Mark: Talk dirty to me.

Sarah: Toiletbowl.

Mark: …

Mark: Your imagination is broken.

Anna and Noah are so great and cute and smart and hilarious that I want to punch them every time I see them, but I don’t. Although I do pinch Noah’s butt, but only with his permission. Usually. And sometimes when Anna asks me to play with her hair, I don’t even pull it.

While sitting on her babies, I composed the following email to Beth:

Things your children have told me, unsolicited:

“When is Asher waking up?”

“Mom loves Diddy Kong, she plays all the time. Even when she’s working.”

“When is my mom coming back?”

“My dad knows everything.”

“Sarah? Sarah. You should buy more Wii controllers.”

“And toys for big kids.”

“We love helping our mom.”

“When is Asher waking up?”

“We used to have 4 pairs of 3D glasses, but now we only have one, and it’s on mom’s bedroom floor.”

“When is my mom coming back?”

“Oh. Then I should have brought Go Fish.” (Because there aren’t enough matches to play with Pokemon Cards. You know how many time I had to tell him I don’t have any matches, and neither does he? He’d say, “Ok. Do you have a Piplup? YOUR TURN!”) Punch.

“When is Asher waking up?”

“When is my mom coming back?”

“Why is this chair broken? Are you going to fix it? WHEN?”

“Are you emailing my mom? Ok. I’ll eat my banana now.”

“My mom must be driving RIGHT NOW. Seriously.”

“She is.”

.: Ralph Lauren sunglasses

.: My mind

.: One hundred dollar bill

.: Single white gold earring

.: My son’s sleep rhythm

.: Car keys

.: Motivation for physical activity

All items are still at large. I have looked everywhere for everything, house-cleaning and laundry-sorting included. I would gladly sacrifice my earring to the shower-drain gods in exchange for the cash and car keys.

Is this the universe’s way of telling me that I have too much on my plate? I’m not a lose-things kind of person. God help me.

So. Apparently I’m the last person in the world to see this, judging by the ten million views in the last week. Better late than never, right? Right. I followed a link following a link, and the next thing I knew I was dropping big stupid happy-tears on my keyboard. There may have been a sob or two. Don’t judge.

I hit play, and Mark said, “What is that?” Then he looked at me and said, “Ooooh. You must be watching that wedding thing.” It was The Ugly Cry that gave me away. Something about choreographed dancing gets me EVERY TIME. Add in a side of wedding bliss, and I’m a goner. Happiness makes me happy, moves me to tears. And dancing is happy. Shut up.

I’d embed the video, but embedding is disabled on YouTube. So you have to go watch it there. Then come back and tell me you had The Ugly Cry too. Or at least a tear…

Asher has Hand, Foot and Mouth disease, which is not the same as Hoof and Mouth disease thankyouverymuch, but sucks the big one nonetheless. A week and a half ago he started a sleep-marathon, waking for maybe 6 hours in a 48 hour stretch. I thought, “Oh, how cute! A growth spurt! Now I can read magazines and eat popsicles catch up on work!” When he woke up, he was kickin’ it with a high fever for a few days, and then a rash on his back. We went to the doctor, where I paid a nice man $30 to wait in his office and exam room for an hour and a half to be told that it was what I thought it was: Roseola. Totally common, not painful, every baby gets it by the time they’re two yadda yadda. The end. Right? Wrong.

Tuesday night was a tiny piece of Hell, one where babies wake every hour to scream and be generally pissy. Wednesday morning when he woke up, his lips were swollen and wonky, and by noon there were blisters on his tongue. Instead of driving an hour to pediatrician A (see: above) I tied Asher on and walked out our back door to see pediatrician B. We didn’t have an appointment, but I figured they’d be way less likely to say they couldn’t squeeze us in if I was standing right in  front of them. It worked. 30 minutes later we had a diagnosis. And a, “Good luck!” since there’s no treatment for a viral infection. So now we wait it out.

Last night turned out to be a slightly larger piece of hell, featuring less sleep and more screams and tears. Mine and his. Today, the blisters are gone, but have been replaced with a refusal to sleep, or eat anything I put in front of his mouth, including my boob. He won’t take a sippy cup, so all day (ALL SLEEPLESS DAY) I’ve been pushing pedialyte and pediasure in a bottle. It’s kind of working, enough so that he’s at least peeing more now. He’ll eat lots of junk (sweet potato puffs, yogurt puffs and cheese puffs), but I can’t get him to take anything out of my hand or off of a spoon. I don’t know what gives. It seems like more of a political statement than anything, because I know his mouth is feeling better. He wants to be held, no, he wants to be put down, no, WHY AM I ON THE FLOOR PICKMEUP! Poor baby just wasn’t happy today. And I kind of wanted to lock him in a closet.

I’m physically and emotionally drained, and it’s only been a couple days like this. I feel like a total amateur, drama queen, bad mother, all-around jerk. Sometimes I just don’t think I have enough patience and empathy for this job. Because man, it’s hard. It’s not like anybody told me it was easy, but still. I don’t know.

He went to sleep at the regular time tonight, and has woken to nurse once, so I think, I hope, that we’re coming out of this. I’m cautiously optimistic. And if things are better in the morning, we might actually make it into Chicago.

And now, simply because it makes me snort every time I see it (or think about it, honestly) and I need some laughs tonight, I give you this:

(Because I’m gangsta’.)

(Which always surprises people. Ask Barbara.)

Sunday I was driving to my in-laws’ for dinner, and could not find anything worth listening to on the radio. I was a channel flipper, which is so NOT ME, because I can always find something worth listening to. (I was pissing myself off with the rapid-fire tuner-skipping,  I don’t know how Mark sat quietly through that.) I love music, all music. It’s not like there weren’t any good jams, there just wasn’t anything right for my mood just then. Does that happen to everyone? 18 pre-sets, and nothing worthy of my time. 

And then, like an answer from the heavens, there it was on 107.5. (WGCI CHICAGO HOLLA!)

Dr. Dre saved the day. Sigh.

Anyway! Choreographed dance scenes! Right.

This has been sitting in my inbox for a week. I’m not ashamed to say it made me so happy that I may have cried a little when I watched it just now.

It’s ok, I won’t tell anyone if you want to cry a little, too. Get it off your shoulders. You’ll feel better, I promise.

Dance until the morning light
Forget about the worries on your mind
You can leave them all behind
Feel the beat of the rhythm of the night

(via Hey Okay)

Asher, on the other hand, he did pretty well. You see, he was kissed on by a certain famous pretty lady. A LOT. What, you don’t believe me?

Told you so. That’s Monica Potter. We love her, man. She’s real people.

Friday, we (and a bunch of amazing bloggers and Chicagonistas) were invited to lunch with Monica in Chicago to learn about Trust Me, her new series  on TNT. I got a sneak peek at the pilot and first episode and LOVED IT.

The show is about two best friends (Eric McCormack from Will & Grace and  Tom Cavanagh from Scrubs and Ed ) who work as creative partners at the Chicago ad agency. Hey! I love the advertising world and I love Chicago! This show is right up my alley! My only gripe would be that the show doesn’t feature the Chicago setting enough. Yet. I know they’ll fix that, because they’re READING MY BLOG, right? RIGHT?

Monica Potter’s character is a neurotic, high maintenance, mildly irritating copywriter. Monica, on the other hand, was so great to meet. You wish she was your friend. Not me, because she is my friend already. I swear. She told me her secrets. We talked about things. And then we posed for a big group photo. See?

That’s me and Monica and a bunch of other people.

Yeah, we had a pretty ok weekend.

.:.:.:.:.

Trust Me premiers Monday night at 9 on TNT.

Anyway, enjoy. This is a classic, y’all.

Oh yeah, there was this too. I’m a junkie.