The triplets are nearing 4 years old. It amazes me how fast the years have gone by and how quickly it seems they are growing up. They don’t look like babies at all anymore. Over the last year, their limbs have stretched which gives them the appearance of being all angles of knees and elbows (extra pointy elbows and knees that constantly end up in my tender parts). They say funny things, have unique personalities and each has their own fears and interests. Because there are three of them, every experience is intensified so the time seems to go by three times faster. We’re transitioning from babies to children and I’m grateful and wistful at the same time.

Let’s look back, shall we?

2005- An ultrasound shot of all three. These were rare because it was hard to fit them all in the frame. Guess this was a rare moment of cooperation for the 4th of July. I didn’t know it at the time but I was in the final weeks of my pregnancy. It was hot and I wasn’t allowed to walk around so Mike wheeled me from our friends’ house to the riverfront to watch fireworks. I was really afraid he was going to forget, accidentally let go and send me sailing down the hill into the river. He didn’t.

2006. Dressing them in coordinating (and the rare matchy match outfits) was an endless source of amusement at this age. People gave us lots of clothes- I did not buy my babies matching flag onesies but I sure put them on! I love Jack’s expression in this one. Actually, it kind of looks like the one here that was taken last week. The three of them still fight over who gets to sit in this recliner and if they decide to be friendly, they’ll squeeze two on the seat while the third drapes over the back.

2007- In the backyard, this picture demonstrates their manic mobility. It was and remains difficult to get them all in one shot (guess that dates back to the ultrasound). They are now bored by this lame slide because it doesn’t compare to the big ones at the playground.

2008- Wow. The difference between almost 2 and almost 3 years old is profound. Here the trio are at their first 4th of July parade in their choo-choo wagon. We are still using it even though it weighs close to 100 pounds when they are all riding. We need to put a bumper sticker on the back that says “steptwo.com” because we get stopped often and asked where the wagon comes from (Wait! I just checked that link and Step Two stopped making them! Oh no!) Folks also like to make train noises when we pass by or shout out the standard “Boy, you’ve got your hands full!” or the also popular, “I wish I had that when my kids were little!”

My parents bought it for the kids on their 2nd birthday and it has been an indispensable tool in hauling them around. Lately, we let one be the “walker” while two ride and they all fight over the purple car (why the purple? why!?)

What does 2009’s 4th of July triplets look like? Stay tuned. I’m sure I’ll have a story to go with this year’s adventure. We’ve already been lighting fireworks for them.  As Mike lights them, I sit on the porch with Lily burying her head in my shoulder.  As bottle rockets pop, Jack runs inside saying he’s scared of the loud noises and Ethan shrieks and runs in circles in utter delight.  Triplets- they’re never boring.

Because I’m sure enough won’t be written about this…

I learned Michael Jackson died on Facebook. Someone updated about Jesus Juice and cracked a tasteless joke as was the norm with the late King of Pop. I’m not writing to memorialize him, I am more interested in the social media uproar his death caused as well as my own personal MJ memories.

Back and forth online, people were defending him as a legendary, revered figure because of his record sales and talent. The media seems to be grabbing on to this perspective and when I flipped on MTV (since they actually started playing his- gasp- videos!), the VJ (are they still called that?) repeated he was a legendary artist whose bizarre personal life and legal troubles had eclipsed his earlier accomplishments. The fans that mourned the loss of the musician had to excuse themselves from his messy personal life because how can you mourn the loss of what most assume to be a pedophile? Some stood up to say he was never convicted of any crime but c’mon. If he wasn’t a child molester, he still admitted to wildly unacceptable behavior around children. Some argued you couldn’t mourn the loss of someone who had probably committed heinous acts and seemed indignant that anyone would continue to like his music. They argued you couldn’t separate the artist, the sinner from the art. That’s not true. There are countless works of art, literature and music created by people we have pretty much forgotten. They could have been awful people who did unspeakable things but only their work remains, independent of the creator. I can think Michael Jackson was a freak who touched children but I can still watch the making of Thriller every time it’s on TV and loudly sing Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough’s “Mama Say Mama Sa Mama Ma Coo Sa!” refrain whenever I get the urge.

Thriller was one of the first albums I remember owning (Not the first that was Paul McCartney and boy did I love their duet, “Say, Say, Say“) and I adored it. I remember a babysitter dropping the needle on the record player and wanting to play it on repeat after I heard it the first time. I remember my sister Karrie sitting on my Thriller album and breaking it which made me cry. When the video for Thriller came out, it scared the heck out of me but was the coolest video ever. Zombie Dance! Wedding Zombie Dance! Andy punches!

My love for Michael pretty much died after Thriller (though I liked “Smooth Criminal”) and by the time he morphed into a freak, I was already annoyed with his music. Early 80’s Michael was iconic, he was an era and being a little sad at his passing is nostalgia that I first heard Vincent Price’s laugh at the end of Thriller 25 years ago. Watching his videos tonight, I am saddened that someone who seemed so alive and vibrant crashed and burned so fiercely in a relatively short period of time. I can’t relate to who he was in the past 20 years but damn if his music doesn’t make me feel like I’m 8 years old again.

I think my Blackberry is dead. The reason why is the grossest yet (I could write a book on my cell phone misadventures). I have been potty training the triplets forever. They will be four in August and we’ve been trying to get them fully potty trained for, well, four years. Granted, it didn’t work at all for 3 years and has only marginally worked for the last year. Lily and Jack are actually doing really well but Ethan? Well, he tries. We are buying less diapers these days so at least we’re moving in the right direction.

(Proof there are really cards for every occasion)

We have three small plastic potties for the kids (in three different colors!) as well as two seats that fit on the big toilet. The seats have never been that useful as they slide around on the big seat and occasionally pinch the boy’s parts. Needless to say, they don’t like them much. They are big enough that the triplets can now sit on the big toilet with somewhat success. The girl in particular does rather well on the regular toilet. They do use the small plastic potties as often as the regular toilet and usually dump the results into the other toilet and flush. I’ve been giving them M&M’s as a reward (3 for pee, 7 for poop. No, I don’t know why the odd numbers but I think they decided) after they flush and wash their hands. However, yesterday I ran out of M&M’s so the kids have been getting a little lazy without their sweet candy reward.

The three plastic potties are in three different rooms. One is in each bathroom and one is in the living room. Earlier, Lily went on the potty in the living room but apparently neglected to dump the pee in the big toilet. For some reason, she started to head to the bathroom but then put it back down next to the couch and I realized it but got distracted. She probably  stopped because they bathroom door was closed which I see as a big hurdle to potty training. With babies, family members get trained to shut the bathroom door to prevent baby from unraveling toilet paper or flushing toothpaste down the toilet. But the potty training starts and the kids have to get in the bathroom yet are still lacking the manual dexterity to turn the door knob. Plus, they still attack the toilet paper when given a chance. Most of the time, I leave the door closed and open it when they request but that isn’t as reasonable now they are starting to go to the potty on their own (hence the reason for the living room potty).

So the pee is sitting next to the couch where my phone is sitting on the arm rest. Ethan sits down and knocks my Blackberry directly into… a plastic potty full of urine. I wonder if that is covered by my insurance*. Sounds like I have another awful trip to the cell phone store in my future.

I have been putting the kids in underwear at home and diapers the rest of the time because I decided disposable training pants were stupid. I’ve been told they are the reason it takes so long to potty train because the kids don’t feel wet. Plus, with their cartoon graphics, they are a reward like big kid underwear when they are still using them like a diaper and don’t deserve a reward. Today, however, I needed more diapers but had a $5 off coupon for training pants plus a free gift card offer so I sighed and bought more princess and disney themed disposable training pants. The kids are thrilled because they think they are for big kids so I keep telling them big kids to pee on princesses or disney characters (unless they are drunk on spring break). We’ll see if I have any more success with the pants this time.

In conclusion, my phone is pee-damaged and I’m sick of dealing with other people’s by-products but just wrote an entire post about it.  If you have any sure-fire potty training tips you would like to share, I’ll be your best friend.

*Yes, it is covered. When I worked for the cell phone company, many people confessed to dropping them in the toilet. I learned a lot at that job. 1) Don’t wipe with your phone in your hand (yuck) 2) Never sign a contract on behalf of your girlfriend or boyfriend 3) Watch your teenagers’ phone bill or you will pay. 4) Your cell phone records can and will be subpoenaed during your divorce proceedings  5) People are freaks

I’ve always broken summer into halves that aren’t really halves- before July 4th and after July 4th. In the first “half”, the Missouri weather is relatively pleasant with cooler breezes and frequent thunderstorms. The grass is a lush, green carpet and the hosta leaves are perfect. After the fourth of July, the weather turns opressively hot, the grass dries to a withered, crunchy brown and my hosta leaves burn in the midday sun. After July 4th, school’s August beginning is just around the corner and kids frantically try to do everything summer has to offer before they have to return to the classroom. In August, the cicadas drone on in the background of sweaty, humid days and the mosquitos can barely fly because they are so swollen with blood. Late summer makes me want to hide under the air conditioning vent in the basement until nightfall. I love watching teenagers goof around with their windows or convertible tops down on hot summer nights. They don’t have to be anywhere- they drive around flirting and joking as free as they will ever be in this life. Last night, my oldest son and I sat on a picnic table and watched storm clouds and lightening roll in another summer storm while eating sno-cones (tiger’s blood for me and root beer for him). I told him the fireworks’ tents should be up soon and he asked if we could spend $200 on fireworks this year. I shook my head but I know my husband probably will and that’s okay. Today, I drove past the same spot and the red striped tent bloomed overnight. The sign isn’t up and the fireworks won’t be sold for another week but there it is. I smiled- the second half is almost here.

Once a week, Mike helps me sort and put the mountainous piles of clean laundry away. I don’t want to give him TOO much undue credit so I shall point out he mainly puts away the towels and shoves his clean shirts into the top of his half of the closet. But, he does help me put some of the laundry away and keeps me from laundry induced panic. Inevitably, when we are working together to accomplish this task, the kids attack. Both parents are distracted? Working? Score! Yesterday, one of them snuck into the pantry, tore open packets of instant oatmeal and redecorated the carpet with oats. Once, they got into the refrigerator, cracked eggs on the window sill and watched them drip onto the carpet. They can’t do this anymore because we put PADLOCKS ON THE FRIDGE. Now, if I want milk for my coffee, I have to turn the combination lock that mysteriously malfunctions for me and the oldest but never for my husband. I thought I was done with combination locks when I graduated from high school but now I get to relive the frustration of twisty locks to eat. But, now we can put laundry away without screaming at them to get out of the fridge. Whatever works. Plus, I’m drinking my coffee black again and that saves a few calories, right?

Last month, we were putting laundry away together in the little boys’ room when Jack wandered in with a small plastic box that I instantly recognized as the container for my quite expensive and newly replaced NTI device* aka the splint that I use to keep myself from grinding my teeth in my sleep. This tiny device is only about 3 inches x 3 inches and requires my dentist to cast a mold of my teeth and send out for it to be custom created for my poor, worn down teeth.  I get headaches, over-sensitive teeth and spasms in my neck/jaw if I don’t wear it so I caved and bought another one with our tax refund when the previous one disappeared from my night stand.

I had the new device for one week when I saw Jack very carefully holding its box and sipping orange juice (this was pre-fridge locks) out of it. He has a thing for drinking out of containers that aren’t cups. I screamed when I saw he was carrying the box because I knew that meant he had messed with the splint. Mike had no idea why I was screaming until I pointed and whined, “That’s my splint box! He got it out of my medicine cabinet (it was the only non-childproof locked thing in the cabinet)”. Mike uttered, “Oh, I wondered what that was, I saw him take it out of our bedroom.” My head exploded all over the boy’s room. I’m still trying to find bits of my brain but I think they are gone for good.

We searched for hours and never found the splint. We questioned Jack who did not seem to understand what we were talking about. We begged the triplets to tell us where this thing was and they stared at us blankly and brought us shoes, books or whatever else they could find.  Eventually, we gave up.  I’ve been grinding my teeth and clenching my jaw in my sleep which inevitably brings on migraines and makes me generally more anxious.

Yesterday, we were putting laundry away when Mike took a break and needed the car keys. I told him they were on the window sill and admitted that I hadn’t put them back on the hooks he hung specifically for the keys because my hands were full when I came in. The keys were gone. Dammit. We searched the house and quizzed the suddenly mute triplets. How come they won’t stop talking until we actually need information from them? Mike gave up but I continued looking in the little boys’ room. He walked in to tell me I wasn’t going to find the keys in there when I picked up a blanket. He stopped talking and pointed at the keys laying at my feet. Ha. Keys found, he left for the gas station (probably on a taquito run. he eats more gas station food than anyone else on earth.) and I kept organizing the room. In almost the same spot I found they keys, I looked down and noticed… my splint. I think it was in a blanket I was folding but there it was next to my feet.

A few minutes later, he returned from the gas station (the 7-11 cashiers ask to see pictures of the kids. that is how often he is at the gas station) and I ran to meet him and yelled, “Guess what I found?” and he guessed. And there was much rejoicing. Immediately after, he hung a small wooden shelf next to the ceiling for my splint. It now has its own shelf and the kids shouldn’t be able to reach it. I wore it last night and damn if I don’t feel better.

Relatives come to town and tell us the triplets need to “learn the word no” or “learn how to eat in restaurants**” or tell us how we will get these three very smart, active, curious three year olds how to behave and not do things like take my splint or get into the refrigerator. Others scoff at us putting combination locks on the fridge or turning the boys’ bedroom lock around so they can’t get out at night. “They should know better! Spank them!” They will know better, spanking has very little effect on their behavior and we don’t want to scream at them all day. We try to use positive discipline and a program called Parenting with Love and Logic as often as possible but we’re not perfect. We work with them but sometimes we resort to locks, begging, crying (that would be ME begging and crying as opposed to them who did it all the time),time-outs occasional spankings, and not always caring that the house is a mess. I don’t want to follow the kids around watching their every move or care so much about material things that I constantly worry the carpet will get stained. The kids are well adjusted and mostly developmentally approproriate but more importantly, they are happy most of the time. We’re surviving, they’re thriving and one day they will eat in restaurants without wanting to get up and look around. The locks will come off and the regular parenting threats will work to curb their misadventures. Until then, lockdown.

* I first learned about the magic NTI Device from Angela at Fluid Pudding. I asked my dentist about it and he was very enthusiastic about trying it. I have had TMJ/jaw problems since I was a teenager and am a horrible teeth grinder. I even had my right jaw joint surgically repaired when I was in my early 20’s because it was so torn up. TMJ treatment is often excluded from insurance policies (grrr) and I had to fight to have my surgery paid for by my medical insurance. I have to pay for devices that keep me from damaging my teeth and causing more muscle problems. Oh and I am fairly sure my childhood dentist caused some of my jaw problems when he too-forcefully extracted 8 of my baby teeth and 2 more permanent teet. The orthodontist who didn’t fully correct my bite caused other problems as well. I’m sure my parents loved paying thousands of dollars for them to mess up my jaw. But, who knows, maybe my bite/jaw always would have been screwed up and I’m unnecessarily blaming the dental professionals. /tangent

** One of the triplet’s speech therapists told me not to expect a three year old to sit at a table to eat for more than 15 minutes at a time. We’ve changed our home meals around so the little kids aren’t expected to sit for longer than the 15 allotted minutes and it has made dinner time much easier. Restaurant meals take longer and honestly, we don’t like to go out to eat with them at this age. 15 minute meals work well for us.

dammit blog, i needed you earlier this week and you were nowhere to be found. something about nameservers needing to be updated that i updated then the site was still mysteriously gone after propagation of the species or some stupid b.s. and now, now that i don’t have time to update properly, it is back. how’s that for a run on sentence?

i have no time so i will update with bullets (or rather segments because my css layout mysteriously deletes bullets when i publish posts. don’t ever start a blog. it is a pain in the ass and the word blog is as bad as the word swatch. if you really want to start a blog, do it like the brilliant mimi smartypants who has an awesome penguin layout still on diaryland and doesn’t mess around.)

my mother’s day was splendid. my son’s third grade teacher openly mocked copywrite laws by making the students’ moms mix-cd’s of their favorite happy songs. one day last week, my son came home from school and not-so-subtly asked me, “Mom, what song do you listen to that makes you smile? No reason. Oh, and can I have a blank CD?” i am an enormous music lover which, isn’t everyone? i mean, have you met anyone that hates music? regardless, i love music of varying styles and it is hard for me to pick one song representative of my happiness but “Blackbird” by The Beatles popped into my head. mike can sort of play it on the guitar in an amalgamation of the other 10 songs he can play OVER AND OVER AGAIN (i love it. really. even though every time he starts playing his same sorta mixture of songs i leave the room.) and i can still listen to The Beatles everyday and not get completely sick of them. the only bad thing about “Blackbird” is that it reminds me of the epidosde of ER where Susan’s degenerate sister gives birth as the song plays. then again, i like ER so maybe it isn’t such a bad thing. susan’s sister was annoying though.  anyway, “Blackbird” was my selection in a schizophrenic mix CD that included Deee-Lite’s “Groove is in the Heart” and Journey’s “Open Arms” along side The Grateful Dead’s “Sugar Magnolia” and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” (The little boys LOVE Single Ladies. It is hilarious).

mother’s day morning, we had an hour long dance party to the magical mix CD.

i couldn’t have asked for a better gift (except maybe a free beach vacation) but i got a few more presents. mike bought me a beautiful blue hydrangea* for our new backyard garden that i’ve wanted for years and a starbucks gift card because i’m hopelessly addicted to espresso. we visited my mom and grandma, ate ribs prepared in a multi-step process of smoking, grilling, saucing, and random other preparation methods by my dad. it was a perfect day.

my time is up and lily just told me ethan is on the front porch without pants so i will write more about my crazy week when i get a second.

*did you know some hydrangeas will turn pink or blue based on the acidity of the soil they are planted in? now you do. the more you know (rainbow).

It has been a big week in our house. For the first time since January, 2006, Lily isn’t sleeping in the living room. After hours of work, ventures to the hardware store and kid distracting missions, we’ve moved the oldest into a new room in the basement and our daughter into a very pink, princess laden room. It turns out when you let three year olds pick out their room decor, it looks like Disney exploded.

When Lily came home from the NICU at six months old, she moved in with a ventilator, oxygen concentrator, feeding pump, nebulizer and a slew of other medical equipment. In addition to her equipment, we had 18 hours of home health care nurses in shifts to manage her many beeping machines. Jack and Ethan were still tiny and needed their own room away from the beeping machines so we moved Lil’s crib out of the intended triplet room and into the living room. I was disappointed that my baby girl, my only daughter, didn’t have the perfect girl’s room but so many things about her early days were atypical and scary that, like with everything else, I dealt with it.

For three years, she has slept in the living room. She never figured out how to climb out of her crib (her brothers figured it out at 9 and 12 months) so it stayed out there behind the couch sandwiched between medical equipment. However, a few months ago she got sick again and when she returned from the hospital, we started caring for her while she slept on the couch. She never went back into the crib. Developmentally, she was ready to be out of her crib and it was easier to administer her tube feedings and breathing treatments while she slept on the couch so there she stayed.

It wasn’t easy on Mike and I to have our baby girl living on the couch and not in the room she deserved. It was embarrassing to us not to have our kids in their rooms and it made our living arrangements more difficult. We planned with the oldest and Lily how we would move them around and the best way to accommodate everyone. Our oldest was excited to have his own room downstairs but nervous to move from across the hall. Mike pulled him into the project and they excitedly built the room together. It took months to find the time to finish the room after Mike got home from work and on the few weekend hours that weren’t taken up with family time. Last weekend, we moved him into his new room and moved on to his sister’s area.

My husband worked like a man possessed and finished our girl’s room in one weekend. It is pink and the “bed in a bag” that her daddy let her pick out is stamped with Disney Princesses. It isn’t exactly what I envisioned but it is perfect. Lily is enormously excited about having her own space and we let her pick out her own shade of pink paint for the walls in addition to the aformentioned princess accessories. She tells everyone about her princess room and seems to sleep more comfortably in her own bed (and looks tiny on the big pillow). Say what you will about the Disney Princess Industrial Complex but it made one little girl happy.

It has taken us a long time to get to this point and it feels good to have everyone in their place.

i was at a mcdonald’s play place this evening and thoughts of swine flu started creeping in my brain. every time i turn on the tv or check the news online, someone is talking about the possibly pandemic virus. at first, i shrugged all of the “end of the world” hysteria but then thoughts of my daughter and her tendency to catch every illness. she’s been hospitalized for “regular” flu and has caught it despite flu vaccines. egads. mike and i have batted around the idea of taking her out of preschool- which is germ heaven- and keeping the kids out of public places (like mcdonald’s playplace). i don’t know if it is time for this level of panic yet but it isn’t that different than most of the triplets’ lives where we’ve had to avoid germs and the public due to an immune system compromised kid. hopefully, this latest flu strain won’t become the public health crisis some have predicted because if we are trapped in this house and have to fall back on survivalism?  i better learn to sew, start collecting seeds and maybe invest in a goat.

Amended to add: I ran into a real life friend who told me, “I quit reading your blog because all you ever talk about is sick kids.” I apologize for not journaling my secret super-hero adventures and espionage escapades. Those are in the super secret spy blog. Also, I am not really freaking out about the swine flu, just thinking about it in the way that a parent with a child with chronic health issues should. And ya’ll do know this virus has nothing to do with eating pork, right? Mmmm bacon.

Yesterday, i was able to escape the house o’ sickness for a little while so i headed to the first logical destination– Starbucks. I know how stereotypical that sounds but it had been days since my last espresso fix and I have had a rough week. As I sat in the drive through (how did I live without a coffee drive-thru? the only thing better would be my own chai-walla. or rather, espresso-walla), I started getting annoyed at the lady in front of me who was talking to the barista through the window and not moving. Her late model Mercedes was blocking my path to caffeine and I sighed, rolled my eyes to myself and thought about flipping her off under my dashboard (I never rarely flip anyone off where they can actually see, I just flip them off to myself. I’m thoughtfully agressive with my gestures). When she finally pulled away and I inched forward, the barista greeted me with a large grin and told me the lady in front of me just bought my drink. Awwwww man. I’m an asshole. She was gone before I knew what she had done but I thanked her through the barista and drove away with a big smile.

Today, I listed a bunch of unused items from our backyard on freecycle.org and gleefully gave stuff away. If you’ve never experienced freecycle, look into it. People give and take every item you can imagine- all for free- with the idea of helping others and keeping stuff out of landfills.  Helping other people and getting help (or a free latte) is rewarding and an excellent way to spread a few smiles. Try it!

do you know what happens the day your sister takes the carpet cleaner back from your house? rotavirus. do you know what causes the most vile, evil, sulfuric, “sent from satan himself” body fluids to spew forth from small children?  rotavirus. do you know what causes ethan, who loves candy more than damn near anything, to spend easter on the couch with nary a skittle in his belly? rotavirus. blogher ads and my dad want to know why i haven’t update and to this i reply, rotavirus.

the triplets weigh roughly 30 lbs so their collective 90 lbs (math!) shouldn’t have been able to put out 90lbs of vomit and diarrhea (am i alone in not being able to spell diarrhea without looking it up? or in hearing the diarrhea song in my head when looking it up? when you’re slidin’ into first…) but they did. apparently, there is a rotavirus vaccine offered now but not when the triplets were the right age so they were never vaccinated against it. i don’t want to jump into the choppy vaccine debate waters but i would like to tell all parents wondering if they should vaccinate against rotavirus to DO IT.

this is the second time they have had it and the internet tells me they can get it five times before their bodies are resistant to it. it is the leading single cause of dehydration due to diarrhea in the world! my pediatrician tells me that in third world countries where IV’s aren’t available, nurses stand next to the kids’ bedsides and spoon sugar/salt/water solution into the kids’ mouths every minute to keep them from drying up. this is useful information to have on hand when you don’t readily have an IV available to jab into your three year old and are trying desperately to avoid the emergency room. in this country, we have pedialyte so you don’t have to mix your own 1 tablespoon of salt to 8 tablespoons of sugar in a jug of water but if there is some zombie apocolypse with diarrhea, i’ll have my recipe on hand. please note, mike and i watch entirely too many zombie movies and i find myself often questioning what i would need in certain zombie situations. earlier, i was cleaning out the medicine cabinet and decided to keep a roll of mostly empty gauze just in case. because, you know, a few inches of gauze would really make a difference in a zombie bite.

many times this week, i felt like i was mothering three infants all over again because i was constantly holding one of the triplets. once, i walked away to go to the bathroom and when i opened the door, i found jack laying on the floor just outside the bathroom whimpering, “moooooommmmma” so i scooped him up, walked back to the couch and let him snuggle back on my chest. i haven’t signed on to my laptop in days because i haven’t had a free hand but i’ve been reading my email, blogs and news on my blackberry. thank goodness i have my blackberry because i can only watch cars and finding nemo so many times (ok, the limit is probably near a billion but still- i have limits!) but i’m beginning  to think i need a blackberry intervention. i’ve started leaving it at home when i run to the store so i can’t use it. inevitably, i find something i would have taken a picture of and uploaded to flickr had i brought my blackberry with me and then i miss it. when i’m away, i look forward to new text alerts and facebook (EVIL*) notifications. i peruse fark message boards in bed before i go to sleep. now, don’t get me wrong, i’ve been a certified internet addict for years but this excessive mobility is beginning to get to me. i think someone needs to whisk me away to a fancy rehab in southern california where former PDA addicts tell me in soothing voices why my blackberry use is out of control.  i have a feeling in this age of iPhones and blackberries, the line for such a rehab would be out the door.

in conclusion, rotavirus sucks, i’m addicted to portable internet and think about zombies too much. hope you had a good week!

*facebook. i have noticed that whenever my real life friends or family members meet up, we end up talking about facebook. it is infecting our way of lives people! it is irresistable to cyber-snoop former classmates, ex-crushes, frienemies and even those we like. i find myself cringing when someone takes my picture because i know it will end up on facebook (and yes, i’m guilty of the same things sometimes but i really don’t upload that many pictures to stalkerbook). i refuse to take any damn tests to tell me which disney princess i’m most like, i will not list my top five favorite albums of all times (because it is too damned hard to decide) and i don’t want your damn flair! facebook- i hate you! wait, don’t leave!

p.s. want to see my husband run and slide into a huge puddle? click here.