So, I thought I would take a break from the Richmond American drama and tell you a little story. The moral of this story: Make sure you are texting the right phone number- especially if you start using multiple exclamation points and all caps.

I woke up this morning to my phone buzzing, alerting me of a text message. I picked up the phone and read:

Hurry! Call 407-843-0924 Charles re: job when you get a chance. Don’t forget!

I thought, “Who the frick is Charles?” So I write:

I am sorry, Charles who? I think you may be texting the wrong phone number.

In less than a minute, I receive a reply:

DUMMY!!! the RECRUITERS name is Charles!

I have to admit, at this point, I thought about pretending to be the appropriate party, and telling her I wasn’t going to call Charles, and I was enjoying my time off. I thought this would be pretty funny. But, I was worried that the party on the other end of the text would have an aneurysm, so I wrote:

Ummm, you are texting Lori Gilson. Are you meaning to text someone else?

Then, to give myself a giggle, I added:

Who is the dummy now? 

I thought I might have gone too far, and was regretting the dummy question, when I received the following:

PAT!!! R U INSANE? IT’S ME, EILEEN. THIS IS NOT COMPLICATED!!!

At that point, I called Eileen. Now THAT was a frickin fun conversation! I love texting.

Every time I sit down to blog, I think about writing it. You know, that one post that NEEDS to be written? It is there inside you, forming, growing, developing a life of its own? I never understood writers who said they had a novel inside of them. Now I know, because I think I have one inside of me. Perhaps there are meds for that? Deep breath. OK, here goes.

Whew. I feel better. I think I just got it out.

Wait, a minute. Nope, it’s still there. Here we go again.

In June this year, we almost lost our baby boy. Sometime before he was eight weeks old, he ingested an airborne botulism spore which irreversibly bound to his intestines and started poisoning him.

Within hours one Saturday, he became paralyzed, blind and went into respiratory arrest. According to his doctors, and Wikipedia, the source of all truth and knowledge, Botulism (Botulinum toxin) is the most poisonous substance on earth. If it wasn’t for divine intervention, he wouldn’t have made it to the hospital alive.

For days it was a dark nightmare. The entire first week (out of 11 weeks we spent at Primary Children’s Hospital) was a blur. We cried. We prayed. We watched the monitors. The doctors ran test, after test, after test. After involving three separate teams of specialists, they finally were able to diagnose and treat our paralyzed little boy.

Eventually he was able to slightly move his right arm.
Then his left.
Then his feet.
And then one day, his eyelids fluttered.
It was glorious.

During the following twenty-two weeks he learned how to breathe, move, smile, drink a bottle and become a baby again.

Now, as I am writing this post, he is rolling around the carpet trying to put anything, and everything, into his mouth.

Through this nightmare, I have changed. I am still my silly, crazy, self; but there is a new sense of appreciation and gratitude that is so intense, I find myself getting choked-up almost every day. (Don’t worry, nobody knows, I blame it on my contacts.)

Life is so short. If I have learned anything, it is that each day is precious. Our time with our loved ones is invaluable. Hug your kids. Kiss your spouse. Be friends with your siblings. Call your parents. Say “I love you.” When we thought we were going to lose our baby, I wished so badly that I had spent more time cuddling him, and less time worrying about lack of sleep or a perfectly-clean house.

Christmas is upon us. While the rest of the world is scurrying around, stressed-out over finding the perfect present, my husband and I are cuddling on the couch, knowing quality time together with our children is more precious than anything we could find in a store.

Merry Christmas. I hope it is everything you want it to be. No, I hope it is more. I hope you take the time to truly enjoy this season by making memories that will last forever.

TGI-Frickin-F!

It is once again, Friday. Yessss (said in my very best Napolean Dynamite voice). It is time for a Frickin Friday post. This post is dedicated to Troy Pattee, possibly the funniest person I have never met.

First of all, what is an eMeet? Well, for those of you in the real world, it is when you meet someone over the internet. You know, kind of like on, “You’ve Got Mail.” Only, the scary thing is, sometimes you end up talking to someone like this. 

Anyway, because I like to blog, participate in Twitter GNO (a girls’ night out, where none of the ladies actually go anywhere. We sit at home on the internet and tweet. Kind of funny, really), AND I work for an internet marketing firm- I have more eMeets than real meets. Today, I had the best frickin eMeet, ever.

The company I work for, SEO.com, is hiring. I know! Pretty crazy with the recession and all, but when you work for a company as cool as SEO.com, it happens. But that is not the part of the story I want to focus on.

One of my eFriends, Jyl, a frickin awesome mommy blogger, recommended her husband for a position at SEO.com. She introduced us via email. I sent a quick email back, “Great. So nice to meet you, blah, blah, blah,” and I wrote a little about the position.

This is what I received in return:

Well it’s awesome to finally eMeet you Lori! Jyl has been talking about you non-stop for the past couple of weeks…well alright, she did stop while we watched a movie last weekend, but other than that it’s been pretty much constant. I’ll plan on starting Monday if that’s okay with you. I usually like to roll in around 9:30 (that way I miss most of the traffic). Do you know if my email will be set up that first day? I can’t tell you how excited I am to have such a short email address! My last one was SO LONG, it was almost embarrassing to give it to people. I had to have extra-wide business cards just to fit the whole address on one line.

My reaction- This guy is the bomb. I receive a lot of resumes and very rarely do I remember the names of the applicants. I am pretty sure I will always remember Troy.

Nice to frickin eMeet you, Troy!

I was busy working from my home office this morning, when my sister, Kara, called. “Lori, are you home?”

“Yes,” I reply.

“Good. I need you to come over to my house right now.”

I have no idea what is going on, but the sense of urgency in her voice is almost tangible, so I grab my baby and yell for my three-year old to find her shoes. (Hmm, this is a little too telling of how things are in my home.) Scratch the above and insert, I tenderly lift my baby from his soft, warm blanket and gingerly carry him towards the door, where my daughter’s shoes are placed neatly. Yeah, that’s better.

About 90 seconds later, she calls again. “I only have one kid and you have two. I will come over to your house.”

I agree and less than 10 minutes later, I hear a knock on the door. My three year-old answers the door and I head towards the front room. “Kara, what is wrong?” I ask.

She hands me a frickin pregnancy test and says, “I need you to take this test right now.”

So I do.

I am not pregnant. (I am not surprised.)

She shows me her test. Our tests look different.

The funny thing is, this isn’t the first time I have been asked to take a frickin pregnancy test. I have been asked a few times now.

In honor of this occasion and also because it is FRICKIN FRIDAY, I am going to link to Dave Barry’s blog, “Natural Childbirth.” It is truly the most hilarious read (Thank you Garry Scoville) I have enjoyed in a long time. For a quick sneak peak, here are a few quotes. To read the entire blog, click here

Natural Childbirth, by Dave Barry

Let’s take a quick look at the history of baby-having. For thousands of years, only women had babies. Primitive women would go off into primitive huts and groan and wail and sweat while other women hovered around. The primitive men stayed outside doing manly things, such as lifting heavy objects and spitting.

When the baby was born, the women would clean it up as best they could and show it to the men who would spit appreciatively and head off to the forest to throw sharp sticks at small animals. If you had suggested to primitive men that they should actually watch women have babies, they would have laughed at you and probably tortured you for three or four days. They were real men.

My real man called me about 30 minutes ago. I told him I took a pregnancy test.

He asked, “Are you pregnant?”

I answered, “What would you say if I were?”

He answered, “I would ask, “Why?”

I am not really sure what to think about this. In any event, I would like to wish congratulations to Kara–  I am so excited for you and am happy to take pregnancy tests whenever you frickin need it.

To everyone else- Happy Frickin Friday!

Want to be featured on frickinmom.com? Have something you want to discuss? Need to rant or rave? Send me a link to your blog, or post a comment and you may be chosen as the Friday post.

Good frickin luck!