HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALI!

Happy Birthday Alexandra!

love,

Mom

Happy Birthday Wiggle!

One year ago today you were just born! And boy, were a lot of people (including and especially me) happy for you to finally get here! I was going to post a pic of you then and a pic of you now, but that will have to wait, because I'm not having any success loading pics onto my blog on my Mac. Oh well. HAPPY BIRTHDAY WIGGLE! I am so happy you're here!

Durham County...AHA!

So I've been watching the quirky Canadian series Durham County. It's about a homicide detective who decides he needs a change after his partner is killed and his wife is diagnosed with breast cancer. He moves to Durham County only to discover he's living next door to a creepy guy he knew in high school who may be a serial killer. The characterizations are wonderful, and it's my kind of show, but I have to admit I was more than a little unnerved when, shortly after I'd finished watching all of Season One, driving home late one afternoon on I-35 I looked over into the next lane and saw a big yellow school bus barreling past me at 70 mph with what I thought read DURHAM COUNTY SCHOOLS on the side. There are 254 counties in Texas, but none of them is Durham County. When that bus barreled past, I immediately looked around to see if I could read anything else. This is because when I'm dreaming, I can't read, and this is always how I test myself to see if I'm dreaming. But I could read signs just fine, so I knew I was awake. I saw the bus two more times in December, always at dusk. Although I looked on the net, I couldn't find an explanation. Yesterday, back at work, I mentioned it to my boss, who was amused (it's her kind of kooky story). This morning she sent me an email saying she'd seen the big yellow bus herself, and it reads Durham School Services. I googled Durham School Services and discovered it's a company that provides busing services for schools all over the U.S.

Whew.

first Tuesday in January...

So it hit at about 3:30 this morning. Ugh, this is really bad flu (not that there's any good flu). I got up to say goodbye to Alex, Chris and Wiggle, on their way back to Chicago via Kansas City, and to Mike, back to Tucson for his final semester.

I put some laundry in, paid a couple of bills, and picked up a little but now I'm feeling miserable and achy and going back to bed.

The house is very quiet with just me and Ike, and I can't help but miss the commotion of having my family around.

settling in to January...

Wiggle is down for the night; Christo has picked up Mike, and they're spending some quality time together this evening; Alex and Chris are packing to get ready to leave tomorrow. In the meantime, A, Kath, Brenden and the X-man have gotten the bug.

So far, Christo and I seem to have escaped it, although my stomach is rocky...

pants on fire...NOT!

Brenden to the X-Man (age 7): "Hey buddy, I noticed you took the reading lamp from your lower bunk out of the bed and put it on the floor and plugged it in and turned it on there. It's OK to have the lamp on the floor, but a pair of your underpants was lying on top of the lit lamp, and that's not OK, because that could start a fire..."

To which the X-Man responded indignantly, "But Dad, I was CHARGING them!"

When we stopped laughing, Kath explained they're glow in the dark shorts...

sickies...

Yesterday I took the tree down and hauled it out front, and yesterday evening we had a simple New Year's Day dinner at my place, complete with hoppin' John for good luck and family fruit cake for desert, we being A, Alex, Chris, Wiggle, Mike, Christo, and me. Mike didn't eat much, as he'd gone out for a late lunch with a couple of his friends in the afternoon. After dinner we sat around the fireplace in the living room and talked into the night, as we generally do when we have the pleasure of each other's company. Mike said he wasn't feeling well, and at about 1:00 AM, he got sick; so sick that I thought he might have food poisoning, except he didn't...at about 2:00, the bug hit Chris, and Alex came down (or rather, got up) with it at about 3:00 AM. For the next few hours it was sort of like a big, bad game of musical chairs with the bathrooms at my place. At 4 AM Christo and I, still well, made an emergency run to 7-11 for Gatorade, and at 7:00 I was up watching Wiggle, who, having been sick on the 30th and New Year's Eve, now apparently feels quite well. At a little before 10:00 Katharina came over and picked up Wiggle, who spent the day with her. Well, that's an understatement: she, Brenden, and Chris took the X-man and Wiggle to The Nasher for the day (first Saturday of the month is family day), after which they took Wiggle back to their place where Kath entertained him, did his laundry, picked up more diapers, and even mended a couple of things before bringing him back this evening. Is she terrific or what?

While she was doing all that, I went back to bed and got some sleep while I could. This evening, the worst appears to be over for Mike, Chris and Alex, who though achy and running fevers are no longer bolting suddenly from whatever room they're in, competing for the closest bathroom. Food is still sufficiently abhorrent for all of them, though, that I went out for a bite to eat rather than risk nauseating them with the scent of any food. I also made a run to the grocery store, where I picked up more Gatorade, Ginger Ale, tea, soda crackers, bananas, and cans of chicken soup with rice. This evening everyone is vegging in the game room in front of the television set, watching movies and grateful to be feeling slightly better. If you have to be sick, it's good to have family nearby.

Happy 2010!

I'm ready for a new year, and a new decade.

This is the first time in several years that I haven't finished the old year with a Bach Society concert and begun the new year with a champagne cocktail while watching Fred and Ginger, but this year I had a much better offer: I'd agreed to watch Wiggle while Ali and Chris went to Christo and Stephanie's New Year's Eve party. Although he'd awakened and fussed a little before they left, walking the floor in front of the Christmas tree had worked it's magic on eleven month old Wiggle who had fallen asleep on my shoulder (heaven!) within ten minutes of Ali and Chris leaving. We were snuggled cozily on one of the couches in front of the Christmas tree, and I was congratulating myself, thinking this was going to be a wonderful evening, when Wiggle suddenly awoke and began throwing up rather violently, all over both of us. I got off the couch and hurried him into my bathroom, where I managed to give him a bath and to clean myself up a bit. I got him into a clean diaper and wrapped him up in a towel and was thinking the worst had passed and he'd fall back asleep...but then his stomach continued to rumble ominously, so I called Alex and Chris, who'd barely had time to say hello to anyone. They returned home and of course the boyo rallied, smiling and babbling away as if nothing had happened. They're now all upstairs asleep, and hopefully he'll feel better tomorrow. In the meantime, my own stomach is a little rocky...