Everyone Just Remain Calm!

Remember the old song, "Oh What A Night?" Start to sing it now.

Because ooooohhhhh what a night.

Here in the Radke household we had pretty much decided to skip church yesterday. Yes, it's horrible I am confessing this, but let me finish before you call my mom. My cousin Meridith is here and bless her heart, this has been anything but an ideal vacation for her. We did take her out Friday night for Mexican food. But that is - officially - all we have done with her. That's it. Zip. Zilch. Nada.

She arrived on Wednesday where we asked her to watch our child and we left for the Doves. We returned home, thanked her, and dropped dead in the bed.

When she woke up on Thursday I was gone buying groceries and David was mowing. She spent the better part of the day alone, in her room, reading. However that night was Grey's Anatomy night AND LOST night. So I made her favorite meal, burnt it to a crisp and we gnawed on it in front of the television for 18 hours.

Friday night. Mexican food. But that is absolutely all we did on Friday day...waited for Friday night.

Saturday night I spent the entire day out of town at a church as "Ester" with "Frannie", my sidekick(see http://reallybadhairday.blogspot.com/2007/12/spending-2007-with-francis.html), who had hired us to come in for our entertaining abilities. I know, right? Meridith spent the day at the house, alone. Although she said she did get to catch up on 5 hours worth of Gossip Girl, so actually, she seemed okay about that. Later that Saturday night we got her all hyped up for a big night out in Cool Springs. But unfortunately is was prom night and every single restaurant had tulle sticking out of the front door. We took this as a sign and ended up at the Jason's Deli salad bar. Wow. Another wild night with the Radke's.

So after raiding Blockbuster video I swore to her that we would stay home on Sunday morning in our pj's, watch movies and eat cookie dough. She seemed genuinely excited about this until Remi woke up with 102 fever, wouldn't eat or drink, and we all ended up in the Emergency Room.

Now, just for the record. I'm not one of "those." You know, one of those mom's who think their child should be taken to the doctor just because they walked outside without shoes on. No, not me. It has to be big and serious and I have to have Kelli calling me every 18 seconds to see if I've gone yet. (Which she did, thankfully.) So after a full day of lethargy, no food, no drink, high temp, and a strange appearance of bruising on her back we pulled into the E.R. Our house guest in tow.

So from 5 PM until 9:45 PM we sat with Remi as she screamed one bloodcurdling scream after another as they poked, prodded, took temp, tried catheters, took vitals, took strep tests, you name it. Finally, after much exhaustion she decided to throw up all over herself and me. So we had to sit around with that memory all over the room. Another highlight of Mer's trip, I'm sure.

The Remster is back home now, she hurt herself something fierce with those back bruises but they thankfully! have nothing to do with her temp, and severe ear infections in both ears. She's just a sick little girl. And so it's my job to spoil her rotten over the next 24-48 hours. Pray I do well at this.

But also pray that poor, poor Meridith gets to do something this week that is even worthy of telling people about once she gets home. To think she's going to get off the plane and have to say...

"It was great. I ate at a salad bar, tried white cheese dip, found out where the Williamson County ER is and cleaned up some vomit. Wait that's not true, I also babysat one night and caught up on 29 hours of television"

...will just break my heart.

Hopefully at some point the AG can watch the little one while I take Mer to a movie. She loves it when we stuff Chik-fil-A in our purses, go in and pay for one movie, but sneak into a second one. She gets a real hoot out out of that. It makes her feel like a kid again. Of course I'm a mom now, so before we leave I secretly give them the money, but she thinks I'm in the bathroom and I let her think that. I don't want to steal all her fun!