The post in which I appear negligent and a drug addict

Three straight nights of sniffling, coughing, up all night by the little ones.

Three straight nights of Bobby working at the fire station, leaving me to handle the 3 am wake up cries. And the 4 am ones. And the 4:30 ones.

There was not going to be a fourth.

I raided the medicine cabinet, and found only Benedryl. IThat'll work. I checked the dosage-- For kids ages 6-12, 1-2 teaspoons. Well, Kaylin is almost 6. I grabbed a tablespoon, forced them to drink the stuff, and sent them off to bed. 15 minutes later they were conked out. Hard.

Then I washed off the spoon. Hmmm, this is a tablespoon. I think the dosage was for a teaspoon. I wonder what the conversion is. I googled it, of course, and found that 1 tablespoon=3 teaspoons. Oops. So I overdosed my kids on Benedryl. No wonder they were so sleepy!

I shook Kaylin a little, and she rolled over and sighed. Good, she's alive. Macy was whimpering in her sleep, so I knew she was okay.

And now I'm off to take a muscle relaxer to help me sleep. Nothing like a drug-induced sleep at our house tonight.

Santa, Dance and Snow Day!

Saturday night, after the cheer clinic and Macy's birthday party, Macy had to dance outside at a lighting ceremony. It was supposed to be a couple weeks ago, when the weather was great, but was rescheduled for Saturday night when it was 25 degrees. She was on the other side of the stage the entire time, so my pictures aren't great, but she is on the far right, on the end, standing up.

 

Macy with two of her besties, Paige and Kaylee. She (and we) is so fortunate to have such good friends.

 

After the dancing, Santa arrived! We were first in line, which was cool. Macy asked for a DS.

 

Admiring Santa...

 

Little sister asked for a DS too. Big surprise.

 

I just love, love, LOVE this picture.

 

Today is the reason I'm a teacher (okay, maybe not the only reason): SNOW DAY!

It's 11:45, and we have:

• slept until 8:30
• had snow ice cream for breakfast
• made beaded bracelets and necklaces
• played a Little Pet Shop board game
• raided the fridge for strange concoctions for lunch
• asked 852 times if it's warm enough to play outside.

 And now I'm off to do some packing for the Wedding Event of the Year.

Macy's 8th birthday party

Macy wanted another pool party for her birthday. I love how easy they are to plan, so I was all for that. She wanted a Wizards of Waverly Place theme, which is oh-so-difficult to find a cake for. I ended up having a picture put on the cake for an extra $5. Not happy with how it turned out, but hey, it was all gone in about 10 minutes, so it didn't really matter.

The birthday girl...she is getting so big, so mature, so grown-up.

Macy and her Nama and Papa

The group...forgot to get a group picture before they started swiming, so I herded them all over by the stairs. I think we had 20 kids in the pool, plus a couple sibling tag-a-longs.

The following pictures are a record of me trying to get all the kids to jump into the pool at one time. First, not all of them wanted to jump. A few of them were still pretty gun-shy at jumping. Second, it was so loud in there (you have no idea how loud) they couldn't hear me counting. You can see what happened.

Watch Macy's arm in the last three--everyone is jumping in around her, and her arm is still out there. She was like, "Hey! We're all supposed to go at the same time!"

We gave CD's with "magical" music--did you know Magic Carpet Ride, Every little thing she does is Magic, Do you believe in Magic, and Magic have all been re-done by someone from Disney Channel?

Next year her birthday is on a Saturday, and she's planning a sleepover. I welcome a change from a pool party, and, strange as it might sound, I like when they have sleepovers.

Chin look-a-like

I carried this child for 8 1/2 months, so I know she is mine. But check out the chin resemblance between Macy and Jennifer Aniston:

I have major pictures from today to share, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow. Until then, stay warm!

They're dropping like flies...

March 2007--B.B. (translation: before blog)

Around St. Patricks Day, Macy got a purple betta fish she called Elena.

Elena died sometime last night/this morning. It's been coming for a while--she had a white tumor of sorts on her side that continued to grow, despite Bobby's attempts to scrape it off with a toothpick. Just last week I told Macy to be prepared, Elena was going to die soon. The tumor thing made it difficult for her to swim to the surface, and she was hardly moving at all. If a fish could look miserable, she did.

But she had that fish for 2 1/2 years. That has to be a record in betta fish world.

She wants hermit crabs now..we'll see about that one.

Inappropriate language

So last night we were all in the kitchen. Bobby was making tacos for dinner, and the girls and I were talking about their day. Macy looks up at me, and says "Is f***er" a bad word? Some kids at school said it was a bad word."

I stared at her for a second, then carefully replied "Yes, it is. It is the top of the line in bad words, and definately not a word we say. You know how we don't say 'oh my g-o-d'?" She nodded. "That word is worse than 'oh-my-g-o-d'" Her eyes got huge.

We discussed this for a minute more, and I kept waiting for Bobby to chime in, or start laughing. Nothing. He's six feet away in the kitchen, and not listening.

So I told Macy to go over and tell Bobby. She whispered in his ear, while giggling. He apparently didn't hear her correctly, so he said "sucker?"

She said "no, f***er!" And she wasn't whispering this time.

Accomplishments

I did it! I blogged every day in the month of November. Not every  blog post was the most exciting in the world, but that's okay. I did it, and feel proud of myself.

One of my male students participated in writing a novel for the month of November, and he accomplished that: 50,000 words, 175 pages. Nicely done, Matt. Another male student participated in No Shave November, and he didn't shave his face for the month of November. Impressive on another level, Ian.

Busy weekend coming up--Kaylin has a cheer clinic, and Macy has her birthday party and a dance performance. Then a week until the Wedding Event of the Year!