Not done with the stomach bug yet

Last night was the Spring Follies at the school. It's a huge fund raiser for the sixth-grade field trip to Cape Cod. There is a dinner, a talent show, and a raffle.

I was on the dinner committee and spent several hours Tuesday afternoon making lasagna and marinara sauce at the school kitchen. Yesterday, I got to school at 3:00 and was busy preparing, serving, and cleaning up until the show started at 7:00. Two acts into the show, NB raced into the bathroom. Michael leaned over to whisper that NB had to throw up. NB said he felt fine, and didn't feel feverish, but by intermission, he'd done it a second time, so I sent Michael home with the three younger kids. (EM was in the last two acts and so couldn't leave early.)

We had one more incident to deal with shortly after I got home (it's really not a good idea to let a sick child sleep in the top bunk, even if he insists he feels better . . . ), but he seems fine this morning.

Anyone want to play Guess Who's Next? Michael has his vote on IM.

And I thought service was bad before

Our state is notorious for bad cell phone service. Well, notorious among the locals at least. It comes as a complete shock to many of our guests, who do not hesitate to let us know how they feel about it.

Still, we've learned to adapt. I've pretty much figured out where I get service and where I don't, and I've adjusted my expectations accordingly. (Although I continue to be amused that I get better service in, say, Arches National Park than I do at my kids' soccer games.)

But today, it appears, the entire cell phone network is down. When I dial my provider I get a message that the following services are not working: mobile to mobile, mobile to land, land to mobile. That pretty much covers it.

No, we can't hear you now.

Ten reasons to travel with kids

I recently read an essay in Parents magazine in which a father explained why he travels with his kids. (Or tried to. To be honest, his kids sounded like beastly travelers and I'm not sure it would be worth it to travel with them.)

Traveling with kids can be hectic and exhausting. And the day I return from one trip is not usually a good time for me to think about another, but I've been considering why we travel with our kids.

So here, in no particular order, are my reasons for traveling with kids:

1. I want to travel for longer than I want to leave my kids. Michael and I can go away for a long weekend or even a week. But after that, I start missing the kids too much to enjoy myself as fully as I would like.
2. It improves their vocabulary. For our toddlers especially, traveling introduces all kinds of new words. I remember EM first learning the word city from looking down on Bath from one of the surrounding hills and asking, "What's that?"
   
3. It's a great way to meet the locals. OK, so the hospital stay in Costa Rica courtesy of NB was not my favorite live-like-a-local experience, but most of them have been very positive. When EM was three, strangers sitting next to us at the food booth in the Marrakesh night market ordered treats for him. In Costa Rica, women would gather around LW, pinch his cheeks, and gush over how gordito and lindo he was. Usually the resulting conversations are superficial, but at least it gets you interacting with someone not in the tourist industry.
4. The kids open up when you're on the road. At home, it's often hard to have in-depth conversations. The phone rings, a guest comes in, there is work to do. And for their part, the kids are busy with homework, the TV, the computer. But traveling removes us from our normal distractions. Talking to mom is a lot more interesting when you are two hours into a four-hour layover at JFK. EM and I had an enlightening conversation yesterday about religion, parenting, and what he thinks about living in three different states. It's unlikely we would have had the time for that conversation at home.
5. The kids get along better. Initially, sibling issues might increase, but once they realize that for the most part, if they want to play with someone, their siblings are all they've got, they tend to fight less and support each other more than they do at home. Of course, every trip has its moments, but then, so do days at home.
6. Kids are a great excuse for slowing down. When EM was three, Michael and I went back to England without him. We were determined to do all the things we couldn't do when he was along. Specifically, walking tours. By the end of the trip, our feet throbbed the moment they touched the floor in the morning. Traveling with kids forces you to eat frequently, spend some time in the park, and get out of the museum before your eyes cross and your head pounds. (Sadly, I have found that not only is 2 hours in a museum a day a good limit for my kids, it's also a good limit for me. But when they aren't with me, it's easy for me to keep going when what I really need is a break.)
7. Kids often know stuff that enhances the trip. Last year, we visited Avignon. A must-see site in Avignon is the bridge. "The one in the famous nursery song" all the guidebooks said. "What nursery song?" I asked Michael as we drove there, and he just shrugged. Suddenly, I heard IM singing in the back seat. Turns out, she learned the song in her one-week French camp the previous summer and was able to provide the appropriate soundtrack for our visit.
8. The shared experiences bond us together. When we travel, we're more of a unit than we are at home. On the road, what happens to one likely happens to all, and we enjoy reliving the adventure together through our stories and photos. Even the bad times redeem themselves by making great stories.
9. Kids are often easier to manage when you are on the go. For our kids, especially when they are young, boredom is a leading cause of mischief and naughtiness. Travel gives us lots of fun things to see and do, which results in cheerful kids.
   
10. You always have someone who wants to say "Cheese!" We like travel pictures with people in them. (Amateurs that we are, if we just want a picture of a famous site, we're better off buying the postcard.) But neither of us particularly likes to be in the pictures. Kids have no such qualms. If you plan it carefully, you can go an entire trip without ever being in front of the camera.
    

(Mostly) home again

The "big kids" and I returned from our two-week vacation late last night, right on schedule. (Or at least within shouting distance of the schedule. We were less than two hours late.) LW and Michael, sadly, are still back in Utah and won't fly home until Wednesday.

Why? Because LW was still in the hospital when our plane departed Salt Lake City. The little guy came down with a stomach bug Wednesday morning when we were in St. George. By the time we arrived back at Michael's parents house in Utah County on Thursday afternoon, he was listless. We took him to an urgent care facility in Orem (the nearest one that worked with our insurance), and they sent him to the ER.

He ended up with an oxygen mask, a nebulizer treatment, and (eventually) IV fluids. Poor kid apparently ended up with my veins, and the ER nurses had to call someone down from pediatrics to put in his line. Unfortunately, not before they tried first.

At one point, they told us the hospital didn't have a bed for a pediatric patient and they would need to move us to the American Fork hospital (where the three older kids were born) or Primary Children's in SLC. Luckily for us (but unfortunately for someone else) they ended up transferring another child to Primary Children's, so we didn't have to move LW.

I stayed with LW Thursday night, Friday, and Friday night. By Friday morning, he was doing a lot better, and my biggest problem became trying to get him to eat or drink something. Have I mentioned before how remarkably stubborn he can be about food? I managed to coax about a cup of juice and 7 small cubes of watermelon down him. All day.

Michael called the airline and rescheduled his and LW's return flight, and I braced myself for leaving my little boy in the hospital.

Friday night, LW went to sleep at 7:30 and slept through until 6:30. He did cry out once or twice, and I had to untangle him from his IV cord. The nurse described his sleep as "restless" but it was pretty much how he normally sleeps.

He woke up cheerful, requesting, "You hold me" and climbing into my lap, then quickly got fussy about his IV and the lack of Donald Duck on TV.

When I called Michael from the airport, LW was back to his usual naughty curious self, playing with the buttons on the bed. Of course, it took until the afternoon to actually get him released from the hospital. He still wasn't really eating or drinking, but he has a better chance of doing that at Grammy and Grandpa's house, away from the IV fluids.

I don't envy Michael having to fly cross-country with LW on Wednesday without another adult. I wonder if he realizes he sent the portable DVD player home with me . . .

Fun with taxes

No, not those taxes. Those tax papers are with the accountant. She hopes to get my return done tonight. Although I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be encouraged or nervous that she's planning to stay at the office until 2 A.M. Just as I don't want to be the final surgery in the 36-hour rotation, I'm not wild about my return coming at the end of a week of very little sleep.

But I digress.

To distract me from worrying about my income tax return, I've been filing all the other taxes that are due this month and thus need to be paid before we leave on vacation. The one that amuses me the most is 941: Employer's Quarterly Federal Tax Return. I swear the instructions for this one were designed by someone in a very bad mood.

Take for example, this warning:

Caution: Use Form 941-V when making any payment with Form 941. However, if you pay an amount with Form 941 that should have been deposited, you may be subject to a penalty.

Or this one, which always sounds vaguely threatening:

Detach Form 941-V and send it with your payment and Form 941 to the address in the Instructions for Form 941. Do not send a photocopy of Form 941-V because your payment may be misapplied or delayed.

And why is that, exactly? Do the numbers transpose themselves in the photocopy? Or do they not trust photocopy machines to make readable copies?

And speaking of the address in the instructions, is there a reason why forms with checks and forms without checks have to go to different addresses? In different states? It's like the final test at the end of the process--can you stick the correct label on the envelope?

Actually, sticking the label on at all is tricky. There is something wrong with the adhesive. And there has been for years. I have to tape it on.

I hope they are taking the money they save on sticky labels and paying down the debt.

I am a hypocrite

I've always shaken my head at people who tell their kids to obey safety rules they disregard themselves. Like wearing a seat belt. Or a ski helmet. But as I was forced to admit to EM tonight, I am a hypocrite too.

I eat cookie dough. Raw.

But I don't let the kids touch the stuff.

Michael's mom's tale of her friend who got salmonella (although not from cookie dough) impressed me enough to protect the kids, but for me, personally, I think the risk is too small to give up one of life's great treats.

It's not often I get to feel virtuous for not sharing. EM protests every time, but I tell him when he is on his own (and preferably not on my insurance) he can take risks with cookie dough. In the meantime, I would feel too bad if he got salmonella on my watch.

Costume woes

The school newsletter came home yesterday. The third announcement down reminded us of the dance performance this Wednesday, the culmination of the artist-in-residence program. This has been on the calendar for a few weeks. No surprise there.

And then this innocuous-looking paragraph:

Children are asked to wear the following "costumes" to school that night (please borrow if necessary--do not buy anything!)

It's a good thing they don't want me to buy anything, because the selection of children's clothing in the valley is limited, and I don't have time for a shopping trip between now and Wednesday.

IM needs to "wear sunny colors, anything yellow, orange, peach and/or coral."

NB needs to "wear anything beige, khaki, and/or white."

EM needs to "wear anything black."

So I spent yesterday afternoon digging through the kids' clothes and the hand-me-downs in the basement looking for appropriate clothing. IM is fine, and EM is ok, but NB is having to settle for khaki shorts (!) and a black shirt. Sorry, bud.