OINK

One of Meredith's friends had a birthday party yesterday at SkateZone. We got there at 1 and I left her and Hayden there (I had to pay for Hayden to skate but then he got to be part of the party also.) They both came home requesting to go back the next day. The only complaint was Meredith got a blister on the back of one of her feet.

Then she was crabby and mean-spirited the rest of the day.

This morning she didn't want to go to school. But I was ready to only have the younger two home for once so I drove them to school.

Then I drove back to school to drop off Hayden's violin.

Then I drove back to school to pick up Meredith who was complaining of a stomachache and had a fever of 100.5. So she can't go to school tomorrow either - she has to be 24 hours fever-free.

I asked the nurse if they'd had any confirmed cases of swine flu and they have not. Confirmed cases - that is. Some of the parents think their kids may have/had it but when they call the doctor to bring the kid in, the doctor's office advises them to keep the kids home unless it gets really bad - high fever, etc - because they don't want to spread the germs. Anyway, all the suspected cases have been fairly mild around here. And, luckily, my kids don't have any pre-existing health concerns so I'm going to try not to worry about it too much.

Anyway, Meredith is just laying on the couch watching tv. She ate 4 chicken nuggets and only wants to drink water so other than laying on the couch without complaint, she seems fine.

It's nice out today so I have the windows open. I'm getting airline cabin fever - that means the windows have been closed for so long, I feel like the germs are just getting recirculated in here so, no wonder people are getting sick.

Tooth(less) Picture and a Field Trip

On September 18, 2009, Meredith lost her first tooth. Here is the picture and, yes, I know it's fuzzy. See the hole at the bottom of her mouth. . .
That would be a mint brownie in her hand. Daddy likes to make those. Mommy thinks they are disgusting but I'm not a huge fan of mints that are not Andes. However, I will encourage John to make brownies this way because then I am not tempted to eat them!!!!
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On October 2nd, her class had a field trip to the Literacy Something or Other in Seward at Columbia College. Here she is listening to Carmen Agra Deedy, the author of "Martina, the Beautiful Cockroach" telling the story of Martina. Mrs. Deedy is an awesome storyteller.

Meredith is in the back row, in the middle between the two adults, with the glasses. Her teacher is the adult right behind her. I went with her - we rode on the bus.

It was actually a very nice trip except it was C O L D and W I N D Y !

And we had a picnic lunch outside. That was not fun. Plus, they gave us sun butter sandwiches. (No peanuts allowed, you know.) Sun butter is nasty, nasty stuff.

Then, they broke us all up into groups. We had enough grownups so we only had to take 3 kids each. The plan was that we would each keep track of our 3 kids while they played at the outdoor activities. Unfortunately, by the time we got to where the outdoor activities were, they had been disbanded because of the cold and wind. Meredith was highly upset - she had been looking forward to that. And she refused to join in our other games in favor of pouting. We had to wait for the bus to get back so we went into the library and looked at the rock room. It was a really cool rock room - someone had donated a bunch of rock and fossil samples to the college. (I could tell you who and what the room was actually called if I bothered to look it up online but I figure if you really want to know - you can look it up too! So there!)

Anyway, we got back to school in time to have cupcakes and then leave.