And, then I did an awesome face plant

Well, I assume it was awesome. Don't remember a thing.

What? Where's the story? Back up, you say?

OK - On Monday, I took the chilluns out for their "good behavior" treat. They each reached 12 stickers, and therefore earned a treat. So, I took them to a local fast food joint with a play place. Apparently, every other parent in town had the same idea since it was President's Day and school was not in session. Mad house, I tell ya'.

That has nothing to do with the story of the face plant, but I thought that you might need to know, AND it gives me points for being a good parent. You know, with the whole "positive reinforcement" stuff and the willingness to sit inside that chaotic room and touch/breathe eight billion germs... I rock at parenting.

Anyway, about halfway through our visit, while one kiddo was eating his ice cream cookie sandwich, I started to feel really cold and achy. That's never good. And, I rarely get sick. (I rock at parenting unless I'm feeding my kids crappy food from a germ infested place. Sixes...)

Sonofa....

Anyway, after having some more fun running around, climing, and screaming, we finally left so that we could stop for a gallon of milk on the way home. In the ten minutes that it took to get the milk, I really started to feel awful. We got home, I threw the milk in the fridge, and told Bub that I needed to get warmed up in the bath. (Mind you, she's still not 100% since her strep/flu attack last week.) So, she made sure that the boys didn't burn the house down while I bathed. When I got out of the bath, she went to bed.

I felt HORRIBLE.

I did manage to re-heat the boys some AWFUL pizza for dinner (like it matters - they never eat anything anyway) and got myself a half cup of soup. (OK - all good parenting points are out the window with this admission. Yes. Awful pizza. So awful that it was once in a box in the freezer section of our local grocer. I'm a horrible parent.)

I was freezing. You know - those wonderful chills that accompany a 102* fever? So, I broke out the heating pad and sat in the recliner with two blankets while the boys trashed the place. Like I care....

Then, the dog barfed her dinner up on the white carpet and Meatball's slipper. So, I had to clean up the mess. With towels and the hand-held scrubber and a load of laundry and a gagging 5-year old. While shivering. No, that doesn't have anything to do with my face plant either, but it does score me some sympathy points, right? (Since I just lost all of the good parent points, I have to score them somehow!)

UG. Finally, it's time to go to bed. I let the boys fall asleep on the couch because, well, I felt like crap. They could have fallen asleep hanging from their feet on a chandelier for all I cared. After putting them into their beds, I came back to the recliner to the heating pad and the blankets. I slept like crap. (Uh, duh.) Chills, sweats, chills, sweats. Up, down, up, down. I never barfed, so there's that positive note...

At 5am, the alarm went off on my cell phone. I thought about turning it off the night before, but I was sure that I was going to be feeling better by the morning. (Have I mentioned that I expect a lot from myself? Like, I never get sick...) So, I rise from the (finally) warmth of my recliner to turn off the phone alarm.

The next thing I know, I'm laying face down - left side, half way around the house, and Bub is shaking me.
All I knew was that the right side of my face REALLY, REALLY hurt.

I wanted to know where my glasses were. Bub found them in the kitchen by the back door (20' away from my prone body and around a 90* corner, also 20' away from my cell phone and around a lesser corner).

Oh, I SO didn't want to get up. Things hurt, but not as badly as my face. I would hate for my amply padded areas to take the brunt of the fall.....

I have a cut above my eye from the hinge area of my glasses. I have a visible bruise on my cheekbone, and a more visible bruise next to my eye. I look like I've been boxing, but without the six-pack abs. I realize today that I'm lucky to have my teeth and an unbroken nose. My right shoulder is a bit stiff, so it must have taken some of the impact.

My theory: I was SO hot from the heating pad (it works!) and the blankets and the sweatshirt and the slippers that when I went to turn off the alarm, my body cooled off VERY rapidly and that's why I blacked out. Bub keeps telling me that I need to go to the doctor, but I'm not convinced. The explanation that I just gave seems plausible enough. Chalk that one down to "lessons learned."