My Name is Mommy

Waiting for Ave's iPods to sync...

Today we had our long-ass-haul-to-Berkeley for SF Girls Chorus practice.  Since we've embarked on this new adventure that requires us to be on the road a couple of hours a couple of times a week, I have been spending even more time and $$ keeping the iPods chock full of music.  Honestly, as much as I love the White Album, there are just so many times I can listen to it before I want a rock to crash through my windshield and put me out of my misery.  Clearly I'm no Dean since I don't think there is ANY limit to his tolerance for the Beatles, Van Morrison, Clapton and so on.  The really hideous thing is his masochistic love affair with Dylan.  He doesn't get that therein lies the entire purpose of the invention of the earphones.  I certainly have no place criticising Dean's musical choices since I am the queen of one-hit-not-so-wonder pop.  BUT.  BUTTTT... I have an excuse.  My primary enjoyment of music is that I like to sing along to it.  So yep, that's me boppin' around in the driver's seat, embarrassing my kids and occasionally drawing the passenger in the car next to me to roll down their window and ask me if I am having a seizure and do I need them to call 9-1-1 for me?

Just stumbled across this picture from a few years back on one of our annual excursions to Canon Beach with the family.  That was a good visit.  I love the ocean.  I mean, look at it.  I want to be sitting there on the sand with that vista spread out before me when I die.  If I had to guess what the Divine looks like, well that is certainly one aspect of it.

Seriously, how could such beauty be random?  

Middle of the night quickie.

Oh, er, not *that* kind of quickie.  I wish!  Though, now that I think about it, sex is one of the best sleep aids I know of...

 

I know things have been sporadic at best around here but I'm really trying.

 

Here is my mundane excuse of a life this past week or so:

We had a long weekend, yay!!

Just as aforementioned long weekend was beginning, Vi came home from play practice on Thursday night and crawled into bed of her own volition.  As all our neighbors know, my kids like to keep the party going past midnight whenever they can so an early turn-in is highly suspect.  I went in to check on her, quietly turning the small lamp in her room on.  I knew immediately that all was not right.  Her cheeks were rosy pink while the rest of her face looked absolutely pallid.  When I turned the light on, her eyelids fluttered briefly revealing glassy eyes.  When I laid my hand against her forehead I felt a momentary wave of panic rise in my throat- she was hotter than hot.  After I quelled that instinctual hysteria, I went to get the thermometer and both the tylenol and the advil.  My always-freezing-cold hands had fooled me a bit- what I was sure was probably a brain-damaging 106 degrees turned out to only be 104.6.  I roused her enough to get doses of both tylenol and advil and some water in her.  Disclaimer: I do not advocate feeding your child tylenol and advil together.  Typical protocol recommends rotating them- they apparently work on different mechanisms responsible for the fever- but being .4 degrees from a trip to the ER, and not knowing if her temp was still in the climbing phase I decided to go for it.

Ave's birthday was on Friday but there was little opportunity to celebrate what with Vi being so sick and Ave having her chorus rehearsal in Berkeley.  Ave ended up spending the night with her friend Kate who carpools to chorus.  Kate's lovely mom (and my friend), Maria, let the girls make cupcakes and decorate them.  We had plans on Saturday for a few friends to go ice skating and then out to dinner at a chinese restaurant and finishing up with a sleepover...  Ave made it about a half hour into the skating session before she turned into a miserable, shivering, crying mess.  Of course, now she had the fever.  Dean brought her home and one of my good friends to whom I am now very much indebted, took all of Avery's friends out to a movie and to get some food.  Three hours later I was hit with a wave of exhaustion and suddenly started feeling very cold and just not-quite-right.  A few hours later, I was wandering around the house delirious and talking to our pet ferret, Cleo, who has been in ferret-heaven for 15+ years now.   

So, that was pretty much our weekend.  We had monday off and we all huddled around the tv bundled up in our blankets, popping advil and swiging nyquil.  The girls stayed home from school today and the whole house has that not-so-fresh-we've-been-sick smell which I believe is going to take a full day of sun and wind and open windows to chase away.

Being sick sucks.  Having your dead pet ferret pester you in your delirium sucks, too.  Thank goodness for Amazon and their streaming video- there is no way I would have made it to the video store.

Once this interlude of illness passes, hopefully I can get on to the good stuff like how Ave is now 8 years old!  Might even have a little multimedia presentation to show off...