Indy and the Stomach Bug

We had originally planned to go to Indiana for Micah's birthday, since it fell on a 3-day weekend.  Several conflicts came up, so we decided to push it to the next weekend.  (We were prepared for Micah to miss school on Friday, but thanks to the arctic cold, school was cancelled on Thursday and Friday.)
Then, in the middle of the night on Wednesday, both Micah and I were sick to our stomachs.  We got sick within a couple hours of each other, and we had both eaten some meatballs that the rest of the family hadn't.  Additionally, neither of us had a fever, and we both felt tired, but not terrible the next day.  Scott and I thought the signs pointed to food poisoning, rather than illness, so we decided to leave for Indiana that afternoon as planned.
We were wrong.  Micah threw up again when we were about twenty minutes from Nana and Papa's house.  The next morning Hannah threw up (on Scott's lap).  Scott got sick the following morning.  Yippee.  [Smush had thrown up the previous weekend.  It was an isolated incident, so we didn't think much of it at the time.  In retrospect, he was probably the one who started it all.]
The good news is that we still had a great time.  With the exception of Scott (who still isn't quite right), we all bounced back quickly.  We took two short trips to the Children's Museum and played at an indoor playground.  The kids enjoyed spending time with their grandparents, and I read almost a whole book for pleasure.  :)

Birthday and the ER...sort of

Micah turned 7 today!  He celebrated by having Carter sleepover on Friday (bonus: he had a snow day so they had the whole day on Friday together!).

football field cake

No school today either, for President's Day, so Scott took him skiing.

sporting his new goggles from Gramme and Poppa

They got in a couple hours of skiing, but then the only running chair lift had a maintenance problem.  Scott asked if they could switch their tickets from skiing to tubing, and they agreed!  Micah was thrilled.  He had a fantastic birthday having great fun with his dad.

Meanwhile, I stayed home with the younger kids.  I had a little special time with Hannah, painting and doing puzzles to Disney music during Matthew's nap.  And I had promised her that we could go to the library when he woke up.  As we were getting coats and shoes on, Matthew tried to open the door to the garage on his own.  I took his hand to lead him over to his coat, and he tried to pull away from me and collapsed on the floor.  As he did, I felt a pop in his arm.  It was so slight, it almost felt like when you crack your knuckles.  He was screaming, but I couldn't tell if he was in pain or just mad that I wasn't letting him open the garage door.

He didn't settle down, and after a call to the nurse hotline, I decided to take him to the ER.  (I called our pediatrician on the way to see if they would see him, but they said no. :(  )  We immediately checked in with the nurse.  She asked me a few questions and had me take off his coat so we could weigh him.  I awkwardly tried to start with the hurt arm before the nurses helped me do the good arm first so it would slide off more easily.  We finished with the nurses, signed a form at the registration desk, and sat down to wait.

Up to this point, he had barely been moving his arm, and varied between screaming and occasional whimpers.  But now, suddenly, he pushed himself off my lap!  He started jabbering to the girl next to us and used both arms to climb up on a chair!

I took him back to the nurses and said, "Uh, I think he's better now".  He waved happily to confirm.  They guessed that I probably inadvertently popped it back in place when I was taking his coat off.  My relief far outweighed my embarrassment as we happily said goodbye.  And the extra silver lining was that since we were already downtown, the main library was just a few blocks away.  Hannah loved going to the "huge" library, and Smush was back to his happy self - running around shouting "book! book! book!"  :)

Camera Catch-up

A few weeks ago, we got to dog-sit for the weekend.  Riley is the best dog ever, and it was nice to have a built-in vacuum cleaner for a few days!
They built this snowman entirely by themselves.

Micah leading story time

While the big kids played outside, this guy saw the opportunity to push a chair into the kitchen and play in the sink.

He loves the camera!

Today was story character day at school.  Micah went at "Gerald" from the Elephant and Piggie books.

And this just makes me chuckle: Matthew trying to check his own diaper.