now only 3 can play

We had a lot of kids running around our house on Easter. In the process our fishing game lost a lot of the pieces. There were missing fish, fish without mouths, and missing fishing poles. Today we had finally recovered all the pieces so the kids could play again. They were having a great time until Garty decided to bite off part of one of the fishing poles and swallow it, rendering the fishing pole useless. That's one piece of the game we won't be searching for.

still alive

Remember that fateful day when I cursed my family by commenting on our good health? Well, at least one of us has been sick non-stop since that day. Unfortunately, I've been the sickest. The crazy thing is I've thought I was getting over whatever it is several times... having a much better day and feeling somewhat healthy. Then I crashed even lower than the previous round. Currently I'm mostly healthy except for this nagging cough that acts up if I exert myself in any way at all. When I say "exert myself," I'm not talking about taking a jog. I'm talking about walking up the stairs too fast. That's good for at least 5 minutes of coughing. Raising my voice for any reason. 2 minutes. Picking Garty up. 1 minute. Oh, going from lying down to standing up or vice versa also is a good 5 minutes of hacking. So I've been totally useless around here for the better part of 2 weeks. Fortunately, Easter weekend was one of my getting better phases, so we enjoyed time with family and friends. I have some pictures I'll post when I don't have to walk to a different floor to get the camera. I'll update more soon, but evidently writing a blog post is also good for some coughing. No explainable reason for that one since I'm sitting in a chair. Sorry for the silence over the past few weeks. I know how frustrating it is when I visit friends' blogs repeatedly and don't see any updates.

make a note

On this day, March 14, 2008, two little Liberian-Americans discovered bubble wrap. Life will never be the same again. Fortunately for Mommy's already achy head, it was a relatively small piece. I'm off to hide the rest for a special occasion.

Hmmm...

Over the past few days while Joshua has been sick, he has told us several times, "My belly saying 'Grrrrrrr.'" Of course, this makes Mommy panic, but he hasn't actually vomited since he left the nurse's office. So here's the conversation Patience and I had less than 5 minutes ago.

• P: My belly not saying, "Grrr."
• B: That's good. It means your belly is happy. Happy bellies don't say, "Grrr."
• P: Uh huh. Happy belly say, "Meow."

why did I say it????

I'm not in any way superstitious. At least I wasn't before today. However, last night I dared to say, "I know the winter isn't over, but the kids have been amazingly healthy for their first winter ever." Overnight Garty was coughing fairly frequently, and I started to get a little nervous. This morning when he still wasn't awake at 11am, I finally went in to find him passed out in a puddle of snot at one end and pee at the other. It took 2 baths to get the smell off. Less than an hour later the school nurse called. Joshua had a fever of 101 and really bad chills. By the time Peter left work and picked him up 15 minutes later, he had puked twice and had diarrhea in the nurse's office. Meanwhile Garty started a fever, and I had already used a large pile of tissues cleaning up the neverending fountain of snot. So we have two boys with fevers and completely different illnesses. The way I figure it, if they time things just right, trade germs with each other and share them with the rest of the family, we could probably manage to have non-stop sickness until Easter. So the moral of the story is: Keep your mouth shut when you have a good thing going!