I...I...I...

Okay. I'm going to try to get through this. Today I was cooking and baking all sorts of things. I had a burner hot because I made hard boiled eggs and I had just taken a tray of chicken out of the oven and put it on the stove to cool. Then I remembered its my friend Erin's birthday tomorrow so I decided to make a cake for her. I made a double batch of chocolate chocolate cake and got out my favorite cake pan-an 8 inch springform-and greased it. I put in on the stove in front of the pan of chicken and poured the batter into it. When I put the mixing bowl in the sink and went to pick up the pan and put it in the oven I heard a strange sound.

It was a soft sound, but it gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was the sound of the spring on the springform pan breaking.

The sides of the pan came up with my hands and the bottom stayed on the stove. So did the double batch of cake batter. Which proceeded to ooze to the right and burn to the still very hot burner. And to the rear to mingle with my baked chicken. And to the front.

All. The. Way. Down. To. The. Floor.

Now, maybe you have some experience with this, but I'm not really sure the best way to scoop up a double batch of cake batter from the hot stove and the floor. I'm still not sure how I did it but I know my washing machine is full of chocolately towels. And after I got it all cleaned up and I was putting the next pan full of cake successfully in the oven I noticed it. The insult to the injury. A lone drip down the inside of the oven window. Deep in the middle where it can never ever be cleaned. Mocking me.

Children

Okay. First of all the official story about Jimmy's hospital visit. Then the funny stuff.

Last thursday he woke up with a headache, but that was all so we gave him some ibuprofen and sent him to school. When Chris picked him up he said that his throat hurt and he was so tired he laid down in art club and even fell asleep. He had a fever so we snuggled him up on the couch and gave him more ibuprofen. this is around 5:30. So Chris left for his rehearsal and I was just sitting in the family room with the kids watching Arthur, when Jimmy got up to go to the bathroom. Immediately I heard him cough a lot and then start to wail-usually a telltale sign that he's thrown up-so I ran in to help but he said it was just his throat hurt so bad and he couldn't stop coughing (or crying). I went into the kitchen to find some cough medicine and before I could even find any he started choking and the strider started. If you've ever heard a child with croup you will know that sound. It is the worst sound I've ever heard and i will never ever forget or mistake it. If you haven't heard it, it's the sound a child makes when his windpipe has swollen nearly closed and he is trying desperately not to die from suffocation. Their mouths are open like fish out of water and the skin around their nose, mouth and throat sucks in with every almost-breath and they have a look in their eyes of fear and pain and confusion. I ran to find a steroid pill that we have for just these occasions, but it was too late for that so then I grabbed his albuterol inhaler thinking that might get more time to get to the ER, but he couldn't even take a breath of that either.

I called my friend Amy during all of this and kind of yelled/cried that I was taking him to the hospital and could her Dad meet me there to give Jim a blessing and take Zoe, and luckily she made me talk to him (he's an RN) and he heard Jimmy and said to call 911. I realized that he was right-Jimmy was too far gone and I was not in a state to drive him, especially since I didn't exactly know where I was going. So I called 911 and the dispatcher heard Jimmy over the phone and I immediately heard the sirens going. I put him at the front door to try to get the cold air in him (that helps croup) and had Zoe sit with him while I grabbed things I needed and when I got back she was saying a prayer for him-it was very sweet. The ambulance pulled up and they didn't even start working on him in the house, they immediately got him inside and in an oxygen mask. Amy came right after and I gave her Zoe-Zoe was VERY upset that she couldn't come help me, but I'm so grateful that she didn't experience the ambulance ride. It was incredibly traumatic for me, I can't imagine what it would have done to her. Jimmy kept throwing up through the mask and drooling because he couldn't swallow and the blood vessels in his face and eyes were bursting from the effort to get a breath. We were lights and sirens the whole way to the childrens hospital and I was thinking it was a shame that Jimmy wasn't in a state to appreciate that-he would have thought it was really cool. (I guess, if he was able to appreciate it, he wouldn't have needed it. oh well.)

So we got to the hospital and Chris was waiting for us. Jimmy actually responded to Daddy where he hadn't responded to any of us. Chris gave him a hug and Jimmy pulled him closer and booped his nose. it made me cry. They put us in a trauma room and there were never less than 10 people in there trying to figure out what was going on. It was obviously croup-that sound is unmistakable. But croup doesn't come on that fast, from 0-60 in nothing flat. And it certainly doesn't get that bad that fast. Also, he had the burst blood vessels, which they said could be hiding a rash, and he kept falling asleep and not responding-which could have been him exhausted from fighting to breath and relaxed from having oxygen, or something worse. So they brought an x-ray machine to make sure he didn't swallow anything and then decided to save his airway by intubating him. They took him to the OR so they could have everything around them they needed in case of-whatever-and they sedated him and looked around and took samples of everything and eventually decided they didn't need to intubate (thank goodness) but they were going to keep him sedated and in the ICU. He stayed in the ICU until late on Friday when they moved him to a regular room, and let me tell you-everyone was so much nicer and more attentive in the regular room! I was so glad to be there and out of the ICU. The final decision from all their tests was that he had something bacterial going on that he was fighting off, and then he got the croup on top of that, and all of a sudden his little body said that was too much and gave up to both at once. They sent us home on saturday, and he kept up the near constant sleeping until Sunday, and then Monday (except for the cough) you could hardly tell there had ever been anything wrong with him. He lost weight though-and that freaks me out a little. He feels a little too skinny now, and he has nasty bruises in several places from various IVs, but I'll take it. He's been in the hospital for croup before, but never this bad. I've never been so scared and worried.

Anyway, like I said, he's pretty much fine now, so on to the funny stuff.

When I went to tuck her in tonight, Zoe handed me a list of Laws she would like entered into the family constitution. I will reproduce it here for you in as true a manner as I can-including spelling.

Law$
1. no obgecting!
2. writing from 4:00 Am to 9:00 Pm
3. Bed-time 8:00 on week-days, and 8:30 on weekends!
4. no letter enspecting/snooping/spying!
5. 2 deserts after dinner!
6. More books!
7. More snuggling!
8. toy/pen/wand/pointer thing privlages at all times!
9. no Thomas/cars/incredables/meet the robinsens at any times!
10. no exepsions!
plese consiter these laws quickly.

nice doing buisness with you,
Miss. Hill

she actually wrote Zoe Hill at the bottom, but crossed out Zoe and wrote Miss.

I have the video from their Paragon Night (kind of a 'look what we've learned in social studies') and once we figure out how to upload it I'll post it. It's very very cute, and don't worry, I didn't film the 8th graders being appallingly horrifically illiterate.

kids and work and all that jazz

So very much to say, and absolutely no energy or mental strength to do so. 3 weeks ago my boss said he didn't want to run my cafe anymore so there were two options. The first option was to close it down and i'd need a new job, and the second option was for ME to take over. So basically I was handed a business on a silver platter. Its a very good situation, but its a whole heck of a lot of work that I'm not used to or experienced in. Plus, as good as any situation is, it's all on me to do something with it. I have the weather on my side (no one wants to walk anywhere for lunch when it's raining and cold), and everyone's being really supportive, but I'm still scared silly.

My children are crazy. Every day I pick them up from school and they say something else that suprises me. It's ridiculous how smart they are, and everyday I have some member of the staff or faculty telling me so. And yet when we get home, all of a sudden they're selfish lazy bratty kids who only use their brains to try to outwit the other or worse, us. That's not entirely true, but it sure feels like it sometimes! I'm perversely grateful for the times when Jimmy is hurt or legitimately sad and Zoe rushes to comfort him. Its makes me so happy to see that they actually DO care about each other. Saturdays are my favorite because we all cuddle together and do nothing. An outside observer might think that our couch is too big for our family room, or that we need more seating, but our favorite family activity is everyone piled on each other on the couch watching movies or tv or football or pretending to while we're actually asleep.

I think I started rambling back there so I'm going to bed before I lose it completely. I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday-here's hoping its a really busy day!

isn't it always the way

So wednesday this week there was a promotion in the building where I work and everyone got free lunch. This is great for them, not so great for the deli trying to stay afloat. Long story short I had the day off so we didn't waste labor. I got to thinking, and I realized it had been a really really long time since I'd had a day off with no children. Don't get me wrong-I love being with my kids and wish I was with them more. But a whole 8 hours of grown up Allison time was enough to make me drool. I had big plans. BIG! I was going to sleep in, do some dishes with MY music blasting, go to the grocery store and have a leisurely stroll down EACH AND EVERY aisle, watch some crappy daytime tv reruns or maybe a movie or two with lots of gunshots and screaming and loud adventuresome music. (you totally thought I was going to say chic flick. ha ha! I can watch those at night when people are sleeping).

My plan went well-I studiously ignored all the goings on and rushing to get the kids out the door, rising only to give Chris a couple dollars so he could bring me a toasted bagel from Tim Hortons in bed. It was absolutely lovely. Until about 10:30, when the school nurse called and said Zoe was sick. Poor thing. She could hardly talk her throat hurt so bad. I went and got her and put her to bed and she was out like a light. She slept for more than two hours-so I was still able to pretend like she wasn't there, though that did cramp my plans for going places.

Also this week we got some Interim report cards. I didn't realize they'd been in school that long already! Zoe's was fairly normal and as expected, disgustingly gifted in reading, advanced in math, above average in social studies and science, and all of that was balanced with her nice note that she has absolutely atrocious handwriting. But Jimmy's was very interesting. It's his very first report card ever, so we had no standard of what to expect. His 'areas of strength' include 'follows directions independently' 'attentively listens to teacher and classmates' and completes all work with quality'. Math, social studies and science are labeled 'meeting expectations' (which is the highest), and his handwriting is listed as 'legible' (also the highest). But the most interesting of all is reading, which is above 'meeting expectations' at 'reading independently.' THAT LITTLE STINKER!!!!!! there's a note on it saying he's admitted to his teacher that he can read and is advancing rapidly. He's been telling us for months that he can't read at all and no matter how we try nothing was sinking in to help him read. Every once in a while we'd think we'd catch him reading but he'd just say he recognized the picture or logo or something. What's amazing to me is not so much that he CAN read, but that he's BEEN reading and HIDING IT!! I'm really happy about it, now that he's showing me a little bit he's been really good at church lately because he reads the programs and the hymn book. I'm just still a little bit bowled over by the whole thing.

What impresses me more actually, than his reading of words, is his comprehension. I read him a story at night, and a while ago I decided that I was bored with all his little story books and I wanted to read him a real big boy book. I started reading harry potter to Zoe when she was about 4 so I figured I was even a little over due with Jimmy. He didn't want Harry Potter, so I decided on Peter and the Starcatchers. If you haven't read it the angels weep for you. Its (actually a trilogy), written by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson, and it's kind of the background story of Peter Pan; how he came to Never Land, how he and Captain Hook met, how he and Tinkerbell met, his connection with the Darling Family, etc. So I read a chapter or two every night to Jimmy, and a couple of weeks in I was worried that he was just hearing it and not really listening so I started asking questions. He could remember everything that happened in nearly perfect detail-even the words that he didn't understand! Pretty awesome. It looks to me like he's following in his sister's footsteps. I wish we could take credit for it, but I don't think it's anything we've done at all.

As a small side note, there may be some interesting news in the near future, but in the interest of discretion I will wait to disclose it-suffice to say I'm getting pretty excited for January.

Jimmy

I did actually, just make cookies, and I thought about sending some to you. But I didn't. sorry.

I have some quotes from Jimmy to brighten your day. The first two were said to me around 2 am last night and the night before, as he shook me awake.
"Mom" crying "I want everything I see on TV"
"wha? Like what honey"
"an extra life in table tennis"

"Mom, I need our home address"
"why? go back to bed"
"I can't. I need our home address"

After which he immediately went back to his bed and slept.

But the best one is the other day when we were driving home and there were kids in the road. We don't have sidewalks in our neighborhood, so I know they have nowhere else to walk, but you'd think they'd at least move a little for the cars. Anyway, there were three teenagers walking in the road (two boys and one girl in very short shorts), and as Chris started to complain that they shouldn't walk in the middle of the road Jimmy looks out the window and says, "But, wow, that girl's a really great walker!"

please?

I know I know I know. It's been a really long time and you've all written me letters and cards wondering if I'm okay and when oh when will I update my blog!?!

Well the problem is that I don't have a bunch to say on one thing. I do have some cool pictures, but as i have no idea how to get them off my phone and onto anywhere other than facebook, you'll have to see them there. So for this blog I will not try for consistency of theme or any kind of linear timeline, and feel free to make of it what you will.

My laptop is dead. It's still technically alive--I think the light is still blinking, but it's sitting in a corner of the family room and we don't dare to touch it, let alone open it. It got a virus that got in and turned off my firewall and and my task manager, so I now have no control over anything and every link takes me to an internet porn site. and then when we tried to fix it we got the blue screen of death and it shut off. I didn't realize how much i relied on my laptop until it was dead and chris is too busy actually using his so all I'm left with is the one in the office. I know, whine whine. I'm glad I have one, but it's so FAR AWAY. If you don't know the layout of my house you don't realize quite how FAR AWAY the office is from EVERYTHING ELSE.

My daughter is gone-it's been just over two weeks now, with 5 left to go, and I'm handling it much better than I thought I would (and much better than chris), but again I didn't realize what I had until it was gone. As in, I didn't realize how much she actually does play with Jimmy (especially on saturday mornings) until no one's there to play with him but me. Jimmy and I have now beat the Incredibles Underminer game 3 times and now we're working on Finding Nemo. I'm very very good at the incredibles, and I don't think ANYONE is good at Finding Nemo. That's seriously the worst game I've ever seen. I'm trying to get him to like tetris.

My job is going great-business is slowing down, which while sucky is not unexpected, but my tips are going way way up. I take this to mean that everything is fine with the business, the customers must be happy or they wouldn't be tipping as much as they are, and it's just the nice weather that makes them go out.

Creepy Fruit Cup Guy (you remember him from the earlier post), who by the way CALLED me on my birthday to say Happy Birthday (how did he get my number?), came by today and asked me why I had so many pimples on my face. Apparently he used up all his tact last time. Jerk. It's not my fault my skin still thinks its 15. Seriously-who does that?

I'm designing the set for Doubt, and while I'm happy to be doing it, I was the director's THIRD choice, and he keeps telling me what to do. And both of my children, upon hearing what I was doing, became very upset that someone would stoop to asking ME to draw anything when they could have simply asked THEM. Also, I have never seen a full production at this theatre, and I have no idea what materials are available to me (which would be really useful information as I have a budget of exactly $3.72)

I have the day off on July 3rd, and there's a big fireworks show downtown and we're going to go see it. I'm really really excited because I've never seen the 4th here in columbus and I bet it's going to be really cool.

Also, we're going to go back to Old Man's Cave and hopefully Ash Cave sometime soon because it was totally awesome and we'll be better prepared and take a real camera with us. And a walking stick. But we'll stick with the red vines, they were a good choice.

My gazebo blew over the other day in a very quick and violent storm that may, or may not, have been rotating at some point somewhere in the vicinity. it's quite broken too, but I think we'll be able to fix it with some duct tape and rope. okay a lot of duct tape. But I LOVE having the table and chairs out there-we're in the midst of firefly season and it's the most magical thing I've ever seen. They even look like fairies up close!

And lastly, I'm trying to plan all sorts of things for when my Dad comes out in July-I know he's not going to be here for very long and I know Jimmy's making very elaborate plans for the things they're going to build together, but there's so many things I want to do with him and see with him. Doubt opens that weekend, and I really want him to see Old Man's Cave. And the tadpoles at the park which won't be tadpoles by then because some of the ones we saw on saturday had legs already. and he needs a thurman burger. definitely.

mmm...thurman burger...

27, a time for reflection.

So, I just turned 27. No, I didn't eat my whole cake myself. Didn't even have a cake actually. I figured since I'm the one that makes the cakes, I wasn't going to bother. This didn't go over very well with Jimmy though, because a birthday with no party, no cake, and no pinata was just a regular day with presents-not a proper birthday at all. We did go out to dinner though, with our friend John, and Chris was very mean and subjected me to cruel tortures that were bad enough at the time, but then he took pictures and posted them on facebook. Jerk. Anyway...so that same day another picture was posted of me on facebook at Candie's wedding. Now, I had a great time at the party, and I know that while I was the ONLY one dancing for about an hour, eventually everyone was dancing and having a great time and I started that and that's awesome. BUT. this particular picture is of a really really fat chick dancing all by herself (chris was next to me but not really dancing). I learned several things from this picture:

1. A-Line haircuts are great for other people.
2. My awesome purple shoes truly are as awesome as I thought they were.
3. That particular top has a certain potential but...
4. I really should tan more
and
5. I really don't care how much weight I've lost since then, it's not NEARLY as much as I thought it was, and what were all you people thinking letting me look like that?

(did you like how I blame others for my own problems?) Feel free to look up this picture, I'm tagged so it's easy to find. Just remember when you see it that YOU PEOPLE saw this often, and NEVER brought it to my attention. Now that I know, steps will be taken! Oh yes, you heard me, STEPS! (not literally though, 'cause, you know, my back, and I'm so busy, yeah, excersize is just like really not an option right now).