Weathering the Storm

During these last few blog-entry-less weeks, a nasty phlegmy virus ran through the household. It started with Jack. Little man Jack had an icky runny nose, which turned into a cough, which turned into a fever, which turned into pneumonia... It was a nightmare. Seeing him sit on the couch, as tiny as he is, looking like he'd been hit by a truck was so tragic. Ron and I stayed up late one night to watch a spooky movie ("White Noise" with Michael Keaton), and continued the fright fest by discovering that Jack's fever had skyrocketed to 103.4. Since the other three kids were asleep, Ron wrapped Jack in a blanket and whisked him off to the emergency room. That's where he was diagnosed with pneumonia. After a few shots of antibiotics, he developed a horrible case of hives, then everything cleared up. When I say everything cleared up, I mean everything cleared up. He was his old self again in about 48 hours and we were all relieved. In the meantime, Heidi stuck it out an entire week before coming down with it on the weekend. When I picked her up at school, she was leaning up against the building looking pale and exhausted. She was asleep in the car before we got home (we live about eight houses away from the school and it takes less than two minutes to drive home), and she stumbled inside just to fall back asleep on the couch with her backpack still on. By Monday she was ready to go back to school. She's the only kid I know who will pretend to be well so that she won't miss school. It hit Clyde pretty hard though. His strain of the virus included vomiting, and had him knocked out for two weeks. He had an overnight recovery too, going from a high fever and total malaise to running around like nothing had ever been wrong. I lost my voice for about five days, which Ron thought was wonderful, and have been coughing ever since. The chest/head cold part of it is gone, but this stupid cough still lingers. Eric had the high fever and cold symptoms too, but not as long as Jack & Clyde. He's much better now. Ron's the only one who didn't get sick. Oh, did I forget to mention that we all got pink eye with this already gooey virus? So much mucous. (*shudder*)

With the illness out of the way, life returned to normal around here. One morning, (after waking to the sound of the garbage truck passing my house and realizing that I hadn't put out the garbage can) I had a really fun outing to Wal-Mart that lasted
literally two & a half hours only to end in death and rage. My guppy tank is a glistening sea of golden snakeskin fish, with a few vibrant reds in the mix. For years I have wanted to add metallic blue to my guppy collection, but hadn't found them anywhere. This particular day, I came across two perfect metallic blue males at my local Wal-Mart. Believing it was worth the wait, I spent nearly forty-five minutes in the dim pet department, waiting for someone to get the fish for me. The kids (all four of them) were patient and sweet, gagging at the huge yellow sea snails and begging me for the nearly invisible ghost shrimp. Finally, a little Spanish speaking employee showed up and eventually figured out what I was asking her for. I grabbed the fish and continued my shopping trip, hurrying now because I'd already been there for an hour and I wanted to get home. Heidi asked me repeatedly why I was purchasing three fish instead of two, and I explained that reflections in the plastic bag just looked like a third fish. She insisted that there were three fish throughout the rest of the trip, which meant I was snapping at her by the time we were done "THERE ARE JUST TWO FREAKIN' FISH, OK?" When we made it to the checkout counter, I discovered to my horror that one of the guppies was not a blue male, but a very boring black female. The cashier saw me looking crestfallen, peering into the bag, and asked what was wrong. I explained the problem and he ushered us off to the side and called for someone to come exchange the fish while he helped some other customers. I had already paid and was ready to go, but I figured I'd wait for a minute so I could get that other elusive metallic blue male. While we waited the kids munched on little chocolate covered marshmallow bunnies and Heidi started up about the mystery third fish again. Since I wasn't racing around the store with my hands full anymore, I got right down to her level with the bag to show her once and for all that there were only two fish inside. Lo and behold, a lone ghost shrimp had made it into the net and was bagged with my guppies. Those little crustaceans are completely see-through and sneaky as hell. I apologized profusely for making her think she was just seeing things and Heidi beamed. She didn't say it, but it was an "I told you so" moment. So we waited, and waited... and waited... until a customer service manager emerged from the crowd and said she'd take the fish back herself since no one was answering the page for help in the pet department. For the next half hour, I struggled with the decision to wait for my long desired metallic blue guppies, or to storm out of the store empty handed-- cheated out of five dollars and two hours of my life. Stubborn as I am, the idea of giving up the fight made me feel like a quitter. I stayed and waited for that stupid fish. Well, three hours after we'd arrived at Wal-Mart to get diapers, I made it home with four very patient kids and two metallic blue male guppies. With the rest of my stuff still in the car, I ran the guppies inside and started to put them in the fish tank. There was way too much water in the bag to pour into the tank, so I carefully poured a little water out into the sink first. In the blink of an eye, there was a metallic blue flash and one rare metallic blue guppy disappeared down my garbage disposal. That did it. I yelled and threw things for a few minutes, before calming myself down and squelching the urge to cry. I desparately pawed around in the garbage disposal for the tiny fish, but he was gone. After surviving the rest of the day, bedtime finally rolled around. Darting into the kitchen to turn off the always-burning light over my stove, I happened to notice something odd. The entire fish tank was white. The water had clouded over completely. Upon closer inspection, I found half of my beautiful guppies lifeless on the rocks at the bottom of the tank. I scooped them out, and quickly siphoned out nearly 3/4 of the water in the tank, refilling it with fresh clean water. After making sure that one stupid blue fish was still alive, I put myself to bed. As sure as I was that they would all be dead in the morning, I was surprised to find them all alive and well when I got up. A week later, that stupid thing is still trucking in there and the others are OK too. I hate guppies.

Eric's birthday was mellow-- steaks on the grill and chocolate birthday cake. No friends or family made it, but many gifts and well wishes were received. A warm thank you to everyone for remembering the little guy.

Easter was wonderful! The weather was lovely, the kids were happy, and the candy was plentiful. We played basketball in the sun and the kids rode their scooters barefoot. The next morning we awoke to snow and lots of it. There's a good foot of snow in my front yard today. I hate Utah.

Time to pick up Heidi! Love to all, and there's more to come.