Sick Much?

I called the doctor yesterday to request a blood test for Anna. "I think she has mono," I told him. "Her best friend has it, her neck glands are swollen, and she says she's tired." "Is she sleeping an abnormal amount?" he asked.

Ah, that's a stumper! What is an abnormal amount of sleep for a teen, anyway?

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Okay, here's my favorite blog post today - Viv has 6 kids, one probably has the flu, and the doctor suggested "isolating" her. This man was apparently not raised in a human family. When Viv laughed (maniacally, she says), he advised her to send the other kids off to her mother's.

Hmmm, let's see...."Hey, Mom, I know you're elderly and all and the flu could kill you; but could you take these small children who might be incubating the virus off my hands for a week?"

Reminds me of the time I had bronchitis the week before Christmas and a doctor advised me to "get some rest." Are all medical professionals this delusional?

Really?!?

Okay - this is one reality show I am not going to watch.  After enduring 6 pregnancies (with all the requisite morning sickness, varicose veins, crabbiness, and inability to breathe throughout the 3rd trimester that are trademarks of my gestations), I'm not interested in finding out how some women do not realize they are carrying a baby until it is time to deliver said creature.  Get this - one of the women goes to the ER with what she thinks is appendicitis; and the ER doctor discovers a baby which is crowning. 

You know, I never mixed up that crowning sensation with appendicitis pains.  That would be akin to mistaking an unanaesthetized limb amputation for a toothache.

(Come to think of it, why was the ER doctor looking between her legs if she were screaming about appendicitis, anyway?  That's sort of weird, right there.)

Where was I?  Oh, yes - every time I am 9 months pregnant, there are stories in the local paper about a pregnant woman who thinks she needs to poop and ends up practically birthing her baby in the toilet.  Or about a pregnant woman who cannot manage to suffer long enough to avoid giving birth in the car.  I read these articles and I start hoping that, yes, that woman will be me.  This will be the time I get away with a labor that is painfree.  This time, I won't be spending an hour in a Jacuzzi at the birth center and begging my husband to KILL ME NOW.  I won't have to wonder, after the baby is born, if that euphoric feeling I'm experiencing is really a rush of love for my newborn or simply overwhelming relief that the pain has finally stopped.

Anywhoo, I try not to begrudge these women their luck.  But that doesn't mean I have to watch them show off their painfree births.  Next thing you know, there will be a show featuring newly-nursing mothers who don't look as if they are sporting 2 regulation-size footballs where their boobs should be.  And I'm not watching that one, either.

Miscellaneous Meanderings Of A Fevered Mind

Sick today - I've been felled by yet another mysterious illness. Larry outdid himself in the Supportive Spouse category by taking the kids out for 4 solid hours today while I slept. He managed to serve them pizza and popcorn and soda (cheaper than water, he frugally insisted) and ice cream during that time period. No wonder everyone likes Daddy best...

Now it's time for another nap. My IKEA trip was planned for tomorrow; come hell or high water (or deadly plague-like illness), I'm going.

Oh, and that Michael Graves's dish drainer pictured in the above link? It makes my heart sing every time I use it. It fits all the dishes, efficiently air-dries them if I haven't managed to dragoon my young ones into towel-drying, and graces my counter with an air of lovely efficiency. I am, in short, infatuated with this lovely kitchen tool that sits, oh so fetchingly, by my sink.

So! My love affair with the dish drainer has gotten me thinking that maybe I don't need a new dishwasher. Perhaps I should replace the dishwasher with a small, under-the-counter size refrigerator whose sole purpose would be to store condiments. Perhaps that would solve my refrigerator storage problems. What do you think?

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The Saturday Evening Blog Post is happening over here. Feel free to submit your favorite September post (from your own blog) and take some time to check out the other contributions!

7 Quick Takes (Plus 2)

1. No one comments, no one calls.....what's up with you people?
2. I'm glad I'm not Larry today - he has to go to the dentist.
3. Then again, Larry doesn't have to amuse a 4-year-old all day. Maybe he is the lucky one.
   
4. This may be my shortest blog post ever.
5. Do you realize I've blogged about toothpaste, floor sweepers, laundry detergent, toasters, and dish-drying racks this week? Domesticity unleashed! I didn't even realize I had a theme.
6. Halloween's coming. At what point can I reasonably buy a huge bag of candy under the pretense of saving it for the 31st? I hear some Hot Tamales calling my name.
7. Darn! I hit the enter button by mistake, and now I am being haunted by the superfluous "8" once more.
   
8. Click on that Halloween link in #6 so you don't make the mistake of taking your innocent young children to Michael's this month. Forewarned is forearmed.
   
9. Conversion Diary has more 7 Quick Takes - she's good with computers, so she never suffers from a superfluous "8." Or "9."
   

Sweets For The Sweet?

This article from the BBC Health Wire is disturbing, if only because I bribe my kids with sweets almost every day. I thought that was what sweets are for. If someone out there knows a better way to get the little rug rats to do their math pages, I sure would like to hear it. It disturbs me to think I'm raising a bunch of psychotically-aggressive future adults (psychotically-aggressive future adults who know their arithmetic, though - there's some value in that, right?).

Is "rug rats" one word or two?

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I need to pay attention to the children (and give them some candy); but first we need to close out some business here. Most commenters believed that the spout on the detergent bottle from hell would be on the right. I keep making the same mistake. I can't help thinking that the ALL manufacturers have committed some grievous design error to confuse that many people. And I think they should pay me money for figuring that out.

Perhaps I kept picking the wrong side because that kept the front of the bottle facing me. This theory requires more research, so I'm heading to Target today. If you're looking for me, I'll be the one in the laundry detergent aisle unscrewing the lids on all the bottles in pursuit of a unifying theory of detergent-spout placement. I sense a Nobel Prize in my future.

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And, from yesterday's comments on the toothpaste tube issue, AlisonH wins the "Most Egregious Pun" award (no, I didn't know we had one, either, until I read her comment). She wrote in to inform us that "It'll be the Col gates of Prell when my husband will throw away an empty container in the bathroom."

Nice job, AlisonH! You'd get a prize if I were actually organized enough to buy one and send it out. How about a nice hand-knitted shawl? Oh, no, I guess you wouldn't need me to send you one of those....

(Click on that last link, folks - Alison's patterns are so pretty that, even if you don't knit, you'll want to pretend that you do. And why don't you? Everyone needs a hobby.)