Breaking News!

So, you know this all this coughing crap that’s been going on for the last year? I think we finally figure out what the issue is.

On Wednesday night, I decided I was going use my inhaler before I went to bed. Just to see if the coughing was asthma related, rather than allergy related (which is kind of the same thing, as allergies trigger asthma attacks). So I took my two puffs and went to sleep. I woke up a few times in the night, tossed and turned, but never had a coughing fit.

Well, right on!

Then last night, I took my two puffs, went to sleep, and woke up around 2am coughing. Rather than reaching for my cough drops and sitting upright in bed, I took two more puffs off my inhaler and promptly went back to sleep.

No coughing fit.

Yes, I woke up a few times, so it wasn’t a completely restful night, but NO COUGHING FIT.

I really think it’s an asthma thing. With the allergy season in full bloom (HA! Get it? Full bloom?) and with the cats, which I’m very allergic to, my house is just filled with things that trigger attacks. And since my asthma attacks aren’t usually debilitating, I sometimes forget that I even have it. Until I lay down. And then wake up coughing.

Whew!
I hope you all are as relieved as I am.

**********

And.
You know what’s fun about losing your mind? (I can hear my mother’s voice in my head before I even type this….) I buy things for people, and put those things away, only to find those things a year later. It’s like Christmas! In April!

I don’t have to buy Tyler a birthday card next month because I found one that I bought for him last year, which I tucked away, and promptly forgot about! Like Christmas!

This is so like my mother.

Christmas morning was as much fun for her as it was for us. She would sit, curled up in her robe, drinking her coffee, watching me and Dad intently as we’d unwrap our gifts. From her.

“Who’s that from?”

“It’s from you, mom.”

“Oh! Open it! I forget what it is…..oh look at that! That’s a nice watch!”

In her defense, she would shop throughout the year for Christmas, so of course she couldn’t keep track of what all she bought. We’d be at the mall in July and she’d find something and say, “Oh, that would be perfect for Uncle Harold for Christmas!” And she’d buy it.

Then she’d tuck it way in the spare bedroom closet and on Thanksgiving when she’d drag out all of her wrapping paper and bows, she’d find this gift (or gifts) she bought and say, “Oh right! I already got him something!”

That woman cracks me up.

I’m ticking the days off the calendar now. A visit is looming. I’m being all vague about it because I want to stay under the radar while home. I’m going by myself for a whole week. It’s just cheaper than flying three or four of us home, then paying someone to watch the cats and the house. And it’s been a really long time since I’ve gotten to be alone with my parents – no other family, no significant others, no kids. Just me. Acting like I’m 10 years old again, eating Coco Wheats and watching cartoons.

Wait.

I did that last weekend.

You know what I mean.

I’d like to have it in my head that it will a relaxing week. Sleeping in, lounging on the porch, wading in the creek. But if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that my visits home are so busy I have to write about them in bullet points. However, mom has assured me that she only has one major day planned for us and that’s to look for curtains. And maybe couches. And work on her new computer. And get her Outlook email up and running. And that’s it. She swears.

Yes, I’m skeptical too….