Tracking Back and Catching Up

Whoo! Okay, where to begin..... with all the tornadoing and such I'm a bit behind.

Friday was Paul's and my day off work, as usual. The plan was to build Biscuit a pen outside because we are evidently not inside dog people. The chewing and the peeing was a bit much. Besides, we got him as an outside dog anyway, he was just too small to turn loose in the woods here with owls, hawks, lions and tigers and bears, oh my! But those plans changed when we found out Pops had started building on the storage building out behind Mom's (soon to be their)house and was trying to do it all himself, which of course, when we heard spurred Paul into loading up and heading in. I had a tanning appointment at 11:30 and hadn't planned on coming into town until after that, but the boys needed saw horses. I drove them in, visited awhile, then drove back out of town to the salon to tan (I went up to 15 minutes, BIG MISTAKE. I resembled a nuclear halocaust victim by that night.) then back to town to bring the boys lunch. Then Mom and I went to the rest home to see Nan, pick up her shopping list, bring some of her laundry home to dry (she doesn't like the home's laundry so she does it herself in the sink, bless her heart), went to Wal*Mart to pick up her loot, then back to the house to check on our men, throw in more laundry......so much for a relaxing day off. We have yet to see one of those actually... But I did enjoy spending the day with my momma.

Mom and Pops were going to Joplin that night for their date night, Tater needed to go to Joplin as well to get some clothes for the Cruise! she's going on next week and we were going to Joplin to get me a new Bible for Mother's Day. Since we were all going up, we met at Fuddrucker's for dinner. I *heart* that place. We picked up one of Ab's friends and headed to Missouri. Well, on the way up Sam started complaining of how hungry he was, how his stomach was killing him he was so hungry and that he might die before we finished the 35 minute drive to Joplin to eat. I threw a bag of animal crackers at him in the backseat and told him to quit whining. When we got to Fudd's he was still complaining of his dire need to eat and the horrific pains he was experiencing as his stomach started to eat itself. I was just pretty much fed up with the little turkey when our food came. He ate about half of his burger and declared himself stuffed. Agh. He didn't even eat his free cookie. After Fudd's we went to the mall where Sam continued to complain about his severe stomach pain and would sit down in the floor every chance he got, which just about got on every last nerve I had. He doesn't like shopping and I figured he was just being a typical male in a mall. In fact, I halfway expected Paul to pull the same stunt. My boys, they don't like the shopping.

Sam slept the whole ride home and when we got home still complained of his stomach hurting. I, being the stellar mother that I am, told him that we were no longer at the mall and he could quit with the dramatics. It was right after that that my middle child turned my bathroom into something that closely resembled a crime scene. I have never seen so much puke in my life. The only surface that was spared was the ceiling and no, I'm not kidding. And I am considering moving my whole family to the Catholic church so that I can nominate my husband for sainthood. He cleaned up the entire bathroom himself and only puked twice. I, however, stood in the hallway handing him wad after wad of paper towels, gagging uncontrollably. Oh yeah and I did go under the baseboards with Q-tips to remove what had been hurled under there. I'm telling you, it was bad. That was the only vomiting episode and the boy made it through the night without defiling any more rooms of the house, but the whole next day he laid on the couch curled up in a ball with the stomach pain.

Saturday Paul built Biscuit a puppy condo and, even though he isn't adapting well, Biscuit is now an outside dog. He is put in the pen when we aren't home and at night, but we let him run otherwise. However, he doesn't do much running - mostly he stands at the front door and whines, howls and occasionally pushes the plexiglass hard enough to get himself wedged between the storm door and the wooden door. Poor puppy.

Enter tornadoes.

Sunday morning was church where I made a poor attempt at teaching Youth Sunday School. (In my defense, the time I was going to spend working up a lesson was spent driving around Ottawa County trying to find my father and to check on my aunt and uncle.) I won a hanging basket of some kind of flower for having the most kids with me in the service (whew 3, I guess I outdid myself) and then Mom, Pops, Tater, the kids, and Uncle David all came out for lunch. Pops gave the kids airplanes that are propelled by twisted rubber bands, Mom gave them all picture frames to color and we grownups watched Dan in Real Life which made Tater and I both cry, since she's nursing a pretty broken heart right now and me because I'm a big baby like that.

I woke up Monday morning kind of queasy, but figured I was hungry. Boy, was I wrong. I wasn't supposed to go into work until 10, so I was planning on showering after the kids got on the bus, but shortly after the kids got on the bus the puking began for me. Fortunately, I hit all aimed-at recepticles as I puked and puked and puked some more until finally at 3:30 this morning I became officially puked out. Seriously, it got bad yesterday evening and let me tell ya, throwing up every thirty minutes for six hours straight is enough to kill a girl. I can't sneeze today without nearly crying, my ribs are so sore. I haven't moved from the couch except to make some soup, fix a couple of Cokes and pee a few times. I dozed pretty much all morning, but am trying to stay awake now so I'll sleep tonight. I was supposed to go with Ab's class on a field trip today, but she said she didn't want my germy butt there, so I stayed at home. Last week a co-worker said I should make eat an orange every now and then because I seem to be awful sickly. You'd think that working with children for four years solid would have made my immune system resistant to any measley adult germs in the work place, but I guess not.

More storms are on tap for tonight. Paul was really shook up by this last one. My husband, who doesn't get excited about much of anything, has already started calling places to get a storm shelter put in the yard. He also declares that we are going to invade his nephew's cellar tonight when the storms come in, even though I've tried to explain to him that Wyandotte is 30 minutes away and we'd probably be safer here at home, but he seems rather adamant. One of his security guards lost his wife in the Picher tornado and another casino employee lost her house and cars. I guess it hit too close to home for his comfort this time.