I would say Happy [insert day here] but to be honest, I have no idea what day it is. I feel like February was literally like 3 days long! First on the Kris Bitch Fest List, is something very important I want to address, that I think we can all relate to. I think we need a new fucking Groundhog  for Groundhog's Day. Punxsutawney Phil is overrated and washed up! I call for a new Groundhog, or new rules! If it's sunny don't bring the mother fucker out. I'm sick of winter and people placing the fate of our winter's length in the hands of a bucked-tooth beaver! Come on people work with me here!  

Okay, now that I got that out of the way, lets move on. Mama Tammy is still on bed rest due to the back injury which means I'm still attempting to hold down the fort. Sometimes successfully and other times unsuccessfully. Shit happens and I've just learned to roll with the punches. 

So by now you all know that our oldest daughter is officially engaged. This means that the wedding planning has officially begun. Last weekend we went to look at places to throw the engagement party. I of course had the distinct pleasure of doing this with the girls. We had three places scheduled to visit. The first place we visited was really pretty, marble everything, chandelier's everywhere. We sat down and they brought in a plate of antipasto and then the owner walked in and asked if we wanted anything to drink. It the midst of him rambling off drinks, he said scotch and I looked up like:

Oh relax, I didn't have one. So the event coordinator took us around and showed us our options for rooms and then went over the menu with us. That's when she said, "it will be a $2,000 deposit and the balance due a week before the event!" At this point the above face went from that to this:

Then to this: 

Ah excuse me sir, I'll take that scotch now! $2,000 what the actual fuck.. this is an engagement party not a friggen wedding! So of course I had the whole "let them down easy but make them think you're going to book with them" speech all prepared. Needless to say off to the second place. Now this second place is a country club. You would think, nice, classy, perfect for an engagement party, right? Yea no! As Bianca described it, it reminded us all of the entrance room of the Haunted Mansion in Disney. There were pictures on the walls of dead people in like century old clothing, inside a sitting room with a fire place, which is where we were told to have a "sit by the fire". Who says that? I get this is a country club and all, but this isn't the movie Caddyshack and I would prefer to sit next to the fire not have a sit by the fire. 

It took the walk from the fireplace to the first room option for me to turn around and see Alessandra and Bee doing this:

With that cue you thought I would have been like alright let's go. Nope, if I had to do this task we are taking the walk through! I'm not going to lie, it was a little creepy in there. Really quiet and random old people just sitting at tables staring out the window eating their meals. I had to ask the women what the name of the place was again, because for a minute I thought we were in a nursing home. I'm mean this looked like a place that the Golden Girls would have a reunion party! So the event planner took us down to the last room option, which was a pretty long walk to a creepy ass elevator that was ice cold. We walk in the room and in the middle of the room there are two people sitting at a table eating! At this point I'm like:

In addition to the random strangers enjoying a meal together in a banquet hall that can fit up to 300 people, there was a speaker podium and a giant flag on a flag pole! Nope uh-uh no, girls be nice grab the paperwork and I'll pull the car up! We pulled out like 

Ain't nobody told me that daughters are expensive! Daughter's need to come with a warning label! Something small like, "Warning you will need 7 jobs to afford raising a daughter". Simple and to the point ya know? I've started the part-time job applications recently. 

Funny thing happened since we last spoke. We have two small breed dogs, so we house trained them with those wee wee pads. Everything was going smooth. Until our male dog Teddy decided that after turning two he was a big boy and now wants to be walked on a fucking leash to take a piss. I'm not okay with this for several reasons. One because now I have to take him out. Two, he lifts his leg on anything he sees.... bushes, trees, telephone poles, car tires even if he doesn't have to do his business. I've had the conversation with him that not everything he sees needs to be claimed by him. He doesn't listen. Three, he hasn't quite mastered the leash walking and proceeds to choke himself during our walks; and four it's friggen annoying! So naturally the first walk we took, he was so excited that this is how he walked:

Then of course everyone that's walking has to stop and tell me how cute he is and what kind of breed he is. This is seriously taking too long, so my response is "thank you, he's a pain in the ass breed"! 

My task of holding down the fort while Mama Tammy is awaiting the next procedure has been more challenging this time around. Mostly because Anthony is a little older and little more debatable at this age. He definitely knows this is not my cup of tea and plays on that. Why do ten year olds play that "lets see how far I can tip toe on the line before mom snaps and I lose my iPod for a week" game. My wife will beg to differ with me on this and tell me that it's an ineffective way to parent. However I believe that if he wants to wear shorts and it's 38 degrees outside and I've already told him it's cold and he CHOSES to wear them, then he'll learn his lesson. 

If he doesn't then he'll continue to freeze his little ass off until he realizes that I will always be right! 

So another funny story since we last spoke! Since the wife is out of commission I have also assumed the role of cooking dinner. After the last dinner I cooked, I have been banned by my wife from making chicken stew ever again! To my defense, it was NOT my fault. So here I am, browning the chicken in oil and I added some salt and fresh garlic, stirred it a little, grabbed the black pepper and went to shake it in when the friggen cap flew off and about a quarter of a cup of black pepper dumped into the pot! At this point I'm standing over the pot like:

Trying not to let the family know what just happened, I start talking about how good the chicken is looking, while I start trying to scoop the black pepper out. I even went as far as trying to rinse it off. I thought I had gotten most of it if not all of the pepper off so I added everything else and let it cook! I served up the stew and my wife wanted hot sauce. I said "nooooooooo, don't ruin my stew with that nonsense!" She didn't listen. After every one took a bite, they were all sitting there like:

Oooops! I mean hey they were nice about it. They kept telling me how good it was in between chugging bottles of water. 

Alright my gayety's I'm off to cook dinner for the family... don't worry its pasta and sauce and being that I'm a Sicilian I got this down! Until next time.....

Well February is picking up right where January left off. You might all be wondering where exactly that is? Well, in a shitastic gigantic whole of shittiness, that's where! If you recall my wife was involved in a car accident about 3 years ago. two years ago she had her surgery on her cervical spine. Now, during that time I was in charge of errrrrything! The house, the kids, the kids schedule, the animals, the meals and work, all in my incompetent, irresponsible hands. By the end of her 3 week recovery I ended up looking like this:

Which brings me to two weeks ago. While my wife has been dealing with chronic pain since the accident, she's been pushing through and handling the home front. The morning of January 31st, my wife woke up with severe low back pain and unable to straighten her back out. I told her to take it easy and that it was probably the weather. Well, later that day she called to tell me that her legs had numbness. Cutting to the chase, we ended up at the hospital where her neurosurgeon admitted her. They discovered that she had three herniated discs in her back from the car accident that they had finally found despite the back complaints. Of course I'm standing in the ER like:

So we get to the room and the nurse tells me that there's a pull out couch and that she would grab me some sheets, blanket and pillow. I looked at Tammy and said, "look at that, an upgrade, three times a charm I guess!" One problem, no one actually told me how to make the couch turn into a bed. At first I flipped over the seat of the couch and I immediately rolled off the cushion because nothing was holding it up. So i just decided to sleep on the couch. Which literally was the size for one of my legs. So the first night in the hospital I slept like this:

On a side note, you can successfully survive at least two days on Coffee, apple juice cups and graham crackers. Just throwing that out there. Now, considering this isn't our first rodeo, I have pretty much nailed down the disconnecting and connecting of the machines to my wife. I have also mastered the art of getting her in and out of the bed without the bed alarm going off. I'm pretty much a hospital pro, if ya know what I mean!

Now considering I'm a pro at the whole hospital stay... I've come to realize that the minute the nurses catch on that I know how to do all this shit, they done gone missing the whole night! Listen, I may be a lot of things, but RN is NOT one of them! Not to mention that according to my wife I sleep like I'm practicing for death, so when I was on the couch I didn't hear her call for me. The following morning, she said, "honey I called you three times and you didn't hear me I had to call the nurse to help me to the bathroom!" Now I understand the severity of the situation but at the same time I was thinking:

I mean that is what an RN gets paid to do is WERK! So needless to say I ended up sleeping on a recliner that didn't recline. They kept sending Tammy for tests which left me alone in the room waiting. Naturally the only thing on tv was Lifetime movies. I've come to two conclusions about Lifetime: 1. All Lifetime movies are over dramatic 2. Lifetime movies are always about some chick going off the dead end and becoming Single White Female! Come on Lifetime, how you going to play women like that?! After my fill of Lifetime, I ventured to different floors of the hospital because I had drank all the caffeinated coffee on our floor. In my defense, they should have had more, I mean did they really think 4 boxes of pods was going to be enough for entire floor?!

Forget about going outside to vape.. oh nooooo! The hospital legit locks down at like 7:30pm and the only way you can get back in is through the Emergency Room. I know this because I did this! It literally took me longer to get back inside and up to the floor than it took me to vape. I walked in and I said to the women behind the desk, "my wife is on the 2nd floor, I just need to get back up there." She looks at me and said, "have a seat we'll be with you shortly." No, no, no. I've been here since 11:30 this morning, there's no reason for you to be with me shortly. Next thing I know security comes out and asks me to sign in. I looked at him and said "really?" I've been here for 6 hours and NOW you want me to sign in?" Then another guy comes out of the security room and gets on his walkie and no shit says "escorting civilian to second floor"? I'm sorry I didn't realize we were in the fucking white house! Stand down soldier, stand down! I'm a sociable person, so I'm trying to make small talk with him and he's literally one word answering me and being all serious and I'm thinking:

Since the herniated discs are compressing up against the spinal cord, she can't walk without a cane and a person with her. She's not allowed to drive as she has numbness in her legs. Now, at this point I'm not sure what part I'm more concerned about. I mean they gave my wife a cane, which can easily become a weapon or the fact that I am now in charge of errrrrrrything once again?! Oh stop we all know the herniated discs are serious but come on people a fucking cane or me taking care of the kids? I mean even Jesus is even like:

Finally home and the first thing I want to do is shower and have my friends Jack and Daniel over for a visit. Tammy in her pain killer state gives me the low down on the kids schedule and where every one needs to be and at what time and what time they get picked up and where. Just like before I'm nodding my head but all I'm hearing is 

Then I start thinking, when the hell did we get more kids? I don't remember having this many kids during the first rodeo! Needless to say I heard nothing because my panic attack was too busy having it's own panic attack! So the first day comes quicker than I had anticipated and I got the first kid up and out the door, then came home, logged on to my work server, worked for an hour or so, got the wife up, gave her meds, got her from the bed to the couch, got the second kid up, gave him breakfast in a plastic cup. What?!?!?! A plastic cup is a completely acceptable item to hold cereal. It's recyclable, it reduces the amount of dishes I have to wash and, and that's how I do it so.....! I get the second kid to school with assistance from him on where to go and where the drop off is. I come home work some more, tend to the wife, the third kid is getting ready for work, I take her to work, I come back and work some more. Then picked up all the kids come home and cook dinner and do the dishes and get ready for the next day. At this point, by the end of the night I was like:

So here we are a week into me taking over and so far so good. No kids have been lost, forgotten, inappropriately dressed for the weather or gone to bed hungry. I can't promise that this will be consistent, but for the meantime Mama Kris is lock and loaded with my adulting underwear on and ready to go!