Far, far away

Dear Jesse,

We've worked hard to keep busy and distracted for this first day of your absence. The day involved lots of time outside, lots of playing in the house, and of course several viewings of various Hallelujah Chorus renditions on YouTube. The usual! 

Josiah wanted to ride William's tricycle rather than his bike. 

William had lots of fun off-roading with this baby stroller. 

Notice his bare feet and whisper a prayer we're not all felled with a stomach bug this week, would you please? There's a story here, naturally. As we were leaving church this morning, there was a biggish puddle of water by the side entrance walkway. Before I could stop him, William charged right through it joyously—right at the same time a mom was exiting the building with a bucket of water saying that her son had just vomited all over the sidewalk. She was dumping buckets of water on it to wash it away. Ack! I grabbed William (who protested with ear piercing gusto and kicking) and could see that the puddle was indeed rather, umm, chunky.

It gets worse: Unfortunately, the sick child had been Josiah's playmate in Sunday School for the previous 90 minutes, and the mom had been their teacher.

It gets yet worse: As I stuffed William into the car, I pulled off his yucky shoes (Crocs, thankfully), put them on the floor of the front seat, and left William barefooted for the ride home. It wasn't until we pulled into the driveway and I turned around that it occurred to me what a stupid idea that was. Even harnessed up in his car seat, that nail biting child had his toes in his mouth!!!! Grossest 2-year-old habit ever turns manages to be even grosser.

If we aren't sick by tomorrow night it'll be a miracle.

So back to the picture above: William was barefooted through our afternoon playtime since his Crocs went through the dishwasher on a sanitization cycle!

Parting shot: William wore no diaper from the time we got home from church until bedtime. Only one accident, which I'll call success! Mostly he wore undies, but for a while he had nudie buns. I couldn't resist a pic of the pianist's little cheeks...ha!