Day 2.343: Eventful!

For what was basically a stay-at-home day, today was packed with activity. This morning, after Saturday-breakfast, the same kind colleague who drove me home yesterday, took me back to the scene of the crime to collect my car. I left the kids making cookie-decorations for the Christmas tree. When I got home, they were decorating them - except for E5N1 who was eating them with a spoonful of icing as a chaser.

Later, they made Christmas presents for the birds who frequent our feeder out of suet and flax squished into pine cones. Exile #2 told me that she had read of someone doing this who said that they had immediately frozen solid, and then instantly gone rancid when they started to warm up - appetising! Since the maximum temperature today was 21 °F (-6 °C) we could have the same experience, however my hunch is that the squirrels will make off with them - I'll let you know.

Some time after we got back in from hanging them up and taking a few pictures (I like this cheerfully cheeky one, but this is my favourite), I was summoned to an unfolding crisis. Exile #3 had slipped and bumped her mouth on the wall and Exile #2 was peering into her bleeding mouth to see what had happened. The suspicion at the time was that she had broken one of her adult teeth and nearly knocked it out, so Exile #2 started the process of calling for an emergency dental appointment. Fortunately, the process was a bit involved, because before she had actually got through to anyone, we'd decided that she had just knocked a baby-tooth nearly-out. Soon, it came the rest of the way and confirmed its identity.

Later this afternoon, we went out to give the kids chance to buy presents for each other, and then went out for dinner together. It was really very cold out and about. There is a huge snow-storm approaching us tonight, although it is expected to miss us almost entirely. It may affect our plans to go down to New York city on Monday however. We'll leave it until tomorrow to decide.