Grease is the word...

Tonight Ellie and I went to the middle/HS musical, Grease. It was at Marshall Fundamental school in our neighborhood. As usual it was fantastic and I was very impressed with the talent on the stage as well as the tech. They had a car on stage and the sets were fantastic. 

Ellie really enjoyed the whole thing and sang Beauty School Dropout on the way home. But I didn’t get any pics. 

Today in swimming with her classmates apparently Ellie worked on flip turns and swam “like 100 yds!!” Guess she’s getting a workout. 

Calvin had a good day and visit with Great Grabdma Kost!

Picture day

Today was spring picture day for Ellie, but she also had swimming...so I let her figure out how she wanted her hair and all the logistics that went with that. She wanted it to be wavy like when she takes her braids out after swimming, but needed it to be pulled back for swimming. 

Her solution: she sleeps in braids and then takes them out in the morning. Then I, very carefully so as to not destroy the gentle wave she has, put the front hair into two mini-pig tails. She took a hair tie to pull her hair back into a low pony herself for swimming. 

Swimming is going well. Today her group had to swim 50 yards and worked on breathing efficiently for freestyle. Tomorrow they are going to work on flip turns. 

We got some FaceTime in with Calvin and Nick tonight. Calvin showed off his new hat and gloves...apparently it’s cold in Chicago in April.

Solo dinner

The boys have landed in Chicago. So it’s just me and Ellie. 

Tonight she had dinner without her brother. I don’t think she missed him and loves the peace and quiet.

School swimming

Today Ellie started swimming lessons with her class at school. Every 3rd grader in PUSD is given three weeks of daily swim lessons at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center. The kids are busses to the center, given swimsuits and towels and have lessons. Today was the testing day where they assessed each child’s ability and will group them into groups of 3-4 based on similar abilities. Apparently they kept asking Ellie to swim further and using different strokes (all four). She said they were impressed with her swimming skills. 

Calvin is on spring break. So he spent the morning running errands with me, a follow up doctor appointment, and then time at the office. He joined me for lunch; we walked to a Trader Joe’s and bought some food (hummus, snap peas, strawberries and crackers) which he ate in my office. 

At the follow up doctor visit the doctor said he likely had a spastic croup attack. Potentially triggered by reflux as a result of his gas and constipation. She said he looked healthy and fine now.

Spazz attack

I spent the evening with Calvin at the ER last night. At around 10:30 he ran into our bedroom having trouble breathing. We picked up and rushed to the ER where he was sent back immediately. After blood work, peeing in a cup, ultrasounds, and hours in the hospital watching baseball, he was diagnosed as having had a bronchial spasm. In addition, he was really constipated. His gassy, distended belly kinda freaked them out with the difficulty breathing. But apparently he ate too much candy which didn’t go over well with his lactose intolerance. 

We have an appointment with his regular doctors office tomorrow as a follow up. We are doing steroid treatments as well as albuterol treatments at home. 

Seeing the kid this morning you wouldn’t know he spent time in the ER because he had trouble breathing last night. He is fine. I’m shaken and exhausted. 

Here are pics from Saturday when we had an egg hunt at Ellie’s friends house.

April Fools

My new phone home screen, courtesy of Ellie.

This kid loves her pranks! 

Egg Hunts

Ellie had the day off of school and spent part of it working for me.

Calvin had an egg hunt at school today.

After school and Nick got home we headed to Farnsworth Park for a flashlight egg hunt. We ran into friends there including Ellie and Calvin’s besties. After the egg hunt there was a magic show. Calvin got selected as a volunteer and Ellie went up to support him.