never what you expect

This isnt going to be a long post, because frankly I dont have the energy.
This week brought lots of good in the midst of so much bad. The girls had a blast at school when they went and zane and I got a lot of work done around the house and for my school work.
Friday we woke up to the phone ringing at 6am. It was the police doing their town wide messaged call. I listened to the police chief telling us to stay in our house and lock the doors. We spent all day in our house, looking nervously our the doors and windows, listening to the military helicopters fly over our house, realizing how quiet it was with no one out and about, marveling at how well the girl took the news that they werent going to their pony ride party at school, watching our neighborhoods on the news with tanks and rifles and snipers, trying to be productive but not knowing how, and finally hearing word that the shelter in place ban was lifted even though they hadnt caught the bad guy yet.
We put the girls to bed and came downstairs to make our dinner when zane noticed they were giving new updates on the news channel. While we were upstairs, shots were fired just 2 miles from our house and they were closing in in the suspect.
We ended our night watching a movie called "butter"; I picked pickedt bedause I thought it would be ridiculous and help us escape from reality. It was and it did, but I still ended up in tears...of relief, of exhaustion, of happiness and grief.
Saturday came and it started out crappy.  We were all tired and even though we could leave our house now, I didn't want to. We got to tell the girls that the bad guy was caught and the police kept us safe like theyre supposed to, but I cringed at the realization that we had to even tell them about real bad guys.
It will seem sureal for a long time that all of this happened right here, in the sleepy little towns outside of boston. Not in a movie, not in the run down and sketchy parts of boston.
Tomorrow we go back to work and school and theres another relief in the mundane and regular routine. What a week off...

vacation!?

today was the first full day of our april break! i spent about 4 hours of it working on finishing up some things for my practicum, the girls (and zane) spent 2 hours of it resting in bed (zane and nola fell asleep), the family spent about an hour lounging in the living room (see picture below) and not doing much of anything which felt amazing, and we spend 2 hours out eating dinner and running errands.

i'm just about to call it a day.

we lost power last night randomly for a couple hours. the girls instantly started crying when their sound machine and hall lights went off. so zane and i spent the night on their floor with a battery operated sound machine and flashlight propped up in the hallway. we were all pretty beat today. particularly avery who didn't nap at all. at one point this afternoon nola looked at the bottom of her own foot and said it was dirty. so i said "lick it", and she tried to (and almost succeeded), so i said "no silly! don't really lick it." a few minutes later i looked at avery who was scowling at me, until she burst into tears and yelled that i "shouldn't have said that!!" i asked nola if she was upset by what i said, and she wasn't, so i tried to tell avery (without laughing) that i would make sure to never tell her to lick her feet since it upset her so much.

the girls have monday off from school, but then have a fun week planned with their classes. they have pajama day, ice cream day, bubble day, and then they round off the week with a pizza party complete with pony rides! i have to say that it's nice that they're going to have so much fun at school so zane and i can not feel guilty about being home alone (and cleaning/purging/sorting/organizing).

snapshot from this afternoon. a few minutes before this was taken, bitzer was with us too. it was a chair full o' love.

nola's finally doing better after days and days of (mostly low) fevers. avery's still holding on to a nasty cough, but seems to be fine otherwise. i don't know how i managed to get all my hours at my practicum site this semester with all the sickness and time off. looking forward to some time off and just being responsible for my hours at the middle school. 

i've sworn off coffee for the time being. i was starting to rely on it too much and didn't like how i would crash in the afternoon. instead, we bought a bunch of fruit and spinach the other week and i created juice drink ingredients in plastic baggies to freeze. it's easy enough to blend one in the morning before work (of after to share with zane) and after the first few days of nasty headaches, i feel much better all around without all the caffeine. i do miss the warmth of sitting downstairs before the girls wake up and drinking my coffee, so i may just have to switch to decaf or find a good hot chocolate. 

11 days until new orleans! which means 10 until i'm officially done with school work.

this better be it.

nola woke up from her 3 hour nap with a 103 fever this afternoon. this is after a 101.5 fever this morning with red cheeks. this is after she's been on medicine since monday night. this is after went to the dr on monday afternoon to find out that she has yet ANOTHER ear infection.
the good news in all of this is we have an appointment with a specialist at the end of may to find out if her adenoid is enlarged and if that's what is causing all these ear infections. i'm really hopeful that if this is the cause then she could have an ear infection free winter next year! until then, i'm hoping with everything i have that this is the end of illness for us for a long time.
on the down side to all of this, i keep missing work (i took nola to work with me this morning after receiving a text about when i'd be making up the 2 hours i missed on monday). and i have about 5 major reports to write up before next tuesday when i have a meeting with my advisor.
wah. rant over.
________________________________________________________________________
*found out tonight that avery can count by 2's to 10. and she can count by 2's to 10 in odd numbers.

*at work this morning (before my co-worked insisted i bring nola home and give her a popsicle on the couch), nola saw some words on the edge of a book rack and promptly read all the letters as fast as she scanned them. i knew she knew her letters, etc, but it still surprises me when she shows what she knows.

*since the weather has been getting nicer (very gradually), the girls LOVE to ride their trikes in the driveway. the other day zane brought out their real bikes and they took turns helping each other up and down the driveway with their training wheels on.

I wish I were kidding.

On monday I picked the girls up from school and averys teacher goes so did you know Avery has a rash? Sure enough on her neck and upper chest she had a nice little rash. She wasn't complaining that anything hurt so I brush it off thinking it was he rush. Tuesday morning we're getting ready for school and I decided to check a rash randomly. Sure enough it has spread to her arms and back and she was saying it was a little itchy. Off to the doctor we go and the rest should spread a little more.the doctor was mad she didn't have an intern in with her because it was a classic rash for scarlet fever and the interns always complain I never get to see rashes. But a rapid strep test came back negative and she still didn't have a fever or sore throat. So we got a note that she was fine to return to school and we get a call if the strep test comes back positive. So now it's Wednesday she still has a rash but no other symptoms and I'm just praying for this is our last doctors visit for a long long time. on the bright side I'm writing this on my early graduation present to the family, a tablet that will be good for traveling and entertainment. I never thought I'd want to read a book on a device but I love it. I'm actually writing this by speaking into the tablet and having it convert my words so if some of these sentences don't make sense it's because my english isn't good enough :-)

the first full day of spring.

i've been eagerly anticipating this day for so long now! it's spring!

i did not anticipate that there would be snow on the ground (and a little more possible tonight), and i didn't expect to be spending it on the couch with a sore throat and fever.

but i won't let that get me down. IT'S SPRING!

(the last time i was sick this school year was in november, when i had about 3 1/2 weeks left in my practicum. i have 3 weeks left of my practicum this semester, guess my immune system lets down it's guard a little too early)

rawr.

this month is marching in like a lion for sure around here!

the storm that hit the midwest and midatlantic was just supposed to give us a little wind and maybe a couple inches of snow. it snowed all day on thursday, but nothing accumulated on the roads (just our driveway, where it took me 4 times to get my car up and in!). it was supposed to start sticking sometime thursday night when it got below freezing, but they were only calling for 3-5 inches around the boston area.

yesterday morning we woke up and zane turned the tv on to check if there was school. a few minutes later, the phone rang and it was his district calling off school. i kept the tv on for a little while longer looking for my school. around 6, i tried to go back to sleep, but got up around 6:15 and went downstairs. i looked outside, it was snowing like crazy and the roads hadn't been plowed. i kept the news on as i made coffee and waited to see my school listed. at 7, i realized they weren't calling off school and they weren't even giving us a delay.

luckily since zane was home, he was able to drive me and the girls to our schools in his jeep. my van would never have made it.

basically it snowed until around 3pm yesterday and we got over a foot. the roads were still covered when i left school at 12:30, and the parking lot wasn't any better. i read emails from work about people shoveling their cars out of the parking lot and needed help pushing their cars from their spots.

apparently this storm was unprecedented and all the forecasters are saying that no one could have predicted what happened, because of the unusual way the storm wrapped the moisture from the ocean and threw it back at us. all i can say is that i want spring so badly and turning the clocks ahead tonight is making me giddy. sunset at 6:45?! yay!

side note: this morning i woke up saying to myself "how do you eat an elephant? one bite at a time." (i wish i were kidding). i have so much work to do for my practicum and i can't ignore it anymore. it's exciting to think that i just have a month left, but it's also overwhelming that all i have left is a month.

on another side note: the girls are finally healthy! (i think, fingers crossed!) avery hasn't had a fever and her coughing has been drastically reduced to first thing in the morning and a few times at night. phew! now zanes turn to get healthy.

tough as nails.

we headed back to the drs today. avery has had a low grade (and sometimes higher) fever since last wednesday. and she's still coughing. and even though zane and i were saying to each other the other night that we felt like she was really turning a corner, she just wasn't "healed" enough.
so, back we went. good news, avery's lungs are perfectly clear and there's no threat of pneumonia. nola's ears are just about as clear as they've been in a long, long time. but, one of avery's ears is still terrible. enough that the dr said as soon as she looked at it "oh, honey! doesn't this hurt??" avery's reply: i don't know.  that's my girl :)

at least we got an answer for her fever! and for why no one else in the house is catching this (though zane's been pretty congested and his voice has lost its strength the last day or two).

have i said it before? i am so done with this winter. so done. when avery is done with this next round of medicine, it will be spring! yay!

sleep!

zane has a crazy week at work. tonight he's at a union meeting until 5 or 6, so he'll be home around dinner time or after the girls are in bed. in order to make it through the afternoon with a 5 year old who still has a fever (ugh...) and a 3 year old that wants to boss everyone around, i let them watch tv in my bed for rest time after school. i warned them that if they weren't resting they'd be sent to their own beds to rest. they pushed the limit and were sent to their beds after a while. i was only going to have them in there for 5-10 minutes while i finished up my paper. 

2 hours later, they're just waking up.

sometimes small miracles occur :) i think we'll celebrate with greasy drive through food. and a milkshake. 

the few but the proud.

admittedly, i didn't take a whole lot of pictures when mema was here. we did a lot (got a kitten, played in the snow, went to chuck e cheese, went to a birthday party, went out to eat, painted our upstairs bathroom, zane and i took an overnight trip to nh, began the grand reorganization of our basement) and we had a lot of fun, we just didn't think to stop and take pictures. but here's what we did take. 

ps, you'll notice the absence (or off to the side-ness) of nola in a couple of the pictures. she is a 3, going on 4, year old girl in every sense of the word. it's her way or the highway :)

timing is everything

mema was packed up and picked up by a cab yesterday morning at 5am :(
by 5pm avery was home from school with a fever, red goopy eyes and complaining about her ear.
i scheduled a 2pm appointment with the doctor for today.
at 8:30 this morning I had my second meeting of the semester with my advisor and supervising teacher.
zane has a dodgeball students vs teacher thing tonight at work.

so! i took avery with me to my meeting (she was a star, she got a donut afterwards), came home to rest, picked nola up from school and brought her with us to avery's doctor appoint.
avery has bronchitis, and the doctor was astounded at how bad both her ears were. more specifically, she was shocked that avery wasn't complaining about the ear that was really bad.
while we were there, i figured i'd ask her to check nola's ears because nola has a cold and it usually progresses to ear infections. either she wasn't prepared to be checked out, wasn't a fan of the doctor whom she had never met before or, more likely, her ears hurt so darn bad with her own double ear infection that she didn't want anyone near them.

she kicked the doctor.
she slapped me when it was all over.
she screamed at the top of her lungs so loud i couldn't hear what the doctor was asking about medicine. (luckily i had the forethought to bring the little sticky note that our regular doctor filled with a timeline of nola's ear infections/medicines since october).

on top of all this? i was observed on tuesday afternoon teaching a lesson to a 2nd grade class. this class is a sheltered english immersion class, and i had no idea what they needed from me as far as instruction goes. needless to say, it didn't go well. so to sum up this week, i feel discouraged and ready for everyone to be healthy and happy. zane hasn't felt well for a few days now and i'm crossing my fingers (for the millionth time this winter) that i don't catch everyon'e colds. it's worked so far, so i'm going to be positive that it'll work again.

on the plus side: cleo is loving bitzer (as much as an older cat can love a kitten that's not her own). she gives him baths, she growls at king when she thinks he is going after bitzy-boo, she plays and hits without her claws out. it's pretty heartwarming to see.

so to recap: we miss mema.

new.

we call him bitzer and he is so, so loved. (i am speaking for everyone except cleo. even the dogs seem to like him. look at that face, what's not to like? and the double paws? just perfect.)

foiled again!

both my schools were cancelled today. which is good because i have a ton of work to do, and zane and the girls all have school. however, i was going to take over a project today at my practicum school that counts for my major teaching unit. it will be rescheduled and is not a big problem, considering we're doing the same project with 3 different classes. however, last semester i was supposed to do my major project with the 8th grade at the middle school and hurricane sandy hit and we had 2 days off from school, completely messing up the project. luckily, i was able to use the 5th grade lessons as a unit, but come on mother nature! stop messing with my school work!

mema comes in tonight! and the girls have no idea! the plan right now is for me to go run an errand and the girls will stay here with zane and get ready for bed. if we can time it right, mema and i will come home when the girls are upstairs. i'll send mema upstairs and wait for the screams :)

some more snow pictures, because this is a storm the girls will remember for sure. there was an arthur episode on the other day and they were stuck in a blizzard. the girls were screaming "WE had a blizzard too!!"

it was BEAUTIFUL yesterday. the sun was so bright and everything was sparkly :)

27 inches

i've seen on a couple news channels that belmont got 27 inches, though that was reported this morning, and it snowed until 11 or so, there's a chance it's more than that. all i know is that the girls didn't have a whole lot of fun in the snow this morning because there was just too much of it for them to walk through. they kept putting their hands down to steady themselves, but their hands would sink right through.

 hot chocolate with rainbow marshmallows.

 happiness in a cup.

 dogs were not amused. they're standing on packed snow on the deck. 

 not much of our railing left to see.

 nola slides down the stairs. 

 zane dug himself a little hole to stand in. definitely up to his knees at least. 

the cars are totally buried and the snowdrifts make them look like ancient creatures. 

to the right, you can see where i had to slide down the snow to get out to the street. it was too deep to walk through. 

i jumped into the snow pile off our stairs. i couldn't get up/out afterwards. lots of snow down my pants. 

more updates to come! the snow has ended, it's still pretty windy, but i think we're in the clear as far as power outages. now the clean up. 

what a difference a day makes!

we got snow. and it's still snowing, and it feels like -2 outside, and the wind is whipping. off to make pancakes since we still have power! fingers crossed that we don't lose it today.