So, anybody interested in what happened during last week's adventures in solo parenting? As you might recall, Clark danced out of the house amidst the chaos incurred by a puking, double ear-infected Linden. Let me just offer the highlights of what followed:
1. Tuesday morning: Linden says he feels good, and misses his friends. He wants to go to school. He is also (on a different side note) very excited about helping me collect the garbage and get it out to the curb before we head to the school bus. In his excitement to get to the next garbage can (I kid you not) he trips on the (highly carpeted, soft) stairs as he bounds (prances? jumps? twirls?) up them, and smashes his face into them. Blood EVERYWHERE. Turns out he freaking put his tooth through his lip on the inside, leaving a gaping wound.
Peeking out behind a cool split tree
2. Wednesday. Both kids get on the bus in the morning. I feel like a hero of epic proportions. I also feel a little bit odd. Like, woozy? No matter. It's a beautiful day. I go on a walk. I come home, and... collapse into bed. Chills, sweats, extreme dizziness, a fever, and headache/sinus pressure enough to feel like my head may just explode. I am most definitely sick, almost certainly with a sinus infection. That night, I manage to feed the kids something, and get Linden into bed, but poor Juniper has to put herself to bed, as I can manage no more. I proceed to spend the night alternately sweating through my sheets and piling on fleeces, all while having zombie-related dreams (as a result, no doubt, of being currently in the midst of The Girl With All the Gifts).
Hiking destination: big rock plateau
3. Thursday. Again, both kids are off to school in the morning. I gratefully go back to bed, hoping to sleep this thing off. A few hours later, I get a call from Linden's school, saying he seems "off". His cheeks are very, very red, and he was resting his head on the teacher during story time, and nodding off. I go pick him up. He seems fine, albeit clearly tired. He falls asleep in the afternoon, which is strange.
This picture actually matches the narrative. When everything goes quiet, Linden is either into something unspeakably horrible.... or asleep
4. Friday. Clark has changed his flight, bless him, so that he will be coming home this evening instead of Saturday evening. I just have to make it through the day. Both kids are off to school. A couple of hours later, I get a call, from Juniper's school this time, that she has very very red cheeks and something wrong in the corner of her eye. I go pick her up, and bring her home. She seems mostly fine, but tired. We make it through the day courtesy of videos and chapter books (which Juniper is blessedly happy to read to herself). Linden comes home at the end of the school day. I cancel all music lessons, and we just wait for Clark to get home. He does, eventually, and balance is restored. I still feel like one steaming pile of crap, but my responsibilities melt away in a swift and beautiful flow from my very heavy shoulders.
Communicating via stick walkie talkies. Big binoculars and walking stick also highlighted
Now - anybody want to hazard a guess as to the mysterious super red cheeks and fatigue? With Linden, I initially assumed it was some combination of the ear infections, the sudden and brilliant onset of sun (thus, sunburned cheeks?), and perhaps he was waking up too early in the morning. Juniper was more puzzling, but she exhibited signs of allergies last spring when we moved here (Ottawa is a valley after all, and therefore especially bad for allergies). That was the first time anyone in our household had ever exhibited seasonal allergies of any sort, so.... maybe?
It turns out (after a visit to the clinic yesterday), that Juniper (and therefore Linden, I feel safe assuming), was displaying classic signs of "Fifth's Disease". It sounds worse than it is - basically, it is a virus, much more common in kids than adults, and it's only potentially truly harmful to pregnant women, due to the possibility of leaving a fetus anemic, if I remember correctly. It typically results in - you guessed it, very red cheeks and fatigue. In fact, it's often called "slapped face" disease, if you can imagine. By the time they get to that point, however, it is no longer contagious - they just have to wait it out. So, as it turns out - we had a week filled with ear infections, fifth's disease, and a sinus infection to beat all sinus infections. I think it might have taken a good year off my life.
And so. There you have it. There are, as you can see, very few pictures. I was not taking pictures throughout the week, and was very uninvolved in the weekend activities. It seems a real shame, as the weather was so very lovely. But we'll get more lovely weather, when everyone is feeling tip-top. I'll leave you with a video presented by Linden, who recently found some very cool rocks by the train tracks, and has since become an expert geologist. Enjoy!
I hesitated when I went to write this post -- in part, I suppose, because I'm tired and cranky. But mostly because I feel like it is the same post every couple of weeks. Linden spends the weekend suffering from what turns out to be another double ear infection? Check! Clark has a work trip and leaves me to solo parent for a week? Check! A rather grim and uninspired cycle, if I do say so myself. I'm sure you all love hearing about it at this point as much as I love writing about it.
There are, of course, always variations. This time around, for instance, Linden was prescribed a new type of antibiotic, with the thought that the amoxycillin he usually gets has just never fully been doing the job (thus the reoccurring infections). As it turns out, this new type of antibiotic not only tasted terrible, but also made him vomit repeatedly. (My least favourite scenario). So another trip to the clinic later, he's on a new new antibiotic. Fingers crossed.
Juniper enjoys tending for the sick - especially when it is her little brother, and she gets to benefit from the sick videos.
On the brighter side, this weekend was a truly spectacular show of sunny, warm weather. As in, it actually whispered sweet promises that spring might be here to stay. And Clark got all the screens back on the windows before he left, meaning the house is now full of fresh air.
Also (and most importantly), though Linden wasn't able to take full advantage, Grandma and Grandpa (Clark's dad and step mom, Bill and Barb), came for a short but sweet visit. This is all by way of saying that despite Linden's sorry state (this afternoon, for instance, he fell asleep in the shower), I still got some pictures. Enjoy! (while I go quietly weep in the corner. Just kidding. Heh heh.)
While Juniper and her grandparents went to the Agriculture museum for the day, Linden and I were laying low. He rallied after some Advil, however, and requested an expedition to "find bugs".
Even when you're sick, it's nice to snuggle with grandpa
Another valiant attempt to rally, in the name of warm sun and lots of mud work to be done
Group photo before Bill and Barb began their return trip
The result of dirt play and a continually runny nose.
"I'm a mountain goat! No, wait! A mountain person!"
There are many things you could say about living deep, deep in the suburbs, and I'm sure I've said most of them. This move was a pretty big transition for us, and being so far away from city (or town) centre was likely one of the biggest changes we've had to deal with. The winding mazes of townhouse upon townhouse upon townhouse are dizzying and daunting, and the constant development a bit demoralizing to see on a daily basis. I do not regret our decision to move here - it is such a short commute for Clark, and has every amenity you could imagine for a young family. But it has taken some getting used to, to be sure.
The Winter/Spring battle for supremacy: gushing waterfalls over solid mounds of ice
The one thing that this particular suburbia has going for it, however, is (as I've said before), the large amount of green space that is so ample and convenient. Tucked in and around the seemingly endless neighbourhoods is a pretty impressive expanse and network of forest trails. This is truly something that we do not take for granted.
Some hearty fungus emerging from the cold and snow
I go on long daily walks any chance I get (though I haven't been trail running since breaking my foot, let me assure you), and we do some family exploration pretty much every week. This is made even more exciting due to a fabulous program that the Museum of Nature offers, called the "Nature Exchange"
What's better than splashing through puddles? Splashing through ice-covered puddles, of course!
Basically, kids can find interesting nature items, collect samples of them, and then bring the samples in to the Museum of Nature on the weekend. They then take these items to a designated spot, and trade them in for points. You can get bonus points for filling out information sheets in advance, with details such as what the object is, and where and when it was found. THEN, you can choose to swap your points for other items. These include cool rock and gem samples, fossils, mounted insects, huge pinecones, and other such things. The cooler or rarer the item, the more points it takes to obtain it. It is AMAZING, and puts a whole new focus and spin on observing your surroundings when out on a nature adventure.
Collecting some fungus....
... and an egg shell! There was much speculation about this shell, but the prevailing hypothesis was that it was likely a duck egg, and had been broken into rather than hatched.
So far, Juniper has been unable to resist immediate exchange - those points were burning a hole in her proverbial pocket. As a result, she now has a pretty neat chunk of amethyst rock, and some small samples of halite (salt), and scheelite. Linden has a big chunk of chert from the first exchange, but saved his points this past weekend, so maybe be able to save enough for a fern fossil he had his eyes on. I'll keep you updated!
Frozen leaves and patterns in the ever-shifting puddles on my walks. Some days, they are pure mud puddles, some days, pure ice, and many others they are somewhere in between. Ahhhh.... early spring.
Brrrr. Today is a chilly, chilly April day. Sunny, with only a few scattered mounds of snow, like you might expect on a glorious spring day, but with full-on winter temperatures. This has been a flip-floppy winter, and is promising to be a flip-floppy spring. Almost like an extended April Fool's joke. Nonetheless, we have been trying to take advantage as much as possible, donning full-on rain gear or snow gear as a given day demands.
It is hard to tell, but this tree was full of almost as many birds (female cardinals?) as there were berries. It was alive!
As such, I had no idea what to expect when I wound up volunteering for a grand full-day outing with Juniper's 1st grade class last week - on April Fool's day, no less. We were to go to a sugar cabin nestled within Ottawa proper, and were among seemingly endless other school groups from across the city. It was, as Juniper's teacher suggested part way through, "organized chaos".
Why volunteer for such an outing, you ask? Well, for all the altruistic reasons, certainly: donating my time while I have it (I'm still twiddling my thumbs while waiting for revisions on my thesis to come back), getting to know Juniper's classmates better, making the outing special for Juniper, etc. etc etc. But also, I have to admit, I volunteered thinking that chances were low that I'd actually get chosen - this particular outing was limited to only 3 volunteers, to be chosen at random. I just happened to end up being one of the lucky ones :)
I actually didn't get all that many pictures - everything was too crowded, too chaotic, and too busy most of the time. I did get a few, however:
Owl in flight at the Birds of Prey demonstration
The finalé at the demonstration: a HUGE turkey vulture. Did you know that they defend themselves by VOMITING? They can projectile vomit truly great distances. Luckily, we didn't get THAT particular demonstration.
Some of the many tapped maples en route to the sugar cabin
Juniper's class, waiting (mostly) patiently in line for their maple taffy and sugar cabin tour
Perhaps one of the sweetest treats on a stick in the world!
As these few pictures demonstrate, the day was, at least, sunny. There was a very good chance that it could have poured rain, which would have made everything decidedly miserable. A bit chilly is absolutely fine by comparison! And besides the headache and exhaustion that followed me home that afternoon, I was in the end very glad that I went.
And truly, that is really all I have to report from this first week in April. Except for this little video from Easter that I had meant to get to last week. It may be late, but it has fancy dance moves, a sparkly dress, a strange accent of some sort, and even some outtakes - what more could you ask for?
