things Dave missed out on while he was in China for ten days:

Dave just returned a few days ago from a long trip to the other side of the world. It's strange how much more I miss him when he's fourteen hours ahead of me...not being able to just pick up the phone and call or text because he's probably sound asleep while I'm running kids all over creation. It is just plain weird.

I don't like that so many details of life I want to share with him slip through the cracks when he's gone. I forget to tell him things like how good Lucy was at the doctor or how Grace cracked me up with some funny joke. He misses the minutia of life here and that makes me sad for him. And it makes me sad for me that I don't get to share it with him.

Here are some of the things he missed:

1) We practically tore the whole house apart when we got the carpets cleaned and I pulled off all the slipcovers from the couches at the same time to wash them. We're trying to rid ourselves of what's causing us to sneeze uncontrollably around here.It made me wish we had white couches. I love that look.

Then I caught a glimpse of my dear childrens' bare feet...they were practically black on the bottom.

I quickly reconsidered.

2) Elle dropped her violin on the floor. Yep, just went ahead and dropped it. It got squashed. Luckily she was able to borrow one for her big concert. And a very nice man whose house was pungent with cigarette smoke was able to fix it beautifully. It may smell like smoke for a few months but it sure looks great.

Elle's that one in that dark, back corner, glowing with that cute little smile.
(Max was at b-ball and yes, those are Claire's shoes Lu is wearing...we somehow got there without hers...but that's no surprise for our family.)

We saw this sunset on the way to the concert:Grace took pictures because it was so gorgeous none of us could hardly stand it.

3) Max had his final basketball tournament.
He played ball for SIX hours. Yes, six. Six games all in one day, four of them back to back. They were practically crawling on the ground by the last one but they came in second place. (Another thing for that Tiger Mother to wag her finger at us for, but man alive, Max's team is fun to watch win or lose.)

4) In between b-ball games I had to practically do my own crawling over to check myself into urgent care because my allergies hit an all-time-horrible level. You know it's bad when I go to the doctor...I generally reserve doctors for my children. But I could hardly breathe. All week I felt like I was under water in a fog because of all the different medicine I was taking to try to combat it. They gave me a shot and all kinds of medicine but those darn symptoms stuck around all week long.

Dave and I have this on-going debate about what you should do when you get sick. He says get rest and drink water. I say keep going full speed and it'll work it's way out of your system. My theory was proven wrong as I ran around and just kept getting sicker and sicker through the week. My poor kids had to really pick up the slack and help out since I was a single parent. Not so fun. I just hope I made some semblance of sense with those I had meetings with, etc.

I did have a pretty sweet dream about Tom Hanks when I was in my allergy fog: I ran into he and his wife in the mall and then got to interview them in their penthouse NY studio apartment that was furnished completely with IKEA furnishings...

5) Elle had her tennis tournament.

6) I stole Max away from school for a lunch date.

We haven't done this since he started Jr. High when we found out it's much trickier to steal your children away from there than it is from elementary school.
I must say he was pretty darn excited...so was I...

...especially since he chose something other than McDonalds. Hallelujah.

7) I got to be the "mystery reader" in Claire's class.8) I had a slew of new doctor appointments for Lucy, one of which was so frustrating...more on that later...

9) I took Elle to the high school orchestra concert (the one I wrote about here) to watch some of our talented Young Women.

10) I got to read in Lucy's classroom for Dr. Seuss's birthday:As you can tell, I think I was way more excited about it than the kids. I love Dr. Seuss.

11) Claire was invited to try out for a more advanced "team" at her gym. And she made it. Many more thoughts on that later too...

But amongst the myriad of things we did while Dave was gone, the biggest, most exciting thing we did was follow through on Max and Elle's Christmas gift: to switch around their bedrooms. They've both been begging to switch forever. Finally we gave in.

Max's room went from this:
to this:
to this: (we're going to paint that desk)
Elle is the proud new resident.

And Elle's room went from this:
to this:
Well yeah, we have a LOT of work to do on both of them, especially this one. The trouble is I can't for the life of me find boy teenage-looking-but-fit-for-guests-when-they-come-to-town-to-take-over-his-room bedding. Or cool beds. I found a couple but I can't seem to pull the trigger...

The kids kicked in and did some SERIOUS helping (even though they were a little sad they didn't get to help paint like they did when we did Grace's room). It was a LOT of work...most of which was done in a fog of allergies for me.

None of us slept much for ten days.

We are so happy to have Dave home, safe and sound.

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