week ending april 29, 2007:

Week ending April 29, 2007: We’ve been enjoying the heck out of the wonderful weather and our renewed good health, but we got some very bad news today. Grammy Elaine is having heart trouble and is in the hospital in Texas far from her home in Wilmington, DE. Chloe wanted to know all about it. “Why is Grammy Elaine in the hospital?” “How did her heart get a boo boo?” (as Chloe examined her own chest to see if it was ok). Alex’s recovery from last week’s virus was not nearly as dramatic as Chloe’s. Even when he feels terrible Alex isn’t prone the kind of kicking-and-screaming drama Chloe demonstrated last week. Of course his highs aren’t as high either. When we were visiting friends in Frederick this week Chloe was loving life so much that she just grinned from ear-to-ear first thing in the morning while the rest of us were stumbling around trying to shake off sleepiness. However, when Alex does show his joy, we know he really means it. We had a great week with a trip to the National Arboretum, a Kid’s Festival, and a trip to Cunningham Falls, but the highlight of my week was when Alex gave me a big hug and told me “you are the best Mom”. Our trip to the Arboretum was with my friend Lynn and her kids Angie and Nick, and here are the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Arboretum2007. We went to the Kid’s Festival in Frederick by ourselves, and then to the falls the same day, and here are those pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/FrederickAndCunninghamFalls

casey took a picture

I didn't take many pictures this week, but Casey got this one of the kids jumping to catch a branch and look at the new flowers on our cherry tree.

week ending april 22, 2007:

Week ending April 22, 2007: Things went from bad to worse. Chloe’s fever and sore throat of last week turned into throwing up. When she was done throwing up I loaded everything from the spew-zone into the washing machine, and then we lost power. Us and 56,000 other BGE customers. So we packed up moved out of the house again while waiting for the power to come back on. At least this time the overnight temp was above freezing so no one had to stay home and load wood into the woodstove to keep pipes from freezing. Anyway, miracle of miracles, our power was restored within 24 hours (instead of the usual 72 hours) and we got home just in time for me to get the virus. It took the wind out of my sails for days. At first the kids thought it was fun to have me lying on the couch where they could climb on me and drive their cars over me, but then the novelty wore off and I started to hear “its not fair!” with great frequency. By Friday Alex had the virus, and Chloe, although mostly better, was still quite tired and quite far from her usual good natured self. She’d vacillate between the sweet Chloe that we are used to, and this other Chloe that was given to screaming and kicking fits if we didn’t let her close the door (it was nice out, we wanted a breeze), or if I told her she’d have to wait until after I’d eaten breakfast before I could go upstairs with her and “help” her get dressed (she doesn’t actually need helping, she just wanted company). Giving her a bath at night was something like bathing a cat with all the screeching and trashing. Anyway, of course there were good parts of the week as well. At one point I asked the kids if they wanted to pretend to be doctors and I would be the patient. Chloe said “you don’t need a doctor, you need a friend”, and she laid her head on my chest and gave me a long hug. We also took the kids to the local park for an Earth Day celebration complete with face painting and hay rides. Alex is very excited about going on an airplane ride, so he got an airplane painted on his arm. One story I forgot to tell from last week was that Chloe became increasingly interested in where babies come from. We’ve had a few friends lately with babies “in their belly” and Chloe kept asking “how do babies get into bellies?” and finally Chloe said “when will I get a baby in my belly?”. I stammered a bit and said “well, first you have to go to school for 12 years, and then you go to college, and after you graduate, then you get married, and then you can have a baby”. She wasn’t satisfied. She said “how did I get into your belly?”. I said “Daddy and I asked God for a baby”. That got me off the hook. For now.

week ending April 15, 2007:

Week ending April 15, 2007: Well, this hasn’t been the easiest of weeks. My grandfather’s health is failing, Chloe has a virus, and Casey spent about 8 hours working on my car only to have to spend another 8 hours doing exactly the same thing again because it didn’t work the 1st time. My grandfather is 91 and has lived a full and happy life, Chloe will get better soon, and I’m grateful that Casey has the confidence to repeat the fix on my car even though it didn’t work the 1st time. The fix saved us several hundred dollars and saved me being stuck at home with no car for several days while the car would have had to be at the shop. Sometimes I wonder about what life would be like now if I’d gone back to work and we hadn’t cut our income in half while doubling our family’s population. I don’t think we’d be spending so much time fixing cars. But then I remember that our parents lived for long periods of time as one-car families, so maybe two old cars is not so bad. We made another decision this week that would have been easier with two incomes. We decided that instead of driving to Florida with the kids, we’d fly. The gas prices are going up and the flight prices are going down, so it was easier rationalize the expense. I am really excited about taking the kids on a plane. I bought the tickets Saturday morning and then Saturday afternoon I took the kids to the Observation Gallery at BWI airport so they could see planes taking off and landing. The kids were pretty under whelmed with watching airplanes and were much more interested the moving walkways. I just never can guess what they are thinking. To them 200,000 lb of airplane accelerating from 0 to 160mph in a distance easily viewed from our comfy lounge was interesting almost once. However, taking every article of Chloe’s clothing out of her closet and spreading the hangers evenly throughout her room (while I wasn’t watching) was interesting for quite some time. They said they were “packing” to go to Florida. Even being sick is interesting to them. Alex is a bit jealous that Chloe is sick so we had a conversation that went something like this: Alex - “Mom, am I sick?”. Me - “No, but you probably will be soon”. Alex- “Oh, thanks Mom!”.

week ending april 8, 2007:

Week ending April 8, 2007: Happy Easter! The kids are enjoying themselves immeasurably. Chloe had trouble getting to sleep last night and I told her that when she woke up and it was light that she’d know it was Easter. Well, sunrise is at 6:40, but there were a few rays of light at 6:27 when Chloe woke us up. After Alex woke up and we were all headed downstairs Daddy said, “I think the Easter Bunny was here, lets go see what he brought for us!”. Chloe said “SHE! The Easter Bunny is a girl.” I swear I didn’t put that idea in her head, she decided on her own that the Easter Bunny and God are both female. The Easter Bunny brought candy, stickers, books, and new underpants, so the kids have been entertaining themselves all morning with their goodies. They colored in their books, stuck stickers all over their Daddy, and insisted that I run a load of laundry so their new underpants would be clean and they could try them. The pictures of them in their Easter finery are at this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/EasterDressUp Earlier in the week we went to the gardens at one of the Dupont estates called Winterthur. At the gardens they had a section called the Enchanted Woods that had a stepping stones, a faerie cottage, a troll bridge, and a huge “bird nest” all for kids. The kids had a wonderful time and Chloe told me that the Enchanted Woods were her “fun part” of the day. The pictures are at this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/constance.phelps/Winterthur We took Alex to the pediatrician about his month long cough and we have a new arsenal of medicine to fight everything from sinus problems, to asthma, to allergies. The kids went to the mall for “kids club” and got free face painting and danced to a live band. Chloe is still interested in rhymes and she asked me what rhymes with Easter and I said “keister”. We had to have an extended discussion about what a “keister” is. On Saturday we went to an Easter Egg Hunt in the snow! We only got a dusting, but it had been cold enough for long enough that the snow didn’t melt when it hit the ground.

week ending april 1 2007

Week ending April 1, 2007: We’ve really been enjoying the weather these past two weeks. One day Chloe said “Can we stay home all day?”. Since the first words out of her mouth when she wakes up in the morning are usually “where are we going today?”, it is something of a miracle that she actually wanted to stay home all day. The kids have really been getting a lot of use out the trampoline. Even when it was really cold they wanted to go jump on it. One day when it was 18F I bundled us all up in 2 of everything and we jumped on it for a few minutes before we were so cold we couldn’t stand it. Now that the weather is so nice, I think they spend almost an hour a day out there. We are starting to worry that the twins are building up professional-athlete-like endurance and that we’ll never be able to keep up with them! Another thing that is looking up for us right now is potty training. Alex has mostly stopped arguing with us when we tell him he has to use the potty before he gets in the car, and he is taking more and more responsibility for letting us know when he needs to use the potty. A month or two ago he was having an accident every day, and now he hasn’t had an accident in at least 2 weeks! This Saturday the kids really enjoyed the community Easter Egg Hunt. Of course they weren’t as fast as the older kids, but they each managed to get 8 or 12 eggs so they were happy. In the last couple of weeks Chloe has figured out what “rhyming” means. Every night at bedtime she would ask Casey “what rhymes with sail?” or “what rhymes with Chloe?”, and now she’ll rattle off lists of words that rhyme, or make up words that sound like they rhyme such as “sail jail kale lail”. My funny kid quote of the week came from Alex. He wanted me to help him but he was not using a pleasant tone with me so I said, “Alex, if you ask me nicely, I always help you. You don’t need to cry.” He said, “I’m not crying, I’m whining!”.