Quiet week ahead

Kurt just left on a business trip to Florida. He has to take his class of junior officers (and one Warrant Officer) on what amounts to a field trip to the ships to make sure they’ve learned what he’s been teaching. There are no ships homeported here in Newport, unless you count the two mothballed aircraft carriers waiting for their final fate, so some classes head to Mayport, Florida, while other classes go to Norfolk, Virginia. Hopefully Kurt will draw Norfolk the next time he has to go on this field trip. That way, the Navy will pay for our gas to drive from Newport down there (about a twelve hour drive), which means basically a free one-week trip to see my best friend and her three kids! How much better could it get???

Because I keep calling this a “field trip,” I asked Kurt if he’s going to make the junior officers hold hands and walk in a line while on the ship. He responded, “The way they’ve been acting?? You betcha.”

Heh.

Yesterday we went running errands. We made a trip up to Target, since I am absolutely sick and tired of going to my local dirty, scary, ghetto Wal-Mart, to get a birthday present for one of Grace’s classmates. When we got home, I saw my neighbor E grooming her dog outside. This was the same dog that had chased our neighbor’s cat up the tree a few weeks ago. I figured I should go say hi and show her my new hairdo.

That was around 4:30 yesterday afternoon. I didn’t get home until after 11pm!!!

Kurt says it’s his fault that I did that. I had planned on just saying hi, but E and I were having such a good time chatting and enjoying each other’s company that two hours passed before I even noticed. Plus she offered me good British tea; they had been stationed in Britain a few years ago, and she fell in love with their tea.

Then right as I was about to come home to make dinner for my family, Kurt showed up with Grace. E’s husband M came out of his room to be social, which sealed the deal. E ended up making us all hamburgers for dinner on the grill (mmm yummy), while we contributed a frozen spinach & mushroom pizza. We sat around the dinner table for quite some time, continuing to chat and have a good time. It wasn’t until 11pm or so that E finally realized that the kids (she has two sons, aged 9 and 11) were being far too quiet for everyone’s comfort.

She headed to the master bedroom, where they had been watching tv for a while, to see what they were doing. There she found her younger son and Grace completely asleep on her bed. We all went to see how cute they looked (and to take photos, of course! — though I can’t post them, as they feature someone else’s children), and that’s when we found out that the lump under the duvet was also her older son! All three hadfallen asleep like kittens, sprawled every-which-a-way on the large bed.

Poor Grace. She had spent the entire evening racing after the boys and their dog, and she was completely worn out.

Today we were supposed to go to a birthday party for one of Grace’s classmates, but she ended up catching the same cold a little girl on the playground had a few days ago. I elected to keep her home from the party, though we dropped off the little boy’s gift anyhow, just so she wouldn’t make any other kids sick. I may just keep her home from school tomorrow too. She is running a slight fever, but her cough is a bit worrisome. It’s a productive one, but it sounds like it really hurts. She doesn’t cough all the time, just a few times an hour. Again, I don’t want to pass along her illness to other children.

I’m just glad she’s not really sick. Aside from her coughing and her slight fever, she’s acting like she does normally. I really hate it when she’s lethargic and listless. It makes my heart ache because it’s awful to see your child so sick, yet be able to do nothing for her. It’s a terrible thing for a mother to endure.