One of THOSE weeks

Has is already been over a week since my last brief post? It has been crazy in my world! I've been quite focused on getting Christmas shopping done...with a good amount of shopping being done online. It's easier than trying to drag the kids around or trying to find time without the kids to shop. It's amazing how absolutely NOTHING else can get done when you have small children except for managing said children. Those who have never had a minimum of two children aged three and under probably would assume that since I only maintain an average of 8 to 10 appointments each week that I would have all kinds of time to clean my house and go shopping. Unfortunately there is considerable addtional time spent on other necessary aspects of my work such as phone calls, treatment notes, billing insurances, etc, which all has to be done from my home with my kids underfoot. This week in particular has been challenging with a whole lot of the ETC. Something about the holidays always seems to trigger at least a few of my clients into erratic behavior. I currently have two teenagers that have run away, one who landed in the hospital after trying to commit suicide, and one in the hospital for self-mutilating. I have been communicating with caseworkers, parents, and insurances in nearly every spare moment and many moments that aren't spare.

Then there is the mystery of Son's behavior in the form of frequent fuss attacks over the past 6 weeks. He had a couple good weeks in there where he was his old self consistently. Otherwise he has had these random spells that we attributed to teething in the past. Interestingly, no more teeth have found their way out of his little pink gums. Now we are attributing the fussies to needing a big ol' poop. It seems he goes in these cycles of fussies for a few days and then finally has a poop fest all day long and gets cleaned out and is happy again. At this particular time, I have one particularly strong sentiment in response to this past week: "POOP ALREADY!"

Yesterday morning Son sat in his highchair for breakfast and grimaced and pushed with the whole facial expression thing going on and cranked out more toots and noises than I've ever heard in a 15 minute time period. I was worried that his diaper was not going to contain it all and had visions of poop squishing out everywhere...you know how it happens when they crank out a doozy while they are strapped in a sitting position and it squishes up their backside. Yet when I got brave enough to change his diaper, it was like a phantom poop. There was NOTHING in his diaper. I was looking under the changing table and in his clothing to find it, becuase I was sure it had to be there somewhere.

Glory be, that child has some issues with gas! He's been that way since he was a few weeks old. As I've said before, he is ALL BOY! What is especially funny is when he sits in his highchair clapping his hands and tooting. Husband starts clapping back and chanting "Hercules, Hercules!" which he reminded me was from that scene in The Nutty Professor (Eddie Murphy remake) when the whole family is sitting around the dinner table and the grandfather and the kid are trying to out-fart each other and Momma Klump keeps clapping and saying "Hercules, Hercules!" Yeah, that's my boy...farting away and cheering himself on. And my husband...cheering him on, too.

And so I am out of time, and I have somehow managed to fill this entire post with descriptions of farting and pooping. Yeah, that's the kind of week it's been.