And this doesn’t even cover our “snowstorm,” new addition, or the fact that Tiffany Suzanne attempted to eat our new addition!  All in a weekend…but I’ll cover all that in a later post!

Let me preface this post by telling you about Orphan Annie’s birthday party which Belle attended a few weekends ago…..  I walked Belle next door to the party to drop her off and speak to Orphan Annie’s mother, reminding her that we were right next door should she need anything during the course of the evening/night with a houseful of girls.  When I left Belle there, I almost had a meltdown!  See, Orphan Annie is a year older than Belle.  She’s in 6^th grade and in middle school where as Belle is in 5^th and still attends elementary school.  Orphan Annie just turned 12 where as Isabelle Rose will be turning 11 in April.  Belle was the only 5^th grade, non-middle-school-age girl at the party.  This sounds fine and all, I know, except for the fact that the “girls” at this party looked more like…. freakin’ adults!  Not only were they ginormous in size, they also had the hair, makeup, clothes, and bodies…with curves!  Gasp!!  Who looks like that at 12, 13 years old?  I looked through the sea of adult-party-girl-look-alikes as I was talking to Orphan Annie’s mom, searching for another pip-squeakish, rug-rat’ish kind of a girl who looked to be more on Belle’s level.  I found none.  I wanted to cry.  Aside from Orphan Annie herself, the other BIG party girls towered over my sweet little munchkin and accentuated her tom-boyish ways even more so than usual.  When I got home I was beside myself.  I told H that I felt like I had just thrown her to the wolves!  He thought I was overreacting, of course, and convinced me not to worry so dang much.  Apparently, none of the big girls attacked her and she ended up having a fabulous time at the party.  Whew!  I still couldn’t help but be bothered by the fact that little girls today look way too grown up these days, but moving on with the rest of my story…..

This past Friday night, we went out for Mexican and margaritas as we do most Friday evenings.  Now, I am a people-watcher extraordinaire.  I pay attention to everyone and everything around me when I’m out and about.  I can’t help it, that’s just what I do.  So I observed a large table full of adults and kiddos.  Couples it appeared, out to dinner with friends and kids.  Fun!  Looks like something we’d do.  So I commented to H about how cute I thought one of the “moms” was with her blonde hair and her cute jeans and boots and red shirt.  He took a quick look-see and although he didn’t respond to me (he doesn’t like to encourage me to be “down with opb” ~ other people’s business), I could tell he agreed with me about her cuteness factor.  He even got caught looking!  Don’t you hate it when that happens?!  Anyway, five to ten minutes later, the kids reappeared at our table from the play-area in the restaurant.  We continued to chit and chat at the table when Belle pipes up and says, “Hey, that girl over there is a friend of Orphan Annie’s!  She was at her party!!”  “Oh really,” I responded, looking over at the table in question.  Realizing she was pointing to cute-mom’s table, I perked up a little.  Asking her which girl it was, she started pointing to and detailing the “party girl”….blonde hair, cute jeans, boots…and yes, red shirt….  You have got to be kidding me.  Yes, blog people, “cute mom” wasn’t a mom after all.  Rather, she was an Orphan Annie party-goer.  Shocked?  Me too.  Ewww, and H got caught looking at her!!!  I think I need another margarita…..

Moving right along…when we left the restaurant that night, H pulled the car up to the front door for me and the kiddos because it was raining outside.  When we drove away we had to pass back by the parking space where H’s truck had been parked.  H quietly instructed me to look over to my right at the car that was parked in front of his just moments ago.  As we drove by, I thought I was seeing things…one too many margaritas maybe?  Were my eyes deceiving me or was there seriously a woman with her ass up in the air in the front passenger seat of a car?  In the middle of a busy parking lot?!  Really?  Who does that?!  Dear God, I’ll take a pitcher….to go!!

Saturday…  Our day started off busy as usual.  Noah had baseball pictures at 9am.  Belle had a birthday party to attend (please, please, PLEASE let this party be filled with little girls instead of those big, scary party girls!) so she and I did some running around before hand to get a gift and get some girl-time in.  Have I mentioned how much I adore this sweet girl of mine and how I treasure our time together?  Just making sure.  J  After Belle was off to her party, I hung out at home with the boys and a few of their friends.  Ross had baseball pictures later in the day and the kids pretty much came and went, mostly playing outside all day.  Evening came and everyone started winding down.  At about that time, Belle started complaining about an unidentified “bump” that inflicted her earlier in the week.  On about Wednesday or Thursday, she came to me complaining about some sort of a painful insect bite (spider, I thought?) on her inner left thigh.  It looked like a really nasty mosquito bite.  It concerned me as I thought it might be a spider bite and told her that we would keep an eye on it and take her to the doctor if it didn’t get better in a few days.  She didn’t complain a whole lot after that and we looked at it daily to make sure it wasn’t growing out of control.  When she complained again Saturday evening, I told her to let me see it.  Oh. My. God.  The thing had quadrupled in size.  A spider bite for sure, I thought.  It looked awful!  I called my sister who is an RN to ask her what I could put on it until we could get to the doctor on Monday.  After describing the “bite” to her, she told me that it sounded more like a staff infection and that I needed to take her to the ER immediately.  Long story short, I took her and we spent about 6 hours there Saturday night into Sunday morning.  It was indeed a staff infection, likely the MRSA strain.  They had to give her an IV port in her hand so they could administer “sleepy medicine” in order to do a procedure to drain the abscess.  It was quite an experience.  Belle did much better than me.  I suck at medical emergencies.  Totally.  Any time they did something to her that hurt her, I cried.  And I couldn’t be by her side during all these little procedures because I have a history of fainting in emergency rooms.  Yes, I’m one of those.  I had to sit in a chair in the corner and silently cry along with her.  There is not a more helpless feeling than not being able to do something to help relieve your child of pain or illness.  At one point she was still crying 10-15 minutes after getting the IV port in her hand, so I told her we would go to the pet store the next day to get her a hamster.  That seemed to help.  J  She’d been asking for a rat/hamster for years and we’ve emphatically told her NO over and over again.  That all changed Saturday night…  Anyway, since being released from the hospital, Belle is doing well.  We’re taking extra good care of her with lots of meds and warm baths to treat the wound.  It was a scary experience, but she’s doing fine now.  We followed up with her pediatrician on Monday and things are progressing and healing well.  Lacrosse and horse back riding are out for at least a week, but she’ll be back to all physical activity soon, I’m sure!

Never a dull moment at the H household, that’s for sure…J  I must end this post here, but stay tuned for more days of my life…..

Be great!