First Day of Summer

The first day school was out was a long one. It's been too long really for me to recap, but here are my Facebook posts for the day (which was a Friday, by the way):

"First day of summer and I am already wishing we had swim team today! Can't imagine NOT doing that every day. Serenity now!"

"I bet you I've heard the word 'Mom!' at least 100 times today. That's only 25 per kid, which actually is probably not realistic. I bet it's higher."

"Ashley just told me after 3 hours of playing in the sprinkler that she has a lot of energy. She finally knows what the rest of us have known for 4 years. BTW, kids are watching TV now and everyone is happy. :)"

"I am thankful for my sweet neighbor who is a doctor and came over to look at my daughter's infected thumb so I don't have to take her somewhere. I've never bothered her with anything medical before but it seemed silly not to just ask. She did tell me once if I ever needed anything like that to not hesitate, so I went. Plus we got to catch up so at least for me it was a win/win. :) (This day has not been without crisis too - Ash got hit in the head twice (from 2 different sisters) with a slinging hose that resulted in a knot and broken skin in the back and another on the front, then Kaitlyn smelled smoke - turns out one of our electronics was smoking in the playroom though we are not sure which one - will determine that tomorrow (and yes I unplugged them all), then after all doc's offices were closed we realized Mackenzie had an infected thumb.) Good grief! But these are all little things that are really nothing in the grand scheme of things. Again, thankful for my neighbor!"

That's right. Four posts in one day.

Here they are playing outside in the sprinklers.

But to follow up on the rest of that day - we never really did figure out what's wrong with our electronics. We think it's the TV, but we also have a Wii, DVD/VCR combo, and the triple outlet adapter going into a double outlet. It's really not that much, but not one thing can you smell or see smoke coming out of, so it's just all been unplugged for the last two weeks.

As for Mackenzie's thumb, that ended up being so much worse than what we originally thought. After my neighbor (the doctor) left, I realized she had a very faint red streak on the inside of her arm. Turns out that is a very alarming sign that her infection has spread into her lymph system and often requires immediate hospitalization. The antibiotic I gave her according to my pedi was expired. I called him the next morning and told him about the streak (because I didn't want to bother my neighbor again) and he said to bring her in immediately. He wrote her a new prescription and said if it gets any worse she has to go to the ER. Well I watched it like a hawk for about 24 hours and it did not get worse. But it stayed the same. I was so nervous to go to sleep that night. You can't play around with that kind of stuff. Anyway, after the next day it finally started to clear up. What a sigh of relief! Glad our pediatrician's office is open Saturday mornings!

Since then, we've been doing a lot of swim team and just nothing special around the house to pass the time. Kaitlyn invented some kind of dumbwaiter-type system to move things up and downstairs.

They spent days playing with Aqua Sand til we finally had to throw it out. Now it's been replaced by Moon Sand. I guess we'll just leave it outside and until they eventually spill so much of it there's not enough left to save. I don't know.

They accidentally caught a really weird-looking bug in the habitat they made for a lizard who escaped.

And I came up with a great new way to serve watermelon...toothpicks! They will seriously eat the whole thing and less clean up!

 One day at a time.....it's the only way.....