That's right, it's been a while - we've been mighty busy the past month or so catching every cold and flu virus available in our geographical area. We hate to miss out on anything. I feel like a nurse on a hospital ward, walking around every evening dispensing decongestants, painkillers, and/or cough medicine to people in various stages of sickness. I've purchased so much Sudafed in the past 2 months that I expect the local narcotics squad to come busting down our door any time now in search of the methamphetamine lab I am obviously supplying. Every once in a while we stagger out to the library, pay all our overdue fines, and stagger back home with a pile of books to last through the next illness. Larry seems to have ducked a lot of it, somehow; I guess it pays to sleep at the office.
Brian lost his first tooth. I mean, really lost it - apparently he swallowed it and didn't even notice it was missing for hours. We had to write a note to the Tooth Fairy requesting his quarter anyway. She (he?) was very understanding about the situation.
Both Rachel and Brian are theoretically learning to swim. I have a feeling that these little-kid swim lessons are simply a way of plucking yet more money from the pockets of hapless, clueless parents such as Larry and me. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Rachel knows how to dance (she wanted me to tell you that). She also knows how to talk nonstop until I want to lock her in a closet just to turn off the sound. It's a good thing little girls look cute.
David got the flu with a particularly vicious sore throat and ingested nothing for 3 days but Jello and cranberry juice. I have a feeling that he will look back fondly on that time as the best days of his youth. Now he is back to his peculiar set of food neuroses that are apparently calculated to drive me over the edge. Good thing he doesn't know that Theo and I found a bug in the snow peas as we were stringing them this afternoon.
Anna vacillates between hating me and being my best friend. Nothing like living on a rollercoaster for the next 6 years.
Theo is having a hard time getting his schoolwork done, what with sitting around reading seed catalogs all the time and letting lettuce seedlings crowd out all the workspace on his desk. Or else he spends his time prepping and cooking dinner. Yup, the teenage years are pretty rough around here (permit me to gloat while I can - we're in for it with Anna - see above).
Who have I left out? Oh, the baby. Susie's been experiencing baby boot camp lately. Scheduled naps, scheduled bedtime, no nursing at night - it only took me 6 kids to figure it out. I told Larry that now that we have what it takes to keep these babies in line, we can have 6 more. Now that I think of it, that may be why he's sleeping at the office.