More Sickness ... But Our First House Guest!

Well, our latest round of sickness proved that you can't judge a book by its cover ... or a pediatric practice by their walls. I'm a bit emotionally exhausted from trying to deal with them, so let's just say that some people missed their true calling in life when they mistakenly decided that they deserved to care for children. Since the several "incidents" we have had with this particular pediatric practice, I have heard of three other families who have had terrible experiences with them (and the specific provider with whom we had such an issue).

Needless to say, we have found a different doctor for Little B.

With all the sickness we've had this past week (RSV for Little B resulted in a terrible cold over the weekend for me and a tentative diagnosis of walking pneumonia or a slightly collapse lung for N -- "tentative" in that they didn't run x-rays, but he is on antibiotics and an inhaler), I didn't get a chance to post anything about our VERY FIRST HOUSE GUEST!

Our sweet friend Tanya, who was Little B's very first gift-giver and babysitter, came to visit us from New York last week for four days. We were all excited to have her here, but B was beyond thrilled. He enthusiastically helped get the guest room ready for her arrival and even insisted that we put some fresh flowers from our yard in a vase for her. He was very excited about picking her up at the airport (and seeing airplanes) and talked about "Miss Tang-yah" and her "big suitcase" for days preceding her visit.

Unfortunately, not only was B sick during Tanya's visit, a cloud of gloom settled over Dallas last week. Seriously, Texas? It doesn't rain hardly ever, and then, when we have a friend we want to take sight-seeing, it decides to rain for three days in a row?

Well, we didn't let the weather hinder us too much. The first full day Tanya was here, she and I actually ended up having an unexpected girly day together, because N decided to take a family sick day to stay home with B.

Yes, I know how blessed I am. It really was such a treat, to spend an entire day with a friend, doing things I never do!

There's a great chain of thrift stores called Plato's Closet that has several locations in the DFW metroplex that I had been wanting to check out but hadn't had a chance to. Tanya and I scored some great deals on tops, averaging roughly $3-4 per item. Not bad for gently worn, brand name clothing! We had planned on going to a couple different stores, but after doing so well at the first store (and all the time it took us to try everything on), we decided to stop for lunch. I couldn't let Tanya come all the way to Texas and not have great Mexican food, so we found a terrific little restaurant and enjoyed a pretty scrumptious lunch.

I'll interject here and say that I forgot to take my camera along that day, so there are sadly zilch photos to document our girly day. 

Well, during lunch, Tanya surprised me, saying that she was going to treat us to pedicures! She was a little floored that the last time I'd had a pedicure was over two years ago, when I was largely pregnant (and hormonal) with Little B -- and she took me to that one, too!

It was a bit of an adventure finding a good salon. My GPS took us to a residential neighborhood for the first place we tried. We pulled up in front of a nice brick home and thought, "Hmm, don't think that's it." We detoured through Sephora, where Tanya found waterproof liquid eye liner that was seriously waterproof, drove in front of the salon recommended by the Sephora sales associate and promptly drove away, laughing because it was fancy-schmancy and we were in jeans and flip flops. We finally found a great one right next door to the Chinese buffet N and I like (there's a very sweet waitress there who makes B laugh), near our realtor's office.

The next day, we visited South Fork Ranch, home of the TV series "Dallas."

Yes, that would be my curious son, trying to "figure out" the ATM.

He was delighted with these ice cream scoops and wanted me to "buy it, beep beep" (because that's the noise the scanner makes at the grocery store when we buy things).

We also went searching for bluebonnets, because really, we couldn't let Tanya leave Texas without having her picture taken in a field of bluebonnets!

We had originally planned to spend that afternoon at the Dallas Arboretum, but it was so rainy and gray, we shelved that plan. Which is probably just as well, because that was the afternoon that all the poop hit the fan with the pediatric practice we had been going to. I was so thankful to have Tanya, who is a certified nurse, there with us!

Anyway, despite the weather and the sickies, we had a good visit with our friend, and we can't wait for her to come back again. Hopefully, next time, it'll be sunny and warm and everyone will be healthy!

The remainder of the week looked pretty much like this: