Wednesday's Post

Life has become very orderly.  In a lot of ways that is good - in fact it is very good.  I don't have a lot of time to feel monotonous about it because so often things go off track and I get my dose of spontaneity that way.  For example, our schedule was working perfectly last week when Natalie unexpectedly got a stomach virus, became extremely dehydrated, and shared her virus with Annalise.  After being thrown up on 3 times, I'm more than happy for some mundane order.

Wednesday has become "blog day" - because there is so much else needing my attention.

Natalie potty trained quickly and neatly on Monday.  She's been telling me she needs to go, keeping dry and been extremely cheerful about it.  I mentioned before that her call is, "The pee pee is coming!".  She also "twinkles" in the potty and "slushes" it afterward.  After that she cheerfully reminds me to praise her efforts, "Say, 'Good Job, Natalie!' and clap."

None of the kids have been quite as sick as Natalie seemed last week.  I am sure it was the dehydration.  She couldn't keep anything down and also was refusing to drink.  In just a few hours she became very lethargic and slept almost all the time.  Her lips were dry and so was her diaper.  We ended up force "feeding" her liquid with a medicine dropper.  It worked because the next day she was awake more and getting back to normal.  She was sick for 4 days. 

Annalise got it too, but milder, she was better in 2 days and never got dehydrated - partly because her mother had transformed into the hydration queen and kept her on a regimented 1 oz of water every 15 minutes the first day.  Probably and over-reaction, but I'd had enough.

So after all that, I got a fever and chills, but that was all, Caleb and Rob escaped it evidently.

We haven't gotten back to our normal yet.  I try to do a big stock up trip to Aldi and Walmart once a month.  It causes a pretty big dent in our normal.  We did the Walmart portion today and confirmed that I no longer like Walmart at all.

The bigs have been climbing trees when time allows:

This is the tree Caleb is in, sitting at the fork above Annalise's head.

VBS is three months away...I can definitely wait!