Melissa's Mural and Megan's Medicine

Melissa's Mural - part 4 of 4
Originally uploaded by SyntaxError.

Today the older M's did painting while the twins had their afternoon nap. Melissa is maintaining a fascination with the old computer paper that was given to us by a friend. Melissa and Madeleine exhibited their artwork in their bedroom in a private interview with a local writer (aka - Daddy).

See the M's Flickr site for more photos and comments. (Yes, our children have their own flickr site - it's as yet underused but I'm guessing we'll have to upgrade them to pro as soon as they read well enough to upload their own photos - probably sometime in the next year.)

I missed the art showing - as I had the assignement of getting medical attention for Megan. The kids have all had colds and coughs on/off over the past couple of weeks. But over the past couple days Megan has been getting worse not better. She has been napping more than usual, coughing until puking, having raspy / laboured breathing, and wanting to be held constantly with much whimpering and whining.

It was the breathing that worried me - so as soon as Allan got home from work, I set off for an after hours clinic with:

• sick Megan
• perfectly healthy Maribeth - "Because you might as well get Maribeth checked 'just in case.'" I think it's more a case of, "in case Megan freaks out about not being with Maribeth." We've not taken them out without each other and don't think it would go over really well.
• overdue CD's to return to the library - "Because I forgot them on my way to work."
• a diaper bag stocked with CLOTH diapers
• 2 bottles of formula

We made it to the packed clinic by 6pm. There were all sorts of sick people and even a man BLEEDING all over the place. After about 30 minutes in the waiting room (during which the twins were mostly content to people watch and down their bottles) we were shown into an exam room - and left there.

I had forgotton the twins were in cloth diapers. I didn't think to check them during the wait. The twins fnished their bottles and got restless. I pulled out "Yellow Ball." Megan's eyes lit up and she leaned over, pointed to the ball on the cover, and said clearly, "BALL! Read dat." So I did - over and over and over again - until Megan started to whine to be picked up and Maribeth decided to escape the stroller to check out the exam room and shred the examining table's paper. While it is harder to tend TWO toddlers - I did notice that Maribeth managed to amuse/distract Megan better than I could much of the time.

As I picked up Megan out of the stroller three things happened simultaneously:

• the doctor came into the room
• I started coughing uncontrollably
• The bottle contents made their way out the OTHER end of Megan - overloading the cloth diaper and leaking all over my leg and the exam room floor.

It was embarassing on a number of counts.

The doctor examined both twins: Maribeth was pronounced completely fine and Megan was diagnosed with a nasty case of bronchitis. He prescribed an unpronoucable antibiotic that should help her start to feel better within a couple of days. If she doesn't get better or starts to get worse - we have to take her in. She really is quite sick.

I then changed the two girls (one who shall remain nameless peed on the exam table mid-diaper change), packed them into the van (yes - in their carseats!), and hauled them off to Walmart to get the prescription filled. It was another LONG wait for that. The twins were hungry - it was past supper time and the bottles were gone. So we went to the McDonalds in Walmart.

They happily downed french fries, chicken nuggets and fruitopia fruit punch. (Isn't that what EVERY sick baby needs - junk food? Bad parenting points for me - I should have had better food along on this jaunt.) This McDonalds has the worst service of any McDonalds I have ever been to. Consistently. It is always sullen, rude teenagers who mumble, misunderstand everything you say, and then get your order at the pace of an arthritic turtle swimming in molassas in winter. Plus they offer NO vegetarian options: no salad, no veggie burger - not even the grilled veggie sandwich grease-bomb offered by other local McD's. I opted for just water and a couple of french fries the twins shared with me.

Then we walked around the Walmart to pick up a few things before the prescription was ready. Of course you can only pay for the prescription at the counter, so that meant two MORE lines to wait through. In the regular check-out line we were behind a small boy who kept poking and annoying Megan, until I finally said to his mother (or the woman with him), "Umm, look you probably don't want him doing that. They are REALLY SICK." She who had been ignoring his annoying behaviour until then glared daggers at me while dragging him as far away as possible in the checkout line.

We finally escaped the Walmart. I got the girls into the van and gave Megan her 1st dose of medicine. Then we headed home .. wishful thinking! We headed to gas up the van which was almost on empty. We've discovered the best gas up time of the week tends to be Monday nights. Then after that I had Allan's overdue CD's to return to the library.

Now to return the CD's: I had to get both girls out of the van, into the double stroller, walk a block from the parking to the library, then up the ramp, and actually into the library. The drop box on the outside is only open when the library is closed. It is locked the rest of the time. That is because it just drops the books inside the library door in front of the front doors!

In any case, since we were there already, we thought we would check out a few books: a book for me, a book for Allan, several kids' books and then the twin's favourites - BOARD BOOKS! We lucked out and got some Boynton board books in like new condition!

It was well after 9:00 PM when we finally got back home and close to 9:30 before the twins were changed, bottled, read to, and tucked into bed. It was almost 11:00 PM before the thumps and bumps from Melissa and Maddy's room stopped. I should get to bed too because rumour has it that Michael went to sleep on his own around 7:00 PM - so he'll be waking us all up bright and early .. as usual.