All Things Being Equal, She'd Rather Be On the Move

Well, after a week away at camp for vacation, we're back to the regularly scheduled broadcast of our lives. School is back in session at the college, so the halls are cramped with clueless college students who are still looking for their classes, the cafeteria in Hawkins Hall is open but it's crowded once again. Margaret and Patricia start their first days at public school tomorrow and are both anxious and excited at the same time. So are Mom and Dad, both anxious for their daughters who have had such good experiences in the protective atmosphere at St. Peter's, and excited for the girls to experience all our public tax dollars can afford them. We're worried how they'll do socially and how the other "element" found more often in the public school system will rub off on them. We can only hope the foundation built at home and at St. Peter's will hold them up in good stead at their new schools. Patricia gets to meet her teacher, Mr. Fortin, this afternoon and tonight, Mom and Dad get to go to an open house meeting at Oak Street where we'll meet with Mr. Fortin and other parents whose kids are entering fourth grade.

When I got home from work on Friday, the girls were already at the lake. Jack and I and Baby B. planned on heading up that afternoon, but Brigid had come down with a fever the night before, so I was taking her in to see the doctor to make sure she was OK. Well, she wasn't. She presented with a fever of 102 degrees and a red and angry inner left ear, so she was put on antibiotics -- her first -- for 10 days. Between Tylenol and the antibiotic, she was pretty well drugged up for the next few days. But she took them very well, almost eagerly, unlike her sisters at that age, who had to be hog-tied and trussed up in order to get them to take anything. Brigid seemed to enjoy the taste. We return to the doctor's for her six-month check-up on the 6th so they'll re-evaluate her ear then. In the meantime, she hasn't had her fever return.

Our vacation, which started Aug. 25, saw us visit the lake for a few days, then back to Plattsburgh for a few more days as we entertained Patricia's friend, Nicole, for Patricia's 9th birthday celebration. We took all our girls to the Champlain Valley Exposition in Vermont on the 28th and then Nicole slept over to cap off the birthday festivities. Margaret then had her orientation at Stafford Middle School on the 30th. There she learned where her locker is and what the lock combination is, which she mastered right off the bat. Michelle and I, along with Baby Brigid and Jacob, sat at the Koffee Kat while Margaret and Josh attended the orientation, and then we all walked the halls of Stafford to help find rooms and figure out how Margaret will get from her math class in A hall down to the gym or tech class in the basement of the building about a half-mile away all in three minutes. It's easy to forget how fast you could do it when you were in junior and senior high school, but we all had to do it, and we did. So they will, too.

After our visit to Stafford, the girls and Jack had hair cuts with Kimmy, and then we all headed back up to the lake for the remainder of our vacation. You never can tell what the last week of August is going to be like. In our case this year, it was cold and often rainy. But the girls got in some quality riding time and spent some of the time in the lake, althought it was way too cold for me to even consider going in (a bath of hot water is to cold for me to consider going in).

All this time, Baby B. has been spending practicing and working on her crawling and sitting and she's getting it down pat. She is a squirmer and would much rather be on the move now. I don't think it will be long before she's pulling herself up to her feet.

Brigid continues to loathe the crib and pops up like toast any time I try to put her to bed in it. She'll nap for short spurts, but forget it when it comes to bed time. But until we can get her bed into the other room, I fear our Ferberization will be for naught. We can't very well ignore her when we're two feet away from her. She's a force to be reckoned with, and although we applaud that in our girls and know it will bode well for their future as strong women in a male-dominated world, we'd like a little less of it in our five-month-old who refuses to sleep in her own bed.