So much drama I should be on Lifetime

Do y'all ever get tired of reading of my dramas? No? Oh good - at least I'm guaranteed readership.

Friday night I took Sam to basketball practice and I dragged the girls along as well because Paul was so incredibly cranky I thought he was going to explode from the crankiness. I thought that an hour or so alone in the house would do him some good (I know it would do me wonders), but instead I think he was crankier when we got home. I asked him why he didn't take a nap while we were gone and he literally crossed his arms across his chest and pouted as he said, "I don't need a nap. I'm not a baby." Mmhmh.....riiiiiiight.

Saturday morning his crankiness continued as I tried to herd the children and him out the door at 8:05 in order to be in Quapaw by 8:40 for Sam's first game at 9:00. It was raining and Paul's mood was totally responsible, I'm sure of it. Fortunately we didn't play a Wyandotte team and that lent a little lightness to the day - for about 15 minutes, until we realized that Commerce was totally kicking our asses pretty much the way Wyandotte does on a weekly basis. By the time the game was over (three guesses as to who lost....) Paul was so mad his face was red (easy there, blood pressure) and he was saying words that normally don't bother me, but he was saying them out loud in front of people that I have to associate with at my kids's school. Know what I mean? He was griping about the boys' coach that only shows up to practices but doesn't come to games and while I realize that the woman is also coaching three other teams and sometimes game times overlap, well, maybe a rotating schedule would be nice? But Angry Redneck Man didn't see that and only saw red as he cursed Wyandotte (innocent in this instance, mind you), cursed Commerce, cursed our school and also cursed the fact that our son has a desire to play basketball and he also cursed my frizzy hair. Yeah, when he gets that mad he doesn't make much sense.

Oh and did I mention that about halfway through the game we realized that Kady was running a fever?

Normally we play two games on a Saturday and most of the time they are back-to-back, but this week we had a 4 hour break between end of first game and beginning of second game. The plan was to grab a bite to eat then go to Tater's and watch her DVR'd LOST episode and see if she got as utterly PISSED OFF as I got when I watched it, but Paul was so angry he wanted me to take him home. Right. Then. Which was probably okay because of the feverish third child and all. Fortunately, he took a nap when we got home and Kady and I laid on the couch and watched cartoons. By 12:30 her fever was gone and she said she wanted to go to the game because she knew Grammy and Pops were going to be there and there was sure to be a trip to the concession stand at some point and no way does a six year old miss out on that if she's breathing. So as I was walking out the door I asked Paul if he was sure he didn't want to go. He grabbed his coat and said, "Oh yeah, I'll go. Maybe I'll run into the coach," which of course prompted me to immediately start praying that the coach had moved to Zimbabwe.

By halfway through the second half of the second game (here's a hint as to who we played... starts with a "Wyan" and ends with a "dotte") (mind you, we've played Wyandotte about 59 times and have played Quapaw once and Commerce twice) (just for the record) Paul was cursing again, Kady was again starting to feel warm and here's the best part - Sam took a teammate's head to the nose and promptly started gushing blood all over the floor. He's a bleeder anyway, but man, did he bleed that day. Paul was too angry to even get up and move, so here goes me, fat mother who has a loathing of walking across a basketball court in front of a couple million spectators (okay, like 50), jogging across the court to get my bleeding son and tend to his gushing face. Yay. I was glad I wore my good jeans. Too bad my hair was frizzy.

Sam was proud he took one for the team (we still lost, but oh the drama involved), Paul was even angrier because I'm sure in his mind it was somehow the coach's fault that his son bled on the court and Kady was looking pitiful. I just wanted to go to bed. Paul again insisted that I take him home. Immediately. I had no desire whatsoever to sit in my living room with his angry self and listen to him holler, stew and whine all night, so I dropped him off in our driveway and the kids and I went to town. The plan was to watch that DVR'd episode of LOST and maybe order some pizza, or even rob a bank and steal a few cars or even get tattoos, but driving down Main I saw that The Spiderwick Chronicles was on so we picked up Tater and her kids and went to the show.

By the time we got to the part where Nick Nolte pretty much looked like himself as Mulgarath in human form (think drunk driving mug shot) Kady was on my lap and was more than warm, more like two steps away from melting. And I, being the stellar mother I am, stayed in the theatre because I had just dropped $45 on tickets and treats and had no desire to go back home to SpongePaul CrankyPants just yet. Send my trophy for Mother of the Year to my home address, please.

Fast forward to Sunday morning. I'll spare you the details of my youngest child turning into a baby harp seal crossed with pro-rodeo bronc during the night and how she kicked me mercilessly while she coughed until she gagged. By 12:30 her fever was 103.7, the breathing treatments weren't doing a durn thing for the wheezing and barking and I had had enough. I took the two big kids to Mom's and took Kady to the hospital where we waited from 1:30 until 4:00 just to be seen and then spent another 2 hours in the ER while she was probed, listened to, swabbed, hooked up and various other medical events took place.

She has the croup which is irritating her asthma. That one was a given; I knew that before we got there. She has an ear infection that we didn't know she had, but the doctor said would've had us in the doctor's office within 24 hours, it looked that bad.

Oh yeah, and she tested positive for THE FLU.

If you've never been swabbed for THE FLU, let me tell you how to get the same effect at home: Take a wire clothes hanger, unwind it until it's one long, continuous piece of wire about a half mile long, tape a Q-tip to the end and then run it up one nostril until you touch the part of your brain where your phone number is stored THEN scrape around awhile. Kady puked. On her Strawberry Shortcake blanket. And the floor. And her pants.

I left the hospital at 6:00 with 5 prescriptions, an off-school slip and an off-work slip for the week, one very tired, feverish little girl who wanted "six chicken McNuggets now befowe I bawf again" and a desire to sneak a dose of Kady's phenergan w/codeine cough syrup even though it might kill me, but oh well, I'd die in my sleep. She's on breathing treatments of not only the usual albuterol, but also Atrovent, which she has to take every four hours even during the night which was entirely too reminiscent of getting up with a newborn last night although this time I didn't have a child attached to my breast while I dozed, instead I was holding a nebulizer in her sleeping face because she got the good medicine and I got squat. She's also on a steroid for the crouping/wheezing, an antibiotic for the ear infection, Tamiflu for THE FLU and phenergan w/codeine so she'll sleep and not cough for at least four hours.

Right now I am cracking the hell up watching her try to glue beads and sequins on a piece of paper. Why is this so funny? Because it appears that my six year old is drunk.

Oh yeah, did I mention that I didn't get a flu shot?