I'm not a huge fan of keeping Mercedes home from school, but she's had this cough for about a week, and last night it started sounding really raspy. She's not bringing anything up either. I took her to the urgent care offices, but apparently they've changed their hours, and instead of being open from 9 to 9, they close at 8 on weekdays and 6 on weekends. We headed over to the ER, but when we got there, the lobby was crowded with about 20 people. Even if only half of them were patients, we'd have been there all night, so we came home. I doped her up with some Pr0meth@zine to quell the cough and help her sleep, and called her in sick this morning. We're going to the doctor in a little bit.

Dad is out of town for a few precious days. The house is VERY quiet, and I feel inspired to clean (as if I had time). I'm going to end up missing my yoga class today because it was very short notice. I could have Mercedes watch Alex for the hour and a half that yoga and the travel to and from takes up, but as it is, she's not thrilled about missing school (which was why she wanted to go to the doc last night), so it would really suck to be home sick from school and stuck babysitting.

Can I just ask a quick question here? Why is it that when my son is cold, he thinks that getting dressed is going to make him colder? GAR!

Corey needs to find some way to interact with Mercedes that doesn't require any skill. She gets so flustered because she's so afraid of disappointing him that she ends up making mistakes that frustrate HIM, and he's got this COMPLEX that makes him feel that he needs to ensure that everything she does is done "industry standard." It kind of kills the father/daughter bonding thing. She walks away depressed, and he walks away confused and pissed off, not understanding why I'm mad at him and why she's bummed out. Does it really take someone with my awesome mental powers to figure it out? Holy CRAP, man! The thing is, I know that he's trying. He just doesn't understand how to be with her.

The Perfect Attendance (PA) party went really well on Saturday. We showed up really early, so Corey and I walked around downtown for about half an hour, and I decided to go ahead and stop in at the wool shop (sorry Christine, I couldn't wait anymore and I was RIGHT THERE!). I wandered around, sticking my fingers in just about every skein of yarn, plus the GORGEOUS handpainted yarn. I talked to the proprieter, and wound up buying a beautiful abalone shell crochet hook. So far, I've found it difficult to use, but I hope to get the hang of it. Because it would be cool to be sitting at the laundromat crocheting with a $14 crochet hook. Heh.

I miss my Christine. I know it's only been a few days since I've seen her, but I still miss her. I hope her first weekend with her hubby back on a regular schedule has been awesome. I hope she hasn't killed him and buried him in the backyard by the cesspool or septic tank - you know, the result of having your hubby around for more than 48 hours straight. I hope he took her out on Friday to have a seafood buffet, because if anyone deserves it, it's her.

the last trail...the next path