Did she take up boxing without us knowing it?

Katelyn came home from school on Friday with the outside area of her eye swollen. Perhaps she had got bitten by a bug or maybe it was the beginning of Pink-Eye. We watched it all weekend continue to swell, but no discharge or extreme pain (as a spider bite often causes). I took her into the urgent care yesterday, which thankfully we were not in need of "urgent care", because this urgent care facility isn't really an urgent care facility at all. They take patients by appointment only, or if you happen to walk in, as a family in the waiting room sitting next to us, you could be waiting hours - as in at least 3 hours like this family (who finally gave up waiting and walked out). While hanging out in the lobby for our "urgent care" appointment, the receptionist was telling a caller that the next appointment was at 7PM that night - as in 7 hours from now. There has always been the thought that if you don't have to go to the ER, then don't...go to an urgent care location to get quicker or easier care. Um, I think going to the ER might actually be faster.

Anyways, since her eye was almost swollen shut when she awoke in the morning and who knows what kind of condition it would be in if I waited until today to take her to see her doctor, we headed in to have it checked out. It is a blah-blah-blah caused by a blah-blah-blah. Got it? Ya, me too. In English, it is a symptom of a sinus infection. In children now-a-days, it is very uncommon to see eye swelling and discoloration to the area, but that's what it is. Being that there are no other symptoms that Katelyn has, I would have never in a million years guessed that is what's going on. She had a cold almost three weeks ago and I thought was free from it, but I guess not. It is a very odd place for this germ bug to hang out, but with medication, it will be gone in a few days.

Smelling Like...Febreze?

Katelyn has the option of wearing a crew-neck cotton sweatshirt or a fleece pull-over. Usually, the fleece wins because it has pockets and what 6-year old cannot live without pockets? What would they do with all of those treasures that they find throughout their day? How would they make sure that their chap-stick gets washes and dried, as it is securely tucked into the zipped pocket? How would they be able to dispose of their snack trash, because apparently there are no trash cans at school? And of course, their hands might just fall off from being so FROZEN without the ability to put them into the toasty warm pocket!

A few days ago, Katelyn was DETERMINED that she was going to wear her fleece to school. Because the other one just wouldn't do. However I had been a little slow on laundry and it was sitting at the bottom of the dirty clothes pile. Since my laundry seems to reproduce on its own, the fleece was sitting under a pretty large pile of stinky clothes. Without regards to potentially offending her classmates or teachers, she dug through the pile and came out victorious. I had decided not to fight this battle - if she wanted to dig through the mound and wear a dirty sweater, it was her choice...after all, she was the one wearing it, not me.

Now here is where my excellent parenting skills comes into play...just to make sure that no one thinks I never wash my children's clothes, I gave her a few sprays of Febreze as she walked out the door. We were laughing as I was doing it, but hey, at least she smelt cleaned!

The Hotel Is Now Closed

There had been a disgusting smell in one part of our home over the last few days. I figured that our pipes had finally bit the dust and we were leaking under the house...yes, it smelt that bad. It wouldn't have surprised me if it was indeed our pipes, as our plumbing stinks. No exaggeration, is just sucks. No actually, that's the thing it doesn't do. It is just worthless. One flush never works effectively, so always requires two. Anything more than one sheet of toilet paper clogs it up, and so you can only imagine how #2 does going down. And with kids, one sheet is nearly impossible, especially when they are learning to wipe completely themselves. Needless to say, we've made friends with our plunger. I tell you, I know how to use that baby like the pros.

I kept asking Bill to go under the house and see what was going on, but it wasn't really a priority to him. At one point today, I had the windows and door open, yet since it was raining and cold, had to keep the heater going so that we wouldn't freeze. Good way to spend money, I know. I think he finally got the hint and made the trip down under. No joke, he was under there for almost TWO HOURS! All the while, he was talking to himself about how bad this was or that was, or moaning about trying to fit through a small tight spot - after all, in one part of our home, the crawlspace is maybe a foot so scooting on your belly is the only way around.

What did he find, you are wondering?

Oh goodies, let me tell you!

Lovely, beautiful, friendly little critters who had decided to make our home's crawlspace their home (puts a new spin on "mi casa, es su casa" doesn't it now!) and now their graveyard. The bag that was brought up was HUGE...filled with not just one dead rat, but 15! FIFTEEN! That's a one AND a five next to each other! That's way more than 1 and almost touching the number 20! That's not just a family of critters, but an entire village, including the neighbors.

GGGGRRRROOOOSSSSSSSS!!!