A day in my life...

Guest blogger, Gretchen

It takes me twice as long to get anything done.

Case in point: I was lining the pan for the brownies. I finished the
roll so I put the box in the recycle bin.

Gilly goes behind me, pulls it out and starts marching around the
house with it.

Normally ok, but not with this--metal cutting edge!

I ask her to give it back and end up chasing her down to wrestle it
from her and dispose of it.

Now...where was I??

Wedding

We went to a wedding this weekend. A family friend and our former babysitter tied the knot. It was a lovely ocassion and the kids looked fantastic!

Gilly got dressed up to be the flower girl. It didn't stop her from squashing bugs, though.


The kids behaved themselves exceptionally well, even through a long church service.
Well, mostly behaved themselves.

Harry was the ring bearer, and looked killer in his rental tux.

LOLs

...just stuff I do when I'm goofing off. And yes, I wrote them all.

Muppet Spin-Off?

I was talking to Gretchen the other morning about the Muppet Show.



Like so many around my age, I was a big fan of the show. My favorites were Prof. Bunsen Honeydew and his hapless assistant, Beaker.



I actually used an impression of Beaker as part of the courtship ritual I used on Gretchen. Regardless, I've always thought that Bunsen and Honeydew could have spun-off from the Muppet Show to have their own TV series.

"They did," Gretchen says.

"Really?" How could I miss it? I would have watched every episode!

"Yeah, it's called Mythbusters."



Of course. And I do watch every episode.

Breathing Normally Again

I gotta tell you, it's nice to breathe without making bubbly gurgle noises.

And in response to my last post, I made it to 2PM before I had to go lie down. I reawoke at, like, 8PM. So that experiment had mixed results.

Gilly, we think, is getting better but has a wicked case of "sick baby syndrome". She can't bear to do anything but cling to Gretchen and complain bitterly about her lot in life. Not fun.

Speaking on Gilly, a funny thing happened the other night. We have an old baby monitor. Gretchen got it when Nicky was born so it's about 10 years old. Has two different channels, "X" and "Y". What with the creeping illness, we started using it to keep an ear out for Gilly during the night.

So the other night we start hearing a baby crying through the monitor. Gretchen is up and out the door like a flash. I've never seen anyone move that fast, let alone Gretchen. Me, I'm none too swift when awoken in the middle of the night so it took me a few minutes to realize that something wasn't right.

Gretchen races into Gilly's room, but I don't hear Gretchen through the cacophony on the monitor. Then Gretchen comes racing up the stairs, and bursts into Harry's room, across the hall from our upstairs room. And there's this wild, panicked look in her eyes. "It's not Gilly!" she screams as she charges back downstairs to check on Nicky and Gilly again.

Blink, blink. Um, what's going on here?

Gretchen whirls back into the room, and she's electric with nervous energy. "I checked Gilly, she's asleep. Nick's asleep. I think I woke up Harry when I checked on him. The crying isn't coming from our house!"

Oh, yeah. I guess someone else's monitor was tuned to our frequency. Oops.

But you know, in the time that it took Gretchen to check on all her babies twice, our neighbors still hadn't gotten up to take care of their kid. So how's that for a Super Mom?

Tales from the Sanatorium

Yes, Harry is much better. Sadly, Gretchen is a little worse -- she probably is having another recurrence of bronchitis, perhaps lighter than in previous years -- but Gillian is very sick. Yesterday, she had a high fever and earaches. Any sudden movement would cause her to start vomiting rather violently. And because she didn't want to be separated from her Momma, Gretchen got very little sleep last night.

Right now, Gretchen is upstairs napping and Gilly is passed out on a rug. Although the darling puke-monster was doing much better this morning, I don't care to risk moving her.

Me, I still have an occasional coughing fit, but so long as I take it slow, I'm doing pretty well. I'd like to see how long I can remain upright today before I grow short of breath and need to lie down. Should be a good indication of how my lungs are doing.

And the sweating! Ugh!

Good news: I'm not in the hospital.

Bad news: Evidentially, just having the flu isn't enough these days. I also have pneumonia.

So I've got the rocking pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu, only without the "rocking" and "boogie woogie".

Harry and I will be keeping each other company for a while longer. No, Harry's not as sick as I am, but he has excellent taste in cartoons.

With occasional bouts of consciousness,
-- Ben