Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Our Parents and GrandParents Had it so Easy...Yeah right!

You know, I have been hearing a lot of parents complain about how hard it is to raise kids these days, and that our parents and grandparents didn't have it this hard.  That got me thinking.  Do modern parents have it harder than our predecessors?  I am not convinced that is the case.

Why?

Modern technology, that's why!

We have freakin' microwaves!  What took grandma an hour to cook on the stove top we can now do in minutes, but we conveniently forget that when we are whining about how hard our lives are as parents.  Many of us have never lived a day of our lives with out the convenience of a microwave or largely pre-made or pre-pepped meals and complain about how long it takes to cook dinner for our families whenever it takes longer than 5 minutes!

You know that turkey that you have to thaw for an entire week for thanksgiving?  Well, all meat used to be thawed that way, and macaroni and cheese didn't used to come from a box either, and Lasagna wasn't always in the frozen food aisle.

A lot of people don't realize that dinner used to take hours to make happen, so, comparatively, our 45 minutes or less it takes to make a typical meal is awesome!

We have T.V.'s with hundreds of channels, computers that have more than paint and a word processor in them, and we don't even have to go anywhere to rent a movie!     Keeping our bratty kids occupied is easier than ever!

No wonder Granny and Grampy and our mother and father laugh at us when we complain that we don't have any "me" time.  What do you think the thousand tweets and facebook updates throughout the day you do while the brats are watching whatever it is you have them watching on one of the multitude of channels that is neither ABC nor NBC or even CBS on days when you're lucky and the antenna is just right and the sky doesn't have a cloud in it is?

And, movie night used to mean wrangling all the kiddos up, making sure they looked at least semi-presentable, and driving to the movie rental store and spending an hour negotiating what movie would please everybody.  There was none of this sitting around a computer screen in sweats looking at the thousands of options you have at your finger tips stuff! Hell, the brats can even all watch a different movie on their phones, and all you have to do is check the rating!  What better way is there to have family movie night?  

Our cars have DVD players, game stations, or we have access to portable devices like that when on the road.  Ask your parents what they had when they were little and going on vacation or even the grocery store for that matter.

I bet they considered it lucky to even have a working radio, and to keep them quiet I bet your grandparents either devised some sort of lame sing along in the car song, a version of "I Spy with my little eyes," or, if all else failed, the threat of your Grandpa stopping the car. 

And, they probably had to use that threat over and over again because your parents soon realized that your grandpa really didn't want to stop the car because he would rather make "good time" than stop and yell at the kids for whining about how long it was taking or fighting or whatever it is that kids used to do.

Now, when we go on family vacations we don't even have to hear the annoying movie that the brats are watching unblinkingly because they are wearing headphones and unaware of our very existence.

With this in mind, I don't know, but I think our parents and grandparents may have had it just as hard as we do if not harder, and I am not sure where this claim that "parenting is harder now than ever before" comes from. 

Perhaps it comes from so many people these days thinking that the responsibility of parenthood is tedious and inconvenient.  But, hasn't it always been so?  What is so different now?

It surely can't be that we are all more spoiled and self-centered than ever and realize that it is jackallish to admit having to worry about our children is getting in the way of us worrying about ourselves, so we develop things, like farming our kids out to a crap load of different activities under the guise that "it's what's best for them"  when it is really just "stashing them somewhere, anywhere, but please god not here," to complain about.  

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Darn Kids and Their Need to Drive Me Crazy with Worry!

Well, the Pizzmeister is feeling better from his bout of salmonella, and, after a week or so of him being fairly despondent and un-energetic, I have almost forgotten what a little pisser he is!  

It's crazy!

He is so fearless at times that it almost seems like he is hellbent on hurting himself.  I have to be more watchful of him than his baby brother.

For instance, the other day he decided that he could use a broomstick as a bridge to cross an imaginary river between two kitchen chairs.  Of course, I wasn't paying attention at the time because I was warming a bottle for Two-zy, so I didn't witness the insanity of him trying to cross the "river" and falling off the "bridge" only to splat on the kitchen floor.

Then, after I ask him what happened, he looked at me like I was a complete and utter dolt and said, "I fell off mine broom daddy."

Then he proceeded to try and cross it again, like I wasn't standing right there telling him to cut it out.

Crazy kid!

After that, the next day, he started feeling even better and decided to use our sectional sofa as a race track.  He was running back and forth over the top of it, which doesn't bother me, but the evolution of the flying leap off the end does.

I don't want him cracking his head on something or landing on top of his brother, so I tell him, "Pizzly, please don't jump off the couch anymore buddy.  You're going to hurt yourself or your brother by accident."

He is response, "Well, I can run off the couch daddy."

Me - "No, buddy, that is still too dangerous. No running off the couch or jumping off the couch."

Pizzly - "Well, I can walk off the couch daddy."

Me - "Nope.  Still too dangerous pal.  I don't want you to do that.  No running, Jumping, or walking off the couch please.  You're either going to hurt yourself or your brother by accident."

Well, at this point he decided that forgiveness was better than permission and decided that instead of jumping, running, or walking off the couch, he would lay down and log roll off the couch and land on the floor with a heart stopping thump and giggle relentlessly when I rush back into the room to see what had happened, which he proudly showed me as I stared dumbfounded by the sheer insanity of it all.

I won't even go into his latest stunt of climbing to the top of the changing table and diving from it to the arm of the couch.  That resulted in a stern talking to, which means I started giggling at him as I was yelling at him because he was smiling and giggling at me, and I can't help it.  He's just too much of a rascal not to giggle at.

Anyway, all his shenanigans make me feel as if I am failing miserably as a parent.  You know, you take your attention off of him for a moment and he is doing something he shouldn't.  You keep an eye on him all the time and the baby is putting something in his mouth that shouldn't be there.  It's a no win situation.

Kids are crazy!

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Whining about Sickness, The Pediatrician, and Not Being Able to do Anything For the Pizzmeister

Alright.  I am going to warn you that this post is going to be about gross disgusting things, so if you don't want to read about pooping massive amounts, and how pissy I am at the pediatrician's office, then you probably ought to just skip this post.

Now, you can't say I didn't warn you!

On to the post:

Man oh man, it has been a little bit nerve wracking for the last week or so.  The kids have been sick, Mama Bear's been sick, and I ...not so much, but more importantly, the Pizzmeister has been really sick, which was a major cause for concern.

He started the same way everybody else did.  A cough and runny nose.  You know, typical common cold shiz, but then it morphed, into him having a fever for over a week and crapping his brains out so hard he was in real danger of dehydration and a hospital visit.  

Now, the first night we noticed the high fever we called the doctor, who we assumed wasn't an asshat.  They told us that it would probably go away on it's own and not to do anything, but call back if his fever spiked again.  

Ok. Fine.  Well, his fever spiked, but naturally his doctors office was closed for the afternoon for some reason. Keep in mind it was only 2:30.  So, after talking to Mama Bear, we decided to take him to urgent care as his temp was around 103 and he was crapping his brains out.  

I mean, you would think normal people would assume he needs to be seen at that point, right?  

Wrong!  

We got the "Let it ride itself" out shpeal, but they took chest x-rays to check for pneumonia just to shut us up I think.  The x-rays turned out to be negative, but they decided to treat it like pneumonia anyway for some reason.  

At least they did something because when we asked about the fever and diarhea they said use tylenol and that the diarhea would clear up on it's own. And, to again, "just let it run it's course."

Next day, no better and maybe even a little worse, so we call the pediatricians office, and told them what's going on and they tell us to wait it out even after we tell them he's pooping so much that it hurts him.  As far as I am aware, that isn't a common symptom of pneumonia.  "Oh just let it run it's course" they say, "and don't give him anything over the counter."  Of course, it was a Saturday so they closed at noon, so, later, when the poor guy was just miserable they couldn't see him, and we couldn't even talk to his doctor because their messaging system sounds a lot like this "I'm sorry we're not open right now.  F You! If you have an emergency please call 911." Click. Dial tone. No doctor on call, nothing.

That's bull shiz!  

Well, anyway, that afternoon Mama Bear had had enough, I had had enough, and the poor Pizzmeister had really had enough, so back to Urgent care he went where that ass hat DR reiterated the same thing. "Let it run it's course."

Well, that's not effing good enough!  

There has to be something we can do to make our little guy feel better, and Mama Bear said so. Well, after hemming and hawing Dr. Asshat tells her well you can use some Imodium to alleviate some of the pain and discomfort in his tummy and continue to use tylenol for the fever.

And we are thinking, "You're Fricking telling us this now after the poor little mite has been shitting his brains out for 3 days!"  I mean, if you or I go to the doctor's with a similar problem they give us something on the spot.  Why the hell is it different for kids? It's like they don't even take it seriously. Mama Bear is right.  We don't even treat our dogs that poorly!  

Anyway, they ask for a stool sample, tell us to keep him hydrated, and off we go to get the poor kid some Imodium, which helped, but he still had a slight fever.

Now, after 6 days, we get word that poor Pizzly has salmonella poisoning.  

Yikes, what do we do about it?

Dr Asshat number 1's grand plan?  Nothing.  "We don't want to treat it with antibiotics unless the infection is systemic, but you could admit him to the er if you wanted to."

So, those are our options, do nothing even though we could treat it with antibiotics, or admit the boy into the er.

Not promising, and I am not sure why you would wait until the infection is systemic before treating it.  Wouldn't it make sense to treat it before that point?  

Yes, I realize the arguments for not using antibiotics too often because your body develops a resistance to them, but F that!  And, I know that some strains of salmonella are resistant to antibiotics, but isn't it worth a shot?  Seems a hell of a lot better than shitting yourself into dehydration and an extended visit to the hospital to me.

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Did you Miss Me? Just kidding. I know you Didn't

Well, the past week or so has been tremendously busy, for me anyhow.  Let's see, my little brother got married, I got to be the best man, I met some really cool people, tossed a bachelor party where we only almost all got arrested, I danced myself into oblivion, I tried really hard to behave myself at a rehearsal dinner and wedding reception, which if you know me is quite a feat and borderline impossible, and I managed all this while the brats were sick.  

Poor Mama Bear to deal with them all alone.

But, it's all over with now, and we're back to the swing of things, and, man, am I glad for it!  

There is only so much excitement that a guy can take, and I am not used to spending so much time away from my hooligans, so I am wicked relieved to have them all to myself today whether they are sick or not.

In fact, I kind of like that they aren't feeling all that well because that meant I got to snuggle both of them on the couch all morning with none of the usual fuss and stuff. They just laid on my chest snoring away, occasionally snotting all over me.

*Yuck Face*

But, that is ok.  At least I had some snuggle time.  

Then, when the Pizzmeister woke up finally around 10:30 he looked at me and the first thing he said was "Don't touch me Daddy!"  I guess the fact that he was technically the one touching me since he was draped over my chest slipped by him.  But, that is beside the point, which was that once the Pizzmeister woke up my happy two boy snuggle time was over. 

"Well, I always have Two-zy to snuggle", I thought "He won't push me away for at least another month or so."

Wrong!

He woke up shortly there after, looked at me funny,  let out a scream of rage complete with a Bruce Lee style dragon fist, and then I heard a splat, like somebody dropped a warm sponge on a hard floor.  Not long after that my lap felt oddly warm...and moist.

Yep, you guessed it.

Two-zy was so angry waking up on my lap that he pooed to punish me.  Then he kicked and screamed the whole time I was cleaning him and me up because he somehow magically got poo to shoot out of the diaper and out two leg holes and a neck hole in his pj's.

So gross!

What's worse though is that holding the little squirt while cleaning him up was a lot like "wrassling" a greased up piglet, which, sad as it is to admit, I do, in fact, know what that feels like. 

Why?  

Well, all I'll say is that while growing up my family didn't really have family reunions.  We had Tattoo parties complete with not entirely appropriate games.

Anyway, despite the massive poopsplosion and the fact that neither of the boys seem to happy to see me, I am glad to see them, and I am happy I have them all to myself today.  

It's nice to be back to "normal."