The Goop

So, I've had this sore throat since Saturday. By the time Tuesday rolls around, my eyes are turning red and oozing goop; they are glued shut when I try to open them Wednesday morning. I help myself to Natalie's eye drops from her pink eye days. Wednesday night, Matt waves a tired finger at me and tells me to see a physician. Or else. OR ELSE!


Thursday morning I wipe off my goopy eyes and take Nat to her last swim class. We have an hour to kill before Eve's preschool Easter egg hunt, so I swing by our favorite urgent care where I am seen in an insanely timely manner. I've honestly waited longer in a Taco Bell drive through. Duke time, this is not.

What seems to be the problem?
Well, my throat hurts really bad.
Anything else?
My ear started aching, too.
Just your throat and your ear?
Well, I've had a lot of sinus pressure and have had a few sinus headaches this week.
What I want to know is if you can even see out of your eyes. They look terrible.
I can see, it's just that everyone has that nice Barbara Walters-filter over their face.

I left with three prescriptions and instructions to double my dose of Claritin, no matter what the label says. Standard dosing is for wusses. Just enough time to drive through the pharmacy and make it to Eve's preschool.

Her teachers asked how I was because they heard I wasn't feeling well. I honestly don't remember writing anything in the e-world about feeling bad, so I asked how they knew. "Because you haven't been on Facebook in the past couple of days!" I was relieved it was that not Dan or Eve telling everyone their mommy looked like a red-eyed tree frog.

On Friday, just because we like putting miles on the van, we headed to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base for the Wings Over Wayne Make-A-Wish Day. There were about 30 families there to watch the Thunderbirds practice for their big show this past weekend. We were treated to our own officers who stayed with us during our visit, and I have to say, there was a sharp decline in the number of times the children acted up.

Daniel was the most excited to be there. Anytime someone asked, Are there any questions?, his hand would shoot up.

After a presentation on F-15E's:
"Why are there desks in these chairs?"
"Why do you keep showing the same airplane in different pictures?"
"Do you get nap time here?"

He particularly loved the part where he got to dress up.

It took a minute for him to realize he could not wear glasses and the helmet at the same time, but not for lack of trying. Up until this point, his extensive knowledge of the military was everything he had seen of the toy soldiers in Toy Story. Now he knows that they kind of look like Storm Troopers in real life.

Natalie was excited to have a big kid with her. We brought Carolyn, sister to Eve's friend, Franklin. Franklin is in the hospital being treated for a relapse of Wilms, so we offered to let Carolyn join us. Surprisingly, Carolyn wasn't upset to skip school.

We're now convinced the only way to keep these kids under control is with military personnel.

Eve was excited to climb into a firetruck and buckle herself in. I'm wondering if I could leave our van open and let her climb in and buckle on days when she's bored.

Did I mention Dan was excited to be there? Like, geeking out excited.

Mascots AND a seatbelt? This is Eve's lucky day.

And this is Mrs. North Carolina.

She kept walking past us saying she had to get a picture with the kids. Finally, after the third time Nat heard this, she said, "Mom, take our your camera because this lady wants us to get a picture with her."

Then Mrs. NC passed out pictures of herself and autographed them for the children. Daniel went into hysterics because she wrote on his picture; he doesn't do autographs. And the fact that it was a picture Mrs. North Carolina in a sexy dress which was autographed "XO, Dawn" and given to children at a Make-A-Wish event made it even more special for me.

The practice session lasted about 40 minutes. It was great, and the only thing that made it even more awesome for me was that it was the first time I've ever worn earplugs. And I couldn't hear whining from any of my children. Not a damned one! I'm totally taking these home.

Daniel was pretty stoked to meet a Thunderbird and show him his favorite maneuver (the opposing knife edge pass).

But no, he still would not like your autograph.

Matt's mom came in on Friday evening shortly after we got back home and on Saturday there was nothing in the forecast but rain. We decided to head downtown and take the kids to Marbles since the adult-to-kid ratio was so good. Unbeknownst to us, there was the mother of all tornadoes heading our way.

We suffered no damage, although many near us did. I've seen lots of people post "God is good!" when their neighbors sustained lots of damage but their house was unscathed. It makes me wonder what they think their neighbors did to God.