Happy 7th Birthday, Cole!!

It struck me just the other day - Cole is no longer a little kid. See, ever since Tess was born we've kinda categorized the kids as the Big Kids (Spencer and Josh) and the Little Kids (Cole and Tess). But seven? Seven isn't little. And Cole is seven. And that still kinda shocks me, even as I write this.

Perhaps this is because there were times in the not-too-distant past when I wondered if Cole would survive childhood. (Or, rather, if I would survive his childhood.)

Perhaps it's because we started him in school later and he'll only be in first grade this year.

Or perhaps because in my mind he's still a crazy little towheaded thing running through the house like a madman, peeling off clothes along the way. 

Whatever the reason, this is real. Cole is SEVEN.

Cole's actual birthday was on Sunday, but he wanted to celebrate it on Saturday, which I don't blame him for. Don't get me wrong, I love Sundays. But it's hard to really celebrate when you choose to not go out and stuff.

I was a little worried about how he'd do, what with the tonsillectomy and all. But he had been (and still is) doing great. Feeling pretty yucky in the morning, but running around at almost 100% for the rest of the day. (Just as an update, he's still doing about the same. If we do too much in one day he gets pretty worn out.)

Cole had a grand vision for his birthday cake. It had to be white cake with chocolate frosting, and it had to have gummy bears, Skittles, and M&Ms. I know. What a combination! But I figured I could fight it and make some pretty cake that he wasn't all that excited about, or I could just do what he wanted and make him happy. I'm so glad I did. He put all the gummy bears on, while I did the 7 and the M&M border on the top. 

So we made the cake Friday afternoon, because cakes taste better the next day, I think. And that night he reminded me of just how important traditions are to kids. "Are we going to have a birthday breakfast? With a candle? And will the kitchen be decorated? For me? And my presents will be there?" Ummm... yes. Of course, Cole! I had actually almost forgotten about that stuff, what with the tonsils and summer break and all. And even though I had craft group that night, Lance helped me out with the decorating and I was able to get everything else done. Phew.

Cole woke up to presents and decorations and breakfast. And once the meds kicked in he could actually enjoy them! (Poor kiddo!) So I'm pretty proud about the hot wheels garage - our neighbors had a garage sale and I scored that and a pink purse for Tess for $5. Hey big spender.

He was pretty excited about the pancakes. (I'm not sure what's up with that smile. That's his reaction for when I say "smile naturally". Hmm.)

We let him open a few presents throughout the day so he would have something to keep him occupied. He'd gotten pretty tired of being cooped up in the house! As you can tell, the boy LOVES Hot Wheels right now. (And NOT Matchbox. He actually threw out most of the Matchbox cars we had. Which was okay, because most of them had wintered in the sandbox. But still... he has very particular brand loyalties.)

I like this picture because of the bowl of ice cream next to it. That was lunch. (He was still milking the sore throat and I was letting him.)

I was really trying to get stuff done around the house and outside that day, but I was also trying to be a good birthday mom, so I spent a lot of time helping this kid build Hot Wheels tracks. He pretty much loved it.

So quite a while ago I got a great Groupon deal for a trampoline park in town. We decided to save the trip for Cole's birthday, not knowing he'd be recovering from surgery. I broached the subject of perhaps going later in the summer, but Cole would have none of it. So we went.

Since Tess is small she had to stay in a little kid area and have a parent with her at all times. This was fine until Lance and I switched so I could jump for a bit. Then she got mad and pouted for a good 20 minutes. But here, in this picture, she was pretty happy!

It was hard to get decent video or pictures of the boys because they just kept moving!

Cole had lots of fun, but I could tell he lost steam earlier than usual. Spencer skinned his knee early on and complained most of the time. And Josh was in HEAVEN. That kid was born to move. I jumped and ran for close to an hour - what a good work out! Josh and I were racing at one point and I totally biffed it. Oh man, I felt like the biggest dork. My spine felt all compressed and weird, the wind had been knocked out of me, and, worst of all, I skinned both of my elbows. Bad. They STILL hurt, even as I type this! Gah! But I still had fun. And I didn't complain as much as Spencer.

After a very fancy dinner at Wendy's (Cole's choice!) we headed home for cake and ice cream and presents. One more glamour shot of the cake. Whooo boy, what a cake!

And what a boy!

I just love this picture!

He opened a few more gifts, but his favorite was this Rubiks Cube.

It was a fun day. So fun, that I completely forgot that it was his real birthday on Sunday. At least until we sat down at church, when I remembered and gave him a quick hug and whispered "Happy real birthday, Cole!" To which he replied, in perfect Colie form and with perfectly rolled eyes "I KNOW, it's my birthday." Yeah.

That night I let him choose dinner. Boxed mac & cheese and French toast sticks... not exactly what I would've chosen, but not terrible. It was very Colie.

At the age of seven, Cole...

... is definitely the scientist of our family. He still loves the solar system and learning all about the planets, but has also moved on to meteorology. He loves watching the news with me just for the weather reports. (I don't know that he's entirely convinced that the weathermen don't make the weather, they only predict it. I tried to explain this to him, but what do I know?)  He's very interested in tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and earthquakes. He's also discovered the joy of maps, and has commandeered one of Spencer's old school atlases and reads it often. He likes flags and likes to learn about other countries and has fun learning words in foreign languages. 

The child has a knack for remembering facts and figures, dates and names. And he gets frustrated when we don't remember the same things. He's a little too smart for his own good.

When we go to the library the other three kids search out books to read in juvenile fiction. Cole heads towards the non-fiction and reference sections, and gets mad when I place a limit of 12 books per trip. Just for him. (A mom can only carry so many books!)

Cole loves Hot Wheels cars and building tracks. He likes to look at the bottom of the cars to discover where and when they were made. (There are codes. That he's memorized.) He loves to watch videos on YouTube about Hot Wheels stuff. It bores the rest of us to tears. He eats it up.

Cole does NOT like to be the center of attention. His teacher told me that he didn't like to read out loud in class because he knew he read so much better than the other students. When his classmates were impressed and said so, he refused to read for a while. He does NOT want to stand out.

But Cole also does NOT like to be the forgotten middle child. He wants attention from his older brothers and wants to be a big kid. He tags along and plays the part of Annoying Little Brother quite well. He can be Tess's best friend and bitterest opponent within the space of 30 minutes. He and Josh fight like... well, like brothers. Non-stop and loudly. Omigosh, so much fighting. It's driving me nuts. It's gonna be a long summer.

Cole loves attention from his mom or dad. He loves one-on-one time. But he does not like being told what to do. He craves approval and praise. But not enough to do something he really doesn't want to do. He's quick to anger and tears, but that's probably more to do with having 2 teasing older brothers rather than personality. 

For quite a long while Cole held the position of Hardest Child. But he's been usurped in the last few months, and it's been quite refreshing. (Josh now holds that position. Again. Oy.) Cole is a quirky kid, but not only do I love him, I really quite like him. 

I sure love you, Cole! The happiest of birthdays to my big seven year old!

Adios, Tonsils

As you are probably aware, Cole has had issues with his ears and sinuses pretty much his entire life. Things had gotten worse in the last few months with snoring and mild sleep apnea. So a few weeks ago his ENT and I decided it was time to get rid of his tonsils! And I decided that the first day of summer vacation would be the perfect time. Just get it over and done with - plus, the pools don't even open until Memorial Day, so it's not like he'd be missing much.

I talked the surgery up in the time leading up to it. I didn't lie; I let him know that it would hurt after, but that we'd have lots of medicine and lots of cool, soft things to eat. He had lots of questions, like would he be awake during the surgery? No. How would he go to sleep? (He didn't think he'd be able to fall asleep on his own.) Special gas that he would breath in. Who would give it to him? A special doctor. Why couldn't he eat breakfast on the morning of the surgery? Because that could make him sick when he breathed in the special gas. And so on, you get the idea.

The Saturday before his Monday surgery, Cole and I went on a special shopping trip. I could tell he was nervous about the surgery, so I pretty much let him have free reign at the store. You want the gallon bucket of ice cream? Go for it. Three different kinds of popsicles? Sold. Juice, Gatorade, pudding, Jell-o and more? Of course.

He loved it. And he really didn't take advantage. He's a good kid.

Monday morning came. We had to be at the surgical center by 6:30am, so I got up and ready pretty early. I thought I would have to pull him out of bed, but when I walked into his room he was up and ready to go. (Nerves and excitement, I think.)

We got to the surgical center, filled out and signed a dozen forms, and then did what you do at any sort of medical appointment: wait.

We waited for a good 30 minutes, which made me wonder why we had to be there so early in the first place. Harrumph. Fortunately (in Cole's eyes), Cole had brought a library book about his newest obsession: flags of the world. Yes, it was a book that included every single country flag in the world (plus state flags), and descriptions of each. Yes, it reminded me of Sheldon's "Fun With Flags" YouTube shows on The Big Bang Theory. Yes, I had my Kindle and would have much rather read my latest book on that. But Cole was nervous and this made him calm and happy, so we marched through a ton of country flags, him reading the name of the country (and me often correcting his pronunciation) and then noting the languages spoken in that country. Time flew. (No, it didn't.)

We finally got called back and Cole got changed into his hospital gear. He was not a fan of the gown, but was quite impressed with the hat.

Even more impressed when Puppy got one, too!

Cole was nervous and excited and I think he didn't know what to do with himself, so he talked. Talked and talked and talked the entire time the nurse and I tried to discuss things. It got to be pretty funny, but the nurse was totally used to this and on game. (Read: she had lots of patience.) Cole got to choose what scent his gas mask would have and swabbed it on while we waited; he chose root beer. We watched SpongeBob for a bit. He asked lots of questions.

Dr. Davis, his ENT, came in. Cole didn't recognize him in scrubs and a hat. Then the anesthesiologist came in and explained things. Fun fact: this was the same anesthesiologist Cole had when he got his tubes in 5+ years ago.

And then, all too soon, we parted ways. Cole was rolled off on his bed and I was sent back to the waiting room.

Fun fact: 5+ years ago when he got his tubes out (in the very same place), I forgot to warn the nurses that he was a biter. He bit several. (I heard the first one yelp as she carried him down the hall.) This time I am happy to report there was no biting.

Not-So-Fun-Fact: Even though I knew he would be perfectly fine and that this surgery would make his life so much better, I still felt bad. I felt guilty that he had to go through it, knowing that he would be miserable. Mom guilt. It's a thing.

So I spent the next 30ish minutes in the waiting room, reading and bringing down the median age of other family members waiting by a good 30 years. Soon Dr. Davis came out to let me know that the surgery went great. He also let me know how impressed he was with how gross Cole's adenoids were. They were, and I quote, "full of all sorts of mucous and gross stuff. It was really quite impressive", he said, with great excitement and admiration. Ah, the fancy life of an ENT.

Fun fact: Cole had his tonsils and adenoids removed. He also had his nose roto-rootered. Okay, he had his turbinates reduced, but you get the idea. Hopefully he will now actually be able to breath through his nose!

About 15 minutes later I was taken back to Cole in recovery. The poor child was out of it. Head lolling, eyes glassy, asking incomprehensible questions. I felt so bad! He complained about his throat hurting (even though the doctor had numbed it up pretty good). Then he discovered the IV in his hand; this did not make him happy. Neither did the popsicle the nurses pushed on him. But the ice chips I fed him did!

He gradually woke up more, but I could tell he was just not himself. Until he started to argue with me about how long he was asleep. "How long was I asleep?" "Oh, around 30 or 40 minutes." "No, it was TWO." "Okay then." He was as grumpy/sad as you would expect a Cole fresh out of surgery to be. I rolled with it.

Then he got sick. All over himself. Poor guy. But the nurses were great and we got him all cleaned up. He just kept asking to go home, and about 45 minutes later we did. He actually seemed to perk up and feel more like himself after he was sick. He did NOT like getting the IV removed. (Who does? Those things hurt.) And when asked, he refused to have a wheel chair out to the car. Only behind his back I told the nurses to get one. And I was right because when he stood up for the first time he lurched around like a zombie, and then quite enjoyed the chair ride, even demanding to push the elevator buttons.

We got home and he lounged around for a bit. Lance had set up a laptop by his bed so he could watch videos. He did that for a bit, but after a few hours he was up and wandering around. A few hours after that he was running around! It was really quite amazing. He seemed to be just fine. (Don't worry - I knew this was the honeymoon period.) He happily ate lots of ice cream, yogurt, and popsicles. As did Tess, who followed the boy around. At one point I had to tell him to get off his scooter and get back inside - he was supposed to be taking it easy. Then I caught him eating an apple. What the what?

But alas, the honeymoon ended. He woke me up at 4:45 the next morning needing pain meds. The rest of the day he was kind of out of it and lounged around watching videos and playing on computer. He still ate lots of ice cream and yummy stuff like that. I was at Josh's baseball game that night, but Lance said he just sat on his lap for 30 minutes, glassy eyed and out of it before Lance put him to bed.

He woke me up early on Wednesday complaining that his head hurt. So we drugged him up and he put his head on his lap and slept while I held an ice bag to his temple. Poor, poor kiddo. I felt really bad because I could tell he was just miserable.

He didn't eat as much that day and I could tell his throat was more swollen. But by the evening I could tell he was feeling a bit better.

And this morning? He felt a little gross, but as soon as the meds kicked in he was doing great. He was even super excited to get out of the house and run some errands. He's still not running around like he usually does, but he's getting there. And he's still taking full advantage of the ice cream and such, even though I think he could probably start eating a few other things, but that's okay.

So, we have to wait a few weeks to know for sure, but hopefully this current misery will get rid of the snoring and sleep apnea and all the future misery that would bring. I still feel bad that he had to go through this, but I know it was worth it.

Now I just have to steel myself for the misery that will be the medical bills and imminent insurance issues. (Because there are always issues.) Then it will be time to break out the ice cream for me.

Last Day of School

Oh man. It's kinda hard to believe the kids are already out of school. WHO GETS OUT OF SCHOOL ON MAY 20TH?!?! Hoosiers, that's who. And who goes back to school August 16th? You know who. Ridiculous.

Regardless of my feelings on the matter, the last day of school came. And it was chilly. Because it's May. Growl.

I almost forgot to take last day of school pictures, which is why these are a bit out of order. Oh well.

Here's Mr. Cole - Kindergartener no more! He's completely and totally ready for 1st grade. Heck, if you've talked to him you know he's probably ready for 3rd grade. Just don't tell Josh.

And here's my soon-to-be 4th grader. Yes, he was pulling a Tess. No, it was not to be funny. He was being a SUPER PUNK GROUCH that morning. That child... I am having a time with him lately, that's for sure. He keeps talking about his 10th birthday, but I'm not sure we're both gonna make it that far...

This was the best I could get out of him. And don't ask me about the all red clothes, or the baseball socks with shorts. It's a fashion statement. (What kind of fashion statement, I don't know. I'm not a 3rd grade boy and I don't claim to understand them.)

I went to help one last time in Cole's class with their last day of school party. It was as wild as you would expect. Oh boy, it was wild. Their teacher is a brave soul and let the kids make ice cream sundaes as a treat. Here's Cole and and Carlos enjoying theirs. (Carlos is so super cute. I love that kid!)

Tess got to tag along and be a kindergartener for the day. She was in HEAVEN. Totally in her element. Until she didn't get her way. Then... she showed how young she still is. She lost it when she thought she wasn't getting a birthday cupcake. (Yes, some mother sent birthday cupcakes piled high with florescent frosting on the last day of school. People. Do not do that to our teachers; they deserve better.) Anyways, as we were leaving the party we had a little talk about how none of the other students cried or had tantrums. Tess could not do this next year in Kindergarten - she was too big for that, right? She agreed, but I'm not holding my breath...

Ah, here's Spencer. I can't believe he'll be in 7th grade! I remember feeling so old, so grown up in 7th grade. Good heavens.

I was having a great hair day, but the wind had other ideas. Stupid wind.

Obligatory selfie while waiting for the bus.

This is the last time any of the Madsens will have a younger sibling patiently waiting for them to get off the bus! *sniff*sniff*

We had our annual last day of school treasure hunt. It was mucho fun. The kids had a great time, and I had a good time chatting with our neighbor and giving hints on the harder clues. They especially liked that I had clue hidden inside balloons this year.

They eventually found the treasure! It was quickly divvied up.

Some of the treasure was silly string, which was quickly used in a battle in the back yard. We also had water balloons in the treasure, but it was too cold for those. Stupid weather.

That night we broke out our fire pit for the first time and had hot dogs and s'mores with our neighbors. It was so nice! But the weather had other plans and instead of enjoying a leisurely evening by the fire we had to call it quits by 8pm because of rain. Stupid weather. (But not before I had a s'more, so life wasn't too bad!)

The next day I got rid of all the school junk that got sent home. This is really only about half; the rest had been thrown out during the previous few days. So glad I spent all that money on supplies that got used a few times. Growl.

But, no more complaining! School's out, no more schedules, no more lunches to pack, no more homework! Life is pretty good.

Every. Time.

Me: It's time to go to Josh's game. Everyone needs to go potty.

Tess: But I don't need to!

Cole: Me either!

Me: Just try.

Cole and Tess: Okay.

Me: Cole and Tess, you should change into short sleeved shirts. You're gonna be hot in long sleeves.

Tess: No. I LOVE my shirt! I will be cold!

Me: No you won't, it's warm today.

Cole: No! I don't want to! I like long sleeves.

Me: Whatever. Just go potty, okay?

(They don't and we're running late so I don't force the issue.

Meanwhile, 45 minutes later and at a ballpark 20 miles from home, we trek through all the fields, drop Josh off with his team, and trek again down to some playground equipment. Cole and Tess play for exactly 2 minutes.)

Tess: Mommy! I have to go potty NOW.

Me: What the?! I told you to go at home and we passed by the potties 10 minutes ago. Why didn't you go then?

Tess (doing a serious potty dance): I gotta go NOW.

Me: *angry mom face* Fine. Cole, you STAY HERE.

(Tess and I trek all the way back to the gross public bathrooms. Then trek back to the playground.)

Me: Okay. Play.

Tess: I can't. My shirt is too hot!

Cole: Mine too! It's hot!

Me: *angry mom face* Too. Bad.

(Sensing danger, Cole and Tess run off to play, thus surviving another day.)

Schooled

Cole: Why don't you have to go to school?

Me: I already went to all the school. I'm all done.

Cole: But why don't you have to go anymore?

Me: Because I already know everything.

Cole (totally buying it): Huh. Okay.

Excellent.

(Irony: the older I get the more I realize how very little I know. But as long as I can pronounce words like 'Czechoslavokia', the ruse will stand with this child!)

Zojirushi

I make steel cut oats for breakfast 2-3 times a week. Because they take a while to cook I had been cooking them the night before and reheating them in the morning, which worked alright, but I was always forgetting about it on the burner and it would boil over. Or they wouldn't be as cooked as I thought and they'd be a little crunchy. Or a little mushy. Not all the time; just enough to be annoying.

Enter Zojirushi.



When I was researching rice cookers I discovered that this brand was known for making great porridge as well as rice. And it had a timer setting.

Sold.



So in the evening I measure the oats with the handy-dandy Zojirushi measuring cup, add a pinch of salt, add water to almost the porridge 1 line (more makes them too wet for my taste), and then set the timer and do a little happy dance to the song.



You don't believe me about the dancing, do you? You should - Lance has seen it often. And if Tess is in the room she'll dance, too, because we are kindred spirits.

https://youtu.be/0MRTWSz-gmY

I tried everything I could to embed the video, but mobile YouTube won't give me the code and when I try to get to the site it always redirects me to the mobile version. A girl only has so much patience and time. Stupid technology. Well, the video is only 11 seconds long, so go watch it. It'll make you do a little happy dance.

I love my little Zojirushi. It's a very productive and happy member of our family. (Unlike stupid mobile YouTube.)

Spencer's Last 6th Grade Band Concert

I realize I have been extra terrible about blogging lately. It's not that life is so boring around here - on the contrary, most days I feel like I'm running from one chore/activity/appointment/whatever to the next, non-stop. But do you really want to hear about another one of Josh's baseball games? (Wait - have I blogged about baseball yet? I can't remember and can't be bothered to check. Well, he has FOUR games this week, so I'm sure you'll hear something.) Or about how I still don't have a garden in yet because it's been so dang cold? Or about how Cole and Josh can't seem to stop fighting All The Time? No. No you don't. Neither do I.

It's not that I've lost joy in the business of raising this family; I just don't feel the need to capture and record all the minutia anymore.

Also, Google got rid of my favorite photo editing tool, so now I'm having to test out new ones. Blergh. What a pain.

Also, it's just so much easier to post a little blurb on Instagram and Facebook. Not as detailed, true, but way easier. I need some sort of happy medium.

Also, I have still yet to find an acceptable replacement for Blurb to make my blog books. I have honestly caught myself thinking "Why blog about it? The kids will never see it. It's not like they're gonna go back and sift through my blog posts." I mean, I could be totally wrong on this - they might actually prefer digital over print in this case. But I might be right.

Anywho...

This past week was Spencer's last 6th grade band concert. Only Tess and I could make it (cub scouts and such). I can honestly say it was better than the first concert! (Hah!) Actually, it really was. I'm impressed with how much they improved. I'm also very impressed with the band teacher. It takes a special kind of spirit to become a middle school band teacher!!!

Here's Spencer's band playing the theme song from Batman. (My favorite part is Tess singing along at the beginning.)

And here's his band playing "Ghostbusters". You can tell the kids weren't that into saying "Ghostbusters!" at the appropriate points. (I think they were jealous that the other bands got to play Star Wars songs. Who wouldn't be?)

We had a pleasant surprise at the concert: Spencer won an award! I didn't even know this was a thing. I was, in fact, so surprised by it that I didn't even get a picture of him accepting the award. But I got one after!

Spencer was SO VERY PLEASED with himself - it was darling. Wait, can 12 year old middle schoolers be darling? Well, whatever the equivalent is, that's what he was. Kids congratulated him as we walked down the hall and patted him on his back. He handled it very gracefully.

So apparently they have this award every year. The kids all vote for who is the best band member, not based on musical skill, but on friendliness and stuff like that. Spencer was the bandiest (yes, that's a word now) kid in 6th grade! I am very proud of him.

The certificate is now in a place of honor on our fridge. It's a major award.

In other news, I may or may not have been perusing through this book during the concert. (But only during the other bands' performances. I paid total attention during Spencer's!)

Yep, this is happening. Not until 2017, but there's much to be planned. I am in heaven.

Stairs

An actual conversation I had with Tess today.

Me: Um, doing cartwheels by the top of the stairs probably isn't the best idea.

Tess (all high and mighty like): I'm NOT doing cartwheels.

Me: Okaaayy, then maybe doing flips by the top of the stairs is not the best idea.

Tess (full of righteous indignation): I was NOT doing flips. I was doing SOMERSAULTS.

Me (sighing): Okay, doing somersaults by the top of the stairs is not a good idea.

Tess (as if I'm the crazy one here): Why not?!?

Sometimes I think I should just let natural selection take care of things.

Mom Fees

This sign was posted this morning.

I have already made $1 off of Josh's shoes, which were "LOST FOREVER"... sitting on top of the couch in the basement. In plain sight. Right before the bus came.

I have the feeling this will be a very lucrative program.

Sickos. Again.

Yesterday was crazy. I woke up at 1am to the sounds of Cole SHRIEKING in pain. Lance was already in there with him and explained that he thought he had an ear infection. We got him a hot water bottle for the pain and drugged him up, and he eventually went back to sleep. (So did I - about 90 minutes later. Dang it.)

That morning it was pretty obvious poor Cole's ear drum had ruptured. Goop trickled out of his ear and he was kind of disoriented. Poor Cole.

But also... very selfishly...

Very Selfishly...

Poor Mom.

Because that morning was gonna be my last morning without kiddos until school started again in the fall. (This is Tess's last week of pre-k, I help in Cole's class on Wednesday mornings and I foolishly agreed to help with Tess's field day on the Thursday.)

So dang.

But, I got over it, because if there's one person in this world who can empathize with exploding ears, it's me.

I silently prayed all morning that we'd be able to get Cole into the doctor around 10am; this would be just about the only time that would work around Tess's preschool schedule. When I talked to the nurse, guess what only time she had free? 10am! Sometimes the smallest miracles mean the most.
So instead of regular preschool that day Tess had a field trip at the Columbian Park Zoo, and she needed to be there at 9am (a 10+ minute drive away) instead of the usual 9:15am (a 4 minute drive). And in all of the hubbub of the morning I completely forgot about this time change and didn't leave the house until 9am.

I remembered the this and blanched as we pulled out of our neighborhood. And here's the thing: being late to preschool is not usually a big deal. But today was a BIG DEAL because the first thing they were doing was riding the train around the park and they had told us over and over that we couldn't be late and that they couldn't wait for anyone. And Tess had been dreaming about this train ride all week.

I may or may not have broken several speed-related traffic laws on the way.

We got there, found a parking spot, and got out as quick as possible. (Yes, I left Cole in the car. He'd only be dead weight. Plus, if someone kidnapped him it'd be their responsibility to fix his ear.) So we ran over to where her class was supposed to be - but no one was there. And the train whistled in the distance.

Oh. No.

I thought Tess was going to lose it, but then I saw one of her teachers off in the distance, walking away with some parents and kids. So we ran all the way around the giant playground, but I kept losing sight of them. We ran and ran, and then I picked Tess up because she was pretty slow. And we ran and I finally found the class...

... totally chilling under one of the picnic shelters. No hurry, no rush at all. (We were a good 15 minutes late.) And Tess perked right up and acted like this was totally normal, while I tried to not look so winded. Blergh.

So, a little sweatier and disheveled, I got back to the car and Cole and I were off - to the post office. Because I had some packages to mail and we had the time. I never go to the real post office if I can help it, but the little branch in the copy shop by us closed. Bummer.

We finally got to the doctor a little before 10am. Cole was doing a bit better now that the ibuprofen had kicked in. Notice the cotton ball keeping all the goop in. Erlack.

We didn't get to see our regular pediatrician, but we saw one of her partners, who I also love. This happened to be the same one who checked out Cole's tonsils a couple of months ago, which she remembered as soon as she looked in his throat. (I don't know if she recognized his face, but she knew those tonsils!)

We were in an out in less than 30 minutes, which was awesome because that gave me plenty of time to vote. Have you heard? There was this big presidential primary thingy going on. Yeah. Anywho, I usually vote at the Evangelical church on 9th St and 350 S. It's big and hardly ever that busy. (Except for the first Obama election. It was packed.) Usually for a primary it's dead, but not this time. I inwardly groaned at the size of the line. But in all we were probably only there for 15-20 minutes. That included a few extra seconds of me trying to convince Cole he couldn't pull out the chip card in the middle of my voting. And to also not exclaim aloud all of the names of the people I voted for.

In case you're curious, I am not a Trump fan.

AT ALL.

I am also not a Cruz fan, but he was definitely a lesser of two evils. I was all about "Lose with Cruz." Too bad the rest of Indiana wasn't. It's fairly embarrassing to be a Hoosier right now.

On the way to pick Tess up from the park Cole said "I think... I think McDonald's would help my ear feel better. Yeah, it would." How can you say no to that logic? So we stopped at McDonald's for lunch and I won more mother-of-the-year points. Cole actually dropped his fries all over the floor first thing, so I went back up front and got him a medium sized fry. Cole is the fry king - he LOVES THEM. He was in heaven.

Tess was not thrilled Cole was getting all the attention.

After lunch we stopped by WalMart to get Cole's prescriptions. Because of his ear infection history from when he was little and because of the strep that he had and that's been going around he had to have fancy antibiotics that set me back $50! After spending $1.80 for Spencer's last month this hurt.

We got home and I realized that I had just enough time to the mow the lawn. I know, you think I'm crazy. But it REALLY needed it because of all the rain we've been getting, and it was gonna rain again that night, and I really needed the exercise and I love mowing the lawn. I had to do it in record time, but it got done!

After the lawn I had to rush to get changed and pack a picnic dinner for a family of 6, because we were going to piano lessons and then from there to Josh's first game of the year. (Can you see why I felt like I was running from one thing to the next all day? That's because I WAS.)

The game was fun in a little leaguey way. Lots of errors, lots of chants. It was even kind of fun. Although the thought of watching more games this weekend? Not so fun to me. (Sorry, Josh.) But the kids seemed to have fun, and they loved that I gave them the family sized bag of chips and just let them go to town.

Josh had lots of fun during the game. He struck out the first two times, but got a base hit and helped bring in a run during the extra inning they had to play because it was a tie. The excitement!

He got a bit distracted in the outfield...

He's in a machine pitch league, which I think is perfect for this age group.

The boys (and bonus girl on their team - she's so cool!) were SO EXCITED to win! It was pretty cute. Since one of them had caught a pop fly their coach had to do 10 push ups, which they were also all excited about.

We finally made it home and got all the kids into bed. Poor Cole was so exhausted. So was I. As I got ready for bed I realized that it had been a very all-American sort of day, what with the voting and the McDonald's and the baseball and all.

You'd think the story would end here, but nope. This morning Spencer came upstairs, white as a ghost and complaining of feeling sick. Then Cole slept in, which he NEVER does, and when he did get up his ear was still draining everywhere and I couldn't expect his teacher to deal with that. So half of my kids stayed home and threw off my schedule yet again. (It would have been 3 of my kids if Josh had had his way, but that kid is a faker. From now on if he wants to stay home from school it's gonna have to be vomiting blood or a maiming or something like that.) But I'll spare you the gory details, mainly because we mostly stayed home and it was actually kind of nice.

I'm ticked off that school is ending so early this year. However, it'll be nice to get my kids away from those germ-infested schools!