I love her sense of humor.
2. cms at Ends with 8741. She has had a hard week.
3. Lynn at For Love or Funny. Again, makes me laugh.
4. Karin at HeartSongs. She has also had a terrible week.
5. The gals at So ‘Over’ Everything. Another blog on intense, 2e kids. Good to find.
6. Dawn at Weldable Cookies. She is a wonderful friend, has talked me off many a ledge, and never fails to surprise.

Frankly, there are too many. Eventually I’ll get my blogroll up in the header where it says “reading list.” Guess how long that’s been in the queue? Yeah, just slightly short of forever. If you made it this far, congratulations, you made it farther than I did. I gave up long ago and the monkeys quit their Shakespeare and finished this for me.

I started today with a to-do list that had me hyperventilating and my throat closing up. Dawn, bless her heart, talked me off the ledge through IM and now, with some lunch, Coke Zero, and a bunch of M&Ms in me, I think I’ll live. Still looking forward to some wine tonight, though.

…note…I started this three hours ago, am on my second Coke Zero, and have to leave in a half hour. Did much get done? Yes. Do I have an answer on my HSA debit card? Yes. Can I pick up my prescription today? No. On the plus side, it’s sunny and warm. Boring post today?

Yup.