it's a-pollen*

he's not as pitiful as he looks.  he's worse

it's that time of year again in our home.  the time when wadded up tissues litter the floor around liam's bed and fill the trashcan of every bathroom ... the time where i swear a gaggle of honking geese must have taken up residence in some unknown corner of the house ... the time when the sweet, round blue eyes i love so much turn into a watery red mess.  the time of year where i think every penny of my meager paycheck is singlehandedly keeping claritin in business.  the time of year where i actually scrutinize the weather forecast hoping that rain is predicted so it can wash some of this dreaded yellow crud away.

yep.  it's pollen season.  and it's struck poor liam with a vengeance, yet again.

we took an unplanned but necessary break from his allergy shots for reasons i won't go into now, but have resumed them and find ourselves at the office twice a week, bound and determined to get back on track.  he willingly offers up his soft little arm for that vial, understanding that it's a necessary evil in combating an even larger evil.  as someone who's phobic of needles, i honestly cannot watch, but the nurses tell me he's one of their bravest patients who barely even flinches.

which is a good thing, since we have a long way to go -- years, in fact, before he's finished with the regimen.  until then, we're trying to look at the perks to being so miserable.  for one, he's learning to adapt.  several times a day at school, he quietly excuses himself to the PTA workroom, which is adjacent to his classroom.  seems that his nose blowing was proving to be slightly distracting, according to his teacher, so he asked if he could just find a quieter place to go.  (i only found this out because he was excited to inform me that he saw Smokey the Bear headless last week for the earth day celebration.  seems smokey was taking a load off -- literally -- in the PTA workroom when liam walked in.)

for another, he's turned quite philosophical.  "i know people sometimes talk about what they're going to do when they get to heaven," he shared with me last week.  "you know, like how they want to see one of their pets or grandparents who died and are waiting up there for them.  but that's not what i'm going to do when i get there."  he paused to blow his nose for the four thousandth time of the evening before continuing.  "i'm going to go straight to God and get Him to tell me exactly what the purpose of all of this mess is," he said, pointing emphatically to his pills, eye drops, allergist schedule, and tissues around him. "i mean, seriously!"

and lastly, it's sparked some creative juices in him that we didn't know he had.  i think all this nose blowing made him start to feel like one of those hamsters, spinning its little legs and getting nowhere.  he'd get done with a tissue, and five seconds later, he'd have to grab another one.  it's quite difficult to get very far in reading if you're constantly pausing to grab another tissue.  so the solution?

why not?

*do you get the title's play-on-words?  it's supposed to read like "appalling" ... but i'm afraid it might only make sense to those of us with southern accents.  i didn't believe i really even had an accent until recently, during a battle with my strong-willed daughter over hairstyles.  one morning before school i suggested that i give her two side pigtails, but susanna was having none of it, and i couldn't understand why.  exasperated, she said, "they just don't sound very fun!  can't you put in happy pigtails instead?"

flab-u-lous

we've returned from what i'm describing as our most amazing family vacation to date.  actually, it's our ONLY family vacation to date, as all others we've taken up to this point really are better described as a "Family Trip".  Family Trips are when you go somewhere with your children and have an amazing time with them, but come back more tired than you were when you left.  disneyworld?  weekends to asheville?  weeks at the beach?  all fun -- but all exhausting.  those are Family Trips.

but six days in the bahamas where the kids were as entertained with us as they were without us?  six days where my only part of meal prep was mulling over the extensive menu three times a day?  (seriously - our waiter actually cut up our children's meat for us.)  six days where we actually slept in as late as 8 a.m.?  six days where chris and i could sip on fruity drinks by the pool with our best friends while our children saw magicians and made t-shirts and sang karaoke and all sorts of other amazing activities without us?

well.  that, my friends, is called a vacation.  and lest you think i'm the only one who was as blown away by the week, i interviewed our daughter on our final morning at breakfast.  here's what susanna had to say:

unbeknownst to her, "FLABulous" is an entirely appropriate way to describe our week, as i think we all gained an average of three pounds after stuffing ourselves silly all day long

many pictures on their way ...