Colds, a Giant Mouse, and a Complete Conversation!

Well, wouldn’t you know it. Less than a week before we leave for our cruise and we all have colds! We’ve all been pretty healthy for months…but NOW we get sick! Ugg! Ron’s been popping the Zi-Cam cold remedy fastmelts, but they make me gag. I’ll stick to the Cold-Eeze with the funky after taste. We’re just hoping we can all work through the coughing, sneezing, and congestion by Saturday!

Yesterday afternoon we went to Kotomi’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Danielle and Tyler were very excited about going. Danielle’s excitement was crushed when we walked in, though, and saw that we were sitting just a couple tables away from the giant animatronic mouse! Although we chose a seat with our backs to Chuck, it took her a very long time to take her hands off her eyes. She finally gained enough courage to sit up and eat some pizza when the head cheese himself came out to sing Happy Birthday to the birthday kids. She’s always had a fear of giant mascot-type animals. I think it was worse yesterday because she wasn’t feeling 100%. Once Ron took her over to play the games, though, she perked up and had a good time. I guess we know where NOT to have her birthday party next year! And we figure we should make sure Grandpa R doesn’t sign us up for the character breakfast at Disney next spring!

Tyler’s preschool is part of a larger school. They offer lots of different parent activities throughout the school year. Occasionally they offer a Parents’ Night Out. For a minimal fee per child, you can bring ALL your kids (not just the student) to the school for 4 hours. They have parent volunteers that watch the kids and plan out a night full of activities. We rarely get an evening out to ourselves, so we were so excited to take part in this. We were the kind of parents I grumbled about when I worked at the daycare: we loaded the kids up on cold medicine before dropping them off and hoped we’d make it out the door before anyone noticed their noses were running. (Honestly, the kids weren’t that miserable and really wanted to be there.) The theme last night was “Jonah”. They had a mini Bible story, made a whale with Jonah in his mouth, and watched the Veggitales Jonah movie. They also played a lot. Tyler’s little girlfriend from school was there. Tyler, Danielle, and his friend played together all evening. They had such a good time together, and there were lots of hugs (and protesting) before they left. When we picked the kids up I hesitantly asked the lady in charge how our kids behaved. She emphatically said, “Great!” She said that Tyler was the best big brother ever! He held Danielle’s hand, played with her, and included her in his play with his friend. (Before we left we had asked Tyler to look out for Danielle. He hugged her and said, “Danielle, if any big kids knock you over, I’m going to attack them for you.”) I’m glad he took his job seriously without needing to defend her honor. It was SO nice to hear a good report. Ron and I just went out for dinner and to the store. Nothing romantic, but we were able to hold a conversation without interruption! That was wonderful.

This morning we infected 12 other 2 year olds at church with our colds. The workers next week will thank us because everyone will be home sick. :) Ok, not really. We used a lot of hand sanitizer and probably picked up more germs from them than we gave to them. Anyway, my memorable moment for today comes from another little kid. During one activity today a little boy was trying to get Ron’s attention. He finally shouted out, “Hey, white boy!” We laughed so hard.