Two Important Things

Whew - I can't believe this week is almost over already! Where does the time go?

First of all I want to give a huge thank you to all of you who supported us in our quest to raise money for the March of Dimes. Despite being rainy, we had a great day for a walk. At least it was warm, which I'll take over rainy and cold any day.

I am setting a new goal to grow Michael's team for next year. Don't worry, I won't bother you about joining yet. But I'd like to build a network of people raising money and walking to celebrate our miraculous boy. Stay tuned...


The walk began and ended in a nearby historical park, which us pretty cool. It is one of the places very near our house that we really don't visit often enough.

My good friend, Lesley, came from Columbus to walk with me and was a total sport about being out there in the rain. We had a great time chatting while we walked (I've known her for nearly 15 years and I learned things I never knew about her) and neither of us could believe how quickly the 3 miles passed. I will admit that I was extremely grateful not to be wrangling two children through the rainy walk this year.

In the end we raised over $1,200, yee haw!

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Okay the second thing is completely unrelated to the first, but I just don't want to wait any longer to follow-through on a promise I made to another dear friend of mine.

Probably more than any other person I know Jen is working to make her dreams come true. She is a writer with a novel coming out in the summer of 2011 (How cool is that?) and is doing all sorts of other interesting and inspiring things to share her time and talent with the world.

With Mother's Day coming up (seriously, it's in about ten days!) it seemed like a good time to tell you about Jen's gift of Love Notes and how you could use them to spread a little love. They might make a great gift for your mom, or sister, or any friend. When you order Love Notes your recipient will receive two notes a month (for one month or more) and Jen will use the information you share to customize the notes. She really does a much better job of explaining it then I am doing here so please check out her website. Just go look around, you won't be sorry!

Thankful

From this:


To this:

To This:

Support me in supporting the March of Dimes, only one day to go, please click here.

What Gets You Through

Today one of the teachers at the kids' daycare made a comment that struck me as odd. She said something about me looking professional hopping out of the van and coming to pick up my children. I am not sure what that means - I don't wear a suit to work and I don't think of a minivan as a vehicle that screams "professional!" And certainly, if she could have seen me sobbing in the kitchen half an hour later, she would have chosen a different adjective.

My day at work wasn't bad, at all, but after the kids and I got home is just became one of those days. And it isn't just the working, I have had plenty of days like this when I was home all day, and it was no picnic then either. The counter so covered in dirty dishes there is no room to make dinner. The kids not even pretending to play, just crying and screaming at each other in the family room. The zillion loads of laundry mocking me, knowing that I'll be lucky to stay awake long enough to get even one load dry and folded. The weeds that are swallowing the flowers in the front yard... it all just felt so impossible for a moment (or thirty, whatever).

So what do you do when you have days like that? (We all have them sometimes, right?) Sometimes I just need a good cry. Other things that work: music I like, calling a friend, chocolate, just going to bed already (laundry be damned), taking off my shoes and putting on slippers... Something to offer a little beacon of comfort in an uncomfortable day.

Today it was crying, They Might Be Giants, and singing with Harper at bedtime. I feel a little better. And Matt came home from practice and is folding a load of laundry. Which, to be fair, he will often do even if he doesn't walk in from work to find me crying in the kitchen.

Those of you who read often may have noticed a suspicious lack of commentary about my transition from being a mostly stay-at-home mom to being a full time working outside of the home mom. This is partly because I am pretty conflicted about the whole situation, partly because I'm too tired to write about it with even an ounce of intelligence, and partly because I'm afraid I won't be able to write anything about it without offending folks on both sides of that particular debate.

I'm veering a bit from my intended topic here... for those of you reading this one, what gets you through when you're having one of those days?

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Only four more days to support me (and future babies everywhere!) in the March for Babies. Even a $5 donation helps. Go ahead, click the purple box on the right!

Dapper

Something I am learning slowly about this boy of mine is that he needs his hair cut far more often than his sister does. Michael's hair was getting so long I was tempted to pull it back with a pony some days. Not good. I finally made a call and we were able to run up the street to Miss Laura on Saturday afternoon. Laura is amazing - Michael barely held still and she still managed to get a decent cut, the only problem is that he looks more grown up now!




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Fever update: I did end up calling our pediatrician's after-hours line when Harper's temp went up to 103.6 w/ two hours to go before she could take more Motrin. The nurse told me to have her drink some cold water and to apply a cool cloth to her forehead and take her to the ER if her temp reached 104, which it fortunately did not. Yesterday she had a lower fever and was fever-free today. Hopefully we're on the other side of that particular illness. Knock on wood.

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Only six days left to fund-raise the March of Dimes! Thanks to all of you who have already made donations, seriously, I'm incredibly grateful. And yet I'm still asking for money! You know, because it never hurts to ask.

Sick

At about 11 this morning I got a call at work that Harper had a temp of 101 and needed to be picked up from school. This after Michael was already home a day and a half this week. For those slow with the math that means that only two out of five days were both our kids able to be at school/daycare. Not too long ago we had an entire week where there was not one single day that they were both there all day.

You can imagine this has been frustrating.

I could go on and on here about how stressful it has been to deal with one illness after another this winter (it has been HORRIBLE) and figure out who is staying home from work, or leaving work early, or calling Matt's parents yet again to see if they would like to stay with the germ-ridden children...

Instead I'm going to talk about Facebook (sort of).

Around 7 tonight, just before I was going to give Harper another does of Motrin, her temp went up to 103 degrees. That's the threshold where I start to feel very nervous about a fever. And normally the kids don't run fevers that high. I looked online a bit to see if I could find some kind of magic number at which a fever needed immediate attention. I mean, I know 106 would be bad, obviously, but when does the real worry start, 103, 104? Anyway I couldn't find a satisfactory answer and I stopped myself before I could delve too far into Google's vast knowledge of fever-related illnesses which might turn deadly. I did, however, put Harper's temp into a Facebook status update to see what other moms thought.

I got several replies and even a phone call (thanks again Chris!), and reading/hearing them made me feel confident enough in our decision to hang on until morning and call the pediatrician, unless things take a turn for the worse overnight.

I am left feeling how nice it is that I can put a question out there and get such an immediate response. I'm grateful that I can reach out via email, Facebook, this blog, and by cell phone and get lots of good opinions on which to base a decision. It leaves me wondering what people did before we were all connected in so many ways.

I guess in moments of uncertainty you just had hitch up the wagon and ride to town to retrieve Doc Baker.

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Don't forget, only eight more days to help me raise money for the March of Dimes - go ahead, click the purple box on the right...

Happy Brithday Mom!

It's my mom's birthday today and sadly her card/gift won't arrive in Wisconsin on time (unless the USPS has started beaming mail directly across state lines), so I thought I'd give her some virtual flowers:









That tree is next to our driveway and I swear the last couple of days its scent has fragranced the entire yard - almost makes the horrendous allergy season we've been having worth it...

Happy birthday Mom! Thanks for everything you do for us.

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Only ten days left to support me in the March for Babies walk - click the purple box on the right to donate!

Some Easter Shots

I figure posting more regularly for at least the next two weeks would be a fair trade off for the fact that I'm going to beg you for money every day between now and April 24th. (Donate to March for Babies by clicking the purple box on the right!) Thank you to everyone who donated after yesterday's post and to those of you who shared the link so that other people would consider supporting the March of Dimes. After all, if you aren't in favor of babies, you probably wouldn't be reading this...

Tonight I'm sharing a handful of photos from our Easter festivities. Most years we travel to spend Easter with my extended family in Wisconsin. This year we stayed in Ohio to surprise Matt's mom with a birthday gathering the day before Easter. Our Easter Sunday was low-key: church, simple breakfast, searching for baskets, impromptu egg "hunt", and a nice afternoon meal (for which I roasted an actual chicken!).

Harper's basket came with a side of sass, apparently.

I'm pretty sure Michael didn't know what most of the stuff in his basket was, fair enough because we'll be eating most of it for him, but he still liked the shiny wrappers.

Little Easter angels - er, looks can be deceiving!

I love this picture, despite the fact that we'd actually asked Harper NOT to pick up the eggs and hand them to Michael. She "helps" him so much it is a wonder the boy has learned anything!

This picture? Exactly how our spring has felt this year - which is a nice change from '09 when the weather went from ice to 80 and left spring out of it altogether.

Harper's Best Day Ever

Um, hello Internets, where's the love? It's been more than two weeks since I posted and no one has inquired as to whether we're still alive over here... I'm hurt!

I'm breaking my bloggy-silence to share the fact that Harper had her best day ever yesterday because we got to attend Jonah C.'s BIRTHDAY PARTY!

I thought Harper's head was going to explode when we got the invitation. We met up with Jonah and some of his friends and family at a very cool local park that I didn't even know existed. Score.

Jonah's mother gave me permission to tell you that his name is actually Noah B., and said it was cool if I shared some photos so you can all see the happy couple.

Last night Harper paused about every five minutes to tell us how much fun she had. When she went to bed she said she wished every day could be Noah's birthday party.



Ah, young love...

And speaking of love, if you love babies, and who doesn't love babies, please consider a donation to the March for Babies. You can support my fund-raising by clicking the purple box to the right. Less than two weeks to the walk and I've done a pitiful job of inspiring the donations thus far. Yes, I will be asking repeatedly over the next two weeks. If you can't donate, maybe send some good fund raising vibes our way? Thanks!