Our weekend

Alasdair & I knew we'd lined up an intense fall for ourselves with 10 out of 11 straight weekends of travel by one or both of us from Sep through mid-November.  We did our best to compensate for Alasdair's work weekends by having him take extra days off, although of course there have been some extra factors that have eaten in to that margin (a flooded basement, extra work responsibilities for Alasdair, and first trimester tiredness for me -- oh hey, I guess that's an announcement:).

Anyways, this is weekend 6 out of 10 and the longest (by about a half day:) stretch that Alasdair will be gone.  He's at the CCEF National Conference in Texas, which has been very full but very good.  Here he is moderating a panel discussion during one of the main sessions.

Poor Emily is down for the count with the flu (thanks to the flu vaccine she got this week - sigh) and it's hard to see her so sick.  I'm thinking we're through the worst of it, but after three nights of croup and then 48 hours of high-moderate fever, body aches, intense fatigue (ie she literally hasn't gotten out of bed/off the couch in two full days) and lack of appetite (a few bites of food a day, plus some gatorade and water), I think it will take some time to recover.  Thus far the rest of us seem to have avoided it (fingers crossed!).   Thankfully, even though we can't be out much, I have had some help while A is away - some friends taking Adara on Thursday (before I knew she'd been exposed to the flu!), my mom here on Friday morning and the Eikoffs (who we'd already exposed) coming to play in the leaves today while Emily napped ...

(more cute pics from this series on our picasa page)

and then having us over to celebrate little Emily's 2nd birthday.  It was a sad little party.... Emily weak on the couch, little Emily with a cold (we hope!) and not wanting to eat.... but the grownups enjoyed the yummy snacks and Alex & Adara had a great time playing with balloons.  :)



Two funny little Emily moments.
1- After a couple days of not talking unless necessary... while in the car today Emily whispered barely audibly: "Mom, have you ever been baptized?"
Me: Yes.
Emily: Oh.  I never have.
Me:  Actually, you were when you were a baby.
Emily:  When you're baptized, you keep your clothes on when you go in the water.  I learned that in Sunday school.
Me: What else did you learn about baptism?  What does it mean?
Emily:  I don't know anything else about baptism.

2- I'd told her before we went in that her friends' dad would be at the birthday party, and was wearing his "doctor clothes" (scrubs), and that he might have some ideas about how to help her feel better.  She was laying on the couch when he walked into the room, and she immediately started telling him in her weak voice, "I threw up two times last day..."  He kindly crouched next to her and talked to her a little about how she felt.

I tried to put Adara (who has been her normal non-stop all weekend) to bed to early tonight and she wasn't ready to sleep.  She came out right away, took herself potty and brought me her pants & diaper to put back on.  Maybe 10 minutes later I heard some noises from where I was working in my office and peeked out to see her quietly reading books on the couch in the almost-darkness.  I decided to pretend I hadn't seen her and let it go.  After about half an hour, I went out, took this picture, and put her to bed.