In the early morning hours of Friday, I vaguely remembered somebody walking into my room. But that's all I can remember. I woke up before the kids and went to the washroom. The box that I keep the medications in is normally stored on the highest shelf and it was sitting beside the tub. Then Patrick woke up and wheezed out, "So what am I doing today?" I asked him, "What is going on? Are you sick?"
"Yeah, I'm sick, don't you know that? I already told you that?"
"Did you come into my room in the night?"
"Yes, and you got up and came to the bathroom and gave me medicine."
"Did I give you the right medicine? What did I give you?"
"Yes, you gave me my blue puffer and told me to take my orange puffer in 15 minutes."
"Oh, that was good advice."
Thankfully I did the right thing, but I am disturbed by the fact that I am "sleep-parenting".
So I kept Patrick home from school, but he had to come with me to Damon's hockey tournament. When we got to the tournament, I was shocked to see that the majority of team siblings had taken the day off of school! Including the Campbell's teacher's children! Of course Campbell and his teacher were both at school. The families on this team have great team spirit and the siblings make a great cheerleading squad. Damon's team lost 7-2.
Patrick had team photos that day, so despite his difficulty breathing, he suited up for photos. Then he undressed and watched the team practice and rested his lungs. Of course this was a "fun practice", both times he has missed practice it has been the 2 times the coaches have taken it easy on the team.
Matt took Damon to the tournament on Satuday. They lost their first game 7-2 again, and then they won their next game 15-0! Damon would not believe either of us when we told him that his team would not be playing in the semi-finals. "But Mom, we scored FIFTEEN goals, why wouldn't that count?"
The girls and I took Campbell and Patrick to Campbell's practice. Matt is an assistant coach for Campbell's team, so when Matt is away, Patrick goes on the ice to help the kids who are having difficulty with the drills. He is a very patient and compassionate boy. He has an amazing gift for working with children younger than him.
Kira plays with her "boyfriend", the youngest son of Campbell's coach, but this day she was not being very nice to him. She would only let him colour in Campbell's colouring books, not in any of hers. When she bought chips, she wouldn't let him have any and threw a tantrum when I insisted that she share with him. I talked to her about sharing, and pointed out how badly he must have felt when she treated him like that.
After a quick lunch, we were back at the arena for Patrick's AAA game. They played the second place team and they were winning until the last few minutes of the third period. Normally, our team is totally dominated by this other team. That wasn't the case this time. Patrick played a really great game. I was in awe of his grace and strength. I knew that he was having trouble with his asthma during the game, but it really didn't affect his play.
Kira played with an older girl, another sister from the team. She said that the girl was her best friend, and they had a great time. Eventually another sister from the team joined them and Kira came stomping over to me. "Why does J have to play with that SUUUPID girl? She's my best friend, why is she playing with that SUUUPID girl."
Patrick came home and changed and rushed off to a birthday party for one of his teammates. These boys are on the ice together 5 or more times a week. So what do you think they would do for fun? Of course, they played hockey. The parents rented a party room at an arena and the last half of the party was spent on the ice. Patrick had fun, but was very tired at the end of the day.
When I woke up this morning, the furnace was not working. It wasn't too cold in the house yet, but with the temperatures as low as they have been recently, you cannot go too long without a properly working furnace.
On Sunday morning, I made poached eggs on toast. Damon was thrilled when one of his eggs had a double yolk. 
He felt very lucky. I had never seen that before and figured it was a rare fluke. Then Campbell and Kira wanted seconds, I cracked open Campbell's egg and found another double yolk! And then Kira's was another double yolk! Damon wanted more eggs after that. He figured that at some point we'd come across triplets. To his disappointment, the rest of the eggs were singletons. So I googled "double yolk" and found that there are many superstitions about double yolks. Some say it is a bad omen, others say it is a sign of fertility. It seems like something from one of my strange dreams. All I know for certain is that the kids sure enjoyed their eggs.
Then Matt came home from work (yes, he was working on a Sunday to finish a project that is leaving tomorrow) and picked up Patrick to take him to an away game. We had high hopes that they would end the regular season with a win against a team they have beaten before, but the game ended in a tie.
In the meantime, I took Campbell to his last regular season game. I told him that it is his last chance to score any more goals this season. Based on his performance when it was his turn to play goalie, he has been chosen to play as goalie for the playoffs. I think he was having a difficult time focusing on goal-scoring, his focus was already on playing in net next weekend! His team lost 8-2, and Campbell was given credit for one of our goals. Everybody was hacking away at it, and Campbell insists that in the end the other team knocked it in.
When Kira first saw her "boyfriend' at the game, she asked his mom if she could hold his hand. He refused and clenched both hands together. Then she asked if he would colour with her. He politely declined. She asked him to come and sit with her, he preferred the company of some older boys. The little man was giving her some of her own medicine. Finally when she bought a bag of chips, she was very eager to share them with him, and he was ready to forgive her. All was forgiven over a bag of RINGOLOS.
I should tell you that during all of this hockey, Hanna is having a great time. She loves sitting on my lap and she watches the game. Very much like her brother Patrick at the same age, she turns her head and follows the play down the ice. She stops watching only to flash her dimples and coo for the moms who fuss over her.
When we got home from hockey, the furnace seemed to be working again. What a huge relief. We ate some lunch and waited for Matt and Patrick to arrive. They arrived and got ready to leave again. It was time for the Timbits Jamboree immediately following a local AHL game. Matt and all three boys went.
Us girls stayed home. The plan was to bake muffins and cookies, but in the morning's excitement over double yolked eggs, they were used up and I forgot to pick up more. So we made haystack cookies instead (sugar, margarine, cocoa & oats). Around this time, I noticed that the furnace was not working again. So the girls and I went upstairs to snuggle up and watch "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast". Puck slipped away, and I assumed that he was just going to get a sip from his water dish. I went down to the kitchen to find that he had eaten 3/4s of the haystack cookies off of the kithcen counter. BAD dog!
The boys returned with their arms full of signed souvenirs. The highlight was that Campbell had insisted that Matt needed to buy him the team's goalie's rookie card, and later on they met the goalie and Campbell whipped out the card and had him sign it! Cool! A few of the players signed Campbell's hockey stick too. They all got hockey cards and some life-sized Sidney Crosby posters. (Scratch under they eye is courtesy of Kira. Campbell thinks it makes him look tough.)
I let Matt know about the furnace's status and what the troubleshooting guides said to do next. At Patrick's game, he had talked to one of the parents from Patrick's team who owned a heating and cooling company and he had told him something to try. He followed the advice and it worked. At least for now.
I'm still waiting to wake up from this dream.
Ice is covering everything, I'm glad we didn't have to drive in this at 8:30 am.
