Sophie called me a "butt hair hat."  Sort of made me queasy, while at the same time confirming my belief that she’ll be fine growing up with two older brothers.  She’s also called me "pig fart," "donut butt," "grown-up toes," and "mayonnaise head," along with a bunch I have thankfully blocked out.  It’s partly my fault, since I play a game with the kids where we try and think of silly creative things to call each other.  We go back and forth with harmless insults like chicken knees, monkey legs, butter lips, and two of my favorites made up by Nate: jelly eye and belt jelly.

Belt jelly.  That’s gross no matter how you define it.

Today was long.  Today being friday, which now that it’s after midnight, is technically saturday.  But it seems like longer ago than this morning that I took Willow to see the cardiologist.  She woke up friday at 4 am and turned purple again.  That was the fifth time since tuesday that it happened, and each time it was within 15 to 40 minutes of waking up from either a full night’s sleep or a nap.  Hmmmmm.  So, I explained this to the doctor.  He had a diagnosis for me!  I called 911 because my baby was

cold.  He says that she’s unusually fair-skinned and that the cyanosis is a result of her being cold.  Her heart is fine.  My mom radar is not off alert though.  She doesn’t always turn blue when she’s cold, and on tuesday morning it happened when she was bundled up to go outside.  Also, why wouldn’t I have noticed this before?  And if it is a new phenomenon, why did it suddenly start and why is it happening exclusivly after she sleeps, rather than say, after a bath, when she gets chilled.  On the other hand, I myself tend to get really chilled if I get up out of bed in the night.  I really feel it when I get back into bed, where I will shiver and shake for awhile before feeling better.  So, maybe that’s it.  But, have you ever seen someone’s mouth and fingernails glow purple because they’re a little chilly?  It just doesn’t seem like the explanation that clicks everything into place. 

And on yet another hand entirely. . . when we got to the doctor’s office today there was a boy there waiting to be seen.  He was on a gurney, and I think he was a quadraplegic.  He stared ahead without seeming to see anything, from this impossibly large moon face that has got to be the result of steriods.  He made really loud wet raspy noises when he breathed.  He was maybe twelve years old, I guess.  There was a nurse with him, and she’d try and soothe him when he seemed agitated, but there wasn’t anyone else, no parents or grandparents.  Something about the nurse’s rubber gloves made it even sadder.  There’s so much heartbreak and suffering, and it’s so randomly distributed.  I can be cranky because this month Sophie puked and had diarreah for a week, Willow started turning blue, Lexy got strep, we had lots of unexpected expenses to stress over, and so on and so on forever amen.  But really, I can’t complain.  I have to laugh and deal with the days where Sophie dumps powdery fine grated parmesean (the good stuff, not the green can kind) all over the living room and shortly thereafter gets an even bigger amount of laundry soap all over the kitchen floor, the carpet, and in Willow’s hair, which I then have to rinse by making her lay on her back on a towel on the bathroom counter, (she fought nobly!) so I can make sure to get the soap out without it getting into her eyes.  We don’t want to know what color safe bleach would feel like.  We’re okay, though.  We will get well and I can clean up all sorts of messes and fix things.  We love each other.  We have fun.  And who doesn’t laugh when they finally find the metal tube and spring toilet paper holder hidden under the step stool in the bathroom with a pencil nestled inside the spring.  Little scientists, these kids. 

Happy Easter.  The spring rabbit is bringing lots of chocolate to our house.  And silly string.  More for me to clean up after, but it will be fun, right?