The Pagan Mom Blog

For the first time ever, we have the flu. We usually get colds at this time of year. Not the flu. We haven’t had flu shots since my pregnancy with Molly in 1999. This year I did have the girls get the nasal spray for H1N1. Mostly because I felt their school wouldn’t really be able to protect the kids from getting ill. Alex’s daycare has been excellent at making sure the kids were pretty germ free. Unfortunatley it is Alex that has it.

He was great when we picked him up from school. He didn’t eat much dinner, but he never does. Then around 7:45 pm he started shivering and complaining about being thirsty. We got him his blankey and a glass of water. He then begged me to come snuggle with him cause he couldn’t get warm. This is not an unusual request. When I laid down with him I noticed he was a bit warm. Then he wouldn’t stop shivering. Even after 10 minutes he was still shivering. This started bothering me. By 8:15 he was a asleep. During the week he never falls asleep before 10 because the afternoon naps at school messes him up. On weekends when I don’t lay him down for a nap he is asleep by 9ish. So 8:15 raises the eyebrows. Even worse, he was panting. Panting like he does after chasing the dog or his sisters in the yard. I called Mr. P  over to help me check him without moving him and Mr. P  thought he was fine. I said “ok” but wasn’t too sure about it. Well shortly after that I fell asleep. I awoke about an hour later to Alex still panting but now with little moans every other pant or so. Not cool! I picked him up and he felt like he was on fire. Not totally unusual but I just knew something was wrong. We got his temp, 100.4. Not high enough to rush to the hospital but way out of the norm for my kids and enough to make me start freaking. Since we were out of acetaminophen, I grabbed my wallet and rushed to Walmart. Asheville is pretty easy to navigate, everything is about 15 minutes away. And it took 15 min to get to Walmart BUT it felt like forever. I had visions of my son dying because I didn’t get home in time and doctors screaming at me for not getting him the vaccination. Yes, I was being completely melodramatic. I am good at that. Got to Walmart and got some generic brand stuff. I also decided to grab some Nyquil (well generic brand) because I know that in a day or so I am gonna have this crap too. Why? Cause little man is ALL OVER ME! He doesn’t want anyone to leave him alone. Poor baby.

So he has had some acetaminophen. He is now asleep without panting and without moaning. Unfortunatley when he moves to get comfy he starts to cry from the pain. Hopefully I can knock this crap out by tomorrow night.

**UPDATE**
I have it. Little man only pants when his fever spikes. Now I understand why though, it feels like someone is sitting on your chest. I haven’t had the flu in a long time. Not sure if this is seasonal or H1N1 but regardless this hurts like hell. I am getting ready to go back to bed and it’s almost 10 am. And thanks for the reassurance about not vaccinating. It’s one of those sucky parent moments where you start to wonder if you did the right thing!

There are alot of sites touting the do’s and don’ts of Twitter. These are usually pretty generic and, in my humble opinion, full of common sense that we all should already possess. However, I see some things that happen on twitter that should be adressed.

Spamming then claiming it’s not spam. Ok seriously, if your posting the same tweet repeatedly throughout the day…you are spamming. One tweeter claimed s/he wanted to make sure to hit all the time zones of her/his followers. Ok, but two or at most three of the same tweet per day will reach your followers in all the time zones. Anything more than that is spam. Admit it, accept it, then stop. It ruins the engagement of what Twitter is supposed to be about. If you really want to post ads that reach across time zones, create a newsletter that people can sign up for. Than you will find out who really IS interested in your ad.

Question me on why I don’t follow back, even threaten to unfollow me. Everyone has their own method of following people. I follow the “quality not quantity” rule. Just because you follow me doesn’t mean that I MUST follow you. Sorry, there are no laws that say I have to. If you follow me, I will read your stream. I look for engagement. I typically don’t follow people who tweet and never @reply to anyone. I also read the content of your tweets. If you have something that sparks interest in me, I will follow. Ads and constant chatter about your business pretty much are a turnoff for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t follow businesses, the ones I follow talk to me about things other than business. Now if you are someone whom I have not followed back, threatening me with “I will unfollow” makes me laugh. Bully tactics never work with me. So don’t waste your time trying to bully me.

Telling me we have something in common means I shouldn’t unfollow you. I really don’t unfollow people much. You have to be doing something that really bugs me. And if I say “hey, your doing this and it bothers me” don’t respond with ” But I am mom blogger/pagan/knitter/local/anycommongroundwehave”. I go right back to, I followed you because I thought you had something great to say. I am a very eclectic person and look through who I follow and you see a wide variety of people. Don’t take it personally if I unfollow you for something that is what you want to do. I mean you have the right to tweet how you wish, I also have the right to see what I want in my stream. Telling me “By the way, I am a witch” has no effect on my decision. No, I take that back. I will be quicker to unfollow.

Tweeting alot about your sexual desires of another Tweeter whom your dating/married/daydreaming about. I recently unfollowed someone for this. Sure people get into nasty discussions or whatnot. But when you start describing your mate (whom is a tweeter) to a borderline porno status…..it’s time for you to go. I totally get the voyeurism thing, but make sure that the people you seek out to engage with are into it as well. I was taken by surprise because this particular follower was conservative and most of her stream was political, at the time I chose to follow. Even worse was using hashtags to describe her mate in a racial way. It became a point where she was flaunting her relationship with someone outside her race. That’s not something I like seeing. First off you should NEVER see your mate as someone of a race but as an individual. I don’t run around talking about my #hottiecaucasianlovah. Because when I look at him he isn’t caucasian, he is my sweetheart. Racial slurs don’t go away until we STOP referring to people by their race. Secondly, this person was falsely claiming things about her mate in regards to his race. Newsflash….a man can be well endowed of any race. And just because a man is well endowed, doesn’t mean he is fantastic in bed. It’s how you work the equipment that matters. Just saying.

Let’s share the same language! I can speak a handful of Spanish and even a bit of German. But nothing kills me more than when I get a new follower and they are from another country speaking another language. Look, I am not trying to be rude….but how can we talk if we don’t understand each other? And right now I cannot take classes to learn Russian, Finnish, and perfect my Spanish and my German. If you are bilingual, great! That would be wonderful and I welcome tiny lessons in your language as well. But if you aren’t bilingual, for now let’s hold off on the following….shall we?

So for my fellow Twitter peeps, did I miss anything?