Mom and Dad Cuss (a Little) Adam and ReAnna Higgins

     Backstory time! Since the last episode, Adam has gone through a wave of illness and injury that has lasted for over a month.
 What started as a flu that the whole house had, turned into a sinus infection. After a wave of antibiotics and prednisone, the infection was gone but the cough had gotten worse. A stabbing side pain led to a trip to urgent care and the discovery of a cracked rib. A new prescription for codine cough syrup hoped to relieve the cough and help the rib heal. It didn't help. Back to the Dr. with a new rib fracture. This time came with a new wave of cough treatments including tessalon perles to help the cough, symbicort to open up the lungs, and Aleve for the pain. Now, after over a month, it finally looks like things are getting under control.
 On the more positive side of things, it's the holiday season. We recently placed our amazon order for the boys gifts and ouch is that a hard number to see all at once. We have a system so that the boys all have an equal number and type of gifts. Something they want, something they need, something to wear, and something to read. It also helps with when grandparents want to buy things because we already have an amazon wish list set up along those guidelines.
 Things have been good with the boys. Bug turned 4 and got his latest set of shots. He was definitely not happy about that. Sam has been growing his vocabulary and been using more short sentences. Damien has been doing great in school. We've all but thrown out Charlie's contract because he wont keep up with it.
 ReAnna's last words this week: a joke barely worthy of a Laffy Taffy. If you think it's funny, or if you agree with Adam and can't roll your eyes hard enough, let us know on the Mom and Dad Cuss Facebook page. Thank you everyone and we'll catch you next time.
 

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It's been a busy time since we last spoke. As seems to just always be the case, we're both sick so excuse the coughs and sniffles. At the same time we're both thoroughly medicated so as things progress it starts to show.
In happy news, our littlest munchkin has graduated to his toddler bed. He now captains the pirate ship bed that has lasted through all 4 boys. That means that Bug now gets moved up to a brand new twin bed like his big brothers. The absence of a child in our room is taking getting used to but is ultimately great.
In less happy news, our oldest, Charlie, has been super ultra deluxe level grounded for the foreseeable future. In a nutshell, lying, stealing, sneaking around, poor school behavior, fighting with his brothers, all crammed into about 2 weeks. Since our regular punishment methods haven't worked, ReAnna called a "Mom Pow-Wow" to come up with a more creative course of action.
With all of that out of the way, let's not forget that this week is Thanksgiving in the US. This year we're gonna try to make the meal as gluten-sensitive as we can, on account of ReAnna's meds.
We're making cornbread stuffing from scratch, and attempting gluten-free rolls. Short of that there aren't too many issues. After all these years we've got our little family Thanksgiving down pretty tight.

Happy Halloween! After the obligatory catch up portion of the show, we've decided that now is the time to "come out of the broom closet." In a nutshell we are, what's best described as, Neo-Pagan Witches. Don't be afraid, we're more hippies than monsters. In our house, Halloween is a time of renewal and cleansing of old negative energy and welcoming in new positive energy for the new year.
We still do all the traditional Halloween things. We take our boys trick-or-treating every year. We usually do a sort of family group theme. This year the boys are country mice. But we also perform a physical and spiritual cleansing of the house from top to bottom and hang up new cinnamon brooms for protection. Along with all of that we also enjoy a feast to celebrate Samhain.
We get into how we celebrate holidays in general, the issues of raising our boys in a non-traditional spirituality, how gay euphemisms seem to get co-opted by pagans, and we (mostly Reanna) rip on the over-commercialization of most holidays. (Apparently Christmas carols are like AIDS.) So sit for a spell and let us tell the tale of how our family of (under the radar) witches celebrate Halloween.

Lately it seems like the older boys have been getting to be bigger and bigger pains. We've repeatedly caught them sneaking around early in the morning, stealing treats from the cabinets, and outright lying to us. Maybe it's because they are in a new school, and are picking up bad habits from other kids. Maybe it's because they seem to be getting bullied by a couple other boys on the playground. Either way, it's been trying our patience for a few weeks now as they come home with increasingly jerky attitudes. We're open to any suggestions to remedy said jerkyness.

On a happier note (at least for her) ReAnna renewed her library card! Let's all remember, she's going to school to be a librarian, so a trip to the library is fun times... fun... times. Of course this means stories about going to the library that have way more excitement than stories about going to the library should, bless her heart.

In a similar kind of connected vein, we've gotten pretty hooked on the NBC show "Midnight, Texas" which is based on the book series by Charlaine Harris. Naturally, after the season ended, ReAnna had to see if the books lined up with the show. So, on her most recent trip to the library, she borrowed the audio book of the first novel in the series. Its been fun listening to the book being read and hearing the differences in the characters compared to the show. We definitely can agree on one thing for sure, Lemuel is better on the show. Looks like commuter podcast listening is gonna have to take a break until we finish this 8-disk story.


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For those new to the show, Reanna was born and raised in South Texas, in the exact area recently ravaged by Hurricane Harvey. That being said, seeing the destruction in areas that used to be our home has been quite difficult. Obviously we still have family and friends that live in the area and have had to endure all the pain brought on by the storm. 

-Ways to Help Harvey Victims-

Salvation Army
https://give.salvationarmyusa.org/site/Donation2?df_id=27651&mfc_pref=T&27651.donation=form1

Go Fund Me Hurricane Relief
https://www.gofundme.com/hurricaneharvey

Rockport Fulton Chamber of Commerce Relief
https://www.gofundme.com/Hurricane-Harvey-Fund-for-Rockport-Fulton

Global Giving Harvey Relief Fund
https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/hurricane-harvey-relief-fund/

Texas Diaper Bank
http://www.texasdiaperbank.org/

Coastal Bend Disaster Recovery Group
http://www.coastalbendcan.org/CBDRG

Houston Food Bank
http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/

Corpus Christi Food Bank
http://www.foodbankcc.com/

Galveston County Food Bank
http://www.galvestoncountyfoodbank.org/

More Links at Slate
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/08/27/how_to_help_hurricane_harvey_victims.html

Relief Links at Huffington Post
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59a166dde4b0821444c37515

Email us at momanddadcuss@gmail.com

This episode is literally "sick." And by literally, I mean literally. Both of us are in the middle of fighting off some sort of crud that the boys managed to bring home on the first week back to school. That being said we actually end up spending most of our time talking about all the wonder drugs we've taken to fight off this crap.

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