Is it Monday yet?

This is actually the second post under the headline but my first post is floating around somewhere in cyberspace. One of these days I'll figure out how to do this. Maybe I should try posting when I don't have 20 million interruptions such as breaking up a fight, diaper change, meal preparation, kitty rescue, phone call or the urgent need for a Mommy lap NOW. This weekend the loving husband is out of town in Indiana working at one of the ethanol plants. It's part of the job responsibilities to go out and help the crew when a new plant is getting started. I just love it when he does the weekend shifts (insert sarcasm). This should be the end of "ethanol season" as I like to call it so he should not have to do long out of town trips for a few more months. Of course this was the weekend that the Matthew didn't have school on Friday so my morning routine was a little off. I needed to go to the bank and one of Carolyn's stuffed animals needed to be sewn up so I decided to run a quick 15 min errand to cash a check and get a needle and thread at the local Lewis Drug. Bank went great, the kids got candy and suckers but Lewis did not have what I needed so it was off to Shop-Ko in Sioux Falls. If you are wondering why I would drive to Shop-Ko with three children in search of a needle and thread it is because Carolyn kept dragging "Puppy" around missing the ear and stuffing was getting all over the place and of course she was asking me every 10 minutes if I could fix the puppy. I could have gone to Wal-Mart which is a few minutes closer but that would be suicide. Later that afternoon Matthew's therapist came over to work with him. Usually she comes on Mondays and Wednesdays but had Monday off due to the holiday. Carolyn got to participate with him and they had fun. I managed to get a very tired Andrew off to nap. That evening I made Pizza for supper and we watched TV. I actually had invitations to a Pampered Chef party and a Jewelry party that night but of course those came after I found out I would be pulling single parent duty. My usual babysitter had finally scored a date with the guy she was totally crushing on so that idea went down in flames. I got Matt and Carolyn in bed and sleeping by 8:30 so I thought I'd kick back and watch TV. The cable cord was loose so I tired to jiggle it back into place--no luck. My next move was to squeeze behind the cabinet and tighten up the loose cable. Oops, cable broke. Thankfully it was not something I needed to get from our cable company or else I'd be totally out of luck until Monday and I was not about to face a weekend alone with the kids and no downstairs TV. I managed to take the cable from our upstairs set and attach it to the big one downstairs. This took quite a bit of time and effort since the TV (flat screen) is sitting on the mantle of our gas fireplace and Jim secured it against the wall with a moving strap so the kids wouldn't knock it off accidentally. I still need to get a replacement cable so we can use the set upstairs. Saturday was a ton of fun. My mother-in-law had planned a pick a pumpkin outing with all of the grand kids. The only weekend that worked for everyone was this one. Yes, we found out about this after the loving husband had agreed to work but he was happy that I had something to do with the kids. The weather was really cooperative as it was sunny and in the 60's. The farm had a huge pumpkin patch for us to pick from and of course to get out there you road in a wagon sitting on hay bales. I decided to enact the "pumpkin rule" similar to what is used when the preschools do their field trips. The rule was: If you can pick it up and carry it by yourself then you can have it. We now have three very cute little pumpkins on our doorstep. Andrew thought his was a ball and kept throwing it at us to catch. The farm also had a hay bale maze for the kids to climb on and there was a goat pen set up so the kids could buy food and feed it to the goats. Matthew and Carolyn went with my nephew Austin and did that while I watched Andrew play on the playground equipment they had. After we got done with the farm we headed over to my mother-in-laws house for apple crisp. I'm not a huge fan of apple crisp but this was really good and the kids gobbled theirs up quite quickly. We also drew names for out Christmas gift exchange. The drive back from Yankton was really quiet. Carolyn lasted the longest at 15 minutes before passing out. Bedtime was a little more difficult since all three had a good hour nap late in the afternoon but I finally got them all down and sleeping by 10. At about 1 am this morning I was awakened by Andrew barking. No, that is not a typo and no ,we do not have a dog named Andrew. For those of you who don't know or have not gone through it yet, there is fun little illness called Croup. Croup is an inflammation of the vocal chords and trachea which produces a very distinct barking cough. The best way to calm the cough is to expose the child to cool moist air. I took Andrew and we went outside for a few minutes until he stopped coughing. Because I had no partner I went back inside and put Andrew down and changed into warmer clothes. We went back outside for about 20 minutes. It was a beautiful fall night/early morning with a bright moon illuminating the clouds floating across the sky. I really did not want to spend the rest of my night sleeping outside or waking up every few minutes to check on a sick child so I decided to let Andrew sleep in the bed with me. I now know why I don't co-sleep with the kids: can we say kick, kick, kick. Croup automatically means a doctor visit and Croup on a Sunday means Urgent Care. Did I mention my husband was three states away? I loaded two very energetic kids and one crabby baby and off we went. Luckily it was not very busy so we were in and out in about 40 minutes. The poor kid had a sore throat but the strep test came back negative so we just got a prescription for a steroid. I did learn form the very nice doctor that outdoor air is the best for croup followed by cool mist humidifier. He said warm steam actually makes things worse so I guess all the parenting books that tell you to run a hot shower and sit with baby for 15 minutes by the tub are wrong. I'm hoping Andrew sleeps through the night tonight but I'm not counting on it. I got out our humidifier but it took a lot of convincing to get Matthew to let me keep it on in the room. He's scared of it so I told him it was for Andrew's bad cough. Tomorrow I have to take Matthew and Carolyn to school for therapy so I'm hoping Andrew is feeling better. I will be so happy when Jim gets back tomorrow afternoon. Actually I just want a good night's sleep...and some chocolate, lots of chocolate