You see, Sheila was here and getting ready to leave. Elijah’s pants were falling down again and I said, “I thought those would fit him but even with that belt he can’t keep them up ’cause he has no butt!”

He had been heading to his room but turned back towards us and from behind me I hear, “I do too have a butt!”

Then Sheila yells, “OH GOSH, pull your pants up!”

The kid was standing there mooning us!

So yes, I repeated the story to Steve using words that I know Elijah doesn’t know but apparently he remembers the story so then he kept running around mooning me. Sigh. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut when he’s still up running around!

Of course, both times now I have been reminded of an incident at my brother’s graduation party in April. It was a Sunday and a bunch of us were sitting at a picnic table in the enclosed pavillion and I realized it had probably been a while since Elijah had gone to the bathroom. So I said, “hey, Boy, go in that bathroom and go pee.”

Immediately, he turned around, dropped his pants and then ran to the bathroom. It was hilarious… everyone saw it. :P

Then it was finish up the graduation party inserts for my sister-in-law, ship a candle order, stop by the bank, get some fuel (for a blasted $3.99 a gallon, nonetheless), then meet said sister-in-law and another one an hour south for lunch.

We had fun there. We ate at Culver’s; I’d never been to one before, it was pretty good. With the kids’ meals, you get a coupon for a free scoop of custard. So I got that for Elijah and got myself a very small sundae (oh, sundae, it has been too long). I dropped those at the table and while I was getting a drink refill, Elijah, between his two aunts, suddenly screams, “GET YOUR OWN!” Of course, they cracked up. Doesn’t do much for discipline, does it? This was, of course, after he told me, “I am going to sit by Aunt Liz and Aunt Sheila, NOT YOU.” Mmmkay. No skin off my back! Woe is the person who sits next to Elijah during a meal, thou art doomed to be climbed over and covered in whatever it is he’s got on his hands and face. So yay!

After that, we went back to their apartment where another adventure was waiting for us. While we were sitting there talking, Sheila suddenly said, “do you have to go potty?” To which Elijah said, “No!!” And I said, “Get in there, boy, and go pee. Sheesh.” Next thing we knew, he was screaming bloody murder. I went running only to find out… poor little guy. He’s going to kill me for this some day. Apparently, and if you’re easily grossed out you should take your exit now, he was going to pee but didn’t know he had diarrhea and you can guess the rest. I was just glad he did it at their apartment and not in the restaurant. So Sheila and I commenced to cleaning him up and he ended up with having to wear a safety pinned pair of girl’s boy-cuts. Heh. Then, of course, while his pants were drying (I cleaned them off then used the blow dryer until they were only damp then let them sit), Liz’s date showed up and Elijah thought it would be quite funny to keep removing the blanket Sheila and Liz had covered him up with. Ah, first impressions of her nephew. Priceless.

So Liz left, then we left – Sheila was going to work – and, did I mention that it was raining practically the whole time? And I was constantly surrounded by crazy drivers? One of which tried to back into me in the middle of a city street and I couldn’t reverse because there were two cars behind me but then the old man behind me started driving around me in the oncoming lane while the other moron was still trying to back up and I was still refusing to budge because we’re in the middle of the freaking street and the three of us in my vehicle nearly lost it. That was fun. I got to hear a lot of new words out of Liz’s mouth. :P But anyway, so Elijah and I headed to the store.

It was raining when we went in, but not that bad. Elijah made me angry in the store when, immediately after me telling him to leave the can of Lysol alone, he sprayed it all over his hands. He didn’t learn his lesson, either, go figure. I got out of that nutty place and we started to leave only now, it was absolutely pouring down screaming cats and dogs (because cats and dogs scream when they fall from the sky and land on the pavement). So we run down the parking lot, Elijah in the cart. That was sort-of fun until we had to stop, then we got soaked, and I think I contracted pneumonia. Before I can get him in the Jeep he starts screaming, “Ah! Ah! Ah! AH!!!” Put him in, my two bags, then the four cases of jars I bought. Yes, I finally found some. While doing this, several inches of water kept rushing by and my shoes, socks, and jeans just soaked it all up. I tell you what, Moses wouldn’t have needed to part the Red Sea if he’d had shoes like mine!

Then, another stop! Knowing that tonight’s a union meeting night so I would be on my own, I wanted some movies (it’s protocol). Wanted Juno but they were all out, of course. So I grabbed Dan in Real Life and Beowulf since I had a rent one, get one. Waiting in line, Elijah decides he wants a gumball. He asks me for a quarter. I lie. I say I don’t have any. I don’t want him to have one of those gumballs. We’re going to have supper and I hate those things, they’re huge. He begs me to look in my purse.

So I said, “okay, I will pretend to look in my purse for you, but I’m telling you, all I have are a bunch of pennies.” The teenage girl in front of me in line, with her boyfriend, she laughs. I laugh. She immediately produces a quarter and gives it to Elijah. Inwardly I’m thinking stupid girl, wtf is wrong with you?! Outwardly, I laugh and say “thanks.” Then she helps Elijah with the gumball machine. He gets a blue one. I tell him to bite it in half first, “the last thing I need is you with one of those stuck in your throat.” He tries to bite it, but alas, he can’t. So I do what any mother would do, I try to break it in my hand. Nothing. Muscles I ain’t. Then I go to do what I did last time: bite it in half for him like a freaking mother bird.

However, I lost grip on the stupid thing and then the whole thing was in my mouth, though on my teeth. So I bit. The stupid thing ex.plo.ded. It was as hard as a rock. He’s jumping for it and the last thing I’m going to do is chew that junk let alone admit that I do, indeed, have two quarters that I saw when I “checked” my purse. So I pop out the pieces into my hand and give them to him. Amazingly, they’re not wet or gross. And he’s happy.

I say to the girl that that must have been the grossest thing she’d ever seen because she was staring at us the whole time. She laughs and basically says “you gotta do what you gotta do.” More small talk ensues and she and the boyfriend leave. But now, thanks to her, Elijah’s all blue, too. The lady at the counter gives me a wet wipe because apparently I’m a horrible mother who can’t carry those around. Heh. She was really nice about it, though, and asked me if I wanted one. But that was the second time in less than twenty-four hours I’d bummed a wet wipe from someone for that kid’s messy face and hands! I know, I suck.

Oh, and then, if you’re still with me, that is… We had a fairly enjoyable evening, what was left of it, Elijah and I. Dinner, playing, whatever. Not long after I’d sent him to bed, even though he’d just gone, he was yelling, “mama, I gotta go peeeeeepeeee!” So I told him to go and hurry it up. Too long in there, I went and pushed the door open. There he was, standing on the toilet seat (lid up, of course), underwear around his ankles, messing with the sunscreen he’d gotten out of the cabinet above the toilet:

What goes through that kid’s mind? I don’t get him half the time. :P

I got in his face about it then cleaned him off and sent him to bed again. Shut his door then I went to the bathroom where I could see he had not peed like he told me he had (no toilet had ever flushed, either). Then I just started laughing. I swear, he keeps me on my toes.

So now I’ve watched two movies, though I watched the first before he went to bed. And finally, I hear Steve pulling in at just this second. I think I’m ready for bed, ’cause it’s going to start all over again in about six hours. Bah humbug! :)

AND THEN I nearly lost this post because WordPress logged me out or some such crap and said I didn’t have permission to “do that.” Do what? Fix that spelling error up there? ‘Cause that’s what I was doing, ho.

It all started last night when I went to bed, suddenly I couldn’t breathe and I knew I was getting sick again, already, less than a week after getting rid of the last sinus infection. I didn’t sleep well and this morning when Elijah woke up and called upstairs as usual, “Mama, come down here,” I said, “why don’t you come up here for a little while?” He said “ok,” I think… but I fell asleep and he didn’t come upstairs.

Maybe a half an hour later I woke up again and went straight downstairs. Elijah was standing right down there with that three-eyed duck (a little container of bubbles. He’s already opening it and asks me if he can blow bubbles.

“Not in the house,” I tell him as I head to the bathroom, stumbling in pain and misery. “WHY!?” he screams. Already it’s started. “Because I SAID SO.” I use that a lot lately. “WHYYY!?!?” I take it away, put it above the fridge, and head to the bathroom. I’m also reminding him that he’s not supposed to be getting into my purse (that’s where the duck was, deep in there, at that).

And then I see it.

There’s eye shadow on my make-up bag. Opening the eye-shadow compact, well, what you see there, that’s what I was presented with. Yes, adding insult to the injury of me knocking my good concealer pencil into the toilet yesterday, Elijah got into my Mary Kay eye shadow and just beat it all up. It didn’t stand a chance. In fact, looking at the photo, it doesn’t look as bad in the photo as it really is for some reason. Much is unusable now I’m sure.

So, there in the bathroom, I spanked him. Then I sent him to the couch where he went begrudgingly and started to scream at me. “I’m sorry, I’m really sorry!” (Screaming, however, does not convey to me that he was, indeed, sorry.) “HEY!” “I DON’T WANT TO SIT ON THE COUCH!” “YOU SAY YOU’RE SORRY!” Etc. So that got him in more trouble. So I yelled that he should go to bed and lay down. The more he screamed, the longer, I told him, he had to stay there.

The whole time he’s screaming from bed, I’m trying not to puke. Stupid sinuses.

I guess what made me really mad is that some of that eye shadow isn’t available anymore. I had to buy some of it in E freaking Bay to get it. Those are the two that I have “back ups” of. The rest I get to go buy again. Sigh.

And then, you know, after I had a little talk with Elijah about how he’s a big boy and he knows to stay out of Mommy & Daddy’s stuff and he got the hug he’d been screaming for the last few minutes… well the dog decided to throw up on the edge of his bed where it ran off and to the edge of the wall where it seeped into the corner where the carpet meets the other room and yeah, that was fun to clean up.

So that’s how my day started and then it continued with a massive sinus headache and the pressure in my ears again, the sore throat, you name it.

So to take some more medicine, I needed to eat something. Got a can of biscuits out of the fridge but couldn’t get the stupid things open. Started slamming it on the edge of the counter liek I always do but slammed harder and harder and harder until… the package exploded and four of them went flying out onto the floor.

Then later? Never mind, that’s enough. Today sucks.

I just can’t win lately.

So, anyway. Elijah’s been sick. It all started last Wednesday when I got sick, but my fever broke basically overnight and the flu symptoms were gone by the next day and replaced with cold-like symptoms. It was probably Friday, I guess, that Elijah got the same thing and just as quickly, it was gone. He and I went out for breakfast on Saturday and did a little shopping. On Sunday, we all went to church.

Tuesday morning, around 3:30, he was up and crying. I took his temperature: 104.1. Some ibuprofen took it down right away, I mean, very fast. Another dose later in the morning. At 12:30pm, he seemed fine, temperature seemed to be gone completely. I’m talking, a 98.7 degree reading on the thermometer. But after a long nap, just as I was going to check on him, he woke up: 104.9. By this time, it was too late again to call the doctor. More ibuprofen and it came down again. I talked to a nurse on the Children’s Hospital hotline for several minutes. She ran through a lot of symptoms with me, stuff that if he had it, we would have probably taken him to the hospital. But nothing. Stuff like his breathing (it was fine), no purple rashes, he could touch his chin to his chest without pain, etc.

This morning around 5, he felt a bit warm, but certainly not hot. I woke him up and gave him medicine. At 9, seemed like the fever was gone again. Despite my best efforts, he was running around the room singing that when Daddy got home we were going to go get Chinese food (his idea), etc. I should have noticed earlier than I did that he was getting sluggish again. Like he suddenly didn’t want the food I’d made that he’d begged to have, he kept making excuses that it was too hot to eat long after it wasn’t. Taking his temperature again, he was back to 101.7. Some Tylenol and I made him lay down again.

So I called the doctor and that’s where we stand now. They just called back and I’m taking him there in 50 minutes. He’s sleeping now, fell right to sleep. He’s going to freak out, too, this whole time he’s been adamant that he’s NOT going to the doctor under any circumstances.

So we’ll see what happens. I’m sure they’ll just put him on antibiotics though…

—————

Ah, yes, they put him on antibiotics. Both ears are infected again. Well, whatever. They said they’d like to see him again in a week if he’s not better. So we’ll see…

Elijah: Mommy, I love you
Mommy: I love you, too, Buddy
Elijah: Mommy, you’re prrrrrretty
Mommy: Thank you
Elijah: Mommy, you’re beautifullllll
Mommy: Thank you
Elijah: Mommy, you’re gorrrrgeous
Mommy: Thank you, Bud
Elijah: I love you, Mommy!

Yes, it’s adorable, but let’s cut it short, eh? Haha

So the other day he’s sitting in the recliner while I’m putting his socks and shoes on and he says, “Mommy, do you want to get married again?”

Mommy: Get married again? Who am I gonna marry?
Elijah: Ummmmm, Aunt Sarah!
Mommy: (really lol-ing) No, I’m not going to marry Aunt Sarah.
Elijah: Will you marry me?

Some day he’ll understand, but until then, that’s my baby!

They also went fishing Saturday. It surprises me when Steve does something like that with Elijah because, as we all know, Elijah can be quite a handful and the thought of that kid with hooks and fishing knives (and whatever else is used to go fishing with) should strike terror into the heart of any adult. But not only did they go but Elijah was the only of the two of them to catch anything. He caught a good sized blue gill, Steve say about four to six inches in length.

On the other hand, I want to smack my husband because not only does he insist on carrying around a stupid cheap cell phone but he didn’t get the other digital camera so I have no pictures of my little boy fishing with his daddy or his fish. Yeah, they threw it back. Steve won’t bring home fish unless he can bring home a lot it seems. So I guess they’ll need to go fishing again so I can take pictures!

It’s funny though, because when you’d first ask Elijah how big his fish was, he’d put his two fingers together, making a circle out of his first finger and thumb and say “this big!” We tried to show him how big it really was and now his fingers get farther and farther apart so now he’s telling people it was “this big!” with both arms outstretched.

He’s already exaggerating the fishing stories… :)