Our Week

First of all, most of my family have just recovered from a fairly heavy cold. It was at its peak for me on Saturday. I felt really spaced out and whenever I walked I felt as if I was going to keel over, so my inner ears were probably clogged up. And we're all coughing. It started when my husband's sister and kids came visiting from Melbourne. Emma had been so looking to catching up with her favourite girl cousin and we were all looking forward to having Blake see the little boys. Yet they had the colds when they arrived. We knew that they did but because we only see them once in a blue moon, we went and spent time with them anyway. Sometimes it's worth risking getting sick, but I will say that it's a bit of a shame when we catch a cold from Victoria without even having the benefit of visiting Victoria!

Still, even though we've been low with colds, things have been happening. While I could do nothing but lie down, I read an excellent adolescent book that I bought from our library bargain table. Adolescent books are often my very favourites. This one was excellent, and when I looked it up on internet to find any reviews about it, I discovered that there are two sequels. Initially I was over-joyed but I soon changed my mind when I found out that the third one is out of print and impossible to get! I tried finding it on all the on-line out-of-print book sellers I could think of; Amazon, Alibris, you name it, I searched it. "This title is unavailable and we don't know if we'll ever have copies again," was the general response. If I'd known I wouldn't be able to find the last sequel, I would never have read the first book. (In case you haven't guessed, this scenario has got to be one of the things that really annoys me.)

So at the end of the week, Andrew was out and I was trying to get everyone to go to bed. Blake was crying at the top of his lungs because of something that happened in a game we'd just been playing. His mouth was open wide and I was trying to clean his teeth through his screams. Meanwhile, Emma was singing one of her made-up songs full pelt. She really puts everything into it with weird words and fancy vibratoes and after awhile, they are apt to get on one's nerves. Logan was pleading, "Please Emma, stop singing! Please, please, please Emma! Emma, I beg you to stop. Emma I can't take anymore. I'm going to go stir crazy if you keep going." And he was almost in tears with frustration. With all this noise pouring out of all three kids, I suddenly realised how tired this cold had made me. I just sat down on the floor and burst out laughing. Anyone who walked in might've wondered what bedlam they'd just walked into.

When Emma paused to take a breath and look at Logan, she got a little smile on her face and said, "My work here is almost done!" And that was the finish of me. But the laughter response turned out to be better than "Everyone be quiet and get ready for bed," which seemed like the obvious thing to do from the start. They even started to laugh themselves and I didn't get totally frazzled. It might be worth trying again, but not all the time.

Andrew is out again, at college, and tonight they're all calling me to come and watch, "Charlie & the Chocolate Factory" with them. It's the newer one with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and I haven't seen it before. So although I was going to visit a few other blogs and leave comments tonight, I've decided I'd better postpone it until tomorrow.

So long! That's been my week.