the day that went off the rails

Joey was scheduled for an appointment at the allergist at 8:45 this morning. He's allergic to eggs and milk, and the only meat he eats is Tyson dino nuggets, and are they really even meat at all? Basically we are raising a tiny vegan. 

Anyway the plan for this appointment was to feed him pudding and see if he reacted, or if he is growing out of his milk allergy. I made the pudding last night, and actually made a second batch for myself because I'm eight months pregnant and it looked delicious. I took the morning off work, and decided that if he passed the test we'd head to Trader Joe's on the way home and buy all kinds of dairy products to celebrate. 

Unfortunately, we never made it to the allergist, because the poor guy woke up with the stomach virus. Matt and I told him he could lay on the couch and watch TV all day, which delighted him. We got him settled on the couch and I turned on his favorite show, Stinky and Dirty. It's a cute show about a trash truck (Stinky) and a digger (Dirty) but here's a word to the wise, if you're going to say "Stinky and Dirty" to your Comcast voice remote, make sure to really enunciate "stinky." Because if the remote hears "Kinky and Dirty" you will get more than you bargained for on the results screen.

Anyway we were about three minutes into the episode when an error message showed up on the screen. Turns out there was a nationwide Comcast internet and tv outage. Now, Matt works for Comcast and I know better than to bite the hand that feeds you and pays the mortgage, but that was not the best timing. 

Joey and I went for a walk to get some fresh air and Matt took advantage of the internet outage and the inability to do his actual work, and he went to go to a plumbing store to try to find a part to fix our dishwasher, which broke last night because of course it did. Luckily by the time we got home from our walk the internet was back on. However, the tv was tuned to the Hallmark channel, which was showing a black and white movie. I told Joey "Look! The tv is fixed!" and he took one look at that black and white movie and said, "No Mommy, TB still broken."

The next few hours are kind of a blur but I'm pretty sure they involved doling out small morsels of club crackers and doing laundry. Joey took a good nap and when he woke up I naively thought we might have been lucky enough to get away with a mild case of the stomach bug. And then between the hours of 3:00 and 6:00 pm I found myself making deals with the Lord. 

Joey's had the standard childhood sicknesses - RSV, croup, lots of colds, a case of hand, foot, and mouth disease unlike anything you've ever seen, and even a surgery.  However, I have met my match with the stomach bug. Yikes. 

He was pretty sad that he couldn't eat any dinner, and I tried to sneak mine discreetly so that he wouldn't feel bad that I was eating and he wasn't. But he totally called me out, and said "You have chicken in your mouth." I admitted that I did, and prepared for him to ask for something to eat too, but all he said was "Don't talk with ya dinna in ya mouth."

I know every parent thinks their kid is the smartest, and I'm not saying he is a genius or anything, but I do wonder at least once a day where he learns this stuff. I've never told him not to talk with his mouth full, and clearly I do not lead by example when it comes to that particular area of etiquette. 

Sometimes I have to blink several times and make sure it's really a tiny two year old in dinosaur pants standing in front of me, and not a middle aged boss man. That little boss was exhausted by bedtime, and after one round of I've Been Working on the Railroad, he practically ushered me out of his room. 

Between the ongoing bathroom renovation project (have I mentioned we are renovating our bathrooms?), the broken dishwasher, and the stomach bug, our house is a complete wreck from top to bottom.

Instead of cleaning it up, I pulled a Scarlett O'Hara and decided "I'll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day."

And also like Scarlett, I decided "As God is my witness, I swear I'll never go hungry again" and made myself a bowl of chocolate pudding, since we have 47 servings in the fridge. 

Maybe I can convince Joey to watch Gone With the Wind tomorrow. The broken black and white version, of course.