Missoula Children's Theater: Sleeping Beauty

We had quite the busy week! The Missoula Children's Theater came into town for a week to put on the play Sleeping Beauty. The company held auditions from 3:30 until 5 pm on Monday. The selection process was quite interesting, the kids all line up in order of age/grade. Seemed like all the K-2 grades were given a spot as caterpillars. The rest of the spots were very competitive. Phillip was given part as a caterpillar. Amelia was chosen to be a palace cook. I was floored that both kids got in. Our busy week went from busy to hectic in that moment. As fate would have it Amelia also reached the apex of a leg injury that had her hopping around. Amelia practiced from 3:30-8 pm Tuesday-Thursday. Phillip practiced twice from 3:30-6 Wednesday and Thursday. The play was then performed Friday for the schools and also Saturday evening. It is amazing how quickly the kids learn an entire play, lines memorized, blocking memorized, and songs learned. A very talented 11th grader played the music for the entire play! She was amazing. 

Tuesday I had my 37 week check up with Strep test. Dr Shaw said I am dilated to a 3, she stripped my membranes so spent the rest of the day with intense contractions. Nothing to bring a baby but it did help her to drop quite a bit. Now my legs feel like jelly half the time, she must be sitting on some leg nerves. Everett went to the DR with his pants turned inside out, he said the tag tickled his bum crack. Evelyn carried around a tutu she found most of the day. We read a book about ballerinas and tutus...that was it for her. I even tried to pry the tutu from her for nap time, she insisted on taking a nap with her tutu. She is becoming particular about sleeping with items she is hoarding: bag of chips, juice bottles, tutus, bathing suits, and favorite shoes of the day. 

I brought Amelia back to see Dr Shaw at 11 am about her leg. We are not sure of the cause of her problems. Could be she bruised her muscle while sledding, or bruised her femur, or had a growth pain that warped into a massive muscle knot. An x-ray showed her bones are not broken or fractured. That is a relief. By Tuesday the poor kid was hopping around everywhere, crying because her leg hurt so bad. You know it is real when your child cries half the night in her sleep from pain. We tried massage (too painful), deep blue rub, hot/cold presses, baths, chiropractor, electro-therapy, knee brace, and elevated leg. Nothing really seemed to help relieve her pain. We don't have a PT appointment until 02 February. She spent a morning at home Wednesday before we saw the chiropractor. I think that helped. It is hard not to feel helpless and wonder if the issue is more pressing than just muscle damage. We are praying that the PT will have some answers for us.  

Marcia cleaned our oven. Tears of joy! I never use the self-clean function because it can damage the oven, especially older ovens. I finally ran a cycle and was amazed at how clean just the self-clean cycle was. Now we have a very clean oven and a broken one as well. The range works but the oven is not working. It won't reset after the self-clean function was completed, we get an error code of f9. I had a guy come check out the oven, he said the circuit board is fried. We replaced the circuit board a couple years ago. We are replacing it again since paying $200 is better than $600+. Darn it. Course, now I have a bee in my bonnet to make rolls or quick breads for dinner. 

The boys tried to dye their skin brown by dumping half a bottle of tub colors into their bath. Little stinkers. Evelyn convinced me to bust out the bubbles this week. She had a blast playing with bubbles for a several afternoons. Everett also said something silly this week: "Mom, I want to see a pterodactyl. Too bad the species is ex-stinky." He also wore his sleep mask for an entire day. His hair was pretty amazing. 

Thursday about put me under! Evelyn ran a mid-grade fever starting Monday night. By Thursday it was evident she had strep throat. She would not take a nap on Thursday so I ran over to the walk-in-clinic for our 6th co-pay of the week. The clinic was deserted so we pretty much walked right in at 2:10, a miracle if you ask me. Her strep test showed a positive in less than 2 minutes. We walked out 10 minutes later with a prescription. We picked up Phillip and Kaylee from school, drove to Mia's school, waited a bit, picked her up, shoved snacks into the kids, dropped them off at school by 3:30, rushed over to the preschool to get Everett. We got home at 3:40, just as the oven repair guy showed up to check out the oven. Less than 10 minutes after that Quinn and Will showed up to watch Everett, Evelyn, and Kaylee. I rushed out the door for a senior photo session at the golf course. I called Justin to be on call since the repair guy was still at the house. Phew, that was stressful. I got home just in time to pay the boys for watching the kids. Everett, Evelyn, and I ran over to the HS to pick up Phillip and drop off a lunch for Amelia to eat for dinner. Phillip was not done so we walked home. I fed Everett dinner and took him to gymnastics, picked up Phillip, had Justin get Everett, and then collapsed on the sofa until Amelia was ready to come home. Phew. That was one complicated afternoon. Makes me anxious about the future, stuck in the van ferrying kids hither and thither. 

I sat down Friday evening and got stuck to the couch. It held me captive through dinner, up until bedtime. My poor legs were so shaky I just let the couch claim me. I took a nice long 2.5 nap while held captive. Everett woke me up with wet zerberts on my belly right before PJ time. I think I caught a bit of the strep virus. Nothing too bad, just headache, aches, wobbly legs, and minor sore throat.  

Saturday morning we all spent in PJs just relaxing and resting. We did have an hour long clean up close to lunch time. The kids are getting better at just getting chores done without the complaining... sometimes. My awesome friend Jen came over around 3 pm and installed a barnwood wall in the basement. She tore apart a barn for another photographer in town, the other lady decided the wood was not what she had in mind. Jen asked if I wanted the wood wall instead. Heck yes! She had dinner with us and played with the kids in between sawing and nailing. The wall is pretty big, and will work perfectly for larger families. She is pretty excited to welcome our new baby girl. I think she might just steal her! We love our pickle friend. I took Amelia and Phillip over to the HS for the last performance directly after dinner. The play was wonderful. I wish you could see it, the concept is very cute. The caterpillars were told to have grumpy expression while in worm form. Phillip was distracted several times and ended up alone on stage with another little girl. He had the grumpy face down pat. Amelia delivered her lines perfectly, her solo line was "and a lovely ginger vinaigrette dressing!" We left for the play with no snow, walked out of the HS to 1/2 inch of snow. The snow stopped soon afterwards. 

I stayed home from church on Sunday with the kids. Phillip started complaining about a sore throat, Amelia moaned most of the night, I was not feeling well. The stars did not align! 

Today we are home bound while a nice fluffy snow storm is dumping snow on Sidney. Everett wore his Santa shirt in honor of the snow. He wants Christmas to come again.