Nothing good will happen if you put some eggs on to boil and then go to the computer to work on your Christmas card. Well… I got our card done and it has shipped but I forgot about the eggs and an hour later the water had disappeared and the eggs were ready to explode. The smell was not good either.

Then, a day later I discovered that while that was going on, Babe-o’s was in my office upstairs keeping herself busy. I found this strange white powder all over my desk and the floor. Then I realized that she had gotten into the box of ashes from our dear dog Joe! She opened the box and the bag of ashes and was playing in it like sand. I just had to vacuum him up!  I haven’t had the heart to tell the rest of the family.

My fourth grader is required to read for 30 minutes every night. He doesn’t always go for this but I’m wondering if doing Mad Libs count? Afterall, it involves reading and a quick review of nouns, adjectives and adverbs.   I miss the days of reading to him and it sure helps me to stay awake since I’ve been known to fall asleep in his bunk bed.  He thinks these are especially funny if you use words like toilet, underwear or any sort of bodily function. 

I just picked up a pack of them for our Thanksgiving road-trip…fun for the whole family!  

Everyone is feeling better and is more talkative.  Yesterday Babe-o’s asked me if I could “catch a coconut falling from the sky.”  Hmmm. She asked an easier one later- “Does tomorrow come after this day?”  I don’t know what she is thinking about in that car-seat, but we have our best conversations in the car. 

My fourth grader has much harder questions which mostly involve math. Since when did “*” replace the “X” in multiplication problems? I tried to help him tonight with his homework but honestly, I could barely do the math. And when I try to explain it to him none of the terms are the same. They’ve changed “borrowing” to “trading” in subtraction among other things. Then he asked me if I could give him a baby brother so he could have someone other than his sisters to play with.  That one I could answer.  I told him to go ask his dad.

I had hoped to recap Halloween but got side tracked by a house full of sick people.  Just a quick observation and then on to the evidence. The school Halloween party was a big success and no one missed the goody bags. The kids had fun wrapping each other up like mummies with toilet paper.  We were blessed with a beautiful night for trick-or-treating but why is it the kids run from house to house like it is a fire drill?  They don’t even come out to the side-walk in between houses they just cut through the bushes.  By the end of the night they looked like they had been on a hay ride.  My husband and I could hardly keep up.

Now on to the evidence. When things are not going well in your house do you ever look outside to make sure life is still going on? First Ham went down on Sunday, then her brother (who I thought was faking at first) and then my poor husband who has not been sick in 12 years.  He never complains but I knew when he turned the heat up to 80 he must have the chills. I was so thankful that Babe-o’s was okay (until Thursday) and glad that God has a sense of humor and is keeping me healthy so I can take care of everyone.

I just wish I had stock-piled more than toilet paper (for the mummy game) and paper towels- although those came in handy when the vomiting started.  How are things in your house?

Why is it that if you are having 20 people over for dinner that will be the moment when your child has an accident? Poor, poor babe-o’s had a run-in with our coffee table and there was blood coming out of her nose and mouth and all over the rug. I of course  always fear the worst (her nose is broken and her teeth are knocked out) and think we should rush to the e.r. while thankfully my husband is more cautious and wants to wait and see. I eventually put her to bed and this morning realized we needed to take a trip to the doctor. 

And why does everyone stand in the kitchen at a party? There could be a perfectly nice room a few steps away and everyone will stay crammed in the kitchen.  Also, why do the people bringing an appetizer show up late while the dessert people are the first to arrive? Why?

How many emails does it take to plan a 4th grade halloween party? It sounds like the set-up to a good joke but it is no laughing matter. I must have traded 50 emails with my committee members until my internet connection went out and I finally invited people over for coffee at my house. It ended up being a blessing because we planned the whole thing in an hour. 

 Now I just have 50 emails waiting for me from the other classes to discuss the menu,  gather food labels, copy and distribute them to the parents for their snack approval.  Things were easier before all these food allergies and pre H1N1 when we all just bobbed for apples sharing our saliva.  No joke, this has been harder than any job I ever had in television and the pay is even worse.  Gotta go..the internet connection is getting sketchy again.

I was chatting with Babe-o’s about her friends on the ride home from preschool. I asked her who she played with that day. Of course she mentioned the usual suspects: Isabelle and Nicole. But when I asked her if she played with any boys in the class she said, “I play with none boys mom.” I wonder how long that will last.

I recently hauled my 4th grader to the pediatrician for his  flu shot. My girls had already gotten theirs at the allergy doctor but had to come along for the ride.  We drove for 30 minutes and then spent 45 minutes in a small stuffy waiting room surrounded by SICK people coughing all over us. (disclaimer: I was one of the sick people) When I checked with the receptionist she said there were still three patients ahead of us so I decided to leave.  We were sick and tired of waiting!  I have never done that before but I wonder is it worth it to risk getting sick in order to get  a shot that might keep you well? 

After reflecting on that ridiculous exercise and realizing that he STILL needs to get the shot, I made an appointment at the health department where hopefully there won’t  be as long of a wait and we won’t be surrounded by sick people.  This is all for the regular flu shot, not the swine flu shot which at the moment, we cannot even get in Chicago.

We are back from a 1,200 mile weekend getaway since the kids had two days off of school.  Of course our destination was fabulous and we nearly hit the peak of the fall colors but  the journey was priceless and I am always amazed at the little things that make my kids happy. Such as-

• staying at a cheap motel with a pool
• the free breakfast at the cheap motel
• drinking out of the plastic motel cups and eating pizza in our room
• jumping from bed to bed and generally driving my husband and I nuts

In the stages of grief,  I’m still stuck in denial although I occasionally slip to the dark side with sadness.  I can’t believe a week ago I was at my friend T’s side as she stood for over an hour greeting friends, family and colleagues at the wake for her husband.

It didn’t matter that she never even had a  receiving line at her wedding,  she stood with grace and poise as people made their way through the line that went out the funeral home door.  She somehow comforted all of them. She had asked me to stay close by for support but I had to stand behind her so she couldn’t  see that I was about to lose it.  You know when you hold your tears in because if you let them out you’re afraid you’ll never stop?  And then you end up with a terrible headache..that’s how I was.  I  made myself busy getting water for her and making sure there were enough envelopes for people to make donations to her kids’ educational fund, but I’d occasionally look up and see my husband from a distance shooting me The Look that says “get it together!” 

Then there was T’s son’s 4th grade soccer team all in their uniforms filling up a pew at the church.  I’m sure  many of them had never even been to a funeral before.

And I wish I could say I’d paid better attention to obituary writing in Journalism School (sorry Prof. S.) so I could have tackled writing my friend’s obit with confidence.   But I muddled through trying to be concise as I told people who this great man was. 

It is amazing that we find the strength and courage to do what we didn’t sign up for.