Surprised? Not Really....

Well, Jonathan has his first cold of the school year. Big surprise, noting that the weather has been in the upper 40's/low 50's every morning when he leaves, and almost 80 when I pick him up. How in the world am I supposed to dress the kid? But I think it's more than that - last year he did the same thing - went to school one day and picked something up. Rite of passage, I guess. Last year he did well - after the first round, he was healthy for most of the rest of the year, even when we took him to Mexico for a week in February. I expected to come back to raging illness for weeks, but was pleasantly surprised.

So I sent him to school today - just sniffling a little, no fever, no other complaints, plus, he really wanted to go! Now to try and make sure nobody else gets it. Luckily, all 4 of us have a nice 4 day weekend coming up - Jonathan and Mark both have off on Friday and Monday, so we hope to get a lot of stuff done around here - cover the pool for one, and maybe going to pick out carpet for what I'm now calling the "boys" room - Matthew's room will be transformed and Matthew and Jonathan will share for a few years until Baby Boy 3 is big enough to share with Matthew....then Jonathan will get his room back as the oldest, if he wants it. Right now both of them are delighted at the prospect of sharing a room, so we're going with it!

And it seems that Fall is officially here - even though the days are quite sunny and warm, the nights have been very, very cool and the changes in nature are so evident now - trees starting to turn, migrant wildlife moving through. When I sit and realize I don't have THAT much time before Christmas and this baby coming, and all I have to do, I get kind of jittery. So right now, I'm trying to take one day at a time, get as much done as I can when I'm up to it, and not sweating the rest. If there's one thing I've learned in the last 5 years of being a mom, is that the kids come first. That's not something I knew, rather, something I've really had to learn the hard way. And for those who know my standards of housekeeping, or at least attempting to houseclean, you must know that this didn't come easy for me. But it's a process - and one I'd best to get more used too soon!