You Know That Saying....

....that God will never give you more than you can handle?  Either that is a total truck load of bat crap or God has seriously overestimated me.

Let me recap for you:

12/11 - Bianca lands in the ER due to acute asthma attack that I cannot control at home despite maxing out all medications.  As a result of her chronic asthma & this flare up, we get a total of about 10 hours sleep over a period of 4 days. 

12/13 - Bianca wakes up with pink eye.  She and I have to miss 2 days of school/work.

12/17 - I finally succumb to the cold that has been threatening me for days (resulting from no sleep and little sickie coughing in my face for a week)

12/19 - My cold turns to bronchitis.  And, that night, Bianca has a power vomit incident that coats her room, bed, blankets, walls, furniture from stem to stern.  Fun.

12/25 - Merry Christmas.  I wake up with a migraine & throwing up from it.  When that passes, I get the flu, fever chills and more throwing up.

12/26 - I start to feel like I'm getting a cold again.

12/29 - I wake up with pink eye.  I have to go to work anyway b/c I'm covering for a department manager.  While here, my computer crashes. 
In the evening, Bianca rapidly declines into full blown asthma bronchospasm episode in a matter of hours and we're up all night (except for that oh-so-(not)-restful 3 hours) coughing, puking and medicating.  We went to see her dr this AM and she is now on 2 prescription allergy meds, 2 prescription asthma meds, inhaled steroids, liquid steroids, antibiotics, and 2 OTC meds.  How much can a 6 year old ingest?  And it's still not helping.  Breaks. My. Heart. 

If all this means that my 2011 is going to be a breeze, then I'll weather it out.  If it's a precursor of things to come, I politely decline.  Thank you very much. 

Dear God, there is a LIMIT to the amount of CRAP one single Mom can tolerate.  Please have some mercy on us.  We've had enough.

Merry (Day After) Christmas!

Christmas Eve was lovely.  I had the day off, spent it cooking and baking in preparation for the evening and Christmas Day.  We went to a family party at my BFF's house.  It's our tradition.  She and I have been friends for 25 years so they are like family to me.  After we came home, we left out treats for Santa and the reindeer.  Bianca saw on Max & Ruby 2 years ago that chocolate milk is Santa's favorite so we have to leave it for him.  :o)

I put a very excited little girl to bed and proceeded to complete Santa duty, filling the stockings and placing presents under the tree.  Disposed of the goodies, left her a letter from Santa.  Went to bed.  Woke up with a heinous migraine, my first in over a year, which resulted in vomiting until it passed.  Lovely.  I *thought* that was the end of the story.

Despite her horror over Elf on the Shelf, Bianca was very upset that he was leaving on Christmas Eve.  Frankly, I was relieved because that little dude is seriously creepy.  So to ease her angst, I Santa brought her a cuddly elf that she can keep all year.  It was on top of her stocking with the Santa letter and she was thrilled!!

My Mom came over and we opened gifts, had breakfast.  Bianca's ADD makes opening gifts an overwhelming experience for her.  She has to take frequent breaks and put aside several presents that she didn't open til about 7pm.  I tried to keep it smaller this year.  While I did succeed in having a smaller Christmas, that does not necessarily translate to a small Christmas.  Evidence:

Right about this time, around 1:00, I felt like a truck hit me.  I got chills, 101 fever and lost all my energy.  My last gift was....the flu.  Very not cool, Santa.  Nevermind eating dinner, I could not even cook it for my Mom and Bianca.  Fortunately, I'd made a big breakfast and prepared a couple side dishes (and the most important course....DESSERT!) the day before so at least they had something to eat while I threw up some more and whimpered like a sissy in the corner.  I am fortunate that I had a period of wellness between the migraine and the flu so we could enjoy the morning.  Ten hours of sleep, lots of tea and chicken broth later, I'm starting to feel better.  We're in the midst of a huge blizzard and I cannot imagine better timing for it.  I had already taken tomorrow off from work and am hoping for full recovery so that snowman making can commence!

I hope everyone else had a great (and healthy) holiday!!

Fill 'er Up

That old question....is the glass half full or half empty?  Because apparently your answer to this one question labels you an optimist or a pessimist. 

I recently began this nutritional program.  Oh, who am I kidding?  Let's call a spade a spade.  It's a diet.  A hard diet with a big, fat capital D.  My Dr (who is very lucky that I love him or else he may have found himself wearing 2 weeks worth of protein shakes......at least they "claim" to be protein shakes though I'm completely convinced if you did a blind taste test of vanilla shake vs wallpaper paste, the results would be 50/50) was extremely vague about the details of this "program" before he loaded me up with a box of assorted powders, liquids and supplements.  I understood shortly thereafter he had been vague on purpose because if I'd fully comprehended what I was signing up for, I would not have done it.  Not one freaking chance in hell.

So I start my days off drinking this scrumptious cleanse drink.  How does it taste?  Why don't you pour yourself a glass of prune juice, add an equal amount of Robitussin cough syrup and top it off with some finely powdered dirt.  Stir.  Enjoy.  Top o' the morning to ya.



I'm ready to make breakfast!

 An hour later, I get to have my wallpaper paste for breakfast.  I've gotten it down to a (mad) science where I don my goggles and hunch over my shaker bottle with a carefully concocted blend of (Diet acceptable) potions and elixers so that I don't immediately vomit when I drink it.  (hmmm, on second thought maybe that was the intention....it's like bulemia without the toothbrush down your throat!)  For snacks, I can have things like one pecan or two almonds.  I kid you not....that is their suggested snack.  And notice that is an "OR", not even a pecan AND two almonds.  This is not a snack, people.  That is what I vacuum off my car floor mat every week.  Meals are limited and I only eat dinner twice a week.  The other five days, it's another shake.  Okay, I gave up sugar.  And carbs.  And sugar.  And COFFEE for the love of all things holy.  A single, working Mom and I gave up coffee.  And snacking, and fast food.  And sugar.  And coffee.

Three weeks into this torture and I've lost 10 pounds.  Okay....I get it.  It's 10 pounds.  It's a step in the right direction.  But, for the torment of the last 3 weeks, it should be like 40 pounds.  Really.  Nevermind that my Dr, who looked fine to begin with, did the program and lost like 18 pounds in five hours.  (Am convinced men drop five pounds when they just think the word *diet*  Bastards.)

So Dr 18-pounds-lost-Bastard is getting all woo-hooey on me.  Yeah, 10 pounds, that's awesome!!  As I give him the death stare accompanied by flaring nostrils. 

So is my glass half empty?  I fully recognize and appreciate my half full, 10 pound glass.  But why isn't it all the way full with 40 pounds already?  Pessimist?  No.  Optimist?  Not so much.  Why-The-Hell-Not-ist?  Yep, that's me.