Zoos, Scooters, School, and Puking

I'm thankful for...

1. Beautiful weather on Saturday and going to the Baltimore Zoo with my kids and husband.  FYI- the zoo in Baltimore has half-off admission during January and February.  If you have a membership to the Philadelphia Zoo (or most any other zoo), you receive half off admission any time.  It was only $35 for our family of five.  We spent three hours there and saw elephants, lions, giraffes, polar bears, chimpanzees (lots of 'em), native Maryland wildlife, otters (from a cool underwater tunnel), bats, a hellbender salamander, arctic foxes, cheetah, leopard, and the official mascots of the Ravens football team- two HUGE ravens named Rise and Conquer.  Apparently, the Baltimore Zoo is the only zoo to house and care for an NFL mascot.  The birds attend every Ravens home game.  How's that for your zoo/NFL trivia?

2. Scooters.  Sydney and Liam wanted to ride scooters today.  30 degrees and windy made it way too cold to do it outside, so I rolled back the carpets in the living room so they could roll across the floor.  Liam doesn't have much scooter experience but he did a pretty good job.  In the afternoon, Sydney bundled up and rode her scooter all the way to Lilly's bus stop.  Her little scooter wheels flashed and blinked the whole way as she scooched and scootered her way up the hill.  We can't wait for spring.

3. Post call.  Bobby was on call yesterday/last night.  He got a total of 5 hours of interrupted sleep...more than most call nights....and he finished rounding earlier than expected in the morning.  Feeling well rested (and homesick) he decided to come home for the rest of the day.  His visit will be less than 24 hours, but it's always nice to have him around.  He surprised the kids and we had a nice afternoon and evening together.  He leaves again very early tomorrow morning.  We'll see him Friday night when he is able to come home for the weekend.

4. Lillian's self-motivation.  I've begun to recognize how little I need to prompt, urge, prod, or nag Lillian to do her homework.  She usually comes home talking about it and she'll jump right into it at the slightest suggestion or reminder.  She gets a weekly packet of a few pages of reading/writing homework and occasionally a page of math homework.  With the packet homework, she'll sit down and do all the pages at once instead of one a night like the teacher suggests.  Her reading and writing abilities have really taken off and she impresses me more every time I hear her read or read what she's written.  I'm so proud of her and how well she is learning, but most importantly, how she seems to enjoy learning.

5. Short puking episodes.  I'm never thankful for puking kids.  But when they have to puke, it's always best when it happens fast and they recover quickly.  Thankfully, that's how we experienced it over the weekend.  Liam woke up on Thursday night and threw up three times.  But in the morning he was totally fine and throughout the day you never would've known he was sick the night before.  On Saturday evening while we were driving down to Baltimore to visit Bobby, Sydney started complaining that her tummy hurt.  I tossed her a plastic bag and told her to puke in it if she had to.  Five minutes later she threw up, and thankfully it all landed in the plastic bag.  After a quick pull-over and damage assessment everything seemed fine and Sydney was feeling much better.  So we continued on our way and had a great weekend!  I don't know if it was some weird strand of a quick GI bug or if it was something they ate, but either way I'm glad it's over and they are feeling better.