The Sympathetic Family

(These pictures are supposed to give the "picture" of my post below...Sofi not feeling well, Holli-and the others-rolling their eyes and not really believing her. And, Sofia saying, "phooey to you all!")

Last Saturday night, as Sofia was running a temp at night, she suddenly came bolting into our bedroom, eyes wild and panicky-looking, babbling something about a cake. Something about, "cake in my hands...it keeps getting bigger and bigger...I keep trying to eat it and it just keeps getting big so fast I can't keep up! It's getting heavier and heavier...I can even feel it in my hands, and see it! I keep trying to tell my mind that it's not real but it doesn't help!" She was clearly hallucinating and was in a panic! I've never had a child hallucinate before. I shot out of bed, asking her again what she was talking about. She said that she woke up and started looking out at the moon and the snow and then started seeing dots begin to appear. Suddenly it was turning into blobs of cake and next thing, they were in her hands. She could see dots all over the top like frosting and she couldn't eat it fast enough. All night she kept getting this same "vision" as she was trying to get to sleep. Eric just moved over to her room and let her sleep by me. She spent most of the night up and on the computer in our bedroom cause she didn't dare fall asleep. Then whenever she started to get this hallucination, she would come to me in a panic, I would rub her hands, she would get grounded again, go back to the computer and then eventually back to sleep.

After the first episode, after we established the fact that she is okay and is probably having a fever-induced hallucination, as I was leaving the room with Sofi to tuck her back in (this was before we realized this was going to go on all night and Eric relocated), Eric just rolled over, looked over at Sofia and said, "Sofi?" Sofia said, "What?" Eric said, "Now if that happens again, with the cake thing, toss me a piece, would ya?" She just smiled and said, "Okay."

The next day, I was trying to explain to the girls that Sofi was really sick, and now don't they feel bad that they were basically saying she was probably lying about not feeling good just so she could get out of karate (which Sofi now loves). I reminded them that it was so serious she was 1/10 of a degree from going to ER according to the lady at Minute Clinic Friday night and she was hallucinating Saturday night.... After I explained what hallucinating means and told Holli how Sofi was battling this huge cake that she just couldn't eat fast enough, Holli kinda gave a little smirk and said, "Gee, I wish I would have that happen to me! That would be good to have all the cake you could eat!" I just gave her a look of pure hopelessness and she just smirked and shrugged, like, "Well, it would be!"

What a sympathizing family we have! All concerned about the right things!!! They just make me proud! :s

Tidbits

Couple fun things either during our tea parties of late or about the tea parties:

Couple days ago, Sofi, Kaisa and I were wrapping up our food and Sofi was trying to ask about having a popsicle for dessert without actually saying the word "popsicle", just in case I didn't want her to have one, the idea wouldn't be lodged in Kaisa's head. With Kaisa, we all know, when something gets parked in her head, it's there to stay and none of us will have a moment of peace until either that request is satisfied or something better comes along. Sofi started out trying to spell the word and was getting stuck, so I decided to help her out a little and spell it for her, "you mean, p-o-p-s-i-c-l-e?" Kaisa says, without even looking up from whatever she had in her hand, "I want a popsicle too!" Sofi's and my jaws dropped and we looked at each other in utter disbelief, with our eyebrows about at our hairlines, as Kaisa swung a sidelong glance at us with a smirk on her face. It was clearly just coincidence that she figured out what it spelled because we tested it out yesterday and she had no clue what we were talking about!

Yesterday, Sofia and Greta were both home from school. Tuesday evening, at 8pm, we got a call from the clinic we brought Sofi to last Friday for a strep culture telling us her culture finally finished and was positive for strep. Greta, despite the fact she was "fine" all morning and getting ready for school, after saying a couple times that she's "freezing", I checked her temp and she was 101.7...still insisting she felt just fine!!! So, as lunchtime was approaching, I asked the girls if they were ready for the lunchtime tea party. Sofi grumpily said, "NO! I don't want a tea party!" I kinda looked at her funny cause the day before, she kept telling me, "This is the best tea party ever!" and, "Mom, how do you do such good tea parties? This one is just the best one I've ever been to. It's so pretty and fun.." so on. As I was looking at her, Greta sneeringly said, "Yeah!! And yesterday all she did was brag about the tea party you guys had. She told me that it was the best tea party ever!" Sofi just grouchingly said, "Well, I don't want her to be here for it! I want to have a tea party again without her!!!" We did have a very enjoyable tea party again though, despite the fact she was there!!! :)

The Various Faces of Sofi...

And throughout it all, Kaisa was quite amused!!! Can you tell which of our kids has a little extra flavor to them? At the same time, she is very deep and thoughtful...she just doesn't show it to most people. Because she can get hurt very, very easily, I think this side is just easier for her to show. Fun is never far away!

The Tea Party.....

Dogs and all! We had a special guest today...Sofia! She's just finishing a nasty flu bug so she was home today.

As my daughter likes to say, "Whew-fta!"

Now we have located our camera battery, only to find the charger has gone missing! As Kaisa likes to say, "It's disappeared!" Everything lately, from her stuffed doggy to Olivia, has "disappeared." Oh, woe is me! I guess I will just have to be descriptive to draw the picture that I am unable to take.

My three-year-old and I have taken to tea parties every afternoon. And we have fun. We send the last school girl out the door at 11:10a.m., potty the dogs, tuck the baby in for a nap, and we settle in for a candle light, fancy ol' tea party in the kitchen...minus the tea...and minus the fancy, actually. Except for today there was green tea for me. On the menu today was, green tea for me, apple cranberry juice for her, buttered wheat toast, and steamed fiesta vegetables. I liked it. She was a little leery about the veggies. First, she was keenly interested when she saw the kidney beans and thought they were jelly beans. Then she tasted them. Then gave em to me! Needless to say, with such of a skimpy tea, we had to add more food within a few minutes of its completion. For me, a 3 Muskateers bar. For her, peanut butter/honey on potato bread toast, and more juice. For this week our house has become exceptionally messy. What we do then, to escape having to look at it, we avoid the dining room table. We clear this old butcher block cupboard we have in the middle of the kitchen for a center island (for now. We move it back and forth, for variety's sake, as it so moves us, from under the bay window in the kitchen to the center of the kitchen as a center island), wipe it shiny-clean, and lay out our spread. It usually takes about 1.5 minutes and we're set! I've taken to drawing lately (I've been blessed with too many inspirations lately..first the home care business, then the ideas for a kids' book finally materializing after years of bubbling on the back burner of my mind...I even had the title, just wasn't sure of how I was going to write it...now suddenly I've rediscovered my passion for drawing and would love to illustrate my own book...which, I might add, will probably take me years to actually complete, and I'm perfectly content for it to be that way). Kaisa tells me to draw friends for her (poor deprived girl...she has to be by herself with no siblings to fight with for a couple hours every day) and we chat and chat and chat! I've discovered that she is a very, very tenderhearted little girl, despite the fact she has been driving me insane since the baby was born with her sudden demanding ways. I've really come to enjoy her and her very, very good sense of humor and bubbly belly laugh! We ignore the phone (unless it's Joni, my hubby Eric, or Becky...or my sister Kaisa or friend Eija...maybe, maybe if it's someone else...for the most part we let it go). We ignore the dogs...we usually have one at each doorway, staring at us eating as dogs tend to do. And Kaisa has learned to ask for "dinner" along with our tea party.

So has been our life in our busy little household of 8 people, 2 dogs and a telephone (to connect with those that we aren't already tripping over)!

And now, off to "window shop" into other people's blogs to catch up!

I'm having withdrawals!!!

I am so missing my camera! I went to use it a couple weeks ago to find that the battery was gone from the camera! I think that the girls were using it and the battery died so they put the battery charging. I found the charger but no battery!?!?! I have had many potential pictures I have wanted to put on here!

Finally got out a few times for marketing our business. We are first trying to use all free marketing (flyers, internet) since we really have no timeline that we have to be started by. Of course we want to get going but we don't have any big expenses yet, so we don't at least have huge pressures of getting going. If anyone has any ideas of how to get our name out to people, especially the families of Senior Citizens, let me know! We've met with a couple people too to get our name "out there". One was at a Senior Center, and we set up a couple hours in March where we will meet with people to answer any questions and maybe even set up some clients for service if they are interested. Then one lady we met with is from Senior Outreach. She will just refer people to us if their needs meet our service.

Baby has finally started to take official naps, though not every day does she take a true nap (like a couple hours) but many cat naps that usually end right about the time I decide to put her down. She is a lot happier than she used to be. We started her on Zantac about 1 1/2 weeks ago, I think. I'm pretty sure that's been helping her. Just to make sure it wasn't just a coincidence and she didn't just reach that point where she was turning the corner on her own, I will probably take her off of it for a few days after she's been on it for about a month or so and see how she does.

If anything else interesting has happened, I've since forgotten! I'm finally cleaning my basement since I went on bedrest in September!!! Yippee!!! Now that's true excitement!

Gotta Love Good Sales!

I am just so pleased to announce that I actually went shopping!!! I mean, honest to goodness shopping at a shopping mall that I used to frequent quite frequently many years ago. A shopping mall that has been updated considerably since my last visit there, which I didn't think was that long ago.

My oldest daughter and I had been talking for quite some time about going shopping and buying her clothes that she actually likes and that actually fit her. With her money. And we went.

First, I must say, we stopped at Goodwill (second hand/thrift store). It's actually one of those stores (in case this is just a MN store) where people donate clothes, toys, furniture, etc...like Salvation Army....a place that I regularily donate our clothes that are still decent and just don't fit anyone or just not anyone's style. This Goodwill was one I hadn't ever even been to to donate. We needed to find a dress for my daughter to dress up in as Harriet Tubman. We found a darling Harriet Tubman dress for $4.99, so I was pleased we found it so quickly for pretty cheap. Holli decided that she wanted to quickly walk around and just see what was there before we continued on to the mall. We immediately found tennis shoes, SKETCHERS, I might add, that were still brand new, for...*drumroll*....$4.99!!!!! Holli did not have tennis shoes and the only shoes she had were my $0.50 hand-me-downs from a garage sale that were cute but had cracks in the bottom. We were SO delighted! I had worried that she wouldn't find any tennis shoes on sale and of course I wouldn't have been able to make her pay for them anyway since I feel that the basics, such as tennis shoes, are our responsibility to buy as they are needed.

On to the mall. Did I mention that this is something that we never do? We proceeded to find 75% off sales throughout JCPenney's...on to the name brand stores (I never buy name brand stuff except for 75-90% off from the outlet mall a couple miles from our house). She found some very good deals from Abercrombie, Wet Seal, and lastly, Aripostle! From there, she found pants and sweatshirts for $5.99 each. I noticed the two sweatshirts (one of which I bought for myself) were $40 and $60 regular price. I was quite proud because she conducted herself beautifully, drooling over some things but putting them back for only one or two items from the drastically reduced tables. She did chose to pay more than I would have for one shirt but it still wasn't that much and she loves it and it looks very nice on her. I told her that it's her money and she can chose how to spend it. I did, of course, give her little reminders (because she is 11 and doesn't shop very often at all) like, "Remember, if you buy that shirt for $17...you could buy 3 of this kind for about $18-19 total from this 75% off rack...but one really good piece is worth more than 3 cheap ones that you may not wear...so you chose how you want to do this!" and she did well! She came home with 2 pairs of pants, 3 tank tops (for layering under shirts), a sweatshirt, and 3 other shirts for about $60, so about 9 items that averaged for about $6.67 apiece. Not bad!!!! She still had $20 she could have spent. She desparately needed this stuff. She's grown out of all the stuff I did get her for the start of school, which wasn't much, and she otherwise has hand-me-downs from a neighbor girl and her cousin that she's recently outgrown. It's really nice stuff but she's outgrown it...so it was time for us to go shopping!!! We had so much fun! Then, even at Walmart, where things are typically pretty cheap, she even looked and compared prices until she got the best price for two little lip glosses.

Well, back to work!