Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Ho-Hum

So Noodle just spent the first 4 days of her summer vacation with a sore throat and a fever wavering between 100 and 104.9 degrees. She was seriously bummed. She missed 2 swim meets and a dive meet. She seems to be better tonight so she's going to practice in the morning at 8am. She is already whining about that. She is part vampire and is not at all about the mornings. Especially during summer vacation.

I heard from Dillon after being in Florida for about 24 hours. He had lost a contact and forgotten to take extras. What a goof. Thanks to Wal-mart, it is no big deal and he can get more down there! OOH! But he has to do it before the 30th. That's the day his prescription expires. Hmmm. I better call him in the morning.

I have a pre-op appointment in the morning for my D&C next month. Ugh. Not sure what to expect and I have mixed feelings about the surgery anyway. If it corrects my girly-troubles then I guess I'm OK with it, but being put under, and the scraping, and the recovering is raining on my parade.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Drama Before Dawn

I saw the most beautiful sunrise this morning.

From Ronald Reagan National Airport.

I set my alarm for 4am, but woke up at 3:34. (At that point it's just stupid to go back to sleep. Twenty-six minutes is just enough time to fall into a deep sleep, just to have the rudeness of your alarm* jar you into the present and thus ruin your whole day. Better to get it over with when you wake up naturally.) (*But I do suggest trying out my alarm clock if yours scares the crap out of you in the morning. It's the iPod Compatible Travel Soother 20 Radio/Alarm Clock from Sharper Image. I got it for Valentine's Day and it has a deal where you can change the super-scary alarm to sound like church bells instead. It rocks. Very soothing, yet still gets the job done.)

ANYway, the reason I was even at National at such an ungodly hour is that I had to drop Dillon off at Gate 35 for a 5:55 boarding call for his flight to Florida.

Yup, the kid got out of school yesterday and bailed down the beach for A Fortnight of Fun with his BFF, Milton. He checked 2 boogie-boards and a duffel bag full of shorts and T's and carried on a Big-Ass Grin.

And then got on the wrong airplane. Don't even ask me how it happened, but he took the shuttle out to the commuter, boarded, and said he was sitting in his seat, 9A, when a guy came up and said, "That's my seat."
D says, "No, look right here. 9A, that's me."
"You're going to Orlando."
With a big grin, "That's right!"
"This plane's going to Philadelphia."

So he got up, told them he was on the wrong plane (thank God seat 9A was booked!), and they got him hooked up with the correct flight. I heard from him around 11:30. They were on the way to the beach.

I, on the other hand, have been nursing Noodle all day long. She woke up with a sore throat and fever and at this point has spiraled down to whispering and topping the thermometer at 104.6.

She's asleep now. I don't expect to get any for the next 24 hours at least.

Thursday, June 23, 2005

The Tween

Time is doing that slow, time-warpy thing again. The days fly by, but when I stop to realize what all I have done over the past week, it seems very much like Nothing. Scratch that. It IS very much like nothing. Laundry. Gardening. Picking up kids. Dropping off kids. Watching dive practice. Cooking dinner. Dusting (it's very dusty here). Run to Post Office. Grocery. CVS. Do you feel all drained and heavy-like yet? Then you get the gist.

(Time out for phone call.)

That was Noodle. Today is the last day of school. She ran out of money in her lunch account yesterday. Crap! Now I have to go make a lunch for her and take it to the school by 11:30. THIS is what I'm talking about. Really. The hard part about babies isn't the added expense, or the diapers or all-night crying jags. It's when they require constant maintenance/rides/trips to the mall to keep them "involved" and "cool" as teens and "tweens".

Noodle is a "tween". Not a kid, not a teen. But don't tell her that. She thinks she's an adult. Seriously. She's always been an "old soul", but D was like that too, and I just always attributed it to Tater and I being so young when D was born - there weren't any other kids around - and then when Noodle came along, she just got absorbed into our grown-up life. I started thinking about it a few weeks ago when a friend and I were talking about having a Girls Night Out. Noodle heard us and said, "I want to come".

"You can't. This is just for adults."

She looked right into my eyes and said, "I am not a kid."

And it occurred to me just then that she's really not. But, she's not 21 either. Bummer for her.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Time Trials

Noodle had swim team time trials today. She did great! And she almost even looked like she was having fun! It was only 60-degrees when we woke up this morning. She was totally unimpressed and I practically needed a crowbar to drag her out of bed. Once we got there, she came around and, while her lips were blue, she did smile a few times and didn't grump around when she came in last in her Freestyle heat. I was very proud of her. Then she did better in Breast and Back. We skipped Butterfly (with permission of the coach) since she doesn't know how to do that, and headed to McDonalds for a celebratory Oreo McFlurry. And a Filet-o-Fish.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

I'm Back With A Horrid Update

Things are out of control here.

Firstly, and stupidest, my kids are still in school. Until June 24th. Can I tell you how much they SOOOO don't care about school anymore? The temps have been in the 90's for most of the past 2 weeks, and they are so over it. And D still has to sustain for the next two weeks until finals.

Starting backwards, we had Bushey & the "Lips" (with the new baby - so STINKIN' cute) over for dinner last night, WHILE Noodle had 4 of her friends over for a dance-practice-for-the-talent-show...sleepover. Three of them are still here but they're quiet so they can stay. For now.

On May 31st, Noodle started swim team and dive team practice every day. She gets out of school at 3:35 and has to be at dive practice at 4. Then swim team practice starts at 5:15 and she gets home a little after 6. Then homework and bed. Then she wakes up and does it all again. She is ready for summer too.

I was making jewelry and getting it ready to send to Japan, between shuttling Noodle around, helping Tater, gardening, cooking, cleaning...You know, Mom-stuff.

Tater's been building stuff. After he repaired the leaking bathtub, that is. We figured out that the leak in the kitchen was coming from the master bathtub above it. Luckily, it wasn't a pipe or anything, we just needed to caulk up the plate surrounding the tub's overflow valve. Problem solved.

He's building a new desk-cabinet-bookshelf-thing that spans the width of the basement. It's about half done so far and looks great. It gives us a lot more room since we could get rid of our other bulky desk. I'll take some photos soon.

He started painting the walls in the basement yesterday. A buttery yellow. We can't decide if we like it, but we can't agree on what would be better. He wants sage green, I think that's stupid. I want something bright and beachy. The problem is that our sofas down there are RED. Bright, primary red. Khaki would look great, but most of the 2nd floor is tan/khaki/chocolate & red. I wanted someting different to look out onto the patio.

Damn. It's hurting my head again.