Ok, so we’ve had quite the week so far. Actually with Tim working nights it’s been quite a few weeks, but this one has just been impossible. Piper got sick on Saturday. Up and down fever, never really high, and stomach pain. By Monday, I was a little concerned so we called the pediatricians office to see if we should bring her in. Yes. They did a strep culture, negative. She was showing some of the symptoms of beginning appendicitis, so off we got to Children’s Hospital ER. We got there at noon. Piper was feeling great and had no fever by 2:00. They finally let us go at 6:30 after a CBC (slightly elevated white count – duh she has an infection) , urine (slightly dehydrated – she’s been running a fever and you haven’t let her drink anything for 3 hours in case she needed surgery, you think?), and finally a surgical consult (he laughed when he saw her). Quite frustrating. You can’t even be mean or impolite to them because they’re all so nice and really just trying to help. Needless to say, we missed our weekly vegetable pickup at the CSA.

Moving on to Tuesday night. I had scheduled the VW for scheduled service. Tim mention that the green car was a little loud. Perhaps an understatement.

It’s now Wednesday. I take Piper to gymnastics. At this point they could probably hear us coming when I pulled out of the driveway. On the way home the rattling and scraping started. Houston, I think we have a problem with the muffler. How are we going to get the other car home? Very, very carefully. I had a message from the pediatrician waiting when I got home from gymnastics. Please call our office about one of Piper’s tests. So I call. Piper’s 48-hour strep test is positive. 6.5 hours in the ER for atypical strep. I’m also pretty sure I have an ear infection that is going to require me to get medical attention. Ask me if I want to go near another clinic after Monday?

I have to include a couple happy things so this isn’t a complete rant. The people out at the farm are so nice. I explained to them what had happened and they put our share together for us and let us come out on Tuesday to pick it up. I’m going to bake something to say thank you. They had 12 new piglets on Saturday. So cute! In other news, Piper was actually reading a book without me making her. This is huge.  She’s been so resistant.  A few weeks ago, I put a bunch of books in her bucket in the car that are about at her reading level. We were on the way home and out of the blue she started reading Go Dog! Go out loud. YEAH!!!! Happy dance. Happy dance.

Piper’s birthday is Saturday so we’re heading down to Mystic tomorrow. I’m very excited to report that we will probably be camping in 95 degree weather. I can’t even complain because it was my adversity to paying for a hotel that made me decide to book the campsite. It was all about permanent assets. I could pay $150 for ONE night in a hotel or… replace the leaking air mattress and get my camping stove and pans. See, makes perfect sense. I expect a lot of heckling from Tim about how cheap I am while we’re sweating tomorrow. Oh, well, I can take it and the campground does have a pool. I wonder if we can sleep in it? :-)
Saturday we’re taking Piper to Mystic Aquarium. It’s much bigger than ours, and has beluga whales and a stingray touch tank. She’s also old enough this year we can do the penguin program. It’s a presentation where a penguin walks around us and Piper will actually get to touch one. While horses have probably eclipsed penguins at this point, she still loves them, and I expect this to be a big hit.

Piper and Tim went to her 2nd Meet the Instruments class last night so I was able to make her cake and freeze it while they were gone. I even had enough time to clean up all of the evidence before they got back! I’ll just pop it out of the freezer Saturday night after she goes to bed and frost it in the morning. This being out of town on the actual birthday requires much orchestration. I’m still trying to figure out how I’m going to manage the pinata she’s been asking to have for her birthday. Why you ask since she does not have a birthday with other people? No idea. It’s her birthday so I’m going with it.
Anyhow, off to REI for the shopping. Maybe I should get some icepacks too.

I went into the office briefly to get an upgrade to my work computer today and on the way home ran smack into a very violent thunderstorm.  Lightning was cracking everywhere, the sky was just fierce, but there was no rain. About two miles before my exit, traffic slowed way down and I wondered if something had been struck by lightning and was causing a gawker delay.  Shortly, I got up to the area and saw a funnel cloud!!  I was talking to Lisa on the phone and quickly decided that maybe I should call 911 and get out of there.  I have never been that close to a funnel cloud before – it was only about 50 yards beyond the Southbound lanes of 495.  It was a dark cloud that was almost perpendicular with the ground and rotating at may 20 or 30 rpm.  It obviously didn’t pose a threat at that point because the wind was not that strong.  I called the 911 and reported it (and was promptly lost when transferred to the the local PD – but I digress) and arrived home a couple minutes later.  Now other than the coolness factor, I’m posting to ask this question:  Why would traffic ever slow down right next to a potentially newly formed Tornado?!

It’s my birthday today!  Had a very pleasant day.  Tim’s working nights which is kind of lousy, but I decided that’s life and I wasn’t going to let it mess up our day.  Piper and I headed out to the aquarium this morning and met our new fur seals, Chainsaw, Cordova, and Ursula.  Very cool.  We also got a close up of the stingray, and saw the moray eel swimming  for the first time ever.  On the way out Piper and I got airbrush tatoos – penguin for her and dolphins for me.  Given my needle phobia I think that’s about as close as I’ll ever get.  Tried out the new lunchbox from Laptop Lunchbox and I love it.  All those little containers to put things in.  What fun.  Piper and I got home right about the time Tim woke up.  UPS had great timing today and delivered the Amazon box that had my birthday presents in it.  Fun techy stuff.  My ipod will now charge in the car so I don’t have to worry about it being charged every time Piper and I go adventuring.  (It works great for holding books on tape for long car rides.)  I will also no longer have to leave the couch to use my printer.  How cool is that?  My favorite presents though were the personal ones from Tim and Piper.  When I came down this morning I found a sunflower drawn and painted on a small canvas by Tim.  Piper spent the morning (secretly in that 5 year old way) making me a collage.  She was so excited that she thought to attach the card to the collage.  :-)  Then we headed out to Whole Foods for birthday dinner.  Yes, this is my favorite place to eat out that’s not miles away.  They have awesome sesame tofu.  Piper was not pleased that daddy did not have time to make a cake so we also indulged in a vegan chocolate cake with apricot filling.  Yum !  Whole Foods saves the day again!  On the way home we stopped for a game of mini-golf.  I love mini-golf.  How can one possible take a game that has oversized dinosaus and a giant chipmunk (huh?)  seriously.  We don’t keep score, it’s just silly fun.  When we go home we took a bike ride in our finally awesome weather.  Happy Birthday indeed!