Not Your Everyday Common Cold

This week was "Fire Safety" week in preschool--perfect time for us to score some brownie points with the teacher. The local fire department brings their truck over and gives the kids a pep talk about not playing with matches, etc., etc...but on top of that, Luke had access to kid-sized turnout gear through his department, so on Thursday all the kids got to try them on while Patrick's teacher put on Luke's full gear--tank, mask and all. I understand pictures were taken, but I've yet to see them. Anyway, here's Patrick--a little crazed with glee--modeling the kids' gear for me at home.

Also this week, we finally got around to doing our pumpkins...and just in time, I would say, because apparently Halloween has passed and I somehow missed it. Yesterday I was at Walmart and they were removing all the Halloween stuff and putting up Christmas stuff. Now this is nothing new to me--I realize that the Garden Center becomes Holiday Central on the Tuesday after Labor Day and not one minute later. But they were wiping out any sign of Halloween...even the candy aisle. It was Christmas stuff everywhere. Not to mention that they're completely skipping over Thanksgiving. I guess if you can't capitalize on a holiday then there's no use acknowledging it. There's no money to be made off of Turkey Day, after all. It's a very puritan holiday. Moving along, though...we finally did our pumpkins, but this year we painted instead of carved. Much less messy. Jenny gave me some awesome crafty ideas, which I was grateful for since I am unable to come up with that kind of stuff myself. Here's the little man again with the finished products.

Can I just mention that we had to go to three stores to find pumkins? No one was selling them any more. Sheesh. Anyway, for the big one, we cut out triangles of painters tape and then painted the whole thing black. When it dried, we peeled off the tape and voila! Instant art! For the little ones, we used leftover paint from my bedroom (which is actually powder blue, but on the pumpkin it turns out white...weird I know...but Jenny is all-knowing), and then more black paint to make ghost faces. Patrick's is the ghost of Groucho Marx.

So the week ended with Ben coming down with a speedy case of croup. Yesterday morning he woke up with nary a sniffle and by 6 pm he was getting very close to that barking cough and wheezing in a very scary way. I had called the doctor earlier that afternoon, but they just said to give him Albuterol and that I might have to go to the ER this weekend. Luckily, I have my ways around that. I took him over to the boss' hubby P.J., who showed enough concern to call his buddy at Urgent Care and tell him we were coming over. One of my kids had croup last year (I think it was Patrick, but I really can't remember), and I had forgotten that it is just a wee bit more frightening than just a cough due to cold. So even though the after-hours doctor visit was a breeze, the night was still tough. I was reminded of all the warnings my pediatrician had told me last year: listen for the breathing, if it's strained get him in the shower fast or stick his face in the freezer--just the face!--if that doesn't work, get to the hospital, watch his ribs and neck muscles for signs of distress, his breathing passage is extremely small right now, you might want to sleep next to him on the floor...

...which spells out a tough night for me. Ben actually had a very good night. When I picked up his steroids, I got a steam vaporizer too, which transformed his room into a tropical rainforest overnight. So he woke up all dewy and pretty refreshed. I was not quite so refreshed. Since Luke and I are mean parents and have made our kids sleep in their cribs since day one, I did not foresee that sharing a room with Ben would go so well. I settled for putting the monitor right by his crib, and the receiver right by my head and turning it all the way up...which was very effective, much as if I had broadcast his breathing over the loudspeaker system at Phillips Arena or something. So I heard every sound possible. But it wasn't the sounds that woke me up, it was the worry, and I spent a lot of time creeping into his room to make sure his breathing was okay. Which it was, thanks to the balmy temperatures and relative humidity of 400%, a la Vicks. Anyway, I knew it would only be one rough night and that the steroids would really take effect today, so we're on the upswing.

Tomorrow, we're going to the annual harvest craft fair, but I'm not taking pictures, since I'm sure it will be just like last year and you can see those pictures here. I guess I'll catch everyone on the blog after Halloween. Later!

The Chattanooga Pics

So as I said before, last Friday we braved the "rain" and went to Chattanooga for a family outing. You can see how rainy it ended up being...but that's okay, because we needed the pretty weather and it's raining now...so everybody wins. First stop was the Chattanooga Zoo...

...which is so much better than Zoo Atlanta, primarily because they call themselves the Chattanooga Zoo and they don't interchange the parts of speech in their title like BellSouth and Team USA and all those other names that people give themselves thinking they sound edgy, but really they sound dumb. Zoo Atlanta being one of them. I also think Zoo Atlanta is waaaay overpriced. When I was a teenager (which was not that long ago) you could get in for $7--which seems about right. The last time I went was two years ago, and it had not changed a bit except they added two pandas which are never in the mood to be seen and the price tag had been inflated in a major way. Boooooo. The Chattanooga Zoo cost $15 for all four of us to go into, and although it didn't have elephants or giraffes, it wasn't like they were trying to show us dogs and squirrels and stuff. It still had enough exotic animals to give my kiddies a major thrill, which of course thrills me. Also, there were like 50 people there...no thousands upon thousands of screaming school children in matching shirts blocking my kids' view. Nope, it was just us and the animals, strolling around at our leisure. Nice.

They really loved it all equally, except the Patrick was totally enamored with the macaws, which he is familiar with because Diego saved one at some point in time. He sat and talked to that red macaw for about 20 minutes, and to give the bird some props, he held up his end of the conversation. He also showed us how he could peel a grape and eat just the pulp with his beak--no hands! It was highly impressive. My favorites were the African crane (the large bird with the crazy hair in the fourth pic), because he was into some wild and crazy antics--all up in your face and such--and the jaguar, who was completely geriatric but still breathtakingly beautiful.

The other great thing about the Chattanooga Zoo is that they have kept up with the standards for animal sanctuaries, but they have still preserved that old-timey zoo feeling. In the early days of zoos, they were kind of what you would see in a Curious George or Richard Scary book. They were built right into the heart of the city, and the design was basically a cement landscape with cages scattered in a circular path around one large central cage (which usually held monkeys). Not so great for the animals, but eventually people wised up and starting building something a little more like a natural habitat. As we walked around, I could definitely see the structure that had once been there...but was now covered with much nicer surroundings. So all in all, I give the zoo two thumbs up, and we'll be going back in a year or so, because they're adding on a new section so that'll be more to see.

Moving on, our next adventure was not quite so cost-effective, but fun nonetheless. We went on the Chattanooga Ducks, one of those old war boat/car contraptions that have been renovated for tours and are now sprinkled across the country taking money from suckers like me. I actually really enjoyed it--it was a great day to be on the water--but I think maybe half of what they charged would've been appropriate for what was delivered. But ya know, wherever boats are involved, there's also a hefty fee...so if you can't escape it, you might as well embrace it.

In the picture of our reflection, I'm the one sitting up front holding the camera out. The driver was babbling about how if someone took a picture, we might end up on the internet (gasp!) and I wasn't going to make a liar out of him. We learned a few things, including the fact that the Tennessee River is actually a lake called Nickajack Lake...something about its flow pattern or whatever...and the guide told us about some prominent residents of Chattonooga who had built fabulous houses along the shoreline. Very informative all in all, and let's face it, who doesn't love a boat ride?

After that, we had an hour to kill before we met up with Luke's brother Adam and his girlfriend Kendall for dinner, so we headed down to the riverside behind the aquarium to play at the park. We had just learned on our boat ride that the city had spent millions renovating the riverfront to make it more accessible to people, so who were we not to put it to good use? Waste not, want not, that's what I always say. Most of the time.

Luke and I were talking about how Chattanooga has done a good job with itself. There's a lot of history and natural beauty there, and they've showcased it well. It's really easy to go for just a day or a weekend and do a lot and learn a lot too. We both think our town could take a few chapters out of the how-to book and do a little bit better. However, since Luke used to work directly under the Downtown Development Director and we both know her work ethic, I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon. But I digress. I'm glad Chattanooga is nearby for all the fun it offers. We had a good day trip and we'll be going back soon.

Boo for Blogging.

To all you naysayers out there who are giving me a hard time about my recent lack of blogging, let me just say that we've had a really hard time with internet connections lately. As most of you know, we use dial-up because the phone company still considers us "country" and the cable company wants to charge an arm and a leg and we just won't have it. Our other two options are using Verizon's new high-speed, which which would also require giving up said arm and leg, or HughesNet, who say they can give you broadband no matter where you live by using satellite technology, but the last time I checked, the start-up fee was over $700. Um, no thanks.

So for now we're sticking with old dial-up, unless someone wants to cough up $65+ per month for various forms of high-speed, but it isn't going to be us. It's not been so bad in the past, but as I've said, lately the connections have been really slow. You try uploading even one picture at 26.5 kb per second and then we'll chat.

Also, I've been really busy at work learning my new software and it's taken a lot of time, but I've gotten one publication out and I'm close to the second one being finished, so it's been worth it. But whenever I sit down at the computer--even at home--I'm pretty much working on that...not the blog.

So when I finally work up the energy and stamina to sit down and create a post (which usually takes about a week...to get my stamina up, not to create a post...that only takes 4-5 days), then I get codes like this from Blogger:

bX-9pjt6o

...which translates literally to: I'm not blogging tonight. Too bad because we went to Chattanooga yesterday and I took lots of pics and who knows when I'll feel like sitting down to share again? Perhaps tomorrow.

More Fall Fun for Everyone

We've been very active as of late...this is a busy time of year, it seems. Last weekend we went to Gigi and Grandpa's house for their church fall festival, which of course was loads of fun for the kids. I didn't take any pictures because as you can probably tell, blogging's not on my mind like that anymore, but here's a few of the next day at the fabulous park down the street:


And this weekend holds the various fall festivals at our church and school. Yesterday was the school's, and I spent all day Friday getting things ready for the bake sale and the cake walk. My boss Stephanie and I made sure everything was labeled and packaged nicely and ready to sell. Most everything that the parents brought in looked wonderful and delicious, but there are always some questionable items. One in particular this year was a cake that looked like it had been through the Battle of Bunker Hill on the way to school. The top layer had fallen off and cracked, the bottom layer was unrecognizable, and the orange frosting was all over the place. I told Stephanie we had to toss it, that no one would want to take that cake home, even as a prize for the cake walk. Can you imagine the letdown of opening your box and seeing a big orange mess piled inside? But no, Steph said...we were short on prize cakes and we needed all that we could get...it had to be included. I fixed it up the best I could, getting rid of the bottom layer completely and putting some Halloween decorations on top to mask the unappetizing ugliness of it all, but I repeatedly maintained (loudly) that someone was going to be very disappointed to take home that cake. And I was right. Someone was...and that someone was me.

So here's the disgusting cake that Patrick won. I could not believe the injustice. There were fifty other cakes on that table and the stupid volunteer had to pick up that one. I should have thrown the darn thing out when I had the chance on Friday...then I would have been the happy owner of a simple bundt or something. I will admit though, Patrick thinks it's the coolest cake ever. He loves it and he is going to eat the whole thing. Better him than me.

Other than that, the festival was fun. Today is the church picnic--also at the school--and if Ben wakes up from his nap in time, we'll go to that too. Ciao!

Fall Break

We've been on fall break since Friday, and I've realized that since I can't rely on Luke's schedule to help me keep my days straight, I've become very dependent on Patrick's. I feel like I've had five Sundays in a row now. It's back to school tomorrow, but we've all had a good vacation.

Patrick went camping with Ma and Pa on Friday morning, so we had some "just Ben" time over the beautiful weekend. Saturday we went to Mary Kate's birthday party, which was great, except now that it's over, it means I have to start thinking about Ben's. And I hate planning birthday parties. On Sunday, we took the plunge and finally went out and bought a seat for Ben to go on Luke's bike. We've been putting this off for a while now...probably because we really need two seats because Patrick is learning to ride, but he's not really fast enough to ride with the family. And two seats is kind of an investment...besides that, it's not really one I want to make...I'd rather Patrick just keep learning to keep up. Maybe it'll happen faster than I expect. And if not, we'll just ride and make him run alongside us. He'll turn out just fine. I'm sure of it. It builds character.

Anyway, for this weekend, the one seat was great and Ben had a blast. We rode all over downtown and stopped at the park for him to "PLAY!"

On Monday we headed to Tennessee to spend the day with the campers before fetching Patrick to bring him home. It was a fun campsite for the kids, right on the Hiawassee River, which is wide and shallow...this area of it in particular, so the boys could wade almost all the way across.

The water was chilly, but the air was warm, so they spent hours collecting river rocks and looking for crawfish while we skipped rocks until our arms fell off. They were perfect for skipping. My best few were six or seven skips, but Luke had some that were too many to count--probably about fourteen or so. He's really good at that. So we were all having fun until eventually this big guy came and chased us out of the water.

Another kid that was with us practically stepped on him out in the middle of the river, and I guess the only thing that saved him from a trip to the ER was that the snake had a mouthful of fish. I read when I got back home that copperheads are pretty testy and will strike quickly, but they won't inject a lot of poison in defense. Sometimes they won't even bite...they'll just lunge at you. This one was pretty irritated that we were interrupting his meal, but he didn't make any moves. Eventually he just dropped the fish and swam away glaring at us...literally.

The fam...we don't all get in a picture together too often, but I thought this one was a good shot. So our week kinda starts back up tomorrow...hope you all have a great rest of the week!