All Part of the Deal

This is kind of an introspective post here.  No entertaining stories about the kids.  Fair warning.

I think I have decided that one of my least favorite experiences in this world is when the kids get sick.  I think its got to be that way for most parents. And really, we've had it good.  Our kids don't get sick that often and when they do, its usually been a minor thing. We've been really lucky.  But when they do get sick, it is difficult.

It isn't the taking care of them part that's difficult though.  What I mean by that is that it isn't the sleepless nights, trying to console them every 30-60 minutes when they can't sleep comfortably.  It isn't the puking, or the cleaning up the puke, or being in the direct line of fire of the puke, or any of the other nasty stuff that requires a change of clothing, cleaning supplies, and/or a load of laundry.  It isn't cancelling plans or rearranging priorities or any of that stuff either.

The hard part is the heart-wrenching helplessness.  Having to watch them suffer, being unable to make it any better, and often times not even knowing where it hurts.  Occasionally, there's a bit of fear mixed in there as well, depending on the circumstances.

The interesting thing to me is that after the fact, nobody talks so much about the difficult part, even though that's really the big deal.  Sometimes the stories are about how disgusting (or funny, in retrospect) the situation was, or how inconvenienced everyone was by the whole thing because it happened when and where it happened.  I guess it is because the easy part just makes for better TV?  Its all about how much of what substance suddenly appeared, how far it traveled, and where it landed.  Whereas the hard part is always a small variation on "Furrowed brow.  Frowny face.  Lip bite. Tear.  Frownier face."

New Stuff

I've received a couple of complaints about this blog recently.  Not because of any objectionable content, but because it lacks any new content.  I apologize.  We've been pretty busy since my last entry, buying a new house and getting ready to sell the one we're currently in.  I've started three different posts that I didn't finish, and I'll get around to those pretty soon.  I think.  The dust is settling.  We're all closed on the new house, so there's only finalizing the sale of this one (and moving a lot of stuff) to go.

Ben got to go explore a bit in the new house on Sunday while Stephanie was doing the final walk-through, and I asked him if he could describe the new house to me while I was taking him to school Monday morning. The first words out of his mouth were...

Ben : It's got a LOT of light switches!  Twenty, I think!

I was told that he had to test each and every one of them, but I think he may have lost count.

Daddy : Yeah?

Ben : Yeah!  But some of them don't do anything.  And some of them are for fans.

Daddy : That's pretty cool.  Did you get to see your new room?

Ben : Yeah, and it has purple walls!  But purple isn't my favorite color any more.  Its dark blue now.  So we should paint my room.

Good!  Dark blue will be easier to paint over dark purple than say.. yellow.  His "favorite color" changes about once a week, and is defined as whatever his Wii Fit character is wearing. (I can hear him in the back of my head correcting me right now - "No Daddy, it's Wii Fit PLUS.")  We're only painting his room the one time, though, so he's going to have to pick a favorite color and stick with it for a while.


Daddy : You want to paint it dark blue?

Ben : Yes!  Or maybe green.

Uh-oh.

And then on Monday, after closing, we took Penelope over to see it (ok, maybe we both wanted to look around a bit too.. measure some walls to know if furniture is going to fit, start cleaning, etc.)  Penelope had a great time.  She found several doors, and closed them all.  That doesn't sound like much, but its one of her favorite things to do.  Of course one of her other favorite things lead to a little bit of heartbreak.  She looooves swings.  And we can clearly see the neighbor's swing set from the kitchen windows.  When she noticed that, it was like nothing else in the world existed.  She just stuck herself to the window - "Want swing! Want swing!"  So there's at least one purchase for the not-too-distant future (curtains, not a swing set - sorry Sweetie!  We'll go to the park soon, I promise!)

So as I said above, the dust is settling.  More to come.