Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The endless parade

This is getting really, really old.


Backing up to Monday night, I arrived at The World's Most Expensive Preschool to find Miss Catherine escorting Monkey Man inside after he had a massive coughing attack on the playground. He was really flushed and kept pounding his chest, and told me, "Mommy, my chest hurts."

Crap.

So we called Amazing Uncle Richard and took a drive up to my sister's house where Richard checked Monkey Man out and declared he has croup. But not really croup. Kind of like the same damn thing he had back a month or two ago when he scared the crap out of us. It's this weird upper respiratory swelling thing going on, not to mention he suspects maybe Monkey Man might have asthma.

Well, well, well.

So as soon as he has a few days off of the prednisolone, we will take him for testing to see if that's the deal. And I think this time we will definitely ask about getting a nebulizer, because I'm getting really concerned that this is becoming an ongoing trend.

By Monday night, he started running a fever so obviously he needed to stay home on Tuesday. He spent most of the day in the Man Cave playing some annoying monster truck game on the Xbox 360. And while he was doing that, I was monitoring the comings and goings of the tile people.

Last week they got off to a pretty rough start. They showed up two hours late on Monday and Tuesday, and then an hour late on Wednesday. They really didn't get much of anything done. To their credit (and a huge part of the credit goes to Cat Door who apparently hounded them day and night) they really turned it on and between yesterday and today they completely finished the tile work and the grout. We still have the floor issue that we're trying to solve, but the shower portion is done and it is so freaking awesome I cannot WAIT to get the glass in. Pictures will be forthcoming.

In addition to the tile people, Cat Door has been coming and going. Yesterday he brought The Mrs. by, who happened to have thrown out her back yet again doing some kind of wild Pilates stuff. She was dying to see the shower, and I was happy to see her because she has a really good eye for color and I wanted some opinions on paint colors. She spent a good hour with me going through various paint fans and we finally narrowed down a few colors for me to present to Joey (who hates picking paint as much as I do). Today, I decided to fix an extra roasted chicken along with some roasted potatoes, thyme flatbread, and a nice salad to send home with him so they could have a nice dinner. Honestly, between me being a total beeyotch to him last week and her helping me pick out paint, I owed them a big one. He was happy as a clam as he loaded his packages up in his car, so hopefully they enjoyed it.

You would think that after working in construction as many years as I have, I'd be used to the chaos involved. It's different, though, when it's your house. I'm sure Tree will chime in here since she's been in renovation/addition nightmare status for quite a while now. Cat Door has done a great job keeping our bathroom fully operational, but after spending two days at home and watching the comings and goings of the tile people, the glass people, Cat Door, and whoever the hell else showed up when I wasn't watching, I am so ready for all of them to be gone it's not even funny.

This morning, I got Monkey Man all the way to the before-school building when I realized that he really didn't seem to feel well. Red puffy eyes, runny nose, and just wasn't himself. He announced that he didn't feel well enough to go to school, and immediately I felt sick on my stomach thinking of the phone call I was going to have to make to EPOD. Seriously, I will be out of sick time by the end of March if things don't improve - I have NEVER missed this much work this early in the year. So I took him outside of the classroom and explained to him that I have responsibilities at work - other people depend on me to get my job done in order for them to do their jobs, so it's important that I don't miss time if it's not for a very good reason. And if he wasn't really, really sick then I needed him to be a big boy and go on to school. (Yes, I realize this is just more evidence that I am Mother of the Year but whatever....) He pronounced that yes, he was really, really, really sick and couldn't go to school.

At that point I knew I had to run to the office. We close the month of February tomorrow and we hadn't billed the Headquarters project yet, so I needed a good two hours in the office to get my crap done so I could turn it over to EPOD. We headed up the highway and I had one of my mix CD's in the player and as I glanced in the rearview mirror I noticed Monkey Man totally jamming out to one of the songs.

"Gosh, for someone who is so sick, you certainly seem to be feeling better!" I told him.

And with the most serious look on his face, he said, "Mommy, I just want you to know that I would never, never, EVER pretend that I was sick just so I could stay home and play monster truck on the Xbox. Never!"

I think I got played.

3 comments:

joansy said...

It's amazing that our kids live a whole country apart and are going through the same thing. We started on the nebulizer yesterday and it seems to be going well, though it's pretty tough to get in 6 treatments a day.

I hope he's feeling well soon.

Mitzi Green said...

dude, you totally got played.

that said, i totally feel your pain re: the constant chronic illness that never seems to go away and might get better but then comes back and leaves you wondering "who do i have to blow to get this kid well?" only the one i'm dealing with is mental.

g-man said...

Yup. might as well have "SUCKER" written across your forehead, oh wait I can do that for you!! ;)

Love ya, mean it.