Thursday

I'm a bit fuzzy headed, today, thanks to the Advil pm I took last night...that, and getting awakened by Paul 3 times in the night, having seizures. He is making it harder on me to intervene. He used to just lie there when he would start seizing and I could grab his hand and pull him out of it. Now, he flips over onto his belly when he starts and I have to pull his right arm out from underneath him and try to separate his thumb from his fingers, all the while trying not to get clawed by his spasmodically opening and closing hand. So I could use a nap today!

I have had sick kiddos all week long. Well, actually, it's just been Will and Sam. Will has been lying around for several days now, with no energy. This is how he gets sick. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it just wipes him out. Sam still has the runs. This is day 6 of that. He's been sleeping a lot more and not eating much - kind of clingy. Last night my stomach started hurting and I started getting panicky - I do NOT have time for the flu! But I'm feeling fine today, I think.

I'm going to head to town this afternoon and pick up Valentine stuff for the boys, Paul, and my Secret Saint from church. Then, I am meeting a new friend for dinner at Culvers. We have been meeting with our pastor as we have had some new issues with Ben crop up since last fall and he put in a call to a local pastor in our association, who happens to have a family in their church with an autistic son. So, the mom and I have been chatting for the past week and we're going to meet face to face tonight. I'm looking forward to it!

I did take Ben in to Dr. Steinmann yesterday about his constant allergies. I'm trying to avoid allergy shots with him, but I may have no choice. This has been going on for years now and is just ridiculous. So, he's putting him on a daily regimen of Claritin and some nose spray. If that doesn't work - and I have my doubts - then it will have to be the shots. We have already had his adenoids removed, been to umpteen allergists - I don't know what else to do.

I went to the bank yesterday over in the Drake neighborhood, which is always a scary situation, even in daylight! But there was this lady in there, obviously a foreigner, and she was very upset that her account was overdrawn. She was quite vocal about this and Ben just started laughing like crazy. The woman had probably a Jamaican accent and was excited and it was just too much for Ben. I managed to shush him by telling him to put his hands over his mouth. Afterwards, in the van, I was trying to point out why it's not nice to laugh at people and he kept assuring me he wasn't laughing at the lady, but at the way she sounded. I'm sure that's true, but people aren't going to understand that. Ben went on to wonder out loud why she spoke English so funny, so I explained that, most likely, she had been born in a different country. Ben said, "Oh, so only people who get made here sound right?" Something like that! I ought to take him down South or to New England and let him hear how some people sound, even people who got "made here"!

Oh, I have drapes in my living room now! That just seems so incredibly grown up to me. I have never lived anywhere before where I needed actual drapes. I bought rods on Monday and Paul hung them that night. He also hung up all my wall decorations for that wall. Just 4 months ago we had no wall there. He took the whole thing out the first weekend in October. Now he's working on the trim for the stairway and our bedroom.

Well, I am mentally working on another post for this blog - this time about what it is like to have all boys. I suppose, with Valentine's coming this weekend, and our anniversary in another week, I should write about marriage. But I have this one on the boys already half composed. So you'll have to wait to hear my thoughts on marriage until later.

Oh, speaking of our anniversary: Paul did some research and found out that the Boone Scenic Railroad offers Valentine dinner train rides. He called them and the only night they openings left was on Feb. 20 - our anniversary! So, we bought tickets and will be riding the train next Friday. Sounds romantic! We rode on a dinner train once before, but I was in my first trimester with David and so sick. I remember thinking, as the train lurched, and my stomach heaved, that there was no way I was going to survive the trip. I did, but it definitely dampened my enjoyment! So I am looking forward to this. Now I just need to book a hotel room - a train, a hot tub, a room to ourselves - what more could we want? Well, ok, some tropical breezes, a whole week away, and maybe a suitcase full of money would work too!

Well, it sounds like Sam needs to be rocked and I am going to see if I can lay down for a few minutes without mayhem occurring in other parts of the house.