That's What You Get For Making Plans.....

I am not a social planner. I don't like to pack my weekends with activity after activity. As a matter of fact, people that know me will say that I hate to make plans. I wouldn't necessarily use the word hate, but I'd rather spend time with our family, catching up and winding down from our guaranteed-to-have-been-very-hectic week. Not to say I never make plans, but more often that not, our weekends have just a plan or two, never really more than that.

A friend who has been single for as long as we've known him recently moved in with his girlfriend. To New Jersey. And not just right over the bridge which would make it, although inconenient to visit, not a ridiculous trip. No, the moved far into New Jersey, a place where it would take us a good hour and a half to drive to.Their housewarming party was impacted by the hurricane back in September (pretty much no one showed) so they invited our family and a few others over for this weekend. Not to sleep over, just for an afternoon, to hang out, drink, eat and relax. Well, maybe not so much relaxing as we were bringing the kids, but we could pretend, right?

Friday afternoon, Aaron gets off the bus. We're in the midst of chaos because he had a scheduled playdate, but we had to wait for Camryn to wake up from her nap before we could leave. While he was having a snack, he wanted to draw. Here are the end results of his drawing/writing. (Note that he is 5 years old and in kindergarten and did not ask for spelling help on this project, at all).

"Friday at 341pm October 17
At school my eye felt
lick it was
bleiteng
and it is not
feleing batr."

He decided to show this to me as we were walking out the door. I read it and once I fully understood what it said, I performed my version of a thorough examination of his eye. No red. No pink. It wasn't watery. It wasn't itchy (I asked). No discharge. No crust. Of course, I'm not doctor, but it looked fine to me. I called his friend's mom about the playdate and explained the situation. Of course by this time it was 4pm, we were sitting in our driveway and we were already supposed to have been there already. She said come, her son had been asking for us since he got home from school. At 230.

When we got there (about 15 minutes later), white goop had already formed in the corner of Aaron's eye. And within about 20 minutes, his eye was puffy, swollen and red. So we apologized, decided to pack it in and left. One 15 minutes drive and three phone calls to the doctor later, we were sitting in the pediatrician's office hearing, "Oh yes, definitely pink eye." Prescription for eye drops (always fun to put into a 5 year old's eye) and two copays later, we were on our way. Why two copays? Because while we were there, Camryn, always the joiner, decided that her eye hurt and her ear hurt. The doctor looked at her eye, looked at her ear, decided nothing was wrong and billed our insurance. Technically, he did examine her, but really.

Fast forward to Saturday morning, 7am. "Mommy," I hear in my sleep. "Mommy, I can't open my eye. It's stuck." For the next half hour, Aaron and I are in the bathroom using warm water and a washcloth to remove the good from his eye and let him finally see out of both eyes. From about 8am until 10am, husband and I debated the virtues of going to our friends' house with Aaron and his infected eye. He had been on the drops since the night before. It was already looking even better than it had in the morning. It wasn't gooping anymore. We really didn't want to spend the whole day in the house with both kids and nothing to do, nowhere to go. We really didn't want to cancel on them again, after the housewarming party debacle. Maybe Grandma and Grandpa could babysit? Nope, they made plans. Do we go or not go? Another friend was supposed to go as well with their little baby. Uh-oh. We're out. I'm not being the could-you-believe-they-brought-their-kid-with-pink-eye mom. After letting our friends know we were bowing out and having their male half not so subtly suggest that husband go on his own (yea, right), we canceled and started to deal with the fact that we're in the house, with the kids, one sick but not that sick, for the whole day. And we can't go anywhere. At all.

All was not lost. Our house was truly able to reap the benefits of Aaron's pink eye. Camryn's summer clothes were emptied from her drawer and packed away. Clothes that we had received for her that would now fit her were brought up from the basement, washed and put away in her drawers. Shoes that are too small on her were taken out. Camryn, in the midst of her clothing before it was packed away was convinced that it all still fit her, tried to get the shoes on and ran around yelling that she wanted to wear her "babing suit".

On to my closets. The tub that I had packed away my winter clothes in before the summer? Couldn't find it. Oh, right, it's still in the hallway - very convenient. Packed away the summer clothes, took out the winter clothes. I forgot I had half these sweaters, and oohhhh, I can't wait to wear my Ugg boots again. Cleaned out the closet and the drawers. Five bags of clothes to donate, one bag of Camryn's clothes to give to a friend and two bags of garbage later, my closets and drawers are neat and clean and full of clothes have clothes that I can wear for the fall and winter.

Before:

After:

























Here's my favorite before and after:

The pictures are evidence that all was not lost when we had to cancel our plans. On the bright side, we did manage to avoid 4+ hours in the car with both kids. Every cloud has a silver lining.....