Time for Each Child

Today has been one of the longest days (literally) that I have had in a long time. The nice part was that I had time with each of my daughters one-on-one. First up was Ava. Today was Career Day at her school, and the Kindergarteners were invited to dress up as what they want to be when they grow up. After some discussion, Ava finally decided to dress up as a dancer. (At first she just wanted to be famous, and I had to explain that you have to be famous for DOING something worthy of noticing - sorry but no Kardashians in this house.) Who knows what the chances are that she will really be a dancer when she grows up, or that she'll want to be that, but this is where she is at right now in her life, and I was glad to help her show her friends what she is currently aspiring to be.

my future ballet teacher

At lunchtime it was Jocelyn's turn for some attention. I think she must have seen something on TV this morning about making mini bagel pizzas, because all morning she was asking to make some for lunch. I didn't have any mini bagels, but we made tortilla pizzas. She did about 70% of the prep (I helped even things out as we went along). The pizzas tasted great, and Jocelyn was very proud of herself for getting to prepare her lunch on her own. I may have a little chef on my hands :)

spreading the sauce

enjoying her hard work

It became clear that one way or another Molly was going to make sure she was not forgotten today. She has been fighting a pesky fever all week long. It always breaks, but every morning when she wakes up and every afternoon when she gets up from her nap she has a fever of at least 102. This afternoon when she got up from her nap it was up to 104.5, so I said enough is enough and took her to the pediatrician. Unfortunately, it was late enough in the day that they sent us to the pediatrics ER to have some labwork and chest x-ray done. I stopped by the house just long enough to pick up my tablet and a coloring book for entertainment and some pj's for miss Molly, since it was promising to be a long night.

And boy was it!! We arrived at the ER around 6:30pm. Within an hour or so we had spoken with the nurse practitioner, gotten chest x-ray, peed in a cup, and had a port put in and labs drawn. By 9pm the NP returned to inform me that they were going to admit Molly for the night. Her white blood cell count was REALLY high, and so they wanted to make sure they ruled out a few more serious illnesses before just chalking this all up to a tough virus. It was midnight by the time we were transported upstairs, and almost 2am before all of the techs, nurses, and doctors had come in to do what they needed to do. Molly was PHENOMENAL. She dealt with the pokes, prods, and constant sleep interruptions with very little complaint. 

The funniest part of the whole experience: about every minute of so Molly would pathetically say to me, "Mommy, I not feel good." I would always respond with "I know, I'm sorry honey" or "I'm so sorry sweet pea." But a few times I said, "I know, pumpkin." To which she would look up at me annoyed and reply, "Mommy, I not a pumpkin! I Molly!!" I don't know why that particular pet name irritated her so, and I never said it on purpose, but every time I called her Pumpkin I was read the riot act. It was a healthy dose of laughter in an otherwise draining situation. I love all three of my pumpkins, even if I'm no longer allowed to call them that to their faces.

sad sack at the pediatrician

port in, overtired, and still smiling