Sooooo tiiiired.

After a wonderful day together yeasterday henry was super hard to put to bed. He was very clingy and whiney and didn't want me to leave him. Mama intuition told me to just stay and cuddle and finally he let me go. He woke up an hour later with a cough and then again another hour later with a bigger cough and complaining that his mouth hurt. One of his glands was rock solid and he was very upset. The more he cried the more he coughed and he finally ended up throwing up all over both of us. I changed him and took him out to the cough where we watched "the monster movie" and relaxed enough for him to go back to his bed. I slept with him for an hour until another bad coughing fit woke him up and the only way to console him was to bring him onto my lap and cradle him tightly with his head elevatede against my chest. We moved out to the couch so I could prop up against something and that is how we slept all night. Well, he slept and I listened to his wheezing and worried and caught a wink here and there. He just woke up and is watching the monster movie again. Kyle went to drop lesson plans off at work and then he is taking the day off to let me sleep a bit and take him to the doc with me. I can't tell if it is just a bad cold or something worse. his glands don't usually swell for just a cold.

I feel badly for all of the kids he touched at the gym yesterday, I hope everyone doesn't get sick. Then again, he was prefectly fine until last night so maybe that's where he picked it up.

Anyway. We're in for a long couple of days. Oh yeah, and it's supposed to snow. Yay.

Ahhhhh...back home safe and sound.

The flights home were pretty uneventful. Henry loved "crazy ball" and "Hs", 2 toys purchased for in flight entertainment at the cool NoHo toy store. Crazy Ball is a Koosh-like square ball thing with floppy rubber tentacles coming out on all sides. It kept Henry occupied for a long time, but he kept wanting me to squeeze it and every time I did, Crazy Ball's space age material secreted some sort of icky powder, kind of like the inside of a latex glove, that made my hands feel absolutely disgusting. He didn't seem to mind. Only once did Crazy Ball go flying into another passenger's lap, but the guy was very cool about it. The cuteness of Henry can soothe the most savage of impatient airline passengers. Since I forgot to being diapers (DOH!) I had to scour the newsstands at 3 different Charlotte Airport terminals before finding severely overpriced single diapers. Well, at least Henry didn't pee on the seat this time.

Since I know you are all waiting with baited breath for the happy ending to the yarn saga, I will update. The database closed Monday night and the first fill list came in while Henry and I were out playing with Noah and Jess. I missed the first good fill, but there was only one color that I missed out on that I really wanted anyway. I have for sure: 5 Stonechat, 2 Dusty Olive, 4 Oceanos, 7 Cuacao, 2 Velvet Grapes, and 5 Forest. 6 of those are for Liz. I am fairly confident I will also get: 2-4 Lettuce (I am willing to pick a couple more of these up to make sure it fills), and 4 chocolate. I am tempted to pick up a couple of Sapphire Green as well. We shall see.

We are in deserate need of a trip to the grocery store. "What?", you might ask,"Kyle didn't go grocery shopping yesterday to make sure you came home to a fully stocked cupboard and fridge?". Um...no. The living room was all clean and vaccumed, though. Henry took care of that in about 5 minutes this morning and it is now back to its usual state of disaster.

I'm tired.

Phew! What a busy weekend! ABout 8 mamas from my big posting board came down to Aville for a little mamas-gone-wild, first time away from the kids shindig. I met everyone out at the lodge they were renting and we all went to dinner Thursday night. They are a great group of women, so I was looking forward to staying out at the lodge with them Friday night. We drank and gabbed all night with no kids! It was a lot of fun. I'm so glad I went. Saturday morning we woke up (at 9!!!) and walked down to a local bakery and stopped at a pottery shop before heading downtown to walk around for a while. Since I had only been home to put Henry to bed once last week (a new record) I felt compelled to leave the ladies at the tattoo shop (they couldn't fit me in anyway) and come home to my boys. Henry was happy to see me for about 5 minutes. When I finally went to put him to bed, he pushed me out and asked for Daddy. Pth.

Sunday morning we woke up and took Henry for a hike up at DuPont. I will post a picture later. It has been sunny and 80 for about a week. Today was the first overcast day in what I think is going to be a wet spell so I'm glad we got outside.

Okay, an exciting weekend for me doesn't neccessarily translate into an exciting read for you. Sorry 'bout that. I'm kinda tired. 2 days until we fly away home!

Henry and Adella cooking up some "munch". 

Scenes from The West End Bakery:

Me: (standing in line waiting for my triple mocha to try to get some energy after being awoken at 3:30am with the demand that I sleep in Henrys bed) Honey, please get your nose off the glass.

Henry: (with nose still on the glass, pointing to a big cinnamon roll) Dis, please.

Me: (not wanting to argue about it) Okay, baby, you can ahve that but we won't eat it all right now.

Later at the table...

Henry: (pointing to cinnamon roll) What dis?

Me: Ci-nna-mon Rolll

Henry (pointing to my muffin) What dis?

Me: Muffin.

Henry: (pointing to my muffin) Dis nuffin!

Me: Yup, that's Mama's muffin.

Henry: (pointing to his cinnamon roll) Dis rock n roll!

Me: (is dead from the cute)

So I went to get a haircut on Saturday morning and Melissa (the friend who cut my hair in trade for babysitting her little darling) said "What happened to your head?". Not exactly what you want to hear when getting your hair cut, but I have knocked my head about 7,000 times getting a toy out from under the kitchen bar, so I figured she was talking about a bruise or something. Nope. She got me a mirror to take a look and there it was. A nickel sized bald spot. After I recovered from the immediate flash of Henry growing up motherless because of my newfound cancer of the hair follicles I decided to make a doctor appointment asap. Because letting my hot pediatrician (who is actually a family practice doc) look at my bald patch sounded way too appealing to pass up. Luckily, it isn't cancer of the hair foliicles or some strange head fungus (which was suggested by a healpful friend), but a fairly rare condition called alopecia areata. It is an autoimmune thing that can be triggered by stress that causes your autoimmune system to attack patches of hair and kill them. The hair has already started growing back, so I don't have to do anything about it. If I had noticed it before the hair started to grow back they would have given me weekly injectins of cortozone into my scalp for a month or so. Fun fun fun! So cross your fingers that it doesn't happen again because I would rather knit myself a cute hat than get scalp injections. I made the mistake of looking up alopecia areata online and there are some pretty scary cases out there. People with just little random tufts of hair left and everywhere else bald. I am so glad I ahve a super mild case. You can't even see it if you aren't looking for it and I am hoping it grows back fast. So there you go. Alopecia Areata-it's better than a head fungus. They should pay me to write promotional material, no?

I have solved "The Mystery of the Blue Cross Claims Denials" as well. Yesterday I received 3 claims denials for Henry, from a doctor who we have never seen. I finally got ahold of the office today and found out that they just took 6 months to bill his speech therapy consultation, and since they came to our house and did it, and they bill through a different doctor's name, there was no way I could know that is what the bill was for. That organization is ridiculous. They took so long after the consultation to get Henry an appointment with a speech therapist that he ahs already learned to talk by himself. And then they took so long to bill it to BCBS that I had no idea what the bill was for. Never mind that they told me the evaluation was free. Turns out they have to bill it anyway, and once the claim is denied they pay for it. I might have been a good idea to tell me that oh...a year ago.

I finally got ahold of someone at the NHS, so I might be back on track to get into the housing program sometime before Henry graduated high school. She said they had a couple of things closing up now, so there might actually be something available. w00t! Of course, then she said she'd call me back, so I may never hear from them again.

In biz news, I am still waiting for the batik mama to get my yarn samples so we can figure out what kinds of shirts to make to match my yummy shorts. Does anyone have amazing tshirt ideas? You should all go to her website and buy things. Super duper duper cute. I have doubled my traffic since putting up the HC and ahve been keeping pretty busy. This is a stocking week, but I have just finished the custom orders from the last stocking and am going away (home!!!) next week so I think I am going to leave it for now. Eh. Maybe I'll stock a few things. I just finished a really cute yoga themed changing pad and bib set while I had the sewing machine out for the curtains. I know that Shel is going to eventually take her snap press back, so I need to get going on snapped things if I want to carry any. SO many people are pregnant right now I need to make a batch of infant bibs for showers and things.

I have been dreaming of IKEA. I can't wait to go. I can't wait to get Henry a giant leaf for his bead. I can't wait to fondle the cheap textiles and buy new plastic flatwear (how a child loses 12 pieces of brightly colored plastic cutlery I will never know). I know I am going to spend way too much money there.

I'm tiiiiiiiiired.

giggling 

Awwww... 

Bleeeaahhh. 

Henry's got a girlfriend! 

I had the ultimate bad mama moment today. Worse than the time I let him eat M&Ms for breakfast. Worse than the time I let him wear the same shirt for 3 days because he screamed every time I tried to take it off. Worse than when he started sayinf 'shit' all day long. "What could you have done", you might ask, "when you are normally the paragon of perfect mothering?".

I lost Henry in Walmart. Yup. We were standing in line at the fabric cutting counter (which is the only reason I would go to Walmart-where else can you get fabric and soybeans without having to leave the building?) behind an impossibly old woman buying 13.25 yarns of the most hideous grey polyester fabric I have ever seen, while her equally old husband kept bringing other bolts of equally horrid fabric up to get her opinion on it. Henry was happily playing with a box full of buttons, so I was watching the drama of this transaction unfold before me. I turned around a minute later and he was gone. Gone, gone, gone. I asked the pair of old ladies behind me if they had seen which way he went and they pointed across the aisle. Here I stop for a Public Service Announcement:

If you are EVER in a store standing in a line and you see a distracted mother not notice her young child wandering off...SAY SOMETHING!!!

Anyway, I ran in the direction that they pointed in and the younger of the two ladies went a different direction to help me look for him. I suspect she felt a twinge of guilt for just watching him walk away from me. He must have been gone for about a minute and a half, two minutes tops. In that 2 minutes, all I could think of was Adam Walsh and how long I should look before I told them to lock the doors and not let anyone leave until I found him. I was trying to remember if I saw a "Code Adam" sign on the door when we came in and couldn't remember. Finally (this was a long 2 minutes, dammit) I ran down an aisle and found Henry sitting on the ground, happily playing with a ride on toy. I picked him up and hugged him and made him ride in the cart for the rest of the trip. When I got back to my place in line, they guy in front of me shook his head like "how could you lose your kid you moron", and I almost clocked him one with a bolt of neon green fake fur. Ass.

To make up for my bad mothering, I took him to Barnes and Noble and let him play with the big train table and all of the books that sing and make obnoxious noises.

*sigh*