A Camping We Will Go

Last weekend, we packed up the car and headed north to Deception Pass for Mikey's first ever and Katie's third ever camping trip.

We had two tents - a four person and a two person.

Mikey and I stayed in the four person. He did pretty good overnight. He woke up just about every two hours, but all I had to do get him to fall back to sleep was to pick him up.

He spent half the night next to me with about six blankets (and my sweatshirt) on him, and the other half of the night on my chest or cuddled in my arms.

Huzbend and Katie were right next door in the two person tent.

We did some hiking, sat on a beach and ate our fair share of marshmallows.

Besides having to go to sleep at, like, 9 pm the only other not-so-good thing that happened was that Huzbend dropped our camera at the beach. Sand and cameras do not mix. Our camera broke, so we only got pics going up till dinner. Oh well.

Here are some pre-camera death photos....

Daddy is good at setting up tents.

I'll just sit here and make sure the rain fly doesn't wander off.

Check it, dudes. Wildlife!

The Awesome Family @ the beach

Hmmmmm. These things sure look yummy.....

Katie & Deception Pass

I love our state.

It's dinner time!

Munchin' and sippin'.

Mmmmmmm. Me likey da pasta.

The Suckiest Suck Day

I feel compelled to tell you all about today. It's like I have to get this weight off of my chest. I just need to get it out and be done with it.

And by it, I mean today.

Today was a shitty day.

It started shitty, the middle was full of shit and it ended pretty shitty too.

Let me begin by saying this all started WITH shit.

Katie has been having off and on diarrhea for about a week now. I finally took her to the doctors on Monday. We weren't sure it was a virus as it kept going away and coming back and thought that it might be another food allergy sneaking up on us.

We thought that that allergy might be milk. So, the doc said no milk for the week. If she got the trots again then we would know it ain't milk. If she didn't get diarrhea, then we could slowly reintroduce milk.

Dammit all. The only thing, ONLY thing that Katie really eats or drinks are dairy products.

It has been a bitch and a half finding things for her to eat this week.

Which brings me to today.

So, we started off the day with an argument about breakfast. We are SO over the no milk thing. There is nothing for her to eat. She eats bread products all day with a little fruit thrown in to mix it up. She complains that she is hungry all day. Okay, not just complains, but whines about it. All day. I feel so guilty and so bad that she can't eat anything. I just want to give in and let her have a piece of cheese so she can just be happy. Do you know what she ate for dinner tonight? A piece of bread with one slice of turkey deli meat and water. Ugh.

But, something happened today that makes me think that the whole milk thing might be completely wrong.

Mikey had diarrhea in the middle of lunch. It was a major blow out. One of the ones where you have to immediately dunk him into a bath. Poop was everywhere.

Then, guess what happened? I got diarrhea. Yeah. Whoooppeee. I've been running to the bathroom just about twice an hour.

Combine hungry, whiny, grumpy kid with poop-master Mike and sick Mommy and you've got yourself one hell of a day.

The kids were fighting, like, all day. You wouldn't think that an almost 4 year old and an almost 1 year old could argue, but they do! Man, they were driving me insane today. Lots of, 'NO MIKEY!!!! YOU'RE HURTING ME!!!" and "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!".

There were lots of "I'm frustrated" and "I'm losing patience" comments today - from both parties, kids and mom. Lots of threats about counting to 10, too.

And here, my friends, is the whip cream on the cow pie.

After dinner, while doing dishes, I had to GO. Katie was eating applesauce. Okay. Mikey was crawling around finding stray Cheerios on the floor. Okay. Everything was good. Off I ran to the toilet.

The whole trip took me maybe less than five minutes.

I came back and Katie is still eating applesauce. Okay. I look over at Mikey.

He's got this great big smile on his face. He's sitting there kicking his feet and rubbing his hands over the floor as if he is painting something.

OH YES, FOLKS!!! He had another huge diaper blow out and since he was wearing shorts, well, it ran out onto the floor.

What would you do if you were 11 months old and you saw this slimy brown stuff all over the ground? Well, you would mush it around and wipe it all over everything! Of course!

It was freakin' disgusting. Bath number two for Mikey; the last shred of patience for Mommy.

When we were done with the bath, we had to go back downstairs to wipe the diarrhea off the kitchen floor. Katie had left her mostly eaten applesauce bowl and spoon on a chair. While I was cleaning, Mikey proceeded to pull up to standing and grab the bowl spilling the remaining applesauce on himself and the floor.

After that, the kids fought their way through the bedtime routine. Mikey was trying to steal Cheerios from Katie. Then he bit me on the leg. I yelled in surprise and scared him. He started crying and then Katie started to yell at him and cry herself because she couldn't hear her bedtime book.

Both kids are asleep...for now.

I am exhausted. Physically and mentally exhausted. Today there were lots of not-so-good-Mommy moments. Things that I should've done differently and the like. I guess tomorrow is another day. I can start over and try to work on the things that bothered me about today.

But, for now, I am going to drink a tall glass of milk (because Katie is asleep and I won't feel guilty about drinking it in front of her) and then I am probably going get the runs.

Shit.

One More For Ya

Watch Him Go!

Here's a vid from about month back of one of Mikey's first knee shuffles.

We called this the "Froggie Crawl".

R.I.P. Flip Flop

The day started at 4am.

I thought I heard a kid making noise, but it must have been my imagination. They were both sound asleep.

Now, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I REALLY wake up. So, I decided to hit the potty and get myself a snack.

While munching my cheese stick, I glanced over at the fish tank to check on Flip Flop. He hadn't been himself all that day. I had tested his water that morning and the ammonia levels were high. I needed to do a water change, but I ran out of time. I figured he could wait until tomorrow.

Um, I guess he couldn't.

He was dead.

A wave a guilt hit me immediately and I began to cry. If I had only changed the f-ing water. Next came a wave of deep sadness upon realizing that I would have to tell Katie that her first ever pet had died while she slept. A pet she ate breakfast with. A pet that she was teaching how to sing. A pet that she loved. A lot.

And so, I was still crying. A lot.

I couldn't sleep. I spent time doing internet searches about explaining death to children and I tried to lighten my mood by watching the finale of 'Glee'.

After discussing how we should handle this with the Huzbend, I took Flip Flop out of his tank and laid him in some plastic wrap inside an old jewelry box.

When Katie woke up, I explained what happened. She cried hard and told me she wanted a new fish.

After the initial cry, we went down to take a look at Flip Flop in his box. She told me that he was, "so small and so cute." She even touched him through the plastic and told me he was "squishy". We talked about what happens when something dies.

The rest of the day was spent normally playing but was interspersed with questions about death ("Will you die?""Will Granma & Granpa die?" "Why were you sad when you're Granpa died?") and hourly viewings of Flip Flop in his box.

Every picture Katie drew during the day had Flip Flop in it. She even came up with an imaginary pet that, "when the water is dirty and he should get sick he doesn't and he lives in it. You just feed him lots of food and he doesn't die."

After dinner, we had a little funeral for Flip Flop. We picked a nice backyard tree and dug a little hole underneath it for him. Katie gave the box he was in a hug and a kiss and told him, "I love you, little fishy." Then we took Flip Flop out of the box (and plastic wrap) and put him in the hole. Katie put a few pebbles from his tank gravel in the hole with him as well as a special rock she picked out of the yard.

As Huzbend buried him, I told Katie that she could say anything she wanted to say to Flip Flop. It could be a good bye or maybe a nice memory that she had of him.

In a sad voice she said, "Thank you for eating your food."