Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Look at these two little leprechauns! Have you ever had this much energy at 7:30 a.m.? Thank goodness for warmer weather. These walls just can't contain us anymore. We were reduced to this for the last few weeks:


Riding bikes in a circle around the pool table in the unfinished basement. Boy do we know how to party! The boys actually loved it. Coming in from some outside play on Monday, Ed said, "Now can we take our bikes to the basement?" I however, was going a bit stir crazy. Never in a million years when we were considering buying this house did I think I'd spend time in the basement other than to do laundry!

Following up on the last post, Daniel got over his fever but remained congested through all of last week. Toward the end of the week he was occasionally saying his ear hurt, but it didn't seem to be slowing him down at all, and I know that most doctors don't automatically treat ear infections with antibiotics anymore. On Monday morning he actually woke up talking about his ear so I called in to report the symptoms and duration to see if he should come in. They gave him an appointment for 4 p.m., but when 3:45 rolled around and he was still napping, I called to cancel. Last thing I wanted to do was wake him up! But the afternoon was difficult--inconsolable wailing with a rage-like quality. I kept asking if his ear hurt, and he'd just scream NO!

Once John got home he tried to make some headway, but to no avail. Finally, around 6, Daniel said Yes when I asked if he wanted the doctor to look at his sore ear. (I had to promise that there would be no shots involved.) So I took him to urgent care, where they diagnosed an ear infection. He still had no fever and was actually at the height of his cuteness in the doctor's office (perhaps his good mood had something to do with me entertaining him with the only accessible item in the exam room--a flip book of the digestive system. He LOVED when I showed him, "This is where the poop comes out." Oh, my goodness.) But the NP said it was red/bulging and even if it was viral to begin with, the fact that he'd been talking about it off and on for several days led her to prescribe amoxicillin.

This turn of events might also explain why he was sort of indifferent to our Sunday evening swimming adventure. We spent the day with John's family in Chariton celebrating his grandparents' 70th wedding anniversary. Wait, just stop to think about that for a second. Seventy years! They are truly an inspiration to us all! On the way home, we stopped at a hotel about 20 miles from Iowa City that has an indoor waterpark and charges half-price admission on Sunday nights. It wasn't as grand as the park we've been to in Dubuque, but still, we thought the boys would be more excited about it. We found the ventilation to be poor--Daniel was coughing quite a bit even though he hadn't coughed otherwise that day and didn't cough after we left. They must have been aware of this issue because the overhead fans were blowing, but that made it pretty cold to wait for a turn on the big slides. We only took a few slide turns and spent most of the rest of the time in the (crowded) pool or in the zero-depth entry kiddie splash area. When we left, the boys were gleeful saying it was "Super fun!" but we probably wouldn't go back. We can have as much fun in our local pools for less than half the price!

I'll close with this picture of the lovely anniversary couple.

P.S. John owes you a description of taking the boys to see a wrecking ball demolishing a campus building last week. Feel free to harass him electronically until he shares the experience.