Hostable notes

The good good grandma gave us another medical scare this past ten days and it's probably better not to blog when I'm in a high drama dither. She rallied after another couple of ICU stints and is back to the regular ward and will hopefully be discharged tomorrow or Monday. The girls are so flexible. I drag them back and forth from the hostable (Mimi's version of hospital) and they don't complain or balk and I think that's remarkable considering that when they get to the hostable, they can't even go into her room and are trapped in the second floor waiting area with grandpa or Uncle Glenn while I stay in mom's room. When mom is in the ICU with limited visiting hours we walk all over every inch of the hostable on safari to see what we can see and truth be told, there just is not much to see in the average hostable. There are some nice fish in the radiology waiting area, but there are limits to how fascinating fish can be to the average six-year-old for any length of time. All the traipsing back and forth to the hostable, late hours and cafeteria food (which, truth be told, they love and so do I) brings my lack of reliable babysitters into sharp focus. Stew watched them for several hours last Sunday so I could be at the hostable longer and not have to worry about herding the little girls (Ellie is never a problem armed with books and her Nintendo) that was the best gift (not to mention the gratis lawn mowing he threw into the child care package) I've received in a long long time, I am so grateful for such a generous friend. I need to cultivate some teens who don't already have jobs and/or intense social lives and need the money badly enough to watch four kids and not let anyone drown in the ceement pond. When my other brothers arrive solo at the hostable because their spouses are at home in charge of their kids, I do feel more than a twinge of envy, but I get over it. I wouldn't want to married to any of their wives if that was the price for solo hostable visits.