diary of the croup

We have spent our last glorious days of perfect summer weather inside playing video games and watching tv. No, we're not crazy, we're SICK!

I would have thought we have had the croup before. Sounds like something that goes around all the time. But, I'm QUITE sure that we've never had this! I'm quite sure we never want it back. We'll wish it on our worst enemies though. Well, then again, maybe not.

LAST Saturday: Grace and Mommy came down with bad coughs.

Sunday 3am: Grace woke up barely breathing, horrible sounds as she breathed, coughing sounded like a half-dead seal. Daddy brought her downstairs to try to steam her in the shower.
Sunday 5am: Mommy picked up Grace and drove her to the emergency room. Grace was given a steroid to open up her airways and let her breathe again. ER docs advised to not go ANYWHERE this week because this is so contagious - even to stay out of our doctor's office if possible.

Monday: a blur can't remember. stayed home all day listening to Grace cough, oh yeah, and mommy's sinuses hurt so bad she thought her eye was going to pop out.

Tuesday 11am: took Grace to the doctor despite ER advice. Grace treated for secondary sinus infection.

Tuesday 2pm: mommy went to the doctor despite ER advice. mommy treated for secondary sinus infection.

Tuesday night: took 2 hours to get Hattie to bed. mommy freaking out - tired and sick. 30 minutes later, Hattie starts coughing. WHY?!

Wednesday: all stayed home and coughed and coughed and coughed. Hattie coughed so hard she threw up all over the bathroom.

Wednesday night: still no sleeping for anyone.

Thursday 5pm : Hattie gets way worse. too many disgusting symptoms to count. took Hattie to urgent care. Hattie treated for junk in her lungs and other various assortments of things. mommy gave up relief society activity she's been planning all summer.

Friday: stayed home all day. played more video games. Grace and mommy perfecting their horse-opoly game. Hattie mean mean mean, sad sad sad, scream scream scream. Sold our tickets for Day out with Thomas tomorrow. Daddy turned down a Red-Sox game and gave up his tickets for tonight too.
Mommy's sweet visiting teacher brought us chicken noodle soup and chocolate chip cookies for dinner. THANK YOU!

Friday night: Daddy went to bed with a sore throat and stuffy nose. This is not a good sign. He is supposed to go on his yearly "manly" adventure next week and we are hoping he will be well.

Friday 1am: Hattie up, coughing until she can't breathe. Mommy brings her down for a steam bath. It works, thankfully, no trip to the ER. This part of it is so scary.

I think the worst part of this bug is that it rears it's ugliest head in the middle of the night. We have not slept for an entire week, literally.
We will probably stay home for 3 more days in high hopes of having perfect health on Tuesday. Tuesday is THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!!!!!

This week would have been so perfect to go on all the little outings we've been thinking about. We had absolutely nothing planned except for Thomas on Saturday. I guess it is a blessing, though, that we did not have anything important to do because we sure as heck didn't do it!

What are you doing for Labor Day?

We've been married 11 years

Yep, that's right folks, more than a decade. I've been married more than a third of my life. I've been married longer than I went to any school, had any job, and lived in any house. Weird. But, I guess not so weird when I can't remember much what it was like to not have David.

Yesterday was actually our 11th anniversary. Let's see, we woke up in the morning separated by both of our kids in bed having only slept a couple of hours. This is how life changes. We scarcely remember the days when we might stay in bed as long as we wanted without having to get up to help someone go potty, get someone else "apple juice please" or even to let dogs out. We've had dogs almost since the second year of being married. Velvet, our senior dog, still asks us "why did we get a dog," and "don't you think we have enough kids?" I know she misses our undivided attention.

Even though we can hardly remember the times of just being together, alone, we wouldn't trade our life for anything. We did have 6 years together before having kids and I am grateful for that. We sorted out a lot of differences in those years and I think we went into parenthood much more united and ready for being unselfish.

If you watch the TV sitcom " 'til Death" like we do, you know that in every relationship there is a gardener and a flower. Actually we love that episode because we can't ever figure out which of us is the gardener and which is the flower. We both work pretty hard and we're both pretty independent. We finally decided that we are indigenous species who don't need gardeners. We bloom on our own and put our work to other uses. Much more productive that way and for 2 type A, scientific personalities like we are, then, this is the best policy. This isn't to say that we don't look after each other, but it isn't one sided and if we have to, we can make do on our own.

I think we both really appreciate that about each other - that the other is ok and we don't have the added stress or pressure of catering to the other person. We do it when we want to and because we want to, not because we have to. For me, I am so appreciative of the things David does to help me. It's the little things that score big points. Like, he will get up, get ready for work, and do the dishes and clean the kitchen before he leaves. I'm still in bed - sleeping at least an hour later than he does because I've stayed up late working or been up all night with kids. But, he knows that my day will be so much better if I come down the stairs and don't see the dirty kitchen staring at me to start the day, so he does it just to be nice. He will stay home all day on Saturday or at night during the week to watch the kids so that I can do what I want and need to do. All the while, he is turning down other fun things, or not doing what he really needs to do.

I love that we are so real with each other. A couple of weeks ago, he asked me "so what kind of gifts are we doing for our anniversary, so that we're on the same page?" I said, well, I was kind of thinking.... nothing? He laughed and said "great! that's the best!" Actually, though, I came up with one small gift, more of a joke than anything, that I had to give him. I gave him a new toaster. We did not get a toaster in our giant pile of wedding gifts 11 years ago. When my grandma found out, she dug what was then a 20 year old toaster out of her basement and gave it to us. We were sure we'd get our own soon, but it would do in the mean-time. Well, 11 years later, and we still have grandma's 30 year old toaster on our counter. It still "works" which is to say it gets hot, but it has seen it's day. So, I gave him a brand new slick looking toaster. He was totally excited! Really, it doesn't take much to make us happy.

David wrote me a letter. A really really nice letter. I would put it here, but I think it's just for me. Just know that this guy can really do some sweet talking and make you feel like you are his whole world. I guess I am. Lucky me. Lucky us.
Happy Anniversary Babe.

2008-A mid-year review

While I am late for a mid-year review that is pretty much the story of my 2008. It has been packed with adventures, work, and miscellaneous other items that have kept me really busy. I have been meaning to blog about several things and this will be my transition to blog about these items over the next week (even after 8 months!).

This year has been a little crazy. I can't believe that summer is almost over, Grace is about to start kindergarten, and I now have to go back to the grind after lots of vacation this summer. So to get me back into the habit of blogging, I am going to write a brief, one paragraph summary of everything I need to blog about.

After not taking much vacation last year, it seems that I have more than made up for it in 2008. It started in January with a week to Smuggler's Notch in Vermont for some skiing. This was the first time I had skied in a decade and it was great fun to get back on the slopes. I even made it to Alta, Utah for a day of skiing in February. Grace went to ski school and despite missing a couple of days because of the flu, was pretty decent by the end of the week. Too bad she is still a little on the timid side.

Later in the year I got to visit with the soon to be world famous Dr. Bryan Warnick. Bryan was in town for a conference and we were able to spend a day together exploring sites, eating dinner, and catching up. It is always good to catch up with old friends.

Hattie is now a terrible two. She has gotten to be such a joy. She can be very trying at times, but she really is cute. She has progressed so much this year and I still need to post my birthday letter to her.

A trip to Utah. This included a family reunion (first time in 10 years everyone was together and over three years since most of us were together). A long bike ride with Brian and Wendy to (almost) Manti. A visit with Jared and long lost David B. And another trip to Buffalo Point with Brian and Wendy for some beautiful sunsets.

And finally a trip to Cape Cod with our friends here in Stow. A beach house, a train ride, a pirate adventure, what more can I ask for.2008 is more than half-way done but it already feels like we have done more than a year's worth of activities. Now if only I would blog about all of this.

Sand Castles and Sunshine

Sounds like my kind of vacation. I still miss my spring break beach trips to San Diego with my friends. David still says that he liked our Smuggler's Notch ski trip better, but I was cold and the kids had the flu, so I'm going to say that the beach beats it all (edit by David-I actually didn't say I liked Smuggler's Notch better. I said that I would prefer a ski trip to a beach trip. I completely agree that this trip was the best family vacation we have done. The Dotys were great to hang out with and the house was nice, the beach was fun). Plus it was only 2 hours away and the kids slept most of the way there and back. Utter paradise!
Actually, I think that this was the best trip we've ever taken as a family. Our trips to Salt Lake have elements of vacation in them - time away, fun things to do, etc, but I don't really consider them a "vacation." It is a necessary part of life to stay in touch with family. Plus, David rarely comes with us, so they don't really count as a family vacation anyway.Our friends, the Doty family, rented a beach town-house for 2 weeks in Hyannis. They graciously and generously offered to let us come down for a week to share the house which was more than plenty big enough for all of us with 6 levels of rooms. The very best part of the house was that you stepped out the back door and your feet hit the sand of the beach. My personal heaven. Hyannis was surprisingly bug free too and it only rained the first day we were there. It was 70-80 degrees every day. Not too hot, but just hot enough to enjoy the ocean and the pool.This trip was so great. I almost wished that we wouldn't have had internet access. I'm too addicted to e-mail to avoid checking it and David is too addicted to the computer to avoid taking a laptop with us. But, I spent very minimal time checking e-mail.
We did go on a 2 hour train ride to Sandwich. The kids slept 3/4 of the trip, so we called it the nap train, and then on our last day, we went on a pirate adventure ship in the harbor which was an extremely fun outing, but other than that, we simply played on the beach or at the pool with the kids. We didn't go out to eat except for lunch at a clam shack after the pirate cruise. We cooked 3 (totally divine, might I add - Linda is AMAZING) meals a day and stayed at the beach house. I loved every second of it.
The Dotys have 2 little boys. Benjamin is 3 years old. He and Grace have identical alpha personalities, so they had a lot of clashes over toys. Hattie and their little boy Jack (one year old) were totally delightful most of the time. It helps that they both still take naps!

My favorite memories are:

Watching Grace gather seashells. She never met a shell she didn't like. It didn't matter the size, color, or condition. Every one was something to take home.

Watching Hattie play in the surf and look at the sea creatures. The harbor was full of jelly fish, little tiny fish, crabs, and sea weed and kelp. It made swimming a little tricky and ominous, but wading along the tide was excellent.

Taking long walks down the beach with the girls to see what we could see and find.

Looking out at the harbor at night at all the lights on the sailboats and ships.

Smelling the sea breeze in the morning.

Going out on the beach as many times a day as wanted or needed.

Shopping on main street in Hyannis with Linda. We found lots of treasures.

Watching the Olympics on TV at night with Grace. She is so into all of the events!

Putting the kids to bed in their huge bedroom with blue and white twin beds and fish pillows and reading "Good Night Cape Cod" to them every night.

Driving there and back with the kids asleep in the car and getting to talk to David uninterrupted, while seeing the bridges over the Cape Cod canal.

Grace's imaginary friends

I want to write about this before I forget about it. This summer, Grace has had many imaginary friends come to live at our house. Their names change. Her current imaginary friends are "Wakefield" and "Arrow."

The name "Wakefield" comes from a Weezer song "My Name is Jonas." This is Grace's current favorite song to play on guitar hero and listen to on Daddy's ipod. Grace will be asking Santa for an ipod for Christmas (really??!!, she's ONLY FIVE YEARS OLD!!!) Anyway, she's named one of her imaginary visitors after a line in the song. She says that Wakefield is a horse.

Arrow is also a horse. There is a real horse at our barn named Arrow. He is a grey half-arab horse. He is always very social with Grace. She has never ridden him, but she loves to chat with him in his stall as she comes in or find him in the pasture. One day, she was desperate to pet him and he was way out in the middle of a muddy pasture. I wouldn't walk out to see him. She called to him and he RAN to the gate to let her pet his nose. It was seriously the sweetest thing. I don't know if imaginary Arrow is related to real Arrow, but she seems to like both of them quite a lot.

Sorry, we don't have any photos to post of our imaginary friends. Grace says she has about 10 imaginary friends in all including herself.

ps - David just reminded me - Grace calls her imaginary friends her "air buddies." Playing guitar hero, she has mastered the art of playing air guitar, so anything pretend is "air."

Birds visiting our feeders

This list was fun to build as we fed the birds around our house. Unfortunately, we've run out of new birds to add to the list (either that, or we need to switch what we're feeding to attract some new ones... our neighbors just put up orange slices to attract the Orioles.) Anyway, we'll take the list from the side and put it in the "vault" for our journal. These are the birds who visit us each day:

• red-breasted nuthatch
• rose breasted grosbeak pair
• cardinal
• tufted titmouse
• house finch
• house wren
• black-capped chickadee
• goldfinch pair

Hattie's Words

While I'm waiting to load the pictures from our Cape Cod trip onto the computer, I thought I'd clean up the blog page a bit. Hattie's word list has gotten very long and she is becoming an expert at communicating. I want to save all of her little words in a post so that I can delete the list on the side. I also need to add a few new phrases. These are Hattie's current favorite phrases:

"ana sound???" which means "what's that sound?" She says it at least 10 times an hour. The tiniest creak of the house, the neighbor's tool in the garage, an airplane flying overhead, a dish clanking in the kitchen, really, anything will draw it out from her. She wants to know exactly what is making every sound she hears and it's not good enough to say "I don't know", or "it's just Daddy" or something. You have to be specific in your description. It has gotten tiring, but it is very cute.

"di dis come from???" which means, "where did this come from?" Anything that isn't immediately familiar to her, or something significant that might be out of place in the house draws out this question.

"sim" or "simming" for Swimming. Hattie likes "a sim in a ocean" and " a sim in a pool"

"bye bye ocean" this is what she said as we were heading back to the beach house after putting our toes in the ocean for the final time on our trip.

"nigh nigh tape tod" this is what she said every night as she went to bed on our trip. Brought on by reading the book "Good Night Cape Cod" which was given to us by our friends the day we arrived at their beach house.

"ana go Sean's house, moon bOUnce" cousin Sean in Salt Lake has a moon bounce. Hattie wishes she lived at Sean's house in the moon bounce.

Ok, here's the rest of the list; Hattie's words from early to mid 2008:

• ana heeere (and here)
• another one
• huv (hug and a love)
• more apple juice please
• didn't get to play
• bowei (brownie)
• good girl
• sure
• bus
• Gacie (Gracie)
  
• shower
• flush
• moweeee (more)
• Sharow (shadow)
• Seaaannnnnn
• boyee (boy)
• buh (book)
• tie
• nigh nigh
• mine!
• puppy!
• showwwwww (to watch Shrek)
• ball
• beeebeee (for blanky)
• babeee (for baby doll)
• GOOOOO! (as in let's go!)
• mak (milk)
• yeah yeah yeah
• oweeeee
• fry! (as in French)
• purple
• ana heeere (and here)
• another one
• huv (hug and a love)
• more apple juice please
• didn't get to play

SLC in July - The Mitchells

Ok, I have to wrap up posting about this Utah trip before we go on another one! We're going local this time - to Cape Cod and the islands nearby. I'm sure no one out there is still interested in our travel log, but again, it's for me!

It was interesting to stay at my parents' house with David. It just occurred to me, he has never stayed with me at their house before, ever. Kind of weird in (almost) 11 years of being married. Our deal is that since I get to go back so much more than he does, that we stay with his family when he comes. This time though, the Chapman house was a tad too crowded to add us when the Mitchell basement was free and clear with our own bathroom just a couple miles away, so we all bunked up with Lyle and Debbie. My baby sis, Jessica, just moved to Houston a couple months ago to start a business. This makes life even harder! I used to be able to go to Utah and see all of my family, but now one is gone. She made a huge effort though and flew in for less than 24 hours so that she could see me and come to my mom's birthday party. She did all of our hair too! I counted at least 7 of us who got a cut or color or both. I love how she does my hair. I will go months without getting it done so that she is the only one who touches it.

After the reunion, I took off to Cedar City with my mom and my girls for 2 days to see my grandparents there. Let's just say the ride in the car could be done without! I VOW to never drive cross country with the likes of Hattie in the car. I thought my mom and I were going to need psychiatric and/or medical help by the time we got to FILLMORE. No, actually, I think we pulled off in Santaquin first. 'nough driving for me. Kudos to y'all who drove to the reunion. But, you did not have Hattie with you!
My grandparents in Cedar are beloved by all of us. Staying at their house is so great. We always joke that we go to Grandma Primmer's house so that we can take a nap. But that's exactly what we do! We get in the door, eat her perfect lunch, and sit on her comfy couch and seriously snooze all afternoon while Grandpa does the same in his big chair. It is so nice to relax there. Also, we LOVE to go shopping in Cedar City! I know - New York, Milan, Paris, Cedar City! It's true. There's a store down there that has the best kids' shoe selection I've ever seen. They also have great little main street shoppes where you can find anything and everything you ever and never wanted. What can I say - I live near Boston, near what should be some of the best shopping in the world, but I always save half a suitcase to shop in Utah. It's more fun and easier to shop with my mom and sisters anyway.Other things... well, the Mitchell clan is pretty predictable, but we like it that way. Don't surprise us or make us be spontaneous, we'll have a heart-attack! We hung out at Aunt Lis' house, played with Sean, played in the yard with Aunt Em, stayed up late talking to 'mo Deb, and stayed up real late to get a glimpse of Grandpa Lyle coming home or early to see him going. Once in a while, you can catch him fixing sprinklers on his morning off or on a Sunday afternoon. We always go see my other grandparents too who live 1/2 mile from my parents. Picking raspberries in Grandma Pearlie and Grandpa Hal's garden is a summer must.The other thing that we did; one of the best things about our trip; is David and I got to go places by ourselves! Lots of family, lots of free, instant, and trustworthy babysitting. Every little errand we could think of to go and do without the kids, we did. We even went on a date. This is becoming more common than before, but it is still a rare occurrence, especially since moving to MA. We went to eat at the Red Iguana. I can seriously still taste the mole I had. It was SO good. We spent the rest of the night walking around the Gateway and talking, uninterrupted. We were going to catch a movie, but then decided to wait and do an old-school lazer U2 at the planetarium. I loved every second of it! They've jazzed it up a bit and, of course, added new songs, but it felt like the good ol' days when a lazer show at the planetarium was a common thing to do at night.

Well, good-bye Utah for now. This time, I didn't really cry when we left. Usually, I tear up for a couple of days when I know I have to leave. This time, I was ok...until we got home. When we started driving home from the Providence airport in the heavy, wet, sticky air with the claustrophobic forest of thick green trees on all sides, I started to lose it. When we pulled up to our house and saw that the yard had grown into a jungle that looked like we hadn't lived there for 6 months, I did lose it. I cried on and off for 2 days. I'm good now. I can't complain too much. There are many places that I would rather not live than here and my life is actually pretty great here. It's just hard to make the transition when you've just spent 12 days in absolute sunshine, and clear open spaces with light until 9:30 at night, where the kids played with their cousins and got to know their grandparents, and where I got to see my sisters and best friends...
no worries - I'll be back! I have to see what pops out of Lissie's belly in October! She made me swear not to put a picture of her belly on the blog.
Oh, I almost forgot... this is a picture of us in the cockpit of our plane home! As I was sulking onto the plane, the captain grabbed us and said, do your girls want to sit in the pilot seats?! I was dumbfounded, but anxiously said Yes! So, in they went. The pilots left so we could have the whole space. Then, they asked if I had a camera. I only had my phone on me. But, David (already back in his seat) had the big camera with him. They paged him to come up front and then they offered to take a pic of the whole family in the cockpit. I didn't think they did things like this anymore after 9-11, but apparently, we got lucky. It was pretty dang cool! By the way- Northwest airlines has the NICEST people out of any of the airlines I've ever flown. They always make things nicer and easier with my kids.

What do you do...

...on a chilly, rainy summer day?

Play a little Mario Kart on the wii...




Take a little nap...while mom catches up on chores...

July in SLC - Reunion

(Hattie and Janie)

David's Family reunion pseudo-started on Monday, the 7th as everyone gathered. Christine, Jane, Brian and their families got there that day. John's family came on Thursday. Everyone but us left on the following Sunday or Monday. Grace and Hattie were thrilled to play with their cousins about 16 hours a day for the whole week. It was just a tumble of activities. They got lots of time to just run around Grandma's yard and play in the sprinklers. We went on a bunch of outings as well. (The Chapman geeks with their mac books)

This is just a quick list for the journal so we can remember what we did together:

*Janie, Grace, and Hattie went riding.
*David, Brian and Wendy rode their bikes to the top of Mount Nebo!
(David can do a blog about that one...)
*Wii time in the basement - many turns were taken. (and I mean TAKEN)
*Hot-tubbing in Grandpa's spa.*Ladder-ball in the yard.
*Horse-shoes in Grandpa's new horse-shoe pit.*Drive-in movie with Jane's family and Christine. We saw Wall-E and left before the second feature.
*Lunch in the park nearby.*Rode the tram to Hidden Peak at Snowbird. (I didn't get altitude sickness like I did the last time I rode the tram!)*Cousins slept in a tent in Grandma's Yard with Uncle David.
*This is the Place Park. (Heritage Park?)*Sibling lunch (David and siblings)
*Cousin lunch at Training Table.
*Fun party in the yard with a birthday cake for Grandma, Christmas ornaments for the cousins, and Grandma's FAMOUS prizes. She gave each person a book she had chosen with a personal hand-written note about why she wanted us to have each book (dated March 2008! She's been putting things together for a whole year. Good thing, with breaking her right arm 2 weeks before the reunion.) She also gave the women each a set of hand-made cards, the kids all a cross-stitched bookmark, and finished it off with a yankee swap of her prize box. Grandma always has a box full of things from a roll of toilet paper to a bag of M&M's to something she found at a yard-sale. She always makes sure there is something in there that everyone will like. This time though, they were wrapped and we did the Yankee swap. David ended up with a nice girly-looking journal. Hope he writes some deep thoughts in it! By the end of the night we all had stacks of things to take home. We ended the night inside where Grandpa told us all how much he loves us and gave us some good Grandpa advice. I really wish I had the video camera on when he was talking. Then, Alec played the piano for us. He's gotten really good lately and was even in Time magazine in an article about school musicals.
*After most everyone had left Salt Lake, we went with Brian's family to Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. Buffalo point is a favorite of Brian's and he's converted us too. We love to go see the sun set over the lake. It was pretty funny to drive across the causeway both ways with Hattie. The lake was pretty stinky and she was absolutely gagging. She kept putting her hands in her mouth trying to get the taste out and was actually crying that it was so smelly. If I didn't feel so bad for her and it wasn't so tiring to listen to her complain, I would have laughed really hard.

Well, I know that we had some meaningful moments and some great experiences together. Nothing specific comes to mind right now, but I am always brought to tears by how much the cousins get along and how much they really love each other when they get together. I start getting really upset that we don't live closer to at least some of them so that we could play more often than we do. In between those things, I spent my time warding off Hattie's continual temper tantrums brought on by her crazy schedule of outings and playing and when I wasn't doing that, I was making sure that everyone ate, had the right clothes to go to the right places, sunscreen on, cleaning up after so many kids...well, it was a terribly fun and exhausting week to say the least! Again, David needs to chime in here and post about his family...

Thank you Grandma Barbara and Grandpa Earl for all the thought, planningm and hard-work you put into this gathering. We are all very grateful for everything you have done for us, but mostly grateful that you helped us to get together and see each other.