It’s been a little crazy around here for the past week, not that that’s such a huge change. As anyone who follows on Facebook knows, Levi was in the hospital to get a PICC line earlier this week. We only had to stay one night (yay!) and after a lineup of ridiculous things happening as we tried to set up the home IVs – including, seriously, all the phones at the hospital being out when I was trying to call in with a question – we are finally rolling along pretty smoothly. There was a point on Thursday (I think) when I was feeling more than slightly hysterical, but that passed within a couple of hours and my sense of humor wandered back around.
Saturday we had a scrimmage for Power of the Pen at our house. We do two of these a year in January, and the kids on the team don’t write against other schools, but they do write just as if they were at a competition, which helps them prep for the actual competition days. So there were middle-schoolers at my house in the morning, and Paul took the boys away from the house so there was a semblance of quiet in which they could write.
When they came in, a massive heart-shaped balloon floated in the door ahead of a boy. “Oh, look!” my sister-in-law said. “They got you a balloon while they were gone!”
Except not really. It’s Levi’s balloon. Paul took them to the dollar store and let them each pick out a treat. Levi wanted a balloon, and this was the only one Paul could see that wasn’t a licensed character and therefore two or three times as expensive.
Step off, girls, he’s taken!
Paul doesn’t really understand why his sister and I found this funny. He may need a little help to pull out of the skid. Just a few weeks until the front end of the Danger Zone*.
There was, however, no chance of mistaking Elias’ treat as a gift for Mama.
To give credit where it’s due, Paul lined up a babysitter for a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon and took me on a bike ride. Some lovely soul had plowed part of the trail, and the sunshine and fresh air did us both good.
And since I didn’t get a balloon, I bought myself some flowers today.
Not really. It’s my little winter treat for myself. I adore tulips, but I can’t often justify buying cut flowers. The first time every year that I see tulips is an exception. They help me believe in spring.
True confession: It seemed like too much work to stage them somewhere that looked uncluttered and lovely, so you got the top view. And I had to kick the trash can out of the way so you didn’t get the empty Cheetos bag in the frame.
The tulips are pretty, though, no matter what my kitchen counters look like.
*My birthday, Valentine’s Day, and our anniversary fall within a few weeks of one another. Paul finds this time of year quite stressful.