Big Sick Baby Syndrome: It's real and it's here.

I married the absent-minded professor. He's one of the smartest guys I know and also one of the most forgetful. For instance, he can recite (probably the actual minutes of) in great detail what happened at the Council of Nicaea but his memory on the kids' birth dates is a little fuzzy sometimes.

I'm not kidding, folks.  I am routinely amazed that he showed up on time and dressed for our wedding.  I love him to pieces but I spend 99.9% of my time and energy looking for his car keys, wallet, bus pass, and his other shoe.

If I wasn't around, we wouldn't have kids.  Not because they wouldn't have been born, but they long ago would have been left at a Walmart somewhere to fend for themselves.  (Which still may be their fate, depending on how the Teenage Years work out for us).

He also suffers from what I like to call BSBS or Big Sick Baby Syndrome. 

What exactly is BSBS? This syndrome affects all married man any time they have ANY medical issue.  We're talking common cold, hang nail, headache.  It's symptoms including excessive whining, inability to do any task, big or small, on his own, and long movie marathons that usually include Star Wars, The Bourne Series, or the Lord of the Rings trilogy (all of these are preempted during any sports season).  There's no cure for BSBS.  It will rear its ugly head throughout the life of said husband.  Sadly, wives are the silent sufferers during the active periods of BSBS.

And, friends, BSBS reared it's ugly head this evening.

Husband enters restroom, leaves door open (to make sure all the sound effects are clearly heard), and proceeds to puke his guts out.

He arrives in kitchen and immediately hugs me.  It's unclear if he washed his hands first. 

"I don't feel good," he says weakly, making sure to use puppy dog eyes. He brings my hand to his forehead. "Do I have a fever?"

I choose to not dwell on the whole hand washing issue and ascertain that, no, he does not have a fever.

Husband is not deterred.  "What do you think is wrong with me?" he asks, being sure to use the right amount of worry to provoke a sympathetic response.  He's already lining up the movies in his head.

"Maybe you should go lay down," I say.  Did I mention this is during dinner?  When I am (unsuccessfully) trying to get three kids to SIT and eat and trying to convince the fourth one that a popsicle is not an appropriate meal substitute. I'm also trying to not remember my last pregnancy where I literally spent nine months throwing up.

"Maybe . . . ." Husband says, faintly.  Like maybe he plans on fainting for real. 
\
I look at him closely and remember he wasn't feeling badly earlier today. "What did you have to eat recently?" I ask, suspiciously.

Husband thinks for a moment, which is hard in his current state of BSBS. "Well, I had some leftovers . . . ."

"Leftovers?" I try to remember what leftovers we had hanging around.

"The ones from when we went out . . . last Sunday."

It's Saturday.  As in SIX days later. (Yes, don't judge, they were still in the fridge).

"Hmmm, six day old Mexican food?"

"Is that bad?"

Why should I bother explaining? "Go lay down!" I say.

So, while I'll be spending my evening getting the kids to bed, cleaning out the refrigerator of too old leftovers, and checking to make sure the Husband is still in the Land of the Living, the Husband will spend his evening reminding me how sick he is, watching movies, laying in bed looking sad and pathetic, and hopefully getting over his self-inflicted food poisoning.

Let us all pray this BSBS passes quickly.

It's a good thing I love this guy.

I'm Going to Have the Best Blog Ever (and other lies I tell myself)

So, I did it.

I started a blog.

Not just any blog.

This is going to be THE BEST BLOG EVER.

I just know it..

Many moons ago, when I was in the BK (Before Kids) Time Period, I had this dream to become a writer.  Not a seriously journalist or anything like that.  Let's not get crazy.  I wanted to write stories and novels.  I imagined I'd be pretty good at this.  I was an English major, I taught middle school English (I know that's probably not a great endorsement), I read books.  I knew how to type.

So, my dreams of writing the next great novel have not exactly come to fruition.

I did give birth to four kids though.  That's a pretty big accomplishment, right?

I keep them alive. Every. Single. Day.  That should earn me a lot of gold stars and maybe a stiff drink.

Recently, I had a birthday and I started thinking.  (Insert jokes about hurting myself with all that thinking).  I'm still not a writer.  And it was a dream.  I am not under the false pretense that a blog makes me a writer.  I realize I'm joining ranks with every other person on the planet that has a computer and free time.  But maybe, I can pretend, at least for a little bit, that I'm working towards some kind of dream that doesn't involve having all of my children potty trained or making it through a meal without anyone spilling milk.  (That last one is kind of a fantasy, as in not of this world and never gonna happen).

Of course, I'm going into this starry-eyed and optimistic.  Don't worry, that won't last long.  I'm a tried and true realist.  I don't care if the glass is half empty or half full.  I just want to know how long the glass has been there and who's gonna clean it.

Let's get some things cleared up right now though, before we go any farther.

1) If puke (or any derivatives of the word including but not limited to: puker, pukefest, puke-athon, puking, puked, The Puke King) make you feel, well, pukey, you probably want to find another blog to follow.  There will be puke.  When it happens, there will be a lot.  I will spare you photos (unless any of the puke blobs look like Elvis or something),

2) As the title of this blog may hint at, I am not perfect.  My family is not perfect.  I'm really okay with that.  Honestly.  If you're expecting a Pinterest Mom, don't look here.  Did I even spell Pinterest correctly?  I'm not sure and I'm too lazy to google it. Thankfully, I do have a perfect God that forgives me.  A lot.

3) Speaking of lazy . . . . I"m mostly not except when it's something I don't want to do.  That's probably not laziness, it's more passive agressive-ness, right?  Anyway, one of my concerns about starting The Best Blog Ever is that I won't have the time to make it awesome.  I might not.  This very well may be the only blog entry I ever write.  And this has taken me three days.  So, let's set expectations low, really low.  Then both of us can be pleasantly surprised when I exceed them.

4) So, we have two sons with autism.  This is NOT an autism blog, per se.  Will autism make an appearance?  Of course!  Autism is like my fifth child.  It's really expensive and it doesn't listen very well.  But we still love it because it's here and it's ours.

5)  There will be a lot of sarcasm. It's my love language.

6) I don't plan on debating politics, religion, sports teams, or that Huey Lewis and the News is awesome (they are.  There's no debate about it). I might talk about this stuff and it also doesn't mean it's not important to me but I'm not much a debater.  It kind of bores me . . . all that thinking and explaining yourself.

7)  This is not a couponing blog.  Deals are great.  There are millions of blogs dedicated to finding you the cheapest ketchup possible.  Go ye, search, and ye shall find (just not here).

8) So what is this blog about?  I don't know!  Time, maybe some wine, and hiding out in the closet, hoping my children don't find me, will tell.

This could be the start of something great or something that was possibly the dumbest idea ever.  And maybe I'll just be writing for a few friends and the one lone person that stumbled on to this blog by googling puke+Elvis (this person is going to be so disapppointed).  I guess I won't know until I try.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Never eat yellow snow.  Oh, sorry, I was getting caught up in my cliches. 

Here goes nothing.