Creeeeeaaaaaaak... opening the door

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Hello?
Anyone still out there still checking in here?

Hi. It’s me. Yup. A rare and ever so elusive KK blog sighting.

Thought I’d pop my head in and give a quick post, you know, just in case someone out there was wondering if I was abducted by Bigfoot or eaten by an 80 foot alligator or something.

Ah, yeah… no. Nope. I’m still around. Letsee here um the last time I done posted was waaaaaaaay back in the spring of 2006. Lawd, so much has happened where’s do I begin?

You know, no one really talks like that in Iowa. I don’t talk like that and I’m not really sure who does except in Hollywood scripts that make me mourn the poor tree that lost its life to that senselessness. But I digress. Back to me, since you can’t really talk about you on my blog. Or at least not until the comments are enabled and then you can post away.

So, as you can see I’m bored. I have a moment to myself to post. Why, you might ask is Mrs. Dulce at home on the night of the 4th of July? Why isn’t she taking in the fiery display of gunpowder in bloom across the summer night sky with her wide eyed and hyped up on ice cream children? That would be because two of the three are with Mr. Dulce partaking in the summer ritual, while I’m at home watching bambino Dulce who has been running a fever since Friday.

He started running a fever as soon as I had put the last bag into the happy mini bus headed for Colorado and a much anticipated trip to the mountains for a 4 day camping trip. After finishing a mountain of work, shopping, organizing, packing and enduring many familial phone calls to arrange all the details… in the two hours before we were to leave… “Houston we have a problem”. I called my husband who was still at the office working frantically to wrap up loose ends and proceedings and still be able to make the trip. All week it’d been like living with Ethan Hawk from Mission Impossible as he’d described the mountain of work he had to wade through in order to go. So, when Friday came and he was only an hour from leaving the office after successfully conquering the paperwork pile and I was on the phone telling him our 15 month old had a 102.4 fever. He didn’t talk. He didn’t say anything for at least 10 minutes. I was tempted to hang up and call his secretary to go check on him.

Jumping to the end result… we didn’t go to Colorado. Bambino Dulce’s fever topped out at 105.5 on Sunday night and I was grateful to be in a urban area with electricity and flush toilets and 24 hour access to a pediatrician.

And so… here I am. Home with a sleeping and on/off again feverish baby. Who the doctor definitively said, “I’m 90% sure it’s a virus. Unless of course it is just a delayed reaction to the measles vaccine. But most likely a virus.”

Yeah, I love that. It’s like the get out of jail free card doctors carry around – “It’s probably just a virus”. Yeah, well ebola is just a virus too. How about a little help here doc? Throw a poor sleep deprived prone to panic mom a bone here. Anything I can do to make it better? Yeah, no. Same answer as any mother ever gets – it just has to run it’s course and try not to worry. Uh-huh, and while I’m trying not to worry I might as well just quit breathing too. 105.5 degrees Fahrenheit! Come ON! I don’t even get into hot tubs that hot!

Can you tell sleep deprivation has sunk in a bit? I’m just a tad cranky around the edges.

If you are still reading and want to know a brief version of what I’ve been doing since my last post. Here is a link to a brief photo documentary of “What I’ve done on my summer vacation so far”. (Pictures)

If you do happen to get the chance definitely check out the King Tut exhibit. It's in Chicago at the Field Museum until Jan 1, 2007, then it will be off to Philadephia. Another exhibit that is worth it's weight in gold is the Evolving Planet it's not just a bunch of dinosaurs, it is the single most incredible exhibit I've ever seen of how life has adapted to earth.

And that’s what I’ve been up to… besides the normal cook, clean, drive kids, and put in 30+ hours a week trying to write evaluation and research summaries on youth who have aged out of foster care. Anyone want to help me revamp the foster care system in Iowa?

I’ll try to check back in again at the end of July. :D Maybe I will try to write a few brief entries instead of these novellas.