Wife Swap: Jo Edition.

(Or is that Wifes Wap?)

I've always wondered what it would be like if I went on Wife Swap. Scratch that, I KNOW what it would be like. You know how they always pair totally opposite women/families? A rich bitch goes to live in a hovel, and the other wife lives in a mansion; an unschooler goes to live in a house where the children have every single minute of their day scheduled, planned, and busy; a mother who lives to serve her husband goes to live in a house where the wife doesn't lift a finger; etc.

 

Yeah. So here's what that would mean for me.

They'd give my household a wife who:

• OMG wears shoes in my pristine house
• Does not wash her hands or the kids' hands upon first coming home
• Takes my children to the McDonald's McPlaguePlace
• Uses the bathroom without washing
• Changes Naomi's diapers without washing
• Brings the shared bum-bum sponge back into fashion
• Gives Maya all the soda pop--scratch that, all  the Red Bull--she wants
• Lets the kids watch horror movies
• Fills the baby's bed with a plush baby bumper, five pillows, eighteen stuffed animals, and four blankets
• Lets Maya play in the street or totally out of sight at the park
• Teaches Maya to flick her boogers

• Cuts the mold off cheese and keeps using it
• Leaves bean soup out overnight and serves it the next day
• Lounges around bare-ass nekked with her bum-bum right on my couch
• Brings in three cats and a dog who scootches

• Sneezes and coughs with wild abandon
• Lets the baby chew on the restaurant table
• Lets the baby play with and gnaw on her cell phone and keys
• Lets our new scootching dog lick the baby's face and mouth
• Shares a bath with my kids
• Goes lake swimming and doesn't shower after
• Lets Maya mix up her Play-Doh colors (HORROR!)
• Mixes up a nice batch of raw meatloaf with her bare hands and then merely wipes them on a kitchen towel
• Throws away all my Clorox wipes and hand sani

• Lets my kids eat carrots freshly plucked out of the soil
• Makes mud-pies with the kids and looks away when Naomi actually takes a bite
• And likes her chicken pink in the middle.

Maybe they'd even bring in the lady from the infamous "High Meat" household. (Hilarious sidenote: My husband names his character "High Meat" when he plays MMORPGs.)

"It's got a wang to it."

"Do you believe that God would put anything on this earth to hurt us?"

Yeah, I don't know, how about motherfucking sharks?

...Or listeria, or E. Coli, or rabid bats, or salmonella, or lice, or yellowjackets, or jerkoffs in grade school who throw encyclopedias at your head, or crocodiles, or campylobacter, or bears, or or strep, or staph, or legionella, or leprosy, or cholera, or hungry lions, or Lady Gaga??

Just to name a few.

But I digress.

Anyway, I think the wife they paired my husband with would do all these things and more.



...Or else she'd just be really fun and outgoing and actually take the kids places and get her butt off the internet. You know, whatever.

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 Her Birthday and I'll Have a Panic Attack If I Want To.

So today Maya had her 4th birthday party! It was crazy hectic, as usual, getting there on time to decorate and get it all together before guests arrived, putting up balloons and streamers and tablecloths and napkins and plates and cups and then later managing the ordering of pizzas and the feeding of the guests and the playing of kids' games and the eating of cake and the opening of soooo many gifts, but we pulled it off. Sigh. Pizza and gifts. First world problems.

Oh, and of course, there was the internally freaking out when anyone who hadn't Purelled in my direct line of vision was holding the baby and touching her hands. Grandma H I'm glaring looking at you.

Not to mention, one of my friends showed up and her first words to me about her daughter were, "Sorry, little S has a little cold." GREAT. Panic level orangish-red. Who am I kidding. Scarlet, blood red all the way.

Luckily my BFF and frequent bum-bum blog commenter chesea was there, and talking to her distracted me and calmed me down. :)

Here are some snapshots of the day. I simply have to include a bunch unrelated to my OCD, because they're so damn cute, but then I've included all the ones with Purell in the shots, kind of as your OCD-Where's-Waldo, to make it apropos to this blog.

My ridiculous attempt at a frog cake, which Maya insisted she wanted:

Frog cupcakes. I couldn't control the squirty frosting thing very well. The unevenness and asymmetry of this arrangement also triggers some form of OCD in me as well, let it be known.

My beauty doing the Pee-Pee Dance:

My beauty doing the Bum-Bum Dance:

My beauty standing still for a milisecond.

BAM! PURELL! Hint hint much??

Pin the tail on the donkey. Birthday girl goes first:

And she nails it (actually I think she hung it on Eeyore's ballsack. Bygones).

OK, now can you Spot the Purells?

And finally, shouldn't blowing out candles be outlawed about now? I mean come on. What an outdated, totally gross tradition. We're in Twenty-oh-eleven now. People should really come with their own thingymabob that douses candles, and there should be no huffing and effluvia involved.

Luckily my kid was healthy as a healthy horse, but I ca-RINGE at this part of every other birthday party. I MEAN GROSS.

Anyway. There you have it. Cute kids, frogs, FWPs, and Purell. It was a fun day, but when I got home I had to take five Xanax, 10,000 units of Vitamin D, and then disinfect all the toys she got with Clorox wipes.