Communicable diseases are best when shared, right?!

As I predicted...we're infected.

And, as I predicted...Bonus DOES have MRSA.

Also as predicted...the rest of us have 'suspicious spots' that the doctor decided today were most likely MRSA as well. All of us, that is, except Deuce and the dog. If you ask me, one of them was the one who brought the plague upon this house. They are both now referred to as "Typhoid Tommy and Typhoid Molly". (Anybody ever see Twelve Monkeys?)

Next on the predictions...I'll inherit a million dollars from a long-lost aunt and be able to finally buy that much-coveted pink unicorn with a rainbow mane and jelly bean poop.

While I'm waiting, feel free to send money...or wine. I'm not picky.

But you might not want to come in. Just stand on the sidewalk and throw it in the general direction of the house.

You should be fine.

Rollin’ without training wheels but with a possibly fatal disease. Das how we roll…

It started with a small pimple inside his teeny little five-year-old-boy nostril. We thought nothing of it.

Two weeks later, the pimple returned but with a vengeance. We were traveling and didn’t worry since the first had cleared up with no problems….aside from a small scar.

Last week another one showed up on his bicep. A muscle that is finally gaining distinction and tone. A status symbol to him. He flexes his little arm daily to show his daddy how big his muscle is getting and is quite certain that it must be as large as daddy’s by now. In fact, when I bandaged this miniscule pimple, he muttered under his breath, “Now people won’t be able to see my muscle so good.” (I laughed out loud and he hit me with a pillow.)

But this little pimple, that appeared to be nothing more than a spider bite, started to grow.

Four days later, he was complaining of pain. Any complaint of pain from Bonus is always cause for concern. This child has a tolerance unlike any other. Shots don’t even phase him. We have learned over the past five years, and warned others, that if he is crying then he’s bleeding profusely or his feelings have been crushed. I looked at the previously teeny red spot to find a pea-sized pimple. Full-blown and angry. The scary part was that there was fever in the sore.

I did the most logical thing any mom would do at 7 p.m….and turned to webmd. You’ve always been cautioned to NEVER go by that as a diagnosis. I have never followed ‘suggestions’ well.

First, the symptoms pointed to a boil. Great! I can handle that. I can do hot compresses and ‘see a doctor if needed’. That is right up my alley!

Then, I began coming across ‘make sure it isn’t MRSA’, and to say I started to freak the hell out…well, there is an understatement. That last line the first paragraph there? Yeah, you read it right. It says, “MRSA can be fatal.” FATAL. As in ‘circling-the-drain’. My baby could have something that can kill him. (I realize there are two “ifs” in the sentence…but when dealing with your child, ANY ‘if’ is cause for alarm.)

I grabbed Steve’s arm, showed him the sites, gestured to my precious baby’s arm and gave him the “I’m-freaked-the-hell-out” eye.

He? Blew me off.

Not a smart move, there Dork Fish. Not a smart move.

I turned to twitter. Those people love me. Those mommies care.

The responses were overwhelming. Not only did they care…they supported me with experience and advice. It was bliss. It was exactly what social networking should be.

I called the doctor first thing the next morning. They put me through to the nurse. I told her of the “boil” and refrained from speaking in hysterics or even mentioning the dreaded acronym that was already haunting my thoughts.

She said, “I’m sure it’s nothing, but we really need to see him to rule out MRSA.” MRSA!!!!!! SHE SAID IT!!!!! THE ACRONYM I WAS DREADING!!!!

Yeah, back in full FREAK-THE-HELL-OUT mode.

We get to the doctor’s, the nurse asks to see the ‘boil’, and immediately takes three steps back.

That is certainly comforting.

The doctor came in and took a sample to send to the lab but said that she wouldn’t know anything until Monday or Tuesday. “Although,” she had to add, “it definitely looks like a staph infection.”

We were sent home with oral and topical antibiotics for his ‘spot’, inside his nose and under his finger nails.

The worst part? Not making your kid feel like a leaper because you freak when he touches his nose, his brother or ANYTHING! Oh, and no son, you can’t bathe with Deuce right now. Please don’t give him your ‘used’ sucker. He’s good. I know he wants it REEEEAAAALLLL bad, but let’s not.

What does little Bonus do? He does the only thing he knows how to do…impress the hell out of mom and dad.

He walked in the garage and announced he wanted his training wheels off his bike. NOW. Shocked, we agreed.

He hopped on his bike and took off down the drive way. This, is what we watched:

Either it was his way of saying, “Screw you guys, I’m outta here!” or it was on his bucket list.

You never know with that one.

Don’t all men know cardinal directions?!

Husband (aka – Dork Fish): “In June I have to go to a seminar in Florida and wanted to take you guys with me.”

Me: “Where?”

Dork Fish: “Bonita Springs, or something?”

Me: (Googling) “OH, hey! That’s near Naples! I’ve heard there’s good shopping there! Not that I shop or anything…um, but it would give me something to do with the boys…ahem.”

Dork Fish: “Where is Naples? East or West coast?”

Me: “West. It’s opposite Tampa.”

Dork Fish: “So, it’s on the East coast then.”

Me: (rolling eyes) “NO. It’s on the WEST coast. You know, Never Eat Shredded Wheat *doing the little N,E,S,W sign with my hand*”

Dork Fish: “Right. Tampa is on the WEST coast too, sweetie.”

Me: “PFFFFTTTT. No, DEAR. Tampa is on the EAST coast.”

Me: (Googling)

Me: (Getting pissed cause Google is a lying bastard.)

Dork Fish: “Soooo…where’s Tampa?”

Me: (gritting my teeth) “I meant Miami. It’s on the opposite side from Miami.”

Dork Fish: “So, which coast is it on again?”

Me: “I TOLD YOU IT WAS ON THE WEST COAST, ASSHAT!”

 

He never listens to me.

AND I TOTALLY FORGOT TO TELL ALL YOU ABOUT THIS!!!!

Okay, so last week we are going to the park. (Go ahead, pat me on the back…I am.)

 

I’m packing the little snack bag (kudos for the snack bag here cause I ALWAYS just send my hungry kids over to my friend’s snack bags and pretend I can’t hear them asking for food…just ask Jessica, Lisa, Jae, etc.)

 

Bonus walks in the kitchen, looks up at my apron hanging on the inside of the pantry door and says, “What’s that?”

Me: “That’s an apron.”

Bonus: “What’s an apron?”

Me: “It’s for cooking. You know, you put it on and it keeps you from getting food on your clothes when you’re cooking.”

Bonus: “Then why do you have it?”

::shrugs his shoulders and walks away::

 

See what I mean about the advanced sarcasm?! I totally wouldn’t have thought of that until the next day…

Shhhh…it’s a secret key for a reason.

You know when you’re sitting at your computer enjoying that last warm cup of coffee and giggling over all the blog posts you missed by being out of town and all the sudden your mind is flooded with that ‘mommy sense’ that you haven’t heard your kids fighting in a while…

 

…yeah, I’m there right now.

 

But don’t fret, Bonus just came in the room to inform me that Deuce was locked in the bathroom, but it was okay because he was able to move a chair to the dresser, climb on top and reach the ‘secret key’ above the door.

 

See? Sorted. This parenting thing is soooo much easier once you teach them to fend for themselves.

 

Which also reminds me of something I’ve always wondered about. What if someone is chasing you through your house to kill you and you run to the bed room to lock yourself in there and call the police but as you are dialing 911 the murderer opens the door because he found your ‘secret key’ that you had so stealthy hidden above the door to ensure your kids wouldn’t be locked in another room while you ignored them worked on your writing and sipped your coffee. Then what?! I need to go move that damn key again.

Bet they would never look under the mat.

Guess it didn’t skip a generation after all.

Being birthed to a ‘wild child’ mother and finding myself eventually raising said mother, I always assumed it must skip a generation. If I was good and honest and upright, then my sons would be hell-raisers.

So far, it has held true. My oldest, Bonus, is about as opposite from me as it gets. He refuses to snuggle when mommy desperately wants a hug. He is obsessed with frogs and always wants me to pet them even though he knows that the thought of touching something that is slimy, squishy AND living ranks right up there with licking the floor in front of the toilet in a house with 3 boys. He has no imagination when it comes to make-believe scenarios and loves to point out that the toy car is in fact NOT really talking with the Italian accent I so poorly attempt to execute. But until today, I thought my sarcasm was totally lost on him.

Any time I make smartass comment, he just rolls his eyes and walks off. Last week, however, the table turned.

I was pretending to be made at him and he was pretending to ignore me when I suddenly spouted a line my own mom used to say in the same scenario, “I’m gonna knock you into next Tuesday!” I think it surprised me as much to hear it as it did him.

The next day, I was at the Children’s Museum when I casually reminded Bonus that if he didn’t stop throwing the balls in the ball pit at his brother then we would most certainly have a date next Tuesday. My smirking and patting myself on the back for my genius trick of threatening without causing alarm to the nearby parents was quickly nipped in the bud by my straight man. “Momma, you’re not going to hit me,” Bonus says with the smirk that only a five year old can perfect.

And that is why I am certain that not only has the sarcasm passed directly to the next generation, but it has in fact taken on a much more indirect approach. One that I may not be mature enough to master…

The much-requested ‘dead kitty story’.

I was ignoring my kids researching for my blog and ended up on one of my most favorite ‘what the hell?!’ websites, Craftastrophe. If you haven’t been to this site, you soooo must put them in your reader. Seriously, it is like one of those daily calendars that you giggle at every single morning and then when you totally forget to read for a few days, it’s like a little personal vacation.

 

On their site, I came across this, and it not only made me laugh out loud, but it reminded me of my own ‘dead kitty’ story that has been an all-time favorite for many of my friends. I figured I should share it with all of you since I probably won’t be sharing it over a bottle of wine with you any time soon! (Pity, really. I think it’s much funnier then.)

……….

Back in Tennessee, we had a German Shepherd who was absolutely nuts. In cat-like form she would play with small animals such as chipmunks, mice, etc until they literally dropped over dead. She never intentionally killed them, but more like Lennie, she would love them to death.

One afternoon, Bonus came running in the house yelling about a ‘dead kitty’ in the yard. Praying it was actually a squirrel, I ran out the back door to find Kintla snuggling with her latest victim. A small cat who had obviously, been loved to death.

Following the good-parenting protocol that I always do, I screamed bloody murder and chased the dog through the yard with a shovel trying to get the cat away from her got my precious, vulnerable child in the house before attempting to handle the situation.

It took half an hour and an entire roasted chicken to pry the lifeless, matted fur ball from her jaws. Once I did, I stood there holding a shovel full of dead cat and no idea what to do next; when I heard a tiny little voice, “Momma, is that a dead kitty?”

“Yes, son. It’s a dead kitty.”

“Momma, what you gonna do wif dat dead kitty?”

“I don’t know, Bonus. I haven’t figured that part out yet.”

“I bet dead kitty would wike wiving here.”

This is the point I realized that instead of completely scarring my child for life, I had the opportunity to teach him a valuable lesson about life and death.

Instead, I played along.

“Yeah buddy! Dead kitty would be fine with us! Let’s go find him a home in the woods!”

“O-tay momma! Yay!”

So we walked to the back yard with dead kitty in-tow. We made it to the edge of the property where it was nice and wooded. The ground was much too hard to dig in, so I decided just tossing it over the fence would be much more fitting.

Taking all the strength I could muster with the increasingly-heavy lump in the shovel, I reared back and launched the dead kitty far into the woods.

But dead kitty hit the tree right in front of us and hung on the top branch. Thanks to rigor mortis, dead kitty looked like he was running in the air.

“Momma, is dead kitty flying?”

“Um, yes son. Dead kitties love to fly.” (shitshitshitshit)

“Momma, I don’t tink we can weave him dere.”

“No, son. We can’t.” (what the hell am I going to do?!)

Beating the tree limb with the shovel, I finally got dead kitty to ‘land’. Scooping him up once again, we trekked around the property to find a nice, cushy pile of leaves that was way back in the woods for dead kitty to ‘sleep comfortably’ (and not smell up the entire back yard).

We covered dead kitty with a blanket of leaves and headed back home.

Obviously proud, Bonus piped up, “Momma, dead kitty will WOVE wiving back here!”

“Yes, son. Dead kitties always love living in the woods.”