We're all through the stomach virus we had while on vacation, but now that we're over that, we got leveled by a cold this last week. Edie brought it home (I assume) from school and gave it to Marty, who gave it to Tamsen, who gave it to me, and I can only assume I gave it to everyone I work with. We spent every moment this week that we weren't spending wiping the kids' noses by horking up mucus and spewing out... well, things.
Marty's as grabby as ever. He reaches for pretty much everything he sees at all times, whether it's sticky, fragile, a hunk of someone's hair, whatever. He's a good boy, and we like him, but boy, it's frustrating. He also spends a lot of time smiling and laughing, which makes up for a lot of the other stuff. If nothing else, it keeps us from leaving him to the wolves. Edie's doing very well at school, and she's saying more and more every day. She had her first Primary program at church today, and while she knew her line word for word at home, when she got up in front of everyone, she got embarrassed and said the words at top speed. She still has a tough time with Marty sometimes, especially when he wants to "share" her toys, but they do have fun playing with each other.
The kids are wonderful and infuriating all at once, as they usually are. Rather than walk you through our week briefly, though, I thought I'd share with you a video I took of them playing last night, just so you can see them in action rather than reading about them. It's about five minutes long, so maybe you'll find it boring? Although maybe not, since you've chosen to come to a blog about my children?
We thought we were through the worst of the stomach bug that ravaged us on our trip, but we've been home for a couple of weeks now, and Marty was still throwing up regularly. We took him to the doctor early this week to see what was going on. The doctor wasn't sure, but recommended we a) wait it out to see if he improves, and b) switch to a soy-based formula to see if milk is bothering his system. After making the switch and about a thousand soy-milac jokes, Marty seems to be doing better. I'm just soy proud.
Edie's thoroughly in the swing of school now, and she couldn't love it more. She takes the bus every morning to get there, and although she was a little apprehensive the first time, she seems to enjoy it now. She also seems like she'd be happiest if we didn't make her come home at all, so I would guess school is going well for her. We're hoping that means her speech will continue to improve, and that she'll get used to being around other people without having to cower behind one of us in fear.
Tamsen hosted book club at our house this week, and since it's not a particularly big house, she kicked the three of us out for the evening. The library is only about a fifteen-minute walk away, so we made the trek and hung out in the children's section for the evening. Edie picked out a bunch of books, Marty chewed on every toy the library had, and I read a Ta-Nehisi Coates essay and bemoaned the fact that I didn't have the foresight to have gone to the bathroom before I left.
All told, it was a pretty good evening. Edie has asked me if we could go to play at the library every day since, so I assume she had a good time, at least.
We started this week in Idaho, traveled to Utah on Tuesday, then back home to Tennessee on Wednesday. Edie was a champ and made it through everything, but it was brutal on Marty, who kept getting confused as we would move him from house to house. He didn't sleep much toward the end of our stay at the cabin, didn't sleep virtually at all in Utah, and fought and screamed all the way to the airport. It didn't help that all of us were still battling the lingering effects of being sick the whole time. (Marty has still been sick since we got home, to boot.) As miserable as all of that was, though, it's still something else to see Marty so desperate to chew on something that he starts gnawing on his stroller.
He's happy to be back at home, but I think he's going to be happier still once he's finally feeling well. Edie got back into town Wednesday night and started her first day of preschool on Thursday. We worry a little about her, since she's so shy and doesn't really like being around other people, but she had a great time at school and didn't want to leave when Tamsen came to pick her up. We'll see how she does when the bus comes to get her on Tuesday. Edie still loves helping out in the kitchen whenever she can. She and Tamsen have matching aprons, and it's impossibly adorable when they wear them at the same time.
It's starting to get cool here, finally, which is nice for everyone. We don't have to spend every night sweating into oblivion and wondering why on earth we decided to live here. Now we can shiver a little and wonder why we left the green and rainy paradise that is Oregon.
