The Good, The Bad, and The Junkyosaurus

We went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner last Friday night, partly because we're out of ideas if they won't eat quesadillas anymore. Anyhow, it was actually a great, very family friendly experience. I was pleasantly surprised for a fast food restaurant. But people came around to see if we needed anything and refill our drinks and take our trash. Another family switched tables when we got there so that we'd have more room (and warned us that they had just super sanitized the play area because someone puked, not that we were going to let them out there yet anyway.) And we talked to a nice family next to us with older twins.

Greg took Julie swimming again on Saturday and said that she was starting to enjoy it more and get a little more comfortable. She still won't go to the teacher, and they haven't dunked her yet, but I think she'll be fine. I haven't taken Emma swimming again because she is terrified of the bath tub right now, and I can't understand. Just a couple of weeks ago, they fought over who got to go first ("bah? bah?"). But now she screams before she even gets in the water. I'm afraid our swimming trip scared her. She is scared of everything at the moment.

While Julie was swimming, Emma, Becca, and I went to Michael's, which was a bit of a disaster (but worth the 45% off albums and storage and my 50% coupon on an adhesive tape gun) because there's no such thing as a double cart at Michael's. I had to put Becca in the back of the tiny little cart, which left room for nothing else. They were throwing stuff out of the cart, so I was trying to hold stuff with one hand, and steer the tiny (now heavy) little cart with the other. Sigh. At least it was early enough that there were few witnesses.

We did make it to Costco next and survived that a little better. They had samples of gelato and sorbet that Emma was all over, but Becca wouldn't taste any more of after her first spoon of mango sorbet. I think she didn't like the cold.

Greg did some work in they yard in the afternoon. We've still got a round indentation where the above ground pool was (that we got rid of as soon as we moved in), so he was trying to level that and plant some grass seed. We're trying to catch up on house projects that are overdue. I'm tasked with checking prices of replacement windows. We'll be needing a roof soon, too. Lots of little things, and lots of big things.

On Sunday afternoon, we went apple picking again, with 2 wagons. All of the close-by trees are looking pretty empty, so we treked further than we ever have before, up and down big hills, and found lots of apples. It was certainly a work out!

The girls have only recently decided that they like apples again. Greg and I had picked a couple of apples on Sunday, and my back was turned for a minute. When I turned around, I saw this:

She had just reached into the bucket and helped herself.

Of course, then the others had to have some. Emma, going in:


Becca taking an almost-smile break:


What do you think, will this one be allowed to ride in the wagon with the basket of apples again?


She threw the exact same fit that Emma did when I had to take the basket of apples out of the wagon to put them in a bag.

This week has been pretty crazy so far. As I was putting Emma in the van to go apple picking, she had some junk in her eye that I just wiped out. She seemed ok while we were there, but it gunked up pretty good on the ride home... so I pretty much knew on Monday morning that she had pink eye. Again. Conjunctivitis. Or, Junkyosaurus as I like to call it. We started drops after a trip to the doctor. She still had some junk on Tuesday morning, so I stayed home with her again. On Tuesday afternoon, I noticed a huge swollen patch on her belly that basically looked like she had been attacked by a swarm of mosquitos. But it wasn't bothering her, and when I looked later, it was gone.

So, of course when she gets up on Wednesday morning, she's covered in welts ... arms, legs, back. But the ones that she woke up with were gone by the time we got to the doctor, and new ones had appeared. Apparently I've never seen hives before, because the doctor said that this was typical - the appearance, moving and disappearing. But he said the hives were most likely due to the virus that caused her pink eye... meaning she was still contagious and I had to keep her home again. It's been nice to really get to hang out one-on-one with her the past few days. She's been very clingy, and has been like my shadow. Thank goodness for a fairly flexible work situation.