Catching Up...

So... no blogging from Texas for a while. I guess it's just that my kids haven't done anything remotely interesting for a long time. The alternative being, of course, they've been way too interesting to afford me time to blog anything. Hmmm.... which could it be...

What an ellipses-laden paragraph!

So here are the things in the past few weeks that I've thought "I should blog that when I get a chance." And by past few weeks, I mean like yesterday and today, because I can't remember anything before then.

First, updating the kids: Ben has strep, joy of joys. This was discovered after me spending the night in his room trying to keep him from shrieking his brothers awake with ear pain that I thought for sure meant ear infection. And then spending the morning in a serious foggy haze (one hour of sleep, she said with a not-small glimmer of heroine-ism) calling all creation trying to find someone who would treat

Lost my train of thought. Ben just puked the entire contents of his meager dinner in my bathroom. Chicken soup. Soup splashes. Impressively.

So, reading back, I see I was getting to the part where I was ready to go all JW and forego ever having to deal with medical receptionists again in this lifetime. This one in particular set my jaw on edge:

ME: Hello, we're new in the area and just got our insurance cards and haven't chosen a pediatrician yet but my son was up all night with agonizing ear pain and I was hoping you might have spot open today.

IDIOT RECEPTIONIST: I'm sorry, but we're not taking new patients right now. You could try calling back in like a month...

ME: Yeah, yeah, whatever. [I actually said this. Then hung up.]

She wasn't my first call of the day, so I was a little tetchy by then. Silly unthinking me, unwilling to let my son writhe in pain for a month while we wait for a spot in their exalted office to open up.

I know what you're thinking. "Why not urgent care?" Oh, we eneded up there eventually, but it was hard to come by. The first place was open only from 5 p.m. to midnight, and so on and so forth. Finally I found a place. A place that opened at 10 a.m. and took walk-ins. So now he's diagnosed and home from school for two days (which happen to be the last two before a four-day weekend, which means he doesn't go back to school until next Tuesday) and pumped full of meds. One of which I think caused the aforementioned puking. It's strong stuff.

Joseph, sensing a situation that could be made more interesting, decided he needed to steal drinks from Ben's germ-laden cuppy. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Joshua's got Doctor Envy - he said our bedtime prayers tonight and prayed for both him and Joseph to get sick in turn so they could go to the doctor and get to take medicine.

Speaking of prayers, I should mention that the absolute high point of last night was being able to call my dear stepfather at a rather indecent hour and have him over here within minutes, not only bearing priesthood and oil, but also dressed in his Sunday best to help Matt administer to Ben. What a guy! That definitely took a major edge off Ben's pain, and I'm very grateful for that.

Joseph and Joshua have all but declared open war on each other. Their days basically consist of trading various blows when they think I'm either not looking or not going to scream at them. They're poor judges of the latter, turns out. Joseph's learned how to rat on his brothers, too: "Josha" and "Bemmit." It always takes me a second to realize he isn't swearing at me.

So that's the kids. Other random thoughts that occurred to me to encapsulate blog-style: there was some rambling blather about Easter and the whole secular vs sacred thing about it, but I don't remember most of it (I'm still in the same fog as this morning), and I don't think it was at all interesting. That only leaves this: I'm finding, through NetFlix, that Chinese movies are a pretty darned good source of uplifting family entertainment. If they're not about concubines (Raise the Red Lantern) or kung fu concubines (everything starring Ziyi Zhang). For instance: Not One Less, about a very young teacher going into the big city alone to track down a lost student; The Road Home, which actually stars Ziyi Zhang as a non-kung fu non-concubine in a very sweet innocent love story; The King of Masks, about the dedication of a young girl to her adoptive sort-of-grandfather; and the next one waiting for us is called Together, and is about a young violinist whose devoted father takes him to the city to find him the best teacher. Looks cool.

Hey, a colon-laden (don't be gross) paragraph, to compliment the earlier ellipses-laden one! Cool!

So, that's all for now. Maybe tomorrow I'll have brain function back and can write something more cohesive. Until then, get thee to a Chinese Movie Rentery!