New Year

Wow, a new year!! I still can't believe that the first decade of the new century is almost over with. Unfortunately, the illness that started Christmas didn't go away. Carolyn actually got sicker as the weekend progressed and we were worried that there was something really wrong with her. I took her in that Monday and she tested negative for influenza and appeared to be getting slightly better. We were supposed to go to Chamberlain, SD on Tuesday to meet with my parents. I called Mom and warned her that there was a definite possibility that only myself and the two boys would be coming out due to Carolyn being so sick. Shortly before I was supposed to take off Jim and I decided that Carolyn was well enough to do the trip if we doped her up with Motrin and kept things simple. She did really well. The kids had a blast swimming in the hotel pool and eating supper at Al's Oasis with Grandma and Grandpa. Since there is not a lot to do we spent the evening in our room watching TV and visiting. I do have to laugh because our hotel was across the street from the "Sugar Shack" and Matthew wanted to know what the sign said and of course after learning the name he wanted to visit it. Try telling a 5 year old that a place with a name that sounds like a candy store is only for adults. Actually it wasn't as degenerate a place as I first thought. It was a store that sold adult "toys" and other products and not a topless bar or movie place. We got back on New Year's Eve Day and decided to eat the lasagna that we were supposed to eat the week before. The kids were pretty tired and slept the way home so bedtime was a little more challenging. Andrew passed out minutes before the ball dropped so I wandered back to the computer room and gave hubby the first kiss of the year. I had thought about getting a babysitter and doing something later in the week but by Saturday Andrew and Matthew both were running fevers and not feeling too well. I had taken Andrew in the day before because I thought he had another ear infection but he did not. The strep test cam back negative but when I went to Urgent Care the next day they told me that the strep they were seeing was the kind where the quick test comes back negative so they gave me the antibiotics. Matthew had the ear infection. I also managed to break the passenger side mirror that morning. I was trying to back out of the garage without hitting hubby's car parked in the driveway. He had pulled a little too far forward and to the right so I had to back out at a light angle from the garage to avoid the collision with the car. Unfortunately, I was a little too far over to the right and the mirror smacked the edge of the garage door and broke the plastic on the mirror---oops. Hubby wasn't too happy with me. Monday morning I sent Matthew off to school only to have the school nurse call me at 8:30 because Matt's eye was red and icky looking. I told the nurse that he had been on antibiotics for two days but she still wanted me to call the doctor and have their office speak to her. I made the call to the doctor's office but on a Monday morning it is hard to get a return call within a reasonable amount of time so after about a half hour of waiting I called the school back and the nurse agreed to let Matthew go back to class since it was probably his ear infection that was causing the eye problem. I did get my call back from the nurse at the doctor's office and she agreed that it probably was the ear infection but it could be a viral eye infection too so she called in some drops and I decided to make the school happy and took Matthew home. Unfortunately we did not get to do swimming lessons that night. Hubby went up to Brookings for his class and I stayed home with the kids. I was actually glad I took Matt out of school as he still wasn't feeling very good and spent quite a bit of time sleeping. He finally felt better yesterday as did Andrew. I'm hoping that everything has run it's course and we will be back to full strength. I plan on doing swimming lessons this afternoon. I also got a call from Matthew's speech teacher today. She was concerned with his hearing. He was having problems repeating sentences the day before. I called the South Dakota School for the Deaf and surprisingly got an appointment this afternoon for a hearing test. Today will be busy. I also found out last night that our next belt test for Tae Kwan Do will be at the end of this month. I've had to miss a few classes due to the kids being sick so I need a little extra catch up practice time. I did manage to break my boards though. Just before Christmas I got the hand break to work. One of the black belts gave me some great pointers on how to best hold the board and how to move my hands and body so that I was able to hit the board effectively. Actually, once I figured out how to do it, the break was not that hard. Last night I finally got the two boards to break when I kicked it. That one was a matter of speed and having my kick land at just the right place on the board. I had been trying to push my foot through the boards when I was kicking and that was not working. It took one good quick snap kick and those boards went crack and that was all she wrote. I should mention that my two board holders were making sure that the boards were nice and tight and that if I were to crack them with my kick then they would break apart. No, they didn't deliberately bend them to the point of breaking but it does help when the holder or holders know what they are doing. One final update on the Christmas letters...I have them written and some are printed off. The bad letter is still in need of work so I'm sending the good letters out. I hoping that by this weekend all letters will be out.