Wordless Wednesday

Before…

After…

Wordless Wednesday

As of February 1st, I am officially back in the “full-time” working world. Yes, I was offered two full-time jobs in the past two weeks and after much deliberation, I decided to accept one of them. It simply was an offer I couldn’t refuse.  It allows me to be 5 minutes from home and allows me to not only work full-time but also most importantly it still allows me to be a mom.  I needed something which took into account my family and children, and I am so fortunate to have found it.

I think I have been driving around more in the last two weeks than I have in the last three years!  From interviews, to meetings, to appointments, it’s been simply crazy.  I have so many pictures on my Nikon which have yet to be downloaded onto my computer and be posted here.  I am hoping now that I have signed the dotted line that I can focus on my other love, which I have missed terribly - blogging about my life.

I hope everyone has been well.  Speaking of which, it seems like we have finally gotten out of our cycle of illnesses.  We have been happy and healthy for weeks!  Hallelujah!

So, let me know how your last two weeks have been going.  Have they been just as crazy as mine?  If your a Capricorn, like me, our horoscope has been calling for big changes, so maybe some others of you have some crazy/cool news for me!

Eddie seems to be feeling much better, as do the rest of us.  I got some much needed sleep last night and didn’t have to wash or clean anything or watch any more Disney movies in the middle of the night. We temporarily switched him to soy milk yesterday and it made all the difference in the world.  For the past month, we have been giving him Lactaid because I was tired of his GI specialist saying that he had “toddler’s diarrhea” for the last year (yeah, that’s a LOT of diarrhea).  My mother suggested he could be lactose intolerant and we decided to try the Lactaid milk.  Amazingly his “toddler’s diarrhea” totally resolved.  He did so well with the lactose-free milk, but once this stomach flu hit, he could no longer tolerate anything milk-based.  The soy milk has made him so much happier, which makes me wonder if we have to stick with soy or if we can go back to the Lactaid now that his stomach has settled.  I just tried the latter a few hours ago and he seems to be back to his old self.  We’ll just have to see if this continues. *crossing my fingers and toes*

Also, thanks to everyone for their well wishes, and for being here for me even though I have been absent.  I have so many hundreds of posts to catch up on in my reader.  I haven’t forgotten about any of you, and I have been itching to get back into the blogging world.  I will be catching up with all of you in these next few days, especially since I am not buried in puke and laundry anymore!

It all started with my husband’s ominous words: “I think I am getting sick.”

I hate those words.

We’ve been relatively healthy for the past few weeks, and my husband was the only one to escape the carnage of sicknesses past. However, a few days ago his statement came true. He had a head cold - sniffling, sneezing, etc. Usually not a big deal.

With bleach and Purell in my arsenal, I began disinfecting the entire house to attempt to prevent any further casualties. I washed my hands so many times that I am now sporting the no-moisturizer-can-help-me hands.

All seemed to be going well until 1:30am on Monday night.

I heard Brad coughing in his room. As I ran in to see if he was alright, he threw up all over his bed. No fever, no sniffly nose… I think it must have been something he ate. After a bath, changing the bed, and starting the laundry, we settled in under a blanket in the living room with a Disney movie. At around 4am I was certain it was something he ate because he felt fine.

Tuesday, Brad was feeling great, but Eddie woke up with a diaper explosion at 6am. He had some mad diarrhea all day long. Again I thought - He must have eaten the same bad thing. No sniffly nose, no fever, so he’s not sick. Just some bad food, right?

Wednesday, I began to doubt myself. In the middle of the night, Eddie started throwing up. Another bath, bed change, and Disney movie. Hmmm… maybe this wasn’t a food thing. Now, I started feeling queasy - probably sympathy nausea.

Today, I woke with a stuffy nose and sneezing. Eddie was still throwing up and Brad, thankfully, was fine. Eddie started taking some fluids today but the moment he bit into a cracker I had to start the laundry again.

About an hour ago my husband came home and I couldn’t find him. I walked into the bathroom to see him worshiping the porcelain god. Damn.

And so we come full circle…

Husband with a head cold and now stomach flu…

Brad with something bad that he ate…

Eddie with the stomach flu which he passed on to my husband…

And me with the head cold that my husband so lovingly gave me.

I am so done with being sick. I can’t wait to look back on this and laugh… “remember when we were sick all the time?” Yeah, I can’t wait for this to become a laughable memory.

That way I am covered for the whole year, LOL.

Seriously though, thanks to all of you for making this past year of blogging a blast. I look forward to this new year, making new bloggy buddies, and SEEING YOU ALL AT BLOGHER ‘09!!! Yes, I am definitely going! WOOT WOOT!

Anyhow, now with the craziness gone, I have so much catching up to do - laundry to finish, decorations to take down, bills to pay, posts to write, blogs to read, etc… and not in that order either. My parents are still in town for another week, so I plan to maximize their time with the boys, as they only get to see them two or three times a year.

So, for now I hope everyone has a great New Year!  I’ll be around, but maybe not on the computer as much for the next week or so.

For the past week we have been reliving the illness which struck us on Thanksgiving.  You’d think with my quitting smoking nearly two months ago that I’d be less susceptible to the seasonal crap going around right now.  All I have to say is that I hope we get some kick-ass immunity from all this sickness this year so that next year we can be looking back on this laughing. A mom can only hope!

I can’t blame preschool this time around for our bout with the sickies, but rather the hospital where I worked extra last week seems to have been the culprit.  My couch has been my best friend, and it has taken all of my will power just to drag myself up to my bedroom to sleep for the night.  Eddie has been a miserable wreck, which means we have regressed back to the nights of waking every two hours.

“This too shall pass” has become my mantra.

Hey, on a good note I found a $20 bill in my wallet today that I didn’t know I had.  Covers the cost of all the medicine I bought yesterday.

Mama so needs a vacation right now. Somewhere warm, tropical, and quiet. Who’s with me?

My children are not.

I decided that I needed to work on this, especially since it is a well-known fact that young children can pick up a foreign language with the greatest of ease.

English is actually my second language. I spoke Polish until I started Kindergarten, and I was a bit shocked when I arrived at school and all the kids were talking (what I thought) was gibberish. However, because my brain was a big old sponge at the tender age of 6, I was speaking English pretty fluently within a few weeks.

I still speak Polish all the time now to my mother, my father, my grandparents - pretty much my entire immediate family. I guess I could speak in English, but this is my way of keeping up with my native language by practicing it every chance I get. I do have to say that English is a much easier language to speak, read, and write than Polish, which is part of the reason I never consistently spoke Polish to my children.

This past week I have been trying to speak more often to my children, especially Brad, in Polish. I have also been teaching him simple words and phrases any chance I get. Well, he has picked up an amazing amount in the past week, to the point that he makes an effort to speak Polish everyday by saying “hello”, “goodbye”, and “goodnight” to me without any prompting. He’s even trying to teach his dad everything new he has learned, by coming up to him and saying things like, “Dada, this is how you say tree in Polish… drzewo!” And he won’t stop until my husband repeats the word perfectly. He definitely takes after me in this regard.

My dear son also showed me last night how much he truly understands about people speaking foreign languages, following a conversation with my mom (he calls her Booboo):

Brad: “Mama, I talked Polish to Booboo on the phone.”

Me: “That’s great!”

Brad: “You know that Booboo speaks Polish, Mama.”

Me: “Yes, she sure does and so does your Mama.”

Brad: “Yes, and Dory speaks whale.”

Me: *spitting water out of my nose*