Sick Sick Sickies

We are the house of sickness. It started Friday nite, right after Georgia's birthday party. She was tired, achey, and asked to go to bed while guests were still here. It's five days later and she still has a fever. I took Camille into school late on Tuesday (it physically pains her to go to school if Georgia doesn't) and the office informed me that 10 kids were absent from Georgia's class. The secretary leaned in kind of conspiratorially and said, "Apparently there was a party Friday nite and ALL the kids are really sick..." So we are now the vector of all illness it seems.

Because this is Georgie's 8th birthday and she will be baptized this Saturday, lots of family are in town. 3 of Dave's 4 sisters are here, with 2 cousins. Almost all of us have some version of the virus. The babies have goopy eyes and fevers, the toddler is miserable, we all have amazing headaches, and currently Stephanie has the highest fever (though Suzie wins as pastiest, which is saying something as she lives a block from the beach). Grandma Dava arrives tomorrow and we are all desperate for her to take care of us, make us soup, bring us cool washclothes, put us to bed with purple flavor motrin.

But we've still managed to have some fun. We watch Idol and Dog Whisperer, eat Mike's pastries and raw cookie dough (Laurie Low's recipe with 3t of Mexican vanilla), and have been to the Christmas Tree Shop twice and are headed back tomorrow. Nothing soothes stabbing aches and pains like cheap Valentine's decorations.

I am excited for my Georgie's baptism. She is such a big girl, and seems to understand that she is making a big commitment. Too bad she doesn't appreciate that she'd look so much cuter in the white satin dress with the beading than the faux shantung one with the cheesey lace jacket... Oh well, I guess even THAT sin will be forgiven.

"That one one"

Dave left town today. He's been in town since right before Christmas and it has been delightful having him around. I do not look forward to single parenting again. I like to think that I stay on top of stuff, but then things get sprung on me at 8pm and I shift into manic headless chicken mode. Jonah said he had a little homework left. Upon further inquiry a "little" meant a 6 page brochure on the 13 colonies, divided into 3 regions. We dash to the computer and try to throw something together. Jonah informs me that I am a better writer than Pop, which is his way of saying I help him more, with a ghost written sentence ending up here and there. We're on a roll now, making jokes about New Jersey being "the Garden Colony" and having been settled by Quakers, "a peace loving people known for their quiet meetings and yummy oats..."

Then Georgia, who earlier had said she had no homework, pulled out her folder at 8pm and started to cry. All 3 girls have been sick, so she had a pile of work from yesterday that she needed to complete. So I leave Joe to his brochure and help Georgia on her stuff. Then Miss Millie, who in kindergarten is not supposed to have any homework, pulls out her folder and not only has math sheets to do (now it's 8:30) but is STAR OF THE WEEK and has surveys to answers, self-portraits to draw, pictures to collect and show and tells to prepare. It would have gone home on Friday, if she'd been there, or Monday. Now it is Tuesday night, and two of her precious five days as class celebrity are gone gone gone! I immediately had a flashback to Jonah's star week in kindergarten. We moved over the weekend, and Sunday night I checked his backpack and found the star forms. Not a single photo album was accessible, and even the slew of fridge photos were packed away. I had to call my friend Jen, who'd helped me pack, and have her remind me where that shoebox full of photos and magnets were. Anyhow, my piles of crap worked in my favor today and I was able to grab a handful of pix from the many Costco envelopes sitting on my desk for Millie to select from. I ran from kid to kid, keeping them focused lest they get distracted and start playing Runescape (Jonah), drawing & shredding paper (Georgia), or sniffing out candy & gum (Millie). So it was 9:30 before the older 3 got in bed.

So I have another wonderful Grandma Jean story to share (hence the photo above of Bea kissing her--Bea adores her and asks all the time, "Where Deanie? Where Deanie?"). Every day of her visit here, she talked about how she was supposed to get back surgery when she got home, and how she did not want to do it. So the day after her return, she calls up Dave's brother PF and tells him about her frustrating attempts to contact her doctor to cancel the surgery. "So I'm on the phone and they say they can't connect me to my doctor. How can that be? I tell them I'm not having any surgery, and they'd better put me through to the doctor so I can cancel it and they just won't help me!" PF is confused, as we all are when she's telling us a story because we KNOW crucial information has been omitted. So he tries for clarification, "Grandma, now who did you call to cancel the surgery?" "Why that one one number." PF: "NINE one one, you called 911!? That's for emergencies, Grandma." "Well, this was an emergency. And they wouldn't help me. I was so mad, I hung up on them. Then I decided I would not take no for an answer so I called that one one again." PF, incredulously: "What happened?" "They found my doctor's number, just like I knew they could." That poor 911 operator! It would be easier for 911 to just call 411 and get her the number than to argue with her. And the best part, she's never set up her surgery, so she went through all that to cancel an operation that had never been scheduled. She's a force of nature, that Grandma.