When It Rains

So, it’s been one of those weeks.  And it’s only Tuesday, which leads me to believe that it’s probably not over yet.

This past weekend was actually pretty good.  Charlotte played her best basketball game yet, scoring the opening two baskets.  She also got a couple of fouls in this game, her first ever, so we joked that she’s now a real basketball player!  It’s been really neat to see her develop as a player, becoming more aggressive and confident as she’s moved through the season.  Her team also won 16-14, which was an added bonus!

However, the baby has had a cold for the past two weeks and, over the weekend, he started tugging at and pressing things against his ears.  This is not normal for him, so I called the doctor first thing Monday morning to see if I should bring him in.  Well, of course, the nurse told me yes.

Unfortunately, our regular doctor was completely booked, so we were scheduled to be seen by one of the other two.  The one we saw had her exam rooms down in the basement of this building, a place I had never been in the several years that we’ve taken the kids to this practice.

While the doctor was very professional and competent, her waiting room was a complete zoo.  There were four kids running amok in there, while their dad popped out periodically to fuss at and smack them around.  As I had no idea what kind of germs were floating about, I didn’t want to put the baby down to catch something worse, so I ended up pacing with him up on my shoulders for part of our wait, while he merrily yanked my hair and wiggled.  (I’ve found that, if I try to hold him in my arms, we have a veritable wrestling match, especially in new places where he would like to explore.)

Of course, the doctor was running behind schedule, but, when she finally examined Jeremy, she told me that he just had a bad cold.  While I am happy that he does not have an ear or sinus infection, I found it quite frustrating to go through all that just to find that out!  Better safe than sorry, I know…but still!

So, last night, Charlotte woke up around 4:30 with a sore throat, stopped-up nose, and aching head.  I told her to prop herself up on the couch and try to sleep a bit more, but she came back in at 6:00 to tell me that she hadn’t slept a bit.  Today has been rounds of cold medicine and ibuprofen.  I suspect she has the same nasty cold as Jeremy, as she hasn’t run fever, but she’s pretty miserable.

To top this off, Jeff is out of town all week doing some training in Decatur, Illinois, a town about two hours from here.  He had planned to come back here to run basketball practice tonight, but he called about 4:00 to tell me that his car had broken down about 10 miles out of Decatur!  And would I be up to running basketball practice tonight?

A “Check Engine” light had come on and plunged the Subaru into “limp mode,” which means Jeff couldn’t go above 30 miles an hour.  So, he “limped” back to Decatur, fooled around with the car a bit, and got the light to go off.  But that didn’t get him here for practice!

Therefore, I, who have never played basketball in my life, ended up running Charlotte’s basketball practice.  I had given Charlotte some medicine and told her that she had to go whether she was feeling up to it or not because she knew the drills, and I didn’t.  To make a long story short, we had practice.  And we actually did two of the three drills pretty decently.  That lasted for about 35 minutes, and then the practice descended into chaos, which I ended about ten minutes early.

Whew.  I just hope I didn’t do any permanent damage.  A basketball coach I am not.  Elijah, however, is getting some good babysitting experience, as he was responsible for keeping Jeremy safe and entertained while we practiced!

Thanks for listening to me vent.  Here’s to a better rest of the week!

A Little Excitement

Well, it’s been a slow week with nothing much going on but school and normal activities.  Most time, that is excitement enough for me.  The weekend brought a few more happenings of interest, some better than others.

On Friday evening, Charlotte and Jeff attended a Daddy-Daughter Princess Dance.  They went last year to this same dance, so we bought Charlotte a pretty dress, and Jeff bought her a corsage. 

Charlotte is a funny kid.  She would have been happy to wear the same dress that she wore last year (“I really like it, Mom!”) and only didn’t wear it because it was now shorter than she likes.  (I think she’s grown two inches since last February and will probably be my height by next year…crazy.)  When we went dress shopping, we had our usual challenge of finding something not too frou-frou that is long enough to suit her and well-fitted.  She finally agreed that this dress would do!

Then, we had a discussion about shoes.  Charlotte is not a big fan of dress shoes and actually doesn’t own a pair.  I thought we would get her some to go with the dress, but Charlotte told me that nobody wears shoes during the dance anyway, so she’d just wear her winter boots, these big, bulky heavy things.  However, she does have a pair of dress boots purchased for a special occasion last year, and these ended up matching her dress perfectly!

When Jeff got home, he presented Charlotte with her corsage.  Most girls this age, and every single girl who attends this dance, wear a wrist corsage.  But Charlotte thought it was really cool last year to be the only person with a pin-on corsage, so that’s what she requested again for this year.  The guy at the flower shop thought Jeff had made a mistake in ordering, but not so!

And here they are, all ready to go!

They had a fun evening.  As they joined our friend Von Pugh with his daughter Ryann, Von’s wife Saundi called and asked if Elijah would care to join her and their son for a meal out and Gnomeo and Juliet.  Of course, Elijah was eager to go, so he had a great time, while I sat at home and finished a digital scrapbook after Jeremy went to bed.

Then, this morning, we had the not-so-fun part of our weekend excitement.  Elijah accidentally left our basement door open, and Jeremy took a header down the 12 stairs to the basement.  Yikes!

Jeff and I were finishing up getting ready for church, when we heard a couple of loud thumps and some screaming.  We ran out into the living room to find one of the kids (I honestly don’t remember which) carrying a bloody-nosed, screaming baby up the stairs.  Charlotte told us, “Elijah left the basement door open, and Jeremy fell down!”

When the dust settled and I got Jeremy cleaned up, I was able to assess the damage.  He must’ve taken most of the fall on his face because, in addition to the bloody nose, he has a bruised left eyebrow, a carpet burn by his right eye, some bruises across his forehead, and a raw area underneath his nose.  His wounds are all superficial and look worse than they are.

I was on the phone with a nurse from the pediatric after-hours office for about ten minutes, while she asked me a million questions and told me for what to watch for the next 24 hours.  As Jeremy was walking around and babbling and acting normally within 15 minutes of the fall, the nurse told me that he was very likely just fine. 

I had snapped a picture of Jeremy just yesterday, as he was really looking cute carrying books out for us to read to him.  So, we’ve got a before and an after picture of our poor baby!

I’ll tell you, I sometimes wonder how baby boys survive toddlerhood.

In happier news, we gave the kids their Valentine’s Day gift this morning.  We’re not big celebrators of this particular holiday, as the anniversary of our first date is the weekend before Valentine’s Day, and we try to celebrate that instead.  But I do try to get the kids a little something.  I gave it to them today, before Jeremy took his tumble, as we have a better chance of trying out the game, In a Pickle, this afternoon and this evening, as opposed to tomorrow.  And, no, Jeremy doesn’t get a cupcake.  We try to save that much sugar for first birthdays!

So, that’s been our weekend.  Hope that yours has been good, with no tumbles down stairs or calls to the doctor!

May the Force Be with Them

I just had to share these photos.

I guess it’s never to early to start learning Jedi skills.  And, if you haven’t yet seen it, this commercial at this link is hilarious, especially if you have Star Wars-crazy kids!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bPoD0f9Gas&feature=rec-LGOUT-exp_fresh+div-1r-10-HM

Have a great weekend!

In Case You Were Wondering

Well, the final tally on our snowfall was 14.5 inches.  This is what that much snow looks like a couple of days after it falls.  Plowed, it’s about waist high.  The kids were able to tunnel through the pile next to the lamp post in the middle picture.

This morning brought ridiculously cold temperatures.  It was minus eight degrees when Jeff got up, with predicted highs around nine degrees.  I went for a run this afternoon, and I don’t think it was quite that cold, but my face was pretty frozen when I got home. 

I think that the current danger is the ice underneath the snow that is still on the streets.  You can sort of tell from the pictures that, while the streets are plowed, they are not cleared.  Many of the patches of pavement that are peeking through are slick with ice.

Could make for a fun drive to our first spring co-op tomorrow.  Jeff has made it into work both yesterday and today, and he says one just has to take it easy and be careful.  Good advice.

In other news, I thought I’d give you an update on my New Year’s resolutions.  So far, so good.  I started the book of Job today, a bit over 30 days into my 90-days-through-the-Bible plan.  You definitely don’t have a chance to get bogged down anywhere when reading the Bible like this. 

I am also a month in to my half-marathon training.  We were scheduled to run six to eight miles last Saturday, and we managed to get in seven.  It was sleeting by the time we were finished.  This Saturday, we supposed to run six, and we’re struggling to figure out where it would be both safe from cars and mostly free from snow and ice.

I know that this weather will clear out eventually, but I think that it is the worst in which I have ever trained.  I started training in January in France the first time I ran a half-marathon, but I have never experienced this much snow, wind, and just plain cold.  I now understand why many runners here invest in treadmills.  Running in Illinois in the middle of winter is definitely a endurance contest!

But I am officially signed up to run the race, so train I will.  At least, most of the time!

Here’s one other update before I sign off.  Our 10-month-old little one has officially joined the world of walking.  He can’t figure out how to stand up without holding on to something yet, but he has definitely figured out how to let go, turn, and toddle over to wherever he wants to be.  He doesn’t even need someone to catch him anymore!

I’d forgotten how quickly babies get the hang of walking once they figure it out.  He still crawls some, but it’s no longer his preferred method of locomotion.  Wow!

Hope you’re staying warm and healthy!

Thundersnow

So, we woke up this morning…to absolutely nothing.  We could still see the same patches of grass and the kids’ footprints that we had seen the night before.

Snowmageddon had not come.

Sometime in the middle of the night, the forecasters pushed the snow back until this afternoon.  Then, it was noon.  Then, it was 10:00 a.m.  Most of us were starting to wonder if there really was a storm coming at all.

Then, at 11:30 a.m., it started snowing.  I had the kids shovel the driveway around 2:00, as Jeff was planning to head home at 3:00.  Jeff and I headed back out to shovel again around 3:45. And then we headed back out at 7:30 to shovel again.  It felt sort of like bailing out the Titanic, but we’re hoping that it keeps us from having to dig out from 18 inches of snow tomorrow!  Lots of it is accumulating in the driveway from the wind, which is the real danger right now.

Here are a few pictures of our blizzard.  The kids are playing on piles that we shoveled out of the driveway.

In the midst of this craziness, we experienced a weather phenomenon of which we had never even heard:  thundersnow.  As we were bundling up to shovel at 7:30, we saw a huge flash of light.  We honestly thought that something had blown up in the neighborhood.  About 10 seconds later, we heard the thunder.

I had no idea that a snowstorm could create thunder and lightning, but we saw two more flashes while we were shoveling.  Yikes.  When I came in, I checked Facebook, and many of my Illinois friends were posting or twittering about it.  Pretty crazy!

The Peoria Airport is reporting about seven inches right now, but the snow is not supposed to abate until sometime tomorrow.  But, as I said yesterday, we have food, we have power, and we are all here together.  And with this weather, we can stay home and not feel guilty about missing anything.  I love it!

Hope that you are staying warm and cozy wherever you are!