A lot can happen in 10 days

... but it's not always fun.

It's been a long week and a half. Most of it has been spent with sick kids or being sick myself. Today we finally got out of the house and are getting back into regular routine. It feels good.

Aside: Luke is sitting next to me while I am typing. We are listening to Josh Groban's first CD. The first song is "Alla Luce Dal Sole" and is in Italian - he has never listened to this music with me before. Here's what he said: "I like this music mom. Is it worship music? Great song!" Funny kid.

Anyway, back up to last Monday, Luke's 4th birthday. I can hardly believe he's 4 already, but just looking at him I can see it. He is getting taller and leaner and losing those "baby" features. We went to the doctor in the morning for his annual check-up. I dropped off Erin first and didn't tell Luke where we were going since he made such a fuss last year. I figured just getting rid of the anticipation anxiety would help a little. He asked why we were there when I pulled into the parking lot, but when I told him he didn't mind. I said that since it was his birthday, the doctor needed to see how much he had grown since he was 3 - he seemed to buy it and it wasn't really a lie. Once we were there, he really made me proud. We had to wait over an hour in the waiting room (I must remember not to schedule appointments for Monday morning in the future) but I had brought along a few new birthday books that he was occupied with for a while.

Once in the exam room, he cooperated nicely with the nurse. It was the first time he had his blood pressure taken & he made a funny face to me but didn't complain about the pressure. He conversed nicely with the doctor and then had to have hearing and sight tests, also new for him. He didn't do so well with the hearing test, but the nurse said most 4-year-olds don't really understand how to raise their hands when they hear the beeps - she could tell he heard them, though, by his eye movements. He weighed 36 1/2 pounds and was 40 inches tall. He also had to have 4 shots, but was thrilled to hear that he doesn't need shots again until he's 12. I didn't tell him he needs another blood test - I'm not excited about that either. Overall, a good visit. And Erin had a blast playing with her little friend, too, so it was a good morning.

That evening we had his friends over for supper. I had called their mom to say that Luke was wearing his new Batman pajamas from Auntie Em (even wore them to the doc that morning) and they came over with their superhero jammies too. Even Erin got into it with Luke's Superman shirt.

Luke helped me put a Batman logo on his cake with sprinkles. He told me it was the best birthday cake ever.

After that, things pretty much fell apart. On Tuesday night Erin came down with the virus that a friend generously shared with us at nursery. She basically had diarrhea and cried for 4 days. On Thursday, seemingly out of the blue, Luke threw up while we were resting and watching Dora - thankfully all over the blanket that was spread over us. He was just not himself after that, dragging around and complaining of a bellyache for about 5 days. He came into the dining room where I was seeing if Erin would try to eat something, laid down on the floor and fell asleep.

Incidentally, Erin wasn't ready to eat yet. That food stayed there and she mostly just played with it. At least she wasn't crying anymore.

Then I got it on Friday. Blech. What an awful, lingering sickness! It wasn't so much that I was in the bathroom all the time that was irritating, because I wasn't. It was that I would start to feel better and eat something, then be sick again 30 minutes later - for 4-5 days. Alec got it on Saturday night so we were all home on Sunday and Monday.

Oh yeah. And during all this we had 2 snow days (Tuesday and Wednesday). At least Luke was still feeling OK then and could play outside for a bit. He's been wanting snow so badly.

Well. That brings you up to speed. Today we are back to a normal routine thankfully. It was snowing this morning when it was time to go to CBS, but I called a friend who said the roads weren't bad. As soon as we got out of the neighborhood the sky cleared up and we had blue sky by the time we were there. I was pretty determined to get out today so I'm glad it wasn't worse.

Now Erin is napping, Luke is finishing lunch and we've got a list of things to do this afternoon. Too much TV in the past week has made for some bad habits that need breaking - at least we just got FIOS and had lots to choose from to watch while we were sick.

Here are some last pictures of Luke and Erin yesterday playing in Erin's room. They were making "beds" in the bookshelves. Luke really wanted to go on the shelf above Erin and make a bunk bed, but it's not really that big and I didn't want Erin to get that idea - she'll be pulling the CD player down on top of herself the minute I turn around if she thinks it's something fun to do.

Pete . . .

. . . and Repeat