No, it's One plus TWO plus One plus One...

Ha! So you thought that you'd stop by and see treacly endearments and cute photos of Noelle and Noah? In the words of the inimitable Dark Helmet: 'Fooled You!' (Okay, they are coming but something else happened today that I wanted to share and does not include my imminent demise and/or incarceration.) (Lucky you!)

I was driving home the kids home from Celebree Tuesday (okay, another aside; Noelle's schedule for this week is ree-DONK-u-LOUS. With a capital 'DONK'. She went 45 minutes on Monday, not at all on Tuesday, all day today (Wednesday), not at all on Thursday and (finally!) all day Friday and from that day forth forever and ever. Amen.) and we were talking about her first full day of kindergarten happening today, how she would meet more of her classmates and this is where things derailed, reminiscent of 'Clue':

Me: "...and tomorrow you'll meet four more classmates along with seeing Joshua and Kali and Chisom again."

Noelle: "Yes! And there will be seven of us!"

Me: "...No honey, that will be..."

Noelle: "But Mommy, there will be three and four and one. That's nine."

Me: "No honey, there will be..."

Noelle: "No, I mean 'seven'."

Me: "But..."

Noelle: "There will be four and three and one!"

Me: "...."

Noelle: "So that's seven new friends!"

Me: "...Wait! I've got it! You mean that there were three friends you met on Monday, yourself and the four new friends you'll meet tomorrow! I got it!"

Noelle (smugly): "Yes Mommy, that's what I said."

Her kindergarten prep teachers told me that she is a non-linear thinker, that she applies a different method to getting to the answer; I even shared that tidbit with her new kindergarten teacher and yet, fell victim to that classic blunder of getting involved in land wars in Asia underestimating my child. It's fascinating to see her approach problems and develop her communication skills but man, this will definitely put my linear-thinking brain to the test.

Good thing I've got a full wine rack.

Wish us luck.

Sheppard Pratt/GBMC, at this point, who cares

I had plans and pictures to write a post on Noah's birthday, Noelle's first day of kindergarten and how my child my gets screwed again because of age/needing to free up spaces for new kids/because the director hates me and I will but that all went out the window with this morning's fun and excitement.

Today is my company's annual health screening/wellness awareness day which is actually a nice perk - we can get our blood drawn to check for various levels of good and bad...things, check height, weight, blood pressure and fill out a physical and emotional health questionnaire to gauge how close we are to completely losing it all. I like to take advantage of the opportunity and bring the results to my annual physicals so my doctor and I can work as a team to manage my health. Unlike past years, I approached this morning with trepidation and not just because of the fasting but because of the blood pressure. Everyone knows that blood pressure has a direct hot-line to stress and to say that life has been stressful recently is akin to saying that Michael Phelps is an okay swimmer. And not just me, Dyl is under a tremendous amount of stress as well which translates into heightened tension at home; with the kids and with each other. We are both less than thrilled with where our career paths have taken us to date but the size of the mountain to scale to make any changes seems insurmountable. I'm trapped in the gilded cage and he's trapped by a limited skill set. (Not that he has limited skills, more that his skills are difficult to adapt to the typical business scenario.) Add to this Noah hitting the Tantrumy Threes with the force of a hurricane (ooh, look! Topical!) and you get the picture.

Because of the Tantrumy Threes, we were delayed leaving home this morning (why they can't pull this nonsense on the days when Dyl takes them so he can feel my pain is beyond me but there you go). My appointment was at 8:30 and I was fantasizing about drinking that first cup of coffee when BAM! We're at a standstill. OMFGYOU'VEGOTTOBEKIDDINGMEWTFBBQ is what ran through my head on a loop as we inched our way forward, me holding onto my patience by the thinnest of threads while the kids did what they usually do: sing, talk, ask questions, look for stop-lights, fight, drive me bat-shit insane, until we reached the intersection where I discover that the entire back-up was due to a traffic light being out. The only one around. Fortunately, people were not being people but took turns and everyone went in rotation. Still. Really? On the one day that I really needed to find my center.

I got the kids dropped off and scooted into work just a couple of minutes late (8:32) and ran for the training room for my appointment. Trying to get my heart-rate until control, I filled out the forms and waited, surprisingly not losing my appointment slot. Things went well until I got to the blood pressure station. I joked to the nurse about the traffic and the tantrums and how she shouldn't be surprised if my numbers were off the charts. She joked back that she always used a different scale when taking traffic and tantrums into account. We talked about what was a normal range for me and added that they were looking of trends. She had one of those fancy automated cuffs similar to the ones used in hospitals so I sat while it applied tourniquet force to my writing arm. It released and rather than telling me the number, she said that she got an error message and would check with the manual one. Applying the cuff to my right arm, she squeezed it old school style. Those results, 117/78, were right in my personal wheelhouse. While she never said exactly what the automated one read, she did remark that if the result had been repeated, her next question would have been if I was dizzy or not because apparently, it was pretty darn high. (I'm also sure that the dark chocolate M&Ms I had last night did not help matters either.)

I'm here, I'm healthy (sorry Dyl if you were looking to collect on insurance money :)) so merrily we roll along until the next crisis hits which should be in 3...2...1....

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Aw, how sweet.

Um.

Perhaps I should think about touching up the roots again.