Note to Self: Lessons I Learned this Week

1. No matter how hard you try to keep a sick kid separate from the healthy ones, they’re all going to get it anyways. Be proactive and get it over with: stick them all in a small room together and load up on the Motrin.

2. The flu shots we all got in October apparently did not apply to the four different strains of flu that we have managed to catch, mutate, and share over the past three weeks.

3. There's nothing that sky-rockets my blood pressure more than taking the temperature of one of my kids and watching it shoot up to over 104 degrees. Except maybe when it happens the next day to a different kid and it hits 105!

4. My pediatrician's office doesn't do any "4-for-the-price-of-1" co-pay discounts.

5. A trip to the zoo doesn’t “count” if you don’t get to see the elephants. You will be reminded every day that you have to go back. Your children will actually feel cheated that they "smelled elephant poop" but didn't get to see the giants themselves.

6. The best way to make telemarketers stop calling is to put Sydney on the line, who will not only talk the poor salesperson to death, but will also start to sing her "gospel" songs that she's made up. (Unbeknownst to me, she answered the phone while I was cleaning up vomit and she had a grand conversation where she learned that "Miss Jennifer has 2 cats named Snickers and Cookie and she's allergic to peanut butter and she doesn't have any kids to play with and no husband or daddy either." We haven't heard from Jennifer again.)

7. It is actually possible (but not recommended) to bathe your new puppy more than you bathe your children.
8. If you leave a marker within arm’s reach while your 3 year-old is holding the puppy, you will soon have a blue puppy. (Despite Bailey's protests that she was just trying to “make a picture of the puppy’s handprints.”)
9. If you get nauseous to the point of nearly throwing up when your 13 year old is sitting on stage for a piano competition, then you probably won’t make a very good “stage mother.” Encourage him to pursue other interests that won’t require you to get a prescription for Xanax.

(In other words: we went to the zoo on Monday, everybody was running fevers or had been diagnosed with strep throat later in the week, and Carter had his big piano competition on Friday. Busy, exhausting week! But congrats to Carter who earned a "Superior" rating in both his solo performance and his concerto. Now, if only he'd quit while he is ahead so I don't have to sit in nervous agony before his performances ever again!)

Puppy Love

So we got a dog. This is a big move for us- we've never even had a pet! We "puppy sat" for some friends over Christmas and fell in love with their dog, and the seed was planted: maybe this was something we could actually do. A week later we found a gorgeous little puppy that was finally ready to come home to us this past week. She was born on Christmas Eve so the kids named her Noel, but we call her Ellie, and this is one loved little puppy! In fact, the hard part so far has been setting the timer every fifteen minutes so that everyone can take turns holding her! I know I'm a sucker, but take a look at her picture... how could I resist?!?

It just so happened that Tanner's "letter of the week" was "P". On Friday he had to bring in a "P" word item for show-and-tell. Well, it took him about half a second to recognize that puppy is a "P" word. And so Ellie had her preschool debut!