My AH-Mazing Trip to FL - Part 3 (I'm "fair"ly certain that this was fun and my meeting with you "can be my Doug")

"Must find french fries...it's my only means of survival."

You have your version of sexy...and clearly we have ours.

We are now entering day #5 of "the illness". 

It has been mainly uneventful.  No doctor's visits or hospitalization (mainly because we can't afford health care).

I didn't really start feeling the full effects of the germies until Thursday when my ability to swallow and breath magically disappeared.  Jon is in the same hellish boat as me so it's basically a free for all for the kids.  The last time Jon and I were both sick like this at the same time our kids were 10 & 5 and we allowed them to eat whatever they wanted for dinner one night. 

It was one of those moments when we were both burning up with fevers and so delirious with illness that we felt sure that our 10 year old would make a completely logical choice for dinner.  She chose brownie sundae's.  We were ill equipped to disagree or even care.  The next day when they came home from school they both asked if they could have a "real dinner".  Honestly the two of them were acting as if we hadn't fed them in days instead of the one missed meal that they had actually suffered.  And in truth it wasn't even that because they had eaten.

I was was like what the hell is that supposed to mean.  They seriously were acting as if we had tortured them and forced them to eat dessert for dinner. 

I think that was one of the moments when I realized my children were definitely one of a kind.

But back to this current sick fest. 

Hannah was the carrier monkey that exposed us to the illness.  Damn kid. 

How many times do I have to tell her to wash her hands, use sanitizer, don't share drinks, stay away from that one boy who's been in her class since Pre-k that ALWAYS seems to have strep throat and who infected her 7 times in one year???  Seriously people, if your kid is burning up with a fever and can't swallow without crying DO NOT...I REPEAT...DO NOT SEND HIM TO SCHOOL!

Pisses me off.  I may be lax on ALOT of stuff, but when it comes to illness...I believe that is something you should keep at home. 

The year of the "7 times of strep throat" I was pretty sure that our family physician was contemplating profiling me for Munchausen Syndrome.  I swear it was the illness that wouldn't go away. 

But this time around we are not in strep hell.  No we are in flu hell.  Or at least that is what I have self diagnosed us with.  Thank you WebMD.

By Thursday I was overly tired (more so than usual), chilled, unable to breath and hacking up a storm.  I was hitting the NyQuil like it was hard liquor.  If I could have put a straw in that bottle and carried it around like a juice box I would have.  At one point in a foggy haze of exhaustion and...well...NyQuil, I actually contemplated if I could make it into a cocktail.  Turns out it was the 1/2% alchohol by volume talking and when I finally came to my senses, kind of, I figured it not to be such a great idea. 

I mean, truth be told, we refer to the cherry NyQuil as "red death" in our house.  Jon will gather the kids to come and watch me take it because I have a severe aversion to liquid medication.  I'm a consistency girl...and liquid medicine is not something I can handle.  I will throw tantrums that could rival a 2 yr olds when it is deemed that I am sick enough to choke down that crap.

I will flail around stomping my feet on the ground with fist balled up at my sides and lips pursed tightly shut.  I know that this isn't a good example for my children, but so far all it has done is send them into hysteric fits of laughter to the point of almost peeing themselves.  Even at a younger age they would put up less of a fight then I would when it was time for them to take any medication in liquid form.  I am still baffled by the fact that Hannah, who can swallow a piece of candy whole, while opt for liquid over pill form medication any day of the week.

My mom says by 7 she forced me to take pills over liquid because she was tired of the sheer madness that ensued from trying to pin me to the floor and get me to swallow and not spit up the medicine that she was cramming down my unwilling throat.

When I turn to the Nyquil, my family knows that I AM SICK!

With all the coughing, snorting, achiness and chills it seemed the only thing that I couldn't seem to do was sneeze.  I have the tingle in my nose constantly though but alas...no sneeze.  I finally got one out on Friday after 2 days of waiting for it to happen. 

One. 

Singular. 

Pathetic. 

Sneeze.

Even now I NEED to sneeze. 

God, I really do need to sneeze.  My nose is being a sneeze tease.

As I sit writing this Jon is out in the living room sneezing 1..2..3..4..5..wait for it...6 times!  His norm is anywhere from 2 to 4 sneezes at one time.  In the 12 years we have been together he has never sneezed just once. 

Right now...I hate him.  That lucky able to sneeze bastard!

God he is such a show off.  I would yell that over the t.v., through the closed door in hopes of it traveling down the hallway to make it to his semi-deaf (even when he's not sick) ears...but alas I am too tired and that would hurt the hell out of my throat and then I'd be pissed and still unable to sneeze.

Kind of off the subject, but kind of related too..Thank God Jon got lasik surgery because now we almost make one normal human being.  Me, with supersonic ears but so-so sight and him partially deaf (he says from repeated ear infections as a child, which he blames on the fact that he was NOT breastfed as a baby...let it go man it's been 33 years) but with superior store bought sight.

We are both so fucking miserable.  The only highlights so far have been the delicious soup (Mmmmmm....baked potato) that he brought me and being rubbed down with Vick's vapo rub. 

The rub down with Vick's was actually pretty funny because if you would have thrown in some cheesy instrumental music in the background it could have been mistaken for one of those low budget adult movies.  I was moaning and Jon was totally getting turned on.  Then I snorted back the snot that was starting to dribble out of my nose and shabam...the moment was lost.

Not that we would have acted on any of the sexual rumblings that began to well up during the rub down because A) both of us are to fucking tired from being sick and B) ok..well there is no B.

Apparently it doesn't matter how sick we are because Jon, like any man, is always in "please I want nookey" mode. 

Perfect example: This morning I made my way from the bedroom out to the kitchen bleary eyed.  I had barely slept between hacking and snorting.  I had tried to wear ear plugs so that I would only have to listen to my bodily fluids being sucked back up into my head and not Jon's futile attempt to achieve air passage through both nostrils but the arrival of an ear infection (or what I have self diagnosed as an ear infection due to extreme pain and a red inner ear) made using those completely impossible. 

So it sounded like a lame version of dueling banjo's only with our coughs and snorts as the instrumentals.  How either of us slept more than 15 minutes at a time is COMPLETELY beyond me.

Anyways, I make my way into the kitchen and immediately set to making some tea.  I ask Jon if he would like some tea.  He agrees which is a sure fire sign that he is feeling just as shitty as I am.  Or so he would have me believe. 

I set about rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and trying to brush down my unruly and unshowered (for 2 days) hair.  Then I pick a wedge...I know...HOT!  I try to clear my throat and curse the pain that arises. 

I turn to whine to Jon and say, "I feel miserable.  I can't even swallow". 

"Great, there goes our evening", he retorts smiling.

I stand there for a second trying to compute the meaning in my foggy head.  And then it hits me...even with all this hot mess of a sicko wife who has become a mouth breather due to the overwhelming surplus of snot in her nasal passages he is making a sexual innuendo.  Gotta love that man of mine.

I smile.  He smiles.  We both hack and then snort back the flem.  If that isn't romantic and sexy...well I just don't know what is.

~JP

Thank you Jonas Brothers....and Goodnight!

It is now "Jonas Brother...the Day After". I can still here a persistent ringing in my ears, sounds seem muffled and when I shut my eyes I have a mini laser light show going on the backs of my eyelids. But all that aside, here's how the concert went:

Let me start by saying...if you've ever wondered to yourself or aloud exactly how many people you can fit into a stretch limousine? I would like to be the one to tell you that you can mash 4 adults, 5 teenagers, 4 tweens, one little boy and still have room for posters, purses, jackets, 12 pack of soda and some (but not nearly enough) liquor.

The Mother's (take note of the red bag that hold the "Jonas Brother Survival Kit")

Teens, Tweens & little one ~ View from outside.....

....and view from within.

It helped that we had one hell of a limo driver who took it all in stride and immediately apologized for removing the bourbon from the bar because he "thought we'd wanna keep it clean with the kids and all"...ugh Tom...there goes part of your tip sweetie. Prolly would've been bigger if ya got us a little tipsy on the way home or dropped the adults in the French Quarter and returned the kids to the address we would've scrawled out on a piece of paper with a note to our other halves that would have read:

Here's the kids. We've gone drinking. Send the limo back for us if you want us to come home.
~ The Mother's

But now I am jumping ahead of myself...and that French Quarter part is gonna be for another night and another blog entirely. So back to Jonas.

For those of us NOT in the Jonas know (which turned out to really only be myself and one other mom) we got the 4-1-1 on how the show was gonna go down from start to finish from the self proclaimed biggest Jonas Fan herself Brittany, her mom Stacy and one of Han's besties Kenzie.

Biggest Jonas Fan ~ (Her glasses say Brittany Jonas...nuff said!)

They had just arrived back in Louisiana the morning of the New Orleans show after seeing the Jo Bro's play in Houston, TX. That's a whole other state ya'll and WAY too far for a devoted mom (stop laughing) like myself to drive my kids to see anything.

How this mother was awake let alone upwardly mobile was beyond me. She credits energy drinks...I say it's the adrenaline produced by pure insanity...you decide.

The ride into the city wasn't bad at all with the exception that we packed more caffeine than liquor and with individuals under 18 out numbering those of us of the parental persuasion by a little more than 1/2 we wondered what genius thought that equation was a good idea. But before we really had time to contemplate our error we were piling out as if we were the clown car at a circus. Even the limo driver commented that he didn't remember this many getting in.

(Nina & Han strike a pose outside the arena)

Once at the arena it was time to divvy up tickets and set up a meeting spot. Since I was late coming into the concert prep I had tickets that were split between two different sections. There was 1 that was on one side of the arena and 2 that were on the opposite side. All 14 of us were not going to be sitting together.

On the ride over we had worked out a solution that would hopefully allow everyone to have the most optimal and enjoyable "Jonas Experience" possible.

It broke down as follows. Biggest Jonas fan Brittany with her baby sis Kenzie had floor seats. My oldest Liv, and my good friend Mar's oldest daughter Courtney, who have been friend since meeting in 3rd grade, would be in another section...alone.

(Liv & Court...ready to take on Jonas unsupervised...mother's lock up your sons!)

The shear thought of those two teens on the loose made us both REALLY want to drink. Six tickets were together and belonged to my other good friend, Stacy (the mother that had driven to Texas and back all in the span of 17 hours), her sister Kori, two of Kori's kids, a cousin and her boyfriend. How that poor boy managed to pick the short straw that entailed seeing a boy band with his girlfriend is still beyond me.

The final 4 tickets were left to Mar, myself and our two tween-agers, Han and Carolina, who were there to experience their first ever concert.

The tears started streaming from Nina before we even made it to our seats. Mar and I joked back and forth wondering if we should have given her an "M&M" (our code for Xanax) before getting there.

(This is a pose that Mar & I struck prior to one of our first Kenny Chesney concerts together so we made the girls do the same. And yes...Nina, on the right, is crying.)

We finally made it to our seats after being stopped by an arena attendant that worried if Nina was really okay and had to deal with the looks of several other concert goers around us that questioned if she truly was alright. Mar and I contemplated if we should have passed up the Southern Comfort tent so quickly earlier when we were looking for a restroom and our seats.

(Me & Han posing with our tickets)

We assured everyone around us and ourselves that they she was fine and settled in for the show. We were disappointed to find out when we heard on the ride over that Jordin Sparks would not be performing due to illness. There was a crowd warmer that came out in between acts and asked the tens of thousands of fans in the arena to send her well wishes with a group effort of shouting "Get Well Jordin".

With no Jordin Sparks, who I have to admit I was dissapointed that I wouldn't be seeing since I actually knew more of her songs than the Jo Bro's we saw Honor Society and the Wonder Girls. If you are anything like me then you are going..."Huh??? What??? Who???"

Honor Society from a mothers perspective of not knowing who the hell these people are and why are they deserving of a portion of the $90 per ticket I just spent to come to this show....were actually pretty good if you're willing to take the word of a thirty-something, SUV driving soccer mom.

The Wonder Girls...I wish I would have snapped a picture....reminded me of a BAD talent/dance recital. The only part I was thankful for in regards to their performance is that they only sang two songs.

In between both opening acts while they were preparing the stage there was a jumbo tron that played text messages sent by fans in the arena. I was able to get one posted that read.

Hannah & Carolina here to see their first concert ever.

Unfortunately I wasn't quick enough with the camera to capture it.

(View from the top...it was PACKED and HOT)

They were so excited that they got to be "famous" for a few seconds that they made me spend every break in between performances texting madly to try and get another message on that damn screen...it didn't happen. Damn kids...you give them a text and they expect the whole show to be about them!

I was trying to amuse myself as best possible during and in between the opening acts and I found it personally hysterical (based on pre-concert post) that a little girl sitting directly in front of us had the EXACT same hairstyle as Han.

I pointed it out to Han and she looked at me like...ugh...I told you I knew what I was talking about!

And then it was time for the boys that we, meaning the kids, had been waiting for. More tears came.....

and tiny hinney's moved to their edge of their seats....

The lights went down....the lasers came up....

....and they appear to the screams of..."OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU", "NIIIIIIICK", "JOOOOOOE", "KEEEEEEEVIN", "MARRY ME", "WEEEEEELOOOOOOVEYOU", "OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD, OH MY GOD", "KILL ME NOW". Okay...that last one was the sound of the voices in my head...but I am sure you get the point.

And once again....Nina was in tears......

The Jonas Brother's took the stage to the defeaning screams of tens of thousands of hormonal bodies! It was so loud that the sound vibrated through you. We were seated in front of and next to two of the highest pitch squealers that I think I've ever had the displeasure of hearing. At one point I wondered if my eardrum had perforated or burst. Unfortunately it didn't and the ear raping went on for 2 1/2 full hours. Here's what it looked like...because I like you enough NOT to post the two video clips I took.

The outer part of the circle rotated like a record. I waited for someone to fall...it didn't happen.

I found out pretty early on that Han doesn't like loud screaming. She kept looking over her shoulder at the girls behind us and then looking at me like, "mom...aren't you gonna make them stop?" I had to keep telling her that this is a concert and unfortunately we would have to tolerate the jacklegs sitting around us. She looked very unimpressed with my perceived unwillingness to make them shut the fuck up. So she spent a good portion of the concert with her fingers in her ears. So did I. It was like a mother daughter thing.

And the concert continued. Song after song.....

When Nick Jonas came on stage with just his piano and sang "Black Keys" and talked about diabetes you could almost hear the wave of girls crying. He has a line where he says, "and I asked the doctor would I die?" I swear to you it was as if someone got up on that stage and held a gun to the kids head. All around us were fans sobbing. I was like "umm hello...he's perfectly fine jackasses. He's on the stage before your very eyes singing." All Mar and I could do was roll our eyes and sit back and watch.

(Nick singing "Black Keys")

I do have to admit this one thing...the amount of work that must have gone into creating the lights and technical aspect of this show was phenominal. I was highly impressed with all the little and big things that went on to create a visual wonderland. From lighting, raised platforms, rain, fog, lasers, a trampoline that went into the middle section of the middle stage and finally to showering the fans with foam...it was impressive.

And then finally...mercifully they descended into the hole in the stage.

Stupid me though...I forgot that they would come back for an encore. Apparently I wasn't the only one that forgot this was a possibility because some parents hopped up out of their seats as if their asses had been lit on fire the second the lights dimmed and plotted their escape. You could hear cries in the dark of the fans that knew they would be back and of the fans that were being dragged out by their parents. And then just like a horror film...."they're baaaaaaaaaaaack"....

Then their closing song, "Burning Up" came on........

.....and it was over.

Han clasped her hands tightly over her ears as the crowd once again roared. I did a happy dance in my seat as I realized I had just survived my first concert with my kids.

Will I do it again??? Ummm, maybe. Will I do another Jonas concert?? NO.

We made our way out of the arena with the masses. The teenagers that we had let sit on their own had made it back to the limo without incident and within 15 minutes the whole menagerie was present and accounted for. We sat back in the limo and enjoyed the ride home.

Tonight...a full 24 hours later I asked Han if she had a good time. She cocks her head to the side and says, "mom, it was the best. I had wished and hoped to go and see the Jonas Brothers and now I can check that off my list."

It's really all a mom can ask for. Well, that and for my hearing to return.

~JP