February Funk

Dear February 2010,
Good Riddance.
Sincerely, The J-Ms

FEBRUARY 2010

Freakish amounts of snow and Snow Days

Everyone doing their best to hold it together (some times more successful than others -- photo below taken on a good day... making cookies!). Oh, and 'E' also stands for Earthquake. We're still trembling, even though we're time and space away from the January 12 Haiti earthquake.

Basketball (and 2 boys' love-affairs with Lehigh b-ball games) replaced football, and baseball, at least for the time being. Basketball, basketball, basketball. Oh, and Black History Month, of course.

Really and truly, this month felt like an uphill battle every single day ALL MONTH LONG.

Under, unfortunately, sad circumstances we had what actually turned out to be a great (definitely the highlight of our month) impromptu trip to Massachusetts. Grandma Lorraine's was K & O's first family Memorial Service (profoundly sadly, it was Meera's third). But -- always the optimists -- as we left the church chapel Kyle proclaimed (totally genuinely) to the pastor, "That was the best funeral I've ever been to!!!!" (later she came and talked with me for awhile about our little Religious One). We really did wind up having a great trip-- including a fun 2-night stay in a nice hotel (with --jackpot!-- an indoor swimming pool) in Worcester with MorMor and MorFar, Auntie Stina, Mark, and Sadie. [Photo below = H with boys in hotel room during Meera's nap, before boys heading out with Braydon for a morning swim] Please please please do not leave nasty anonymous comments about how ashy their skin is. I know. Chlorine and February do that. Duh. We're aware of it. Please do not harass me about it because right about now I seriously cannot take the negative commentary. Trust me, I've got it covered.

Antibiotics. Need I say more? Sickness sucks. At one point, three of the five of us were on antibiotics. Several bottles of various prescription and over-the-counter meds were consumed by the J-M family. I don't think there has been one day during February that we've all been 100% healthy. That just totally, totally sucks. Miraculously, Owen has been the only one in the family who did not get sick (at all!) during February. Of course, he had a broken collar bone. But that's a whole other story. (and -- a positive note: we found out in February that his collar bone is 100% healed... so, that's good... and he's now --for better or for worse-- back to his full range of activities... including stuff like dish-washing... but also including driving all of us crazy with his crazy antics)

Reliving the Lion King over and over and over and over and over. (Oh, and there was that Ridiculous holiday, Valentines Day, in there somewhere too-- but, honestly, that kinda got lost in the snow day shuffle... plus, Braydon had been throwing up the night before, so that kinda put a damper on it too. ugh.)

Year two is quickly closing in on us. As of today, our baby girl is 21 months old. Which, truthfully, just feels so depressing. How, oh how, can that be? Can't Meera Grace just stay a baby forever???

P.S. Lucky for us our trusty coffee maker went on the fritz during February. At first this seemed like yet another thing to hate about this month. But, no! It was a blessing in disguise! We finally had a semi-decent excuse to buy that Keurig coffee maker we've been coveting. And oh how that Keurig made our last few days of February sooooooooooo much better than they would have been without it!!!!!!!!!!!!