An Update of Sorts.

So what's going on in the life of Jo & Co?

So as you know, Maya is in Pre-K and also takes swim classes. She has been sick for more than four weeks straight. STRAIGHT. Full-on hacking, snortling, coughing, chunky gross phlegmy SICK. Sick all the time. People warned me, but you're never quite prepared for Sick All The Time.

The baby and I both caught it. We have been sick for more than two weeks. I developed a raging ear infection, fairly unheard-of for adults, and I simply can't shake it. My ear is clogged solid 24/7. I can barely live like this. Who knew a clogged ear would sap my will to live? But it has. I can't stand it. Can't stand it. Solidly plugged ear = I want to die.

My husband Code Red made it through the Wave of Sick unscathed. I'm not bitter Good for him!! But meanwhile, we're all plugging along here (pun intended) with plugged ears and coughing fits and snortly snorters. Maya had to have antibiotics and so did I, but they haven't seemed to help. and in fact made me sick as a dog for two days. After I took my abx I totes vommed like 8 times in a row, all night. Thx abx.

Anyway, there's no end in sight, especially because Maya seems to be picking up a new strain of plague every 3.2 days. It's one, long, lingering, ever-evolving cold.

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I keep struggling with the fact that I never take my babies anywhere. We live in the confines of our living room, which you are well aware. I keep having the nagging thought that I should take them someplace like the McDonald's McPlaguePlace, but why? Why would I do that to us? They will only get sick. I did it once before and they got sick immed. There is a 143% chance they will get sick after playing on the slides and in the balls and climbing the net ladders and pressing their faces against the convex plastic bubble thingies. Why do people do this to themselves? Especially because Mays's 5th birthday party is just around the corner. Do I want my child to have the stomach flu for her party?

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Speaking of stomach flu, can I tell you that nothing fucking freaks me out more. My kids never got their rotavirus vaccines, so I know they are doomed to weeks of vomiting and explosive diarrhea.

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Meanwhile, we did get flu shots. I know vaccines are a Hott Topixx around the parenting communities, but I'm a big, big fan of most of the vaxes. Staggered, spread apart, used within reason, but yes, please vax my kids. Do what you want regarding the varicella vax, but godsakes man, get your kids their DTaP. Whooping cough kills kids dead. And flu shots are a good idea, whether or not they contain thimerosol, because flu also kills dead. I'll take my chances with a vax over having deathly ill children. So I'm doing the best I can to keep them healthy (vaccines, we wash and sanitize when we get home, we change out of Maya's school clothes, we employ liberal use of hand-sani) but it's obviously never enough. There's just no hope that this won't be the worst year of our life.

If there was ever a kid in this world who had good hygiene, it's Maya. She knows never to touch her nose or eyes -- she'll run her cheek or her nose with her sleeve, not her grubby fingers -- , but she STILL gets hit by a Wall of Sick in her first week of school. And don't go off on me about how "if she was exposed earlier she wouldn't get so sick." To the contrary, if she was exposed earlier, she would have gotten just as sick, but earlier. And YOUNGER. And who wants that?

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We're also still doing swim lessons, although we had to skip like three of them because of her ear infection and because she was a snorty hacky mess. She has a lesson coming up tonight and I'm torn as to whether to let her go. I guess most people don't give this a second thought, but I do. First and foremost I don't want my kid getting sicker or getting water in her ears, but I also care about the other kids we're exposing germs to. I guess that makes me rare. Most parents do as they please and take their violently sick kids out in public constantly without a second thought to who else might catch the plague.. But I like to think I have some ethics here, people.

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Last point of interest: I'm still totally failing as a mom. I can't seem to muster the energy to play with my kids in the way they need playing with; can't get down on their level and engage; can't seem to want to break out little projects like Candyland or Hi Ho Cherry-O, or big projects like fingerpainting or even Play-Doh. So we sit around all day. Maya is HUGE into video games right now, specifically this game called Spelunky, and one called Minecraft. She LOVES them. She'll play for a good hour. What did I do with our time before I could send Maya off to Daddy's computer to play PBSkids.com, or Minecraft, or her newest game Plants Vs. Zombies? What did I do? What did I do with my time before I discovered the ultimate time-waster, Facebook's Slotomania? (I love to get my gamble on and I'm devastated when I lose. How fucking sad is this.)

But seriously, life here is pretty pathetic. I have been entertaining two ideas lately, that I either go back to work in order to stop being suicidally bored, and also to put BOTH my kids in school where they can learn and experience and be stimulated; or that I still stay a SAHM and STILL put my kids in daycare part of the week, for their benefit.

If I got a job, my lazy-ass nature would make me still try to sneak in surfing FB all day and all night, in between getting half-assed jobs done, but my kids would at least be happy because they'd be attended to. Even though Naomi would be sucking on and chewing on and slobbering over every toy in the room, a habit she has still not lost at 18 months. But what scares me is that she's too young to tells us if something's wrong, if someone's being bad to her. I've always been afraid of daycare for very young children who can't tell you what's really going on, whereas I at least know that Maya LOVES and ADORES Pre-K.

And anyway, how fucking selfish and lazy would it be to put both kids in school/daycare for two half-days per week so that I can...CONTINUE TO SIT ON MY ASS AND LET THE HOUSE BE MESSY.

I've just done this for so long. Five straight years of cleaning the kitchen 12 times a day, and vacuuming and mopping and Cloroxing and doing dishes and wiping butts and feeding hungry mouths and not doing anything but (occasionally) get things in order and otherwise sit on my ass...I am reaching a breaking point. Do I go back to work, something I dread with a thousand hounds of hell? (Did that make sense?) Do I leave my babies in the care of God Knows Who? Do we shell out thousands of dollars for a couple days off for me? And on my "days off," will I still be expected to clean the house top to bottom? Probably, yes. But who the fuck WANTS TO??

The problem is I don't want to do anything.  I am just so stuck in a rut. I am so got-damn lazy, so anxious, so consumed by bad habits, so afraid, so bored, but so unwilling to help myself or my kids, I just don't know what to do.

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Why does taking my kids to Starbucks seems like an insurmountable task? Why can't I drive my kids to the toystore to goof off for awhile? Why can't someone or something help me get back into life and appreciate what I do have, and make the best of it? Why can't I give my beloved children the childhood they deserve? Why am I so fucking LAZY??

It's an ongoing battle. Personally, I feel like I'm losing this battle.