Dorkerific

This weekend we had a bout of the stomach flu surge through our family. It pretty much went like this: chain reaction vomiting with a major blow-out diaper in the middle just to keep the vomiting on a roll. Happy Mother's Day.

Yesterday we were still not feeling well and I had Sandy take chickie for the rest of the day and over night. Chickie's baby immunity seems to have protected her from the worst of it, which is good, but when everyone else is sick except the busy, energetic baby it's a problem.

After school today John introduced chickie to a friend of his by saying, "this is our baby I was telling you about... The one who had to be taken away."

Normally I wouldn't care what your average 9 year old thought, but there were several adults within earshot and so I started yammering on with way too much information regarding the flu, grandma, and child protective services. By the end of my awkward spiel I'm sure that anyone who was still listening (I shouldn't flatter myself) wasn't surprised the baby had been "taken away".

I'm a dork.

Does anyone even say "dork" these days? Probably not, which just strengthens my case.

Major dork.

Chickie is 10 months and then some

Things have gotten a little serious around here and sometimes all it takes to feel better is one look at the best baby on the planet.  It helps, I promise.

A new beehive analogy

It's been a pretty exciting week in our little corner of Castle Rock.  On Monday a swarm of bees took up temporary residence in our neighbor's tree.  Bogda freaked out.  She had just watched some sensationalist documentary about Africanized killer bees and was convinced they were invading our cul-de-sac, intent on attacking our children. It took several "experts" to convince her they were not going to kill anyone and that they would, in fact, move on shortly.  In the meantime, the bees attracted attention and served as a unifying force for the neighbors.  We would gather in the street, cameras in tow, and discuss the intricacies of bee survival.

John has been having a difficult time at school lately and in a quiet moment of reflection he made an impressive analogy.  He explained that his school was like a beehive, with the Principal as the queen.  She demands loyalty of all her workers and the majority follow willingly.  But there are a few bees that don't feel like being loyal; they don't think the queen is worth their loyalty. When the queen moves to set up a new hive, these rebellious little workers are expected to follow but choose to stay behind and find a better queen. The problem is that unless the queen decides to move, the rebellious little bees are stuck in their reluctant loyalty.

The bee keepers came today and scooped up the ball with the queen in the midst. I felt sorry for the few stragglers that didn't get shut in the box with their queen.  Where would they go? Would they be lost? But then again, maybe they just needed a bee keeper to come and release them to go find a better, more suitable hive to place their loyalty.