frazzled

Sunday was a sick day for me, or at least I was sick that day. Jaren had a festival at the poetry center that he had to attend for his internship so I stayed home and quickly surrendered my much needed sleep for the whims of my children.

Jaren called me from the center and told me if I was well enough I should bring the kids over, there was plenty of fun to be had by them. We bathed, dressed and headed over.














In the children's corner, where Jaren was stationed,
he read pop-up books, and the kids colored on huge pieces
of paper that would later be attached to balloons and floated away.

Joshua played with a hula-hoop.
He couldn't figure out how to get it
to stay up without holding on, so
he just spun around while holding it.

These characters were on spring stilts
and jumped around the premises, announcing
the soon arrival of their comrade, who would be
descending from the sky on balloons. We would
miss this grand entrance as we would be occupied
in another building watching "stories that soar," a
variety of plays put on based on poems that children

at the festival wrote and submitted.

In the children's corner, Claire discovered
a beautiful butterfly on a stick. It inspired her.

Claire waited in line for no less than 90 minutes
to get her face painted. She was the only child in
line that wasn't complaining, bossing around
others, and jumping in and out of line. She was so
patient and sweet, and was the only child to come
back and thank the busy artist. The painter was
already an hour over her time limit, but she set down
her brush and looked into Claire's eyes to say,
"Thank you, Sweetie. I'll remember YOU."

The art is on the left of her face,
the leftover sonoran hotdog is on the right.

I wish I could say the story ended here. It was a good day.

I called into work sick the next day, worked sick on Tuesday, and took Jaren to the ER on Wednesday. See his blog for more humorous details on that. In short, he was having unexplained shortness of breath and chest pain and, later that night, fever. I worked Thursday and came home to a bill from our former apartment complex for $2020.00 and there was nobody in the office for me to dispute the charges with. Jaren was still feverish.

Friday was my day off. I cleaned the house ALL day long, there was much to do. That night the kids had fevers. Saturday morning I called into work, Jaren had been up all night with cold sweats and discomfort. At 9AM the maintenance men came to fill the cracks in our floors and repaint the entire house floor. We were under the impression that they wanted us to be there while they worked. We were wrong. I roused my husband out of bed, dressed the kids, grabbed some snacks and diapers and we headed to Mexico.

The salesmen here are so passionate, with their beer soaked breath and price roller coasters.
There's so much to see and so much talk over price, an hour feels like 3, but I want to go back.











































































When we got home every room of the house had a tower of furniture in the middle of the floor.
Remember all that cleaning I did on my day off?
This morning Jaren is still sick. So am I.