The Nail Polish Fiasco (circa 2006)

I found several old blogs containing funny stories about the kids on my old hard drive and have decided to post a series of them on here. I am starting with a story from summer 2006 when Katelyn was 3 and Hunter was 2... complete with pictures. Enjoy!

The Nail Polish Fiasco

I work nights. Working nights doesn’t mix well with having two toddlers at home… so if you’ve been thinking about it and you have kids at home, just say no. Patrick left for work this morning and the kids were still asleep so he left us alone. Since I didn’t get to sleep until 7:30am, I guess I must have went into a semi-coma because I didn’t hear the kids get out of bed.

Something finally stirred me awake around 10am, it must have been the sense of impending doom that was hanging there in the complete silence of my bedroom. The kids were in the bathroom whispering. Whispering isn’t ever a good thing in my house. So I crept out of bed and stood outside the door listening.

“Hunter, give me more toilet paper, momma’s going to be mad!”

Shit.

I pushed open the door and what do I see? Rainbows. A rainbow on my bathtub, a rainbow on my floor and a rainbow on my toilet. Oh, and the rug and the sink. What made these beautiful rainbows, you ask? Nail polish. Bottles and bottles of nail polish. I immediately regret the fact that I took Katelyn to the store for ten colors of it a couple days ago. She’s only three, what was I thinking?

So what do I do? I cry a little. Yes, that’s the only reaction I could muster because after 3 years of motherhood I am completely convinced my children truly hate me. I called my husband and told him he had to come home. He had no choice in the situation, but he had to come home right now before I completely lose my mind. He tells me to come pick him up so I pick both kids up and, for the first time, I actually get to take a good look at them since I am no longer focused on the mess in the bathroom…
Katelyn clearly also got into my makeup. She has painted on Groucho Marx style eyebrows with my mascara and has pink lipstick all over any area within 3 inches of her lips. Her body, as well as her little brother’s, is completely covered in every shade of nail polish I own. Hunter is crying. It may be because he has eyeshadow all over his face or maybe the nail polish that got inside his diaper is a bit uncomfortable, I don’t know.
My bathroom is clean now. I cleaned out Walgreen’s entire stock of nail polish remover and ruined six toothbrushes, but it’s clean. Social services will probably be knocking on my door soon considering I had to call the doctor to ask how to safely get nail polish off my children’s skin (baby oil, fyi). Oh well. Everyone’s kids do things like this to them… right?

Tamiflu or Crack? You decide.

So... let's start this post off with a funny quote from Hunter and a quick apology from me for slacking so much on my blogging. Exciting things are happening for me, namely a new PRN job at the nursine home that I LOVE just in time for Christmas so I'm going to have tons of extra cash rolling in until something more permanent for me opens up there. I love, love, love working with patients with dementia. They're my favorite. So, yay for me. On top of that, I volunteered to coach Katelyn's cheerleading squad so I've been really busy. Anyway, on to the Hunter quote. Many of you probably saw this on facebook but it's just too good not to post again. This came out of his mouth - word for word - at the bus stop one morning:

"Mommy... I don't like being so handsome. It's hard for a man like me. Too many girls... it's just not fair to the other mans." Does he act like his daddy much? I think so.

That being said, my sweet angel of a little boy has turned into the devil reincarnate the past few days. He started getting sick on Wednesday night so I kept him home from school on Thursday and took him to the doctor. They did a strep test - what a racket... just a way for the office to make money, in my opinion - just so everyone knows, those things are only accurate 50% of the time!! But anyway, I digress and step off my nurse soapbox... they also did a flu swab on him and the doctor said he was going to go ahead and treat it like H1N1 and give him Tamiflu. Great. That will make him feel better in no time, right? Sure. He seemed to feel better on Friday. All was well so we packed up and went to Newport on Saturday morning to go to the aquarium. He seemed a little moody and whiny but it went okay. We decided to go to dinner at Boston Market before the baseball game and that's where all hell broke loose...

Almost immediately upon entering the place, he started screaming at us at the top of his lungs. He couldn't decide on food, he didn't like what we picked him, he didn't want a drink, he didn't want to pick up his fork and eat. He was screaming and making a scene so Patrick took him to the bathroom. That did NO good, so he continued with his tantrum until Patrick took him outside. He was being SO nasty. That's just not like him. Hunter is very chill and complacent most of the time. He was having sobbing fits and when we would tell him to stop he would simply shake his head and say "I can't"... this continued for the rest of the night. He continued to be very disobedient (again, not typical of him) and when we got home, he threw himself onto the kitchen floor and started kicking and yelling and sobbing about how no one cared about him and he wanted to die. It was ridiculous.

His mood continued through the next day and my joking comments about it being the Tamiflu grew into concern so I googled it. Apparently, this medicine has had this effect on a lot of kids. There have been three documented cases of teenagers on the medication killing themselves and several of smaller children having hallucinations and psychotic episodes. So there you go. I'm convinced it really was the medicine so I immediately stopped it and since he stopped taking it, he's back to normal. He's my happy-go-lucky boy again. Ludicrous. Just wanted to get that out there... there's clearly something in it that doesn't react well with children in some cases. I wouldn't suggest anyone give it to their kids.

I start my new cheerleading coach gig on Monday. I'm excited and completely terrified. All the girls are very young and there's only 12 of them but I feel totally outnumbered. I don't know how to even start. I guess we will figure it out together. So with that, two jobs and three online classes this semester, I feel like I have a lot - maybe too much - on my plate. Hopefully I can handle it all... grace under pressure, right?

Back to reality...

Ahhhh... and I'm back to work. I've been snapped back into the real world, unfortunately. I worked a grand total of four days between July 22 and September 9 but now I'm getting back into the swing of things. I've recovered fully from my surgery and I feel great. We went to the beach last weekend and it was amazing. I always have such a fun, relaxing time at Tybee. It might have something to do with all the margaritas but I'd like to think it's just the island in general.
So picture this: Patrick has had two (yes, I said only two) rum runners on the beach and he's what I would call pretty inebriated. He tried to warn us. He told us if he had two of them, he'd be "belligerent" (his words, not mine). He was SOOOO funny the whole afternoon. He lost a lense on his sunglasses in the ocean but continued to wear them anyway. We finally decided to pack up our stuff and head back to the beach house and Patrick takes off way ahead of us. I probably should have been concerned but I felt sure he'd make it back to the house at some point. As we approach a cross walk, Lacey elbows me and says "Hey Manda, do you see Patrick anywhere?" I thought "oh shit, he's gone... we'll never find him" so I start looking around frantically and - out of the corner of my eye - I see the top of a head in a hotel swimming pool. I think I should stop here and say it was a hotel swimming pool that was fenced in and behind a gate that was clearly for guests only. I look closer and who is it? Why, it's Patrick of course. The second I lock eyes with him, he slowly raises his index finger over his mouth and says "Shhhhhhhhhh!" It was hilarious. So hilarious that I was laughing too hard to even think to take a picture. Man, he thought he was SO sneaky. He talked about it the rest of the night.

We had a really great time. Now we're home and I have tons of stuff coming up over the next several weeks to look forward to. My sister will be here in a bit so we can have some quality sister time. Next weekend, I get to be the maid of honor in my best friend's wedding. The weekend after that, I get to go to New York City. I love always having something coming up. It makes the work week not seem so bad. :-)

Off to the beach...

Ahhh, we're leaving tomorrow afternoon for Tybee Island. I'm soooo excited. We haven't gone since April when I took Patrick for his birthday. This time we're going with some other people and I think it's going to be a blast. Plus, I've bought myself a few bikinis and this is going to be my big reveal of the new me. :) It only took me over 6 years to get back (almost) to my pre-baby body but I've gotten there and I'm thrilled about it.

My kids are going to spend the weekend with their Uncle Tyler and Aunt Stacy. It's the first time they've kept them and I hope so much that my children behave themselves. I know Addyson will love having them there, I just hope my two choose to get along with eachother. I also hope that Hunter keeps at least his underwear on at all times. I never imagined when I was pregnant with a boy that I'd have so much trouble getting him to stop being so fascinated with his penis. I had to literally BEG him to put on underwear for bed last night and then he still ran around the living room for 20 minutes naked before he went upstairs. When I finally went up to check on him before I went to bed, he was laying there asleep in his old karate pants so I carefully peeked under the waistline - still no undies. Imagine that. It must be a boy thing.

I met with my nursing advisor today at U of L. I should be all set to finish school with my Master's Degree and be a Nurse Practitioner in 2012-2013ish. It all depends on if I want to go ahead into the whole Doctorate thing (which is a new requirement starting in a few years). I'm sure I will. I wonder how that works... what do you call a nurse with a doctorate degree?

Anyway... I really do need to go clean the house up some. We have some realtors coming to look at it tonight. We want to sell it and Patrick wants to pack us up and move out west. I'd be happy moving across town to Lake Forest. We'll see how our luck goes with trying to sell this time around.

Oh, the pain...

I'm really slacking on this blog lately. It seems my life has been going 100mph since we left for our vacation a month ago. While we were gone on vacation I turned 26. I now feel like I am officially on the slippery slope toward 30 and that's somewhat depressing. It's all downhill from there, right? ;) We came back from vacation and the kids started school. Now I have a kindergartner and a 1st grader. Hunter is SO excited about kindergarten that he has woken me up before the sun comes up on two occasions asking me if he could get dressed. He has a girlfriend named Skylar. And, good news, Katelyn and her on/off boyfriend Shane have decided "to give it another shot". Thank goodness for that. What would we do if two six year olds couldn't make it work?

I managed to go back to work for 4 days after vacation and then I had surgery. Nothing huge, just some woman issues I've been having but the recovery has proven to be quite painful. I can't go back to work for three weeks and I'm stuck in the recliner until my one week followup. Patrick has been wonderful. I kind of like having him wait on me. I might have to be confined to a chair more often if this is the kind of treatment I get. He's out buying me magazines to read as I type this. I've been getting a lot of attention.

Speaking of attention, Hunter HATES it when I get attention from Patrick. My son has the worst Oedipus complex I have ever seen. If Patrick hugs me, kisses me or really even touches me Hunter freaks out and yells at him. He made a new rule on vacation that it is Patrick's turn to cuddle me and love me on "every tomorrow". Clever, huh? He's only 5 but he has the logic to know that as long as daddy's day is every tomorrow then it's never really his day today. :) Funny. Now whenever Patrick touches me Hunter just tells him that it's not his day.

Well... my magazines have arrived. I'm going to skip my pain medicine for long enough to read a little. Otherwise all I get accomplished is sleeping and not remembering anything.