My little niche

Amelia had her first swim lesson today. She did wonderfully, even though she had to suffer through the dreaded "water up the nose". Katie was thoroughly pissed that she could not splash and play, but the entire pool and kiddie area was cordoned off for swim lessons. (They run 6 different levels of swim lessons at the same time.)  We sat outside the fenced off pool area,  and I chatted with some of the other mothers while Katie threw a major hissy fit. She eventually calmed down and ate a snack.

When we got home, Amelia showed off a scrape on her knuckle from getting out of the pool. I put a Wiggles bandage on the scrape (I was surprised that she chose that over the Backyardigans and Hello Kitty, since Wiggles have been out of favor in our casa for years now. Ah, well!).  Katie came over and stuck out her hand to get a bandage. Since she had been denied the swim, I was just not up for another screaming hissy fit. The cost of a bandage is not that high.

Katie is now admiring her thoroughly unnecessary but awfully spiffy bandage.

Saturday, we headed into the city to attend the birthday party of  mrs__smith's adorable sons. The food was fabulous, the girls played with a lot of their friends, and we visited with so many of our friends!  It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon, and I got to meet so many new people.  The inevitable post-cake-sugar-crash occurred, so we wrestled the girls into the car and made our hurried good-byes and headed home. We had a quiet evening at home. The rains finally ended after a few days of watching animals walk two-by-two. (Not complaining, we're still in a drought...)

With the sun finally out, the family headed outside to do some planting. The girls and I planted lots of flower seeds (well, the girls scattered the seeds. I think the local birds have some mighty fine eating over the next couple of days!). Tom and I did some weeding while the girls frolicked. We had a quiet day of doing small things about the house. Nothing earth-shattering. ;)

This week is Spring break for schools, so I have some local playdates planned with lemon_says, raving_liberal, and katfrog.  I'm hoping to get by the Y with the kids at least twice, but I bet it is going to be an absolute madhouse since they offer childcare. On either Saturday or Sunday, we're going to go to the Georgia Renaissance Festival with eloren and her family as well as some other old gaming geek friends.

Sabine had a good night at the vet hospital. She charmed the staff and had them all giving her lots of petting and under-the-chin scritches. She's not eating well, but she is a bit more active, which is good.

The girls and I went by to visit her and try to get her to eat. Unfortunately, Katie has this nasty habit of being two. While holding both girls up so they could both pet her at the same time (taking turns was just beyond their abilities at that moment - Amelia is getting sick right now - BECAUSE THINGS ARE GOING SO SMOOTHLY RIGHT NOW), I wasn't able to block Sabine from jumping out of the cage, so she jumped out and her IV came out and there was blood and alarms went off. That caused Amelia to start crying, Katie to run out of the room screaming, and the poor veterinary assistants who were trying to perform a procedure at the same time to just look at me to take control of the situation to say, "Ma'am, could you control your children?" I asked one of them to grab the cat, I grabbed Amelia, took off after Katie who was running down the hallway that was full of opened boxes of medical equipment, and exited the hospital space. I went to the front desk, and told them that I failed in my intended purpose of trying to calm Sabine down and get her to eat. I'd actually worsened the situation.

I offered to take the girls to a restaurant to get lunch, but Amelia was just coughing in the back seat, and all she wanted was french fries with "holes in them" (read: Chick-Fil-A fries). I picked up lunch, but she refused food. She doesn't have a runny nose or anything - she's just got general malaise and a random cough. It's like she's emo and sluggish. It's like she's got a case of the Cure or whatever the new depressive bands are. :)

Tom's going to stop by the vet on the way home from work. Since he'll not have elements of chaos with him, hopefully he'll have better luck at bringing peace with him.

During naptime this afternoon, I embraced the sheer frustration and WTF-ness of everything right now: I baked cookies. They're not the best cookies I ever baked, but they are tasty. Tom's having a crappy week at work, but his day improved 10,000% when I informed him of the cookies awaiting him when he comes home.

The appointment was for Amelia's four-year well-child visit, and I added on a sick-child visit for Katie.

Amelia is almost done with the flu. In a lot of ways, she is a perfectly normal four year old. She is continuing her trend of being a tall and sturdy gal, or every other child she is hanging out with is wee. When I think that two years ago, she could only say 3 words and she would fight the doctor throughout the visit, it's a miracle. :) We still have to work through her sensory issues, but she is a much happier child than a year ago.

I did get the sign off for Ms. A to return to preschool tomorrow. Now I have no excuse to slack on baking "big chocolate cupcakes with frosting and lots and lots of sprinkles." Whee!

As for Katie, she has the flu. I know, what a shock. Who would have thought it, especially with her being locked in a house with three other people who had it over the past week. Oh, let's not forget her constantly stealing her sister's drinks, no matter how much we tried to stop her.

The very boring prescription of rest, fluids, and lots of TLC were given. She did not appreciate the doctor looking in her ears, and I think she tried to actually spit in his eyes when he looked in her throat. Good thing he's a young doctor - his spry reflexes allowed him to evade at the last minute.

Have I mentioned recently she's a handful?

I'm canceling all plans with outsiders for the 3-day weekend. Amelia's still down for the count, I'm coming down with it, and Tom's currently bathing in Purell, praying he doesn't get it. Meanwhile, Katie is taking advantage of Mommy and Amelia feeling off by bodyslamming her sister and claiming all the good toys.

Tonight, I have to ignore the chills and raw throat to bake Amelia's birthday cake and wrap a couple of presents. She is going to have a cake on her birthday, even if she isn't in the mood to eat much of it. :) (The party is scheduled for a couple of weeks off, but I still do a small cake on the actual birthday. Everyone deserves a cake on their birthday. Period.) Kroger had used all of their helium blowing up 8 gazillion Valentine's Day balloons, so I couldn't get any birthday balloons for Ms. A. I'll send Tom out tonight once the girls are down to see if Publix had been more reasonable. Otherwise, we'll give Amelia a few 75% heart-shaped balloons. She'll be 4 - she'll love 'em. :)

Amelia's opinion on having matching dresses:

Tom took today off of work so we could have a long family weekend. His birthday is Sunday, and we want to make it as relaxed as possible. We have precious few plans for the 3 days, and we took care of most of them today.

He let me sleep in until 9, then we all got ready to head out to Gwinnett. We were stymied in our attempt to shop at a playground store, due to their infernal holiday hours *shakes fist*.  Our big gift for the girls' birthdays is to build a playset for them, and we want to hit a few stores to compare the products out there. I pray we can find one we like that can be installed by the professionals. Tom can and would do it, but I'd rather pay more to have the time with him.

We headed to Discover Mills for lunch and to buy Katie some shoes. Katie now has a pair of sneakers and a pair of stompy boots (with a pink butterfly on the side). She was happily industrial dance/stomping in Stride Rite! *happy sigh*  Amelia kept asking for new shoes, but we reminded her she's got new ones waiting at home for her little foot to grow more.

Tom and I have an unexplainable love for Hibachi San, so we enjoyed lunch there while the girls played with their food. Tom and Amelia went on the carousel, while I browsed through Carters for pajamas for the gals. Katie was annoyingly playing hide-and-seek the entire time we were there, so we cut the shopping short after Carters. We kept them awake throughout the dreary, foggy drive back home.

Everyone tucked in for a nice afternoon nap, and we had a quiet night around the house. We just finished watching the last bit of the SciFi miniseries Tin Man.  Tom and I thought it was well done. The ending was a bit eh, but it didn't diminish the 6 hours of enjoyment.

Tomorrow, I need to bake Tom's birthday cake and maybe get balloons.  Amelia insists a birthday needs balloons, and I don't disagree. :)  I'll also soak chicken in buttermilk to make his favorite dinner on Sunday, fried chicken. :)

Last week, Katie came down with the same bug Amelia had. She seems on the upswing, but we could really do without the fever. :/  Last night, Tom was able to clip her nails without a peep from her!  Our big problem is getting her to drink enough liquids. I'm having to almost force them on her.

It was a good weekend though. We had a lot of family time, I got to go to the Y and get a pedicure (plus eyebrow wax and paraffin wax treatment for my hands).   I did these things on different days, so I had "me" time on both days. Whee!

It's noon, grocery shopping is done, and I have dinner cooking (mrs__smith's slacker crockpot chicken).  I'm feeling damned good about this.

Oh, remind me in a few days that I have been feeling like a sinus infection is building. By Friday, I should be in the doctor's office kicking myself for not going in earlier.

You be the judge.

She has bronchitis. She has an antibiotic and a nebulizer.

Let's hope this knocks it out. 

EDIT: It's not a nebulizer. It's albuterol in liquid form.