Red Works

Good stuff came out of Mother’s Day weekend. Peter scored big points when he came home from Rapid City lugging a big ol' outdoor carpet for my back deck that I’ve been dreaming of for years. We essentially live in the yard after Memorial Day and I just wanted that extra touch to our outdoor space. Happy Mother’s Day to me! Sounds lame I know – Hey so and so, what did you get for Mother’s day? Answer - Why I got this lovely pearl pendant! Sabrina, what did you get for Mother’s Day? Answer – I got a RUG! Woo-hoo! And it is perfect and exactly what I wanted.

Our girls, also essentially sick since January with this indescribable nasty sinus thing and two ear infections, were diagnosed with chronic sinus infections. This super surprise rounded out with a 21-day dose of antibiotics. The directions on this new antibiotic indicate that one should not take any iron containing products 2 hours prior or 2 hours after ingestion of this drug. RRIGGHHT.

The patients here are two 8-month old babies on iron supplemented formula and you don’t want me to feed them milk for 4 hours at two different times of the day for TWENTY-ONE DAYS!? Upon calling the pharmacist and doctor, it was decided that this really is the best medicine for them since the amoxicillin did nothing for them and the augmentin just ate their guts and made them soil their diapers every 20 minutes for 10 days. 30 tubes of butt paste later, we’re all healed up from that debacle and headed down antibiotic lane again. Anyway…back to the non-iron junk. The caution, per the pharmacist, is that it does cause some absorbency issues and I’m just supposed to watch for effectiveness. Meaning if Peter and I ever get a decent night of sleep in the next century again, then the meds are working. The secondary caution is that such products mixed with this drug make their bowel movements red. I mean RED folks. Or maybe it tilts toward hot pink? This is all great and wonderful, because who really cares if their poo is pink or red or magenta or candy apple. They don’t have diaper rash any longer and they’re going to get better, right? I can deal with any red, blue or green hue you throw at me.

After the girls bath the other night, I laid them on their bedroom floor and was dressing Nina first. Meanwhile, Jocelyn crawled her naked derriere over to the Leap Frog table and started pounding keys. Those legs started wiggling, the woops and he-haws started flying out of her mouth. It looked like she was really doing a groove and she was giggling, jiving, shaking that booty and having such a great time in the nude, I thought, “I’ve got to catch this on film!”

I take off at lightning speed, return to the room, camera in hand, and pat myself on my back that I caught her still in Elvis Presley action. As I start recording her I realize that between her feet, on our light beige carpet, is a petite, Jocelyn-sized pile of magenta. As this is all sinking in to my sleep deprived brain and I’m saying, “No! No! Jocelyn!” she continues to groove and starts stepping in it and splashing it up and down her legs, through her toes and up the Leap Frog table. Down goes the camcorder. Forgetting to turn the camera off, I now have a great memory on tape of Jocelyn dancing in her hot pink poo and then 34-minutes of carpet with background noise including the re-bathing process, the diapering and changing, and then Samuel crying, “Mommy, I touched something I shouldn’t have!” as he shows me his hands covered in black paint. And since it’s an old school camera, and I’m too lazy to figure it all out, the memories and 34 minute carpet scene shall remain, including discussion of what exactly Samuel got into.

All in all however, we are 10 days into the meds and they are not working. The girls cough and hack and run snot, so they are not sleeping through the night.  Therefore, neither are we.  I talked to the doctor again today and they’ve decided to pull them off of the antibiotics to save their little intestines and we’ll revisit on Monday. So it goes, so it goes.

May you all have scored on Mother’s Day too – whatever your pleasure may be. The night Peter brought home my rug, we had a nice fire in the chiminea, roasted some marshmallows with the boys and drank a bottle of wine. A toast - here’s to you my boogie girls, perhaps you just have a dysfunctional nose like your father? In the meantime we’ll continue to spread our slimy noses around and hope for the best.