With Much Further Ado...

Remember that list I've been attempting to pull together for simply ages?  The one I promised to post MONDAY?

*Checks to see if pants are on fire*

Oh, sure, Monday started off well enough, all full of optimism and idyllic good intentions ... Toby was sleeping in (a rare event) and Jack was happily settled in with his matchbox cars while I, in my comfy jammies, enjoyed my morning coffee and perused the CNN.com.  

Then the phone rang, and Monday reared its ugly, ugly head.  

Big Daddy's car had suddenly and inexplicably stalled out at a light about 20 miles from our house; he was now parked on the side of the road and in desperate need of rescue.

So after waking Tobin, changing out of my jammies, throwing the kids into clean clothes and then into the car, and heading down the road, we picked up our stranded damsel hero and headed up to drop him at his office. (His office which was still another 30 minutes further down the road. The man has an unholy commute, he does.)

To avoid simply turning around and subjecting the kids to an additional hour of uninterrupted car time, I decided instead to tote them over to a farm near our old apartment.  We peeked in at the baby cows, pigs, and goats and they each sat a spell on the old tractors (engines removed) while I sweated and generally cursed the passing heat wave.  We grabbed some candy cow tails at Ye Olde Commercialized Country Store and then headed back on our way towards home.

And so it was that all thoughts of carefree summer reading had fled my heat-baked brain.  Long story shortened: No List For You Peoples.

Then? Then, yesterday, (that's Tuesday for those of you keeping score at home)  our wireless router decided that it was ready to pass on to the big data stream in the sky.  Ergo, no internet for me.  At least, not until this morning, where I am currently perched in our cat-litter-scented basement plugged in to (hand to God) WIRED ETHERNET.  (*cue up the tiny violins playing "Nobody Knows... The Trouble... I Seen....."*)  I know, I know. These are first world problems, my peoples, but they are MY problems just the same.  We're working on sorting out the wireless situation (NOTE: Potential Givers of the Free Stuff, I am happy to test drive a wireless router for you!  Becuase BlogHer has eaten up all spending money for the forseeable future.  And because pregnant women have very, VERY sensitive noses and OH MY FLAMING HOLY COWS, Big Daddy needs to change that litter box!  My EYES, y'all. IT BURNS!)

BUT! Today is a new day, and the faster I take care of this, the faster I can hustle my buns upstairs and take the kids for a walk to drop bills in the mail.  Because Big Daddy's car is still in the shop and he has taken the still-unnamed (though I'm leaning towards "Bertha") MiniVan of Doom, leaving me stranded.  SO, on to the good stuff.

First allow me to share the unholy cuteness of my spawn, and then I shall make with the Book Love.

And now... for some bullets!

*  Two-year-old Tobin has learned to say "Oh, SNAP!"  I find this endlessly hilarious.  You should, too.

* Jack inexplicably refers to Ruby Tuesday Restaurant as "Rooty-Fruity Tuesday".  He is also, at this moment, down on all fours and barking at the 60-pound dog.. in what I can only describe as a comic attempt to assert his dominance.  The dog is suitably unimpressed, and probably wondering what the child would taste like smothered in kibble sauce.

And now, because it requires its own post (so you and I can refer back to it as we make our way down the list... right? RIGHT!)  On to post #2 of the day...

This Wild and Precious Life

In lieu of anything worthwhile to say, myself... Because I'm a messy ball of anxiety waiting for my next doctor's appointment on Monday and the, of course, you know... THE ULTRASOUND on Tuesday.

SO, allow me to share with you my new favorite poem. (found via CityMama, cited as a favorite of Maria Shriver)...

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Just Call Me Dogberry.

"And Master, sir, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall assert, that I am an ass."

-Dogberry. (Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing)

Things I have been doing to make an ass of myself today:

* Wearing a fabulous sundress in honor of the epically fantastic weather. Of course, it would have been really adorable if only I had realized that my lavender bra was playing peek-a-boo sooner. It suddenly occurs to me that the really friendly bagger at the grocery store was probably not actually looking at my funky necklace while he made small-talk and bagged my pop tarts.

* Lecturing my child on the evils of telling fibs when he tried to convince me he has no school tomorrow. An eventual call to the school confirmed that yes, tomorrow is indeed a county teacher work day and he does, in fact, have the day off. Perhaps an extra bedtime story will soothe his moral outrage? Either way, I'm thinking I should drop a few bucks into the "college fund" jar (also known as "fundage for Jack's inevitable eventual therapy bills").

* Casually talking with my neighbor about her Southern Living party I promised to attend next weekend. Going from confused to mortified when she awkwardly tells me it was last weekend and realize I totally stood her up. Make a mental note to bring her coffee next week to make amends.

So, yeah, basically I am all-around brain dead right now and should not be allowed out in public. For my own sake.

And how is your Thursday?

On a lighter note (or perhaps a portent of our doom) we are taking the boys to a County Democratic Rally tomorrow. Should be good times. I'll try to get photos.

Food Karma

The universe is trying to tell me something. Something important.

Yesterday, McDonald's forgot to put the chicken mcnuggets in Toby's happy meal. The child was left with nothing but apples and french fries for lunch. Which is all he probably would have eaten anyway. But! Still! No McNuggets!

Also we have had no bread in the house for 3 days. Never mind that I have not been to the grocery store to purchase more bread since we ate the last of it in the form of tasty, tasty toast. We do love us some toast. Even Toby, who - other than the aforementioned apples and fries - usually sticks to his strict diet of cardboard and baby kittens. (Honestly, how did I give birth to a picky eater? I have been known to eat peanut butter straight from the jar. While also eating a dill pickle. And maybe some Doritos. While not pregnant...)

What were we talking about again?

Oh.
Right.
No bread.

So, yeah. No bread in the hizzouse.

This morning I realized that the half-gallon of milk I purchased (no, the day before we ran out of bread) is already empty. We have never before drunk milk this fast. I am baffled. Either we're on an inexplicable milk kick, or a small army of milk-drinking fridge gnomes are making rounds through my kitchen at night. Which would be pretty cool, now that I think of it. Fridge Gnomes! Coming soon to the YouTubes!

This afternoon, after preschool pick-up, my friend Sarah and I stopped at 7-11 to score the kids (and ourselves) some much-needed Slurpee relief in the face of the ridiculous heat and humidity of this afternoon. (Dude! Where's my SPRING?!)

In a fit of what can only be described as Pregnant Craving Rageaholic Syndrome, I grabbed at a package of Hostess Snowballs as though they were the last bottle of water at the last cantina at the edge of the Sahara desert. I might have knocked over a few children and one very old lady; I can't say for sure, it's all a bit of a blur and I'm pretty sure there was tunnel-vision.

I set the Snowballs briefly on the top of the car (remember that for later) as I settled the kids in with their Slurpees. Hot, sweaty, and flustered, I took a long, satisfying pull off of my sugar-free Peach Mango Fusion Crystal Light Slurpee (frackin' 7-11, with their broken Pepsi Slurpee machine) and pulled out of the parking lot to follow Sarah to her house.

Yeah, remember earlier when I put the snowballs on the car? Yeah, neither did I. If they didn't get squished under the crushing weight of the Minivan of Doom, I really hope the homeless guy who likes to pee around the side of the building enjoyed my marshmallow-covered chocolatey goodness cakes.

Finally, I started cooking our dinner tonight -- chicken in curry sour cream sauce -- and about half way into the process realized I forgot to start the rice. With 1o minutes till dinner, I have rice which requires at least another 20 minutes to cook. And we are hungry. And hungry men are on the way home from a rigorous evening of Tee Ball practice.

The universe is definitely trying to tell me something. I just can't decide if the message is that, what with the huge global food shortages, I should appreciate my good fortune and our bounty and be thankful that these are the worst of my food problems.

On the other hand, I think it more likely that it's a much less profound message: Pregnancy makes me really, REALLY stupid.

Welcome Home?

What, exactly, is the correct thing to say to one's husband when his airplane lands after 10 days away and the first words you hear over the phone are "I just puked my way from Frankfurt to Dulles"?

Yeah. So as happy as I am to have Big Daddy T back in the country with us, the weekend did not go exactly according to plan. First, he missed his initial flight out of the Czech Republic and had to take a later one to Frankfurt, pushing his arrival home from 3pm to 9pm. Which was fine, really, because the boys slept in the car most of the way to the airport as well as home again.

What was not so fine were the events of the next 48 hours. No, indeed.

But today he is back at work, the boys are back in their regular routine, and I am - at last - looking forward to a bit of down time as we head to Amish country for my birthday this weekend. I'll be 29 on Saturday.

Posting the rest of this week will likely be sporradic at best as I attempt to dig out from under the massive chaos around the house. I will, however, be uploading some new photos. So there's that to look forward to.

Try to contain your excitement, aye?

Noto Photo and Feh-Brew-Airy

I know I have been extraordinarily slacking on the posting front lately, and I can only claim Seasonal Exhaustion as an excuse.

February is always a horrendous month for me - a month of moping around the house and generally feeling the gloom of the many, many days without warm sunshine. I checked the camera the other day and realized I haven't taken a decent photo of the kids since Christmas. CHRISTMAS, people!

It's as if, after the long January, by the time February stretches out into the longest-shortest month of the year, all my get-up-and-go of the holiday season finally got up and went. If you see it, please pass along the message that I'd like a little energy back.

The pregnancy is not helping.

Neither is Jack's cold virus, or his double eye infections. And you don't even want to hear about the relative armageddon of attempting to get antibiotic drops into his eyes to combat the green ooze that regularly trickles out of his sockets and down his cheeks.

Of course, it is March now. March! A new month. So why do I still feel so ... well... February?

My solution, of course, is a simple one. I made an appointment to get my hair cut. Also, I suspect a pedicure is in my near future. (Feet sticking to the sheets? Not a good sign, y'all.)

SO, after a few more days of rest and maybe a little pampering, I hope to return to you in all my wry glory. Also, hopefully there will be new photos before the kids go off to college.

Also, also... Friday is our first doctor's appointment with the new OB. I promise a full report once he's done poking and prodding at my lady bits. Cross your fingers there's a nice, steady heartbeat. Also, for my sake, hope that they don't try to tell me I'm less than 10 weeks along because I might have to drown my sorrows in chocolate. With wine and beer totally off the menu, I am left with only chocolate as recourse. Somehow, as good as a lindor truffle tastes, it just can't compete with a nice, soothing glass of good Cabernet Sauvignon.

That, and if I could make it through to October and gain less than 50 pounds? That would be lovely (and unprecedented). So, there goes the chocolate idea.

Any good ideas for other ways to spoil myself a little? Haircut, pedicure... night out with the girls on Thursday (to eat some good barbecue before the reflux and indigestion put the brakes on even remotely spicy foods). That's about all I have come up with. Suggestions? Treats? Invitations to make use of your Tuscan Villa for a weekend?

Ready, steady, GO!

The Puke Runneth Over.

You would think that, being the pregnant one in the house, any vomit that needs to be projected in this house might come from me. You would be sadly mistaken, my friend.

In point of fact, I am feeling quite well on the digestive front. A little ginger ale here and there to settle brief flirtations with stomach upset, and I've been good to go. Not so much the case with... well, nearly every creature in the house today.

First the dog threw up on the floor directly in front of the television in full view of the children. And this was no ordinary puke - oh, no. This was a rancid, steaming, fluorescent puddle of concrete-melting sick that made the eyes water and immediately spawned several minutes of reflexive gagging.

It took half a roll of paper towels and most of a bottle of carpet cleaner (and several additional years added onto my therapy tab) but I finally got it cleaned up without actually sicking up, myself. All the while, of course, the boys are pointing and shrieking and generally convinced that the dog is somehow possessed of the devil and just waiting to spew acid venom all over them.

Finally, I was able to compose myself enough to whip up some lunch for the kids. Now, Toby had a bout of diarrhea last night that was... impressive. We chalked it up to the fact that the little moocher had helped himself to a couple of donuts for breakfast yesterday, but by this morning he was feeling lethargic and snuggly and generally Not. Good.

But he seemed to have a healthy appetite and ate a piece of toast and some apple slices for breakfast without event. I was lulled into a false sense of security. I gave him his lunch.

And before he had eaten a single bite, he threw up all over the plate and the kitchen table and his jammies and my remaining threads of sanity.

I threw him into the tub, realized we were late for preschool, washed him up, bundled him into warm clothes, threw on Jack's shoes and ran out the door to get Jack to school before he, too, started leaking fluids.

Jack assured me he was feeling fine, and I cannot express my relief as I dropped him off at his class and watched him run happily away to spend the afternoon coloring and singing. And possibly becoming the typhoid Mary of the preschool set, but really, I swear he said he felt fine (and no temp. I checked.)

I stopped at the store to grab toddler electrolyte solution and various upset-tummy remedies, then headed for home. Toby and I walked into the kitchen to find ... one of the cats had thrown up all over the kitchen counter. Which is, obviously, exactly how I wanted to continue my day.

If anyone or anything else in this house feels the need to sick up, if they could just wait until after, say, 6:30 so that T can take over scrubbing up the mess? That would be just lovely, thanks.

Tie-eye-eym... Why you punish me?

I'm just checking in, really. Mostly because it will kill 10 minutes that I should actually be spending on household chores.

We were gone all day while I ran around, picking up and dropping off kids and attending various doctor appointments. The short version of the recap is that I am going in on Wednesday morning to have a needle inserted into my spine. I will be injected with steroids - thereby putting the final nail in the coffin of my hopes for a career as a professional athlete. No?

Okay, well that and my total lack of coordination or ability. And the boobs. The boobs pretty much rule out any sort of for-pay contact sport unless we move to Nevada and I change my name to "Ginger" or "Peaches". Also there would probably need to be some sort of traumatic brain injury involved to convince me to go along with that plan. But now this is sounding suspiciously like a Lindsey Lohan movie, and that's just wrong on so many levels.

What were we talking about again?

Oh. Yes. The Big Sharp Thing that will be puncturing my spinal column on Wednesday. Well, the good news is that this has a good chance of alleviating the pain within a short time. It might take more than one injection - which would suck, but would suck substantially less than surgery... which is the next option if this doesn't work.

Also, we won't be able to start trying again for baby #3 for at least 3 months after I am pain free, during which time I am supposed to, like, tone muscles and stuff. To support the weight I will undoubtedly gain with another pregnancy. Also this might just be the very nice Pain Specialist's roundabout way of saying "Lose some baggage Fatso" but I like to think he'd say it to a thinner woman, too. Especially if she also tended to gain upwards of 50 pounds with each pregnancy and give birth to ten pound babies. Then again, if she does all that and is still somehow svelte afterwards I really need to find her and kick her. (If my sister is reading this, I'll give her a reprieve. Because she DOES gain all the weight, AND have huge babies, AND still manages to be a size 3. But I love her anyway, because she is my sister, and also I hope she remembers this when she makes her first million.) (Unlike my other sister, who has probably already made her first million and totally reneged on her promise to buy me a pony.)

So, yeah, stream-of-consciousness rantings aside, finally there is hope in my future. I'm terrified of having the shot, but it's so preferable to the other options at this point that I'm almost disappointed it's not happening tomorrow. At least T's Mama will be there for moral support - as well as to watch the boys and give me a ride home afterwards. But mostly to hold my hand, because T is in Singapore and I'm terrified something bad will happen to me and he'll be on the other side of the planet. Literally - other side of the planet. Sure they have great shopping but what if I suddenly burst into flames?

SO that totally killed about 20 minutes, and now I can go watch Chuck with the delay on the TiVO to skip over the commercials. Let's recap : Shots - bad. Stoppage of the pain - good. Possible paralysis if things go wrong - bad. Possibility that I won't need a metric butt-load of prescription narcotics just to survive the 5-hour flight to Salt Lake City in a few weeks - good.

It's a dead heat, methinks. Hopefully I'll let you know the final verdict after Wednesday.
(Or I'll blink my eyes to dictate the message in Morse Code after it all goes horribly wrong and I end up in a persistent vegetative state.)
(In which case: someone please prop me up in front of the TV and let me watch the rest of my fall television line-up before pulling the plug. You know, just in case.)

Happy Monday!

It's Oh So Quiet, It's Oh So Still

Today was a rough day. I thought about my Gram most of the day, thought about not being at the funeral, and pondering what that means to me.

Fortunately, I suppose, I had my second session with the new therapist today. She wants to see me again in a week, instead of our usual two week interim. Apparently I have a lot to say. Who knew?

But some good things happened today, too.

The checkout girl at the 7-11 (who looked at least 40) was surprised that I'm older than she is. She looks old for her age (which is less than my age, but I don't know the exact age) and it appears I look young for my age. She thought I was 19. I was irrationally pleased by this. I'll be 29 in April, by the way.

My neighbor/friend (with whom things have been somewhat tense since we butted heads over the HOA and various and sundries) stopped by tonight with flowers and treats to cheer me up when she heard my Gram died. I cried. And I realized I am maybe ready to see if at leaset a modicum of the friendship can't be salvaged. She opened the door, and I'm tentatively ready to walk through it. A girl can never have too many friends.

I got most of the rest of the interior Christmas decorations up today. The house looks frickin' awesome, if I do say so myself.... and as I sit here in the glow of the Christmas tree lights, pondering pain medication for this stupid back and stupid leg, I can't help but wonder if maybe the holiday spirit will creep up on my in spite of myself. I could use a little holiday cheer.

Also? Apparently I could use more therapy.

You know you're in a bad way when your analyst gently suggests you should come back... like.. sooner rather than later. But with Toby asleep on my lap through the session today, I felt like I finally started opening up. Finally started letting loose all the miscellaneous "stuff" that I have to address before I can really figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

I'm venturing into deep waters here, y'all. And I better hurry and post this sucker, because it's one minute to midnight. Rest assured, I'll be back tomorrow with something witty and lighthearted.

Like a gentle belch to let you know my frothy spirit is still intact.

Try and keep your excitement under control.

Soo. Tired.

Any day that begins before 6am is probably not a great day.

Today began at 5:45, so you can imagine that I'm feeling ready to stab out my eyeballs with a ball point pen leap tall buildings in a single bound. Have you ever been so tired you actually saw the road melting and sliding down the hill? Either I'm having acid flashbacks, or my brain is finally calling foul on me. I stayed up until 11 last night folding laundry (the horror!) and rising at the crack of unholy-dark-thirty involved scraping barnacles from my eyelids with a spackle knife. T'weren't pretty. To say the least..

So I dropped the kids off with my friend Molly, headed up for an early-morning session with my physical therapist (that's not a euphemism -- my back is still "in recovery" from the slipped/herniated/whateverthehell disc), then back to pick up the boys, home for a quick lunch, off to school, then off to the Dr. Headshrinker with Toby in tow.

Oh. And because I am obviously not intelligent enough to read the manual and set the clock in my car, I came out of therapy and thought "Oh crap! Time to get Jack from school!". I stood outside the class for a full 10 minutes before the strange looks from the administrators computed in my brain and I realized I was a full hour early.

Toby and I used our hour to refill my prescriptions and buy me a new watch. So now - the time? She is on my body. Correctly. And then I DID read the manual to set the car clock and adjusted it for the switch off DST... only to make myself 10 minutes late to pick Jack up from school.

Greetings. I am Queen Genius Of The Universe. You may now proceed to worship my brilliance. Right after I remove this splinter from my foot and remember where I put my car keys.

It's 7pm, and my bed is calling me like a seductive cabana boy. Time to slug my way through some dishes, watch me a little Chuck and then surrender to the siren song of sleep.

Tomorrow? Something Interesting Goes Here. Because I'm sure reading about howmuch my day sucked is about as entertaining as... as...

As a big ole splinter in the big toe, perhaps?

Retracing Steps

So the last week or so has been... odd.

T had to leave first thing Monday morning and head up to New York for a couple of days. He arrived at his hotel and called me, grumpily, to inform me that it was a full 30 minutes from everywhere he needed to be. Corporate scheduling mishap, apparently.

A few grumpy days later, he called to tell me that he would be delayed on Wednesday, and would arrive around bedtime instead of mid-afternoon as originally planned. He finally made it home, and we got a fitful night of sleep. Thursday morning, he found out he had to go back to Singapore. He needed to be on the ground first thing Monday morning to wrap up the work there. That conversation followed something like this...

"So you have to leave on Sunday, right?"
"Uh. You're forgetting the 12 hour time change."
"Oh. So... you'll be leaving on Saturday?"
"10am flight"
"For how long?"
"2 weeks."
"Crap."
"Indeed."

SO! We deposited him at Dulles bright and early, and then my head exploded.

Actually, we're doing quite well, considering. The boys are finally mostly over the cold we all get every year at this time. I managed to sweep and mop the kitchen floor, wash the dishes, run 2 loads of laundry, clean out the fridge, and do the grocery shopping. All in one weekend. (It may not sound that impressive, but - trust me - it was. Intensely.)

Of course, I also managed to forget to transfer the direct deposit for T's previous business travel expenses over to his AmEx card. Which was, like, awesome for him when he got to his layover in Tokyo and realized that 1) his card had been frozen and 2) The airport there blocks all outgoing cellular calls. He assures me that, the next 7 hours to Singapore? Wondering if I had perhaps been struck by a bus and was rendered dead and therefore unable to transfer funds to his charge card, leaving him stranded in Singapore with no way to get home for my funeral? Were supremely pleasant. (*cough*).

This isn't the first time I have had a memory lapse lately, it's just the most spectacular example -- up there with totally spacing on Toby's 2-year well check-up, which I had scheduled six weeks in advance.

So today I headed back into my trusty neighborhood mental health professional. I had not been in to see Dr. Headshrinker (unfortunately not his real name, because that would be much more entertaining) since about April and, since our insurance required me to check in with him anyway in order to maintain coverage, the timing seemed fortunate.

I explained about the events of the past several months. I talked about getting pregnant, about herniating the disc in my back and resultant sciatica, about the miscarriage, about T's new job and all the travel. I confessed my lapses of memory and my general fuzziness of late. He listened, asked pertinent questions, and generally pointed out that I am entitled to be a little fuzzy after everything that has happened since last Spring.

Then he wrote me a new prescription for ADD meds and said he'd see me back in a week to follow up. He also recommended that, after the next visit, I make an appointment to talk to one of the therapists at the practice. Because talking to a disinterested third party and sorting out the various contents of my skull could be helpful.

I kept thinking that I was handling everything so well. I'm generally feeling pretty good these days -- at peace with where I am at in life, enjoying my tine with the boys. I really miss T when he's not around, and I am probably lacking in the whole social/friends area these days -- but what Mom isn't?! Free time became a precious commodity the day I became a mother, and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Lately, though, I don't do any of the things I have always done for my own enjoyment -- scrapbooking or reading or painting or sketching or even taking pictures. I've been lethargic, anxious, distracted, distant. Not at all the person I want to be.

So, once again, here I am reknitting the threads that have been unraveling. And it's okay - it's really okay. At the moment, I am perfectly fine admitting that I am not the wonderwoman I had convinced myself I was. Now I just have to remember how to be the fun-loving person I really am. And hopefully I can get closer to finding her before T gets back in 2 weeks. It would be really nice to be able to greet him with a wink and a laugh.. instead of a wan smile and a pleading "please take your children before I repeatedly smash my head against something very hard" look.

Actually, I'll probably end up somewhere in between. Because 2 weeks of uninterrupted parenting is exhausting, and already (after 3 days) I am remembering that "Go ask your Dad" are perhaps four of the most glorious words in the English language. Right up there with "Let's order in tonight" and "the kids are asleep".

Nap. Desperately Need.

For one reason or another, y'all, I am tired. I mean bone weary, fall asleep at 10 and sleep until 10 on a weekend, where is my coffee because SOMEONE IS GOING TO DIE IF I DON'T HAVE IT RIGHT NOW tired.

This morning was a flurry of driving to's. To the pediatrician's office (15 miles away) to help them combine 2 different sets of medical records in order to have a current immunizations record for Jack. To the gas station to put air (again) in my back right tire, which appears to have a slow leak, and grab cheese and croissants for the kids for "lunch". To the preschool to have both kids photographed and digitally fingerprinted for emergency records. Finally, to home, where it was too late to put Toby down for a nap - which explains why he is now running, pantless, through the living room and screaming like a rabid chimpanzee.

My brilliant plan for this afternoon involves picking Jack up from school, putting gas in my van (which is running on the gasping vapors that are left when even most of the fumes have been burned up), feeding my child something more substantial than cheddar and pastry, and maybe decorating the front yard for Halloween. If there happens to be an extra corpse in the yard when I'm done? Don't worry, it's only me -- passed out like a wino in the unmowed grass.

Tomorrow is my first day of physical therapy. I'm supposed to get rehabilitated for the herniated or ruptured disc in my back, but all I heard was "massage" and I was sold. Mama could use a few thousand of those.

Big Daddy came home on Thursday, to much fanfare. We celebrated with Mexican food at Anita's Restaurant, which was lovely. And also, reminds me of an OverShare I've been meaning to do....

So a few months ago, I was offered a free two-month supply of a new product called "Align" for treating IBS. I asked if there was any sort of catch to the deal, and the nice marketing rep assured me that there was no catch -- but they would appreciate an honest review of the product. After the time I have spent in the doctor's office trying to figure out if there was anything that could be done to help my digestive issues (See? I did warn you about the OverShare) I figured it couldn't hurt. Also, the suggestions of my gastroenterologist all involved things like "Reduce your stress" and "give up caffeine and spicy food" and really, you may as well just start digging now.

So I got the package of little white pills in the mail, I read all the literature, and I decided to give Align a try. (I'm sure there's supposed to be little (TM)'s around that, but I'm far too tired right now to use up the brain power of trying to figure that out, so let's just remind everyone that's a trademarked name. kthxbye.)

With the miscarriage earlier this year, I got a little delayed in testing it out. Once I recovered, though, and got started... I have to say I am impressed. Basically, it's probiotics in pill form. Which means that it's a lovely alternative to choking down 3 or 4 containers of yogurt every day. Especially if, like me, you aren't really a big fan of yogurt. Unless it's frozen and made of chocolate, in which case I make a special exception, but... I digress.

Align worked like quite the charm, and with the back problems and general insanity of attempting to tread water in the deep end of motherhood and housewifery... well, at least it made me regular. Please note that I received no compensation, etc, for that thoroughly articulated and glowing review. I just said I'd give my honest opinion and, once it's available to buy (which I don't believe it is quite yet) I highly recommend Align and will probably buy it regularly. Pun? Totally intended.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go tempt fate with a cup of coffee and some more driving. While I ponder when, exactly, it was that I morphed into an 80-year-old woman.

Happy Tuesday!