Need a smile??

Your cheeks will get their workout after you visit Joan's blog post> I can't stop looking at it--

Handyman thinks he wants one, or two. Their poop doesn't require muck tubs or wagons. Hmmmmmmmmm....

This has never happened to me before...

All my children are taking naps and so is my husband. There is a sinister reason for this...THEY ALL HAVE STREP THROAT! Well, except for Handyman, who is sleeping with Lysol in a holster on his side. He has three night shoots coming up.

My children have never had strep throat and they've never all been sick with something all at the same time. As a matter of fact, my children are hardly ever sick. In fact, #3 has never had a sick office call to the doctor, in her entire life.

I guess this is part of what you get when you send your child to public school.
:*(

#1 came home on Thursday, feeling rotten and tired. I let her stay home on Friday, even though she had a social studies test, and she continued to have on-and-off fever throughout the day. Meanwhile #3 had two playdates on Friday, both of them here. #2 went and spent the day at a friend's house, hitching a ride with Playdate #2's mom, in her van--with her 3 other kids.

Then last night, as #3 was getting ready to leave and spend the night with my parents, who had the flu last week, #2 was being dropped off by the family she'd been visiting ALL DAY. That mom is a nurse, and suggested that #1 might go for a strep test today.

Did I mention that #1 was supposed to be at the living history museum today for returning interpreter day? She went to Minute Clinic instead. But before we could get that accomplished, #2 came upstairs with a fever at 7am. (She's the one who rode in the van with 3 other children and then spent the day with 4 other children.) She missed the playdate scheduled for today. (We homeschoolers have trouble with socialization.)

So #1 is positive and #2 should go get tested tomorrow. Oh, and my parents thought #3 was cranky this morning because "she didn't go to bed until 10 last night." I'm thinking--#3 has been up until 10 MANY times before. Mom and Dad put her down for a nap. #3 hasn't had a nap for, oh, 3.5 years! (That's what happens when your sisters are home with you all day.)

Then at 2 pm, Mom and Dad call to say that #3 has a fever of 102. (No wonder she's cranky.)

To be fair, #1 could easily have gotten this at Awana. She leads a table of snotty little Kindergarteners. It's possible. In the meantime, I've got to go fumigate the bathroom and all the phones and doorknobs and car door handles. No rest for the wicked, I mean, well.

Well, after perusing my picture files for something springy--as I am SICK AND TIRED of looking at that snow picture--I see that I do not take nearly enough pictures of spring or summer around here and far too few of the dogs. I have been enjoying reading corgi posts on another great blog, and now believe that I have shorted my pooches of their rightful place in blogdom. I spend far too much type on horses, when I spend far more time with dogs. They never waver in their positive spirit and never fail to lift me with their smiling faces and joie d'vivre (or however that's spelled.)

These two dogs are my faithful companions. Never complaining about what they're getting fed or leaving wet towels on the bathroom or wood floors. They don't create laundry. They don't eat candy in their beds or leave socks in every room in the house. They don't make popcorn and leave the oil opened on the counter. They don't spill milk and they don't moan when it is time to get out of bed. Quite possibly the perfect household companion.


If only I could teach them to unload the dishwasher.