Oatmeal bath

Benjamin insured that bath time was eminent by smearing dinner all over his face (carrot/lentil soup).

Hives and carrots

We're still battling hives today. They've moved off his tummy and are now on his sides, arms, legs, and back. And he's a little less happy about them. I'm trying to get up the courage to try an oatmeal bath, perhaps before bed to help soothe his skin (because he hasn't been sleeping well).

Mystery rash

Thanks to our dear doctor friends (one of whom made a house call—on his day off, no less) we've determined that Benjamin is suffering from either eczema or hives. It's not too serious...though we'll have to be watching for triggers now to see if he's allergic to anything. I can't think of anything particularly out of the ordinary that he's come in contact with/eaten recently.

He doesn't seem too bothered by it.

My friend Addi suggested that it might be fifth disease (since that's going around) but he doesn't have a rash on his cheeks (other suggestions were roseola, which Miriam had, and which I think Benjamin has already had, and measles (which is rampaging around in southern Alberta) but I think we're pretty safe from that) and the rash was mostly confined to his stomach.

But another friend looked up fifth disease since her daughter had the bright red cheeks indicative of fifth disease and has come to the conclusion that not only is her daughter suffering from fifth disease—she, herself, has it! She was sick with a high fever last week and recently began experiencing joint pain and was worried she was developing rheumatoid arthritis or something. Now she's hoping it's just fifth disease and will go away...in 1–3 weeks to a few months. That's still a long time to suffer from constant joint pain, but I suppose it's better than always suffering from joint pain.

She said stumbling upon the conversation on facebook was an answer to prayer.

I love small miracles like that. Like finding an answer in a facebook feed. Or like having a friend volunteer her doctor-husband to make a house call on his day off because you're at home worried about your baby but just can't bring yourself to face the outside world (Miriam was not in the mood to leave the house and I wasn't in the mood to make her and because your baby desperately needed a nap and you needed to be home to meet the school bus) and because you didn't want to go into the clinic again (between our trip to the ER and the follow-up visit, I'm quite confident we spent eight hours at the hospital/doctor's office last week (so much of the waiting (which probably explains why Miriam dug her heels in when I asked her to get dressed so we could take Benjamin to see her friend's dad, the doctor))).

Sundays

The semester is winding down, and that's why I'm feverishly writing at 11:45 PM (rather than at 10:30 when I finally got Benjamin in bed)—because Andrew's been feverishly writing and I've been feverishly editing his stuff for him and demanding that he rewrite what he's already written.

We went to church today, naturally, and I was stuck with Benjamin again. Not stuck with him in the sense that I mind being with him (because he's really quite a charming boy) but stuck with him in the sense that our ward does a pretty good job of only giving one parent (of a pre-nursery aged baby) an intense Sunday calling (such as working in the primary, as I do), while giving the other parent a weekday calling (such as working with the youth) or a less-intense Sunday calling (such as teaching a lesson once a month in Elder's Quorum (EQ), which Andrew does).

I tallied up the number of weeks I was "stuck" with Benjamin and got to five. Five straight weeks of tending Benjamin through two hours of church and doing all the stuff I usually do in primary.

Andrew taught EQ the week before he left for Utah.
Then he was in Utah.
Then Rachel was sick so he stayed home with her.
Then he taught EQ.
Then he taught EQ again (because they haven't gotten another co-teacher for Andrew after the last one was given a different calling)

Sundays have been feeling quite exhausting!

The good (and bad) news is that this was Benjamin's second to last week before he enters nursery. I'm at once thrilled to bits and torn to pieces over this because he'll be in nursery (finally, thank goodness!) but he'll be in nursery (which means he's morphing from baby to boy right before my very eyes).

I think the larger part of me is grateful to not have to chase after him for three straight hours, mostly because he's recently turned into a stool-pushing, furniture-climbing maniac and is always getting into everything.

Another walk

This afternoon we went for a little walk along the Eno and also checked off our last North Carolina adventure. The Mangum house and the photo museum were open, so we toured both of those before going on our walk. Unlike the mill, which had to basically be rebuilt after it was mostly swept away in a flood, the house is mostly original. They even have a lot of the original furniture. They have an old picture of the front room sitting in the front room and have the furniture arranged identically to how it was in the picture.

One of the Mangum sons was a photographer. He turned the second floor of the tobacco pack barn into a studio, complete with a dark room. It was neat to see his photographs. I've never seen so many old pictures of people smiling toothy grins before!

Here are Rachel and Benjamin in front of the tobacco-pack-barn-turned-photography-museum:

Christmas shopping—finished!

I just finished Christmas shopping for the kids and it's not even Black Friday yet! (Although I still might need to find some new pants for Benjamin since I think he's entering that age of boyhood where pants end up too thrashed to pass down. I just went through our box of awaiting hand-me-downs and found approximately ten thousand shirts that would fit him but only a handful of pants. So I might still have to do a little shopping...but not much (and certainly not on Black Friday)).

I've been diligently checking Craigslist for about a year now, trying to find a swing set that would fit our budget. Many of the ones posted are far too expensive for a second hand swing set ("We bought this swing set ten years ago for $700 and totally trashed it—we'd like to sell it for $600. This is an extremely good deal! You must dismantle yourself. It might need a little TLC, a few new boards, and a couple new swings. Don't pass up this opportunity!") and all the ones that were within our budget (that weren't junky) would be gone by the time I replied.

This morning I found a darling swing set posted in the free section! And the post was only six minutes old! I immediately replied, and then I held my breath and waited.

Eventually I had to exhale because there was no response.

I knocked off a couple of things on my to-do list before checking my email again. Still no response.

I checked the posting again to see if it was there and it wasn't. It had been removed.

"I guess we didn't get it," I said sadly to Andrew.

"Oh, well," he said. "We'll keep trying."

But then I saw a message pop up on my screen. It was the owner of the swing set, offering it to us!

I almost cried. Literally. There were tears welling up in my eyes.

"Andrew! We got it!" I squealed.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

After dinner Andrew and I started clearing off the table. He put away the leftover pancakes. I put away the milk and the juice and the water. He Cleared the plates. I washed the griddle. He started taking care of the bacon grease. I started loading the dishwasher, but then stopped. 

We had to take care of the thing we were ignoring/avoiding/dreading because it was beginning to squawk incessantly.



Me: Rock-Paper-Scissors? Loser washes off the baby.
Andrew: Deal. Best two out of three.

Round 1: Rock vs. scissors (+1 Nancy)
Round 2: Scissors vs. paper (+1 Nancy)

Me: Sweet!
Andrew: No! Best three out of five!
Me: Fine.

Round 3: Rock vs. paper (+1 Andrew)
Round 4: Paper vs. scissors (+1 Andrew)
Round 5: Rock vs. scissors (+1 Nancy)

Andrew: Four out of seven?
Me: Absolutely not.
Andrew: Oh, come on—it would be like the World Series.
Me: No.
Andrew: Please?
Me: No.
Andrew: But...
Me: No.
Andrew: I...
Me: No.
Andrew: What...
Me: No, no, and no. I won, fair and square.

As winner, it was my privilege to load the dishwasher while Andrew gave Benjamin a bath because when you're a parent sometimes simply loading the dishes actually sounds like a pretty good prize.

World Book vs. Wikipedia

Rachel's class is studying bears right now. They've studied panda bears and now they're on koala bears which, as Rachel knows, aren't actually bears at all. They're marsupials.

She's been wanting to do some research on koalas so this afternoon when she came home from school (and both Miriam and Benjamin were still napping (still trying to kick this illness)) I helped her get started doing some research online.

Her school—and apparently the entire school district (though I don't remember knowing about this resource last year)—has a subscription to World Book Encyclopedia and we're able to sign in from home. We've been on a few times. Frankly, I don't think World Book has anything on Wikipedia, though for World Book Kids the articles are condensed and kid-friendly so I didn't think it would do any harm to give Rachel full reign of the encyclopedia while I made dinner.

She diligently took notes on what she learned—word for word (so completely plagiarism...of facts that are pretty well common knowledge because it turns out that the kid version of the encyclopedia is full of rather basic knowledge (so is it still plagiarism?)).

When she was finished, she handed me a paper full of all the information she thought noteworthy:

"A full-grown koala is 25 to 30 inches (64 to 76 cm) long. In addition, much of the koala population is infected by chlamydia. This disease that can cause blindness."

Chlamydia? What?!

It's happening

Andrew came home from school and Benjamin said, "DAD!" and ran up to him and gave his leg a hug. So language is developing. Phew.

Holy Croup

Last night I wrote that "Benjamin is still rather croupy."

Let's change that to read, "Benjamin is moderately-to-severely croupy."

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to the strangest sound. In my dream, the sound meant that a litter of kittens had been dropped off on our doorstep. The sound brought me out of my dream, however, and continued after I'd opened my eyes. The sound was real. The sound was in my house.

I got up to check on the kids and discovered the source of the noise in Benjamin's room. It was Benjamin, of course. He was crying and wheezing, trying to fill his little lungs with air. I picked him up and he went limp in my arms (which is the most horrible feeling) but continued to wheeze in and out—short, raspy gasps of air rattling his tiny frame.

I ran back to our bedroom and flicked on the light.

"Andrew, get up!" I cried with a note of panic in my voice that would have alerted the dead (which is just the tone you need in your voice to wake Andrew up).

He woke up and stared at my panic-stricken face. He stared at Benjamin's terrified round eyes. He jumped out of bed and dove into action.