Babysitting

Occasionally Lizzy Muetz and I have the honor of babysitting Timothy and Torie Schmitt. Timothy is 5, Torie is 17 months.
We babysat them on Tuesday. Now, Steven, their dad, was home, but he was working from home. He hoped to be done around noon so he could go mow the lawn and then head out early for a class he was teaching at church.
Lizzy and I took the kids to a local park. It wasn't a baby-friendly park, so I had to follow Torie around, and when she wanted to swing I had to sit her in my lap so we could swing together. So while I had her, Lizzy kept an eye on Timothy. At one point Torie and I were walking over to a tunnel thing that you crawl up to get to the slide. Timothy went running past, and he was running straight at the tunnel. He's taller than the tunnel, and he wasn't ducking down. It was kind of a George of the Jungle "Watch out for that tree!" moment, but I didn't have time to say anything, and Timothy hit his head on the tunnel and ricocheted back. Oops.
He was fine, so we played more and then went home. Now, this whole day Torie was very fussy. Her mom was out of town, so she was probably missing her, and she was tired, and I think she may have been teething, so she was fussy and mostly wanted to be held.
Steven came upstairs from his office to get something to drink, and he said he was having some difficult problem with work. So, he went back down to work on that. The phone rang, and the answering machine picked it up. A woman was saying something about being in the hospital, so Lizzy answered. Apparently Steven's mom had had tuna and went into anaphylactic shock and almost died, so she was in the hospital. This day wasn't going so great so far. We put Torie down for her nap, then Timothy. Torie woke up as Timothy was laying down, so we had about an hour of Torie-only time. It was very pleasant though. She was happy to sit on the couch with us and play with my hair and give us Torie kisses (she just learned to pucker her lips). We took her upstairs to change her diaper, and that's when Timothy got up. He was sitting in the rocking/spinning chair in Tories room while we changed her. He rubbed his eyes and complained that one hurt. We looked, and it was a little red, but we assumed it was from rubbing.
We went back downstairs and Timothy complained again. Now his eye was a little more red and it looked like he had a black eye. He said he hadn't hit his eye on anything. We asked about when he ran into the slide, but he said that was his forehead. I decided to go let Steven know.
I came back from Steven's office, and that quickly Timothy's eye had changed. Now the actual white of his eye was swollen, but not his iris, so it was like a dent in his eye. The outside edge of the white was turning yellow and looked very moist, white the inside edge was still red, and around his eye was like a black eye. So I ran downstairs and told Steven of the sudden change, and he immediately came up the stairs. He said it looked like something may have bit Timothy's eye, and that it was blistering, so they took a trip to Urgent Care. Lizzy and I waited, playing with Torie. When they finally got back, Timothy's eye looked much better. Apparently it was an allergic reaction to something (we don't know what). Timothy was proud to tell me his eye didn't glow (cornea scratch test). So, at this point, Steven obviously hadn't gotten his lawn mowed, and he wasn't leaving particularly early for his class.
Around bedtime, we discovered the that Timothy had hit his head harder than we thought: There was quite the lump on his head, hidden by his hair. So he went to bed with an ice pack, and he was going to be alternating between his forehead and his eye.
What a day!

Come on, spring!

I'm getting really, really impatient for spring! I'm very ready for it to warm up! Right now it's in the 30s, and I see a potential high of 60* this week! Unfortunately, it's supposed to be raining that day too...
Yesterday made it up to about 42, which was really nice. Jeremy, Lizzy and I went for a long walk, and we walked to Frosty Freeze for some ice cream. On the way there it was really sunny and not at all windy, so we actually were too warm in our coats! Unfortunately, after the ice cream the wind picked up, so the walk home was pretty chilly. But still, it was pleasant!
I love warm weather!

The Asian Adventure

The other day Lizzy and I decided we wanted an adventure (any combination of Gardner kids+Muetz kids=someone wanting an adventure). It was around lunch time, so Lizzy and I decided our adventure could be going to the Asian food store and getting some rice noodles and pad thai sauce. So, we set out with a GPS that wasn't working and delayed us by a few minutes, but we got the Asian food store and started browsing. Lizzy picked out a passion fruit juice, and I picked out a roasted coconut juice (highly recommended by the cashier). We got some chopstocks, and our pad thai supplies.
When we got home we set the water to boil, and then we decided, "hey, lets eat on the floor and act Japanese!"
We found a board and put it over a cooler to make a low table. We found a table cloth, then pillows to sit on. We looked up a traditional Japanese blessing to say before and after the meal. Then, we realized that I happen to have a Japanese Kimono, and Lizzy and some sort of Asian robe. We decided we should be dressed in them for the meal. So, I suppose while all Asian (other than the European bread), we were kind of diverse. We had Chinese, Japanese, and Thailand themes going on. All in all, it was a very worthwhile adventure.
For our next ethnic adventure, we'll probably go explore the Mexican grocery store.

I almost forgot to add this warning: If you happen to get some roasted coconut juice, be aware that it has chunks of coconut in it. You'll want to make sure you don't choke on your juice...