This Will Be The Most Rambling And Convoluted Post Ever So Feel Free To Skip It If You Want To (But I Wouldn't)

Wow. What a ca-razy several weeks! Lemme see if I can recap without boring your brain or losing your attention.

So it's been a month since I posted. Well, let me tell you, I feel plenty guilty about that, but apparently not guilty enough to do anything about it before now. As you may or may not know, we are moving to Houston closer to the end of the year. It seems.... real now, somehow. But first....

Around September 11th I started feeling that wonky feeling. You know the one you get in the back of your throat when you are about to get sick? Yeah, that one. Anyway, that evening I started feeling bad. By the weekend I felt like crap. Not just regular crap, either. The kind of crap that was stepped in, scraped off and stepped in again. I just HAD to start feeling better, though. Monday the 16th was going to be a special day. I had a VIP seat to see the luscious and yummy Adam Levine (and the rest of those Maroon 5 guys) in Atlanta. I had gotten the ticket ($300!!) in May. It was a Mother's Day/birthday/Christmas present from the hubs. I had been counting down for months! Monday rolled around and I couldn't even muster the energy to take a shower much less ride over 2 hours and then sit through about a 4 hour long concert. My ticket was wasted. I cried and cried. There went my chance to be Adam's love slave. Oh, well. I figure after the new wore off I'd be bored anyway...

So, here it is the 16th and I still feel funky as ever. After missing work the previous Thursday and Friday, I skipped work today, too. I got a doctor appointment for Wednesday. Oh, and did I mention I had broken out in some weird boils/pox/blisters? No? Hmmm... Well, I did. All over my face, back and chest. I looked like I had leprosy. It was worse than chicken pox because these suckers were almost open wounds and they H-U-R-T.

Wednesday rolls around and I head to the doctor. She thinks it's a viral infection and loads me up with an antibiotic, an antiviral, some low grade pain meds and a goo to put on the boils. I thought for sure I'd start feeling better soon....

Bahahahahahaha! (That's Life, laughing at me.) By now it's Thursday the 19th. Happy frickin' birthday to me. I wake up to my wrists, fingers, hips, knees, ankles and toes stiff. Also, my feet are so swollen I couldn't even get my flip flop between my toes. Needless to say it was hard to get around for several days.

By the beginning of the next week my feet, particularly my left, was still so swollen. At one point my poor toes were turning blue. I ended up going to the emergency room. After a perfunctory exam and a chest x-ray they declared yes, it was viral. Oh, and we don't treat viruses. So basically I hung out at the hospital for hours only to be told to go home. I ended up stopping the previous medication, and when I did, the swelling went down. Finally!

So that brings us up to this week. Terry left Tuesday for Texas. (Say that 3 times fast!) He won't be back until Thanksgiving. This will be the longest we've spent apart in about 13 years. Monday night Maddie was distraught. She really didn't have any idea about exactly how long it would be before she saw her Daddy again. But, like the brave little trooper she is, she got up Tuesday morning and got on the bus dry-eyed. She and I had a good snuggle and cry that night, though.

Wednesday I began my temporary journey as a single parent. If this week is any indication, I'm pretty much gonna suck at it. It will either make mine and Maddie's relationship stronger or one of us will kill the other. It will also either make me more responsible, or I may just give in and give up all together (not really).

Now you're up to date. She has been doing well in school. Well, better since Miss Smith had a come-to-Jesus talk with a couple of bratty boys who were teasing and tormenting her. I've been doing well in school, too. Well.... except I'm pretty sure my Criminal Justice professor is a hard-ass and I'm gonna fail his stupid class. Other than that, though...

So here it is a beautiful Saturday. I alternate between piddling on the computer and packing some of our nonessential stuff. I'm out of boxes, though, so I may have to make a run to the liquor store.

For BOXES!

But.... since I'll already be there.............

There I Was, Just Minding My Own Business.....

...having my dreams of Adam Levine and peanut butter PopTarts, when BAM! Out of the blue <insert horribly disgusting sounds of kid barfing>. I know there is nothing I love more than being woken from a dead sleep to puke in my bed. Except maybe going around again on the vomit comet 30 minutes later after the sheets have been changed and everyone settled back down. So, yeah. Starting off the day at 4 a.m. to a sick kid isn't great. But you know what's even less great? Starting off the day before school starts with vomit. We are supposed to go register for 1st grade and meet her teacher at 4 p.m. today. I seriously hope she's feeling better by then.

OH! And THEN you know what happened? An hour or so after the last visit from "The Exorcist" (ya know. The whole projectile vomiting thing? Anyway..) guess who else starts to feel a rumbly in their tummy? If you said me, then you're right. You win eleventy bajillion dollars. The check's in the mail...

So, here I am. Five-o-freakin'-clock in the morning. My last day to "sleep in" until 7 a.m. and I've been up almost 2 hours already. Maddie is settled in snugly beside her daddy sound asleep. And me? Well, the tummy is still rumbly and there are some urgent issues there, but no vomit.

Yet.

An OMG-Life-Revelations Moment Due To A Kid-Free Weekend

Last weekend the hubs had to shoot pictures in Memphis. Since he was going to have to leave before I got home from work ,we let Maddie stay Thursday night with my mom. I picked her up after work on Friday. I then had the brilliant idea to go see my grandmother and then take my 14 year old twin boys out to eat. Maddie stayed with Grandmother while the guys and I went and ate Mexican. Afterward, I hung out at Grandmother's house for about an hour. I was gathering up my stuff (and Maddie's stuff that she has a tendency to leave in a trail all over the house) getting ready to head back home when Maddie asked if she could stay the night with Grandmother. Ummm..... Hellz yeah! Terry out of town and Maddie with Grandmother?! Party time, suckas! Me....home alone....with only the dog (who sleeps like all. the. time.) for a whole night?? Sign me up. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. So around 9:30 Friday night I headed home. Alone. Just me. I was able to roll down all the windows and jack up the tunes for the first time in.... I don't even know how long. I was essentially footloose and fancy free for a whole night. What to do, what to do... I couldn't think of a damn thing so I just went home. BUT, I was able to watch a whole movie without having to pause it to get her something to eat. Or something to drink. Or watch while she did an interpretive dance of the butterfly. Or whatever. Did you hear that?! I didn't have to get up One. Single. Time. I plopped my ever-widening ass down in my recliner and I veg-ed. I watched some TV, played on the computer, and basically had myself a really good "me" time. The next time I looked up, it was 5 in the morning. Yup. I had stayed up all night doing my thang.

Surprisingly, I wasn't tired at all so I got some other stuff done Saturday morning and afternoon. When I called to find out what time I should go get Maddie, she informed me she was staying another night. WHAT?! I thought I must be delirious from lack of shut-eye, but no, I heard correctly. My brain was going, "WTF? Two whole days with no husband and no kid?? S.C.O.R.E!". (Yeah, I know, my brain's kind of a selfish bitch.) So with nothing on my to-do list and nowhere I had to be, I proceeded to have another 24 hours of "me" time. Really it was the same tune, just a different verse. More TV, movies on Netflix and gaming on the computer. I didn't even get out of my pajamas all day Saturday!! I was completely and utterly self indulgent. The best part? I didn't even feel guilty about it. (Ok, ok. I *may* have felt a smidgen of guilt. But I squashed it like a bug.)

What, you may be asking, were my big life revelations? Well, let me tell you.

     1. My ass is too heavy and my bones too old to sit/lay in a recliner for 36 hours straight.

     2. I eat like a teenager when there isn't anyone else here for me to feed. (For breakfast Saturday morning, I ate a s'more. A graham cracker, a little Hershey bar and a microwaved marshmallow. It was yummy!)

     3. Facebook games (ie: Candy Crush, Farm Heroes Saga, Papa Pear, etc.) will suck you in. Seriously. I really believe they are rigged so that you lose a couple of lives but then you win and move on until your lives replenish. I may or may not have played Candy Crush for more than 2 hours. Straight.



So after a purely decadent weekend, Sunday dawned. I took a (much needed) shower, put on makeup and got dressed. An added bonus of having Maddie stay with Grandmother is that she (Grandmother, not Maddie) cooks a huge meal on Sunday afternoons. I had a wonderful lunch to top off my grand alone-but-not-lonely weekend. After a round of hugs and goodbyes I finally wrangled her (Maddie, not Grandmother) and all her junk to the car. I thought for sure we'd have a really good day since we hadn't been in each others' pockets and on each others' nerves all weekend. Well, I was wrong. Not just wrong, but WRONG. She apparently became possessed by the grouchiest of demons while she was away. Geez she was hateful. At one point Sunday evening I had to send her to her room to keep from killing her. After a peaceful and quiet couple of days boy was I ever paying for it now.

Was it worth it? I wondered to myself. Yep, because she was so tired from playing all weekend that she was in bed by 9:00. And, of course, I wasn't too far behind her considering the last time I slept was a fitful 4 hours Thursday night.

Sleep. Or The Lack Thereof.

I think I would rather not sleep at all than to sleep in snatches a few minutes at a time. I’m pretty sure my bed is where time goes to die. Last night, it was storming. So instead of Maddie going to sleep by herself, I went and laid down with her. It was only a little after 10:00, so I thought I would lay with her until she went to sleep and then get back up for a while. I guess, since I didn’t sleep all that well the night before, I fell asleep too. I last looked at the clock at 10:11. Several hours later I woke up. I looked at the clock. 10:52. Hmmm… I slept less than an hour. And then I proceeded to wake up and blearily eye the hated clock every hour until I gave up at 7:05. I got up at 7 a.m. on. a. Saturday. Maddie, however, slept until 9:30.  And I’m sure my sleeping so poorly had nothing AT ALL to do with the heifer dog sleeping up my butt while holding down most of my covers. Also, I’m absolutely positive it didn’t have A THING to do with Maddie crocodile-death-rolling into a cocoon with what was left of my blanket so that all I ended up with was a stingy sliver of a corner of the sheet. Why, you may be asking, was I sharing my nice, comfy king-sized bed with my very wiggly, very long-legged six year old? Well, when Terry goes out of town I let her sleep with me. Bad parenting? Maybe. But I figure there will be plenty of time when she gets older where she doesn’t want to snuggle or even be near me. Right now, though, I will enjoy the way she wants me to face her; the way she curls her hands under her face while she softly snores; the way her long sooty eyelashes fan her face; the way her breath smells worse than a puppy’s butt and she is constantly in motion, even in the deepest sleep. I guess it’s worth not having a REM cycle for the foreseeable future. What I worry about most, though, is does not sleeping well give you more wrinkles??

My daughter, Cybill. Ummm... I mean, Maddie. Yeah. My daughter MADDIE.

She has as many personalities as she does outfits. Sometimes I wonder if she really does have multiple personalities in there. Or maybe she's possessed. Nah. She's just *my* kid. Here are a few of her costume changes. Bear in mind, she put on and took off most of these in the span of about 35 minutes. She only wears them for approximately 19 seconds and then she's off to the next one. After one of her dress-up sessions, her room looks like a teenager's who is about to go on her first date with that really cute guys that she just loves.

Introducing Princess Aurora (with some attitude). Notice the hands on hips, cheeky grin and her "darlin'" shoes.



The Betty Crocker of the Kindergartners. (again with the 'tude)



She's a Bunny. And a Cheer Leader. And a Doctor/Mad Scientist.

She is a friend to nature....

And and environmental activist (well, just dressed like a flower, really)

A mermaid (with home-made costume), a self-described Alien, and Snow White



Showing the dichotomy of her Id... A sleeping Angel vs. The Devil (who may or may not be a witch fairy)

"Because we ALL just wanna be big ROCK STARS" (courtesy of Nickelback. Now that song's in your head, isn't it? You're welcome!)

And I don't know about you, but I would love to be a Hula Girl!

And finally, her SELFIE:

(Yeah, ok. She looks a little drunk. And strange because her big girl teeth are almost all the way in. That green thing is a baby apple from a tree in Papa's yard. She likes to pick things.)


You're welcome, world.