We visited my sister down in Auburn yesterday. Lydia’s cousin, Elizabeth, has these excellent crayons that are mostly encased in plastic. Lydia was unamused with the unbreakable nature of the crayons and spent five minutes unsuccessfully trying to take them apart.

All of this is very loud.

I am just thankful it is a Saturday.

Nothing like a little delirium to start off your month.

I had mentioned that the hospital tried to kill me while I was there with Sam. It did almost seem like deliberate negligence, especially after my first experience with them when Lydia was born. While in the hospital with Lydia, I was very impressed with, of all things, their hospital food. It was tasty, filling, and above all, they took extra care to avoid my many food allergy pitfalls. With every meal there was a printed ticket that listed every food item I had received, the caloric content (not that I wanted to know those pancakes were 800 calories), my name, room number, and a list of my food allergies I had verbally told them when I was admitted. The entire time I was there I saw nary a nut.

When Sam arrived and I got set up in my room, I was looking forward to all the feasts they would bring again. Oh boy! I now pronounce us Ready To Eat!

The next morning I’m met with a resigned food lady by the name of Rhonda, who has come bearing me breakfast. Rhonda has brought a big plate of EGGS, toast sitting in the egg juice, sliced up CANTALOUPE, a banana, and a NUT BRAN MUFFIN. No spiffy ticket to be seen. No smile, no good morning. Here is your Plate of Death; enjoy.

Being nice and optimistic, I attributed the mistake to a delay in the transfer of information and hoped for better tidings in the future. At lunch, Rhonda showed up again with a mediocre plate of some version of Mystery Meat and a nutty dessert. No spiffy ticket. She gives me the option of choosing tomorrow’s breakfast — EGGS! or cereal, muffin and banana — I go with the non-lethal choice and mention the reasons for doing so. Dinner brought more Mystery Meat sans ticket.

A non-ticketed breakfast came with a slight detail that ol’ Rhonda failed to mention — the muffin was covered with nuts. Come on, lady. When my regular nurse came in I reluctantly mentioned to her that I needed something else to eat as a quarter cup of cereal and an unripe banana just wasn’t going to cut it, and did I mention that I CAN’T EAT NUTS?? This was the morning after The Laughing Incident and I was already feeling a bit beaten up.

Rhonda saunters back in and asks with a sweet voice that reminds me a bit of Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter, “You don’t like my breakfast?”

“I have a nut allergy,” I deadpan. I’m in the process of being put on a gurney to go be wheeled to some test. She asks what I would like and I go for pancakes with bacon, which I finally get to dive into around 10:30 that morning.

Later that day I’m in the room with my sister and Ken when Professor Umbridge Rhonda saunters in with lunch. It some meaty pile of I-don’t-know-what with a dessert topped with nuts. NUTS! We all have a giggle while I poke at the few good tidbits, joking that when Rhonda comes back to get the plate she will ask why I didn’t eat her dessert.

“Do you want me to leave the dessert for you?” Rhonda asks sweetly as she picks up my food tray an hour later. You’re kidding me, right? Mental or sadistic, this one.

I knew better than to look at Ken or Cathy; it was all we could do to keep from busting into laughter. I had to swallow many potential sarcastic replies and just say, “No, thank you.” Laughter had about killed me the day before and I wasn’t eager to test it out again so soon.

The weekend came and Rhonda does not torture people on the weekends. There was a different food lady who, though nicer, still had not seemed to have gotten the memo. There were more eggs and nuts tossed at me. I had long since given up on educating them and was relying on family and friends to toss food at me.

On Sunday morning I actually met the Weekend Food Lady. Our paths had not crossed before since I had either been in the shower or the NICU whenever she showed up with the egg and nut assortment. She asked how I enjoyed the food. “Well, truthfully,” I replied, “I haven’t been able to eat much of it, since I have some food allergies. I’ve tried to list them out but the information seems to get lost.”

“You know, I saw that on this ticket,” she replied, gesturing to some piece of paper she had, but shrugged, as if to say she just didn’t know what to do with that kind of information.

Oh ho ho really.

Well, I guess if I ate some nuts and went into anaphylactic shock, I’m in the right place! Nothing like a hospital to cure what ails you.

Not only have I been getting Sam used to the camera, we also had Breanna Fogg — who took such awesome shots of Lydia last year — to come by and get portraits of both children. They’re wonderful, of course.

Soon I shall tell you a side tale of the food people at Brookwood and how they delighted in trying to kill me.

The cave now harbors a mama cat and six (at least) itty bitty baby kitties. Ohhh, how cute they are! Both Hermione and Renton have been watching them — thankfully without having a fit. They roll around and tackle each other, bat at our many weeds, check our our irrigation system, and prance around on our porch.

I am trying to not feel responsible for these cats, but oh, what shall I do with them? The life of a stray is so hard.

Well, I’m over that, so if you still DON’T want to know, then read no further. Seriously.

Early this morning Renton birthed one of his small children after much strain and consternation. We rejoiced since each small child means no vet trip. Unfortunately all the strain got to him and he barfed in the basement. Hey, at least it was in the basement this time!

So before I got Lydia up for school I ambitiously went downstairs to take care of the barf, lest Lydia be amused by it. Being pregnant did not help that endeavor and I quickly tossed the messy paper towels into a little trash can near the litter box and hightailed it back upstairs. Eww eww eww.

This afternoon I arrived home with a very thirsty Lydia, who had been chanting, “Juice. Juice. Juice,” all the way home. As we rounded the corner to head up the basement steps, I see that the little trash can is knocked over. “Odd,” I think, “maybe Steven accidentally knocked it over.”

But the messy paper towels are missing, save a small little piece . . . and I used a LOT of paper towels this morning to clean up all that barf.

Do you see where this is going?? Oh yes.

Apparently Renton was feeling quite peckish after clearing his system earlier, and really I’m quite thankful he was all cleared out and ready to go, because that fool cat ate FIVE PAPER TOWELS. I hope he enjoyed them.

I know that they have already gone all the way through his system because as Lydia and I began to go up the stairs, we were met with the sight of his, err, leavings there on the landing. Pure paper towels, all balled up into the form of little small children, just how his body likes to make them.

Not only did those paper towels go all the way through him, they did it in less than 12 hours.

This is the point where Lydia and I both started screaming, “Ewwwww!”

This evening, Renton has been in the best mood I have seen him in years. He has been thoroughly cleansed this Holy Week. I just wish the sight could be cleansed from my memory.

Lydia amused herself by swirling around a water droplet on the table with the spout of her sippy cup while Steven and I talked about the day.

“Lydia’s the oldest one in her room now,” I told Steven, “They tell me that she is running the class and is telling all the other kids what to do.” He laughed.

I looked over at Lydia. “Lydia, are you the boss in your class?”

She didn’t look up from her water droplet, but replied, “Uh huh.”

“Are you going to be the boss of Samuel when he gets here?”

“Uh huh,” she said, still smearing the water.

“Are you the boss of Mommy and Daddy?”

“Uh huh,” she chirped, still messing with her water.

“Do we let you do too much?”

She finally looked up for a moment and replied, “Nnnnnooooooooooo.”

Later she ate a bunch of steamed broccoli without any seasoning whatsoever on it. This one never ceases to amaze.