This girl...

She's a princess rock scientist

Sunday night I got really sick. Monday I was better but couldn't get out of bed. Tuesday Peter had to work. Neither of us wanted him to take a day off work to help with the kids so in steps Miss E. Tuesday I was well enough to sit on the couch and only take two naps. That's it. Miss E helped get breakfast for her and Mr. T (I boiled water for oatmeal), she got herself dressed and ready for school and reminded him to do the same. She put their (pre-packed) lunches in their backpacks and told me when it was time to leave. All I had to do was drive them the mile to school, drop them at the curb and drive home. 

Mr. T came home on the bus at noon and ate his lunch, patted my back, got me a glass of water and built Lego's. Miss E came home and said she wanted to fix a sandwich bar for dinner. Then she put out the bread, had me slice cheese and pickles and pears, and got all the condiments out. And she helped Mr. T fix his plate and get his drink. They got ready for bed, she read to Mr. T and they played quietly until it was time for lights out. All in all, I hardly had to do anything. It is such a turn around from when they were little and there was no WAY I could have spent all day sick on the couch. She is just the most amazing, empathetic and responsible girl, and Mr. T is a kind and empathetic boy. They really make every day so wonderful.

The night before Peter went to work, he had told Miss E that he needed her to help me out the next day. There was no offer of reward at the time but last night (wednesday), as a gesture of appreciation we got her a toy she had been wanting for awhile and my goodness, the smile on her face made it all worthwhile.

The value of moms

I was sick this week with a really bad stomach bug and I'll post later about what a great help Miss E was, because, truly she is a blessing in her little package, but I wanted to share something about my mom and moms in general.

All this week I have been home sick. And Peter has taken care of the kids and the house and the leak in the roof and just about everything. But there is only so much one person can do. So when I walked into work today, for the first time this week, and my mom said "honey you don't look great, you loook pale and weak, are you sure you're ok?" I about nearly cried. It was the sweetest most loving thing I had heard all week. When you're a mom to little kids, all your family really wants is for you just to be better as fast as possible. It's just so much work for everyone to do without you and the kids really need you. What you want when you're really really sick is your mom, telling you to rest, bringing you glasses of water, rubbing your back, changing your sheets, offering you bites of cracker. Those things never go away. And all it took was one little comment of concern and kindness from my mother to make me feel that again.

I'm still here

  We had a little bit of snow

Mr. T loves to help me cook. Here were are making a chocolate sour cream cake from here.

Hello little neglected blog,  I'm still here, just busy. Not exactly sure with what. Mainly trying to keep it all together. Is is fair to say that as of Jan. 18th I'm having a hard time getting back into the swing of things after the holidays?  Here's a few notes about what I've been up to:

Slowly I'm planning Mr. T's bedroom re-do (non-scary Star Wars) and our bedroom re-do. I'm also diligently trying to ignore all the many many ways our family of 4 (plus huge dog) have outgrown our house. 

I ate the most delicious sushi ever

Peter and I had a huge fight and said mean things to each other. Then we made up and decided to try not to do that.

We got Netflix and the new season of Big Love and a Wii so our butts have been parked on the couch a bit enjoying all of our new fancy media things.  

We spent a weekend with my sister and her kids in some cabins in the wood exploring and playing in the snow.

Mr. T has fully immersed himself into Star wars  - well the first two (or the 4^th and 5^th depending on how you look at it) movies- and suddenly I am learning all these new things like the names of ships and people and creatures and robots, etc. I had no idea there was so much to it.

We all got sick. Mr. T threw up a bunch and the rest of us had a cold. However, for the first time ever, Mr. T was old enough to make it to the bowl  or toilet before he puked! This has got to be some kind of parenting mile-stone. A throwing up child with no laundry. It left me with a lot more time to rub his back and his forehead and snuggle him rather than madly trying to change the sheets or figure out when I was going to get the carpet cleaner from my mom. 

Miss E has started reading again after a brief hiatus, and in re-reading Harriet the Spy has decided to start writing a spy notebook again. I sneak peeks at it at night after she goes to bed and it is hilarious. She has the most amazingly mature and dry sense of humor.

It snowed some. And then it promises to snow some more. I did a snow dance, Peter did an anti-snow dance (firefighters hate the snow when they are on shift) and he won. We woke to rain. Sad. (for me – not for him)

Miss E is selling girl scout cookies! Her goal is 73 boxes and I think she is going to get there.

We found out that Miss E's girl scout leader had a reoccurrence of her cancer. Last year she fought breast cancer and was successful. She is a college professor, a mom of two, a girl scout leader and she coached a 1^st grade girls soccer team. An amazing woman all around. Last week she found out that the breast cancer had spread to her brain and is now undergoing radiation for that. It’s scary and sad and disheartening and reminds me once again that life is not fair at all. 

Mr. T has started to ask me how to spell things so he can write them down. This is a BIG DEAL because prior to this he had no interest at all in learning how to write or read. None whatsoever. And I have tried to be patient, so very very patient because I don't want to push it and really, you can't FORCE your kid to learn something. But finally, he is interested.

Miss E started playing indoor soccer, on the turf and she is super excited about it. Big sigh of relief for me. We have an activity. 

That's all for now. Mr. T and I are going to frost a cake, make some soup and wait for Miss E to get home.