Internet, I need your help. My daughter is back in the hospital, this time in ICU and on a ventilator. She has RSV which is a nasty respiratory virus that is particularly bad on kids with pre-existing lung problems. There is medicine that can prevent or decrease the effects of the virus called Synagis but it is very expensive so our insurance company wouldn’t pay for it this winter. They didn’t want to pay for $2000 worth of shots for three months so now they get to pay $1000 per day for an ICU stay. I am infuriated by this but too tired and worried to fight. When we’re done, I’m writing everyone I can think of to let them know how unjust and idiotic their policy on Synagis is. If you know anyone with a former preemie under three, tell them our story and make them demand the medicine. 

I need your prayers, white light, positive vibes, voodoo, rain dances, healing thoughts and virtual hugs sent this way. I just want her to get better and go home to my boys where I will never let any of us out unless we’re in a bubble like Anthony Edwards on Northern Exposure (Yeah, I could have referenced John Travolta in Boy in the Plastic Bubble but I love Northern Exposure). 

p.s. if you are one of my real life friends, you know where I am and feel free to visit but call first and stay away if you feel even the slightest bit ill. you can also email/txt me as i have my phone with me. thank the lord for cell phones with web browsers.

* yes i did name this post after a horrible whitesnake song. keeping one’s sense of humor is key when in a hospital. also, don’t forget your towel.

one of my favorite activities is trolling for clearance items at tarjay. i also enjoy adding items to my amazon or etsy shopping cart but never buying them. my parents tell me that it doesn’t matter how much money you make when you have children because they will take all of it and it is true. i can’t shop like a rock star but damn if i don’t get excited about finding something 90% off at the bull’s eye. yesterday, i found a pair of satiny, pink toile pajama bottoms  (in medium! i’m medium!) missing from a two piece set in the final clearance section of workout clothes/lingerie (which really don’t go together, do they?) without a price tag. at the checkout, the weary employee looked at it, looked at me and sighed, “how about a dollar?” and then i danced the soulja boy and did a back flip.

actually, i agreed to the paltry dollar price while giggling inside, went home and made mike listen to my squeeing about bargain hunting. neither him nor any man in my family understands that when we buy things on clearance we are actually saving money. they argue, “but you are just going to buy more clothes next year even though you bought the kids’ entire winter wardrobe for next year at 75% off” and “how do you think spending money saves money?” and to that i say, “phbbbbbbt”. my hunter-gatherer instincts go into overdrive when i see the orange sale stickers and my heart races at the idea of a $30 sweater for $4 and i’m getting my fun where i can.

oh, hi there! sorry about my lack of posting but well, i suck. actually, i’ve been in the hospital with lily who is suffering from a rather severe respiratory virus. we’re at home now but she is just as sick as she was when we sat in the emergency room for seven hours before being moved to a room. i looked at her chart and labs before we left- which i recommend any parent do because you never know when they’ll forget to tell you something important- and noticed her condition was marked guarded when we were admitted. guarded scares me. i’ve felt guarded about her condition for two years and wish we could upgrade to “eh, she’ll be fine.”

this hopsitalization wasn’t as hard as the previous one a few days before christmas. i believe i was pms’ing during the previous one because i couldn’t stop crying in the ambulance which isn’t like me. i usually have a strong front and joke around with the nurses and EMT’s because no matter how sick she is, she has always bounced back. every once in a while, i am gripped with fear that maybe one day she won’t bounce back and that is when i fall apart.

during this stay, she didn’t improve because her labs were negative for any bacterial based illness and her chest x-ray was surprisingly and contrarily clear. this means her lungs are stronger but there was no easy fix for this nasty bug. we got out of the hospital to protect her from catching anything else but she is still miserable. currently, she is laying in her crib watching Nick Jr (I’m sure I’m turning her brain to mush from too many chipper cartoons but it is all she wants to do and I don’t blame her) while hooked up to 9 liters of oxygen in between nebulizer treatments.

i’m feeling somewhat better but with every illness, i feel like a little more of my life force has been drained from me. i’m stuck in the pit of dispair and i think the six fingered man just took off a few more years. i would gladly trade places with her. i would give her my lungs if i could take away all the pain if given the chance. here’s to happier, healthier days.

My husband is a weird, weird, weirdo. Every night when he is falling asleep, he jerks his entire body and shouts “AH” while loudly sucking in air then wakes up again, rinses and repeats. Some nights he does it three or four times before he finally falls asleep and I know it sucks for him but it also means he scares the shit out of me while I’m trying to fall asleep. He says it feels like he is falling off a building and is sometimes dreaming but usually it is within a minute of him dozing off and is not dreaming. It doesn’t seem to happen when he is soundly asleep, only when drifting off. apparently, it is called a hypnic jerk or hypnagogic myoclonic twitch. I’ve had this sensation before as well (particularly if falling asleep in class which I used to do all the time) but my goodness, he does it every. single. night. I wish there was a pill he could take to stop the damn twitches and stop freaking him out because no one should have to feel like they are a monkey falling out of a tree every night.

i could change this blog to  “messes my kids have made.com” and post new pictures of the ridiculous messes they make. this is what my life has been reduced to.

 how was your valentine’s day? good, good. i’m glad. why yes, mine was lovely and i got godiva and flowers. splendid.

this week’s obsessions: ruby red grapefruit, a renewed interest in iron chef america, continuing the exercising (oi), figuring out a new hobby, passive agressive notes, overheard in new york, and yearning for spring.

this is what happens when i leave the triplets alone and go to the bathroom. that was a full bottle of seasoning salt, but not morton’s hot seasoning salt which i couldn’t find, to make these delicious looking chicken legs. it was the less than spectacular andy’s seasoning salt and was doomed from the start like time paradox bender*. the babies  toddlers dumped then stomped it all over the kitchen floor and into the carpet. there’s also a banana peel because apparently, my life is a cartoon. everyone has been intermittently sick, whiny, bitchy, tired, dripping snot or clinging. i hate february.

does anyone want to send me on an all expense paid, tropical holiday?

 *i did not know billy west did the ren and stimpy as well as most of the male futurama voices. i’ve watched 1.6 billions credits for things he’s done but you know, never put 2 and 2 together until the internet told me. we watched the futurama movie two nights in a row – we’ve never watched any movie two nights in a row.

my car battery recently died but was deftly replaced by the husband. today, i drove it for the first time and the clock blinked 12:00.  today, the weather was all kinds of wacky with thunderstorms and raging lightening that knocked out our power at the house for a short period. when the power returned, all of the clocks were blinking 12:00. everywhere i went today, it was noon or midnight and i was very discombobulated.

i did manage to vote today even though i’m feverish and may be dying. i think i have the flu or a nasty cold and was sick enough that i had to call mike whining and sniffling that i couldn’t do it alone today. the chills, coughing, muscle pain and three two year olds hell bent on torturing me was more than i could handle. he came home bearing orange juice and let me sleep all afternoon while he watched the little hellions. they aren’t worse than any two year olds- they are actually pretty well behaved- but they are two year olds that do things like poop on the floor and jump on mommy’s head when she’s trying to die on the couch. ow.

amongst all that adversity, i drove to the polls (where i was cut off by a particularly bitchy soccer mom. no really, she had a “my kid plays soccer at st. mcsaint bumper sticker on her toyota) and voted with gusto. i hope you did too. 

whew- what a weekend. i shopped, babysat, didn’t sleep enough (insomnia- why?) and celebrated with many friends at another close friend’s wedding. we even got to go to the reception sans kids and talk to other adults without having to stop and tell someone to get down or stop attacking their brother. well, we may have told someone to get down but it was more of the git down with your bad self variety. true to our parents of four narcolepsy, we still went home at 11:30 even though we could have stayed out but when you have to get up early with demanding children, sleep is more appealing than shots. sunday morning, i was grateful that i went home and woke up clear headed. thank you twenties for making me realize how to have fun without excruciating hang overs in my thirties. speaking of getting old, mike is still hurting from dancing at the reception. one day, i will make a video of him dancing and post it on this site for it is truly a sight to behold. he is actually a pretty decent dancer but does it with such fervent, manic energy and silliness that you have to see to believe.

i am wading through the 172 pictures i took at the wedding/reception and photoshopping out my chins. you know what would be the best thing about being a wedding photographer? getting to run around the church and stand right in everyone’s way without everyone thinking you are weird. any job that lets me be completely intrusive and spastic without getting yelled and plus getting paid is a job for me. where do i sign up?