The kids have had three viruses in the past two weeks. I'm so tired of cleaning up poop and vomit that I just want to...I don't know what. But Ezra and Zuri have no concept of "toilet" and even though Ezra tries, he is very rarely successful. Zuri, of course, can't even try.

It would be so bad but when they throw up in bed, we've got blanket upon blanket under their sheets because the mattresses are like bricks underneath. And so, yes, I have to clean all of that up when the vomit soaks through. I'll be honest, though, Brad has done a great job helping me clean up the floors and other objects the kids throw up on.

Oh, and the poop is everywhere too.

Brad and I have had a stressful past couple of weeks, what with his work, dealing with sick kids and me having final exams. So we planned our very, very first date night EVER since living here for tonight and decided not to change our plans. The places we were going were only about five minutes away by cab anyway.

We began our night getting "top to toe" massages and ended it at Starbucks with coffee. We even had our first coherent political conversation in about three years over dinner. It was very nice and very relaxing...of course Ezra called right after the massage on Ayi's phone, "I don't want to put my pants back on and Ayi wants me to." What in Heaven's name? He later said that he liked to talk on the telephone and he just wanted to talk to us. They aren't used to us leaving together!

Tomorrow, we are celebrating Ezra's birthday. I have so much to do next week, my own potluck on Monday, Elias wants me to make peanut butter eyeballs for his Christmas party (like I made for Halloween), I'm making a cake for Ezra's birthday at school, Elias wrote a play and is performing it on Thursday, I still have to attend class, have to cut olives because Elias needed to bring a pizza topping and he wanted olives but they don't have any that are already cut. I need to pack because we're leaving next week. I also need to finish Christmas shopping but I'm almost done with everyone on my list (who would want something from China), so that's not too bad. I also went to the Pearl Market today and got some nice gifts. It's just been busy around here!

Anyway, if I don't write for the next few weeks, don't be surprised. I hopefully will find a chance but if I don't, I never write anything while I'm in the states, so I'll see ya next year! :)