Definitely sick

Rachel and Miriam took the ACT today. When we signed them up we actually chose GSU campus for their testing center because then Andrew can take them in and just...go hang out in his office while he waits for them to finish. We know because...this is not their first time taking the ACT. In fact, the ACT company gave out a two-for-one coupon for each of the girls when they took the ACT the last time, so this was essentially a free second test.

Unfortunately, they cancelled the test at GSU for our testing date and the girls were moved to a random high school way down the the airport. 

This meant they had to leave even earlier than they typically do for the ACT. 

*****

Benjamin had to be up equally early to leave for a hiking trip with another ward that meets in our building. Our ward...doesn't tend to do anything?? I mean, we do a few things. Like they...go bowling...at the end of the year...which is fun. But beyond that...we don't do anything??

And we don't really seem to have anyone in our ward who is passionate enough about...doing stuff...that they take groups of kids to go...do stuff.

For example, in Andrew's ward growing up, Grandpa/Reid was the guy who liked to do stuff. He took youth groups down to Grover frequently, just to...hike around and have fun...even though he isn't a big outdoorsy person.

In High River, we had Brother Thompson (who was a big outdoorsy person) who was always taking at least the boys out to do things. And then Brother Grant, who took me along on a backpacking trip once. There were frequently people going out and doing...things...and taking along tag-along kids. 

We don't seem to have those kinds of people in our ward (perhaps a sign that we need to be those people?), but the other ward in our building does. 

They have a tradition of going out to Jacks River Trail every year (sometimes more than once a year). Multiple men in the ward just really like that hike and find taking kids out there...fun. So they just...do it. And this time they invited the youth in our ward!

Rachel and Miriam were bummed that they were already busy (with the ACT), but Benjamin was super excited to get to go along on this adventure. 

It was a full-day excursion—leaving at 7 am, returning at 7 pm (and requiring a $7 donation towards a group dinner at Bojangles). They had a detailed itinerary and permission forms and a packing list and arranged carpools and... I just about died and went to heaven because it was so much better organized than anything we'd seen before! 

*****

"So, selfishly," I asked at dinner on Friday night, "Do I need to get up at 6:00 too? If you're getting up to make sure Benjamin and the girls are getting ready...I mean...I'd just be a superfluous parent... So can I just...keep sleeping...or do you think you need backup?"

"I've got it," Andrew assured me. "Sleep all you want!"

Naturally that meant I sat by Phoebe's bed until 2:30 am, helping her get resettled after she'd wake up to cough (and cough and cough). She climbed into our bed at 3:00. And I was not ready for the alarm to go off at 6:00, but go off, it did. 

Andrew rolled out of bed and tiptoed out of the room. 

Confident that he was up, I snuggled into my pillow and tried to go back to sleep. 

No more than three minutes later Phoebe woke up coughing (and coughing and coughing and gagging and coughing and gagging). And then she vomited all over my pillow and herself. 

So I took her to the sink and washed her off and got her ready to go back to bed in her own bed (which she actually did!) while I...did some laundry.

******

My friend Christine swung by to pick up Benjamin and Andrew left with the girls. The bishop of the other ward mused that he was super impressed that our ward's deacon's quorum had 100% attendance at the hike. 

Our ward has two deacons: Benjamin and Christine's son. 

So...yeah. 100%! 

Fortunately, a lot of the boys in the other ward are homeschooled and attend our co-op, so Benjamin knows them already! He was super excited about getting to ride in a Mercedes.

*****

After everyone left, I checked on Phoebe and found she was asleep, so I tried (and succeeded!) in going back to sleep myself. When Phoebe woke up, Zoë and Alexander coaxed her downstairs for breakfast. I got up and started to get ready for the day.

*****

I wanted to accomplish a number of things in the morning and needed to accomplish others. Laundry needed attention, especially our growing piles of vomit-soaked laundry. And then there was the conference I was supposed to be getting ready to present at. But instead I was juggling a baby and a throw up bucket and board books for most of the morning.

It isn't so much that Phoebe has a stomach bug. It's just that she coughs so hard that she triggers her gagging reflex (which is rather delicate to begin with). 

She threw up a handful of times this morning. At one point in the morning I rinsed out her throw up bowl after she'd used it—you know, filled it with water, emptied it, filled it with water again, swished it around, emptied it again—and then put it on the window sill for next time.

For the record, it was sitting right next to a water bottle filled with good, fresh water. 

But for whatever reason, Phoebe walked on over to the window sill, grabbed that bowl, and drank the water that had collected at the bottom of the bowl post-rinsing.

It was horrifying. 

But...she's fine.

*****

I turned on a show for the kids shortly before I was due to begin my presentation and pleaded with the kids to just...you know...get along and behave nicely (and not vomit anywhere) for a few minutes. Luckily Andrew and Rachel and Miriam arrived home soon after my presentation started and Andrew was able to take over Phoebe duties. 

*****

My presentation went well, I think. I was super nervous even though I couldn't see my audience at all. And I accidentally shared all the links I was supposed to share in the chat only to my co-presenter. 

Donna and I worked on a conceptual project about students' emotional responses to AI.

Anyway, it went well, even if I had to scramble to resend all my links to everyone in the chat (instead of just to Donna). 

*****

For dinner we had leftovers, largely pizza. Andrew made homemade pizza for dinner last night. But tonight everyone was too tired to make dinner, which was alright because our fridge was bursting with leftovers. Most of us had pizza, however.

Phoebe mostly wanted blueberries and olives. 

We were really nervous about what that was going to do to her vomit. But she only threw up a little bit once (and we caught it all in her bowl and it wasn't that terrible) and then she wanted more blueberries.

Eventually we cut her off of blueberries and she agreed to eat a slice of pizza. And then she came to sit on my lap. 

"Mom, will you please get me some more water in my water bottle?" she whispered.

"Sure," I said.

"With ice??" she asked.

"Sure," I said, and then I left to fill up her water bottle with some icy cold water (which we often pronounce as "icy fold" since that's how Rachel said it when she was a toddler). 

When I came back, though, it was clear to me that Phoebe had set off to do some exploring around the house because she was no longer sitting on the couch with everybody else.

"Where'd she go?!" I asked.

"Oh, well...she escaped," Andrew explained knowledgeably.

"What?"

"Yeah—so Quasimodo helped her to..."

"Not Esmerelda!" I said exasperatedly. "PHOEBE!"

"Oh," said Andrew. "I...didn't even notice she was gone. Ummm..."

In his/our defense, last night was a difficult night. Our Fitbits tell us that we each got around 3.5 hours of sleep (which is...not enough). And then today was such a busy day! We were exhausted. But of course Phoebe seems to have boundless supplies of energy somehow.

Phoebe had gone upstairs to wash her hands because she's discovered that she can turn on the sinks in the master bathroom by herself if she drags a stool in there or simply stands on the bathtub. So she's been doing a lot of playing-in-the-sink lately. 

Which. I. just. love.

Anyway, when I called out to her to tell her that her water was ready, hoping—correctly—that such a claim would lure her out of...wherever she was...which it did... She appeared at the top of the stairs and then started to make her way down the stairs. 

Then she lost her balance, fell forwards (down several stairs), landed on her face, flipped head over heels and was about to crash on her back, where she would have certainly continued careering down the stairs, but I leapt onto the stairs, crashed onto my belly, and caught her just before she landed. She has a little bonk on her forehead above her eye and was really shaken up (same, baby girl!) but was otherwise fine and eager for her "icy fold" water.

*****

There was evidently an assassination attempt at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania. So Andrew has been glued to the news, of course. 

*****

Benjamin arrived home around 8:00, just as I was finishing folding a huge mountain of laundry. He told us all about the hike, and cliff jumping, and swimming in waterfalls, and seeing a huge rattlesnake, and maybe brushing up against poison ivy, and eating at a Bojangles near a cemetery where someone had the last name of Baguette on a headstone, and riding with his friends in a Mercedes, and...he had a wonderful time. I'm so glad he could go off and have an adventure for himself!

*****

Phoebe mentioned wanting to earn another sticker tonight, so she seems fairly intent on sleeping in her own bed. May tonight be a thousand times better than last night...