In sickness and in health

Like most weeks, this week has contained a mix of the good and bad. We had a wonderful break in the weather this week, with mild temperatures in the forties and even fifties. Andrew and I tried to take advantage of the weather to get out of the house a few times, with mixed success. On our first outing (on Tuesday, I think), we opted for a nearby park with a flock of ducks, as Andrew wanted to feed the ducks. Unfortunately, as you can perhaps tell in the background of the first two pictures below, Parks and Recreation apparently decided to fence in the pond for the winter to prevent people from trying to walk across the ice. This meant that "feeding" the ducks involved me throwing crumbs over the fence and Andrew trying to push bread through the fence or throwing crumbs *at* the fence (not exactly the most successful technique. Even though it was chain link, Andrew's throws rebounded as often as not). Still, Andrew had a great time on the swings and I managed to dissuade him from the tall curly slide by telling him it was too wet.

Unfortunately, our delight in the weather was short-lived, as by Wednesday I was dealing with a pretty obviously sick boy. It's usually a dead give-away when my normally energetic little boy decides he wants extra loves and consents to lay down on the bed to watch a movie (in this case, Elmo something-or-other). Andrew surprised me this week by twice (not once, but twice) laying down on my bed after lunch to watch something on TV while I ate my own lunch and promptly falling asleep in the bed with the lights and TV still on. (Needless to say, given our usual wrestle at nap and bed time this was a nice break). On Wednesday afternoon, after a long nap and some suspiciously fast, shallow breathing on Andrew's part, I decided to take him to the doctor, where Andrew was diagnosed with an ear and throat infection and given a prescription for amoxycillin.

The medicine and extra rest seemed to work, so by Friday he was once again bouncing around the house, raring to go, and generally driving his mother crazy. (Not, as Dan will tell you, that this is very hard to accomplish--the driving me crazy part, I mean). We went to the toy store with Jeni and her gang, intending to take advantage of some coupons in the paper, only to discover *after* arriving that the coupons didn't take effect until the next day. But the kids had a good time anyway--Andrew, especially, loves to play with the Thomas the Train display. (He has been telling us all weekend that Jacob didn't play trains with him--Jacob was looking at Star Wars books, the ostensible reason for the trip--but Emi did). And we came away with a new edition to Andrew's ever-increasing toy collection: a miniature Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi, courtesy of Hasbro's Galactic Heroes. Andrew has very little conception of Star Wars, but he was excited that his "guys" have lightsabers.

Friday afternoon, after Andrew's nap, we picked Dan up early from work and headed to his sister Sarah's house, where we had a yummy pizza dinner (Sarah thoughtfully prepared mini-pizzas for the kids to top in advance) and a generally good time hanging out with her family, Dan's parents, and his sister-in-law Laurie and Laurie's mom, who were both in town for the week babysitting Laurie's brother Blair's three girls.


We even managed to include Matt in the fun, courtesy of Skype and a computer camera. (I doubt the view from his side was as entertaining as the real thing, though). Below you can see Bubby and the girls trying to connect.


Some of my personal favorite parts of the evening were watching the youngest three (Andrew, Lydia (almost 2) and Ella (21 months)) run around together. For all her short size, Lydia can be pretty imposing when she wants, and she and Andrew spent a fair amount of time trying to boss the other one around.

Our evening was marred only by a mishap on the way home. Andrew, perhaps under the influence of too much apple juice and seven-up, wound up with a coughing fit that ended up with him puking all over himself. Luckily, we were only ten or fifteen minutes from home at that point. Unluckily, it meant trying to clean out the car in the dark and dealing with a messy child (poor kid--Andrew kept repeating, "there's someping on my legs," which were completely drenched). We managed to get Andrew and the car cleaned up (thank goodness for washable car-seat covers), but we did have one casualty of the evening. Andrew's dolly, who was in his lap at the time of the unfortunate incident, was deemed past recovery and placed discretely in a plastic bag in one of the garbage cans in the garage. Trisha will no doubt be glad of this event--Dolly was undoubtedly filthy and her hair was indescribable--but I have to confess that I feel badly for Andrew's loss. We did at least have the foresight to procure a replacement sometime back in case of this possibility, but Andrew's been sort of slow to warm up to the new dolly (probably because she's so clean and her hair still resembles, well, hair).

On Saturday, we reunited with the Eves clan at the Living Planet Aquarium in Salt Lake. Of course, after thoughtfully packing our camera in Andrew's diaper bag, we left the diaper bag in the car, so we have no pictures to document the outing. I think the kids enjoyed it, for the most part, especially the open tank with manta rays that you could touch. Andrew was fascinated by the display, standing as far up on the side as was possible for him to do, but he refused to actually touch the rays himself. Instead, he kept grabbing my hand and sticking it in the water. I guess the vicarious experience was as much as he could handle. Andrew and Lydia did get a bit restive towards the end--Bubby, Aaron, Jake, and Katie were all ensconced in a presentation on Rain Forest animals and we didn't know when they would get out--so we had to resort to some clever entertaining (i.e., bribery) by way of candy. We finished off our morning with a somewhat disappointing lunch. Since we had small children with us, we compromised on a KFC/A&W fast food joint. Not only did the food take forever to arrive (with Andrew, meanwhile, running all over the small restaurant), but Sarah and Aaron and gang took a while to catch up with us, as they were stuck in a long line back at the Aquarium. Eventually everyone arrived and got fed, and Jake and Katie, especially, seemed to enjoy their rootbeer in frosty mugs. Andrew fell asleep in the car just before we reached home (he would have fallen asleep much sooner were it not to the herculean exertions of his parents to keep him awake by dint of singing every annoying child's song we knew) and proceeded to sleep for another two or three hours, allowing his tired parents a much-needed respite. Unfortunately, as I seem to have caught Andrew's illness, there isn't much else to report from the week--I spent most of today in bed, sleeping.