To Chicago and back.

We made a quick run to Chicago this weekend.  It was my niece's birthday, so we ran up on Friday after K-'s arts camp performance and left Sunday morning at 11:30 EST.  Cousins played.  Much hair was styled and re-styled.  (K- has longer hair than her cousins, so they were all about braiding, pinning, twirling and doodle-afying her hair.  In fact, on night one, I had to end the doodling party at 12:15 AM EST when they were all still awake and needed to be notso.  They were being good, just girly and not sleeping.) 

We hit a rather long and wet storm on the way home where in some cases, visibility was notsogood.  We're thankful to have made it home safely, regardless to the lack of concern others had as they cut people off numerous times. 

With that, I'm exhausted.  Have a fantastic day!

The Birthday Party: American Girl Place, Chicago

The lovely cake. Chocolate and vanilla. My daughter patiently waiting for lunch. She was so hungry, that I was feeding her mints. K- and her cousin A- were dressed alike, as were their dolls. Aunt Kristin and Uncle Tom gave K- the matching outfit as a birthday gift. K-'s birthday is in December and often, Aunt Kristin and Uncle Tom don't get the pleasure of being able to watch K- open it. This time, not only could they see the opening, but also the wearing. By the way, people thought that K- and A- were twins. A display right outside of the cafe holding area.
The Hancock Building.
95 floors up, you get to see this out the window. Not too shabby, since I had to use the zoom with no flash while we were standing in the waiting area of the observation area restaurant. No, we didn't eat there. It was pretty, though.

We started out on the road at about 3 PM on Friday. Hubs worked 1/2 day, but the school was late in arriving, the program was even later starting because of the little tiny bladders needing to dispense upon arrival, K- was in school and I was busy packing, packing, packing as I didn't do it the night before because I was busy making party necklaces for the next day. (At least I didn't do them on the drive like the church secretary suggested.) We need to take the air mattress, cot for K- and sleeping bags, as well as all the clothing, gift, doll and her trunk.

You'd be glad to know that we crammed the 5 1/2 hour drive into 7 1/2 hours. Sweet Pete! I'm happy to announce that the Chicago Skyway is passable at 9:30 PM with little traffic. At least, that was our experience. By the time we arrived, unloaded, set up sleeping quarters and the girls got to hang out, we remembered to add an hour onto their Central Time, we discovered that K- was tucking into bed at 11:30 PM. Eeeee-ghad!

We had a nice time at the party. American Girl is very efficient in how they run things. You are in and out in an hour. They greet you with warm cinnamon rolls, followed by appetizers of fruit, fresh veggies and pretzel/cheddar balls. You order your food. It is up lickety-split. It is good food and not crappity crap. The cake comes out. You do the singing and the candles, it comes back out cut with a little plastic flower pot filled with ice cream then voila! You are done. You leave with a little gift bag and you are spit back out into the store where they are hoping that you will continue to keep their store recession-effect free.

With the amount of merchandise flying from the shelves on Saturday, you would think that they were giving things away. I had already had the talk with K- in the car on the way to Chicago that we would NOT be buying anything. I told her that Miss Nora helped us to get her a lovely dog (Coconut, but re-named Cutie) and that she was permitted to touch things, but that we weren't buying anything.

She didn't ask for a thing. I was so proud!

Uncle Tom took us on over to the Hancock building to look out. The birthday girl wanted to do that, but discovered that the cold she was suffering from rendered her without her sense of hearing once we reached the top. We stayed just a brief time, then got her back down to solid, asphalt and concrete covered land.

Tom was kind enough to drop Hubs off at the Field Museum so that he could look around while we were doing the girl thing. Hubs was able to spend 4 hours in the museum and said that he still didn't see all of it. Folks, he was in love. I am so glad that he got to do that!

After the party, we returned back to Kristin and Tom's to find that the birthday girl's godfather had arrived. We took K- downstairs, had her change and had her take a nap. While she was napping and they were opening godfather gifts, Hubs and I escaped. We walked to the thrift store in their neighborhood, but found nothing. Then, we walked to the candy store around the corner from Tom and Kristin's house. We bought a few things, then headed down to Whole Foods. We always walk down there when we are in town. We wished that we had one here. How we love, love, love that store. We got some snackin' things, the homemade tortilla chips that MIL wanted and headed on back. K- was up and playing with the girls. Tom made dinner for all of us, which was great. We bathed and settled into bed.

This AM, we left by 10:15 EST. We stopped in at Bass Pro Shops in Toledo. Hubs gave me a Christmas shopping list to tackle. As soon as I got it done and the merchandise in the car, Hubs called to tell me that K- puked. (What would a trip to Chicago be without puke?!) I ran up, checked on K-, ran back out to the car for clean clothes, back up again to retrieve K- to take to the bathroom to clean up, and then out to the main aisles for K- to have fun with their rodeo weekend. So, why did my kid puke this time? She drank the equivalent of a can of soda (or better) in less than 5 minutes. Probably no breaths. Very cold. She doesn't drink pop, but by sips when she is sick. She suffers from reflux and gluttony. Don't worry about her, though. She is fine. But she has learned. I explained that drinking that much water is quite different from drinking that much pop. I told her that all the bubbles kind of collected together, they probably just wanted her to burp, but she got more than that. The in-law's apologized. They said that they tried to feed her, but she just wanted soda and they gave it to her as a rare treat kind of thing. Like the chocolate milk incident, I'm sure that they'll rethink that next time they consider soda.

So, I'm here this evening. I'm tired. I read the update on Dawn. I read the update on Michelle's dad. Both situations aren't ideal by any stretch. Please continue to keep these folks in your prayers. Thank you for doing that for my blogoversary (and all the time for the regular checkers!) I have a heart for prayer. I just find that even when things seem so funky, I can always pray for someone. I may not be able to find the right words to say to them, but I've got the words to God covered for them.

Smiles in my weekend:

- To Chicago and back safely.

- K- having a nice time playing with her cousins.

- Hubs is done for Christmas. (Thank you Hubs and nice sales person at Bass Pro that took my list and just kept handing me things.)

- Hubs stayed $5.05 under budget. That's enough to throw a few little things into a stocking. (K- filled it last year with things that she chose, so I'll probably do that same thing with her this year. He'll get an odd assortment of things, but she has fun with it. I give her a limit to stay within, so she's pretty good with it, too.)

Feet First!

Here are my size 6 1/2's jumping into the world o' blogging. (Or blawging, as it is with some.) I've got some folks out there that I've been lurking on for years, so I figured that I'd better get with it and pull myself out of anonymity. Am I grammatically correct? Uh, no. Will I always try to use spell check? Certainly, but my spelling is actually not that bad. Can I use a semi colon in the way that it is intended? I'd have to say no, but I can definitely learn how!

So who am I? Hmmm. I suppose that I could launch onto some great philosophical bit, but I'll spare you of that. Instead, I should start the blog with a really long story. So, here goes!

This past weekend, we traveled with my in-law's 7 hours from our home to Chicago. The road trip was actually quite pleasant and filled with updates of familyness and political voting choices. We got "to the 'Cago", as my daughter would call it, safe and sound. Our plan was to hang out that night, then have a big day of birthday celebration the next day. We tucked our daughter in and she fell asleep immediately. "Too easy," I thought. At around 12:30 AM, our little bundle of sleep joy hopped up and went on her way to the bathroom. I was laying there, half awake, listening. Then my husband jabbed me in the side. "I think that she just puked." Fantastic. I checked and she in her brand new Disney Princess nightgown that Aunt Kristin had just given her was a mess. Poor thing. Oh, and this was just the beginning. This went on for intervals of 10-20 minutes for the next few hours. We were in the finished basement their home, so we weren't interrupting anyone except for my in-law's. During a lull, I called our pediatrician's 24 hour nurses line and explained that I wouldn't normally call for the stomach flu, but that our daughter had just had a flu shot about 36 hours earlier and I was concerned that there was some serious shot reaction. She was having an injection site reaction, so it was worth the asking. She felt that it was the stomach flu (or virus, as it is supposed to be called), but that she was concerned that the shot spot had gotten to 2" in diameter, raised, red and warm. Ugh.

The night provided a few hours of sleep. God heard my prayers. K- got up at 5:30 AM and said that she was feeling, "much better, Mom!" She was thirsty. I gave her a Propel water that was stowed away. About 10 minutes later, propel did just what it's name suggests. Ugh. Another hour of illness. We weren't home. I'm always prepared for this at home. I had to tell K- that we wouldn't be able to go to the neat birthday party. The birthday party was to be at Sweet and Sassy. The little girls were getting haircuts and manicures. My daughter's hair has only been cut by mommy while she was sitting on the bathroom counter. I was excited that she would get an actual professional cut to what mommy has done to her noggin over the years. Everyone went off in their different directions and K- and I were left downstairs. We watched a lot of TV. We don't have super duper cable with a million channels, so it was great to watch a bunch of new stuff. When everyone returned, she was allowed to re-enter the main family pool for the party. We were having Italian for dinner. She was having chicken and stars. She didn't really eat it, though. She also declined on cake. Tell me what 4 year old out that declines cake, much less mine? Ugh, again.

The next day was our day to go home. On our way home, we wanted to make good on our promise to take K- to the Field Museum to see Sue. We got down to the lakefront and we found traffic. Much more traffic for a Sunday morning than we expected. Hmmm. Turns out that there was a Bears game at Soldier Field. The fun part? After we sat in a ton of traffic to find parking, we found out that the parking for the Field Museum reverts over to stadium parking and is $45.00 per car. NO KIDDING! I about had a heart attack. My mother-in-law is disabled with rheumatoid arthritis and has a handicap parking permit. I asked them about handicapped parking for her. "Oh, we don't have that near the museum during games. You have to park a ways away and shuttle back over." Thanks. So, we did what any other set of parents trying to scrape together some bit of fun for their 4 year old-- we had the in-law's sit in the traffic curve with their hazards on in front of the museum and we ran in. Literally. We have a reciprocal museum pass, so we didn't have to pay. Good thing, too! We were in the museum for about 15 minutes total. We saw Sue, their Tyrannosaurus Rex, nature exhibits and their African display. In the time that we were running through, my in-law's called three times. Then, we decided to divide and conquer. The hubs and K- went for the penny machine and I went to the gift shop. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have purchased a t-shirt, but the kid got the bummer end of the trip, so why not? We ran out the door, down the steps and hadn't an incident with anyone official during our quick stay. Sad though.

When we got home, we got all snuggled in our beds and fell fast asleep. Hubs was up watching a movie so he was coming to bed later. Though, I woke up later and didn't see him there. He was on the couch. Hmmm.

The next morning confirmed it. Hubs was down. He had it. He said that he'd be okay. He'd go get K- from preschool, bring her home and have her dine on odd foodstuffs and watch far too much TV. He declined my offer to stay home from work. He dragged himself to get her, smacked her head into the car door so hard that he left a bump and bruise. I came home and he looked to be a very broken husband and daddy. The illness was intensifying.

In the end, I thought that I was going to have to rush him to the hospital. I admit that my husband is not very cheery or a good sport when it comes to illness', but he suffers from pretty intense intestinal issues as it is. The intestinal funk is unkind to most, but particularly unkind to those with issues anyhow.

He hasn't been to work all week. I took him to the doctor yesterday to find out that he scored Rotavirus! Oh, yes! (Insert much sarcasm and pity here.) The good news is that he is much better. The bad news was that it took me an hour and a half to fully bleach, scrub and Lysol the bathroom. But, bed linens are changed, door handles and light switches are Lysol'd, floors are scrubbed and laundry is hanging to dry. I even made it to the grocery! I call the day a success!