Flooding and other stuff

Last week, the rains came down and the rivers overflowed (not unusual in our town). The girls were out of school on Tuesday for Veteran's Day. Then because of the rising river, school was cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday. Thankfully the river crested Wednesday night and water did not get into the school, just very close. M's teacher emailed these pictures out. The first one is the field behind the school where the kids play at recess. The second in the parking lot in front of the school.

On some other notes:

Today the boys went to get their 2nd doses of flu shots. They did great. Neither of them cried and were rewarded with stickers and lollipops (Sugar Free, of course) from the nurse. It was my first time driving since the c-section, and my first time taking kids out alone. All went well. Thankfully Merek slept through the whole appointment.

Speaking of the new babe, he is rapidly growing. He is already getting too big for most of his newborn clothes and a few smaller 0-3 size things are snug. He loves to be held, especially for sleeping purposes and has conned his mother into holding him most of the night. I really can't complain because he usually goes right back to sleep after nursing. So I just have to wake up every 2-3 hours to feed him, change him, and then go back to sleep. During his awake times, and when he is not crying, he is quite attentive. He looks around and will coo back at us when we talk to him. As exhausted and sore as I am, I love having him here in our home.

Some people have asked about his name. This summer while watching the Olympics, I noticed an athlete named Marek from Poland. I mentioned it to Brad as kind of a cool name, and it is from Poland (where his dad's family is from), so it got put on our list of names. I thought it was a swimmer from Poland but after searching the Olympic rosters can only find Mareks from Poland on their track and sculling teams. Anyway, Marek is a form of Mark. It means "warlike". We liked it better with an "e" instead of an "a", though. Oh, and Edward is a family name on both sides (we've used family names for all the kids' middle names). Edward means "wealthy advisor". So, we have a "warlike, wealthy advisor" in our hands :)