St. Paddy's Day

Yep, my crazy single life has me at home on the greatest green beer day of the year. Last blog I talked about Natedog staying home on Monday and Tuesday of last week really crippling my work production. This week it was Reese, I got a call Monday before lunch that he had a 105 temp (not a typo) and was vomiting. They could not give him anything so I ran home, picked up meds, prayed to the Tylenol and Motrin gods, and got him going on the drugs. Because the temp was so high I took him to a doc in the box, kind of like going to the dollar store for shampoo when every other store is $2.59 or higher. Your hair might look like you showered at Jerry Seinfeld's apartment when they installed the "low flow" showerheads but is it really worth that saving $1.59? Anyway Doogie Howser checked his ears and tested him for the flu and could not find anything but a high temp, occasional cough, and a tired boy (I could have freaking told them that!!!). So I paid my $55 co-pay for basically nothing after almost 2 hours, and we went home. By the time we got home he was feeling good enough to play and by the end of the night argue with me about going to bed early.

He woke up last night not feeling well, I gave him some more meds, carried him down to our (I still do that, I guess I mean my) bed, and then put him in a sleeping bag. Well he peed all over that sleeping bag, so I then pulled out Nathan's, changed him, and went back to bed. Next thing I know it's 7 AM and his fever is back along with Exorcist style vomiting. Luckily I kept most of it in Nathan's sleeping bag and it was right back to the meds. Yep, I spent most of St. Paddy's day cleaning sleeping bags, socks and sneakers doused in vomit, and listening to either Star Wars Clone Wars or the Wii. I did get my mom down here to cover a couple of meetings and phone calls, but otherwise it was the 4th day in the last 7 working days I was unexpectedly home. I am able to keep up with phone calls and e-mails for the most part, but some things are falling behind. Single parenting sucks at times, to put it plainly.

I'm hoping for the green beer I gave him to help him sleep tonight, we'll see how that goes. I've been talking to a friend a lot about counseling, as some events in her past lead her to needing it. She's going on 5 years and it's really helped. I've decided and am calling now for a one-on-one appointment. I feel like generally I'm doing well, but I just don't think it could hurt at all. I do have some feelings I just can't explain or justify right now and for the moment that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm hoping some anonymous counseling will help me understand why. I will tell whomever I end up with to read the blog so they can have a good understanding of where I've been and what I'm about before the first appointment. I figure that puts us about 10 months ahead of starting from scratch. I'm sure they'll charge me for it but what the hell. My blogs do ramble so you may end up reading about a psychologist killing themself after reading a patient's blog. I know some friends/family have asked if I could give them a refund to get their last 20 minutes back after reading some. It's like when Sylvester Stallone did the movie Oscar, he still owes me 90 minutes and my hourly rate is only going up.

We had a great weekend with Aunt Nancy and the Knoxville Thompson's visiting. They're always fun and here for a week so hopefully I can get the kids feeling better and we can reconnect. I made dinner for all of them on Saturday night and then because Aunt Nancy stayed here I actually got to go out for an evening. I hooked up very late with a friend I had never gone out with before. We had so much fun and I can't wait to do that again. That was one of the best nights I've had in a long, long, long time. Just to go for a run, have a dinner with an adult, or catch up with a friend is difficult in single parent world but I would not trade a second of it. Those boys are the best thing that's ever happened to me and until they start hating me around age 13 I'm loving every moment of it. I never realized how much I missed with Hope at home, and I think every Dad (or Mom if the Dad is the main caretaker) should spend a week or longer doing everything just to be thankful for what they have but also to enjoy the kiddo time. We have some unbelievable conversations and fun, but that's what it's all about.

My Dad always said, "if it feels good do it." I've changed that to "if it feels good and doesn't hurt anyone do it." I'm really having some fun without guilt right now, appreciating the past, working harder then ever but less on work then ever, and exploring my feelings and tendencies. I can't explain them all, have found a new addiction or two I might talk about later (and that has nothing to do with train humping --- although I received some of the greatest e-mails from friends/family on that one), and spent the last hour or so working on a leprechaun trap. Just so you know, leprechauns cannot be caught, but any toys, candy, gold, or other tangible items they have when caught in a trap have to remain behind. We'll see if our trap is successful tonight, and thanks Mom for running to Walgreens and leaving a few green/gold items in the mailbox for later.

One quick story about train humping, I had a friend that is also going through a tough time google train, fetish and humping after my last blog. She came across my blog but also a story about a man in Hong Kong that was doing the same to a steel bench with circles cut out of it. Well when het got excited he also got larger and stuck. They had to cut the bench apart and take him to the hospital with it. To make a long article short they finally freed him through the miracle of modern science (they probably just showed him pictures of Daisy Duke during the last reunion special) but if it took only one more hour they would have had to cut his manhood off.

I've given up on green beer and laundry for the night, now I'm working on purple grape juice. Happy St. Paddy's day, I'm going to celebrate by myself after the kids go to bed with a boobie trap and a leprechaun one too. Ladies, step over that leprechaun trap but watch out for the other when you visit. Don't go humping anything I wouldn't tonight...