You know, I'm a Romantic

Our family is leaving today for our annual beach vacation in Hilton Head. This year, we’ve invited my parents to join us for the whole week. A single friend of ours is coming with us just for this weekend, and my niece and her best friend are joining us next Friday overnight. One of my sisters, Toni, is planning on coming on Monday for the day and is hoping to drag my other sister, Trina, along with her. It should be fun, albeit busy, but I won't be Posting for a week. Have a good week and I'll be on-line again September 4.

Speaking of busy, yesterday was one for the records books. It was our 10th Anniversary (Yay, yay!) as well as the anniversary of some dear friends, the Francis’, and the birthday of my dear friend Andree’s eldest child, Elaine. Elaine is Dane’s age, in his class in school, and I’ve known her since she was in the womb. Happy Birthday, my sweet Elaine.

Anyway, since we are leaving today for the beach, Don and I celebrated our anniversary a couple of weeks ago with a trip to St. Simon’s Island. Last night we had dinner reservations for 5:45 at one of the nicer restaurants in town, Calvert’s, and a babysitter was coming at 5:00. Our friend, Ken, decided to take the kids to dinner at Golden Corral along with the sitter around 6:00. Don and I figured we’d be home by 8:00 p.m.

The day started out as frenetic as usual. Daelyn woke up Thursday from his nap with croup which had worsened during the night. By Friday morning, he was miserable and wanted Mommy’s attention (at 6:15, I might add). I sent him in to get Don to warm apple juice up for him, since Don was already up and working at the computer. Daddy got him a poptart before running out the door to take his car to the garage.

I got up and started my long list of chores. Yes, I am a list person. Yesterday, while at the doctor’s office waiting to be seen, I made a long list of everything that needed to be done, at a minimum, for us to peacefully get out the door this morning, including writing this Post. Some things went marvelously well, but there were constant interruptions from Daelyn who needed attention. He just felt miserable.

I was trying to get caught up on Don’s ironing when he returned home from the garage, without his car. Apparently, there was a serious problem with it and he finally had to leave it behind and walk home. He informed me that he was on his way to get his allergy shot and had several errands to run, including Sam’s and Wal-Mart and asked if I needed anything. Silly boy! You’re going to Wal-Mart. Of course I need something.

I began a list of the items I needed, including new underwear for Deanna and school socks for Dane. Don asked several pertinent questions, including color of these items. So, I wrote brand name, type, color, sex, and size down, taking up several lines on the list. You may notice that color came before sex. Bad choice when writing something for Don.

Don: “White girl’s, as opposed to Polynesian girl’s or East Indian girl’s?”

It took me a minute, as usual, to figure out his humor. Okay, okay. Maybe I should have said “girl’s underwear, white”. But it was not a commentary on Deanna’s race, just the color underwear I wanted him to buy.

He took off, with my van, while I tried to finish my chores in the house. Concerned that Daelyn seemed to be getting worse, I called his doctor’s office to see if we might need to run him in before we left town. Of course!! But the only time they had left was 4:00 p.m. - right in the middle of his naptime, not to mention, it’d be a miracle if I got home in time for my anniversary date.

So, what to do? Do I do my hair and makeup and dress for my date before the doctor’s appointment? If so, at least I’d be ready to go as soon as we got home. But I might look pretty strange at the doctor’s office dressed for dinner at a nice restaurant. And I still had to fit in cleaning out the van, vacuuming it thoroughly (I clean it out before every trip), getting Don’s anniversary card, and his gift.

At 12:17, I was still sitting in my pajamas (not that unusual, really), not making much progress. I fed the kids, quickly got my bath, washed and dried my hair, and threw on shorts. Don popped in with the van. I got Daelyn down for his nap, grabbed Deanna, and took off to get Don's card and present. Some people may not have thought a present was necessary - after all, we went away for three days two weeks ago, our present to each other - but there have been several Anniversaries when we've been in the throes of trying to get to the beach and Don has shown up with presents for me and I had nothing for him. This was my chance to redeem myself.

I ran to the local drugstore to pick up a nice card. But, since I was last there, they've done away with their beautiful assortment of cards and now have only a limited selection, with nothing appropriate to this occasion. I quickly scrapped that idea and moved on to get his present. As you may know about me, I'm a terrible romantic, thus the new key to Don's shed I was having made for him. I presented the lady at the counter of the Locksmith's with his key and told her I needed a duplicate. She looked over the key and said, "The problem here, ma'am, is that this is a key to a European lock and we can't duplicate keys to European locks. We don't even have a similar key to use for the duplicate. I'll try my best, but there's no guarantee it's going to work. I really need the lock to attempt this duplicate." She needs the lock?!? She obviously has no idea what I went through to get the KEY. Don was using it at the time I left and I had to remove it from the lock, hoping he wouldn't need to relock his shed and notice the missing key. While removing the key, he appeared in the shed to ask me what I was doing. I gave some lame answer about checking out Deanna's bike to get it ready for our trip. He looked suspicious and then asked me where I was going. I refused to tell him. Now, they need the LOCK? I begged the woman please to try. I only had 45 minutes total before we had to leave for Daelyn's appointment and I had already struck out on his card.

She made the duplicate and we took off and headed to Big Lots to find a card. We also got a small gift bag and flew outta there, arriving home at 3:20 (we had to leave at 3:30) to find my sister, Toni, visiting. I ran out to the shed, tried the key, which fit better than the original (Thanks be to God), and ran back in the house to say hello before waking the baby and heading out again. So much for all my pondering about whether to dress before the appointment. No hair done, no makeup on, looking like an outcast from a Surfer's Convention, I picked a screaming, shaking Daelyn up and carried him to the van.

To cut to the chase, Daelyn has PNEUMONIA and is WHEEZING. I never would have dreamed, but I'm very thankful the Lord was watching over us and gave me the sense to take him to the doctors before we left for Hilton Head. We came home with several prescriptions (arriving at 5:10) and Don was visiting with the babysitter, a single friend of mine that's never kept our children before. I asked her to follow me around while I dressed. Thank goodness I had laid my dress and shoes out. In three minutes, I was dressed and started my hair and makeup while giving directions about the children. Don and I walked out the door at 5:35 for 5:45 dinner reservations. We arrived at the restaurant at 5:50 - not TOO bad, all things considered.

After a wonderful, romantic dinner and a great time with my best friend, Don and I checked the time (it was 8:23) and decided to run to Wal-Mart quickly to check the Clearance Aisle for Christmas presents. We were home by 9:05 with several presents hid away in his trunk.

Daelyn was asleep on the couch and the other two were watching a movie. The babysitter had her purse on her shoulder (does this mean something?) but said the children were very good. We visited for a while and then Daelyn woke up, burning up and crying uncontrollably. Don ran out quick to pick up his antibiotic while I gave him a dose of Advil (blue raspberry flavored, after our fiasco with grape Tylenol). When Don returned, I drew 3/4 tsp. in a syringe and squirted it into Daelyn's mouth, making sure he swallowed this time. I decided we'd go snuggle in my bed, so we started down the hallway when he stopped suddenly and began vomiting - the antibiotic and the Advil.

What to do? He has pneumonia, has to have antibiotics, but can't hold them down. The nurse on call was recommending taking him to the emergency room for a shot of antibiotics. It's not that I don't think nurses know what their talking about, but I've found that the doctors often have suggestions that require less severe measures than what the nurses on call recommend. (Nurses have liability issues the doctors are less concerned about.) I asked her please to call the doctor so we could run all this by her before our jaunt to the E.R. She reluctantly agreed. The doctor, my new hero, said to put the baby to bed and try again this morning. She called more antibiotic into the drugstore for us to pick up on our way out of town.

We can only hope this will work but I liked the option better than staying home or spending last night in the E.R. So we're about 12 hours behind on packing up, but Don was pleased with his new key and card. Several people asked him what his anniversary present was. Don, my man of few words, held up the key. The same response from everyone - quizzical eyebrows, half smiles, and then the questions, "What is that the key to?" I'm sure some of them expected the answer to be, "My new car" or "a vacation house". Don told our waitress it was a key to his shed. She smiled and said, "Oh, you got a new shed. How nice." Don replied, "No. I got the shed 2 years ago. This is just a key to it." Quizzical eyebrows yet again, with a hint of confusion behind the eyes.

Okay, so not everyone is as romantic as me. Maybe someday the world will catch up.