one million cigarettes.

I ended up leaving work early yesterday because I felt like shit.  By the time I got Henry and I home, I had a fever which meant I had all those fun symptoms to deal with while trying to get Henry to nap and so needing a nap myself.  Nobody napped.  My fever finally broke sometime in the evening and I stopped shivering and I actually felt like playing with Henry as opposed to pretending.  I finally got some rest last night and this morning I still feel like shit but I really need to save any sick days I might accumulate for when the kid gets sick.  It's like Henry knew I wasn't feeling on top of the world because this morning was perfect.  I don't think he said, "NO" or ran away from me once.  We had to leave a little bit early so we could stop and fuel up on the way to work and school.  We made it out by 6:50 AM, no problem.  Crazy!  The good thing about being sick at work is that everybody leaves me alone.  Nobody wants to have anything to do with me.  Kind of nice!  The bad thing is that my lungs feel like they used to feel after a night out at the bar when I would smoke a pack of cigarettes.  I haven't smoked since I found out I was pregnant with Henry, and maybe it was even before that.  I specifically remember the last cigarette I had had when I found out I was pregnant the first time, but I can't remember if I started again when that pregnancy failed.  I think I didn't because I don't remember having had a last cigarette when I had a positive test for my second pregnancy.  Either way, it's been a long time and my lungs feeling like this, it's a good reminder to never start smoking again. 

Not related to sickness, last night a bunch of people came over for a meeting.  Henry was the perfect host and greeted everyone by saying, "Hi!  Welcome to our home!" and then he would run and hide behind my legs and whisper, "Mom mom, I want to give them a hug.  Can I give them a hug?" and I would tell him to ask them if he could give them a hug and of course everyone agreed

Have I mentioned that my son is awesome?

still not a morning person.

I hate mornings.  For as long as I can remember I have hated mornings.  Winter mornings are especially difficult because it's so dark and also, I definitely deal with seasonal affective disorder and when you're depressed, getting out of bed is always more difficult.  Ugh, my grammar sucks.  Since going back to work, mornings have been surprisingly not that bad.  I get up at 5:30 in order to get out the door with Henry fully dressed and prepared for school by 7.  Since the solstice it's actually been fun to see how much lighter it is every morning when I get to work at 7:30.  It also helps that when Henry wakes up in the morning, he is happy to meet the day and to see me.  Even if his eyes aren't quite open yet he throws his arms around my neck and says, "Good morning, mom mom!" in the most cheerful voice he can muster.  It's wonderful and I will wake up at any time, any day to get to hear that.  I am the luckiest woman in the world.  One might argue that my willingness and ability to get up at 5:30 and to be fully functional by 7:30 makes me a morning person but I'm not quite ready to admit it.  Instead, I still hate mornings even if sleeping in on the weekends means waking up without an alarm at 6:30.

This morning I even got to work 10 minutes early.  I'm not sure how that happened, especially since I'm still disgustingly sick.  In my past life, if I was this sick I definitely would have called in to work and stayed in bed.  Mommy's don't get to call in sick and that's okay with me.

plague.

Today I am so thankful that Henry felt good enough to go to school.  Yay!  He still has a cold but he hasn't had a fever since Sunday night and if I kept him home every time he was snotty, he would never leave the house again and I would lose my job for sure.  My dear sweet son has given me the gift of the sick.  I felt a little bad this morning when I woke up but the morning routine does not leave time to feel sick.  Same thing when I get to work in the morning, it's go-go-go until at least 9:30.  Once I sat down to make some phone calls and do some work at the computer, I felt like crap.  Now I'm taking a break to eat lunch and think healthy thoughts.  Henry and I have a dinner date tomorrow night so we must feel better by then.  That's how it works, right?  Set a goal and achieve it. 

Here we go.

is it friday yet?

Yes, I know it's only Tuesday.  Henry is sick again and we all know that when that happens, I get all crazy and crazy stressed and did I mention, just plain crazy?  How the fuck do single parents do this?  I know this is the next 15 years at least of my life.  When he gets sick, I have to drop everything to take care of him.  That sounds awful, that, "I have to" part.  I know I should think of it as, "I get to" but when it's happening and I have a million things to figure out in order to make sure his needs are met AND I keep my job, it's not fun.  It sucks.  It's really difficult and scary and fuuuuuuuuck.  This is why there are two parents but in Henry's case, there is one custodial parent and one non-custodial parent that chose to live so far away, he cannot be helpful in these situations.  Thankfully Henry and I are lucky in that we have others who love us and who we trust enough to be with him on the days that he can't go to day care and I have to go to work and his grandparents can't stay home with him.  Well, we have one other and I don't think we will ever be able to thank him enough for his support and love all the time, but especially when we need it the most.  I'm hoping Henry feels better tomorrow, well enough to go back to day care.  I get lots more done at work when I'm not worried about him.  On days like this, when I'm constantly wondering how he's doing, I tend to take a lunch break and I write blog posts in order to clear my head.  On days when he's at day care I work right through the day, taking little breaks here and there until it's time to go pick him up and head home. 

I can do this.

it's a gas gas gas.

Last weekend Henry and I attended a birthday party at a local bounce place. Henry loved seeing his friends and jumping all over the place. I enjoyed watching him play and not having to join in the fun. Oh the joys of lasting effects of pregnancy. Peeing my pants, if you must know.

There was a shoot 'em up video game and Henry kept wanting to play with the guns. I was trying to decide how to deal with the situation and the gun thing.  Struggling with it.  Then Henry said, "Mom mom!  Come watch me pump gas!"

My kid, he's awesome.

the swing of things.

Finally, after weeks of sick and holidays and visits with his dad, Henry and I have settled into a work/school routine.  I think since he started going to day care on December 9th, this is the second week he will actually go every day.  Of course, I'm probably jinxing it since there is still one more day left in the week. 

Henry has a locker at school where he puts his coat during the day.  We also use his locker to store a change of clothes for him and extra snacks.  Up until this week, he has always demanded to clear out his locker at the end of the day.  I believe it was his way of telling me we shouldn't leave anything behind because he didn't plan on coming back. Monday afternoon he saw the items in his locker and asked if we would be taking them home.  I reminded him that we didn't need to take those things home because they were supplies for when he is at school.  I braced for the onslaught of, "but whyyyyy's" and "I don't want to leave it heeeeeeeeere's" and "but I neeeeeeeed it at hoooooooome's" but instead what I got was a simple response.  "Oh.  Okay.  Bye bye supplies!" as he closed his locker. 

He's never had very dramatic goodbye's in the morning but this week I've noticed that he barely sticks around for a hug and a kiss before taking off to play. 

The other night before bedtime he was quiet so I asked what he was thinking and he told me he was sad because he missed his friends at school.  More importantly, he told me their names.  Before, when I asked him the names of his friends he would respond with, "boys and girls," as if he didn't want to bother learning their names. 

When I picked him up on Tuesday I interrupted their story time.  Several boys and girls got in trouble because instead of waving and blowing kisses goodbye from their seats as they are told to do, they jumped up and ran to give Henry goodbye hugs.  He didn't try to climb up my leg to avoid the contact with the children.

He got invited to the birthday party of one of his classmates.  Okay so it's my cousin's kid but still, he'll know other kids there and I'll be able to catch up with my cousins instead of obsessing over my kid playing all by himself with the other kids playing together, around him.

Whew.

My former boss was just elected to be Council President.  I am excited yet terrified. 

Happy to be out of Detroit. 

it's a lizard out there.

Henry doesn't believe in blizzards, only lizards.  We had to go out and shovel three times today!  This is from the first time, around 8:30 a.m.   Henry inspected the tree and found the one bulb that burned out.  He is the light bulb police.  His mom-mom can spot a spelling error from a mile away, the boy can spot a burned out light bulb from 100 miles away.

Henry was digging around in a drawer of old crap and found one of my very old cell phones that I had no idea was still around, let alone the charger cord.  We plugged it in so he could call Consumers Energy to find out when they are going to come cut down the tree that has been on the wire since the ice storm.  Henry said he talked to them and they are coming on Twosday.  He even held up two fingers to show me what day they meant.  The weird thing about this old phone was that I never deleted a bunch of text messages.  They were super sweet and loving text messages from my ex-husband.  No wonder I believed he loved me!  We had a good laugh as I deleted them all.  It was a little jarring.  I just don't think about that stuff anymore so when it comes up it throws me for a loop.  Actually, when I started working in November I worked with the guy I was replacing.  He had some boundary issues and wanted to know all about my personal life and for some reason I ended up telling him about the end of my marriage and my sham of a relationship with Henry's father.  I had the most messed up dreams about my past life and was so happy when that guy at work finally left for good so I didn't have to think about that other stuff anymore!  I have no idea why the spray bottle was out and sitting on the floor.  

This photo is from the second time we went out, at 2:30.  I can tell because Henry refused to wear his hat but he stayed nice and warm with two hoods.  The snow kept sticking to his eyelashes.  He didn't like that at all. 

This is from the last time, around 5:30 or 6.  Henry decided the ice scraper thing was his shovel even though he has his own shovel.  I think he's already really good at getting out of doing the hard work.  Ha!  Just kidding.  Not really.  

Sometimes he says he's scared of the snowblower and wants me to pick him up when it gets close.  Other times he's more than happy to try to wreck stuff with it.  

Much of Michigan has pretty much shut down because of the snow and the cold temperature that is maybe already here.  I am going to try to get to work tomorrow morning.  The homeless need me.  My boss called to give me directions on what I need to do when I get there in case nobody else can get to work.  After I hung up I realized that wait a second, I live farther away than everyone else!  Oh well, I'll do what I can.  Henry's school is open but I think I will leave him home.  I would rather he be safe and warm at home than on the roads with me at o-dark-thirty tomorrow morning. 

in my defense, my parents do much of the cooking and grocery shopping...

Me:  Henry do you want to come to the store with me or do you want to stay home and play?
Henry: What kind of store?
M:  Grocery store.
H:  Oh.  You need cocktail supplies?
M:  What?  Where did you hear that?
H:  Oh.  You're not buying cocktail supplies?
M:  Well.  Yes, I am.  But that's not the point.  You're staying home.

On a completely unrelated topic that will hopefully make you forget that according to my kid, the only groceries I shop for are cocktail supplies, here's a photo from the beginning of December.  Henry was "helping" us put up the Christmas lights outside.

a photo.

Henry came home to me on January 1, 2014.  His dad agreed to bring him home early in the day so we could spend the day together.  Otherwise, Henry would have been dropped off at 5 p.m., been in bed by 8 p.m., and had to go to school for two days before really getting to spend much time with me.  Yay for co-parenting!  On the day Henry returned, he assured me he did not need to take a nap.  I assured him we needed to at least lay down and relax.  He agreed to just lay down and cuddle with me but there would be no napping.  None. 

This is what happened from 5 minutes later to 120 minutes later...

Not much sweeter than a sleeping kid, especially knowing his disposition will be sweeter when he wakes.

did you hear that?

It was the sound of my heart breaking as I walked away from my son in his classroom at day care. 

Henry:  I want you to stay here, mom-mom.
Me:  I know buddy, but I have to go to work and you have to stay here to learn and have fun and make friends.
H:  Oh.  But I don't want to.
M:  I know and I'm sorry.  Always remember birds fly south for the winter.
H: ...
M:  Oh.  Wait.  Always remember squirrels eat NUTS.
H: ... *little smile*
M:  No.  That's not it.  Always remember...
H: (whispering so quietly I could barely hear) mom-mom loves you...

And then he laughed and gave me a giant hug. 

Also, I know I said the next post would have photos and there are no photos here but I am at work and I don't have photos on this computer so you'll just have to wait. 

Also, I start way too many sentences with "also," and I know it is bad bad bad grammar but I can't stop.  I think it's because the running commentary in my head is constantly interrupted and I start most thoughts mid-sentence.  Crazy.  Or as Henry says, "cray."

Bad, mom-mom.  Bad.