News and Notes, Lower Respiratory Edition

I finally went to the doctor on Friday.  I'd had enough of the coughing and when I woke up on Thursday I was exhausted, so I figured that might be symptom of things getting worse.  The doctor mentioned walking pneumonia, and while I don't think mine was quite at that level, it did get diagnosed as an unspecified acute lower respiratory infection.  I was prescribed a Z-pak, so we'll see if it works.  I felt pretty good early on Saturday and made it through Carter's first friend birthday party just fine, but when we got home I crashed on the couch for a couple hours.  I felt like my chest was hurting more when I coughed, and I got a dull headache, which I've had a few of in the past week or so.  I'm just ready for this to be done, particularly before I'm stuck in the van for many hours next weekend.

Jacob and Craig were in Canada for a couple days (Jacob had off school) so it was just Carter and me on Friday night.  We went for a haircut for him (so handsome!) and he picked Taco Bell for dinner, of all places.  He was such a good little dinner buddy (who has a newfound love of nacho cheese), and other than the bedtime antics that have been bugging him lately--he isn't tired, is afraid of the dark, and just generally won't go to sleep until 10:30--we had such a nice time.  He let me rest while he watched some shows Saturday morning, and then it was off to the party!

Carter's friend's birthday party had been eagerly anticipated, and Saturday was finally the day!  Carter had been asking for weeks, and literally counting down the days this week.  It was at Adventure Landing, our mini golf place, but clearly with temperatures in the 40s, indoor activities were on tap for the day.  Carter was so excited to see his daycare buddies, most or all of whom have moved up to Kindergarten, including the birthday boy, Elias.  They get to see each other at church sometimes, usually as we're checking into Sunday School, but then they go their separate ways.  But he had such a fun time seeing his buddies again!  We had a bag full of tokens to play games, and it was a lot of fun to let him play every game he wanted--all of the four-token driving games and every random ticket-generating game--since we usually try to avoid a lot of those when we're paying for the tokens.  He's not very good at most of them, but he's so cute trying!  With our teamwork, we ended up with 185 tickets before we even broke for lunch!

We had to do a group picture, and for some reason Carter was completely refusing to get in on it.  I don't know what his deal was--maybe he was just intent on doing something else, or maybe he's just painfully shy--but he would not sit down with everyone else.  And then when all seemed lost, Elias got up and asked him to come sit with him, and Carter went right over.  It was simultaneously the cutest and most frustrating moment! 


It's not as clear as I'd like it to be, but Carter is in the lower middle.

He ate lunch well and then it was time for cake.

And yes, all the boys are helping the birthday boy blow out candles.  They already got blown out once by another kid when they were trying to light them!

The highlight for Carter was getting into the Wow Factory, which is a basically ball pit gone mad.  It's a netted, three-level play area full of small nerf-style balls and a bunch of air features--air guns, vacuums that suck balls up into guns, or areas where you can play with air to make the balls float.  There's also a giant spiral tube slide and canvas strap mesh climbing/crawling areas.  Carter had so much fun running, climbing, and shooting. 

Trying out one of the shooters

Like he looked half the time he was in there, carrying as many balls as possible to load into a gun.  Silly boy!

By the end of the party, we had over 400 tickets to spend!  He got a pack of army guys, a slap bracelet, a silicone shark ring, an alien parachuter, and one of those propellers on a stick that you have to spin through your hands and it takes off like a helicopter.  We had to grab a picture of Carter and Elias before we took off.  They are so stinkin' cute.  They do this every time they see each other.

While I was having this pleasant little 27 hours with Carter, my parents were in Kentucky for my cousin's son's funeral.  There was a huge part of me that wished I was able to be there.  But between being sick, Craig being gone, busyness at work, and the logistics of getting myself down there and back (my parents are tacking on a couple extra days to visit friends and check out some extra stuff, so going with them wasn't really an option), it just wasn't meant to be.  But my heart was there and is still so sad for all of them.  My brain is still battling me hardcore to not let me think about it too deeply, but it is still sticking with me.  I am really trying hard to use the perspective of this tragedy to balance out my parenting a bit.  I can't say it works all the time, but I'm trying to maintain a little more patience--not only picking my battles a little better, but also just remembering that our problems are nothing compared to what some people have to deal with.  Ours are tough, no doubt--but it can always be worse.  There may be a time (God forbid) where this seems like the easy stuff, and I'm trying to remember that.  We just never know what is ahead for us, and this tragedy was a sobering, close-to-home reminder of that.  I'm still struggling a bit, faith-wise, with how all of this fits into God's plan.  I mean, surely God can't like watching his people suffer so greatly, but He allows these things to happen, somehow.  How can a great, godly kid like Ryan be of better use in heaven than here on earth?  He clearly touched so many hearts in life, and is still doing so in death, but I feel like his potential was enormous and can't quite wrap my brain around why he's no longer with us.  It sounds like the celebration of life at their church was phenomenal, and I know the family has great support there, but at the most basic level of human emotions, no matter how strong their faith, they are going to miss their son and brother so desperately.  They can be completely content knowing that he's in heaven, but the void on earth has to be completely overwhelming.  I was talking about it with moms at church this morning and we agreed it would be seemingly impossible to come back from.  Prayers will continue, especially now that family is leaving and life will have to get back to a new normal rather quickly.

So, another week begins for us.  It's a terribly dreary, thundery, rainy evening tonight, but the good news is we only have to get through a few days this week before we leave for Jacob's tournament.  I have Thursday and Friday off, and we'll be heading out after school on Thursday.  We have a lot of packing to do before then--fall tournaments seem so much more complicated, for some reason--and now I'm totally out of the groove so it will be that much more challenging.  I'm going to have to do a little each night, and if I'm really good, maybe I can get some "me time" on Thursday morning instead of last-minute packing!  I just need to hope my medicine kicks in by then and we manage to have a wonderful time despite predicted cold and rain.  We'll see...