Terrific Thursday

Thursdays are usually my "community service" days, the day when I make the time to visit, call or help friends, buy presents, cook for others etc. Essentially its the day that I use to do things for anyone that is not part of our immediate family. Today I decided to allocate the day to shop for myself. And karma bit me in the bum. I organised myself to be at the shops right on opening time only to have to evacuate for a fire drill. What!?!??! Who has ever heard of fire drills for shopping centres? My perfectly planned timing for various shops was severely derailed. Luckily my visit to Borders was short-lived due to the unavailability of their e-readers (a present for the in-laws). I managed to get 2 pairs of shoes for Lara for $15 and some new PJs for Lara and Elliot, followed by snow boots for Jonah before doing my grocery shopping. Okay, so some community service was done. I was rewarded for this with a phone call from Malcolm telling me that he had finished for the day. Woohoo!

All plans to visit my father-in-law went out the window. Malcolm insisted that he had already visited him this morning and that it was enough. Yes, father-in-law has decided that it was his turn for a stint at Club Concord. He was admitted over the weekend for chest pain and shortness of breath. They are still trying to figure out what the cause is. So far he has been by cardiology, respiratory, immunology and haematology. Add this to neurology, neurosurgery, colorectal surgery, ophthalmology, dermatology, urology, vascular surgery, chronic pain management, geriatrics, orthopaedics, ortho-geriatrics and rehab (from other family members admissions and outpatient visits) and you can understand why Malcolm is Concord Hospitals' favourite son. The phrase "I'm an Albany" seem to be a magic password for all things nice at Concord Hospital.

"You can't use a mobile phone here"

"But I'm Malcolm Albany's dad. I'm waiting for him to call me"

"OH, in that case, that's alright"

So instead of the hospital, we diverted for a lunch of Korean at Eastwood. Following on from yesterday's lime curd production, I even had time after lunch to bake apple and cinnamon cookies. I was feeling very proud of myself.

Thursdays are also piano lesson days. Today the children played very well seemingly remembering a lot from the "last chance practice" session in the morning. Their teacher was happy and I was relieved. Until, Lara proclaimed, "Mummy, I have chicken pox." To my horror, I saw little vesicles on her hands. Hand foot and mouth disease. It had been going around at church and I knew it was only a matter of time before one of our three got it. Oh well, no school tomorrow for Lara. Lucky me. Luckily she had no other viral symptoms and appear to be well. She told me very firmly that she had to stay in bed all day because that's what one does when you stay at home from school. So maybe my day won't be so bad after all tomorrow...

Last but not least...before we left the house for trivia, we just happened to look at the Periodic table and noted with interest that Einsteinium was element 99 and Curium was 96 and all these other scientists had elements named after them. Guess what question came up? What is the atomic number of Curium? WOOHOO!!!! Tonight we achieved a hat trick. Victories for three weeks in a row. How awesome was that? Go the fruitloops!