Pumpkin Picking

On Sunday we went out to the pumpkin farm to make up for Jacob missing his field trip with the flu. We first took a hayride out to the pumpkin field.




Given the lateness of the day and the pumpkin season, we were able to pick as many pumpkins, mini-pumpkins, and Indian corn as we wanted. We got a variety of small pumpkin and squash and 6 nice, big pumpkins. The kids picked out their own and did a good job.

Then we went and played in the hay maze.



And also on the hay slides and climbing piles. All in all a very fun trip.

Dryers

The part of the story I skipped: when I was called to pick Allison up on Wednesday, I wasn't at home. I was at the laundromat with three weeks worth of clothing. Being sick last week, we didn't get our laundry done on the traditional 2 week cycle. When we did start doing it (8 loads - 4 adult, 2 kid, 2 towels) the dryer mysteriously quit. It simply stopped mid-cycle and wouldn't start again.

Under other circumstances, this might actually have been welcomed. Why? We've really wanted a high efficiency washer/dryer for a few years but haven't been able to stomach the cost of a new one while we had an old one that still worked. And our dryer actually worked pretty well (drys a load in about 45 minutes).

However, now we're faced with repairing our old dryer (spending $200-ish) or getting new ($2000 for washer/dryer) and neither is very appealing right now. So, we're going to try a few repairs on our own. This is a basic dryer - not rocket science, right? Will keep you posted...

Oh dear flu

Allison's fever was down. It broke Monday - we kept her home Tuesday as a precaution. Wednesday - back to school - 8:30am.

Wednesday 10:30am - call from Allison's teacher. She vomited while on their field trip. Can we come pick her up?

Yes, that mysterious fever that disappears for doctor's visits is back. Starting from initial viral infection we are now on day 10. Good grief.

Where was the field trip? To Discovery Land - to learn about rocks - at a church. Perhaps it was being in church that made her ill? If so - I'll blame Grandpa Jim.

The problem now is that she can't go back to school tomorrow and Friday is a half day. So, perhaps it's better to just can the whole week. Although she missed a good chunk of last week too, and next week is only 2 days long. So she will end up with attending only 4 days of school in a 3 week period. And getting her to do school work at home is no picnic.

Land of the ill

It's been a while since I've made a post. Sometimes the longer it goes between posts - the more difficult it becomes to create one.

We have been ill. It started last Monday when Allison came home early from school and promptly fell asleep on the couch (Allison gave up napping at age 2 and a half and has never looked back). Then Brian got home from work feeling a little badly. Both stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday with fevers / fatigue. Wednesday night was my turn, but luckily Brian and Allison went back on Thursday. I can't speak to Brian's experiences - but generally I think adults are not equipped for high fevers. Give me a temp of 99.5 and I think I might be dying. So three days around 101 was truly miserable.

Friday I went into urgent care to learn - wonder of wonders - I had the flu. We do not know if it is "The Flu," but given the patterns in the area, I think that is the presumptive diagnosis. Friday also brought Allison's fever back up. She fell asleep during library check out and apparently napped for about 20 minutes - but that was 2:50-3:10pm, so she didn't get sent home from school. She also got a cough and runny nose (symptoms avoided in the initial phase).

Saturday morning, Jacob fell too - leaving Brian as the only well person in the house. Jacob is a relatively easy kid to be sick. He took a 3 hour morning nap in bed with me and then chilled on the couch for the remainder of the day.

Sunday morning prompted me to go back to urgent care (as I was only getting worse on day 5) to learn I had pneumonia and shouldn't return to work until Thursday. This will be fodder for a future post about what I am and am not paid to do. The doctor also said we should take Allison into the ped's office on Monday because her pattern of getting better and then worse was a concern.

Monday morning - Jacob's fever is gone but not in the 24-hour window (and he has a bloodshot eye - so the daycare won't take him back anyway before ruling out pink eye) and Allison still has a fever. So I call the, presumably inundated, ped's office and get a 10am appointment. We go in and viola! the 101 fever at home (measures by mouth thermometer, mind you, not that inaccurate ear one) was gone and my kids are bouncing off the walls while I am trying to explain that yeah, Allison has had the flu for a week now.

There must be magic curative effects in simply making the doctor's appointment. Or perhaps children have a biological ability to make their parents look like idiots. Of course - the fever was back by mid-afternoon.

So today, Jacob returned to daycare (very, very sad to learn that he missed Monday's pumpkin patch field trip that he'd been talking about for a whole month), Allison's fever finally broke last night so she should be OK to return to school tomorrow. And the antibiotics have kicked in and I am finally also feeling a bit better today. So hopefully, we can put H1N1 (?) behind us and look for a pumpkin patch to visit this weekend.

Words of Wisdom from Jacob

Here are some pearls from Jacob:

"When I weigh 100 pounds, my stomach will be so big that it will blow up to the moon"

"When I get big, I'm going to jump fences. Little fences. Just in my shoes. Not in my socks. Socks would not be good. Can you jump that fence? Maybe if you had suction cups on your shoes you could jump that fence. Or springs on your shoes. But I think I'll jump little fences. In my shoes."

Soccer

We are a few weeks into soccer season for Allison. She seems to like it pretty well. Their team got assigned the brightest color...


Allison is #6. This was this past week's game. Brian took Allison to the game and said she got her foot on the ball quite a few times. Jacob and I actually went to walk a 5K (Jacob strollered) with a few friends and then Jacob did a kids fun run.

The game, I guess, went better than the first game where she picked a dandelion for the ref and managed to get tangled in the net. She did fall and twist her ankle at the end of the game this week, but it's better now. Tonight she was practicing her kicks in the front yard.

Here is her team. It's a mix of kindergarteners and 1st graders. The two girls in the back row on the left are in Allison's class. The girl sitting in front of Allison is our neighbor. Most of the girls are from either Allison's elementary school or the school from the next neighborhood over.

Back to School

We've gone back to school! Allison started back on Sept 2nd. I think she likes her teacher. Her class is big (30 students!). There were three small (18 students) kindergarten classes last year that they consolidated into two 1st grades (referendum didn't pass in Feb).

She was excited to be back with her friends, though. And so far, the reports coming home have been pretty good.



Jacob is excited to be back to school too. Fortunately, his friend Dominic is back two days a week, and he gets to see Matt in the afternoons. Menasha has 4-K, and so many of his friends are not at Children's Center this year. He did get to play with his much-missed friend Kaden over Labor Day weekend.