A Slew

of old posts are headed your way dear readers. I know I've been incredibly remiss about my postings as of late. What can I say, life has been cray-jee.

Been awhile

The barnyard has been a zoo. In my last long post I mentioned Pig's nap/bed-time crying. Well, our theory is that it's the result of separation anxiety coupled with a nasty cold/flu. By the time my parents arrived to help out I was about to cry myself. Pig was sick and spouting mucus profusely, Moo's nose had started running and I was starting to show symptoms. Pig was screaming 30 mins to an hour before finally falling asleep and Moo was taking forever to go down and then waking up twice, sometimes more, during the night to eat. When my parents pulled up to the house, dishes and laundry were piled up, clutter abounded and Moo and I stood in the doorway, wild-eyed and frowzy-haired.

Grazie mille to my parents. Could not have done it without them. It was awesome coming from work to find the house clean, kids fed and smiling, dishes including bottles washed, laundry washed and folded, the dog walked and fed, and praise the Lawd, hot dinner waiting for me on the table. All I had to do was put Pig down for the night.

But we all felt K's absence keenly. My mom called me one day at work worried about Pig. Apparently when she and my dad dropped the kids off at Mrs. V's, Pig stood at the door waving sadly and watching my parents pull out of the driveway. Now, Pig normally considers Mrs. V's house a second home and usually runs in with nary a glance back. So the sight of her sad little face in the doorway had my mom in tears. Luckily, Pig did well during the day, ate and slept normally. It was just that separation in the morning that was tough.

I got home that night and my dad asked if K was available to Skype. We tried to Skype as much as possible but since K was often out in the early evening, it didn't happen as much as we would've liked.

After about a week, things started to improve. Pig stopped screaming when I put her down for the night, she stood in her crib and watched me leave her room and when I closed the door, I could hear her lie down. Just as things started settling down, my mom came down with the flu and few days later my dad started sniffling. I wasn't 100 percent myself and Moo was still waking up during the night so at work I was a walking zombie.

K wasn't sure when he'd come home, he had to wait to get the greenlight from his home office. So my parents prepared to stay another week. Then on Friday, I tried calling K's cell and got his voicemail. Hmm, odd, I guess his phone went dead. I tried it again, still voicemail. I started getting worried and of course, my imagination started running wild. What if something had happened? There was no way for us to know. I checked online and saw that he was online and messaged him, not thinking he'd respond. But lo and behold, he replied, "what?" I asked him why he wasn't picking up his phone. "Because you can't use your cell phone on the plane." !!!!! My parents and I rejoiced.

K was going to surprise us and show up that night. Actually it was a good thing that I had caught him. He didn't land until 11 pm and didn't have a housekey on him and would've freaked out the entire house if he knocked at that hour.

I'm outnumbered

Well after a hectic morning, we got K packed and onto his plane.

A little snippet of that morning:

Me: I've packed your pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt.

K: I don't need them.

Me: You get cold in hotel rooms and you might need to venture out into the hallway.

Later...

Me: I've packed your flip flops.

K: I don't need them.

Me: You might need to venture out of your room and it'll be easier than stuffing your feet into shoes each time.

So on and so forth.

I asked that we leave the house about an 1.5 hour before to have a family lunch before we went to the airport. I hate hasty goodbyes so I thought it would be a good opportunity to just relax, chill and enjoy each other's company. So glad we did, we were able to just have fun over burgers and headed off to the airport in good spirits.

That is, until I dropped K off. Pig was getting cranky and refused to kiss her daddy goodbye. I could tell K was pretty upset about it and I felt badly for him. However, the minute that car door closed Pig saw her dad leave dragging his bag behind him, she burst into tears.

When we got home I fed Moo, changed his diaper and settled him into his bouncy chair. Then I took Pig upstairs and got her hands, face and feet washed, changed into her sleepwear and gave her sleepytime bottle of milk. Moo started crying so I had to rush out and Pig started crying. And that soon became screaming. I put Moo down and then rushed back upstairs. Pulled a hysterical Pig out of her crib and read her a quick story (Moo started crying again), big kiss and hug and put her back in her crib and the minute I turned to leave, she started screaming again.

What could I do. Unfortunately, I had to choose between my kids and I had to take care of the infant over the toddler. I couldn't keep going into Pig's room because that only reset the screaming clock. So I sat downstairs feeding Moo and listening to Pig yell and scream. It went on for 30 minutes before she finally fell asleep. I felt like a total jerk.

Moo thankfully napped for an hour which allowed me to recharge a little. After two hours, Pig was up too which is a short nap for her. Got her diaper changed and brought her down for some juice and a snack. While I cleaned up around the kitchen and got dinner ready, Pig and Moo skyped with my parents who kept them entertained for about a half an hour. Pig was getting cranky so we ended the call and ventured downstairs to the kids playroom. I brought down a whole load of socks. Pig has developed a fascination with socks so I figured we could the time before bath and bedtime matching socks.

Nope she wanted to examine her brother. But her nose had started running earlier that morning so I had to keep her away from him. She watched a little Bedtime Elmo and helped me clean up her toys. Then we trooped upstairs for her bath. Pig loves putting in the bathplug and filling up the tub so I dragged Moo's bouncy chair upstairs so he could watch. Pig splashed and tried to swim in two inches of water and then refused to get out of the tub. So I wrapped her up in a towel and carried her into her room.

I was starting to relax. Pig was in good spirits and we sang while we got her diapered and back into her jammies. I dragged Moo's chair into her room and he watched while I read a bedtime story and Pig finished her milk. Still good. As I put her into her crib, she began whimpering and then I turned she burst into tears. So I turned and gave her another hug and kiss and tried to reassure her. Moo had started crying so we had to leave, the two feed off each other.

So again, Moo and I sat downstairs while Pig screamed. I so wanted to go upstairs but knew the 3 of us would be up forever if I did. So Moo ate and fell asleep and then I sat there holding him and listened to my poor girl cry her eyes out upstairs.

Moo refused to go down until 11 pm and then woke up at 3 am and then 4 and at 6:45 when the alarm went off, I was almost relieved.

Pig woke up crying again, having as K would say, dropped a deuce into her diaper. I brought her down for juice and cereal and her Backyardigans soundtrack. She was in good spirits again, swinging her brown little legs and singing along with the music. Moo coo-ed away in his bassinet. I puttered about getting bottles ready, cleaning up dirty diapers. The kids were headed to Miss D's today as Mrs. V has gone out of town so I put together a package of diapers, wipes, changes of clothing.

And then momnesia set in. I ran back into the house twice, first time to get Pig's binky and then Moo's blanket. Kids loaded in the car, I got to the end of our street when I looked over and realized that Moo's bottle bag was still sitting on the kitchen counter. Argh.

After dropping the kids off, I drove like mad back home and took the dog out and called into my work meeting 20 minutes late. It's been a morning.

The Littlest Samurai

Modeling her father's Hogu

A Fax from Mr. Brown

Kharma's a bitch. My mom likes to tell the story of how as a baby she had left me sitting in the middle of the living room clad only in my diaper. It was a hot sticky Seoul summer and the hardwood-ed living room was the coolest place in the house. She stepped away for a second and came back to find me, sans diaper, covered in the ahem, fruit of my diaper. Lest the absolute disgusting-ness of it all had escaped me, she often goes on to describe how I had it in my hair, all over the floor, on my face, in my mouth, on the ceiling, on the neighbor's cat, etc...

Well because what goes around comes around...
Last weekend, around 8 am I was feeding Moo in bed. K was taking a shower. I heard Pig scuttling about in her crib. Usually, she'll play for about 30 minutes quietly before she starts yelling for us. Suddenly, I heard a large THUMP. I sprang out of bed and ran to her room and threw open the door. My heart pounding I checked for broken bones. Whew, all good. I expected to see Pig crumpled by her crib instead she stood by it pants-less, diaper-less and.... Wait what the hell is that odor? Like I even had to ask myself that question. Like the answer wasn't right there before me all over my crying toddler like a Jackson Pollack painting....straight from my fecophobic nightmares.

I could hear K behind me, the stench having just sucker-punched his olfactory receptors. I grabbed a crying Pig and made haste to the bathroom. While K stripped the bedding from Pig's crib, I scrubbed Pig like mad.

It's all my fault. You see a few weeks prior, we had walked into Pig's room and found her again pants and diaper free. She had thrown her diaper out of her crib and just as K walked in, she was poised over a turd about to heave it over board as well. As I scrubbed Pig and K sanitized her room, I said something very very stupid, "well at least it was a turd and not one of those nasty squishy ones."

I just had to tempt fate.

I just have to ask, what is with us and poo? Followers of this blog may recall the great dog diarrhea extravaganza of 2008. And before that, was the episode K and I like to refer to as "Kirb's left front quarter panel is brown." (Nutshell: Kirb pooped in his dog carrier and then danced in it, we had to clean him in the parking garage with a hose at 2 am) And before that, dog diarrhea extravaganza 2003 (Nutshell: Kirb ate some Christmas cactus and then went #3 in his crate and, you guessed it, danced in it. I was home alone.)