Monday: Wake up. Uh-oh. What’s this? A cold? I HAVE A COLD? WOE IS ME. Oh, wait. I’m not a man. Proceed with day.

Tuesday: Wake up twenty seconds later than usual due to cold. Notice Husbandrinka having breakfast with the kids. Notice that Young Ladrinka is sitting next to a tube of Benadryl Cream.

Turns out that Young Ladrinka is covered with hives.

Take Young Ladrinka to the pediatrician who confirms that Young Ladrinka is covered with hives. Tragically, they are contagious and despite Young Ladrinka’s protestations that he doesn’t want his class mates to “catch the itch” and go through the hell that he’s been going through, he’s Claritined and dispatched to school.

Marinka: still sniffly. See, Monday. Cold.

Wednesday: Wake up. Thank the Good Lord in Heaven that Beautiful Daughter’s High School Applications are not due until December 1st. A whole month to work on them together by the cozy fireplace!

Get email from guidance counselor saying “Where’s the draft application, dumbass, remember they’re due on November 1st not on December 1st, you demented moron” (or words to that effect.)

Start hyperventilating.

Cold: better.

Thursday: Wake up. Coldless. See that Kristine’s son reviewed Wanted:Cat. Automatically place Kristine & Son on Preferred Blogger list and demote everyone whose child has not reviewed Wanted:Cat to a different list. Not necessary worse list. Just different.

Oh yeah, high school applications. Send Beautiful Daughter a text reminder.

Friday: Wake up. What? A Wanted: Cat review and giveaway?! Stasha and her son are now on the Preferred Blogger list and Kristine and her son, well, they’re on a different Preferred Blogger list.

Thank you, ladies for giving birth to such wonderful boys with great taste in literature!

So. How was your week? Did you wake up?

I have a lot of things to share, so I’m combining them all in an EZ to read post.

1. I still don’t have my autopsy results, so please continue to worry. In related news, biopsy spot on my back has to be bacitracined and band aided and since Husbandrinka was out of town, this task fell to my daughter. Which she did admirably. She even used a bacon band-aid, which made me feel super fashionable and Lady Gagaesque.

Bacon band-aid on my freckled biopsied back. Photo by my 12 year old daughter, who said, You know I have homework, right? when I asked her to photograph it.

2. After losing internet access so cruelly and tragically last weekend, I got it back earlier than expected! As you may remember, my weekend started internetlessly last Saturday. By Monday, I blogged my internetless pain and may have tweeted the post with a nondescript comment, like Time Warner Is Trying to Kill Me. No sooner had I tweeted the link that Time Warner Customer Service contacted me via Twitter and told me to give them my account info so that they could “try to help.”

I was super nervous that by “try to help” they meant “maim and dismember” but I’m sure that you’ll agree that it was worth taking the risk if it meant getting WiFi faster. So I did it. I gave them my account info, and my address, but don’t worry, to ensure safety, I told them that we lived there with armed guards and attack dogs. Of course I ran this plan by Husbandrinka and he said “sure, why not?” with the careless demeanor of someone who was going to be in D.C. for most of the week and therefore was immune from the Time Warner massacre.

The good news is that the technician that they sent was apparently too drained to actually go on a rampage, so he settled for just fixing our WiFi and that was that. Thanks, Time Warner!

3. On Friday, I woke up with terrible shoulder pain. I quickly did some internet searches and learned that it was a sign of aging, and possibly death. But I’m sorry to say that Husbandrinka is not the man we thought he was in terms of taking care of me during my ailment. For example, as I was silently sobbing because of the pain in the middle of the night, he got up and put in ear plugs so that he could continue to sleep, uninterrupted. When I confronted him about that, he pointed out that if I’d been sobbing silently, he wouldn’t have to put in ear plugs.

So then I retaliated with the small detail that our vows were “in sickness and in health” but he maintains that there’s a difference between “in sickness and in health” and “in endless whining.”

4. Now I no longer have shoulder pain. It’s a miracle. What kind of pain will I wake up with next?

5. Mama paid me a huge compliment and told me that I look like I’ve lost weight. What she actually said, “you used to look like you were eight months pregnant and I was concerned and now you look like you had abortion or partial birth.” I’m pretty sure that Hallmark is going to recruit her soon.

6. I recently finished a book that I adored more than any other book that I’ve read this year. And that’s saying something, because it’s late September already. And now I’m upset that it’s over. It’s Half Baked: The Story of My Nerves, My Newborn, and How We Both Learned to Breathe by Alexa Stevenson and you must read it. It’s an amazing story and Alexa is the type of writer that I dream of plagiarizing. If you like this blog, you’ll love her book. Her humor is irreverent and important and the story, about her her daughter’s birth, fifteen weeks early, is like nothing that I’ve read before. Half Baked is about many things–infertility, pregnancy, loss, premature babies, but ultimately it’s about the love that parents feel for their children and a little about the terror of being a parent. Read Half Baked: The Story of My Nerves, My Newborn, and How We Both Learned to Breathe You’ll thank me.

7. I’m over at The Mouthy Housewives today. And for once, I’m advising against taking the high road.
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