Sooooo

The last 24 hours have been a TOTAL SUCKFEST.

• Suck Number One: Last night right before dinner the eldest Sparkets child started complaining about her ears. "Shoot," we thought, "hope she doesn't have an ear infection." The complaining turned into screaming which turned into vomiting; at which point we thought, "Dang. Hope she doesnt have an alien hatchling in her head". At which point we took her to the ER.




• Suck Number Two: Turned out to be a double ear infection. Actually, that's not really a suck, given the alternatives. But I nearly punched the doctor when she told us that we hadn't really needed to bring her in on a weekend like this, next time maybe we should just give her some ibuprofrin and call our pediatrician on Monday. Excuse me, but did you not just watch this child scream herself into vomit-y hysterics? Do you realize that I rushed out of the house wearing pants that have a fist-sized hole in the crotch (hey, I was doing laundry!) DO NOT TELL ME THAT I AM OVER REACTING.

• Suck Number Three: So we are playing on the swingset this afternoon when I looked down to see a rather small mouse climb out of the mulch and begin to creep towards the sliding board. I am not overly afraid of mice; but I am a dainty woman-type, so normally I would have done something dainty and womanly like shriek and/or collapse on a chaize lounge. But there was something about this mouse that was...odd. So odd that I just stared at it for about 20 seconds incredulously.

That's when I realized. It was grey and fuzzy but it wasn't a mouse.

It was a freaking mouse sized spider.

Hoooooooly craaaaaaap.

I think I must have shot eight feet into the air like a cartoon character. I then swallowed my hysteria and ordered my two year old to "get Mommy a stick". After bringing me every twig in the yard, she finally came up with a decent weapon-sized stick whick I used to flip the monster out of the mulch onto a patch of dirt and impale it. It was a little something like this:

Then I cried like a big, blubbery baby and the kids stood around me, patting me on the back and saying, "It's OK, Mommy."

So, total suckfest, though looking back it could have been a lot worse.