Sickness, ranting thereof, bathroom project and completed bookcase

I'm supposed to be headed to the library for storytime, but the kiddo is sick. And speaking of sick, am I completely crazy for being annoyed that certain family members bring their sick kids down to visit at my grandfather's house? EVEN THOUGH we all decided years ago, after he had open-heart surgery, that we shouldn't come if we were sick since he is really not in the best of health? I mean, I always followed that rule, but now that I have a kid, it really pisses me off that they continue to do it because what do you know, I am the one that ends up dealing with the sick kid. Usually they'll say something like, "Oh, it's just a sinus/ear infection, it's not contagious!" (which, okay. except, you are a) self-diagnosing, so how do you know it's a sinus infection? and b) stretching the boundaries of believability by saying that someone throwing up all night long is because of an ear infection. Just an example of the kind of nonsense that they come up with, not a specific incident. Or, "you can't protect them from everything!" Or, "she just won't get around Papaw." Or, "let's just do it and not tell them that she's sick." It's really me, my mom, one aunt and one cousin who are pro-staying-home, and the other aunt and two cousins who are pro-INSANITY, so it's kind of an even mix. You know what always really boggles my mind? The other aunt is a relapsed nurse. Surely SHE knows a little something about basic disease prevention? There was a mini Facebook drama going on yesterday over it. Sometimes, though I love them dearly, my family is exhausting. :)

Let's see, how about something that is not directly child-related? We are making really good progress on the bathroom again! The walls are nearly ready for painting (lots of painful sanding/spackling/priming involved on M's part. I am lucky that he is one of those rare folks who can do drywall work. Long family joke about that being the one thing that my very handy dad can't do... with the evidence being clearly visible in my parents house! But even better... we are nearly halfway done with the floor! We went with laminate in a very light maple color and it's looking fantastic. It was driving me crazy last night because M was working on it and I had to stay away most of the time to keep E out of trouble. My parents are supposed to come over tomorrow and spend the night, and then on Saturday, M and my dad will work on getting the tub in and installed, and after that... it should all be downhill. There'll be plenty of work left to do in the painting and replacing the toilet and vanity (and I have to put a clear coat on the painted vanity before that happens, too) and installation of the light, etc, but those tasks are not going to be as hard as the work that was done so far and the work that will hopefully be taken care of this weekend. IF it happens, due to sickness. M woke up sick this morning and I'm not so sure that he'll be well enough on Saturday to get much done, and I'm not sure that my parents should come down and get sick, if they aren't already.

And, best news yet! I finally finished painting the dollhouse bookcase that we've been working since like January. It was done except for the finishing, and apparently we hate that so it just sat and languished. Until now! It's been sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor for over an entire month because I decided that it WAS getting done. The painting took so much longer than I planned, though, when I decided to do all of the rooms in different colors. Each one needed at least two coats, and two rooms had to be redone because the paint I used didn't work out as well as I had hoped, and one room had to be resanded due to an incident with gunky primer. I spent five hours on it the very first night that I started painting, and countless hours since then. (And even more countless hours ignoring the project as best as I could while skirting around the thing taking up the entire kitchen floor, propped up on three Capri-Sun boxes because I am so classy like that.) Seriously, it took SO much longer to paint than it did to build. Isn't that crazy?

You may have seen this on Facebook already, too, and you may see it elsewhere before I'm done because I AM SO HAPPY IT'S DONE!

My PLAN was to use this bookcase as a...well, bookcase. Evie's plan is to use the dollhouse as a dollhouse. This is the first day that she's had it in her room. Guess who won? :) Maybe when she gets bored with it, I can steal a few rooms for books and pretties.

A few notes on the Barbie action in the house. I tried to subtly point out that horses do not usually go IN the house, but Evie not-so-subtly pointed out that PIPPI'S horse is in the house, so that blonde Barbie therefore became Pippi.

I put the couple in the yellow room, but to get them to stand up, I fear that girl is touching her friend inappropriately. I'm sorry for ruining what should be a G-rated photo.

I gave Evie all of my Barbies from when I was little, and therefore, she has a huge collection of them... but unfortunately, most of them look as if they just stepped out of 1985. The Rockers were having a little reunion there in the pink room..

The reindeer? It is apparently a kitchen table. Oh, to be three again!