At about 12:15 on the day before we were flying away to North Dakota Jonas curled up in my lap and fell asleep. If we were talking about a normal child, we would say, “How sweet!” but we aren’t. This is Jonas, the boy who stopped cuddling at six weeks old because he had more important things to attend to. If Jonas gets cuddly, I know one thing is for sure. The kid is sick. He can be completely unsymptomatic, but I know he’s sick. On the flip side, it doesn’t matter if he is heaving his lunch onto the carpet, until he snuggles, I consider him healthy.

About twenty minutes later, with feelings of dread, I packed him into the car. I needed to drive to my in-laws’ house and stay the night because they live in the same town as the airport and my flight was leaving at six a.m. We made it a total of six miles before the moaning started and Jonas vomited spectacularly all over the backseat of the car. I pulled over at a Burger King and asked him if he wanted a drink. He pathetically moaned that he was hungry, so I purchased a kid's meal. I offered the drink; he was so weak he dumped it down his front. After toweling him off, I offered the burger; not interested. I offered the fries; no dice. I offered the toy and got a weak smile. “So you just wanted to stop at Burger King for the toy?”

“Yeah.” What do you say to that? After all, the kid was burning up with fever and had just chucked his lunch all over the car. The thing to figure out was weather or not to go home or keep going. Since my tickets were non-refundable, I headed for my in-laws. It’s only an hour away and he can be sick there just as easily as he can be sick at home.

He slept for the majority of the drive, only stopping to puke once. While he dozed fitfully I went through the five stages of grief at lighting speed.

Denial: You know, he is probably just fine. He’s just a pukey kind of kid, he’ll be over this in no time.

Anger: Why does this always happen to me? What am I, a magnet for bad things? Now he’s barfing, but just wait, tomorrow it will be him, Maggie and me stuck in a two foot airplane lavatory going through those little blue puke bags like they’re candy. That’s if they even let us on the plane when they see how disgustingly sick we are.

Bargaining (better known as begging): Ok, God, if you could please just make this all better, I have no problem being sick with the flu for three weeks when we get home, just not on this trip. Please. Please. Pleasepleaseplease.

Depression: I just know we are all going to get this and spend the entire trip sick and I’ll give it to my sister and she’ll be sick on her wedding day. My life sucks.

Acceptance: At this point I managed to stop freaking out and adjust my attitude to the only attitude that can serve a person well in this situation. This is the attitude of BRING IT ON! Because, really, what else can you do? You fire yourself up, tell yourself that you so totally rock and of course you can manage a vomiting, miserable two year old on an airplane for five hours. You can even do it while you are puking at the same time, because you know what? You are that good. You are Super-Mommy. Bring it on! (Cue theme music from Rocky.)

Luckily for me, I never had to find out if I really had that in me. Jonas puked a few more times at my in-laws’ and was happy by bedtime. Maggie and I never caught the amazing six hour flu. We are truly blessed.

I know, I know, I said I'd try to post and all, but I really have been quite busy on this here vacation/wedding thing I've been on for almost two weeks now. The wedding was lovely, but more on that later. I will be back home and blogging soon, enjoying my computer that runs with such great speed (after two weeks of riding my parents ramless dinosaur, I have forgiven my husband for every cent he has spent adding bits of memory to our computer. Ours is running at least in the neolithic stage. . .)

While you are anxiously awaiting some new posts from yours truly, you really ought to check out Very Mom. She is freaking hilarious and I love her. So go occupy yourselves over there for a bit. Someday soon, when we are back in sunny California and the children have chosen a time zone on which to run their sleep schedules, I shall return and regal you with tales of Fargo, North Dakota and weddings and British brother in-laws and vomit and things that go quack in the night. Until that day- Very Mom.

This really funny thing happened to me when I was expecting Maggie. I was about six months along, sitting in my closet folding some clothing when I sneezed and simultaneously wet my pants. It was only a little bit, but still, I just knelt there in shock thinking, “did I really just do that? Did that just happen?” After changing my pants I figured it was just a random thing, perhaps from the extreme strain on my bladder from kneeling down. That theory lasted about two hours until I did it again. I learned very quickly to cross my legs and hold it with all my might every time I felt a sneeze coming. In my hopeful naivete I assumed that this was just another weird but temporary byproduct of pregnancy.

Maggie is almost six months old, and while I can usually hold it when I sneeze or laugh, (ha-ha-ha-squirt!), I do have to exercise a great deal of caution when my bladder is on the full side. My friends with multiple children tell me this is quite common after you’ve had a few kids. They recommend Kegels, which I do, but it doesn’t seem to be helping very much. I am a little concerned that I would pee every time I sneeze if I had a third child. I imagine that a fourth would cause total incontinence, and I’d be doomed to adult diapers before my kids were potty trained. Not an appealing thought. Usually the goal is to not have more than one in diapers at a time right? I think I’d include myself in that count.

I think there is a reason why you only see beautiful women of a certain age advertising adult diapers. It’s because you are not supposed to have that problem unless you are old. It’s like osteoporosis or arthritis; it happens to young people- but it’s not supposed to, and when it does, they hush it all up. It’s an old lady illness, a sign of age. I’m a month older than Britney Spears. I should have rock hard abs and designer boobs, not adult diapers.

I tried to do a nice thing the other day. We were in line at Burger King and when the manager turned around I couldn’t help but notice that her shirt was tucked into her underwear. I am the kind of person who would like to be told when I am in an embarrassing way. Toilet paper stuck to my shoe? Half a salad in my teeth? Shirt tucked into my undies? I forgot to button my shirt up after feeding the baby? (Don’t laugh, it happens). Please, please let me know about it. Make the quiet humiliation end right then and there. Don’t let me run around for another six hours with my shirt unbuttoned and my chest hanging out for all to see, only to have me get home and wonder just how many people saw my rack today. As long as you are discreet and don’t specifically point and yell, “Oh my heck look at that psycho woman with her boobs hanging out! Check out those stretch marks!” I will be grateful.

Apparently this lady wasn’t. I quietly let her know about it and she let me know, very loudly, that she has a HUGE heinie and her shirts just don’t cover it so she has a wife beater on underneath. But, woman, your work shirt is tucked into the top of you grey Hanes Your Way panties. I tried to explain this, but she brushed me off carrying on about how massive her heinie was for all to hear. On the up side I did notice that she managed to yank her shirt out of her undies and cover her, um, huge heinie with it. I feel badly because I think she was embarrassed, but that was not my intention. She’s the one who started hollering about her big butt.

So what do you do? Tell the person or leave it be? Did I do the wrong thing? Should I have quietly snickered about it as I ate my whopper and onion rings? I’m really not sure.

I am heading to North Dakota tomorrow! We are going to get on a plane very early in the morning and see family just after lunch. I’m so excited! I haven’t been home for over a year, and there are many family members who still need to meet Maggie. I am so excited to show her off!

My little sister is getting married while I am there, so we are looking forward to that occasion. I also get to meet my future brother in-law for the first time, see if he passes inspection, and if he does administer the usual sisterly advice, such as “You break her heart, I break your legs.” Which I would. This “Ian” fellow seems pretty good so far. At any rate, my sister sounds happier than I’ve ever heard her before, so I’m thinking it’s a good thing. I can remember back to when I had that stupid “I’m in love” grin plastered on my face, and the world looked like a Karen Carpenter song with birds appearing and whatnot. It’s such a nice feeling. I’m so glad Jan found someone that she can have that with.

I scheduled my trip for two weeks so I could have a little one on one time with my sister before The Fiancé appears, fresh from England. (Did I mention she’s marrying a guy from the UK and moving there? She is so totally living out my fantasy! Why didn’t I get to do that?) However, after really thinking about it, oh my gosh, WHY oh why did I plan a two week vacation without my husband, and with two children? I hope I can survive the result of the temporary lapse into insanity I was experiencing when I purchased those tickets!

I think I am all packed and ready to go. I know I will have forgotten something, but as far as I can tell, all the really crucial stuff is packed. My bag of tricks is ready to keep the children happy on the plane. I have two blog entries ready to be automatically installed while I am traveling so that you guys won’t experience a two week dry spell. Aren’t I nice? I will have computer access on my trip, just not a lot of time, so I might not update as frequently as usual.

Now I just need to figure out how to haul two pounds of Tillamook cheese on the plane without it getting all warm and nasty. My gramma loves Tillamook cheese, but you can’t get it in North Dakota, so I grabbed a pound for her in the commissary today. Then I got into the check out line and realized that if I showed up in North Dakota with Tillamook cheese for Gramma and none for my mom, well, that could lead to being disinherited, so I ran back and grabbed another pound. It didn’t bug me at all that I had to go back, as they were passing out free samples of the cheese, and the lady was away from her little table, so I tried all the kinds just for fun. Yum yum.

If you happen to be in the San Francisco or Minneapolis airports tomorrow and see a crazy lady dragging two small children onto a plane, that’ll be me. Stop and say hi.

Is it any wonder I have to physically restrain myself from taking a bite of of her cheeks? I am so blessed.

Janine tagged me with this little meme, so here goes.

10 Things I've Never Done
1. Understood why golf is so exciting to some people.
2. Thrown up Chinese food, although I've been told it is a pretty horrible experience.
3. I've never been dumped.
4. Been able to look at a sunflower without feeling homesick for the fields in North Dakota.
5. Baked a loaf of bread successfully. It's always doughy in the middle with a stone crust. This is the one "homemaker" skill that I just can't do. Too bad, since I love fresh baked bread.
6. Thought I was good enough. I've thought I was good, but never good enough.
7. Passed an algebra class. I failed twice, with effort. Sad, but true. Remedial math and honors everything else. I'm weird like that.
8. Bungee jumped. It looks like a good way to give myself whiplash.
9. Screamed at an incompetant clerk in a store, although I've wanted to.
10. Finished watching Arsenic and Old Lace. Every time I rent it I fall asleep or get too busy to watch it before I return it. I've made it half way through at least three times.