The Puddles

Last week was a good week. We got excellent news from Ben’s doctor. He managed to stay the entire week at school without coming home early. Everyone else in the family had a great week at school too. We thought that we were nicely slipping into an awesome school routine.And although today was not a disaster, Chris and I both agreed we hope that this was not a sign of things to come.

There was a lot of stuff going on at work so Chris decided to leave me at home this morning instead of waiting with him at work to make it easier for him to take me to occupational therapy. He comes home at noon and no sooner does he walk in the door then he gets a call phone call from Ben. Ben left his ID tag at home. Since this was the first offense Chris agreed for this one time to bring it up to school. No sooner did he hang up with Ben then we got a phone call from Madie. She called because she was sick. Chris agrees to pick her up early from school. So he and I grabbed a quick lunch to eat in the car while we made the rounds to drop Ben’s tag off at school and to pick Madie up from school.

We drop Ben’s tag off, we picked Madie up, and then Chris left us in his office while he went to his meeting. 10 minutes into his first meeting the nurse from Ben’s school called. She says he just walked into her office complaining of being dizzy. Since this boy rarely goes to the nurses office to complain about not feeling well we knew that this was real. His blood pressure was fine but with Ben the symptoms of dizziness can be caused by any one of his health issues. When I asked Ben  what he wanted to do, he said, “I want to stay at school. If you pick me up, you will take me home and look me over and end up finding something seriously wrong. And then I will wind up back in the hospital. ”

Ben didn’t get to bed until 10:30 on Sunday night. So my thought was that he was just tired and that if he laid down in the nurses office for a little while the dizziness might go away. The nurse thought that was a good idea. Unfortunately 15 minutes later I got a phone call from Ben and he told me he wanted to go home. He was pretty mad because in science class they were doing a bubblegum experiment. I asked him if he wanted to stay for that and he said no. He was so dizzy he was worried about falling over.

So two kids are down for the count tonight, we told Ainsley to suck it up because we needed at least one kid to go to school. She agreed. As long as we picked up her new cello tomorrow and bring it home, she agreed to remain healthy. She will make a good lawyer one day because she certainly knows how to draft an agreement in her favor.

Despite everything, I managed to get dinner on the table and the kids in bed early. Ben and Ainsley were asleep by 7:30, and Madie by 8:30. So hopefully with that much sleep under their belt, everyone will feel better by morning.

More importantly, Chris and I agreed to not let this day affect the rest of the school year.

Today was supposed to be a day of joy because there was Blue Bell ice cream on the shelves again. The best part of my day was when the church secretary offered to pick up two gallons of ice cream for us. When she got to be store, they were rationing the ice cream to two gallons per person. She was buying for us and her family. When they stopped her, she said she used both the “I am buying this for my pastor” Card and the “my pastor’s wife broke her arm and can’t drive” card and they let her!!!!! It was awesome!!! I got to rub it in to all of my family that I had ice cream and they didn’t!! 

So thank you Ida. Your ice cream has cured our blues away, and I am sure that it cured our children’s illnesses as well. That is just how miraculous and wonderful Bluebell ice cream is.