Sickies

Our home has been hit hard this weekend by the dreaded stomach bug. I guess this is just one of the many joys of MOPs - sharing food, fellowship, and viruses. Somehow, poor Emma seemed to get a double dose of the stomach bug, first with no fever, and then 2 days later, the same symptoms with a fever. There is nothing sadder than a sick baby. She was a little trooper though, perfectly content as long as someone was holding her. We enjoyed the extra snuggling time. It is not normal for her to fall asleep being held like this. But oh so sweet.



To make the weekend more exciting, our friends Joel Bannister and Julie Foster came to visit too. Their plan was to go climbing all day Saturday with Levi and Joel Miller, our friend/boarder. The plans changed to playing mini-golf (slightly less strenuous) and hanging out in our living room (i.e. "sick ward") watching us eat Jello. They were very gracious, although after 3 of 5 household members were sick, Joel Bannister did say, "I kind of feel like sleeping in my car tonight."

Sunrises

A certain little girl has been getting up kind of early the last few days. I am not wild about this, because it means I have to go to bed at about 8:30 to get any decent sleep. But it's been kind of nice to have a little extra morning and to watch the sun rise. This was the view out our living room window this morning. It was, of course, much prettier in person, but I'm not much of a photographer.



In other news, Levi recently traded out our old, drafty fireplace for a nice woodstove to help heat the house this winter. Yesterday, everybody at camp with wood-burning capabilities (that is, all but one person), had a big wood-cutting day to stock up for a few months. And then they loaded up a couple of trucks full of wood and distributed it to everyones' houses. Ethan helped at our house. He was very serious about his responsibilities.

Mo' Tissin'

This blog is starting to be less of a blog and more of a cute-things-Ethan-says-compendium.

Today Ethan learned about getting kisses on injuries to magically heal them. For the remainder of the morning, he followed me around the house, presenting body parts and saying "Hurt there" or "Dis one," and waiting for kisses. When I stopped the game for a minute to do the dishes, he asked for "Mo' Tissin'," and then planted a lovely slobber and smoothie-laced smooch on my cheek.

I think when he is a teenager who is way too cool to be hugged in front of his friends, I will have to remind him of today.

Happy Birthday, Shadow!

We are dog-sitting for our friend Jessica's little black lab this week while Jessica is on vacation. This evening, Ethan's been chasing her around the house, giving her big hugs around the neck and saying "Happy Birthday, Shadow!" each time. We are not sure why. We have been saying "I love (insert name)" and giving hugs the last few months, and I think maybe that's what he means. It is cute.

Someone had a BAD morning

Levi came into the kitchen before church yesterday and said, "Go look in the bathroom."
"Why? Is there a really big spider in there or something?" I asked
He laughed, "No, just go look."

I was sure it could be nothing good, whatever it was. I walked in cautiously and didn't see anything. It was a little bit stinky, so I thought maybe the plumbing had backed up. Then I heard a dripping sound coming from the toilet. "Great, it's backed up. Why in the world would Levi send me in here to look at this?" I thought.

I lifted the lid, and there was something black moving inside. Black and fuzzy, trying to climb up the inside of the toilet bowl. It was a squirrel.

They probably heard me screaming in Texas.

Levi thinks the little guy was running around on the roof and fell through a vent into the plumbing (I don't know if all houses have vents like this, but we have a septic system, so ours does). He must have swam through the pipes until he surfaced in a big, slippery porcelain prison. He was doing his best to get out, but between the water, the edge of the bowl, and the lid (which was, thankfully, down), he was stuck. So I opened the lid while Levi grabbed him with a towel. We took him outside and put him on the ground and watched him for a while, hoping he would get up and run away. He couldn't even walk. We figured he was pretty badly injured, so Levi quickly dispatched him, not wanting him to suffer.

What a morning. One minute you're going for a jog on the roof, the next minute, you're in watery prison. Finally, fresh air, and then a shovel ends your misery and you are in squirrel heaven.

Stories

Ethan is getting to be a little story-teller (very short stories, of course), and I am enjoying it. He has moved on from just answering a question to adding a little bit of his own information.

This morning, I left the living room with Ethan sitting on the couch with a book and Emmaline pulling up on the dog. I came running back to Emmaline lying on her back on the floor crying, the dog leaving the room as fast as he could, and Ethan standing a little way away, observing the scene. I am ashamed to say I assumed the worst. Most of Ethan's "loving violence" thus far has involved whacking Emma over the head with books or trying to sit on her shoulders and ride her. I was afraid we had reached a pushing-over stage.

"Ethan, did you push your sister over?"
"No! Doggy did it!"
"The Doggy knocked her over?"
"Wight!" (Right)

Not only do I think Ethan's not quite clever enough to invent a story like that on the spot, the dog did have a very guilty look on his face...

Similar Interests

When people hear how close in age Ethan and Emmaline are, they often comment about how much fun they'll have playing together and how nice it will be for me that they'll go through phases together. I am appreciating that more and more as Emmaline improves her crawling.
This morning, I left the kitchen for a minute and returned to find the kids sitting side by side in front of the hutch. Ethan was "explaining" to Emmaline all the joys of the drawer pulls on the front. She was cooing away attentively. They were both eating shards of a black olive they had discovered on the floor from last night's dinner. What a beautiful stage to be in together, where they can both be perfectly happy with drawer pulls and floor olives.