bleh

I guess it was inevitable. After months (and months) of dealing with sick kids, death illness has come knocking on my door. I have no idea if this is H1N1, but it's awful. I feel like my head is going to implode, my eyes are burning, and it hurts to move. I've been on a rotation of DayQuil and Ibuprofen all day, but nothing seems to work (which hasn't stopped me from taking any of it, just in case it actually is working and I'd feel 10 times worse without it). We were supposed to have friends over for dinner but I had to cancel, which is my all-time least favorite thing to have to do.

What's most ironic though is that this is all one week before my weekend getaway to Bend with Megan, which was supposed to be the "weekend of doing nothing." But, I might be so tired of that this weekend that I'll actually have to do something.

chuckle

As we were walking out of tae-kwon-do this afternoon, Cayden started telling me about this funny 3rd grader who finds him every single day at recess.

"For about the past month, she walks up to me every day, points at me and says 'there's that little Chinese boy again!' I can't tell if she really thinks I'm Chinese or if she knows I'm not."

three for three

Don't look too closely at the above picture (I shrunk it way down so you can't zoom in... trust me, you don't want to) or you'll see the nastiest, runniest nose you've possibly ever seen. When Josie's nose went from "running" to "sludging" this morning, I knew something was up. Coupled with the fact that she barely slept a wink between midnight-5am and has had a fever for 60+ hours straight, we headed off to the doctor as soon as they could fit us in.

When Josie decided to hold her breath every time the doc tried to listen to her lungs, we were just about to have to go in for chest x-rays. Thankfully, a nasty ear infection (that's apparently been getting worse for at least a week now) warranted antibiotics on its own, so no x-rays were needed. The tugging on the ear made Josie start crying so Dr. B was able to get a good listen to her lungs and she's pretty sure she also has pneumonia. And she's confident that it all started from H1N1.

I'm not sure what the odds are on 3 kids all getting the same bugs 2 months (and then 2 more months) apart, but I'm feeling like I should play the lottery today.

Right after a nice, long nap.

you win some, you lose some

I've been jonesing for a fisheye lens for about a month now. And once I get fixated on something crazy like that for no rational reason, I seldom let up. It was all I could think about; I was having dreams about it (ridiculous, I know). But, if you click the link, you'll notice the $700 price tag. Slightly more than even I could rationalize spending on something that would serve no real purpose... just for fun. But, then I stumbled across this fisheye converter (attaches to a lens that you'd already have) for $50 (fifty bucks!) and a freight train couldn't have stopped me from getting it. I haven't had a chance to take any real pictures because Josie's napping but I'm hoping we can swing by a park later today to see what this baby can do. For now, you'll have to settle for a sneak peek inside a 9-year-old's bedroom. Scary thought, I know.



On another note, the cats chewed a hole in my camera cord this morning. I tell you, if they weren't so darned cute...

round 3

Keeping on track with our seemingly bimonthly illness schedule as of late, Josie has come down with something fierce. Cough, red splotches on the cheeks & eyelids, high fever, the whole shebang. I've been through this enough this winter that I've canceled all my plans for the week. Some might say that's a bit extreme but it's better than having to cancel new things each day. I've accepted my fate and it's okay.

The only thing that seems to be a sure-fire way to keep Josie happy is to go for a walk. We went for three yesterday, and one already this morning. Despite the chill in the air, I'm convinced she could sit in that stroller all day, wrapped up in her favorite blanket soaking up the glorious sunshine. She fell asleep on our walk this morning, at about 10:15. When we came home, I put on her favorite Dora video and told her it would be naptime when the video was done. About 20 minutes later, she proclaimed, "It's naptime now. Please."

Can't argue with that kind of reasoning.

haiku for a hike

As per Megan's request, a haiku about this morning's toddler-friendlyish hike:

Went hikin' 3 miles*
3 toddlers and no potties
'Twas quite a fun feat!

*in my mind, "miles" is just one syllable

heart of a reindeer

Josie's new favorite game at school is to pretend to be a doctor. She asks any willing participant to sit down so she can give them a check-up, and always wants to "fix their arm," like the doctor did for her back in September. This morning I settled in for my almost-daily examination, starting off with a look into my eyes and ears (with binoculars).

Then Josie grabbed her stethoscope to listen to my heart.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, "I can hear your heart loud! It sounds just like a reindeer. Or maybe a bear!"

don't let me forget to get josie from school

Today was a rather unexpected day with just the two older kids. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware that Avery & Cayden didn't have school today (President's Day) and then there was some discussion at Josie's school about the topic and it was decided that they would indeed be open. Then on Friday afternoon Andrew told me that he actually had the day off too (I'm still a bit skeptical--I don't recall that he's never had it off before). So when 9:00 came, the four of us found ourselves in the car with no Josie. Just like old (pre-2007) times.

Let me tell you if there was ever a question in your mind, almost 8- and 10-year-olds are way easier than almost 3-year-olds. When you're at OMSI with an almost 8- and 10-year old and they say they're going to go over there to look at something, you can just say "okay, come back here when you're done please." And they do! You don't get a mild feeling of panic when you realize they've been out of your sight for 2 whole minutes and they don't run up to you with an extreme look of panic because they need to go potty right now.

Not that it's all fun and games or anything. When you're at OMSI with an almost 8- and 10-year-old, they pretty much ignore you and don't need help doing anything (okay, that could be good too, depending on the day). I'm almost certain you could leave the premises and come back in 2 hours and everything would be just dandy. Yeah, I guess I could get used to that.

valentine's day, toddler style

Josie is all over Valentine's Day this year. Every day this week, the first thing she asked when she woke up was "Today is Valentime's Day?" The celebrations started early with a card exchange at school yesterday (as you can see, the girls were thrilled with their bags of cards whereas the boys couldn't have cared less):

Then this morning we were invited by the hostess with the mostest to decorate cookies and cards. Along for the ride were Miss Avery and Miss Anneke (what can I say, that Henry has a way with the ladies).

stellar investigative journalism

While perusing my favorite our least frustrating/annoying/uselss local news website, I ran across an article about a double-murder in Bandon, Oregon. Here are my two favorite lines from the article:

"The Coos County district attorney has identified two people found dead in a home on the southern Oregon coast and filed two counts of aggravated murder against the man sought in the deaths, and identified the son of the female victim as the prime suspect."

"No word on whether the suspects and the victims knew one another."

Really?

ti-red

"Has Josie slept through the night even once since she switched rooms?," I had to ask last night, in a bit of a fog. The answer was that apparently yes, she has slept through the night once or twice, but only after an especially rough night.

You'd think it wouldn't have taken me two full weeks to realize that the reason I'm so tired lately is because Josie hasn't been sleeping well, which is apparently, as it turns out, because she switched bedrooms. Now the cats can get in and bug her in the middle of the night, usually at about 5am... yawn. And she reached the point, very suddenly, last week when even a 10-minute nap in the car keeps her up until 10 o'clock at night. Which is way the hell too late when she's being woken up at 5 (thankfully, she always goes back to sleep, but not usually until it's time for everyone else to get up).

Don't get me wrong... she's still sleeping well, relatively speaking. But when one gets used to good, solid, all-through-the-night kind of sleep, it's hard to go back. That's all I'm saying. Not complaining, just sayin'.

* * * * *
I'm hoping that a morning at the zoo in the fresh, albeit crisp, February air will tire her out for a good, solid, all-through-the-night kind of sleep tonight. Although the whole plan might backfire and she might end up with a 10-minute nap in the car. Yikes.

recreation (as in re-creation, not rec-reation)

Of the thousands of pictures that I've taken of the kids over the years, the following is my all-time favorite:

It's showcased in at least 3 places in the house because I love it so. This afternoon I attempted to recreate the scene, a mere 2.5 years later. Which is apparently one of the meanest things I could have asked the kids to do, because they were not happy about it. Despite their bad attitudes, I ended up with a couple of keepers:

Josie looks a little frightened in this one:

This one strikes me more as a mother & father with their daughter (which is a little odd to think about):

And this is where it all started falling apart:

"my arms are naked!"

...says Josie, who apparently hasn't worn a short-sleeved shirt in a long time.

the importance of four-square

Avery got an invitation to a birthday party for one of her fellow basketball teammates today. I was slightly surprised that she was invited at all, but hey... some people invite entire classes of kids to their parties. What really surprised me though, was the note attached saying that the birthday girl would like to invite 4 guests over for a sleepover the night before the party. Although the note didn't specifically say so, I'm assuming this means Avery is one of the 4 (although, I would classify the whole invitation as vague and confusing, so I'm not entirely sure... ???).

Upon reading the invite, I inquired a little more to Avery. "Are the two of you even friends?," I asked.

"Ye-ah (two syllables), of course we are. We play four square like every single day."

Oh.

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

I wouldn't personally go so far as to say that it's warm outside but it certainly has been a beautiful, sun-shiny day (teaser days, I like to call them). I managed to sneak away for a little lunch date with my main squeeze and thoroughly enjoyed some delicious yakisoba at the waterfront. In my book, Tuesdays don't get much better than that.

still unsure

In the car this afternoon, Cayden was talking non-stop. Josie had fallen asleep (trust me, no coincidence there) and Avery was at dance rehearsal, so it was just him and me. Him: talking away, me: desperately trying to listen, although I'm not 100% sure he would notice and/or care if I had stopped paying attention altogether. Anywho, somewhere in the middle of it all, he started telling me about a new project he has to do at school.

"Mom, we get to start writing a non-fiction book in school this week. It can't be about an animal, which I'm kind of glad about because we have to do a paper on an animal later in the year. A book is way better than a paper, though, so this will be good. I'm 75% sure I'm going to write about motorcycles, I'm 15% sure I'm going to write about basketball and I'm 10% sure I'm going to write about something else."