LaLaGirl – Twinfinite Chaos! Parenting Multiples and Dealing with Autism

So. I went to Costco about a month ago – actually a little more than that, because it was right before Christmas – and I bought one of those big bags of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. You know the ones I’m talking about? They’re individually wrapped, which I love. Costco’s Kirkland brand individually wrapped chicken breasts are probably the SOLE reason I drive twice as far to shop at Costco rather than just go to Sam’s Club.

A few weeks later, as I’m making my way through the bag o’ chicken breasts one meal at a time, I realized that there were several chicken breasts in the bag which were NOT wrapped! They were just thrown in there, willy nilly. What the hell? No biggie, I thought. Costco has a reputation for taking anything back, so I figured I’d just return the bag. Well, it was the holidays, and my kids were off track from school and home with me, so I kept putting it off. This week, they returned to school, so it’s just the little girls and me – much easier to make a Costco trip. By now, though, we’ve gone through pretty much the entire bag, except for one I left in its individual package, and the three that were without packaging. Still, I didn’t think it would be a big deal.

We hit Costco today, and I showed the manager guy my weird chicken. He made a face and said, “Well, what do you want us to do about this?” I was like…well, I’d just like to get what I paid for. Right? So, he went and got another bag just like the one I was bringing back, ripped it open, and gave me four chicken breasts out of it. Done. Then, I watched him throw the bag on a shelf behind him. I asked what was going to happen to it and he said after they charged it back, they would throw it out. Whaaaa? If you’re going to throw it out, why not just GIVE it to me? Or, lest Costco think I’m trying to slyly scam them out of some chicken, why not just determine the value of the four chicken breasts, and give me that amount in store credit? What a WASTE to just throw out like five pounds of chicken! The hell? People are starving all over the world and we’re just throwing out perfectly good chicken? This is really annoying to me. I’m already annoyed with the endless, wasteful, unnecessary plastic packaging they seal up everything in, and now I realize they just indiscriminately throw shit out, for no good reason at all. So lame. So here’s what I brought home with me today – the bag of chicken I bought, and the four chicken breasts that aren’t sitting in a dumpster right now:

Speaking of lame! Guess how lame I am? We’ve lived in this neighborhood over a year now – actually thirteen months and two days – and JUST TODAY I discovered a third park. The neighborhood is not that big, guys – if you drove around the perimeter of it, it’s less than three miles! There’s a big park just down the street, and a small pocket park basically on the other side of our house. And today, I realized there’s yet another pocket park just a bit further north – about a block from Kayley’s good friend’s house. In my defense, you can’t see it from the street – but to illustrate my dumbassedness, I spent HOURS scrutinizing every landmark on the map before we moved in here, trying to find every last park, pool, Starbucks, Target, and McDonald’s within MILES of this place. And I completely missed finding a park within walking distance of our house. DUH. It’s not a big giant park or anything, but it will be fun to go there once in awhile – they have monkey bars!

Happy Friday, y’all. I’m going to try to talk my sister into meeting me for a beer later. Twist her arm and all of that.

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I should have known we wouldn’t be lucky enough to dodge the flu – my kids love on each other way too much, and as much as they hate sharing toys, they LOVE sharing germs! I think Kayley’s the one who brought it home, though. She went to homecoming last weekend (pictures on Facebook!) and woke up the next morning looking and feeling like she’d been hit by a truck. Then, she missed THE ENTIRE WEEK OF SCHOOL. Ack! Please, homework fairy, wave your wand and grant her an easy time of making up all that missed work. Here’s Kayley a couple of days ago, when she emerged from her cave of a bedroom for a bowl of tomato soup. Is she not the most pitiful site EVER?

Besides Kayley, Nikki has been the sickest little one in the house. Her temperature hasn’t dipped below 100 since Monday. Right now, it’s just hovering around 100, but it has been up near 104 a few times. She’s been down for the count! Poor bug. The other kids have been a little sick – pretty up and down, really – but not too bad. And I’ve had a rough few days myself. Basically, the only one who dodged the bullet is Paul, since he gets to LEAVE every day!

I think we’re turning a corner, though. It’s beautiful outside, and the kids are feeling almost 100% like themselves again. I think we’re going to drink in some sunshine and fresh air while we rake leaves. I’m certain the exercise will do us all some good. Kayley disagrees with me on this, but I’m going to bully her into it. Girlchild is NOT a fan of the rake.

Get well, everyone! Come on, now! Halloween’s a coming! I’m not making four KISS costumes for nothin’!

Edit: Whoops, forgot to mention the whole reason I sat down to post. Pablo is NOT sick. I repeat, Pablo is NOT sick! My boy who always gets SO sick all the time, who is never far from the nebulizer when illness strikes – he didn’t get sick this time! The pediatrician gave us a prescription for Tamiflu, as a preventive measure – due to his reactive airway disease. I read about the crazy side effects (including, ack, hallucinations!) but ultimately decided that the benefits outweighed the risks. He’s taking the Tamiflu, and we haven’t seen ANY bad side effects so far – not even a tummy ache. He HAS been a little wired, though. Anyway – just wanted to share that, in case you’re wondering about giving Tamiflu to a child with autism, or to a child with reactive airway disease. He’s doing great.

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