Norovirus

Tonight I drove 20 miles one way to the urgent care my pediatrician participates in with a very sick child, only to find that our appointment was made at the office one mile from my house. They have a new phone system and in my efforts to find a real person on the other end, and their efforts to help me out after all the offices were closed, resulted in a 40-mile round-trip fiasco that included me crying in total frustration at the urgent care office.

Once I finally arrived at the correct office, I learned that Elli has a norovirus. It's a highly-contagious stomach bug that can give you diarrhea for a week. She wasn't dehydrated enough to need IV fluids, so we're home with a fluids schedule for the next 24 hours. As the doctor said, "We've got an ace in the hole -- her G-tube! I think she'll get through this ok."

Of course, two sentences later he was giving me his home phone number in case I couldn't get the new office phone system to connect me with a real person again.

If I drop off the face of the earth for the next week, you'll know why.

Stomach flu. Running rampant through the family. It's about a month early though -- usually we get these things at Christmas.

Learning Friendship

I debated deleting this post because I think it might be written in a spirit of self-pity. But I put it back with only a few additions and rewordings... it's what I'm thinking right now.

The past few weeks or more I've had this pensive, uncomfortable, vaguely lonely, hard-to-describe feeling about life in general. I think I finally put my finger on it yesterday. I've been feeling the lack of a deep friendship.

I've been trying to figure out why I feel this way and what I should do with it.

I think a big part of it is that I feel like the odd man out in just about every social circle I'm a part of. None of the acquaintances I have ever seem to develop into the kind of friendship I'm hungry for.

Maybe everyone is just so busy with life that they don't reach out to others much any more. Maybe we've all gotten so picky about what we look for in close friends that we completely miss some great relationships. We didn't grow up with this person, that person doesn't go to our church, she looks too preppy or yuppy or retro or poor, he doesn't have a college degree, they do shift work, this family uses public schools while that family home-schools, and on and on.

Whatever it is, I just don't seem to fit with anyone. And from my seat on the social scene's outfield bleachers, it seems like everyone else has really close friends who bend over backward for each other, get their kids together, and join up for lots of social gatherings.

I am trying to figure out why I don't seem able to develop the kind of friendship that deepens into this. Because all friendships start out in the social scene. So if I'm not even making it there, the good friendships will never develop.

So is there something wrong about the way I relate to people? Am I standoffish? Am I a bad friend? Am I a lazy friend who just doesn't put the work required into it? Do I somehow communicate that I want to be left alone? Do people hold back because I have a child with a disability and they are uncomfortable or afraid or just perplexed about how to include her? Do people think I'm too overwhelmed or busy with Elli's care that I couldn't fit it in even if I wanted to? I do know I'm uncomfortable in new groups when we take the kids for the first time because I don't want others to be uncomfortable or to feel sorry for us. And sometimes, when I'm really in a funk, it's hard to be around "normal" people because it's then that I really notice how "abnormal" we are. Sometimes it's like pouring salt into a wound that has never fully healed. In fact, school events, where I see what Elli could be doing and saying, are the worst. So I know some of it is me hiding from that pain. I try really hard to push on so that Elli doesn't know how I struggle sometimes and so she can experience as much normal-kid stuff as possible, but it takes every ounce of willpower within me sometimes, plus all the work it takes to physically enable her to do whatever it is.

I know at work, part of is that I have a completely different worldview from my coworkers. So despite the fact that there, at the hospital, my special needs child and extensive hospital experience actually gets me into the "club," my faith cuts me off again. You just can't develop a super-close friendship with people who don't share that fundamental foundation with you.

If it was just me, I'd write myself off as paranoid, bury it all under a pile of busy-ness, etc. In a way, I'm used to it because I've felt this way off and on my entire life. I was home-schooled for 10 years and back then, that was really unusual. Growing up, we didn't participate in some of the mainstream cultural practices of the day, like listening to pop music, watching TV, playing Nintendo, following fashion trends (those great 80s staples like jelly shoes and leg-warmers? not even on our radar!). And that was fine, I guess, but I didn't have those things to talk about with friends and I don't have that cultural history or vocabulary now (I am definitely not a "child of the 80s" like most kids born in the mid 70s).

But what's bothering me is I think my kids are being left out. That's what really gets me. How will they learn the fine art of friendship without practice? How will they develop those childhood best friends? With a couple exceptions two years ago when Elli got invited to two friends' birthday parties, the kids just don't seem to get invited over to play or go along on trips to the zoo or the pool or wherever. I hear about other people getting their kids together, so I know it happens. I've initiated some play dates and invited kids over and had birthday parties for kids, and that was a lot of fun. But it hasn't been reciprocated much. And it has been hard for me to do this much myself because we always seem to be sick or going to the doctor or we have that half-day school schedule messing things up!

I'm not sure what to do about this.

Maybe I think more "going over to play" is happening than really is.

Maybe the kids are too young and I'm expecting too much at this developmental stage (but then what happens when they go to school? Then we'll have homework and classes and all that stuff getting in the way!).

Maybe feeling isolated is part of the American Way Of Life (the "I am a rock, I'm an island" kind of thing) and this is totally normal (which means I need to be abnormal and counter-culture again so my kids can learn these friendship lessons).

Maybe it's part of having a child with a disability and is something I will have to work extra-hard to overcome.

Maybe I need to initiate the kind of overtures I would love to receive -- "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Maybe I need to push myself to talk to people more and work on socializing, not just sticking to the business at hand.

Maybe I'm just hormonal and tired from having sick kids for a week and maybe-but-hopefully-not-catching-Elli's-stomach-flu right now.

New and Improved Soapbox

Don't worry -- it's still the same me. I just got bored with the cookie-cutter templates available on Blogger, so I finally knuckled down and created my own. I'm open to suggestions (is it too hard to read? Too much stuff in the sidebar? etc.).

The Case of the Missing Giblets -- or The Great Paint Caper

All in all, we had a great holiday weekend. We have much to be thankful for this year, and the weekend was a relaxing time for all of us.

I was actually surprised that I only have one-half of a rough day getting ready. Wednesday started out rather wild. The kids were all off school, so I had to manage them as well as get some of my tasks done.

One thing I planned to do was prepare the stock for the gravy by simmering the turkey giblets and neck with vegetables for a couple hours. I also had to prepare a brine and soak the turkey for 24 hours. I opened up the bird and dug out the neck. Then I flipped it over (sounds easy, but a 19-lb bird doesn't maneuver easily) to find... no giblets. I dug and pried and fished around with hands and tongs, but there was nothing but a piece of aorta (I've learned a little something about anatomy from being in the hospital so much!).

After half an hour spent armpit deep in turkey, I finally decided that I hadn't missed something. They really weren't there.

Then I turned around.

Anna had gotten out the paints earlier and I decided to let her make a mess and paint. I put it all away...sort of... before I dug into the turkey. However, Sam emerged before I had hidden all the evidence, and immediately begged to paint too. So while I was wrestling with the poultry, they were painting.










Anna had painted 1/3 of her kitchen chair red. She had painted her face red. She had painted her hands and arms and most of the tablecloth (vinyl, fortunately).












They both had contributed to painting the bottle of cleaning spray I had left out from cleaning up the previous paint mess.

So I had to get dirty to clean up. I had to grab the still-wet paint-covered spray bottle and tackle it all.









Anna got into the spirit, and proceeded to pull out at least 15 Kandoo wipes from the bathroom and wipe the same 4 square inches of her chair, just like mommy. It was so cute, but I got really annoyed when I discovered she kept getting new wipes out!

Once that got cleaned up, I had to make the brine, find a container large enough to hold the turkey, and pour 10 gallons of liquid over the turkey without making a huge mess. I managed in the end by putting the bird in a large trash bag in a cooler. I could pull the bag over the bird tightly enough to ensure it was fully soaked, and then cover it with ice to stay cold.

While I was wrestling with the bird and the stockpot full of brine, Sam apparently had a slight bout of diarrhea in which he was unable to get to the toilet on time. Fortunately, Julie arrived while I cleaned him up, so I had an extra pair of eyes and hands preventing further catasrophes.

After that, everything really went very smoothly, aside from Anna and Elli catching a cold. We had beautiful weather, spent a lot of time outside enjoying it, and had a great visit with both sides of the family. My parents arrived Thursday afternoon and Dad immediately threw our turkey on the grill for the afternoon. Within 20 minutes the yard and house were filled with the aroma of cooking turkey. I actually got to sit down a bit that day and enjoyed working together with my mom and sister in a kitchen that was actually big enough! Everything turned out well and we enjoyed an evening of coffee, dessert, and Yahtzee after the kids went to bed. I can't imagine anything going better, despite the missing giblets and painting party.

How Do They Do It?

Awhile back, I posted about managing a family well. This weekend I was surfing on Babycenter.com, and discovered an article in the "large families" section (apparently more than 2 is large!) on whether large families are becoming more popular. At the bottom of the article, they included the following suggestions from mothers with 3 or more children (some had 5 and 7!) I thought some of the ideas were good, and I especially appreciated the last one. You can read the entire article here.

How do you do it? That's one of the questions our big-family moms hear most often. Every family does it differently, but our moms did have this advice to share with anyone contemplating a bigger brood:

Make a list
"Organization, organization, organization," says Billie Jean Sheffron, when asked how she manages her brood of soon-to-be-five. Sheffron is a big believer in lists: She makes weekly schedules for chores, menus, and the kids' activities, as well as daily and weekly to-do lists for herself. "If you've got four kids and try to throw dinner together at the last minute with whatever's in the fridge, for example, it's just not going to work," she says.

Get some alone time with the kids
"When I run errands I'll take one of the kids while the others spend quality time at home with Daddy," says Julie V. Julie and her husband also take advantage of staggered bedtimes to get some one-on-one TLC time with each of their four children. Talitha Gawkoski's family has started a birthday tradition: When her kids turn 16, they get to go anywhere in the continental United States with their dad as a birthday present.

Let the big kids be kids, too
"I have a hard time with parents who turn their older children into second parents," says Gawkoski, mother of seven. Everyone has chores in her house, but Gawkoski makes a point of not leaning on her older kids for help with the younger ones. And when they do hold down the fort — on date night, for example — she pays them.

Get creative with space
Sherry Welden has her six children play musical bedrooms so each one gets a chance to have his own room. Welden also helped cut down on the traffic in their one bathroom by putting hair dryers and mirrors in the older girls' bedrooms.

Keep your relationship on the front burner
With a gaggle of kids demanding your time and attention, it's easy to let couple time slide into last place. But some big-family couples do manage to make time for each other. "We're good at taking time for us," says Kelly Bauer, mother of eight. "Our kids know that it's important. We both want to have a solid foundation, so things will be strong between us when the kids are grown."

Separate wants from needs
Many of the big-family moms buy in bulk, cook from scratch, buy clothes off-season, and pack up the van and drive instead of paying for a fistful of plane tickets. And of course, they follow the hand-me-down system. Leslie Biskup, mom of five, says that, contrary to popular opinion, you don't have to be wealthy to raise lots of kids — you just have to redefine what's really necessary. "Kids are as expensive as you make them," she says. "People with one or two kids say to us, 'You must be rich!' But they're dressing their kids in Abercrombie & Fitch and spending all their time in Gymboree."

Don't plan on a showpiece home
"I used to be a neat freak before I had kids, and I couldn't imagine living in chaos. Now I let things like that go and focus on taking care of and loving my children rather than having a clean house," says Sherry Welden.

New Moon Blues

Today is a new moon (at least I think it is, if I'm interpreting my calendar right). It's the only reason I can come up with for Sam climbing into our bed at 4:50am, Elli waking up at 5:45am, and Anna emerging at 6:20am. (Normal wake-up time is 7am, just in time for Mr. Rogers.)

None of us ever got back to sleep, despite my best efforts. I hadn't slept well anyway -- for some reason I was restless all night dreaming about all sorts of things going wrong with Sam's "Thanksgiving Feast" at school this morning.

Despite it all, I still read a couple chapters in Romans and dragged myself to the gym. Then I actually prepared and packed a lunch for Elli and ran to the store for whipped topping for the pumpkin pie I made for the feast. I have to confess to a certain degree of crankiness on my part in the process of getting everyone to school on time. Especially when I discovered disintegrated pinecones throughout the house and two children working on more. (How did they get into the kids' hands??? I put the basket of them on the mantel, safely out of reach -- or so I thought.) No time to vacuum now. Thank you Lord that we are NOT selling a house anymore!

We're home now, and everyone is quite tired. At least I can skip lunch today. We're watching "Prince of Egypt" and enjoying some much-needed down-time. I'm trying to decide when to start naps. I want them to take nice long ones for me, so I can take a nap and still get some work done around the house. I still have quite a list to complete, and Scott asked me to add a couple things this morning.

Three days til Thanksgiving! I love this holiday -- it's nice to have one time of the year where the holiday is focused on how blessed we are instead of on buying and getting more. We invited a family who just moved here from Connecticut to join us for dinner, and I was thrilled to learn they are coming! I think we'll actually put a sizeable dent into the 19-pound bird thawing in my fridge -- we'll have 12 people total, 7 of them adults.

The Great Pumpkin Cookie

4 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
2 cups quick or old-fashioned oats, uncooked (I use old-fashioned)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp brown cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups butter/margarine, softened
2 cups firmly-packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 16-oz can pumpkin
1 cup real semi-sweet chocolate chips (I use half a bag)

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour, oats, soda, cinnamon, and salt in medium bowl, set aside. Cream butter. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add egg and vanilla, mix well. Alternate addition of dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing well after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips (makes a large batch and dough will be fairly stiff).

For each cookie, drop 1/4 cup dough onto lightly greased cookie sheet (or non-stick cookie sheet). (If I want more cookies, I'll use mounded teaspoons and bake for 20 minutes.) Spread into pumpkin shape, add a little dough to form a stem. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until cookies are firm and lightly browned. Remove from cookie sheet and cool on rack. Frost if desired.

Yields 32 large cookies.

Thanksgiving Menu

I think I've finalized the menu for next week's festivities. I had grand plans for a million side dishes when I decided to host Thanksgiving a month or so ago. But I've gradually scaled back as the reality of preparing a feast with three children in the house settled in. While I'd love to try cornbread and wild mushroom and pecan stuffing, steamed brussels sprouts, roasted carrots and parsnips, and sweet potato souffle pie, I just don't have time or the food budget! I am having family bring some of the items too, which will help.

• 19-pound grilled turkey (my dad is a pro at grilling turkey over charcoal, thereby freeing up the oven)


• Mushroom stuffing (from Everyday Food)


• Golden-brown gravy (from Martha Stewart Living)


• Cranberry sauce


• Mamaw's sweet potatoes


• Golden creamy mashed potatoes


• Green bean salad


• Beverly's broccoli casserole


• Olives (a requirement at my family's special dinners)


• Pumpkin pie with real whipped cream


• Apple pie

I decided to go ahead and get a large turkey since we've invited friends who won't know if they're coming til the last minute. If they don't come, I'm going to have half a turkey left over! I bought ingredients for turkey poblano tostadas for lunch on Friday, but that won't make a big dent in 10 pounds of leftovers. We'll probably have enough for a whole 'nother turkey dinner later in the winter, which will be nice. Maybe two.

Anyone want to join us for Thanksgiving dinner?

Pumpkin Cookies

Baking with kids always goes better if you're prepared -- get all the ingredients, measuring tools, bowls, etc out before you start.


Anna loved playing with the dry ingredients. She followed Sam's example really well, so the mess wasn't too bad!


Our favorite ingredient -- chocolate chips! (of course, each of us had to test them to be sure they were safe to put in the cookies)


Every kid loves to lick the beater...



or the rubber scraper!


Hmmm... these might pass the taste test. I won't know for sure until I try another.


Sam approves as well

Kitcheners and Counterpanes

(photo intentionally zoomed to conceal true identity of project)

I tried my first Kitchener stitch over the weekend. The first go-round I had to rip out. Somehow my stitches didn't line up and I had an extra one when I was supposed to be done. The second time around went much better. Can you tell where the seam is?



This is the first of eight squares I will knit to create a Christmas stocking for my niece. It's supposed to be reminiscent of a Victorian counterpane. I got to try my hand at bobbles and yarn-overs. I think it turned out pretty well, though I need to work on consistent tension so my squares look more square!

I also need to figure out how to take better photos of knitted work like this. The photo doesn't do the details justice.

Unable or Unwilling?

I've been reading Jody's blog, a mother of five, four still living, for the past few months. She writes very candidly about life with a full house and a child with special needs. (It's very comforting to know that our non-Rockwell-ish family life is not totally unique.) I'm so impressed with how able she seems to be at riding the turbulence that has to exist in their home without getting too stressed by it.

This is something I need to work on. I do think I've gotten better over the years -- must be all the practice. Instead of always being the mom in awe of that other mom who is so calm in the midst of the flurry of her kids, I've actually had a couple people say the same to me once in a great while. But most of the time, I still really struggle with getting tense and stressed when things don't go perfectly or how I want them to go.

So I'm asking other moms out there. How do you do it? Have you changed your expectations of yourself, the state of your home, the behavior of your kids? How do you deal with disasters in public? How about in private (because the kids see both and are learning from us how to handle it -- no pressure there at all)?

I have had to take our three kids to a lot of doctor's appointments in the last two months. There's nothing like being stuck in a small room with hard surfaces, sharp corners, and no amusements to bring out the worst in kids. I usually end up trying to have a conversation with the doctor, ask my questions, and process their answers while one child is climbing me and poking her finger in my face ("eye. eye-bow. nozsh. mouf."), the other one is crawling around on the icky, germy floor making animal noises, and Elli is singing songs from music class with her Dynavox. It's SO difficult not to yell at everyone to SHUT UP AND LET ME TALK.

Then there's the relentless nature of life at home with five generators of dirty laundry, dirty dishes, and messes everywhere. I try to get everything done enough to take Sunday off from housework, but this requires a level of self-discipline that I have not achieved yet. Managing a home is much more difficult than I thought. Between trying to keep the finances updated, stick to a budget while feeding/clothing/bathing five people, stay on top of the laundry, clean the house at least enough to deter pests, fix and clean up meals in a timely manner, and spend some quality time actually playing and doing fun things with each child... I'm ready to pull my hair out by mid-afternoon. Ooops -- I forgot taking a lot of time out to mediate sibling conflicts and discipline when they blatantly disobey, exercizing on a semi-regular basis, and reading the Bible and praying.

It all is important. And it just seems impossible. But not because there's too much to do. Because it requires that self-discipline thing again. If I would just use my time better: go to bed early enough that I can get up at 5:30am to read, pray, and exercise before the family gets up, waste less time on the computer, and worry less about doing those fun things I want to do it, I could accomplish this. I guess I'm just unwilling to give up the things that I want to do.

Should I? Is it selfish of me to want to read, knit, sew, scrapbook, write, nap? How much should I compromise? For how long? What's most important? What am I teaching my kids with my example?

I guess I'm concluding that I'm quite a selfish person. I want what I want, when I want it.

So let's throw in another stick of dynamite into this volatile mix. I've been thinking and praying about adding to the family lately. Now I'm really at war with myself. Children just don't mix with self-love. So having children has forced me to face the ugliness inside, and to a certain extent, to deal with it.

I keep telling myself that children are a blessing from God and a joy. That raising godly, respectful, hard-working, responsible people is the most important way I could spend my time and energy. I see how much having children has forced me into better habits and whittled away at the self-worshipping heart inside me. I see how much joy they have brought us.

But my self keeps talking back. It keeps reminding me how out-of-control life is. How much worse it got during pregnancy. How difficult it was so adjust to having each new child. I was not myself for months because I was so tired and so overwhelmed by everything (even when they were healthy). How much more complicated things get as the kids get older. The ever-increasing onslaught of paper. The reality of our oldest's health and physical situation. My fears of all the evil that can and will strike each child at some point in their lives.

This job is tough. It requires intelligence (something the liberal feminists don't want us to know), discipline, problem-solving, organization, skill with numbers, ability to juggle multiple tasks and multitudinous facts at one time, and people skills. You need a basic knowledge of nutrition, sanitation, education, and child-development (and some auto-mechanic and home maintenance skills are a huge plus).

But absolutely essential is courage:
courage to plunge your bare hand into a toilet jammed full of toilet-paper courtesy of your over-zealous potty-trained-but-just-barely toddler to pull all that soppy paper and who-knows-what-else out before your house is flooded,
courage to kill that 2-inch cockroach yourself because no-one is around to do it,
courage to safely usher that terrified bird back outside before the cat kills it and scatters bird feathers from floor to ceiling,
courage to face a world that looks down on mothers and especially mothers with many children (by many I mean more than 2) with a smile and a positive attitude,
courage to confront the attitudes and systems and ideas that attack our kids,
courage to say no to what would poison our and their minds even if it's everywhere and everyone else absorbs it without question,
courage to be the parent and the authority in your child's life until they have the skill and wisdom to live as adults and make their own choices (you are their parent, not their friend).

I guess I am no less qualified for this impossible job now than I was when I innocently plunged into motherhood for the first time 7 years ago. There's no turning back now.

Mixed Bag

It's 5:40am, and I'm up with a sick child. We were all healthy at the same time for 4 days. Elli has a fever, which I always know because she kind of grunts with every breath.

This week I tried to get a lot done since we all were feeling well for the first time in nearly 4 weeks. I got a bunch of Christmas shopping done (the kids are all done except for a few little stocking stuffers, and I am over half-way finished with everyone else - except for Scott). I got a lot of laundry done. I got bills paid and some papers sorted. And I took the younger two kids to swim at our community center (I've been wanting to take them for weeks but we weren't well enough).

However, Sunday night I stayed up late by choice and was awakened very early by the kids. My total hours of sleep: 3.5. I haven't been the same since. I must be getting older because I didn't bounce right back like I usually do. Even yesterday, after two normal nights of sleep and a few catnaps, I still wasn't myself. I've been irritable and short with the kids... and everyone else.

I think Sam is really feeling it too -- he had a really bad day yesterday. He told 4 different kids at preschool, including his best friend Jamie, that he didn't want to be their friend anymore. Jamie was sobbing when her mom picked her up. I felt horrible because I know how crushing that is for a girl. We've had a couple talks with Sam about it, but he insists that he doesn't want to be her friend. I think it's that he doesn't know how to express that he'd like to play with some of the other kids sometimes. I'm hoping that a good night's sleep or two will change his attitude by Friday so he can apologize and give her a big hug.

Meanwhile, we'll see what Elli has and try to keep it from spreading through the family. I guess I better set the dishwasher back to "sanitize." I just turned that setting off yesterday.

Knitting for Christmas

I have selected (most) of the items I'm making for Christmas gifts! So I of course can't post any pictures, lest I ruin the surprises. But I'm very excited about some new projects, new yarn in new colors, new needles (I love my new bamboo needles!!!), a new book (Christmas Stockings: 18 Holiday Treasures to Knit), and trying a new technique - felting.

Felting is the intentional shrinking of wool. You knit an item at least twice as big as you want it, then you wash it until it has shrunk to the desired size. I had no idea people did this on purpose. But now I've seen some finished projects and the effect is very thick and warm. Many items don't even look knitted any more. I'll be attempting this on two of my Christmas gifts this year. I hope it works -- otherwise I'll be up a creek for those people.

I am still working to finish my socks and the baby sweater (which is for Brenda's baby if I can ever finish the sleeves). So Brenda, I know you think I totally forgot to send a baby gift, but I didn't. I'm still working on it. I'm nowhere near as creative or timely as our wonder-woman friend Brooke. I'll try to be better.

It's (finally) Election Day

Have you voted yet?

I can't get over the fact that it's 5:10pm and I'm still getting calls from various candidates. I remember that in 2004 we thought we were home free when the polls closed. Then we got a "thank you for voting" recorded call!

I a bit disappointed in my voting experience this year. I thought we had changed our addresses with the Board of Elections when I changed them at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, but apparently I didn't change Scott's. I guess I could have checked on mine. He voted first, on his way to work, and called to say our polling location had changed (even though we now live closer to our original one) and he had to fill out a bunch of forms and then cast a provisional ballot. So I did the same. My ballot won't even be counted for a day or two.

Plus they changed our ballotting process. We had the punch cards before, and I rather like them. You could hold them up and see for sure if you had punched through each thing. And the ballot itself was nice and compact -- just slide your card into the machine and flip the pages.

Today I had two monstrous sheets of paper with monstrous ovals to darken with a pen. These huge sheets then got fed into a scanner and read like a Scantron test from college. Issues and candidates were included on both sides of these pages. Then I heard someone talking this morning about how he had to fill in rectangles! I really hope that he was in a different county and therefore had a different ballot. Because otherwise one of us voted wrong!

I find voting somewhat frustrating. No matter how much research I do, I always get to the polls and find people listed that I haven't read anything about. It happened again today, and I was SURE I had educated myself well enough.

I've always loved the bumper sticker I saw once that read, "This fall, fire them all! Re-elect nobody!" So I finally decided that if I had nothing else to go on, I'd vote against the incumbent.

I am very interested to see what happens in Ohio tonight (or tomorrow...or the next day, if the election is close). Two years ago it was really close between Republicans and Democrats. I think there's a very good chance it will swing Democratic this year -- so many people are upset about all the scandals at the state level (which currently leans Republican) and about the war in Iraq.

Soon as I get the kids to bed, I'll be hitting the knitting and the election results! And maybe some ice cream. And decaf. All I need to make it perfect is my husband (who's out tonight at a meeting at our alma mater) and a fire in the fireplace.

Walk for Kids

Last Saturday, my sister joined our family for a chilly early-morning fund-raising walk for our local children's hospital. We drove down to a large park near the river and joined hundreds of other families and staff for a 5-mile walk, lunch, games, music, and goodies.

We arrived just as they ran out of coffee (the one big flaw of the day -- it was 30 degrees out!). The younger two kids enjoyed exploring the extensive playground (complete with climbing wall and working front-end loaders), while Elli, Heather, and I walked with the team from the Family Advisory Council.

The three of us raised $1000 for cerebral palsy research! I am working with Elli's CP specialist at the hospital on plans for the money. She is conducting a large study next year, so we're going to use the money to ease the trouble it will be for all the families to come 3 times for 2 hours each.

Handmade Cards

I found a contest where you can win 10 free handmade cards. All you have to do is leave a comment for her! The Wilson Six: Don't you just love contests????

How Stupid Do They Think We Are???

ring, ring... ring, ring...

"Hello?"

- silence -

"Hello."

"Hi. I'm-calling-for-hmrph-Hrmph-for-state-senate. He-is-for-tax-cuts-for-average-Americans-and-has-a-great-record- -in-the-senate. Can-he-count-on-your-vote-on-Tuesday,-November-7?"

"Who?"

"I'm-calling-for-Joe-Blow-for-state-senate. Can-he-count-on-your-vote-on-Tuesday,-November-7?"

"I don't know anything about him."

"Ok, you're undecided then. This-call-has-been-paid-for-by-the-blah- -blah-blah-blah-blah-committee-"

"Is he running for re-election?"

"No."

"But you said he has a great record in the senate. Is he a congressman? A representative?"

"No."

"What does he do now?"

"I can't tell you that. I can't try to sway your vote."

"But how can you say he has a good record in the senate?"

"I'm just calling to ask if Joe-Blow-for-senate can count on your vote. I can't give you that kind of information. I can't try to sway your vote."

"What?!?! That's why you called! You are asking for my vote!"

"Thank you. Good bye."

You have GOT to be kidding. Did that really just happen? It's no wonder they can't get my generation and younger out to vote! Everything I see and everything I hear is insulting to the intelligence. They need us to get elected, but they clearly despise and totally under-rate us. What a load of horse manure.

They Lucked Out

That shot that Sam missed a few days ago? It has been on backorder for 2 months. No-one is in a big rush for him (or Elli, who also didn't get hers) to get it, so they both luck out.

The doctor's appointment went rather well, actually. I have to make a separate appointment to get flu shots for Sam and Anna, so the only one who got one was Elli. She barely even flinches -- what's a poke in the leg when you get your veins stuck every few weeks? Her pneumonia is clearing up, though she still has some crackles in her lungs.

So I get to postpone the multiple-kids-getting-shots-in-one-visit thing for another time. I think I can distract Anna long enough for Sam to get his and settle down, especially if I get one first and show him how brave you can be (this is where my mom and sisters fall onto the floor in hysterial laughing. but I'm serious -- I've become quite a good shot-getter since I became a mom!).

I am starting antibiotics tonight. My throat isn't getting any better, and the swelling is spreading. It's weird because it doesn't hurt like strep does, or like a cold does. I have some aching in my sinuses and ear, but not really in the throat itself. So I guess I should stop messing around and deal with it head-on.

Scott is away at an expositors' workshop unti Friday afternoon. This means I'm very unmotivated to do anything. Including go to bed (even though I'm wiped out from doing the parent thing through the evening).