Losers from the Street, 2009 Edition

One of our favorite phrases in this household is "Loser from the Street." To read about the phrase's inception, go here. Poor Ben still has nightmares about that day in Roberts. Seriously. The other night, he dreamed about that same scenario that happened when I was pregnant with Dylan, only this time, he left me in Roberts and drove away in anger. Then, like two hours later, he felt bad and went to Roberts to pick me up, and I announced when he got there that we were getting divorced. Poor guy. Me not laughing at his lame-o joke 7 years ago really affected him, I guess. :) When he told me about the dream, and about how real it was, I reassured him that I really wouldn't mind being left at Roberts for two hours. If he huffed off in anger in real life and left me at Roberts, I would get my revenge by buying A LOT of crafting stuff. Hell hath no fury like a woman stranded in a store with her debit card.



So, on New Year's Eve Day, I couldn't believe it when Nat was like, "Let's hang out together tonight!" In '07 and '08, we were the Losers from the Street who stayed in on New Year's Eve, because no one invited us to any parties. (And let's face it; I'm too lazy to clean my house, so I never throw parties.) So I was soooooo excited. But then Sadie started to get sick that day. She barfed once, and she kept saying that her throat hurt. I was scared that what she had was communicable, so I called Nat and canceled on her. She told me that now she felt like a Loser from the Street. Sorry, Nat. I just didn't want to get your kids sick.



If I had known that this was the beginning of a month of UTI trouble, instead of the flu, I wouldn't have believed it. I don't know if the sore throat was real or not. Perhaps Sadie remembers being comforted by Vicks Vapo Rub whenever she is sick with a cold, so she asked for that. She wasn't complaining of urinary pain or anything. That came the next day. Poor girl.

Parenthetically, Sadie doesn't have a temperature today! For the first time in five days. That super-shot worked, apparently. I took her to a real pediatrician yesterday, and he put her on a really strong oral antibiotic (stronger than the one the insta-care gave her Friday, which obviously wasn't working) to last until her appointment with her urologist on the 16th. I hope we've killed that bug for good this time. And then the urologist can figure out why she keeps getting these UTI's. He's probably going to do an ultrasound and then one of those things where they stick a camera up inside and look in your bladder. Boy, is Sadie going to LOVE that. He did that for me, and it was actually really cool. I couldn't believe that I was looking inside my own bladder! And he had numbed me down there. That's all that matters.



So this is what we did on New Year's Eve at our house.



Sadie sat on the couch, miserable, with her unneeded Vicks Vapo Rub on her throat:

And a towel underneath her pillow to catch the barfies. Which oddly matched her washcloth. Weird. Do you guys put washcloths on your kids' throats after you put Vicks on them? To protect the kids' clothes? That's what my mom always did. I think it's genius. That Vicks will leave an oil stain on your clothes.



Micah ate chocolate and got it all over everything:

And Dylan played his stupid computer game:

At least he was quiet. :)



Then Ben attempted to launch his second Brazilian luminaire. This time, he used my necklace wire instead of a hanger for the bottom rim, thinking that would do the trick.



Sadie, looking miserable at the launch:

Dylan was in hog heaven. He loves being a big boy and doing experiments and helping his daddy:

Notice the holes in the knees of his jeans. Every single pair of his jeans has holes. I really need to patch 'em up. Can you help me use your sewing machine, mom??? Pretty please?? It's way too new-agey for me to understand.



It was doing much better this time, but we still couldn't get it to fly:

Ben would kind of launch it into the air, and it would slowly settle back onto the ground and just peacefully sit there:

Ben has decided that we had the wrong kind of tissue paper. He felt that this tissue paper was too thin, that it let out too much of the heat from within. He has vowed to try again. I thought for sure he'd make another attempt on our anniversary, but I think he forgot. What I really should do is buy one online as a Valentine's gift. I'll bet he would love it. Now I just have to find some money somewhere....