Be wary--the Grinchy bug is spreading!

Seems like last week, a lot of bloggers I read had the pre-holiday blues. Well, this week, it seems more like a lot of us have the grouchies. Lucinda cracked me up with her "inner-Veruca" discussion, and Aunt Vanessa says Cranky McSnot has taken over her body. Well, 'round MomCat's place, we're suffering from a bad case of the Grinchy bug today.

Perhaps, it is because I haven't had my normal routines this week. And, this was my last week to embrace those routines until January 3rd, when my son goes back to school. I had finally gotten a good system down with the kids.

• Husband wakes me about 6 a.m. to tell me he's leaving, and I mumble a goodbye and fall back asleep.
• Wildcat gets up to his alarm at 6:45 a.m.
• He comes downstairs and crashes in our bed for 15 minutes or so until I finally get up and tell him we need to get breakfast.
• Miss Kitty sleeps in while we get ready, either waking up just before it's time to go to our bus stop (a block away) or sleeps in while I walk Ryan to the bus.
• Miss Kitty and I have breakfast, get ready and go workout at the gym, then run our few errands and come home for lunch.
• Naptime for Kitty is next, and I get some time for myself or clean, then she's up from her nap and we get Wildcat off the bus or ride the bike up to get him at school.

It is a beautiful thing. But, something happened this week to my perfect schedule. Early this week, Miss Kitty decided to throw us for a loop and get up an hour earlier than normal. There was 2-3 days of this, which meant 2-3 days of earlier naps, which then results in Crankella McCrankerson coming out about 5:30 p.m. until bedtime. Lovely. I had some nice insomnia about mid-week for about three days straight, which resulted in MomCat waking up with her claws out for several days. Reearrrrr... hiss, hiss!

Finally about midweek she slept in again, and I'd gotten to bed at a late-but-reasonable time. Then, Wildcat comes down while I'm still trying to sleep the next morning and instead of laying there quietly with me, as he usually does, I get this:

Mom? The clock says 6:47 a.m.
Huh? Oh...mumble, mumble, mumble (as I try to fall back to sleep)
Mom? It says 6:48 now.
hmmm...(please, someone make him stop)
Mom, it is 6:49 a.m. I am hungry.
(a big grumble starts to build deep in the innards of MomCat)
6-5-0 Mom. Did you hear me? It says 6-5-0. No, now 6-5-1.
ARGH! OK, I'm UP!!! (hissssss! hissssss!)

And then, there's the lovely trick the teachers at our school decided to play on the parents. The kids were supposed to have their last day of school today. Then, we get two-and-a-half weeks to try and entertain our rugrats until school resumes again.

I love my kid. Don't get me wrong. But, he's a 6-year-old boy, for goodness sake! Government researchers should seriously find a way to tap into the energy of elementary school aged boys and use it to run our factories or send us into space. I'm telling you, it is THAT powerful fuel people! I could pick out the Moms of young boys as I ran across them at school, even without knowing them. They were the ones frantically chit-chatting and working out playdates for the holidays. "We're going to be calling YOU for SURE for little Johnny to come over. We need entertainment!"

So, imagine my frustration when about Wednesday, a little unassuming note comes home in my son's school folder. "Parents, if you come to the holiday party Friday and want to sign out your kids, attendance will be taken prior so you can take your children home with you."

Um, hello? Our holiday party was at 10 a.m. today. It was over by 10:30 sharp. WHAT THE HELL?

Mom, can I come home early Friday? Everyone else is.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Crap. Crappety, crap, crap, CRAAAAAP!

As it turned out, the teachers were the ones pushing for this. They have a teacher's work day tomorrow and it is suspected that they wanted to get a jump on their work today so they can have a holiday party of their own tomorrow. HOW, oh how could they do this to us?

So, about 2/3 of my son's class went home today. I was going to put my foot down, but when I saw that a boy who bullies him was staying and not many of his other friends, I gave in.

We hit the long-awaited and much-visited new Chick-fil-a by our house. I thought it would be perfect. The playplace is small enough for Miss Kitty. We happily ordered when I started listening to a woman that I thought was just a freaky germ-a-phobe frantically tell her daughters they were moving to the other end of the restaurant because she couldn't afford for them to play in there and get sick on Xmas. Thinking nothing of it, we ate and then I sent my son in to check out the structure to see if he thought his sister could climb it with him. Strange looks from other moms, prompted me to ask a lady, "Is something wrong in there?'

"A child threw up in there about 10 minutes ago. They cleaned it up though."

!@#!@@ great! That would be why I got the looks and why no one else's kids were in there, now wouldn' t it? Now my kid is exposed to the nasty barf virus going around too? I promptly pulled him out and we went to the car where I poured anti-bacterial stuff all over him hoping to kill anything in which he came into contact.

The virus is a 24-hour bug that brings with it barfing, diarrhea, and stomach cramps. But, I hate to tell you, the Grinchy bug I've developed today is WAY worse for those around me. BAH HUMBUG!