uninvited guest (to put it nicely!)

a couple weeks ago my husband woke me up as he was searching through the pantry for a flashlight. half asleep i asked him what he was doing. he responded by saying, "something just took a leek down the chimney!" that shot me out of bed! i turns out that we had a raccoon in our chimney! yuck! i hate, hate, hate raccoons! when i was in 3rd grade i was nipped by one on my foot. yuck! $350 later, everything was disinfected and the 2 fireplaces were capped on the top. i should add that he/she was not there at the time. we haven't thought too much about it since--until last night at 10:00 our neighbor called us to tell us that our little guest has moved on and found a new home--in their fireplace and it is stuck! would it be heartless of me to say, "Merry Christmas!"???

influenza!

poor "m" woke up yesterday with burning up! we took his temp. under his arm and it was 103.7--which would really be 104.7 because it reads lower under your arm. we gave him motrin and tylenol--which he threw up twice, but was finally able to hold down one additional dose of motrin. the poor boy was feeling horrible! he slept most of the morning but then threw up again. "A" was such a great big brother. he read to him, wrote a story for him entitled "Math Baby and Fun", and offered to dump the vomit out of the bowl that "M" was sick in. if that isn't a sweet brother i don't know what is! of course i didn't have him clean it out--tempting though! in the afternoon we sent "A" to church with some neighbors and took "M" to the kids care. he has the nasty influenza that is going around. not fun! he seems sooooo much better today. hopefully we will both get a good nap!