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.