Happy New Year!

So it's almost the year of doom 2012.

I don't usually make New Year's resolutions, but this year I think I will. ON BEHALF OF YOU GUYS.

This year, I swear, as friends of JoJo, to wash m'damn hands. To wash them and wash them good. Regularly. Often. After touching anything. Anything at all. I resolve to WASH MY HANDS.

Look, even Facebook agrees.

I also hope and pray that this new year brings me a little peace. That I can find some therapy, some help, and some got-damn medication that takes the edge off this fucker called OCD. I've been on a wild cocktail of meds for 8 or 9 months now, and have experienced no relief. Here's hoping 2012 can bring health, happiness, inspiration, and a lot more Prozac.

Out with the old

In with the new

LOVE YOU GUYSSS. Happy new year, my peeps.

Done.

Another cold.

Another infant with another cold. Another cold courtesy of Maya, who picked one up at school and gave it to her little sister. Another cold.

Another runny nose.

Another cough.

Another sinus infection.

Another ear infection.

Six weeks, three colds, four trips to the doctor, four rounds of antibiotics, four rounds of probitics at $20 a pop, one new humidifier, one pricey electric snot-sucker.

Six weeks of barely sleeping out of worry for the baby, because she's so congested she might stop breathing.


Another cold. Fuck this. I'm pulling Maya out of preschool. And dance class. And life.

So This Is Christmas.

Well, we survived another Christmas. But not without injury, for Maya is sick yet again. So is my husband. This only means one thing: The baby is next. She's currently on her third round of antibiotics in about five weeks, having suffered two back-to-back colds that were incredibly severe, resulting in a horrific cough and congestion, sinus infections, and double ear infections both times. The doctor warned us that this looks like she'll need ear tubes. Great. So now I'm just waiting for the baby (and me) to get sick AGAIN, and then the baby to get another ear infection AGAIN. Which means sleepless nights, fearfully listening to her struggle to breathe and choke on huge amounts of mucous and drainage.

Waaahh wahhhhhhh.

Christmas Eve was fairly stressful. People wanted to hold the baby and kept touching her hands. I also had to hold Naomi the entire time, because I didn't want her crawling on the carpet. I don't like other people's carpets. And there were approx. 498,284,401 people crammed into an extremely tiny house, and it was approx. 820 degrees Fahrenheit, and I was sweating like one US Prime hog, with a tiny space heater (Naomi) attached to me at all times, since my husband stayed home sick and my mom had bronchitis and there was no one else to hold her but me. (Except for the cousins who demanded Naomi time.)  My older daughter was sitting and crawling and scrabbling and playing on the carpet, and there was nothing I could do about it, since I couldn't exactly hold her or tell her not to sit down as she opened presents. Plus, a few adults were coughing or sniffling, and one baby was fever-red-cheeked, tantruming, and coughing a deep phlegmy cough, and my stress was all-consuming.

Wahhh wahhhhh.

But on to the good parts of the holiday.

People were generous to my kids, and they got some sweet gifts. Maya got some baby doll bottles and tiny diapers, which was awesome because she looooooves loves loves her three doll babies, Dee-Dee, May-May, and Runchel. Yes Runchel. She named them herself. So she's having a blast feeding and diapering her dollies.

Naomi got some really cute soft blocks that rattle or crinkle, and a book she can take in the bath, and other fun things.

Behold, my chitlins:

Naomi, all ready for the drive to our aunt and uncle's house:

Maya, opening gifts on Christmas Eve (and sitting on the dreaded Other People's Carpet):

We left shortly after present-opening time, and headed home to put the kidlets to bed.

Once they were home, stripped, and disinfected, I told Maya all about the true meaning of Christmas, and explained to her how the little baby Jesus was born this night, so long ago. We wished Baby Jesus a happy birthday, and then put the kiddies to bed.

Once the babes were asleep, with visions of sugar-plums and Purell dancing in their heads, Santa came.

And we slept. Or attempted to. I think I was more excited than Maya for Christmas morn to come.

Bright and early, it began. Maya came into our bedroom and said, "I think Santa came!" We headed out to check. Sure enough, he had eaten his cookies, put candy canes on the tree, and left presents galore. Even his reindeer had eaten the reindeer food we left out on the porch. The holiday madness ensued.

Candy canes, the breakfast of champions:

Christmas babies:

I like it eatin paper!

Then it was off to my mom's place for Christmas Part III.

We readied the kids, and we were off.

Our littlest Santa enjoying the view of Puget Sound:

We had a fabulous breakfast, provided by my sweet sweet mama consisting of:

Bagels

Cream cheese

Smoked salmon

Carr's water biscuit crackers

Wheat Thins

Taco omelettes (cooked with ground beef, olives, tomatoes, salsa, cheese)

Glazed donuts

Bellinis (champagne and peach juice)

Crisp bacon

Sausage

Rolls

Chips

Dip

And pancakes. 

Moment of confession: I am 33 years old. My mother still makes me JoJo pancakes.

I love her so.

After breakfast, it was time to open presents!!

I like it eatin boxes

Noey's first dolly!!

My family knows me too well. Not only did I receive six Bath & Body Works foaming soaps, I got a touch-free mountable Purell dispenser, Purell refill (70% alcohol!! SCORE!!), and a case (A CASE) of Kleenex paper hand towels. 

After presents, we all lounged around in a food coma. We tried to get the baby to nap, but she Would. Not. Have It. After ages of trying to console a screaming baby, we had to leave. Back home we went, to disinfect all our packages with Lysol wipes.

And now it is the 26th. No more un-disinfected packages, carpets, or questionable food for another year.

Hope you all had a blessed holiday. :)

It's Never Too Late for a Christmas Miracle.

If you love me, vote for me. :)

I think the baby Jesus would.

Merry Christmas, my people.

A Charlie Brown Christmas.

Lucy: All right now, what seems to be your trouble?
Charlie Brown: I feel depressed. I know I should be happy, but I'm not.

Lucy: Well, as they say on TV, the mere fact that you realize you need help indicates that you are not too far gone.

Lucy: I think we better pinpoint your fears. If we can find out what you're afraid of, we can label it. Are you afraid of responsibility? If you are, Hypengyophobia.

Charlie Brown: I don't think that's quite it.

Lucy: How 'bout cats? If you're afraid of cats, you have Ailurophobia.

Charlie Brown: Well sort of, but I'm not sure.

Lucy: Are you afraid of staircases? If you are, then you have Climacophobia. Maybe you have Thalassophobia. This is fear of the ocean. Or, Gephyrophobia, which is the fear of crossing bridges.   ...Or maybe you have Pantophobia. Do you think you have Pantophobia?

Charlie Brown: What's Pantophobia?

Lucy: The fear of everything.

Charlie Brown: THAT'S IT!!

Make New Food, and Trash the Old. One Is Silver and the Other's Mold.

Scratch that. Toss the new as well.

I'm sure there's no way in hell this will surprise you, but I also have a...a Thing about old food.

• If I don't know how long something has been sitting in my fridge, I toss it. No matter what. No exceptions. It could look and smell fresh, and it could be something that's not particularly dangerous to eat if it's old, but if I do not know how long it's been opened, I toss it.
• If something with no listed expiration date has been sitting in my fridge for over about four days, I toss it.
• If something with a best-by date has been sitting in my fridge past the best-by date, I toss if, even though that's not a use-by date, merely a best-by date.
• If it's got beans or rice in it, I toss it with a Quickness. Both beans and rice go dangerously bad, quickly.
• If cheese gets white spots or moldy spots, oh honey, that shit is GONE. I know a lot of people just cut off the mold, but eff that in the goat ass. I do not cut mold off of food.
• If it's milk and it has even the barest hint of being sour, down the sink it goes. My husband will drink milk that's moments away from curdling, but I have a fierce sense of smell, and I always sniff milk before using it, and I can smell when it's one hour off.

• Same with bread. Before using any bread or feeding it to my young, I first sniff it. I can smell bread mold like nobody's bidness. As mentioned, I have a keen olfactory system and am particularly sensitive to that sour, moldy smell of bread that's gone off. If it smells OK, I then check every inch of every slice, looking for furry white spots. I inspect every inch of it, front and back, corner to corner, then give it a pass or fail grade. If anything seems remotely wrong, it's in the trash and mommy can't make toast that day.

PASS!!

FAIL!!

I am just basically a really, really extremely overzealous food thrower-awayer. I waste so much food it's tragic. I feel guilty about it, not to mention it's not very good for the budget, but at the same time, the last thing I want to do is ingest salsa spotty with mold or rank mayonnaise or V8 Spicy Hot past its prime or Chicken a la Staphylococcus Aureus.

As mentioned, I know that some people will take a brick of molding cheese and cut a hunk off and call it good, which I understand isn't all that uncommon, but worse yet, some will cut off the moldy hunk of bread and eat the rest, without regard to the fact that the spores have spindly, feathery, moldy, reaching fingers that spread much farther into the soft, soft, tender white flesh of bread where you cannot see yet, and this I will not stand for. I WILL NOT STAND FOR IT! 

What is terribly amusing and unexpected is that the two foods I will use quite a long time after their sell-by date are eggs and yogurt, two foods that most people would be like, "TOSS THAT SHIT LIGHTNING FAST!" Both actually last a very long time, weeks after their sell-by date, and I have no problem consuming some delicious Yoplait on October 19 if it has a sell-by date of October 1. Mmm Yoplait.

And eggs are good quite awhile past their sell-by date as well. We're talking a month or more. I am totally down with eating old eggs. But old bread? No thank you ma'am. Old juice? No way Jose Eber. Old something else? Shove it up your bum-bum.

So with only a few exceptions, basically I let so much food go to waste it's a tragedy. I'm sure most of it is still edible, but I can't deal. I can't deal with the idea that there are invisible mold spores that I might be consuming, whereas someone else might be all, "Oooh, free penicillin. Awesome."

What's your take? Are you a mold-cutter-offer? Do you eat moldy cheese or do you TOSS THAT SHIT SO FAST?

Tricksies.

Dial Soap, you can't fool me. I'm on to you. You think you're being so sly, but I know you've reduced the size of your soap, cheating me out of a substantial chunk of your antibacterial goodness, yet charging the same damn price.

I mean, who's with me? Who remembers when Dial used to be a thick, heavy, manly, perfectly rectangle chunk of soap that you could put in the toe of a sock and beat the shit out of someone with?

And now it's just this lightweight little pussy of a shape-with-no-name and a great gouge taken out of it, saving Henkel Consumer Corporation money and causing me great anguish. Behold.

You thought I wouldn't notice. But I'm on to you. Scammers.

Fuck you, Dial.

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Also: Oh boy. Only 11 people think I'm funny. So sad.