A different sort of day

As I went to sleep last night, the day ahead looked predictable: Bella's birthfamily was due for an afternoon visit, so we'd get up early, clean the house, hit the grocery store, prepare some snacks, and strap in for a fun visit with Bella's birthcousins... The actual day did not go that way, however.

It started comically: Isaac had woken up with a devil in his car and was unusually fast and mischievous, escaping from every room we were in. So in a moment of craziness, I grabbed one of the old-fashioned keys and actually locked our bedroom door with us all in it. Now, these locks are quite old - we've never even tried them out. But in my mind, when that key turned, hey, they must work!

So after a giggle, I turned the key the other way to unlock... and it stuck. Nope, that deadbolt was NOT moving.

I spent the next 20 minutes trying to unlock the door again with the whole family laughing (at least we had formula, a phone, and a bathroom on OUR side of the door!). We left a few messages for people who have keys to the house, asking if they'd come try the lock from the other side... Fortunately, we had a set of tools in the laundry room and I was able to jimmy the lock with a screwdriver. It was a completely insane way to start the day.

Once downstairs, Bella wanted no food all morning, and was even paler than usual. Her energy level was in the sub-basement, with a slight fever. All she wanted to do was watch shows horizontally, not eat, and not have Isaac anywhere near her (tears were fast to come when the two were in the same room).

We figured out that she was not merely crabby but actually sick (a call confirmed that Jenny had the same symptoms!), and we canceled the visit - no point in passing along some strange illness to other kids! Bella took a few naps, watched a few movies... and by the end of the day had enough appetite to make time with a PBJ, and play one game of go-fish, before asking to go back to bed. I asked if she had a headache, and she said "Just a touch".

As I snuck out, believing her to be asleep, she stopped me and asked for a story when I was a little kid... "but just tell me anything because I'll be asleep while you're telling it". Sure enough, she was out cold by the end of my tale (about my hamsters Danielle and Cheryl) - she just wanted my voice to help her relax.

Isaac also took a HUGE nap today (4 hours!!!), but was ready for bed at the usual time too.

And I did something horrible to my lower back while reaching for something on the floor behind a chair... it just went "WINCE", and the tears started flowing. Which is just crazy: I work out 4-5 times a week, I'm in great health, and I reach for something just wrong, and I'm laid up? Who made THAT rule? Add to that my pink eye AND my sore knee (I lost my balance stepping over one of Bella's forts yesterday)

Since there was so much downtime today, I started work on The Rosetta Stone Swedish: I've heard so much about this program so I figured it was worth a go: Given what I already know, I cruised through the 10 lessons of Level 1 today, but there are 9 more levels to go, and they won't all be this fast. It's interesting: Whereas Pimsleur gets you started immediately on conversations (hello, I'm american, do you speak english?), Rosetta Stone is more about general sentence structures: This is a boy. The boy Jumps. The boy is under a table. The boy is on an airplane. The boy is in a car. The car is white.... You get the idea. You learn the grammatical rules through immersion.

There is no English anywhere - you pick up meanings through context clues in pictures. I'm not sure how this can build to advanced concepts, nor do I see how this can move to first and second person, since it's all about pictures (which are inherently third person!). But I'll keep an open mind: People really seem to like this program, so I'll stick it out!

A business trip this week to NYC and Philly should be fun (if my back behaves)... Carrie has sent me a lot of suggestions for things to do in "the City" - which I've never actually been to as far as I know (certainly not in my adult life!!!)