SO it doesn't look like I am going to be visiting my Mom this weekend. Rachel was right -- they don't want little children in the Intensive Care Unit. They don't have a specific rule but if we had brought them in it would have had to been for a super short visit 5-10 minutes and we would have had to hold them the entire time and not touch anything. If she was in her own room it would be a slightly different story -- but so far she is not. This morning she was having a invasive test performed to see if she has any gallstones that is causing her liver and kidneys to fail (even though she doesn't have a gallbladder anymore). Our revised plan had been to call this afternoon at 3:00 to see if she would be moved to a room tomorrow (Sunday). Then we were going to still break up the drive and go this late afternoon.

That's all fubared because Morella was up until 9:30 last night and then woke up crying this morning at 6:00 complete with a faucet nose. I tried putting her down at 10 but she howled and then I fed her lunch and put her down about 20 minutes ago and as we speak she is saying "Down! Down!" in her room. She almost feel asleep at the table over lunch! What the heck is going on?

So since she is sick she has a lowered immunity system and ... well travelling with a sick toddler is one of my worst nightmares. It just sucks that Athena is going to get it. She had just gotten over that two week stuffy nose.

GO TO SLEEP MORELLA! You are sick! You need to sleep!

Her being sick scrapped the Greyhound Gala plans this morning too. She was going to go with Tim and I was going to get to spend the morning with Athena. Seeing as Athena has slept almost the entire morning and was good when she was awake it would have been like a freaking vacation. But no. The best laid plans...or even plans kind of made at the last minute ....

It's the first time we are missing the gala since we moved to Madison six years ago. Bummer. :( It would have been nice if we all could have gone but our car won't hold all of us and the dog.

For lunch I made Morella a cheese pizza on a pan to make the crust softer. I ended up eating 3/4 of the darn thing. It wasn't filling at all (I also didn't have breakfast and was famished). I quit at that point and ate some leftover meatloaf which DID fill me up. Maybe because it was just cheese with no good toppings that made it so insubstantial.

Yesterday was a good day despite it being grey and gloomy. I wasn't quick enough to get out the door for a music lesson, in part because Athena was on day two of eat eat eat eat eat ... oh and more eating. So I decided to walk the kids to the library and spend some time there. Morella is in a looking at books phase again, so I thought it would be nice. Plus we ran out of caffeinated coffee and I wanted to get some at Java cat, which is a block away from the library. We got some books, ate some lunch, picked some apples off this guys lawn (I asked him about it last year -- he said he doesn't use pesticides and to help ourselves). One of the apples ended up with Morella who nom nomed it all the way home. It had just rained all morning so I am sure the apple was fine. There was a "band" (two people with ... uh... musical talent...) playing music at the coffee house which Morella enjoyed, so I gave her a buck to put in the tip jar. As she was doing that they thanked her and said they also do parties. Ha ha ha. Um...no.

I brought my camera...so here are some photos from the day.



I had her wear the blue fancy "princess" dress her step grandmother had made her for Xmas. It's the kind of thing that I figured didn't really need a great excuse for her to wear other than a trip to the library. She made several other little girls jealous and they wanted to be a princess too. Ha ha. She destroyed it with apple juice from the apple by the time we got home. I'm sure it will wash out...right?



I set an automatic timer and took this photo of us. Morella is making her scrunched up face when she thinks something is really funny or clever.

By the way she is still crying. She has five more minutes to go until I get her out. I have no idea what to do with her after that.



A comment from Kathleen reminded me that I didn't need to go Happy Bambino to spend 75-85 dollars on sling when I could just modify the moby to do the same thing. So I set it up and voila! Worked like a charm. It was great! I love how versatile the moby can be.



I has saved the pregnancy test that tested positive for Athena -- in part as a reminder over the pregnancy that I was really pregnant (despite the big belly), and also to remember that day and how shocked I was ... anyway. I thought it was time to get rid of the stick and remembered the advice of "take a picture of it" if you are keeping it for the memory. Athena was there and so I took a picture of the stick and her as sort of a "full circle" photo. That stick meant this little girl was on her way. :D So no, I am not pregnant again. You can breath now.



One last look at my adorable, cute and cuddly vaguely ethnic baby.

Now I have to go and rescue Morella...I can't take her for a walk because as soon as I do Athena is going to want to be fed. Sigh.