Hello! you are my sunshine

Hello! It was a beautiful day in Wisconsin. I saw 79 degrees on a bank sign. Warm, sunny, blue skies. The budding trees are popping so vividly around me that my sinuses hurt. Even though my allergies seems well controlled by the Costco Aller-Clear I am taking daily, just seeing the buds and blooms makes me wince. When it isn’t making me smile. It is gorgeous out.

Hello! In winter, especially that past two brutal winters with the excess snow and cold and misery, I wonder, why do we live here? And in this pitch-perfect spring weather, I was left thinking, is this why we live here? And as much as I like it, I have had to realize that the weather doesn’t have very much to do with where I live. Darn.

Hello! But I am enjoying this weather and I have observed it closely as we’re still grounded. Wednesday, Miranda came home from school and took a nap. I don’t think she’s napped after school since, hmmm, 3 year old kindergarten? Maybe 4 year old, but only when she was sick. She had a 102 degree fever that came down nicely with Advil or Tylenol.  NB: a new way to feel old, cut adult-sized pills into appropriate-sized doses for your 7 year old. And have her swallow them. So Miranda stayed home from school today. She was quiet. The pediatrician’s advice was to keep her home as long as she is feverish. He doesn’t think she has swine flu – rather we are lucky enough to have our own virus sweeping the area. She won’t go to school tomorrow. I hope she recovers for Monday.

Hello! Is Miranda has the bug Henry had, which may be too much coincidence for anything but a poorly plotted mystery novel, that I think she’ll feel better tomorrow. But he slept it off. And I don’t think her couch surfing is nearly as curative.

Hello! In other news, my grandmother finally got to go home from the hospital. They kept her an extra day and that was odd. We are all looking forward to not being terrified.

Hello! Arabella has enjoyed the extra brotherly and sisterly love time this week. I think she will try to give up her day naps during the summer. She will then sleep all of September and we’ll be shocked. She gets tired but the smile never leaves her face. She could watch Henry for hours. She can crawl, in a  way. She will maneuver herself on her hands and knees up to 3 steps away. But she doesn’t quite know how she did it. She would very much like to repeat it.

Hello? Are you thinking, what on earth? Yes, me too. Henry has started nearly every declarative sentence for the past 2 days with Hello?!?  It is weird. I was thinking of it today as a cross between Joe Pesci – very often it is “Hello! Let me talk, guys!” – and Yakov Smirnoff, unsure of his grammar and diction. His excessive use of guys means I better steer  him toward non-food-service jobs or else he will be that waiter whom old people hate,a lwasy saying :what would you guys like?” Of course, the old people who hate that will be 120 by the time Henry waits on tables, so who knows. Maybe the Baby Boomers will find it more endearing. “Hello!”