minor details

i figure there's one or two of you out there who noticed i didn't post yesterday so i'll try to make up for it right now since i'm just laying here on the couch feeling rather crummy.  on sunday i thought-- i'm getting sick.  but by morning it hadn't "peaked." i was feeling better, able to get henry to school.  he had a dentist appointment yesterday at 1 p.m. and i'd thought, 'if i'm feeling sick and it's raining, that's my worst-case scenario."  of course, by the time 12:30 rolled around and i had to get on my bike to go pick him up, it was raining and i was feeling sick again (achy, waiting for a flu to overtake me).  but, of course, getting out there and actually moving (well, sitting on my bike, moving the pedals) is usually not as bad as it seems like it's going to be.  i can dress up pretty warm and stay reasonably dry (even though my rain coat's waterproof lining, after 3+ years, is coming apart so that my arms do not stay dry anymore, which reminds me that i have to look into REI's return policy... can i return a coat after 3 1/2 years with that special lifetime membership card we purchased before moving here??).  i remember when i was going through chemo and one or both of the boys had a doctor's appointment.  my mom was in town and she and greg were going to take the boys.  at the last minute i decided i needed to move around and so i went with.  "i can rest on my bike," is the memory i have.  but yesterday i also tried to push myself a little bit on the hills (and of course, henry, the fair-weather cyclist, was in the burley, so that's a little exercise there too).  i figure those exercise-released chemicals can't hurt when you're feeling under the weather.

i got to his school.  he was outside, so he was already all decked-out in his rain gear.  we got to the dentist early.  he brushed his teeth.  we went in and did the whole thing in danish.  if you pay attention to the little details from these posts, you might remember that he's got two cavities-- one in each of his top front teeth.  i chalk this up to his sleep apnea, and sleeping with his mouth open for most nights of his life, and the fact that henry is strong-willed to the the uppermost degrees and so in those very early days when his teeth were coming in (super close together), we didn't brush them religiously twice a day (but i ask you-- what parents do?  okay, i'm sure there are some of you out there, and i commend you, and if i ever had a third child, which i won't, i'd do the same, because, lesson learned, but i know there are some blessed children out there with zero cavities and lackadaisical brushing habits).  he doesn't have cavities anywhere else, so i'm not entirely sure we can blame sugar (which he doesn't get a whole lot of) or even those early teeth brushing habits.  

okay, so where was i?  we went to the dentist.  she looked at his cavities and said they're looking fine right now (as in, not getting worse).  you might remember that they don't fill cavities in baby teeth over here.  so we'll be back to have another look in 6 months unless henry starts complaining of pain.
it was a quick check-up and we had about 50 minutes to kill before we could get william.  so i walked the bike and burley over to the old (now renamed, but basically identical on the inside) grocery store (this dentist being in our old neighborhood) and bike shop.  we inquired in the bike shop if there was a good permanently mountable light (does that make sense) for the burley.  they didn't have one, so we'll just go with one we already have, and picked up some bicycle-shaped pasta noodles at the grocery store and negotiated over birthday presents for an upcoming birthday party he's been invited to.  after that, we went to pick up his brother.  he showed us some tricks on... what i just realized is... the school's playground... i just figured the school didn't really have a playground, and william's never really spent much time at this part of the school yard, except insofar as the pioneer workshop is nearby, so i hadn't given the area much thought until yesterday.  i'll put a couple photos down below.

we were finally home sometime around three and by that point i was completely flu-like achy again-- as in, the feeling you have when you know you're going to have a full-blown sickness.  i tried calling greg to give him the heads up since we weren't signed up to do the common meal tonight, but no answer.  i laid on the couch and the boys and i played around with the iMovie program on the computer, making a pretty hilarious movie of henry singing gangman style in slow-motion.  then i called greg again and got a hold of him.  he said he'd come home, but he had to finish up at work and he was running home, so at some point i rallied and also recruited william to peel and cut the carrots, and got some chicken bicycle-noodle soup made.  greg got home and cleaned things up before and after dinner and i got myself ready for bed with the boys and read to william then went to sleep myself.  but it wasn't the most restful sleep.  plenty of waking up and feeling crummy and also henry, who was in our bed for half the night, seemed to have a real need to sleep sideways, so there were feet in my ribs that were not helping the matter.

i was achy this morning, felt like i had a bad head cold but with none of the usual symptoms.  greg was feeling nearly the same way for parts of the weekend, so it's surely a little virus of some sort.  i wish it would just do its thing so i could know that it's something and then get better.  for me, probably for anyone who's had cancer, i like the well-defined familiar sicknesses.  the in-between, the living on the borderland of "i think i'm getting sick" is just not a fun place to be.  "something's not right but i don't know what it is"-- sheesh, give me food poisoning before you give me that.  i take comfort knowing that greg was feeling, if not as bad as me, at least a little crummy a couple days ago-- sounds kind of heartless!  my apologies, greg.

okay, let's see what pictures i got from the playground yesterday-- turns out.. not many...

william's really into the monkey bars these days...

the only other picture.  doesn't show much.  basically it's like an obstacle course going around in a circle, with a couple things in the middle... made entirely of wood, a few tires, and a metal tube.  you can see the pioneer workshop there in the background.  the triangular roofed structure houses the fire pit...

to good health!