What the Flagnar!?

Ever see the kids movie Monsters vs Aliens? I haven’t been able to watch the WHOLE thing, but there’s a line in there that I’ve adopted. The little cockroach guy says it. It’s “What the flagnar”. Say it. Go ahead. Out loud, REAL loud. It’s even more satisfying than an expletive. And safer for children’s ears.

This has been the statement repeated often the past few weeks. Life has suddenly gotten messy and complicated and just plain weird. I’ve often been muttering “What the flagnar!?”.

So what’s borked in our life these days?

Well, first we noticed that we had a leak under the sink. We were alarmed, but dealt with it thankfully because a good friend’s husband is an amazing handy-man.

Then, both kids got sick. I took Baboo to a walk in clinic last Saturday and learned she had bronchitis. Ever try to fill a prescription on a Saturday night? Good luck.

Then on Friday, after school, when no appointments are available anywhere, we make another trip to the walk in clinic with Mouse who has spent 3 hours screaming and writhing on the floor in pain. I suspect an ear infection, and give Tylenol, lots of hugs and a heating pad for the ear, but have to wait for the Sears guy to come and fix the oven (more on that later). As the kids are waiting in the car in the garage, I’m shoving the Sears guy out the door with a gritted teeth smile (just GO already!) and grateful that for 2 minutes I can’t hear Mouse screaming because she is in the car, in the garage and the doors are closed. I throw some Advil at Mouse and start driving to the clinic. Thankfully, it’s not busy and we’re seen within 20 minutes. When we walked in, Mouse was still crying and hurting, a pain I know well as I had chronic ear infections as a kid, so I’m sympathetic, but well, ready to have it over with. By the time the nurse practioner got to us, a mere 25 minutes post Advil dose, Mouse was smiling and laughing and saying “Oh, my ear doesn’t really hurt any more”. What the flagnar!? Apparently, I learned that Ibuprofen is like Tylenol with codeine for kids and pain. I file this away and feel a bit guilty that I didn’t give it to her sooner, but glad I did eventually give it to her. Good Mom/Bad Mom. Of course, now she’s on antibiotics twice a day for 10 days. Did I mention that she doesn’t take medicine well and throws up almost every time she has to take it? No. Well, now you know. We’re on day 2. 8 more to go. Sigh.

So, the oven. I guess it felt jealous of the microwave and wanted to get some attention too. On Thursday, it was raining and nasty and we decided it would be a good day to make a mess in the kitchen, also known as bake cookies. We mixed ‘em all up, flour everywhere and popped 3 pans into the oven. After 4 minutes I rotated the pans and noticed that they didn’t seem to be very far along. Repeat again in 3 minutes. Wait another 20 mins when they should actually be TOAST, and realize that the oven is no longer hot at all and won’t light. Mutter expletives and get out oven manual, search on Google for 5 minutes and figure out that the ignitor was likely gone. Great.

I scheduled an appointment with Sears on Friday between the hours of 1-5 (way to screw a whole afternoon) to the tune of $100 for them to come and LOOK at it and say “yup, it’s broken” while baking ½ baked cookies 4 at a time in the toaster oven. Fun. Apparently it was the ignitor and the repair man, while nice, seemed to take forever, but maybe it was Mouse wailing in the background that was making me crazy. And the cost to have it all fixed? Cheaper than a new stove, but only just barely.


And last week, the woman that Hubster carpools with gave her notice to end the rides. And really, it was a bit of a blessing and not a surprise as it really wasn’t working any more. She was often very late, making Hubster late etc so we knew it was coming. We were planning to buy a second car later this year and hoped to make the carpool last until spring when Hubster could ride his scooter to work, but apparently the universe had other plans. Like to get us to spend money FASTER. Argh. Flagnar!

We tried to find an alternative, however, there aren’t many carpool or public transpo options where we live, so we’ve been scrambling this week to find a second vehicle. Which has meant some frenzied searching, frazzled nerves and a few loud “discussions”. There have been a few “we think we’ve found one”s, that have not worked out, which is very frustrating and it’s hard feeling like everyone (private sellers, dealerships etc) is lying to you. But we really do think we’ve found one that will work out. A yellow, yup, yellow VW Beetle. Ha! But the deal isn’t done yet, so we’re kind of holding our breath. The only good thing is that this was on my list of “goals” for this year, so I’ll get one off the list sooner than I anticipated.

My calendar looks like someone threw up in marker on it this month. It’s chaos. I’m trying to find time to exercise and get organized/plan but can’t seem to get it in there. We’ve got appointments and classes and field trips and meetings up the whazoo this month. It’s kind of mind boggling to be honest. Next month we start the “find the right school for Mouse next year” madness and I’m so not looking forward to that.

My desk is a mess. The playrooms are a mess. In fact the whole house is a mess and yet, I sit here typing instead of doing something about it in my pajamas.

However, we’ve managed to get through the week and believe it or not January is almost done and so far, February on the calendar is significantly less colorful. It feels as though the pace of this year had been set to “warp speed”.

And all that said, I’m hungry and need more coffee, so I guess I’ll get this day fired up and start there.