Stupid Weekend

It was a stupid weekend, and that's being nice. I call it stupid as opposed to a 40-word-string-of-profanities I'd like to call it, only because there were some bright spots. Also, since the bad parts probably do have silver linings, I'll call it stupid instead of harming the ears of the innocent.

So, my pops was diagnosed with skin cancer a week or two ago and had surgery on Thursday and Friday to remove it.  It was an enormous spot on his face and the doctor's ended up removing an area of skin that was 5.5 inches in diameter.  5.5 inches!  On his face!  Can you imagine?!  At one point, they thought it was a possibility that he would lose his eye.  Thankfully, that didn't happen. (Silver lining.) 

He had to be transfered to an ocular surgeon to perform the skin repair/grafting.  Luckily, the doctor was able to repair the wound without having to graft, giving my pops a facelift on the right side of his face.  It's like those magazine ads for aging with a line drawn down the middle.  Half of him looks 30. The other half looks 60!  Poor thing.  But, we are so thankful he still has his eye and that they were able to remove all the cancer.

Anyway, on Saturday we needed to get out of the house.  All four of us have been sick with a mutant cold and wanted fresh air.  We dragged our little and big butts out of bed and to headed to our favorite little farm to pick strawberries.  They were huge!  They looked more like apples than strawberries and we had two big buckets full in less than 10 minutes.  We were lucky enough to see a pig race while we were there and those squealing pink nuggets can lift even the dumpiest of spirits!  We had fun at the farm.

Sunday, we took a picnic lunch over to the tree house in Palmetto Bluff to play and ride bikes.  It didn't last too long though before the rain had us headed back inside.  Suddenly, it wasn't just a typical thunderstorm and we got pelted with hail!  I took a picture just as Brent was getting my van into the garage. Craziness!

I also had been noticing that Tony wasn't really feeling well over the last few days and by Sunday evening, I was in a full on panic about his lethargy and went to Wal-Mart in the middle of the night to get some cans of tuna to see if I could bribe him into feeling better.  I felt so sketchy in the check-out line in my pajamas, with a 4 pack of tuna, at 2:30 in the morning.  No doubt, the cashier dude probably thought I teetered on being clinically insane or repulsively kinky.

Tony barely ate it.  So, we decided to try and catch some of his pee to take to the vet for a urinalysis so we wouldn't have to take him in.  He hates it at the vet so much that he usually has to be sedated for even a simple check-up.  Trying to get your cat to pee in a cup is stupid.  We had to jeri-rig a shoot for the pee to funnel into the cup while he squated.  We were like two clowns with 20 thumbs trying to catch the pee. 

But we got it and the news was not good.  They suspected diabetes and had to take Tony to the vet right away for a blood test.  It was positive.  Right now he is at the vet and they are trying to level off his sugars.  They are worried about him though because he's not responding they way they had hoped.  Please pray for my little buddy.  He's my soulmate.

Old Friend

I've been sick as hell for the last two days.  Effing miserable.  But when Brent got home from work tonight, he ran a bath for me like he used to back in the day, pre-nuggets.  It completely flooded me with memories as soon as I stepped in.

Before the kiddos came, I used to take a bath every single night.  No joke. I was the kind of girl who came home from work, and dropped trow right there in the foyer before the door was even finished slamming shut.  Work clothes always felt insanely constrictive to me and at first chance, I would shed them at the front door and b-line it straight to the bath to soak away the stress of the day.  It's how I rolled.

Brent usually brought me a glass of wine or something mid-soak and sat in the bathroom with me while we bullshited about the day until my water turned cold.  Gracie was always with me, pacing the perimeter of the tub and batting at me to put my hand down so she could balance on it to get a drink of water without falling in.  Without fail, her tail would inevitably get wet when she planted her big tush on the corner of the tub and let her tail float across the water.  Her wet tail would slap her on the head when she jumped down, at which point she would whip around very pissed off wondering what the hell smacked her and why her tail was wet.  Then, she very ferociously licked-dry her tail back to normal.  It was my every evening and something that completely disappeared once Thing 1 and Thing 2 entered the picture.

Since we've had the kids, I've maybe taken two baths in their four years of existence.  And sadly, my precious little destressing-bathtub-nook has become a landing spot for wet plungers, dirty underwear, and a water bowl for the cat.  It always has at least a handful of kitty litter particles sprinkled throughout the bottom of it too.  Pure misdemeanor-worthy neglect.

Tonight though, she was flawless again, sparkling clean, and twinkling with candles.  Slipping into it again felt like I was seeing an old friend.  And in less than 2.5 seconds, Gracie was back up on the edge, pacing the perimeter, and purring like a madman.  She remembered too.  It was our happy hour together and it had been ripped away from her, just as it had me, once the kids arrived.  She pawed at me for my hand and I obliged.  She sat her fat ass on the corner of the tub, flicked her tail across the water, and got pissed when it hit her on the head as she jumped down.  I was so caught up in the moment, that I completely forgot I was sick.  Maybe even for a split-second or two, I might have forgotten I was a mom.

The A Team!

We beat the pants off of those little Pirates!  I think the score was like 42 to nothing!  I'm just kidding.  They don't even keep score in t-ball and every kid gets to hit the ball and no one gets tagged out.  But in my heart, we totally won and Wyatt was irrefutably MVP.  Daddy did a precious job coaching too.

Choices

To say the last couple of weeks has been an emotional whirlwind, would be an understatement.  Out of the blue, a company in Charleston contacted Brent and offered him a job.  They had remembered him from an interview he went on four years ago and had saved his resume ever since.  To make a long story short, he turned the opportunity down.  You can imagine how difficult the decision was for us especially since this new job would require zero travel and offered a bit more money but would have taken his career in a completely different direction.

Holy mother of all... I pray with every fiber of my being that we made the right choice for our family.

And in the midst of all that chaoticness, we've had so much fun stuff going on too.  Last week, I got to see a great friend from college and her fiance at their beach house up in Charleston.  It had been three years since we had seen each other.  We were having way too much fun for me to remember to take pictures, but I did get a cute one of Wyatt in his hippo floaties.

I turned around and headed to Jacksonville the day after we got back to visit my aunt for just a fun, relaxing weekend.  We shopped and ate lots of yummy stuff.  I also went to see the Jacksonville beach for the very first time in all the years that they had lived there and just couldn't get over what I had been missing for so many years right around the corner from their house!  I had so incorrectly assumed it was similar to our beach or Fernandina, but it was so much more like Daytona's beach with high rises and everything.  Blew my freaking mind and I totally fell in love with it.

While I was gone, Brent had opening ceremonies for Wyatt's little t-ball league this year.  Wyatt has been loving every minute of it and has been doing really well at it too.  They have had practice twice a week so far and his very first game starts tomorrow.  Their little team is called the A's and Brent is loving coaching all the kids this year.  They pretty much all just do dirt angels and stuff and are so stinking cute in all their oversized shirts, pants, and hats.  I can't believe my nugget baby is old enough to play t-ball already.

Random January/February Pics

Did I ever tell you that it snowed here again a week or two before the kiddos birthday?  It was only a few flakes but we did everything we could to live it up.  I think it lasted all of 20 minutes.  Peep the accumulation of snow on our weeds!  It almost inspired me to want to buy a sleigh.

And this was us a little more than a month later...  Thank goodness our winters don't last too long.  We did get another surge of cold this week, but I'm hoping it's the last one of the year.  I'm so anxious to get to the beach soon.  My van feels all wrong during the winter.  There's usually enough sand on the floor for the kids to build a sandcastle at a redlight.
 

I love this picture of Brent.  He shaved his face like a total jackass one night just for a laugh and connected his sideburns to a mustache.  I dared him to leave it that way for a day and he did.  This was when we were out that day eating at our fave Mexican joint.

 

Valentine's Day was the cutest ever.  The kids were up at the buttcrack and almost snuck by without us knowing. Luckily, I caught them right as they reached the goods and was able to quickly take a picture.  Here's a picture of Brent with his very klassy V-day bouquet too.

Nugget Cam

Here are some of my favorite works of art (authors unknown) as of late. I love uploading these photos because I never know what I'm going to find! It's kind of like peeking inside their diary.



Playing the sticker game with daddy.  I'll give them each a sheet of stickers and the three of them go to town sticking them all over each other in random places.  You should hear the squeals and laughter that come from this ritual!  It should be bottled and prescribed as an anti-depressant.  So funny! 





A grin and bear it moment.  They took this at buttcrack o'clock - literally, just after 5:00am.

Our Nassau tang, "Baby".  He's almost 10 years old and literally the sweetest fish ever.  I had no idea that fish even had personalities until this little dude.  He tells us when he's hungry by chasing us down when we walk by the tank.  He gets hyper when the tank is clean.  I think he would eat out of our hands if we offered.  We love this guy.

This was 1 of about 50 pics the twinados took of themselves and Tony.  I caught them in the act and had to rescue the poor thing because he was frozen scared with hugely dialated eyes - blinded by the million and one flashes.

Callie's nighttime photography skillz when she should be sleeping.

Time Out.  Callie felt the need to document the moment.

Bible school.  I was requested to slowly drive by the front of the building.

Bored in the car?

Unidentified crevace.

Artistic brilliance, if you ask me!