to the dr. with Charlotte Claire...

I never know when to take them to the dr. I once neglected to take Benjamin for a finger injured in basketball, and the dr. was not very pleased that I waited so long, and I felt like an idiot. Or rather an uncaring mother. In truth, when Ben was 16, he had eleven younger brothers and sisters, and a hurt finger seemed like, well - a hurt finger. Apparently if it had been splinted immediately, it would have healed properly, now he has permanent trigger finger. Oops. So shortly after that, one of the little girls jumped off her dresser and was limping so I took her in right away, and she walked fine for the dr. He was a different dr, and he thought I was an idiot too. Good thing I don't care what people think of me. In theory anyway, if I am honest, I find that I do I do I do care.



Anyway, Charlotte Claire has had a cough for a while, and a runny nose on and off. Today she is complaining that her ear hurts. Her temperature is 99.4, which is not really high, but I decided to call and make her an appointment. She is so little. So that has determined what I am doing today.



Apparently my friend Gwen isn't up for company today. I will have to try again another day.



Our furnace is fixed! Just in time, too, it is going up into the high fifties today. It was nice last night, though, it was 28 in the early morning hours. I still need to get some new slippers. My slippers seem to disapear during the summertime.



Well, Miss Charlotte Claire just scared the heck out of me....she said again that her ear hurts really bad. I asked her if there is anything in there (we had to take Mirielle to the emergency room once when she stuffed a peanut butter cup wrapper in her ear. She said she didn't know where else to put it. (ha ha Mirielle, I got you back for that video))anyway, Charlotte Claire, said, "Yes, there is a nail in there." "What? In your ear? There is a nail?" "Yes, Mommy, I put my nail in there and it hurt"....and then I realized she meant fingernail. Okay. 'Cause for a minute there I thought we were heading out the door lickety-split. And my long tangly hair IS clean today, I just washed it. But it is not brushed out yet. I have written about this before, but one time I seriously made Samuel wait to go to the E.R. because my hair was dirty. In my defense, Paul WAS due to come in the door at any minute from work, how was I supposed to know he was going to be so late? That was before cell phones. Back when you didn't know exactly what road a person was on at any given moment. Back when if you called Daddy at work, and he didn't pick up his phone, you thought he had probably left for home, but he might just be away from his desk. If I had known he was going to be so late getting home, I would have just swallowed my pride and taken Sam myself. Poor kid, just remembering him sitting there holding a wash cloth over his eye....his sister (hmm, was it Mirielle?) (or Mali?) pitched a baseball to him, pretty hard, right into his eyebrow. Eyebrows DO bleed alot. In my defense.



So I don't always know when they need to go to the dr. These days they don't dispense antibiotics withoutthroat cultures, which is a pain for me because we have to pay for the culture, and wait for the culture, and then take another trip out for the medicine. Overuse of antibiotics....is that like global warming?



Margaret is also sick. She has a cold, and is coughing. Kathryn is home...I do not think she is sick. I think she was in the bathroom when the bus came, and was too scared to run out and get on after she realized the bus was waiting for her. She stood still and wouldn't move, even when I yelled at her to just run out! She said, "But I don't FEEL good!" I actually tried to push her toward the door, and she must have dug her heels right into the tiles. I have been trying to talk to her about it today. She is so self-conscious, and to walk in late to school to her is unthinkable.

Well, I wrote this post this morning, and our internet didn't work, so I am taking a little pre-dinner-rush-break, and the internet is working again. Margaret said today, "Our water and our internet never work." I guess that goes with living out in the country.

I am so glad that I brought Charlotte Claire in to the doctor today. She has a bad ear infection. She had a slight fever, red throat, but her lungs were clear, which means the cough is more of a bronchial thing. There is a little privately owned pharmacy next to the dr office, in the same building. They fill prescriptions there in under five minutes, plus they sell all kinds of candy and treats for very reasonable prices. I let Charlotte Claire get a bottle of orange juice, and some chewy Sprees. She was a happy camper. And I felt sorry for her. She felt lousy, but was happy to go and be just with Mommy and Abigail. She was just totally sweet and cute. We took her into Wegmans, one of my favorite places, because we were out of milk and bread. I was thinking of taking her home first, but she really wanted to go there. She rode in the cart, chattering away. She had to go "kee-pee", and Abigail took her for me. She said next time we have to bring Gamille. She had one dose of amoxocillin, and two ear drops in her ear, and she is literally jumping from the red chair to the red couch, which is NOT allowed. The weather has warmed up considerably, so most of the kids are outside. Camille has her froggy boots on, and Kathryn is taking her outside.

The cashier in the grocery store was making converstation about how much stuff I was buying. She asked me if I was going to do some baking. Huh? Oh, no, I am just buying all that stuff because it is on sale. 99 cents for two pounds of brown sugar, or confectioners' sugar. And cake mix for 88 cents, which is great to have on hand. And marshmallows because Jon's snack day is coming up and we have Rice Krispies. So, just to let her know that I am not going to go home and eat it all by myself, I told her how many kids I have. I told her that we just plain go through alot of stuff, and I stock up when the prices are good. She totally couldn't believe that I was serious.

My afternoon break is over....