The older kids don't have school today cause it's a teacher work day after parent teacher conferences. So I slept in and then went on a walk. It was cold but beautiful clear skies. I enjoyed finding and cracking ice bubbles in the frozen street puddles. I took my time, knowing that I wasn't home helping the elementary girls get up and going. I told myself I'd just drive them today, it was okay, I needed a walk. When I did get home at 8:20, they were up but not ready to leave in 10 minutes. And Lily looked very sad. "My Valentine box sucks..." She had stayed up past midnight working on her valentines and her box. I asked to see it, and I understood her feelings... it did look pretty sad. It was a toilet made out of a plastic ice cream bucket with a cardboard water tank and a paper toilet seat. I wondered why she hadn't used a cardboard seat, like I had seen her working with last night when I went to bed. I found that box and saw that she had tried to cut a seat from that, but it was too thick for her to cut well, so it didn't look like a seat. Hmm, what can I do to help this situation... we only had 10 minutes... "I bet I can fix it..." I told her. I grabbed a cardboard box that the air mattresses came in, and part of it was white shiny cardboard, just like a white porcelain toilet! I was able to hurry and cut a seat and a lid and with that small effort on my part, I became the champion. I recognize that if I was a real hero, I probably would have been helping her in the days or night before and wouldn't have waited until this last minute moment, but still, I came through! I told Abi to go get a stuffed animal to sit on the toilet. Then the neighbors knocked to pick up the kids. They saw Lily's box and I could tell she was happy as they said "Wow - that is so cool! What a fun idea!" It was a good idea Lil, good job. She rushed out the door to the bus, so I didn't get a picture of it then. Since I had been working on that, I was now running late to take Ethan to a dr appointment at 9. Owen and Daniel could tell I was leaving and wanted to come, so that slowed us too, but we headed out. Lily and Sophi were waiting at the corner, they had missed the bus. Sophi is lucky we found her valentine's that she left on the counter and we were able to bring those for her before she even noticed she had forgotten them. So hurry to the school, then hurry to the doctor. I took Owen and Daniel and left Peter home with Abi.
I've been on a waiting list to see the pediatrician. He's booked until May, but Ethan needed this visit for his mission papers. They had a cancellation and we got moved up to March 5th, but we were still hoping for earlier. Yesterday they called that they had an opening for today, and that worked out great since the high school kids are home, so poor Ethan had to get up early on a day off! He looked tired and like a disheveled teenager. Ethan was cracking me up. He had to fill out a mental health paper and he said "Ugh... this is not a good time to have Senior-itis.... If I had to fill this out during English yesterday - yikes!" It would have been all bad mental health news. He had to circle how many days the past two weeks he has had things like: little energy, trouble concentrating on things like school work, been sleeping too much, etc. haha! I helped him fill it in and he had two "3" answers, which means nearly every day. Hang in there Eth, you're almost through your last year of school (for now)! There was also a "Pediatric traumatic Stress Screening Tool" that said "Sometimes scary or upsetting things happen. This could be something that happened to you or something you saw." and they go on to describe real trauma, and then ask "Has something like this happened recently?" and "If 'Yes' what happened?". Ethan put Yes, and then he proceeded to talk about bowling! I laughed and told him "Eth, this is serious!" He replied with earnestness "SO AM I!!!" as he continued to fill in his answer:
"I watched my friend bowl a 60. Then I bowled a 58."
"Has something like this happened in the past?"
"I used to average 180. I don't know what happened. The lanes were really oily."
Yes, he feels deeply about bowling. I'm guessing it's a tad because of "the smaller the world, the bigger the drama"? Since Eth doesn't have a ton of life experience yet, his bowling experiences rank a little higher in importance than they should. He was brave for his blood test.
Dr. Schmidt said that Ethan's hemoglobin was really high at 17. "You could be an endurance athlete!" with all that hemoglobin getting oxygen to his muscles. He also laughed at Ethan's bowling trauma. He jokes too and got Ethan's seriousness/humor. It asked about bad dreams. "I have nice dreams. ...of me being Spiderman...."
Then a flu shot and tuberculosis test. I was able to get my laughs for the day at that appointment, he was being really funny. Ethan did good, then there was just one more thing before we can leave. But he had to drink up for that.
He asked for Wendy's on the way home since he had been so brave. I always say no, and I said no this time, followed with "I will take you out once before your mission...." "So generous! I only have FIVE MONTHS still..." I was getting the same pleasure out of this as I did from Christmas. He decided to cash in his one eating out time today and take his chances that there might be another.
And then back to bed with Peter, who had missed Eth.
After that, I cleaned and made lunch, then went to the temple, loved it, then to Costco, it felt like I was gone a lot today. I enjoyed having the older kids at home, it is a big help. Wesley kept the little boys entertained -
They had their bikes in the kitchen and Wes put on rollerblades, and around and around they went doing laps around the kitchen and side room:
Peter practiced walking some more for Natalie and me.
The kids played at friends houses' tonight. When Lily got back from her friends house we took this picture of her "box" - One valentine toilet.
They had a class party today and Lily also won that panda bear, which was the "biggest" prize, so that was a big deal too!
So Lily had a good day - her box was fun and she got a big prize. The other girls had fun too. I was gone at the Temple then Costco when they got home, but here was a wake of valentine candy wrappers everywhere. So that was the kids valentine's day. We are going to have more fun tomorrow morning with a fancy Valentine's brunch.
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