Not Winter, Not Spring

...just somewhere in the middle.  I haven't been posting much lately, merely because there hasn't been much to post!  Life goes on, one day at a time.  We get up, we go to school, we come home, eat dinner, go to bed.  Rinse and repeat!  Melanie seems finally over her nasty cold or whatever the heck it was.  David was feeling rather crummy over the weekend, just in time for him to go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras.  He left on Thursday flying down there, spent the night with my dad in Baton Rouge, then went back down to N.O. to hang out with friends until his parade rolled on Sunday.  (Yesterday).  Meanwhile, my mom flew down here to hang out with me.  We went and bought me a new sewing machine (gonna learn to sew, darn it!) and she made a quickie quilt for Lisa while she was here.  It was fun working on it together.

On Saturday Christian had a birthday party downtown at Discovery Place, so we had to kill an hour and a half.  We wandered down South Boulevard and came upon an old-timey drive-in restaurant where we had burgers and shakes.  It was awesome!!  It's called 21 South ... was written up in the Charlotte paper the other weekend.  Been around for 100 years.  Well you know.

Mom and I ate Indian food on Thursday while Melanie was in school.  She liked it so much that we took the kids there last night for dinner!  Gotta get all the curry I can when I can, since David hates it.  It was awesome.  Okay, all we did was eat and sew!!

Busy week ahead.  Christian at basketball camp every afternoon.  Tomorrow I have a kitchen designer coming to look at our kitchen and give us some ideas about renovating it.  Thursday I take Melanie to be evaluated for the Bright Beginnings preschool, Friday is Christian's birthday party at Monkey Joe's.  My baby will be 9 on Sunday.  Lisa will be 8, eight days later.  Her party is a week from Saturday.

Got a new vehicle.  David's company car went away, and I happily donated the Yukon to David for his work car.  I am now the proud owner of a Honda mini-van which I LOVE.  It's kinda like coming home; my first new car was a Honda Civic.  Then I had another Civic, then an Accord hatchback.  Good to be back in Honda land.  It had gotten to be a running joke about how many things I could hit with the darn Yukon.  Let's see .. I hit a parked car, a concrete pylon, and the garage wall.  OBVIOUSLY I wasn't meant or designed to drive a land yacht.  I complained to David one time that I was so tired of driving a car with dings all over it.  He replied, "Well, then stop hitting stuff!"  Erudite as usual.  Thanks a lot honey.

The Honda feels like a car.  Man, the turning radius is TIGHT.  I'm happy.  I even got in the garage on Saturday and cleaned out the crap, so now I can actually park my car indoors!  Makes a big difference starting it up on a cold 25 degree morning (like this morning!)

 

A Voice from the Wilderness

<sound of crickets chirping>

Well, I finally feel a little literary inspiration to update the website.  Very little.  Last week Christian tested positive for strep, and then, as I said, Quentin popped up with the fever, upper respiratory crud.  He's still coughing his head off, as am I.  Melanie finally succumbed today ... she's had the "green elevens" for about three weeks now, and it finally worked its way into a bacterial infection, with fever, etc.  The doctor gave us some antihistamine, which I gave her this afternoon with her first dose of antibiotics.  She played outside (it was 70 freakin' degrees here!!) and seemed to be feeling better.  I gave her a juice box, and went to fixing dinner.  Christian came into the kitchen and found her fast asleep, bent over with her head on a chair.  It was too cute for words.  Blech though, now she probably won't go to bed.  Oh well .. poor thing.  (Pictures above)!

Other than that ... not much else to report, other than doctor visits and such.  Melanie's appointment in Chapel Hill, with the UNC Craniofacial group, is coming up pretty soon .. March 12.  We also have Lisa & Christian's birthday parties coming up, and an appointment to have M. evaluated for "Bright Beginnings", a special ed. preschool that is available through the public schools here.  I think it would be a great opportunity for her, and she'll get all her speech services, etc. on a daily basis. 

She did start with another speech therapist, provided also by the school district, and in addition to the private therapy that we're getting with Jamie.  I am just so frustrated with her inability to speak ... which I suppose is a misnomer, since she does speak, just inaudibly.  Or not articulately.  (Is that a word?)  She's had her palate fixed over a year, and I was hoping to see more results by now.  I'm afraid they are going to do another surgery before we see any real answers.

Dinner's ready!  Gotta run.

Another One Bites the Dust

Quentin: fever 101

Who's next?

MIA?

Talk about karma coming along to kick you in the butt!  Just when I proclaimed "normalcy" all hell broke loose.  Last weekend, after taking care of Melanie and her case of the "greenies" as I call them (no explanation necessary, I hope) I started to feel chesty and before I knew it was running fever and had a raging case of bronchitis.  For some reason I couldn't sleep for almost 5 nights in a row, thanks to who knows what medication, I was taking so many.  Monday morning Colin fell like a bowling pin ... high fever, sore throat, aches.  He has been running 102 or higher all week, missing school (ack).  Christian fell next, running fever over the weekend, then complaining of a sore hip (toxic synovitis?  An infection of the lining of the hip?)  He then tested positive for strep.  I am still coughing my head off, and feeling pretty much like warmed over crap.  So that explains where I have been the last week or so!

I'll write more of an entry when I feel better.