Annoying

The other day my 8 year old was teasing my 6 year old. Finally my 6 year old had enough and said, "Stop it! I'm getting annoying!"

Like the good mom that I am, I chuckled. I'm pretty sure he meant to say that he was getting annoyed, but I didn't say anything.

In other news, I finally did it. I got my hair cut. 11.5 inches. I donated it to locks of love which is great because I found a swanky salon that gives a free hair cut when you donate your hair. I did the same thing 5 years ago. A $50 haircut for free! Well kinda for free. I have to wait another 5 years to get another free hair cut.

I Still Can't Figure It Out

My bluetooth. I know it's only one button. But I can't figure it out. I hung up on my sister today. Twice. And I ignored my husband's call. When I finally pressed the button I heard it ringing. I'm sure I hung up on someone else in my phone book. So sorry.

Now for my lame excuse for not being here. I just got back from Hawaii. I went with my husband and kids for 7 days. We met my husband's family there for 4 days. They traveled from Japan. I'll try to post some pics later. Not that anyone really wants to see me in a bathing suit, so I might just post some pics of the kids.

I know that's only 7 or 8 days accounted for. I also hurt my back. I was out of commission for almost a month. I was taking so much medicine and had two shots in my spine. You know someone is in a lot of pain when getting a needle inserted into her spine sounds like a good idea. And the second shot seemed to have done the trick. Oh, I also got a fashionable back brace. It's about 2 feet long and fits like a sharp corset. I heard you will be able to purchase one for yourself this fall at Nordstrom's.

Figuring Things Out

Today my 8 year old son asked me, "Mom, what month is 7 months before October?"

I replied, "I don't know."

Then he said, "March! That means you got pregnant with my little brother on March 17th 2003."

Gulp.

That caught me a little off guard.

Then he said, "I wonder what time."

Just then I choked on my gum.

No more math lessons for him!

Look Mom!

Yesterday morning my 8 year old son was holding his little brother's teddy bear. The bear was face down on the counter and my 8 year old had one hind leg in each hand. He gave a tug to the left leg and then to the right and continued doing so. He looked up at me and said, "Look mom, I'm milking the bear."

Being the good mom that I am, I laughed. Which only encouraged him.

I tried to stop. Then I heard my husband say, "Please stop milking the bear."

I laughed some more.

"Please stop milking the bear" definitely falls into the list of Things you never expected to utter say.

I'm afraid my 8 year old has a lot to learn.

Ducklings

Last week was spring break. My oldest turned 8 on Saturday. 8?! How did that happen?? I feel old.

My 8 year old needed new sneakers. He had already outgrown the ones I bought him 2 weeks ago. So I took my 2 kids to the mall to buy shoes. Well first, I begged him to pick a pair from payless. I found a cute pair of cheap sandals for myself at payless but my son found nothing.

I don't take my kids to the mall very often. In fact, I try to avoid it. I can't even remember the last time I took them there. It was weird.

My kids are now obviously too big for a stroller. They have been out of the stroller for several years. And they are no longer running away from me in the mall. I don't have to chase after them like a crazy mom of two toddlers running in two different directions. All of a sudden I was at the mall with my kids and they were following me. I was the mother duck and my ducklings were following me. I had to turn around every minute to make sure they were still there.

I had heard of this in fairy tales, but I never believed it was real.

Things have changed.

I now have ducklings.

Quack.

Do You Like Peas?

Last week I was reading with my 6 year old. The character in the book was eating spaghetti and meatballs. My son looked up at me and said, "That's my favorite!" I smiled and he continued reading. The next line said the character also had peas for dinner. My son looked up at me and said, "Eww. I don't like peas." He paused for a moment and then added, "Except for black eyed peas."

I think it's important to keep your kids well rounded and up to date with pop culture. Not that I would ever let my kids listen to black eyed peas. Ahem.

This proud parent moment is brought to you by the letter "P".

1 in 4 women

Have you seen the commercial for Clear Blue Easy Pregnancy Test? The one that says, "Did you know that 1 in 4 women can misread a traditional pregnancy test result?"

I searched for a video clip of the commercial, but couldn't find anything. But I did find it written their website here. In case you haven't seen the commercial and think I'm making this up.

That statistic surprised me. I think, "1 in 4 women can deny a pregnancy test" is more accurate.

You Just Know

You just know it's not going to be a good day when you start the day packing lunch for your child to take to school. He wants chicken nuggets with barbecue sauce. And when you take the barbecue sauce from the fridge you discover that the lid was not screwed on. How do you discover this? When you grab it by the lid. Your feet suddenly feel cool and moist. And not in a good way. You look down and see that your socks and the kitchen floor are now a deep reddish brown color. You just know this is not a good way to start the day.

I'm Still Here

I know some of you may have been wondering where I've been lately. And I'm guessing some of you may not have noticed that I was gone. And I'm sure still more are wondering who is Cookie anyway?

Would you believe I'm just being mysterious?

I didn't think so.

Today was my final exam in my Japanese class. I still have a presentation next week (that I haven't started preparing for) but soon I'll have more free time. I should have been studying yesterday, but my 6 year old had other plans. He vomited in his bed and slept in it all night. I walked into his room yesterday morning to a bed full of chunks. How can you vomit and not continue sleeping??? There was also a pile of bloody tissues next to his bed. He told me that the vomit was boogers. He had a bloody nose and thought that had caused the vomit. Poor kid. I had already taken him to the pediatrician last week and we already had a follow-up appointment scheduled for this morning. So he stayed home sick yesterday and the pediatrician gave him the OK to go back to school today. Tomorrow we have an appointment with the allergist. A 3 hour appointment.

The other thing that has been taking up my time is that I joined a gym. I've become a workout junkie. Or rather a workout junkie wannabe. My biggest complaint about the gym is that there is a McDonald's across the parking lot from the gym. So after burning 200 calories on the treadmill, I can reward myself with a thousand calorie milkshake. A vicious cycle.

Spring is in the Air

And so is the pollen.

The flowers on the trees are blooming, it's 60 degrees outside (just had to rub it in a little for my east coast Eskimos friends) and my 6 year old can't stop rubbing his eyes.

I mentioned last week that we had a trip to the urgent care. Yes, I took him to urgent care for his allergies. It's more of a clinic than urgent care. Anyway, I had to. The school nurse said he had pink eye.

I took my son at 7pm to the urgent care clinic. We waited for half an hour. Then a lady wearing shorts came in the room. Shorts, in February. And high heels. So high that she wobbled when she walked. And the high heeled shoes had ankle straps. She had grey hair pulled back in a pony tail. Oh, and she was wearing a white lab coat. Yes, the short-wearing, wobbling lady was the doctor.

I explained that my son has seasonal allergies and that the school nurse thought he had pink eye.

She looked at his eye and said she couldn't tell if it was allergies or pink eye, but the eye was definitely red and swollen.

Her solution? She told me to wait until the morning. If he can't open his eye because it's all crusted over, then he has pink eye. If not, he has allergies. $50 please.

Not so fast! "So what should I do if he has pink eye?"

"Oh, here's a prescription for eye drops."

"And what do I do if it's not pink eye?"

"Then he has allergies." I could here the duh tone in her voice.

"Well, the nurse won't let him back to school with red eyes."

"Ok, here's a note saying he can go back to school."

"Thanks, but is there anything else I can do for his red eyes. He's already taking Claritin and it doesn't seem to be working."

"Ok, here's another prescription for eye drops for allergies. Now $50 please."

So I left that clinic not knowing anymore than I did when I walked in. But I did have prescriptions and a note! That night I filled the prescription for the allergy eye drops, because that's what I thought was the problem.

The next morning, his eyes were still red, but not crusty. I gave him the drops and he went to school. That was almost a week ago.

This morning his eyes were hurting so bad that he woke up crying. So I thought maybe I should take him back to the doctor. Well, his normal pediatrician, not the short-wearing, high-heel-wearing, wobbly lady. But after talking with my husband we thought it might be worth just trying the other prescription that we already had.

I dropped the prescription off at the pharmacy this morning. When I picked it up the pharmacist explained how to use the ear drops. I interrupted her. "Isn't it for his eyes?" I asked. The pharmacist went in the back and I could hear some arguing. She came out and apologized for the error. Then told me that they didn't have the eye drops in stock. She called two other pharmacies for me. No place had the eye drops in stock. So she was going to order them and they would be there tomorrow.

2 hours later the pharmacy called. The lady told me that that medication doesn't actually come in eye drops. It's only available in ear drops. This only strengthens my confidence in the clinic "doctor." The pharmacist told me that she had already called the doctor's office and left a message. I thanked her. What a wonderful pharmacy I have.

I immediately called the clinic. The receptionist was very slow. She asked me four times what date my son was in the office. She took the information and said she would get back to me. She never did.

How many more weeks until winter??