Weekend Fun?

So I alluded to the fact that my house had turned into a den of pestilence. Here’s the lowdown:

Molly, diagnosed with strep at Urgent Care LAST Saturday, took a big turn for the worse on Friday night. She puked all night and well into Saturday. By Saturday afternoon, at which time Tom and Jake were conspicuously absent at a Boy Scout Camp out, she was lethargic and her temperature was 104.5. A rash indicated Scarlet Fever.

And due to the fact that her mother had so stupidly challenged the sick gods by bragging that a) her kids hadn’t been sick in a while and b) in 11 years she’d never had to take a kid to the ER, we soon found little Molly in the hospital with an IV in her arm.

Seven hours later we got to come home. And now, Monday morning, she appears to be on the mend. She is, in fact, eating a toasted bagel as I type.

So what did these 2 ½ weeks, I mean days, teach me?

Hospitals are probably not the cleanest places to be. 5 of the 8 or 9 professionals who looked at her said things like. “Oh, she probably picked up a really bad bug while at Urgent Care.” Not really what I want to hear when my baby is in your facility, limp as a noodle.

Sometimes the idea of puking is almost as bad as the act. At first Molly refused to believe she was going to puke. She went through the stages of denial, then anger. She railed at me, and at God. If I tried to get a bucket in puking distance, she would scream and swat it away. This led to some real free-form puking and a heck of a lot of laundry for me. Fully broken by the end of day 2, she was clinging to the toilet with her face resting on it. Acceptance had come.

Bodily functions, while very normal-seeming when a child is a baby, take on a more Linda Blair-ish tone when the child is almost 9.

Sometimes Mom is wrong. When we pulled up to the ER, Molly asked. “Mommy, Is this one of those places with tubes?” I assured her it wasn’t. Within minutes, Molly had her own tubes going in her arm, one with antibiotics, one with saline.

If you are tired enough, and your child is sick enough, you’ll sleep next to her in a bed full of diarrhea rather than disturb her.

If your husband is tired enough after watching Sports Center, and his wife is “sleeping” sitting up on the couch with his daughter for the umpteenth hour in row, he’ll go to sleep on a bare mattress even though the clean sheets are washed and ready to put back on. Stay tuned: this could turn into a Ray/Debra Romano-type stand-off.

I think the biggest thing I learned is that having a sick child is scary. My heart aches for moms with chronically ill and critically ill kids. You see, Molly missed a trip to the zoo, her soccer game, and cupcakes at her teacher’s house. But she’s doing well and by tomorrow she’ll be up and about and telling me that my clothes don’t match. This was a blip in her life story. Other moms are not as fortunate.

I am so grateful that when Molly cried, “This is the worst day of my life,” I could say, “Yes, I bet it is.”

In Need of a Silkwood-style Hose-down?

If you are ever tempted to think, or God forbid utter the following thought: "I can't believe it's April and the kids haven't been sick this whole winter," I beg you to reconsider. Wish I had heeded my own advice.

Up to our eyeballs in strep, vomit and diarrhea here.

Good times.

Worth 1,000 Words?

In a nod to the whole "kids have it so easy these days," "I used to walk 5 miles uphill in the snow to school" movement, I will add my two cents.

My kids are totally spoiled when it comes to the use of my not very fancy but very useful digital camera. Something happens? Grab the camera? Want to take a video? Go for it!

When I was little, we had an Instamatic camera. I've shared in the past that we would get little film cartridges of 12 or 20 pictures that started on the 1st day of school in September and went all the way through Christmas and Easter. With 3 kids and at least 3 major holidays for the one roll, the likelihood of my being photographed or getting my grimy little hands on the camera were pretty slim.

In fact, as the youngest of 3, I was pretty low in the documenting pecking order anyway. Half the pics were usually blurry, and that's IF someone remembered to put the little flashbulb cube on top. I complained bitterly to my mom about the injustice of it all and she would just shrug, eat another gumdrop, and banish me from the kitchen while she and her girlfriends talked about "Grown-up matters."

When I was able to sneak the camera out of the house, I would try to get all artsy by photographing a crocus, some forsythia, or our cat. At some point my mom forbade us to take any more pictures of "Animals or Scenery."

Now some parents in the 70's did have cool cameras with, like, lenses and stuff. They were the ones who had awesome black and white closeups of each child, and they probably even got a few delivery or post delivery pics in the hospital. They developed their own prints and didn't stick to the one or two rolls a year rule.

We were not that family. And we went straight from the Instamatic, to the Polaroid, to the Godforsaken DISC, so things didn't really improve until at least the 90's. I've already shared with you that I wish we had more pics of my mom.

But back to my kids. I was uploading from my camera today and found 45, yes 45, pictures of either our dog, or a cantaloupe. I think it must be a special cantaloupe. Tell me if you think these constitute "Animals and Scenery" or at least "Animals and Still Life."

So I guess they are spoiled. The good news I think they have creative flair AND I didn't hear a peep of fighting out of them for at least an hour.

Well, If You Say So...

Today, some frozen hotdogs fell out of the freezer onto the floor.

Molly said, "Mom, I think it's really weird that some people call hotdogs WEINERS. That would be just like if I started calling bananas VAGINAS."

O-Kay.

Sun-ny Days, Chasing the Clouds A-way

So I was browsing in Crate and Barrel last week when I saw this tray:
It looked so fresh and happy that it made me think I might need a little punch of yellow in my decor this spring.

So this flowered Dollar Store Tray got a fresh coat of yellow spray paint.

And my little blue table got some Heirloom White and was topped off by my cracked green $3 lamp with a coat of yellow and a new drum shade.

Before:

(Coral transformation to be unveiled later.)



After:






The lamp is not wowing me because:

1. I kind of ran out of yellow in the middle, so it's a bit of a greenish-yellow
2. I can't get the shade to stay on straight without the use of duct tape
3. It's so old its making me think-- fire hazard

But I must say, the yellow provides the room with a more fun, funky vibe than it had before.

The couch got some new linen pillows from C&B, to replace the wintry chocolate/blue satin ones. Don't you think the middle is crying out for a cute yellow/white lumbar pillow in a graphic print? Please let me know if you have one in mind!



So, I'm not sure if the yellow will last through the summer, or even this month, but I guess this goes to show you what happens when you give a girl a can of yellow spray paint.

P.S. The dog is still brown.

Linking up to Do It Yourself Day at A Soft Place to Land!

All's Well That Ends Well

The Well-Raising Yard Sale was a smashing success! It felt miraculous! From the neighborhood kids waking up at 6:30 to help us set up, to the weather that turned around (not a drop of rain,) to the GRAND TOTAL of more than $1,400 brought in, we felt God's hands all over this one.

Now I've had a lot of yard sales in the past, but even when they've been moving sales with tons of big ticket items worth hundreds of dollars, we've never, ever brought in that kind of money. There wasn't even a rush of customers. Just little sales, here and there. How did it all add up?

Perhaps it was this little cutie asking for donations:

Or maybe it was the alluring sight of me in a neon t-shirt and fanny pack:

But I really think it was the prayer circle my small group and I had before the customers started coming.

And there were no Early Birds... Isn't that a miracle in itself?

Speaking of miracles, we loaded up 5 complete van/truckloads to donate to charity afterwards. It felt very loaves and fishes-like to me.

A regret:

When my cleaning lady's sisters showed up early in the day, I charged them full price for stuff. If I had realized we were raking in the dough, I would have given it to them for free. I'm going to feel embarrassed the next time I see them, and not just over the piles of dog hair in my house.

Not a regret:

When a mom complained about the price I was charging for paperback books, I didn't budge. Later in the day, we were giving them away-- I just didn't like the snotty 'tude, lady.

An observation:

I am so glad my kids don't have a real shopping bug in them (unless we're talking Legos). The neighborhood kids bought and bought and bought. This helped with the bottom-line, but it made me glad my kids don't bring home a lot of little junk. I want to be the only junk bringer-inner in this family.

Thank you so much for your encouragement and support throughout the whole process! After an awesome $1,000 donation that came in on Friday night, which is a story in itself, we have reached our $5,000 goal.

Can't wait to let you know which country our well will be built in. I hope you will enjoy following the progress with me.

And on the Next Episode of Hoarders...OR, Do Stuffed Animals Breed?

This is my carport.

Now before you go all "this sounds like a cry for help" on me, let me assure you that this is all stuff that has been donated for tomorrow's Well-Raising Yard sale to raise money for the water project.

It is also why you haven't heard much from me this week about:

Taking my kids to these awesome caverns:

Really, the trip to the caverns was 2 weeks ago, but look at MY HAIR!

Trying to inject a little bright YELLOW into my decor.

Yes, that's a cantaloupe in front of that lamp. Feel free to ask the children about that one.

Surviving and even thriving when our 7 relatives came to visit.

And, in a completely unrelated incident, eating all 28 servings in a bag of Walmart's "Indulgent Trail Mix," by myself. And by Trail Mix I mean 1 lb 12 0z of white chocolate chips with a few obligatory nuts thrown in.

I promise to be back soon and fill you in on the ever-scintillating goings on here at Casa See.

BTW, today it is 83 degrees and sunny; tomorrow it's calling for rain, a high of 60, and strong breezes. Aargh.

P.S. If you don't feel like coming to my house to buy these treasures, here's a link to our Water Charity Donation page.