Seth

When things don't go as planned

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to go on a long bike ride.  Since Seth can’t ride a bike yet, he rides along in the pull-along trailer.  Will is usually the pace setter, at least on the way out.  We rode along enjoying the flower scented breeze and the coolness of the JBU trail by the creek.  On the way back, Will’s bike started letting out annoying screeches as he pedaled.  This happened to greatly annoy Elise, who didn’t seem to understand he wasn’t doing it on purpose.

We decided to take a little break to enjoy the creek with bare feet.  After a few minutes of play, including Seth slipping and falling in the water, I realized we had better hurry back if I was going to have an hour to cook some beans for supper.  Will and Elise took off on their bikes while I loaded Seth back into the trailer.  Several feet down the trail I met Will whose bike had finally decided to give out entirely.  The pedals would no longer turn at all.  Will wasn’t very upset by this, but I knew it was going to be a long way back on foot.  We experimented with some ideas of how to get him and the bike back without him having to walk it the whole way.  In the end, we ended up cramming the bike into the trailer next to Seth and alternately letting Will run and walk back, with some breaks riding on my bike while I pushed.

It wasn’t what I had planned and probably multiplied the time needed to get back by quite a bit.  But we did get to see some baby ducklings we might have missed if we hadn’t been going so slow.  When we got home, it was much too late to start a pot of beans.  Usually in times like these I get frustrated and decide to order something to eat, because it is easier and I feel like I deserve it since my day hasn’t gone as planned.  And though I don’t think this is always an unwise choice, I do realize that it would be good for me to develop the skill to cheerfully and creatively make supper anyway.  And so that is what I decided to do.  It is nice that since I knew we were sticking to rice and beans, I had a framework to be creative in.  I grabbed a leek out of the refrigerator and chopped it up.  After sauteeing in butter for awhile, I added the leftover plain white rice from lunch and three eggs.  After the eggs had cooked, I added a splash of soy sauce and ended up with something halfway between scrambled eggs and fried rice.  Turns out everyone loved it.  We ended the meal with rice pudding I had made earlier in the day.

Rice and Beans Month

~ miriamlein ~ 5 Comments

We are eating rice and beans this month in support of Lahash International.  Rice and Beans month is a way for us to stand in solidarity with the poor by simplifying our diet and financially giving to those who are hungry in East Africa.  As we make meals based around beans and rice, we attempt to focus on praying for and connecting with those who may only eat beans and rice every month of the year.  Since beans and rice should save us money on our grocery budget this month, it means we can also physically share with those in East Africa by sending our savings to provide more food.

When I first told Elise what we would be doing this month, she was less than thrilled.  Many tears were shed as she tried to wrap her mind around eating two meals a day based on just these two things.  Now granted, we do add other stuff to our beans and rice, and maybe she didn’t realize that beforehand.  I am trying to stay away from meat and too many expensive additives, since I really do want to see how much of my budget I can send off to help others this month.  The first meal on March 1st, Elise woke to me making some sweet brown rice for breakfast.  “I thought we weren’t doing beans and rice for breakfast?” she asked with a worried expression on her face.  “Well, not always, but today we are.”  Elise didn’t eat much breakfast that day.  The boys loved it.  In later meals, the roles switched as Elise found she loved the other recipes I tried that day.  She ended her day by eating 5 bowls of lentil stew!  The boys, on the other hand, decided the bean recipes were not as thrilling as a bowl of rice with milk and sugar.  They picked and complained over their bowls.  But even Will has a small grasp of what we are doing.  He shares with anyone who is willing to listen that:  “Guess what?  We are only eating rice and beans every day this week.”  (He doesn’t quite have the concept of a whole month.)  Seth either has a very short memory, or is clinging to the slim hope that I might forget, because every meal he still asks what we are having to eat.  And every time I tell him yet again that we are having “beans and rice,” he groans and says,  “Me don’t like beans.”

I am hoping that as we continue this it might help each of my kids stretch and grow just a little bit.  For Elise, I hope that she does start to develop a heart for those who have less, and perhaps start to see how she can make choices that impact others positively.  For Will, I hope that his excitement over the uniqueness of this experiment will turn into excitement for helping other people around the world and in our community.  For Seth, I am just hoping that maybe he will learn to eat beans without me having to physically put the spoon into his mouth.

As for me, after just 5 days, I have had to face the fact that I use food (especially deserts) a lot as a stress reliever.  I’m realizing how I need to replace that craving for something to eat with a craving to follow after God and rely on him to meet my needs.  I’m still grappling with this, but the first step towards change is to have our eyes opened to the need.

6 years.

~ miriamlein ~ 4 Comments

What would it be like to have you here with us?  To hear your laughing voice as you egg Will and Elise on in their races.  To see your wavy brown hair dance in the wind.  To hear you read to Seth and do a puzzle with Will.  To see you snuggle up with Elise as she shared her favorite story with you.  To feel you close as you kissed my cheek.  To hear you hurry to greet your Daddy as he walked in the door.

I can only imagine what it would be like to add you to our crazy life.  What your place would be.  What you would look like, what you would say.  I don’t think about it often, and when I do, it hurts.  Because the reality is that you never even got to see a Spring.

Although, how can I compare Spring on earth with the perfect season of heaven.  I know, that no matter what you  missed here on earth, you have more than I can ever imagine in heaven.  I know that no matter how many days we live without you here, there will be more than I can number with you later.

I love you Emma.

Excursions, doctor visits, and growth charts.

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

It’s time for another general family update.  This is the time of year that we take the kids in for their general well-child checkups at the doctor.  I’ve found that these are getting simpler the older the kids get.  There aren’t as many concerns I guess with kids vs toddlers and babies.  The main concern at this age, the doctor says, is keeping kids safe from injuries.  I squirmed a bit as he gave his lecture about child safety:  wearing helmets while riding bikes, holding hands in parking lots, and keeping seat belts buckled.  I wasn’t sure if the lecture was meant specifically for me, or if it is one he gives to everyone with kids this age.  He’s a parent too, so I know he is aware that this is a lot harder than it sounds.  It sounds so easy, the ways you keep a child safe, but until you have had to try to get three kids safely from the car to the Walmart door (one oblivious to all sounds including your voice, one rebelliously defiant about holding hands, and the other trying to be helpful), you don’t have any clue what this involves.  And then the dangers don’t cease once you enter the store.  A few days ago, Seth almost fell out of the cart head first.  He didn’t, but it was close enough to flash before my eyes, and he was promptly put in the seat where I could keep my hands on him instead of the back of the cart.  I do think I do a good job with seatbelt safety.  But recently, I did drive 2 minutes down the road to my sister’s house to find that Seth had ridden the whole way without being buckled because I had just forgot.  That is very rare, believe me, but it still makes you think.  And even if I were to do a great job at protecting my children from the known dangers we face in a day, they will always be sure to find new ones on their own.  Kids (boys especially) seem to have a knack for that.  But the talk did encourage me to renew my efforts in the areas I am lacking, while at the same time remembering to put my kids before God in prayer.

The kids all were declared healthy and whole by the doctor.  All of them had a great time, as they giggled while the doctor poked and prodded their stomachs, declared how big they were to the nurse, and stood tall and still to get their measurements taken.  Seth was last for everything, so most of the time he was jumping up and down shouting:  “My turn?  My turn?”  Will, my introvert, would not for the life of him make any sound no matter how the doctor encouraged him to say “ah.”  After a few encouraging attempts by the doctor, Seth, who has been watching, impatiently waiting for his turn, tries to be helpful and said it for him.  The visit ended poorly for Will, because we made the unfortunate discovery that he was due for a round of vaccinations.  Three shots and a few tears later, the appointment was over.

Once home with their height and weight in hand, I decided to look up what their percentiles are currently.  I know these growth charts aren’t really that big of a deal, but I get a kick out of knowing where my kids are on the chart.  I had already noticed that the difference in size between Will and Elise is a lot less than the difference between Seth and Will, even though Seth and Will are 16 months apart and Will and Elise are 4 1/2 years.  So I looked them up by turn.  Seth is smack dab at 50% for both height and weight.  Elise is still hovering around 5% for both height and weight.  And Will tops the chart at 95% for height and 80% for weight.

In other news, Arkansas weather has been incredibly mild this winter.  We had one good snow this week, but the weather has already gotten back up to the 50’s.  It’s often been in the 60’s all winter long, and we have been enjoying the chance to get outside frequently.  Since we moved back into town, I have been enjoying getting out with the kids on their bikes as we have lots of options for bike rides around here.  Here are some pictures of one of our recent outings to the park.

Proof that Seth really is smart, despite evidences to the contrary.

~ miriamlein ~ 2 Comments

A friend laughed when I mentioned the latest thing Seth had gotten into that day (concrete powder). “You always have a story,” she said. And yes, I do, but thankfully whereas these stories used to always be about both boys, they are now more frequently about just Seth. So there is hope.

And here are a couple stories about Seth that show that he really does pay attention and has a good memory. Perhaps soon he will start actually making choices based on those two things.

Several weeks ago, we lost electricity for about half an hour. I was worried about our little chicks who were still tiny and using a heat lamp. Will, in his usual problem-solving manner, tried to come up with a solution. “I know!” he said. “We can go get the fan, and put it in front of the chicks and turn it on.” “Well, that won’t work Will.” I explained. “First of all, the fan makes you cold, not warm, and secondly, the fan uses electricity too.” Elise suddenly got a worried look and asked if the car used electricity. “Well, yes it does,” I answered. “But it makes its own electricity because it has a battery.” “So we can still go somewhere then?” she asked. “Yes, we can go in the car even without electricity in our house.” Elise and Will ran off to play or get ready to go, not sure which. I had promised them that if it got too much hotter in the house we’d go somewhere cool. Seth, who had been sitting quietly on the stairs in my work room during this whole exchange stayed behind. After a few moments of quiet pondering, he suddenly spoke. “Mom, plug a light into the car?” What a smart little kid. He had sorted out on his own, that the heat light needed electricity, which we didn’t have right now, and the car had a battery and made its own electricity. Why couldn’t we combine the two things and solve the problem?

Last week, we started school. As I sat down with Seth to do a little preschool with him, Will kept interrupting with instructions for Seth. “Will,” I finally said in exasperation. “You are not the teacher. I am.” Will just laughed and answered: “You are not a teacher, you are a mommy.” “I can be a teacher and a mommy too,” I replied. Will just seemed to think that was silly. Several days later as we were loading up the car, Seth started teasing me by calling me a “big man.” Figuring he was confused on the right wording, I corrected him by saying that no, I might be a big woman, but not a big man. “No,” laughed Seth. “You is a mommy teacher.”

So, you see. Seth really does pay attention. He just decides that getting into trouble is somehow much more fun than learning from his mistakes. I’m sure that will change . . . I HOPE that will change. Will has become a bit more responsible with age, but even he sometimes finds something to do that baffles my mind. Like last night, when he came out of his room after bedtime with his thumb securely stuck in a little hole he had found in his toy dump truck. As John and I worked for several minutes trying to release him from his predicament, I asked Will why he had stuck his finger in there. “I wanted to see if it wouldn’t get stuck,” he replied. And for some reason that makes perfect sense.

Lake Fort Smith.

~ miriamlein ~ 2 Comments

John and I wanted to do something different and fun with the kids for the holiday, while hopefully avoiding the crowds we expected once the weekend officially started. So we headed out yesterday to enjoy a day at the park. John had heard good things about Lake Fort Smith park and thought it would be a fun place to try. I didn’t read all the info, so I don’t have all the details clear, but supposedly this park is brand new, rebuilt after they flooded an old park by connecting two existing lakes. It really is beautiful. The facilities were well designed, and the outdoor spaces had wonderful views. And because we went Friday, there was hardly anyone there. It felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

After a quick visit to the visitor center, which I’ll tell you about at the end of the blog, we headed to the picnic area for some lunch. The kids played a little on the playground, and then we headed back up the hill to start a hike. We hiked a total of a mile and a half. It would have been fun to go further, since the trail was beautiful. It is one end of the Ozark Highlands Trail, which is a 160 something mile long trail. Wouldn’t that be fun to hike sometime? I think I’d need to be in much better shape and have kids with longer legs. 😉 We hiked to a “seasonal” waterfall, which was apparently not in season. Along the way, we saw a deer and lots of trees and leaves and rocks. It is fun to take Elise out and have her point out things we learned about in school. It is very reaffirming to realize she is paying attention and retaining some of the information.

Because Seth is getting quite heavy now (he only walked a small portion of the way and was on John’s back the rest of it), and the weather was quite warm, and the kids were running out of water, we decided to turn back at the waterfall. We made it back just in time for the “Wagons Ho” presentation. Since we were the only ones there, we got a personal presentation from the park ranger, who also took us out to check a box turtle nest (unfortunately, no baby turtles were emerging yet) and let the kids hold the turtles in the turtle tank. She held the kids attention with her presentation of the wagon and what it held. Lake Fort Smith has its very own original wagon and several tools that were equally as old. Seth’s favorite part of the presentation was the explanation of how to trap and then eat a bear. Everything after that point was continually interrupted with Seth’s proclamation of “bears live in the woods.” Will seemed to like the long two person saws (felling saw and bucking saw). Elise liked interjecting comments of all her knowledge on the subject being discussed. It was probably good we were the only ones there. The park ranger said she usually didn’t have anyone there to do her presentation to, so she was happy to have us.

The visitor center also has information on springs (of which there are several in the area), log cabins (with squared logs like the Arkansas settlers would have built) and local wildlife and flora. We ended our visit with some ice cream bought in the gift shop and headed back for pizza and a movie at home.

Flowers for Emma.

~ miriamlein ~ 1 Comment

July 14. This date usually looms in my head for at least a week if not more before it hits. But not this year. For some reason, perhaps the hectic activity surrounding our move and the arrival of our goats, the date snuck up on us. My good friend Laura wrote on my facebook wall that she was thinking of me today as I remembered Emma’s birthday and I suddenly realized what day it was. Funny that someone else thought of it before me this year. Is that good or bad? I’m not sure, but regardless I was glad someone brought it to mind, because if for some odd reason I had gone through the whole day without realizing that it was Emma’s birthday I would have been terribly disappointed once I realized it on the next day. Laura wasn’t the only one who remembered, another good friend Melinda texted me her encouragement and many others commented on my facebook post in remembrance of Emma.

With remembrance of course came emotions. Not bad ones, just strong ones. Longing, I guess it could be called. With the kids gathered around me, I shared with them the reminder that today was Emma’s birthday. Will piped up immediately. “Are we going to the grave?” Hmm, yes, I guess we could do that I thought. Funny that without trying too hard we have developed a tradition, one that even Will knows. I’m so happy that they want to go to commemorate Emma’s special days, and that they believe we should all be there. And I’m thankful that John agrees as well. So I sorted out the logistics and we had a plan.

During Elise’s gymnastics class, I took the boys with me grocery shopping. We picked out some bright purple and green flowers that seemed to fit the emotions I was feeling. We took them home and put them in water waiting for the evening when Daddy could go with us to the cemetery. Our visit was quick as we were running a bit later than I had anticipated. And we were on our way to a swim party, so the kids were all dressed in swim suits for our usual picture, but it doesn’t matter. Because now I can remember what we did that day every time I look at the picture, and it seems fitting that in some small way Emma was included in a family celebration.

Moving.

~ miriamlein ~ 4 Comments

And so, we moved. Well, sort of. We aren’t finished yet. Moving a family of our size plus a home business, requires more than one day of work apparently. We still have to go back to get a few things that wouldn’t fit the first time around and finish cleaning the house for the next renters. But we are almost completely moved. We are not almost completely unpacked though. That will take some time.

For those that missed the news, our new house is another rental, but quite a bit different than our old one. It’s an old rock farmhouse, sitting in the middle of farm country just west of Decatur. It’s 25 minutes from Siloam, which will take some getting used to, and it’s not within walking distance of anything, at least not anything that I know of. So that will also take some getting used to. But it’s on a beautiful piece of property, has a huge old barn we can use, has a small shed that we can turn into a goat shed, and has room for gardening and a chicken coop. It even has a clothesline, which I made use of today. In this heat, the clothes dried in less than an hour, though I waited until the temperature started dropping before I headed back out to take them down from the line. They smelled wonderful, and were all so crisp and wrinkle free, you would have thought I’d starched and ironed them. I love clotheslines!

I thought the kids would miss the large circle drive that we had at our last house. They used it a lot to ride their bikes back and forth. But I discovered today that it doesn’t even compare to the long straight drive we have here. Will was having a great time racing back and forth, getting up to speeds he couldn’t easily manage on our much smaller old drive. The cows in the field next to us, which belong to a man who rents the acreage behind us, stopped their grazing to watch the antics of their new neighbors.

So far we’ve spent one night in our new house, and once the kids have been asleep, we’ve all slept fine. the boys went to sleep faster last night, tonight they have been testing their mother’s patience by not falling asleep, even though I put them to bed over an hour ago. I think it is finally getting quiet in there. Elise seems to be doing better than she did last night. Last night she was so emotional over the move that she had worked herself into quite a state. She was sure she was sick, and said she couldn’t breathe well. She finally came right out and said, “I want to go back.” Meaning of course the old house. She’s been struggling with adjusting to this move for the last week, and is just not sure she’s going to like it here. There are plenty of things she does like about living in the country, but she doesn’t like being so far from her friends, especially her next door neighbor who she had gotten quite close to over the last year. I’m hoping she’ll adjust quickly and love this house as much as she did the last one. You can pray for that.

The boys, on the other hand, are adjusting very nicely. Will loves it here, and even in the terrible heat, disappears outside to ride his bike or dig a hole in the dirt. Seth, as John says, is always up for anything. His newest thing right now is pretending he’s superman, and apparently that can be done anywhere. As long as he still gets to see his Nana, Pops, Grandma, Brennan, and multiple aunts and uncles, I think he hardly notices where he lives. He has been a bit more clingy than usual, but to be honest, that’s been nice since there are still so many boxes he could get into when he wanders off.

John and I go back and forth on our feelings about the move. I love it here. It is peaceful and quiet. I like waking up and seeing a field outside my window. I like hanging clothes on the line and watching them swing in the breeze. I like my new kitchen, even though it is a bit old-fashioned, and my newly polished wood floors. But it does feel a bit isolated. I wonder how comfortable I’ll be asking friends over, knowing how long the drive is and how high gas prices are. I wonder if I’ll get lonely during the day when John’s gone and I don’t have a good enough reason to drive into town. I wonder if I’ll get weary of having to add 30 minutes onto both ends of each and every trip to town. I guess I feel a little like Elise right now. Liking my new place, but missing my old at the same time. I’ve told her that this is an experiment. This is where we discover if we like living on a farm as much as we’ve imagined we will.

Great quotes from little boys.

~ miriamlein ~ Leave a comment

My favorite quotes from today:

Seth – “Me superman. Nobody can spank me.”

Will – “Mom, there was somebody at gymnastics today that looked like a bad guy. He had on boots, bad guy clothes and bad guy hair.”

Will – “Seth, you be the Mommy, I’ll be the Daddy.”

The Midnight Adventures of Sneaky Seth

~ miriamlein ~ 6 Comments

Last night after putting the boys to bed and reading to Elise and tucking her in, I decided to make some granola for the morning. I mixed it up, put it in the oven on low, set my timer and headed to the sewing room to get an order done for a customer. I decided to watch some netflix while I sewed, and needed my headphones on to hear the movie above my sewing machine. Some time later, I took out my earphones to iron part of my fabric and realized that the oven had been beeping for who knows how long. I headed to the kitchen to try to save my granola. As I rounded the corner I was met with quite a sight. Seth, smeared all over in green and red, sat in a puddle of something blackish brown on top of my counter. He grinned at me guiltily, not quite sure what my response was going to be to his sneaky endeavor. I wasn’t quite sure either. After the initial “what do you think you are doing!” response, I took a minute to stir the granola and put it back in the oven. Inwardly I debated about the awesome photo opportunity this was, but realized that since Seth loves to see himself in pictures, taking one now would be far too much encouragement for a repeat performance.

Before I could even think about punishment, I decided the first task would be to try to clean Seth and the puddle up. I carried him at arms length to the bathroom where I plopped him down into the bathtub. “Wash my hand?” asked Seth showing me his completely green hand. It was so green it was almost black. “We’re going to wash much more than just your hand,” I replied. I attacked the green patches with soap and warm water and was able to lessen them somewhat, but there was no way that his skin was returning anytime soon to a pink fleshy color. “Wash my hand.” Seth repeated. “Seth, it won’t come off,” I tried to explain. “That’s why we don’t get into the food coloring. It’s stuck on there.” Then in case he was going to panic, I added, “It will come off eventually, but not tonight.”

I pulled him out of the tub and started drying him down and that is when I noticed that the red spots on his leg had not lessened at all. In fact they were brighter than before, and growing. I took a good look at him and realized his eyes were also red and puffy and bloodshot. We went to get Daddy and then back to the kitchen to determine what Seth had actually gotten into. Each bottle on the counter we picked up and shown to Seth, “Did you drink this?” And Seth would answer in his own unique little language. Thankfully he is becoming verbally skilled enough that I could understand most of his answers. I picked up the large bottle of vanilla concentrate. “Did you drink this?” “No, I tried, but it was too hard to open,” answered Seth (my translation). Good. “How about this?” nervous about the answer as I picked up his little bottle of very powerful cough medicine that I KNOW is dangerous and I KNOW he loves. Again this one had been too hard to open. Sigh of relief. After our questioning was over, we had determined that he had most likely only tasted the maple and almond flavorings (by his answer of “taste yucky, dump it out”), but possibly drank a bottle of blue food coloring. “Me sick.” he said. “Medicine?” I think at this point he actually probably felt fine, though his mouth probably tasted pretty bad, but just wanted a sample of the bottles he couldn’t open. Because he was obviously reacting to something though I decided a call to the poison control center was in order.

Have I mentioned that I never called the poison control center until I had Seth? This makes call number 3 in regards to him, and because they take down the child’s name every time you call, I am starting to wonder at what point they start a file on a particular child and if they have me flagged as someone to keep an eye on. Hopefully not. But when I call, I keep waiting for that time when I will get someone on the other end of the line who will be condescending and say by their attitude, “You are such a terrible mom, how in the world could you let your child do something like this. Don’t you pay attention to them?” But it hasn’t happened yet. In fact, I have found them to be caring, concerned people who seem to truly want to help. I’m sure they’ve heard just about everything imaginable, which explains why they never seem surprised.

So last night, I talked to a very nice man at the poison control center. He recommended a little bit of benadryl to see if it would relieve the symptoms. Since Seth was breathing and acting normal, he didn’t think a trip to the ER was necessary unless things got worse. He promised to call back in 15 minutes to check in with us. I dug through my medicine cabinet to pull out the one bottle of benadryl I had on hand from a time Seth reacted badly to a bug bite. It turns out that I had bought this much longer ago than I had imagined. In fact, I am starting to wonder if it was really Will who had reacted to that bug bite, because the bottle had expired last year. I wasn’t sure the dangers of giving your child expired benadryl, so I left the phone and Seth with John and headed out to find more benadryl. The near drug stores had just closed, so I was forced to drive half way across town to Walmart and then stand in line for what seemed like forever to get my precious little bottle of off-brand benadryl. I rushed back out to the car and home, and of course found that the poison control center had already called back. John was able to assure the man that Seth’s symptoms were actually lessening on their own. He said he’d call back at 11, and to give him the benadryl when I got home. The benadryl seemed to work quickly and the large red welts went down until they were flat and startening to lighten. Seth’s eyes were still a little red, but he was also getting tired at this point, so we weren’t sure how much of that was due to just plain old sleepiness.

Things were pretty anti-climactic after that point. I stayed up with Seth cuddled in my lap watching a movie until the phone call at 11. Seth seemed to be doing fine, so we were told we could put him to bed, but I was advised to keep an eye on him for another couple hours to make sure he was sleeping normally. I told John not to wait up for me and I did some more sewing until the wee hours of the morning, checking in on Seth periodically. He fell asleep and slept soundly all night and woke up with only a few traces of last night’s adventure. It took me longer to fall asleep as once I was in bed I started thinking about the cough medicine I’d just put back in that cupboard. What if Seth woke up for a repeat escapade. I finally pulled myself back out of bed, stumbled across a dark house, and started pulling things out of the cupboard. It was only then I realized how much more had been in that cupboard that Seth could have drank. Child’s ibuprofen, adult tylenol, multi vitamins, vix vapor rub. Thankfully most of them had child safety caps, but still . . . I dumped them all in a walmart bag and moved them in with the medicines in my bathroom. I’m not completely convinced he can’t find them there, but at least it’s not likely he could sneak in there in the middle of the night and climb up to the top shelf of the bathroom cabinet without me knowing. Needless to say, both he and I are extra tired today, and for some reason I now have a sore throat and don’t feel so well myself. But that is probably unrelated.

On top of everything else I think Seth might possibly be breaking out with chicken pox. At least that adventure was planned, I just hope it doesn’t turn into a huge ordeal, because I need to get some rest.