Monkeyboy was stricken last week with a pretty bad case of MRSA. This is a form of staph infection that is extremely difficult to get rid of. They actually talked about taking my baby into surgery to cut the infection out. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. He still isn’t completely healed, but he’s doing much better.

It shouldn’t have surprised me that this illness happened during my first week on the new job. I have a history. I started my last job straight from maternity leave. The deal I had with my then-husband was that I would get up with the baby all through my maternity leave if he would do it the first week of going back to work. Then we were to alternate. Naturally, he came down with some kind of plague the first week I went back to work, so not only did I get to get up with a baby at least twice a night, I also got to take care of a whiny sick man-child. First weeks aren’t so good for me. The second week has been better, thankfully.

I started the new job this week, and you’ll notice (maybe) that I’ve been absent from the blog ever since. It’s not for a lack of things to say since Lord knows I ALWAYS have something to say. It’s because I can’t access this site from the new job. Nor can I access my personal Email. This is a particularly painful problem since the crazykidfamily does not have a computer.

Overall though, I find the new job to be very challenging. It’s definitely a whole new world and one that will have me struggling to keep up for quite a while–maybe even years. The attitudes, the culture, the subject matter and the way I am treated so far are a complete twist from where I’ve been professionally and it is going to take me some time to adjust. For the most part, I am looking forward to tackling this. There is one, small matter I may never get past.

I have been returned to a cubicle after 4 or 5 years of having an office. I have been told that I have been spoiled with the office, but seriously, I am having serious issues with the lack of a door. And the cubicle I have doesn’t even have the illusion of privay. It is a U-shape. There is nothing to make the shape resemble anything close to a complete box as it has only three sides. The open side faces my boss’s office window. Basically, because of the set-up, it looks like my boss is staring at me if he’s looking at his computer. It’s awkward and makes me uncomfortable.

Last night all children were asleep when I fell asleep reading a book. A couple of hours later, Prankster came in and told me he didn’t feel good. WIth my eyes still closed, I felt his head, determined he had no fever and he laid down. I was too tired to object. Prankster, you should know, is a cuddler when he’s asleep. He has a need to have two or three body parts physically on top of another person. And he sleeps like the dead, so he has no knowledge of it when he elbows or knees you. (And Prankster is very pointy because he’s so skinny…it’s a miracle I have both of my eyes this morning) I pity any future wife out there and recommend separate beds.

With Prankster in the bed, I got very little sleep. Bucket came home in the wee hours of morning and climbed into bed. He isn’t a bad sleeper, but he takes up a lot of room, and now all three of us were squeezed into the queen-sized bed. Despite my best efforts, Prankster refused to cuddle with Bucket, which meant the elbows and knees kept coming my way. At this point I had three hours until I had to get up. I tried to snuggle in and make the best of it.

An hour later, Monkeyboy came in and climbed into the bed. For a while, he was literally laying on top of Prankster, cause no matter what else is going on, next to me is HIS spot (just ask him). So, the way it worked out was that Bucket got his normal half the bed while Prankster, Monkeyboy and I squeezed onto my half. Monkeyboy pulls your hair while he sleeps, and has to have both his feet on my leg for some reason.

I laid there and tried to enjoy it. After all, in a couple of years none of them will be interested in snuggling with me and I’ll miss it. Eventually, Pitcher came in to say goodbye before he got on the bus. He took one look at the bed and burst out laughing.

Shortly after that I was literally kicked out of the bed. Instead of fighting it, I just got up and got dressed.

Well, I took the plunge. Today Bucket and I got a marriage license and visited a wedding chapel, which we then booked. We are officially getting married on July 5 at 3:30 in the afternoon. Our celebration will be very small, immediate family only, so I’m hoping they can all make it in spite of it being a holiday weekend.

There are so many details to work out!!

Last night Pitcher and Princess were both sick. I mean scratchy voice, achy body, runny nose, headache, think they’re dying kind of sick. And I felt bad for them. It was a long night. Pitcher stayed home from school today, but Princess decided to try to tough it out. This surprises no one that knows these children.

While trying to tend to the sickies, Monkeyboy was having what we’ll call a “challenging” night. He was rebellious and whiney and at times even mean. And yes, a 3-year-old absolutely can be mean sometimes. But what really broke my heart was when he looked at Pitcher and Princess and “Come on guys, let’s go play pillow fight” and headed up the stairs, expecting them to follow him. Pitcher and Princess, who normally would delight in playing with Monkeyboy, sat on the couch, defeated by the fact that they had zero energy. Monkeyboy did not understand what the problem was.

Prankster got home from practice pretty late and once I put on a Disney movie, Prankster and Monkeyboy were finally content to watch that instead of bouncing off walls.

Today will be the longest day of the week for me, literally. Somehow I didn’t manage to escape the last board meeting I’ll have to attend at this job, AND I have to go do a school presentation tonight. Darn me and my sense of responsibility!! From here on out though, it will be smooth sailing.

After yesterday’s sunshine and smiles, I decided today would be a good time to return to my true colors. I have a few annoyances I would like to share. Some are minor, some not so much.

1. Prankster’s temper. I don’t know when exactly it happened or why or how, but somewhere in the last few months Prankster has started to have one of the worst tempers I have ever seen in such a pampered child. It is on my last nerve. Last night he spent an hour and a half confined to his room in punishment. During that time he called his dad, his mom and his sister to complain about how mean I am.

2. Bucket’s complete inability to answer another call without hanging up on me. I got Bucket a new cell phone for his birthday. He cannot go from one line to another without hanging up on the first line. Seriously?? Could it be that difficult?

3. My sweet, sweet dog’s recent inability to hold her bladder through the night. I don’t know if she’s just getting older or if she has decided she hates me, but my spotbot is getting a workout lately.

4. People who have never spoken to me in the three years I have been employed here calling me to have drawn out conversations about how sad they are that I’m leaving. This is freaky and weird and it needs to stop.

5. Debating over how to get married with Bucket. The thing is that neither of us has any idea what we want to do, beyond winning the lottery and flying the whole family to Hawaii to get married on the beach.

Friday, I got a really, really nice job offer. This has made me extraordinarily happy. Today, Bucket found out the details of his new union contract, and that makes me pretty happy too. Also, while I originally lost eleven pounds, I thought I had gained it all back and in reality I have only gained 4 pounds back. So still down 7–woo hoo! I had a fabulous weekend, even though we spent a ton of money. In fact, I am in such a good mood today, I can almost overlook that everyone was an hour late today because I got stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire (this is due an extremely dented rim, which I’m sure will cost several hundred bucks to replace).

There are so many stories I could tell you about this weekend that would make you laugh because sometimes my life is so ridiculous it’s like a sitcom. I could tell you about Monkeyboy getting a high fever at 1:00 a.m. on Mother’s Day…which is really poetic irony. I could tell you about all 4 kids being sick last night. I could tell you about Bucket’s normally very hostile ex-wife giving me a book (a murder mystery). But all those stories would be laced with my cynism and sarcasm (you know you love it) and frankly, today is just too great of a day

Planning a wedding makes me nervous. I am getting ready to reserve the site for our wedding, and I’m having a hard time making the commitment. Not to the groom, but to the location, the ceremony, the whole “wedding” thing. I’ve done my poor man’s version of the fairy tale day once, and so has Bucket. I’m honestly not looking forward to all the planning and money that will go into doing it again.

That said, I don’t believe this marriage should go uncelebrated. I am very, very excited about entering into a marriage with Bucket. So how do you skip the trappings of the wedding without making it seem like the marriage is no big deal? I’ll tell you how. You run away and get married on a beach. Which was our original plan. But then the kids started telling us about how important it is to them to be a part of it. And honestly, I get that. This is more than a marriage between the two of us, it is the merger of two families. They should be a part of it.

I don’t believe going to the JOP downtown would make me married. For me, marriage is a religious thing, and the legal part is secondary. You see, there are so many factors that make me so confused as to what I really want to do.

Bucket’s brother thinks we should go to Vegas with them and get married while we’re there. Truthfully, that doesn’t sound bad to me, but once again there is the kid issue. I thought I was okay with just having a small wedding, but now that it’s come down to putting it together, I just don’t know that I want to go through all that again. Any suggestions?

Last night was pretty mellow for us. None of the kids had any activities, so we were all just hanging out at home. Prankster and Monkeyboy were playing in the living room, running circles around each other and making me nervous. I was so sure someone was going to get hurt. But I didn’t stop the madness because Prankster and Monkeyboy have a somewhat strained relationship. They’ve had a hard time getting close to one another for some reason. They were having so much fun, I decided I needed to just leave them alone and see what happened. Here’s the miracle: nothing bad happened. They played, they laughed, they had popsicles together and they collapsed on the living room floor to watch a Disney movie together. It was a bond like I have never witnessed between them.

Of course, nothing ever stays that mellow in the crazykidhouse. Because of that, after the Disney movie Prankster decided to look for a snack. He opened the pantry door on his foot and now one toe is pretty swollen and purple. The very sad thing is, with that being the only mishap last night, I consider it one of our most peaceful and uneventful nights ever.

Yesterday I got to enjoy one of the very few perks of my jobs as I enjoyed the day off. We get primary and general election days off every year, and it’s lovely. This has also made my feeling of civic duty weigh heavy on me, even in years when the primary election is normal and boring as opposed to the exciting study in American democracy it has been this year. I feel like by giving me the day off so I can vote, I am obligated to do so.

Anyway, I took my mom and Monkeyboy to the polls yesterday morning. Monkeyboy asked where we were going and mom told him we had to go vote. He got really excited because he thought she said “boat.” My mother then let Monkeyboy choose who she voted for. This is very disturbing to me, but because I love my mom dearly I’m just going to leave it alone. I guess we all have our own way of choosing our candidates.

After voting I took Monkeyboy to day care and went home to spend the day with Bucket. I took him to the cell phone store and let him pick out his birthday present, we went to lunch and then I went and had my nails done. I went to a new place and the guy that did my nails smelled like Fritos and kept telling me that the place I usually go doesn’t do it right. Then he charged me one and a half times what I would usually pay for this service and I went about my day. After that I went home and stole a nap before going to pick up Gramma B. to take her to the doctor. This appointment was for restless legs syndrome. If you’ve never heard of this, it’s very weird and seems very irritating and I am really hoping it is not something I inherit. I don’t even know if you can inherit it, but it’s not something I’d sign up for.

After dropping Gramma off I began my evening of playing Taxi. I picked mom and Monkeyboy up, dropped mom off, picked Princess up from her choir concert, picked Pitcher up from his game and then picked Prankster up from practice, stopping to buy diapers and gas along the way. Then I took the kids to that great mecca of Americana, McDonalds to grab some dinner. There is a playground there and I wanted to give Monkeyboy a chance to stretch his legs.

Here’s a good illustration of the difference in the ages of the kids: Monkeyboy ordered a happy meal, played with the toy, ate a few fries and then was off to the play area. Prankster ordered a nugget meal, ate about half and then was off to the play area. Princess ordered and ice cream cone and a cheeseburger. In protest of the fact that I won’t order the cheeseburger special, she only ate the ice cream cone. Then she sat and texted her friends. Pitcher ordered the Big Mac value meal, a McChicken sandwich AND an apple pie. He spent most of his time eating that, and then picked through what was leftover from Prankster and Monkeyboy.

When I got to work this morning I discovered that I can’t get my voicemail. They changed our systemand it won’t let me in. Instead of seeking resolution for this problem, I find myself simply accepting it.