Falling asleep is a luxury to a parent with young children. Staying asleep for longer than 4 hours at a clip is blissful.

Falling asleep with a pee diaper in my face is normal.

Falling asleep with a pee diaper in my face and a teeny tiny knee in my ribs is typical.

Falling asleep with a pee diaper in my face, a teeny tiny knee in my ribs, and a sippy cup full of water leaking on my sheets is commonplace.

Falling asleep with a pee diaper in my face, a teeny tiny knee in my ribs, a sippy cup full of water leaking on my sheets, and an itty bitty hand slapping my face is standard practice.

Falling asleep with a pee diaper in my face, a teeny tiny knee in my ribs, a sippy cup full of water leaking on my sheets, an itty bitty hand slapping my face, and my HockeyMan snoring/laughing/talking/tickling under the influence of Ambien is my nightly routine.

This, my tens of friends, is a picture from HockeyMan’s Junior prom. His date - she would be a 26-year-old stripper (not at the time of the picture, but she became one soon after).

The best part of the picture is unseen. What you don’t see is HockeyMan’s mom babysitting his date’s daughter.

This is gonna be not-so-pretty, so if you’re from a family that doesn’t discuss poo and other bodily functions, especially when sick, then skip this post. Come back later for the cute Wordless Wednesday post.

For the 2nd time in 2 months, I have strep throat. The last time, I had it for a week before I saw the doc because it was just an annoying sore throat. Well, my tens of friends, this time, it put me on my ass. Knocked me out. Landed me on the couch and on the crapper.

This time, I, thank GOD, had a doc appt immediately. This strep is the kind of strep that you don’t wish on your worst enemies. Not even Dick Cheney. Although… with that bad heart of his would put Pelosi in office… Hmmmm… I digress.

I woke up Sunday morning with a tickle in my throat, but with the stuffy/runny nose I’d had for 3 days, I figured it was just an upper resp infection or allergies or dry air. I made it through the day, but felt worse late Sunday night. Monday morning, I woke up feeling craptastic. Not horrible, but my throat hurt enough for me to ask HockeyMan to come home as soon as possible b/c The Boss wasn’t going to school. I took Trouble to school, but kept The Boss home b/c we were still waiting for her strep test to come back. (BTW - Why is it that the walk-in clinic has the rapid strep test, but the Otolaryngologist/ENT does not?)

Trouble’s teachers were kind enough to tell me I looked like ass, but in a nice church lady kind of way. Gee. Thanks. You just verified that I look as crappy as I feel.

By 11am, I was begging HockeyMan to run home b/c The Boss was “bothering” me wanting me to “parent” her. I’m not sure how a 3-year-old bothers me, but at that point, I didn’t care what she needed - it was bothersome.

Being the Dad of the Year and Husband of the Year that he is, HockeyMan was home by 12. And not a moment too soon.HockeyMan and The Boss left on an excursion and to fetch Trouble and left me on the couch to rest. And that’s when it came.

**Note to my tens of readers and myself: If you even THINK you may be sick (barf, upchuck, throw up, vomit), get to the bathroom ASAP.**I did not listen to that inner voice telling me to run to the crapper. No - I threw up all over myself and the couch. N.A.S.T.Y. and not in the Janet Jackson kind of way. Not one barf - two.

What am I thinking in the process? “Damn - I just turned over these cushions to make it look like a semi-new couch. Now I have my own barf stains to welcome my friend’s asses. Do not tell any one of my friends that I have puked on this couch.” Yes, all of that went through my head in about the 5 seconds it took to not get to the toilet.

I felt better, but I had to clean up all of my own puke, which if you’ve never done it before, really sucks. I felt better though! I covered the couch and laid back down and descended into an afternoon/evening of in-and-out of consciousness, eating oatmeal (which, I fixed myself - I have no idea how), and frightening my children. They don’t like sick people.

HockeyMan finally made me go to bed, but I could barely move, scared that I’d repeat the earlier experience of barfing on myself. I finally made it to the bathroom with his help, and proceeded to puke up the remainder of my guts, along with some dry-heaving. I DO NOT recommend dry-heaving with strep throat unless you enjoy the feeling of hot serrated knives being slowing inserted into your throat. In that case, get some therapy.

HockeyMan gave me a magic pill that put me right to sleep. I slept until 11am this morning barely waking to greet/scare my children.

Did I mention he’s Dad AND Husband of the Year?

I’ll leave my heart-warming story for now, but there are many more details I’m leaving out for another day. I know you can’t wait…

Heard around MessyHouse:

Self (standing at the kitchen sink - shocker - happened to overhear the following…)

HockeyMan (sitting on the couch watching Rock of Love II: Bret Michaels*): “Wow - those girls have BIG boobs!”

The Boss (sitting in the big recliner): “We don’t have BIG BOOTS! DaDa!!! That’s so SILLY!!”

*I’m sure HM would like me to explain that he was not the one who had RoL on the TV at the time he came into the room, but I can tell you, he did not jump at the remote to change it either.

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*Stop copying here*

I haven’t written much about this in the past because, well, because it’s a little embarrassing. It’s not easy to share that your VERY (yes, very) smart 3 1/2-year-old girl is STILL not potty trained. It’s more frustrating that a child as smart as she is can still pee and poo in her diaper. Is it a reflection of my parenting, or a reflection of the control she’s administering on us. Either way, it’s not a good thing. Don’t get me wrong, I hate seeing my girls grow up so fast, and then again I love every new thing they can do. But, I’m getting really tired of changing real human poo. Not baby poo. Human poo. It’s geeeerooosssss.

For a while, I attributed the lack of potty use to the fact that The Boss (how apropos) has characteristics of Einstein Syndrome, and part of those characteristics is late potty training. Joy - late talking + smart kid + late potty training = changing human-sized poo. She’ll be in gifted classes explaining to the teacher that no, 8×8 isn’t 62, it’s 64 all they while crapping in her pants.

We’ve tried everything. I mean everything. We’ve tried bribery (a trip on the Disney cruise, M&Ms, toys), we’ve tried shame (with shame), and we’ve tried reasoning (you can’t reason with a toddler). Nothing.

I thought we had a breakthrough. All of a sudden, 2 Mondays ago, she decided out of the blue to sit on the crapper and poo and pee and pee. All in the span of 3 hours. I was over-joyed! We called everyone we knew, we had a party, we bought toys, we carried her on our shoulders, we got a banner plane. Apparently, it was too much, because the next morning, nada. Same ole, same ole.

Scared shitless of the crapper.

We actually scared the shit into her a few weeks ago so much that she didn’t poo for 3 days. I know - mother of the year.

The other day, my ma suggested something she read about 3-year-old potty training. Lock her in the bathroom with no diaper until she goes on the crapper. So, this morning with a dry diaper, I put her in the crapper sans diaper. She stood at the gate crying/begging/demanding that I let her out while I calmly told her she was going to stay in there until she peed in the crapper.

Her response - pee on the floor.

Nice.

Now what?

If you love me, you’ll vote for me.

Thanks to the hotness that is Secret Agent Mama for nominating me after I begged her to do it for 2 weeks!

Vote, or I’ll add you to the spam email lists that say “[Spam] Take this p!ll and make your lassie feel the difference!” or “[Spam] Your little soldier will grow up to a big love general!” I can’t make that crap up, so you better vote for me now.

And, if you wanna nominate me for any other awards, that’d be great, too. You know, like “Best Design” or “Best Business” blog. Whatever you like. Just don’t shame me by nominating me for “Hottest Mommy Blogger” b/c if I won, I’d have to turn it down.

I was sitting here thinking about what to write, and I Stumble(ed) Upon this GEM!

Not-so-wordless. This one’s interactive. Kinda.

There are 2 toddlers in this picture. Click on the picture below to find the other kiddo.

WW

Check out Mamas Like and Good for the Kids!

I’ll start off by saying, I have the greatest husband in the world today. HockeyMan let me sleep in this morning while he got the girls their breakfasts of microwave pancakes and microwave French Toast. Deelish.

I guess I was enjoying my extra minutes of in-and-out of consciousness while listening to GMA talk about what food is bad for me and I dream of going on a diet because I was listening to the girls playing nicely in their play room.

Or so I thought.

Instead, I get up to this - 2- & 3-year-old princesses with their same clothes on as the day before. ~ They fell asleep on the way home from dinner last night. do you think I’m going to wake them to put on their PJs? Not I, said the fly. ~ And, yes, they have on their Dora backpacks so I guess we can blame it on Swiper the fox.

That, my tens of friends, is 1/2 of a BIG bag of dog food. This is what I found AFTER the two dogs had had their fill. The dogs were already passed out in pure bliss of ginormous bellies.

Do you think the Beagle stopped to think she was hungry? No - I think she stopped after about 10 bowl-fulls with a HUGE grin on her muzzle.

I’m not sure if you get mad at 2- & 3-year-olds for feeding the dogs. If so, how do you get mad?

I just take a picture.

Don’t forget to check out Mamas Like & Good for the Kids! You can win chocolate at Mamas Like and I’m having a big toy sale at GFTK!