I'm grateful for school staff

Wow! This is my very first ever, mind blowingly original foray into the wonderful world that is the "blog hop."

I just recently read what they were and found several to try out, so here goes. Hope I follow all the rules. (I am a stickler for "the rules")

For my followers (I know I have secret ones, I'm sure of it!) a blog hop means I post this on a blog that I follow (in this case http://maxabellaloves.blogspot.com and then I read what all kinds of other bloggers have posted there about a certain topic (in this case, something you're grateful for)

It's my attempt at participating in the blog world instead of always reading from the sidelines.


I am sitting in my office stressing about life outside of work and trying to focus on Staff Appreciation which we will be celebrating next week at my sons school (where I also work). As I am emailing back and forth a zillion last minute items with the committee I am contemplating why we do this. My contemplation has led to my gratitude. So now I will share that with all of you.

I'm grateful for:

1. My sons teachers. This year the twins have very different teachers. I am beyond appreciative in a way words can never express with the younger twins teacher and the way she has gotten to know him and kindly guided him in his learning. She is truly one in a million and I constantly take mental notes when I am around her in the hopes it will make me a better person.
The older twins teacher is so relaxed that she has helped my son to relax a little. She lets the little stuff slide which is something he really needs sometimes and that I rarely do, I love that she helps balance out his life a little and undo some of the crazy that I am probably causing on a daily basis.

2. The educational assistants. Not all of them. I don't even know them all.
But there are a couple who have gone out of their way to know my sons, to look out for them, to help me, as a neurotic mom, calm down by sharing sweet stories about them and just in general for the tremendous amount of patience they exhibit on a daily basis with all the students they encounter.

3. The support staff. This is where my job falls under and I couldn't have done it this year if there weren't some outstanding staff members willing to give me advice, guide me when I steer wrong, encourage me to use my voice and answer my never ending questions. They are great and the work they do is long and often thankless, so I for one am going ot thank them more often.

4. Our custodians. I am grossed out by the amount of "stuff" that comes out of and off of elementary students. I should have taken out stock in hand sanitizer because I use a crazy amount just so that I can mentally handle the grossness. Yet our custodians clean it up (rather joyfully too!) everyday for what I am guessing is not a stellar paycheck.

Want to read what other bloggers are grateful for? Check out Maxabella, she is gratefully posting her gratefulness all the time and it's a joy to read. Plus she hosts this blog hop which gets all our grateful juices flowing so we can spread the good feelings around.

I painted something other than walls

It's like a christmas miracle* (I use this phrase way too often)

(*this just means I repaint my house a lot but don't think I've painted anything else since I was 14)

This afternoon I drug myself to another meeting at school/work. I was not thrilled to be going due to the usual excuses of tired, busy, lazy, hungry and probably the other 3 dwarfs as well.

BUT...

It was pretty cool!

 I'm glad I went.

3 reasons it was cool:

1. I learned some cool facts about Art in Public Places that made me proud to live on Maui and excited to tell others about their program.

2. I was the star pupil. As my dear friend delighted in pointing out.:) A professional artist taught our rag tag group how to paint with watercolors. During the phase where we created ocean he chose mine to show everyone as an example. Oh yeah, I was THAT good.

3. All the painting lit my creative fire and I am overwhelmed with exciting ideas to try with my family.

3 reasons I was right to be hesitant:

1. Right after being star pupil we switched to the wet on dry method to create turtle shells. I was proud of my work until the artist looked over my shoulder and explained how I was doing it terribly wrong and it would take all day and I needed to change everything. I was not good at this technique, as my dear friend delighted in pointing out :)

2. We were shanghai'd into creating a mural for the school, I am not a fan of surprises. Also, I am apparently  the slowest painter ever. It was an indicator for me as everyone had to stand around waiting for me to finish.

3. I was the only one who used blue on the turtle fins :( Either I'm color blind or everyone else is, but whatever the case, my piece of the mural stands out... but not in a good way.

All in all, time well spent. You should have come.

I'm supposed to be folding laundry right now.

You can't find my bedroom or my bed through the piles of clothes. But somehow I managed to dig my laptop out. When I finished holding it over my head and grinning from ear to ear like the true treasure hunter that I am, I sat down, ignored the laundry, and decided to post.

Today was a very random day, which will now lead to a very random post. It's called cause and effect for you academic people out there (as I tilt my nose in snobbery I also mention this disclaimer, *if I'm using this term wrong I don't want to know, sometimes I feel like being snobby).

First off, we all had sleeping disease. My twins almost fell asleep in class, my youngest nodded off during science time at preschool and I kept having to walk around my office to keep myself awake during the work day. At home my husband took a nap. We had a relaxed pleasant family day yesterday and went to bed at a decent hour so I am not sure if we all caught a bug or what, but we were wiped out!

Got home from school and planned to have the boys do homework, then chores and then off to Aikido practice. Apparently I was overzealous in my planning. My twins did their homework while their 4 yr old brother was allowed to play outside by himself for his first time ever!

This was a monumental moment.

 I sat next to the window and divided my attention between the homework helping process and the "Dear Lord please don't let my child die, get abducted or pick up dog poop with his bare hands" prayer process.

Turns out I was a rather unnecessary component in both processes. My twins miraculously completed their homework with no help required, and in record time, and my youngest was so loud while talking to his monster trucks in the driveway that
1. no one would want to steal him
2. I could hear him from 2 blocks away and know he was safe and
3. there was nothing that could break his concentration from those monster trucks and their cool flips and falls so dog poop lost it's usual magnetic draw.

By the time we finished up with these bits of fun it was 4 o'clock and we were all dragging. I voted for a screw the chores moment and suggested that we all lay down for awhile to which they all happily agreed (dead give away towards just how worn out they must have been). 2 hrs later we all groggily awoke to realize we missed playtime, Aikido practice and dinner. But we felt better so... oh well.

Bonus: Since I was no longer operating in half dead status I had enough energy to cook a healthy meal that everyone ate and enjoyed.

At 7:30 I realized that I had probably screwed up their sleep schedule forever and decided to just go with it and let them stay up. So I set the time for an hour, gave strict orders to have fun, clean up when it beeped and don't let the dog eat stuff and ran off in to my room to get chores done.

This is when I went treasure hunting for the laptop, blogged instead of being a good person, and I am now enjoying listen to my sons get so excited about the lego creations their building and so angry when they break or someone takes a piece they need.

Second bonus: Here are some other random highlights from today.

* Listening to a kindergartener read the word hippopotomus every time he saw the word mother in the book he was reading.
*My 4 yr old pouring a dead cockroach out of his water bottle then filling it up and reusing it and my 20 yr old cousin feeling that that was okay for him to do.
*One of my twins explaining that it was hard to wear his basketball jersey to school today. Everyone kept looking at his armpits and Juliette looked in the armholes and saw his nipples.
*Having to check one twins poop when the other one announced that it looked weird and never remembering to ask why they were in the bathroom together checking out each others poop.
*Looking for sets of playing cards around our house and discovering that all were missing cards or contained pictures of lego men or hawaiian women.
*Having my roommate explain that the dog needed to be taught to wipe her butt because he didn't appreciate that she chose to do so on the tile floor downstairs. Me thinking, "how do you teach a dog to wipe it's butt?" and never checking to see if the tile had been cleaned downstairs.
*Oldest child reading so well on his own. Tonight was a book called "The best children in the world" He announced that The Mallo Boys were the best children in the world. Then he counted the kids in the book and loudly announced, "Whoops theirs 5 kids in this book. That means we need to have 2 more mom okay?"

And that's it, that's what happened today when I was supposed to be folding laundry. Now I hear the timer beeping so...goodbye.

Bunnies and eggs for easter morning, cause adam is awesome!

Mmmmm, pancakes.

My name is B and I'm an addict

It's true. I have finally reached a safe place where I feel I can say this out loud...and apparently, share it with the world. Not sure where this places me in the 12 step program but I'm not looking for recovery so maybe that's not a big issue.

I was in denial for a long time. I swore to myself, my husband and anyone else who confessed concern or even feigned interest that I could quit cold turkey anytime.

In the past year I have quit at least twice. I managed to quit during both of my pregnancies. But I always end up back on the bandwagon.

It's just that, well, it makes me feel soooooooooooooo good! Seriously, after a stressful day nothing could be better. When I just want to chill out and relax, nothing could be better. Bonus points in that it replaces my cravings for unhealthy foods and sweets. I think I am so fine without it but every time I go back to it it gets even better than I remember.

I lay there, smack my lips and think, "aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh, that's the stuff!"

So yes, my name is B and I'm addicted to soda. I love the way it bubbles, I love the sweet taste, I love that it comes in a can, I love that they serve it everywhere and I hate how bad it is for me.

I tried to switch to diet, which tastes awful, and I sort of made it work but then I discovered those newer sodas like coke zero and pepsi max. Now I'm officially in heaven and ready to admit that yes, I'm addicted and no, I don't want to change.

Judge me as you deem fit or better yet support me, I'm always available for a little soda drinking action. So ends confessions of a soda addict.

ROCL (I am not good at this texting language)

I am rolling in my chair laughing right now! I was just checking the "stats" section of my blog to see if anyone actually reads this dribble and came across the search words that have been used to find and read my blog.

"my childs butt itches"

"things are really bad"

These 2 phrases sum up my past 90 blog posts :)

Also, I discovered that 90% of the people that read my blog do so via facebook, which means I know them, and they know me.

Still wondering if I should have kept this blog anonymous. You people have way too much information on me at this point.

Oh well.

On another note, I am almost to 100 blogs. To celebrate I am going to write a blog list all about myself and the things that I have decided that you love and hate about me.

So tune in because soon I will be taking TMI to a whole nother level y'all. A whole nother level.

Confessions of an oversharer

You know that person who knows everything and can't help but tell you? The one that you are a little scared to strike up a conversation with because it may go on for an hour and will definitely get preachy as they pretend they can solve the worlds problems?

I think I may be that person!

Except I don't know everything, or even 1/100th of everything. Okay, to be fair, I'm smart, let's say I know 10% of everything.

Or, maybe I'm not so smart. Because most of my information comes from television, internet or eavesdropping (errrr, I mean overhearing).

I just can't seem to keep my mouth shut when I read a news article, watch a movie etc... and I rarely do the research to find out if things are true or not. But I often spew the information at others like its fact.I have overwhelming urges to shout things from the rooftop for the world to hear (not literally, roofs are scary, but you get the idea)

For instance, this weekend, there were snoring pillows for sale at my garage sale which naturally brought up a discussion on snoring. I loudly announced that an enlarged uvula can do that as well as dairy products before bed. I have never dealt with snoring in my life, not from friends, family etc... So where did I learn these facts? Surely from a fascinating medical journal or when I was doing research through the Mayo Clinic right?

Or from an episode of Royal Pains, a medical show on USA network.

Yep, I'm that kind of person.

It got me thinking and I realized that I do it all the time. I have a need to chime in and to share. Well, probably it's oversharing. I've decided I better start praying for patience in those around me and graciousness so that they realize that all my many many bits of advice and knowledge are of the take it or leave it sort.

Also, to be used at your own risk because I probably learned it from an episode of The Office.

p.s. I have a sick friend and the snoring episode of Royal Pains also had a patient with all her symptoms. If this knowledge solves my friends medical mystery I may start sharing my opinions and advice even louder. Stay tuned for a possible blog on how my incessant tv watching saved a life! Yep, I am not so good at learning from my character flaws, sometimes I just embrace them :)

I'm self medicating

My life is (insert whiny adjective here) and as always, I try to find the bright side. When it gets to be a little overwhelming, I self medicate. Not with actual medication (I don't even take aspirin or vitamins and I am way to cheap to pay for rx or street drugs!) but with projects.

My house is a maze of unfinished projects and my head is always brimming with ideas. I love to start projects and rarely do I ever finish them. So....when I get stressed I turn to those projects as a way find control and accomplishment.

Case in point, my husband lost his job a few weeks ago. His company closed up their offices here on Maui. So, he is now home fulltime (except when he is at the unemployment office or job interviews). This means I suddenly have more help throughout the day and more time to focus on other things.

I have had the supplies to remodel my downstairs for awhile. The tv in that room broke and while we were waiting for the new one to arrive it seemed like the perfect time to clean out the room and start the remodel. At least that's why I thought I was doing it initially.

As it turns out, projects are a great way to escape when your husband is home to take care of the house and kids. So every day for the past two weeks I have come downstairs and pulled up carpet, tiled, painted etc... while my amazing husband has fed the kids, bathed the kids, taken care of homework time, washed dishes, and completed multiple projects of his own around our house.

It has really allowed me a place to escape where I can focus on little things,  like grout lines, instead of big things, like unemployment and friends and family members issues. I love my kids, my husband and my house, but I have also loved taking a break from the responsibilities that come along with loving them.

Now it is drawing to a close and the project is almost finished and I find myself flailing. I am not yet ready to think about the worlds problems again, I really really enjoyed ignoring them. I am drawing it out as long as I can but the reality is, the job is done. So now I wonder, what is the next project? Does anyone else need painting and tiling done?

Anybody?

Any projects?

I hate to say it but I am probably going to have to go cold turkey and just face reality.

I knew I didn't like turkey:(

Wait, I think I see some spots that still need to be finished. Quick, to the paintbrushes!!

Aaaaaahhhhh, now that's the stuff.

p.s.
My husband is awesome! I am posting this for the world to see because sometimes I don't think I tell him often enough.
Also, he's brilliant, like off the charts IQ brilliant.
Soooo....if you know anyone looking for a software engineer (that means writing computer programs) or something similar feel free to spread the word on how amazing he is.

Something oogy is out to get me

I'm sure of it.

Well, almost positive.

I haven't been sleeping well and I'm feeling a little on edge from my nightly 4hrs.

But still, the evidence is damning.

As you, my loyal readers know, last week was the pinworm debacle. Just as I am getting those squirming devils out of my nightmares other bits of nastiness have been trying to sneak in.

It started with the mouse.

I have an aversion to mice, and by aversion I mean run screaming into the night blood curdling fear. For some reason I am convinced that if I see a mouse it will run on me and this thought terrifies me and turns me into a prancing ninny in their presence.

This past week we drove home late one night and as we pulled into our driveway my husband goes, "look a mouse on the bike." I looked and sure enough an abnormally large mouse was sitting on the handlebars of our old bike and it was staring at me, eyes beady from my headlights shining into them. Seeing this mouse, I locked my door and yelled, "eeewwww!" "gross!" "yuck!" "oh gross, gross, gross, gross!"

Then I saw the cat laying on the grass taking a nap. At this point I got angry. "Alleycat is sooooo fired! She only exists in our life to catch mice and she can't do this one thing. She lets it just sit there and mock me!" As I ranted my husband just sat in the car looking at me, a mixture of amusement and concern could be seen in his face.

Then I switched gears, I realized this was primo facebook and blogger material. So I started shoving my husbands arm, "Go outside and take a picture of it. Go! Do it." He asks me why and looks at me like I'm off my rocker. "Because, I want to write about it, no one will believe how gross this moment is." So, being the amazing man he is, he bites his tongue regarding my looney bin notions and dutifully uses his phone to take pictures of the creepy little being that was staring at me. Something must have been wrong with it because it didn't even move and he got really close. Then he took off his shoe and hit it. Hard. It fell to the ground and lay there dying while my cat walked around still seemingly uninterested in a prime cat dinner.

Stupid Cat.

I ran out of the car and into the house to go shower off the grossness of having to sit prisoner in my car staring at a mouse staring at me.

But oh, we are not done yet. Fast forward to yesterday.

My car is broken...again...so I am borrowing one from a family member. I think it may be infested with ticks, is that possible? As I was sitting in my office yesterday I felt something on my neck, thinking it was a mosquito I swatted at it and discovered a bug. I flung it across the office and then went to investigate that which I had just flung.

 It was a tick! Oh gross, gross, gross, gross, gross.
Cue chicken skin as I shiver and shudder.

I had no idea where it had come from but soon got busy and forgot about it. Afterschool I was driving to my sons preschool when I put my hand on my leg and felt a bump in my dress. Thinking it was a thread or something strange like a prickly that had attached to the fabric I waited til I was stopped at a red light and checked it out. This means I practically turned my dress inside out at a red light (which is totally inappropriate and not recommended) to discover that it was....another tick!

Oh yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck!

Then as we pulled in to the preschool my middle son said he felt something crawling on his neck and sure enough, I found another tick.
Cue dry heaving attempts at vomit.
Eeeewwww!

I picked up my youngest at preschool and took my 3 boys to go see "HOP" at the movie theatre. I sat down in the theatre and was explaining to my sister about the grossness in my life of worms, ticks, and mice and how I was at the end of my rope and I couldn't sleep and the lack of sleep was making me jumpy and paranoid and...

then the person in the next row ssssshhhhh'd me :(

That's the first time I've ever been sssshhhh'd in my life. Mortification!

So I began to watch the movie and share popcorn with my youngest. What I had forgotten is how much he likes to put candy in his popcorn.

Also, that we had bought sour worm candies.

So I grab a handful of popcorn and feel something squishy. This makes me scream and throw the worm into the next row. Then I realize that it was candy and sink down low in my seat ashamed. I little while later I am back to eating popcorn, being careful to avoid the worms and I grab another big handful. I put it in my mouth and in the center of the bundle of popcorn is something squishy. I start spitting and spewing and throw my popcorn only to again realize that it was just candy.

I told you I haven't been sleeping well right?

At this point I am reciting to myself, "it's just candy, they're not real" as I continue to eat popcorn and then in my mouth is something rectangular and hard, I am sure it is not popcorn. It's to dark in the theatre to see and I am freaking out at the possibilities so I lay it on my soda lid to check at the end of the movie. As we are leaving the theatre I remember and I check on the rectangular unidentified object to realize it's a piece of arare.

But we didn't buy any arare.

Now I am back to dry heaving.

I know at this point you are all praying for me and concerned about my diminished mental capacity but I have one more moment of grossness to share that put things over the top and made me share these stories with you today.

Last night I decided to forego the painting and tiling that needed to be done in favor of trying to get some rest. It still took me forever but I did manage to finally feel like I could fall asleep. My pillows had somehow wandered all over the room and I decided I needed one more before I could sleep.

So, in a half asleep manner, I grabbed one on the floor next to my bed and shoved it under my face only to feel that it was very squishy, and not in a good way.

Not taking a second to think, I again flung the assaulting object with my backhand right at my poor sleeping husband. I woke him up by grabbing the pillows out from under him to investigate and discover that I snuggled my face into an extra large gecko. I shooed it off our bed and out of our pillows and then faced the oogies and skin crawling that makes it so hard to calm down and sleep.

So, now I sit here and I wonder, what oogy thing is going to get me next.

Hold me, I'm scared.

p.s. If you are wondering where the mouse picture is, it makes me shudder every time I see it and is being held ransom by my husband so that he can use it as a torture device whenever he deems it necessary. Or, it grossed me out and I forgot to tell him to upload it to facebook.

Don't say yes just because it's free

Tonight we received an offer of free babysitting and a free movie. We jumped at the chance, dumped the kids and drove off to what we thought was a kung fu movie. My husband loves kung fu movies, even bad ones. I love my husband.

Turns out it had zero kung fu and zero redeeming qualities. It was a mash up of serious artsy fighting in black and white with only the color red for emphasis and color scenes with the Chinese version of Larry, curly and Moe. It skipped through genres from Aesop's fables to kill bill, complete with the gratuitous blood spouts. Then came the abrupt switch into Chinese brothel rap video, an almost welcome escape from the rest of the movie. Just as we were finally getting used to the twists and turns they threw in a hand sketched scene straight of the sesame street playbook. To top it all off they added in a spoof on mortal kombat (I am assuming here, but it was definitely some fighting video game) between a butcher and a flute player. Sorry to ruin the movie for you, but a 500 pound eunuch with eyebrows that reached down to his belly button fell into an outhouse cesspool and was stabbed to death because it was too stinky to try and pull him out. Like I said, high quality movie right?

So, yeah. I probably shouldn't have said yes to this movie, even with all the great free perks that came with it. I did get to spend time with my amazing husband and I did go out, which is a rarity for me, so I suppose that counts for something.

Now I have to scrub my eyes and try to wash away the memories of what I just saw. Don't worry about me too much, I plan to cleanse my palette with the latest episode of "make it or break it" cause my tastes are refined like that :P

She just likes to skin puppies

That's the line that ended my evening tonight.

This morning I excitedly got out this Villains of Disney puzzle to do with my children. Only the youngest wanted to help but I got hooked on working on it.

I find puzzles very relaxing.

The day went on and I had other things to do, so the puzzle was put aside. When my children went to bed tonight I sat down to work on it a little, this quickly became a marathon of, I am not getting up til this is finished.

As I was reaching the end and only the really hard pieces were left my cousin sat down to help me. This then turned into us singing disney songs from each of the movies featured in the puzzle. Then our favorite disney songs. Then just ridiculous songs that were sometimes trailers on disney movies. Let me tell you, we sounded goooooood :P

We finished the puzzle with only minimal amounts of me throwing puzzle pieces and yelling ( cause that's all a part of how I relax) when my cousin posed the question, "which one do you think was the most evil?"

So we went through them.

• Sh-yu conquered nations and killed little kids, that's pretty bad.
• Cheshire cat tricked and teased Alice, not so bad.
• Queen of Hearts threatened "off with their head" but we never saw her go through with it. She just seemed angry.
• Captain Hook tried to hunt and kill little boys and indians. He was not known for his tolerance.
• Maleficent was just mad that she got left out. It sort of made her like that kid in high school that people teased so they got mean and then no one teased them anymore, they feared them. Maybe people should have been nicer to her.
• Jafar wanted to rule the world and if you stood in his way he could turn into a snake and try to kill you. But really he was just power hungry.
• Scar was pretty evil. He murdered his brother and made his nephew think it was all his fault just to gain power.
• Ursula was seriously like the devil. She tricked innocent merpeople and stole their souls.
• Hades was not so bad. He was just sure he was getting a raw deal and wanted to rule the universe so he could be a part of all the fun parties the other Gods were having.
• The Evil Queen didn't even have a name, that's weird. She tried to kill her stepdaughter.
• Of yeah and Cruella Devil, she just likes to skin puppies.

Once this was done we collapsed in a fit of giggles over the ridiculousness of disney villains. Seriously, what have I been letting my kids watch? Guess now we'll have to have a conversation about how it's not ok to skin puppies no matter how much you want a new coat. OR maybe that will just give them ideas, my kids are pretty crafty. Hmmmmm......

Good things in really bad packages

I've been thinking and praying a lot about where God is in the bad stuff.that happens. The thing is, a lot of bad stuff happens. The other thing is, I believe in a loving God who takes care of us and forgives us and is there for us in every situation..

I have a lot of bad stuff in my life right now, sometimes it feels like more than I can bear. I don't understand why God's plan for me involves friends that are hurting, truly horrible childrens behavior, medical scares, unemployment for my husband and a messy and hurtful divorce for my parents. That being said, I am learning that in each of these bad packages there is something good.

When my friends hurt, it makes me stronger. God gives me strength to be a shoulder to lean on. It makes me appreciate my family more and the many blessings I have in my life. Others suffering grants me a lot of perspective and makes me strive to be better and be better.

When my childrens behavior has me wanting to send them to an orphanage, first I turn into a scary monster, then, when I have calmed down, I become a better parent. I search for answers, I seek out prayer partners, I apologize to my kids and I try to learn how we can move past this and above this behavior as a family.

When my husbands company closed down this week after promising that they wouldn't do that, I didn't stress. Why? Because God put it on our hearts awhile ago to start saving and being cautious. We just had the blessing of being able to refinance our house. Because Gods plan in this tough time could be something amazing like a better job with better benefits. Where normally we would be so strapped for cash, money has come in that allows a few months to figure out what is next for our family in terms of jobs. And I get to spend extra time with my husband :) In the midst of this devastation I feel prepared to weather the storm and almost excited about what could come next.

As for my parents, it's a disaster. They were married for 32 years and my mom has a terminal form of arterial stenosis. I feel like my dad is making bad choices. I have told him that, but I have also decided, that he's my dad and I love him anyways. Love the sinner not the sin. God has taught me a lot about grace and forgiveness throughout this ordeal. As for my mom, she is in a bad place right now and it's very hard to talk to her. She yells at me a lot and hangs up on me and hurts my feelings. There is a lot of anger about the situation. God is teaching me how to remain calm in these situations and how to let it go rather than internalize. The grace he's given me has made it so that I can be there for her despite how hard it is to be around someone like that. I should also note that my parents read this blog. So, mom and dad, I love you both and I think and hope you both know that your situation adds stress to our families lives. Don't let this stop you from calling me etc...just pray that God can be with us all as we work through this.

Finally, the medical scares. We have had rashes, and sleeplessness, and severe stomach pain, behavioral problems and now worms. We have had numerous tests and opinions. It really gets me down when we find more symptoms and less answers. But this grossness the past few days has been enlightening. As hard as it is for me to acknowledge that my ignorance caused my kids discomfort for possibly as long as 3 months, I also can look back and see that this is when a lot of other symptoms started that could be explained now. If I had to go through this grossness for answers than I happily accept it and I am almost excited to be dealing with it.

That's my take on things. I have to see the glass as half full, because for me and my personality, the only other option is completely empty. I have really bad days and then I have days like these past couple where I see the silver lining. I know this doesn't help those of you who are suffering. It's hard to hear that your pain might be helping someone else grow and learn and appreciate. But I am praying for you and that God will show you the good stuff in whatever bad package you've been stuck with.

The uncomfortableness is astounding

Have you ever had one of "those" days? There is no way to define "those" but you know if you've had one. I can assertively make this statement because today was the perfect example.

Got to wake up and take 10 extra steps to get my boys ready in an attempt to dewormify their lives. Got to school and had to tell my sons teachers that we are worm spreaders and then I got to tell the nurse and the principal. Everyone was very nice but this does not take away from how disgusting and embarrassing these moments were for me. Surprisingly I never wanted to have to share with multiple people that my kids had the grossness and might be giving it to oh.....everyone else on the planet. Oh and, as part of my job, I had to send an email notification to all parents at the school (even though they didn't know we were the cause I still felt like they did...some weird guilt thing I guess)

This would have been enough for me to have one of "those" days, but no, I also had to call the friend I hung out with yesterday, my life doppelganger who has kids where I have kids, lives where I live and goes the places I go (it's eerie how parallel our lives are), my neighbor and update my roommates on how it might affect them. Fun times right?

These steps complete, I finished my work day and thought the worst might be over. But no. I went to Walmart to look at medicines and disinfectants. In the disinfectant aisle who do I run into, but a parent from my sons school who has read the email. Of course she wants to have a conversation in the middle of Walmart about what grade levels had worms and how concerned she should be. I didn't tell her it was my kids but I did tell her how to check and that it wasn't serious. It's not everyday you discuss a childs anus in the middle of Walmart. Only on "those" days people, only on "those" days.

Now I could go home and scratch my skin off as I thought of the grossness right? No, that is not right. Had to go to the pharmacy to pick up the meds that treat worms. The pharmaceutical assistant sees my sons and excitedly explains that her daughter goes to the same school. Then we learn that her daughter is in the same class. Then I see her examining the prescription more closely. So the pharmacist comes over and together we three discuss how and why she needs to check her daughter tonight thanks to my sons. As we were leaving I had to let her know not to tell her daughter who had the worms so they wouldn't get teased, yet another fun moment in my day.

Speaking of that, those you that read this and have kids that know my kids, please don't mention specifics. I see what happens when a kid has ukus at school and I don't want to see my sons teased if it can be avoided.

I did not want, nor do I ever want again, to spend a day discussing, worms, poo, anus, scratching etc... It takes the uncomfortableness of an uncomfortable conversation to whole other level.

• Now I've discussed it again with you, my readers. Sometimes I just need to stop talking.

So grossed out right now!!

I am crawling in my skin and everything itches. I just rushed to take a shower and I have washed my hands at least 10 times in the last 30 minutes. I am contemplating having my sons miss school and me miss work because I cannot handle the grossness of the situation.I am not in a good head space over this new discovery in my household, not in a good head space at all!!!!

Ewww, blech, yuck, oogie, upchuck and cue entire body shiver.

So here's the deal, my sons have worms. It's not dangerous and does not cause serious problems (I know because I googled and googled some more and wished I hadn't googled so much) but it is gross and I can't get the images out of my head :( I know your wondering why I would share this, I realize that it's overstepping and way too much information, but if it helps even one childs butt itch less than it's all worth it.)

Almost two months ago our youngest son started complaining about his butt itching at night. It happened sort of regularly and he would swear it itched inside. We checked him, applied lotions, baby powder, gave him allergy medicine, tried everything we could think of but what it boiled down to was another way to sneak out of his room and avoid bed. We basically discounted it.

Today I was talking with my friend (as I mentioned in an earlier blog) and randomly brought up our youngest's butt itch dilemma. She immediately told me of another family who all had worms and how you check for them. I discounted it and went home. Tonight, as soon as he laid down, my youngest was back up again complaining of the ever present butt itch. I told him to lay down for 10 minutes then I would come check on him to see if he had something funny going on. I then promptly forgot what I said. 45 minutes later I remembered my promise and went to check.

He had fallen asleep. So I put on a headlamp (seriously, that's what I used and I looked awesome!) and went in. I pulled down his pajama bottoms, spread his cheeks (is it weird that this didn't even phase his sleep pattern?) and sure enough little white string things were crawling from his insides to his outsides. (this was mt moment of almost retching) I ran out trying to scratch my eyes and erase my memory simultaneously and called my friend. She didn't answer right away so I began googling.

After reading for a bit she called back and we discussed the other instance of this that she knew about. I hung up realizing I would need to check my other two sons. Apparently its very easy to spread, common to pick up at school and 4 out of 10 children have them. They did notice me spreading their cheeks while they tried to sleep and were very bothered, but sure enough they all had worms.

So now I get to call the doctor in the morning to share this development and everyone in our house has to be treated (with a little pill to be repeated in 2 weeks) and I need to clean everything, everywhere and throw out all items we touch first thing in the morning. Also I have to tell both of my sons schools, especially looking forward to that :(

As I said I am soooooooooooo grossed out right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, if your sons butt itches, take it seriously, PLEASE, take it seriously.

Here's hoping my sons did not share any worm eggs with you and yours. If you're worried there are 4 ways to check. Enjoy.

1. After child has been laying down for an hour or so, spread their cheeks and look for wiggly white string things.

2. check for white string things in their stool.

3. Check their underwear first thing in the morning.

4. Do the scotch tape test (I'll let you look that one up)

Best prevention is frequent handwashing and washing bed linens, underwear, towels etc... in hot water.

Final bits of info that you never wanted to know, the eggs can live weeks on any surface. Reinfection is common because you touch a surface that has live eggs, then go eat which puts the eggs in your body and allows them to hatch in your intestines.

Are you so grossed out right now?!!?!?!?!