Seriously? I've had enough.

When I was talking to Mer this morning, she said, "You sound remarkably composed considering you've had a sick kid for a week and now Joey's back is hurt too." Do you know why? Because I'd already had my meltdown on Thursday night, that's why. Just ask Cat Door, who arrived to drop off paint samples and saw me covered in Monkey Man's blood and when he asked what happened I burst into tears. Not a banner moment, especially since he immediately launched into "Scared Man Mode" and you would've thought I'd just shown him naked pictures of my mom or something. Geez.

This morning Joey dispatched himself to the urgent care center, and three hours later arrived back home with painkillers, muscle relaxers, and a bag from McDonald's. I guess I should be thankful that since he'd been in with back problems twice in less than six months they decided to x-ray him and discovered that yes, it's muscular. I was starting to wonder if maybe he had a slipped disc or something else since it seems to flare up...but nope, just muscles that don't like being contorted. I think at this point he and I both need to work every night on strengthening our cores which then should help both of our twingy backs. And he probably needs to lose about 30 pounds, but don't tell him I said that.

Monkey Man made it through the night last night with no medication except for his antibiotic. I suspect he had developed a little gastritis from all the different medications we'd been pumping him with for the last few weeks - remember, he had just finished up 10 days of Augmentin about 10 days ago, then all this other crap started. All that stuff, even with using probiotics, can give you a case of nasty sour stomach. So anyhow, we skipped everything but antibiotic and believe it or not, he made it all night with no coughing, no vomiting, and only minor snoring. Hallelujah!

So today I had Monkey Man for most of the day. He was in a pretty peculiar mood, ranging between sulking on the couch and bouncing off the walls. Joey is a very active father and I know that once Monkey Man was finally feeling better he wanted to do a little wrasslin' in the basement and maybe some video games...whereas Joey was only capable of lying on his back and sleeping (with some pretty major drooling action). We did venture out to CiCi's Pizza and to the movies where we saw Horton Hears a Who. Very, very cute movie, perfect for all ages.

Let's talk about CiCi's for a minute. If you don't have one of these in your area, you should probably thank your lucky stars. It's basically an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet with some of the worst pizza you have ever wrapped your lips around. And in an effort to seem hip, they make weird pizzas like Macaroni & Cheese Pizza (bleh) and Taco Pizza (double bleh). Add to this a completely anemic, pathetic salad bar (which is a total stretch even to call it that) and this little slice of heaven can be yours for the grand total of about $11 for one adult and one child. I will readily admit, however, that they do have some kickass cinnamon rolls.

Kids freaking LOVE CiCi's. I think they sprinkle kiddie crack on the pizzas or have some sort of subliminal messages wafting through the speakers along with the Top 40 drivelly music. And let's face it, when you have a kid who subsists mostly on air, potato chips, and maybe on a big day a chicken nugget, you would probably jump at the chance to take your kid somewhere that they can ingest their own weight in pizza for under $4.00. Right?

The other thing about our local CiCi's (or at least the one we frequent) is that it tends to have a lot of, um, for lack of a better term, fundamentalist Christian families that frequent it. You know the ones. They have all the kids dressed in matching clothes, all the girls have butt-length long hair, and they pull up in Econoline vans with either the little stickers in the back window depicting Mom, Dad, and the 13 kids, or they have most of one of the back doors of the van covered in Jesus fish. Yessiree, they pile on up into CiCi's and it's like their second religious experience of Sunday.

Anyhow, Monkey Man conned me into going to CiCi's and the damn place was packed. Thankfully, he still wasn't really up to eating much so we mercifully escaped in about 20 minutes - and that included two emergency trips to the restroom when he thought he had to poop. I guess this stomach thing is making him kind of gassy and he kept thinking that he was about to shart his pants. But we made it out of there relatively painlessly and then on to see Horton.

He is finally in bed. He's been so good today, or at least good enough that I didn't want to kill him. I'm exhausted. I'm just wondering when I'm going to catch a break, because at this point I'm just barely holding onto my sanity.

I guess one thing is for sure. It's a good thing I don't have 13 kids, because then I really WOULD be nuts.