This Morning. And Etc.

This morning had an extra early start. Mike and Jesse needed to leave at 6:45 for a visit with Jesse's eye doctor/specialist in Ogden (we've been seeing Dr. Bullard since Jesse's extreme eye allergies first caused him to rub a hole in his cornea clear back in about 1st grade).

Their leaving was a bit earlier than it otherwise would have needed to be because one of our cars had to be dropped off at an auto shop along the way. (Which meant Jesse drove a car on his own--following Mike through Sardine Canyon in the dark. We are certainly breaking him into driving on his own now that he's got a license.) 

Their departure with two cars also meant that Penny and Anders would need to take the bus--which comes along about a half hour before they usually leave.

I drove them to the bus stop to shield them from a walk and wait in the cold. 

(We've had quite a cold streak settle over us [some polar vortex that has reached its icy little fingers all the way to us]. This morning was -1 when we headed out. So cold. I usually like the sound of crunching across snow, but somehow when it's this frozen walking on it gives me the same sensation as fingernails on a chalkboard [or, as most disturbed me when I was little, the lid of a porcelain jar scraping across the top before settling on]. On the positive side: the usual muck that my kids track in through the winter months has decreased markedly since ... all muck is frozen solid!)

But back to this morning. Early start. Back home to get little kids off. And now I've got a sick little Starling here on the couch by me. Between the hours of 9 pm and 7 am she threw up about every hour on the hour. I probably didn't help by letting her drink water when her stomach clearly could not keep anything down, but she kept whimpering so pleadingly for water that I couldn't deny her. (And anyway. throwing up water might actually feel better than repeatedly gagging and heaving up nothing?)

I've got water boiling for all of the toothbrushes that were remotely close to hers. Not that that will help much when Summer came out this morning and mindlessly took a long drink out of the same cup I'd been using for Starling all night! Sigh. (It did occur to me, after having a few children, that every choice to have another was, among many other things, a choice to spend many nights cleaning up throw up. It is a fact.)

And that's an entry I guess? Well. So it is. Oh except I might add: despite all the cold, we have had very little snow this winter. (The only reason we currently have any here at all [to make the unpleasant sound I was referring to] is because it's been too cold for the tiny bit we've had to melt.) I hate to note this, but ... had we gotten our foundation poured during the exceptionally warm fall like I'd hoped to, we couldn't have asked for a better winter for house building to carry on. Alas. And alack.

Now, off to switch some thrown-up-on blankets to the dryer! Huzzah.