Whew...

Holy cow, kids... Christmas is over!

Now, I love Christmas. It is, along with my birthday, one of my favorite holidays. This year, however, I felt like I was a little behind all season long... and I hate that feeling. I wasn't through with my shopping until late; my Christmas cards went out late.

Let's not even talk about Sam's birth announcements that are sitting, addressed, on the table.

We did have a lovely Christmas, though, in spite of my belatedness.

The pictures are of the kids in their superhero capes & masks (http://www.etsy.com/ -- seller name: superflykidz). Ethan and Laney love theirs... Sam, maybe not so much now... but he'll grow into it. If Santa had brought them nothing else this year, I am so glad he brought these because I laugh every time I see their little round bodies running through the house, capes flying, crashing into things because neither of the mobile ones know how to put the masks on without somehow impeding their eyesight. (Check out the pictures closely, and you'll see what I mean.)

Anyway, we coasted through a gaggle of family get-togethers and moved on to having my in-laws come for the weekend.

We also had an unexpected visitor.

The Virus.

I don't know what kind of creation this thing is, but it has hit all three of my kids -- Sam and Laney twice! --, Keith, and his mom. And let me tell you -- it's not pretty.

On Monday, I got a bit of advice from my girlfriend Azure to boil some Pine Sol on the stove to disinfect the air.

Now, if you read my little "About Me" section, you will notice that one of the first things that I am not is a good housekeeper. And I will readily admit that math and science are not my strengths either... but based on my limited knowledge of these areas, this suggestion immediately brought a couple of thoughts to the forefront of my brain:

1 -- Pine Sol cleans everything. This has to be a good idea.

2 -- Cleaning chemicals + extreme heat = blown-up house.

Now, I trust Azure, but I had to ask her, to be safe. She assured me that there was nothing to worry about... she had done the same at her house, and they were all still in one piece.

So I broke out my trusty bottle of Pine Sol, only to realize that I was almost out. I've been cleaning bathrooms and wiping down surfaces like a mad woman since we've been out of school, so I guess I used it all.

Hmph. Well, that's a first.

Anyway, I asked K to bring home a bottle on his lunch break, and being the well-mannered husband that he is, he did so... but not without asking me a bunch of questions first. Our texts went something like this:

Me: Can u pick up a bottle of Pine Sol on your lunch & bring it home?

K: Sure. Why? (Translation: Is this really something I have to do at lunch? Can't it wait until I'm coming home for the day?)

Me: I need it to disinfect the house. Azure says to boil it on the stove.

K: That doesnt sound like a good idea. (Translation: H-no! You've got to be kidding.)

Me: I know. I asked her tho & she said its fine. No worries.

K: I dont know. Kind of like our house as it is. (Translation: Whatever, crazy woman. I'm not going to do it.)

Me: Bring me the Pine Sol. (Translation: I'm about to go medieval on your tail. Would you rather me blow up the house or suffer my wrath?)

K: Ok. But I still dont think this is a good idea. (Translation: Ok. I'll do it... but you're going to blow up the house, and I'm going to say "I told you so" every day for the rest of our lives.)

So, a couple of hours and one massive low-country boil pot later, I get the stuff on the stove. It seems to be going well, until K looks in the pot and said, "What's this stuff growing on top?"

Hold up there, Tonto. What stuff?!?!
Sure enough, there's this foamy mass growing on top of the Pine Sol... kind of like mutated pond scum.

About this time, we also notice that the pleasant scent wafting through the air has gone from "essence de pine" to "pine forest in the house."

Oh my gosh - it was ridiculous. I have visions of the kids losing consciousness and me having to explain to the doctor that they are unconscious due to overexposure to Pine Sol.

I don't imagine that would go over well, so we start opening doors.

I text Azure, and she reminds me to turn it down to simmer after it reaches a boil.

Oh. I must've missed that part. Reason #776 that I should never have to use cleaning products.

So, I turn it down, and the smell abates a little... with the help of a pleasant breeze and 4 open doors.

By the end of the afternoon, I am so pleased with myself because I have disinfected the house AND the air that I voluntarily let K talk me in to beginning this crazy-A workout program that he did last year (with great results) in hopes of getting this body back into some sort of shape post-baby.

After the workout, we go to bed because I am pooped (cleaning and working out are not normally in my schedule these days).

I wake up yesterday morning, and guess what!

I'm sick.

I don't have The Virus, but I feel like crap, nonetheless.

I must've let something in while I was letting the Pine Sol out.

*Sigh.*
Such is the story of my life...

Early Morning Ramblings...

So, here I sit, at 5:21 a.m.

I think I may have posted that Sam often wakes up almost an hour or so -- to the minute -- before my alarm goes off, which totally starts my day with the unpleasant feeling of being gypped of an hour's sleep.

I dislike the feeling so much that I actually started setting my clock 30 minutes faster so I could maybe throw his evil baby mastermind off.

Guess what.

Sam now wakes up at 4 am instead of 4:30.

Sneaky kid.

Anyway, it's now 5:23 a.m., and I am awake because I just finished feeding Sam and my alarm will be going off for real in about 7 minutes.

While I'm trying to pass time until I feel like it's an appropriate time to get in the shower, let me tell you what happened to me last night.

I thought I was about to die.

K put Sam down kind of early, and by the time 11 pm rolled around, I was worn slap out. I briefly considered waking Sam up and feeding him, but that seemed like a much less appealing idea than actually just going to sleep myself.

So I did.

And Sam woke up around 1:30.... right about the time I hit a fat pocket of good sleep.

Nice.

I dragged myself out of bed, finally, and made a bottle for the screaming meanie. Seriously, it was one of the worst nights of babyhood I've ever experienced. Sam wasn't bad, of course, because he is the perfect child, but I was so exhausted that I could not stay awake, even though I was sitting up.

If we had a hidden camera in our den, the YouTube post would be hysterical because I was trying so hard to stay awake but kept failing miserably with some of those pretty impressive neck-snapping, bottle-propelling body jerks that happen when you fall asleep so suddenly that you lose all control of your limbs.

Sidenote: Watching people fall asleep TOTALLY cracks me up because usually, it's kind of a gradual thing where the person starts kind of slumping over until he/she reaches a point where the body might fall over, and that's when the jerk occurs, waking him/her back up temporarily. This was not the case with me last night. I was falling into deep sleep in about 1/10 of a second, so my torso kept pitching forward, simultaneously giving me whiplash and sending Sam's bottle flying across the room.

Anyway, Sam finally finished his bottle, and I put him down in the bassinet in the den. Seriously, I was so tired that I couldn't even make it back to the bedroom.

I had to lay down right. then.

Just about the time I rolled into Dream Land in my new Sleep 5.0, it happened.

The French doors leading from the breakfast area to the screened in porch blew open with a forceful gust -- only the deadbolt was latched, so they just really arched open into the house while sounding like the entire back wall of the kitchen was ripping apart.

Wind was whistling, the doors were blowing in and out, and I thought Armageddon had come and Jesus couldn't get the deadbolt unlatched.

I'm not kidding.

Ever been woken up from a dead sleep to what sounds like Attila the Hun attacking through your back door?

It's beyond terrifying.

In the split second that followed the stopping of my heart, I bolted up right, thinking 1,574,692 things all at once.

Can I get to Sam before whoever that is?

Why is my gun in the bedroom?

Holy cow! What do I do?

What if this person is bigger than me and I can't take him?

I think I'm going to pee on myself.

Can I get to my gun?

Is my gun loaded?

What if I shoot myself by accident?

How do I get Keith up?

Who am I kidding? Keith is going to sleep right through my slaughter.

I hope he remembers I don't want a funeral -- only a quick graveside and one mean party afterward...

"So," you're wondering, "what did you do?!?!"

I screamed, "OHMYGOSH!" and remained frozen in my just-woke-up-to-something-really-scary pose on the couch.

Good thing I'm not a superhero. My reflexes leave much to be desired.

After a few seconds, I finally -- like a moron -- ran to the doors. Now, if Roberto the Robber had really been trying to steal my impressive collection of laundry by the back door, me running to the doors probably wouldn't have been a good idea.

What was I going to do? Welcome him with open arms and remind him to wipe his feet before he came in?

Like I said... good thing I'm not a superhero.

Anyway, about this time, I realized that a small-scale hurricane was ripping through my backyard, and that Roberto the Robber was actually just Hurricane Roberto, blowing my doors in with one heck of a gust.

Apparently, we forgot to bolt the French doors back into place when we brought the Christmas tree in.

Sweet.

The thing is, you have to understand that someone breaking in is one of my irrational fears. We have an alarm system, and I have a gun, but my worst fear is just what happened -- that I will be so stupid with sleep that I won't be able to react.

I mean, you are reading the blog of a girl who used to lay in her bed when she was little and talk really loudly about going to rob other houses so that the (imagined) robbers lurking outside her open window would think that some really hard-core criminal -- much scarier than they ever had time to think about being -- was inside and that they should find another place to carry out their evil plans.

Thanks, Mom & Dad, for making me leave my windows open so that air could circulate for the attic fan. I'm sure that hearing a 6 year old girl's voice talking tough about knocking off the neighbors houses was probably a pretty-darn-effective burglary prevention system to scare off those ferocious criminals crouched outside our house.

Anyway, like I thought, K did not wake up, despite my rousing "OHMYGOSH!", and I had to resort to my really-angry-wife voice to rouse him from his sleep to get him to come lock the doors into place while I held them shut.

Meanwhile, my heart is beating, like, 42 million times per minute, and he comes stumbling out of the hallway, rubbing his eyes, mumbling stuff like, "Whasthebigdeal?" and "Whyyougotthedooropen?"

Um. Well. I thought that we were all about to perish at the hands of Bob the Burglar, thanks. Glad you're sleeping through the back of our house being bashed in.

We finally battened down the hatches and went back to bed.

As I crawled under the covers, I'm just chattering away about how my heart is racing and how I think my heart really may have stopped for like a full minute and do you think that could cause brain damage? and what if that had really been a burglar? would we have been able to tag team him?

K lay in bed silently until my chattering died down and said, "I don't know why you're so worked up. It was just the wind."

I seriously contemplated karate-chopping him in the throat.