Threes with Update

We are beginning day 3 of the three year-old running a 103-104 degree fever. It was 3 degrees outside our house at 3:00am this morning. If Toser's doctor's appointment was at 3 instead of 4 this afternoon, I might begin to think something is up. hmm?

It is seriously cold here. I know it's much, much colder in other places but this is Alabama, for goodness's sake! And not only is it currently 10 degrees outside now, inside it's not warmer than 60 degrees and both of the heat pumps have been running wide open for the last 2 days. Usually it would be okay and the extra 10 layers we're wearing would be fine but I have a kid on his death bed (not really but the way he is whining I should be preparing. OMG I cannot take Noggin cartoons anymore!). One of our toilets is frozen and our wood is damp so I cannot keep a fire going in the living room wood stove. It doesn't sound like I'm complaining, does it?

But it's not all bad. We're quite lucky in spite of MY whining. Tater seems to be doing okay and Mr. Awesome will be able to get away for some much needed guy time this weekend. I'll be going to see Manny and Brett in South Alabama next weekend. Toser isn't really dying although I may have a justifiable homicide defense after 3 days of Lazy Town. See? It's the little things that keep me happy around here and we really are lucky. I'll have to keep reminding myself of that today and stop the %$#@ whining already.

Update: How in the Hayull do they know?! Toser's appointment is in 30 minutes and he no longer has a fever. After waking up this morning at 103?! I'm still taking him in, if only to punish him for making me watch Noggin for 3 days.

Update 2: Just a virus. His fever went back up by the time we got to the office and the doc said it may stay around until Monday. I would ask for someone to bring me alcohol if I didn't think that I am now getting what he has.

On the Days I Am Lucky, I Am Silent

VII
by Wendell Berry, "A Timbered Choir"

I would not have been a poet
except that I have been in love
alive in this mortal world,
or an essayist except that I
have been bewildered and afraid,
or a storyteller had I not heard
stories passing to me through the air,
or a writer at all except
I have been wakeful at night
and words have come to me
out of their deep caves
needing to be remembered.
But on the days I am lucky
or blessed, I am silent.
I go into the one body
that two make in making marriage
that for all our trying, all
our deaf-and-dumb of speech,
has no tongue. Or I give myself
to gravity, light, and air
and am carried back
to solitary work in fields
and woods, where my hands
rest upon a world unnamed,
complete, unanswerable, and final
as our daily bread and meat.
The way of love leads all ways
to life beyond words, silent
and secret. To serve that triumph
I have done all the rest.

"VII" from the poem "1994" by Wendell Berry, from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997. © Counterpoint, 1998.

New Year: Same Attitude

It just never ends around here. All is good but I am running around in circles on the same stuff all the time. A constant battle with insurance/Medicaid on prescriptions and who covers what procedure, doctors' appointments, upcoming procedures, battles with Tater's medical equipment supplier, and blah blah blah. I know you're tired of hearing about it, I'm tired of myself talking about it. So, although I am OVERWHELMED with the STUFF right now, let's talk about my boys.

They're prepared for cold weather:

Their mom took exactly 5 pictures and 1 video Christmas morning. Oops!

They drive their mom to sing karoake and embarrass herself:

They're getting so big (pictures from May and December):