FED UP

Have you ever gotten to the point where you can't take one. more. single. thing??

You may remember me sharing the frustrations I've been dealing with over the past couple of weeks, with the cooties being passed back and forth between both of my girls.

And the cherry, on top of the whipped cream, on top of the icing, on top of the cake was when Sugar coughed ON. MY. ARM. only for me to discover she had a fever of 102!!!

Needless to say, I took her BACK to the doctor the next morning where she was diagnosed with the flu. Strain A flu, to be specific.

What does that mean, you ask??? Well, let me just tell ya...

Apparently there are two major strains of flu: Strain A and Strain B.

But strain A happens to be the strain that the dreaded swine flu is in. Which means... If you are diagnosed with strain A flu, you have to stay out of work/school for 7 calendar days or until you are symptom free for 24 hours - whichever comes later.

I know what you're thinking - I thought so too. In fact, I had to re-read that same sentence a couple of times myself. But in answer to your question, that is not a typo: If you or your child has strain A of the influenza virus, you will be out for a MINIMUM of 7 days.

Now, while I understand and completely agree with the importance of preventing the spread of the potentially deadly strain of the N1H1 virus - heck, I'll even go so far as to say I agree with taking necessary measures to prevent the spread of ANY virus - I had already been at home with sick kids for almost two weeks. To me, one more week added to that sentence felt like the proverbial nail in the coffin.

At this point, I feel I need to add a disclaimer stating that I am not complaining about my children being sick. No parent likes to see their children sick. And while I am blessed that I have the ability to work from home, I like having adult interactions. I like the people I work with and I enjoy going to work each day.

And now back to our regularly scheduled blog post...

So, we've gone to the doctor and she's been diagnosed as having strain A influenza. The doctor writes a prescription for our household, in an effort to prevent us all from getting sick too. They give Sugar a mask to put over her face and we're escorted out to the back side of the office - I told her now she knows what Michael Jackson must have felt like, except she still has a nose.

The whole family is now on Tamiflu and suddenly Spice starts behaving like a little monster - I mean, even more so than usual - and that's putting it mildly. I don't know what got into that girl but I am not exaggerating when I tell you that she threw a first class kicking, screaming - at the top of her lungs - fit for about fifteen minutes one night.

With all the recent changes in her daily routine, it's hard to pin point the cause of this extreme behavior. It could be that she's still trying to get acclimated to the more structured environment of school. Add to that, that she's accustomed to taking a three to four hour nap in the afternoons and that's not happening anymore; it could be that she's simply exhausted. It might be that she still isn't feeling well or, it may be that she's seen someone else throwing fits and thought she would come home and try it out.

But the most perplexing of all is that her conduct in school deteriorated too. She has been bringing home a green smiley face every day since school started (that's the best you can get) and suddenly she was bringing home orange and yellow dots (not good! Orange is one step away from red, which is the worst!).

Now, I'm not living in some fantasy world where I am delusional enough to believe that my little girl is going to be perfectly behaved every single day; after all, I did give her the pseudonym of Spice not Angel. ;) While she is my child and I do love her, I also know that she is very stubborn and can be quite obstinate when she so chooses - but something weird was going on here.

Taking the timing of this decline into consideration, I decided to read up on any possible conditions caused by the medicine we were all taking... Sure enough, there it was in black and white: This medication could cause extreme behavioral changes in some and this is most likely to occur in young children.

"Well there you go." I thought to myself, "this explains it. Once we finish this round of medicine, her behavior will improve and we will be back to normal around here." - whatever that is ;)

Last Sunday was her final dose of the liquid evil medicine and on Monday she brought home another green smiley face. YAY!:) This desired pattern of good behavior continued throughout the entire week, thus proving that the culprit of all of last weeks heartburn was indeed the Tamiflu.

That is until...TONIGHT.

Tonight, the evil twin returned for round two of the B.B.B. (Bratty Behavioral Battles). And this time, Sugar thought she was going to join in on the fun too - it must be the full moon...

But, after almost three whole weeks of running back and forth to the doctors office, getting coughed on, being under house arrest and spending $157.00 in medicine - all in the name of love for her children - momma had reached the end of her rope.

She was FED UP!

The girls have been in their rooms since 7 pm and they were told warned strongly advised that they had better not to come back down for the remainder of the night, because not even Calgon could take me far enough away for them to escape my wrath if I had to correct them one more time tonight.

Tomorrow, Mr. Shell comes home and I get to run away from home and escape reality for a while when I go to the movies. Until then, please pray for my children. Ask that the Lord remain by their mother's side because I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that He is the only reason I have not hurt them tonight.

Back-to-school

My oldest daughter is in the seventh grade this year. [GULP!]

I clearly remember our drive, nine years ago, to our very first day of school. She was going into K-4 (also known as pre-kindergarten). She has a late birthday and missed the cut off for kindergarten by a month or two. Her father and I both felt that she was too smart to continue going to day care and that she would benefit most from an early start into a big girl school.

Several weeks before that first day of school, everyone around kept telling me that I should take that day off, that it was going to be an emotional experience and to take tissues because I was going to cry.

"No way," I would tell them all. "I've been dropping her off every morning since she was six weeks old. This is just another day of dropping her off in the morning on my way to work. I'll be fine."

We woke up that morning and got her dressed for her first day of big girl school. She was so excited and looked so cute, how could I be sad on such a joyous occasion? I wouldn't; I was sure of it.

We drove to school, talking about it the entire way: discussing all the wonderful things she was going to learn and how she was going to have so much fun and how she had to listen to her teacher and obey what they told her to do. All spirits were high and then... we hit the drive to the school and, like a boldar landing on my chest, my breath got swept away and the tears started stinging the backs of my eyes.

This was my baby, she was going to big girl school, growing up right before my very eyes.

Before the tears had time time to register and no sooner than I had come to a complete stop in the chosen parking space than my big girl threw off her seat belt, grabbed her back-pack, and swung open her door, oblivious to her mommy's emotional struggles, and says "Okay, bye mommy. I love you!"

Fast forward to nine years later...

Today was the first day of kindergarten for my youngest baby and I just knew I would a wreck. I took the day off of work and had tissues ready in the event of another dreaded emotional battle.

I don't know if it was because of the difference in their personalities, the differences in their ages or the difference in the amount of drive time - almost an hour for Sugar, nine years ago, as opposed to about two minutes for Spice, today; but whatever the reason, I handled this transition much better than the first go around.

One thing remained the same though....No sooner than I had come to a stop in the chosen space, my other baby threw off her seat belt, grabbed her back-pack, slung open the car door and said, "Okay, bye mommy. I love you!"

*sniff-sniff*

My girls -fearless, or maybe it's just as Spice told her daddy today, "I'm ascited!" ;)

What would you do if...

There was a baggie full of money on the table - mostly coins but it did have a few dollars in it. The money in the bag belonged to her oldest daughter, but she had to give it to Ms. Jewal to pay her back for a problem she had caused a few weeks back.

The four year old picked up the baggie and started to walk off but the observant mother stopped her before she could get very far. "Put that back."

"But I need it." the child said, in her four year old logical way.

"You don't need it. That money is for Ms. Jewal." she explained.

"I need some dollars for to go to Nana's."

"You aren't going to Nana's tonight, you're going to bed. Now put it back."

"You will give me some dollars when I go to Nana's?"

"Yes, I will give you some dollars the next time we go to Nana's. Now put it back so we don't lose it."

After being reassured that she would get some 'dollars' the next time she went to her Nana's house, she put the baggie full of money back onto the table.

The next evening, the mother was sitting in her favorite brown chair when she looked over and noticed that all of the dollars were missing from the coin bag. Recalling the conversation from the night before, she naturally thought that the young child had removed the money so she called the girl in so she could question her.

When she asked her what she did with the dollars, the little girl looked at the bag of coins and then, with a funny look on her face, looked at her mother and said, "I didn't do it."

The mother didn't believe her but, after she told her what the punishment would be if she didn't bring the money back and watching her youngest make several sincere yet unsuccessful attempts to find the money, she soon realized that the child was telling the truth.

She questioned her oldest daughter but she claimed to have no knowledge of the whereabouts of the lost bills.

There were only three people in the house who could have taken the money. She didn't take it and she was now 100% certain that her youngest hadn't taken it either, which only left the oldest girl.

I can not express to you how heavy my heart felt when I finally realized that my oldest daughter had not only removed the money from the baggie, but that she was going to let her little sister take the punishment for something that she didn't do.

This seems to be an ongoing problem with her and it is something that I absolutely cannot abide. I need your feedback. I have exhausted all of my measures and nothing has worked. I am at my absolute whits end.

Please tell me, what you would do if you had a child who constantly fibbed?

Wordless Wednesday - More Hair Do's