Simple Treasures: Its me again...

   I finally made it to the doctor! :) At 16 weeks, I've rather put it off. I was able to hear a strong heartbeat, which is always comforting. These early months make me nervous when you don't feel the baby every day. I begin to wonder if there even WILL be a heartbeat. But, as I was sitting in the waiting room, baby gave me the strongest kick yet, so that really put my mind at ease. I go back in four weeks for my 20 week ultrasound. Yipee! I can hardly wait to find out what the baby is!
   We've had some sickness around here. Christian had a virus last week and ran a fever for about three days. I thought Audra had escaped it, until Sunday night. Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up to hear her whimpering. I knew from the sound of it, before I even saw her that she was sick. She was running a pretty good fever, so I brought her downstairs, gave her some meds and rocked her for awhile until I was sure the Tylenol took affect. I don't like it when my children are sick. It really makes me nervous. Some mothers are able to take it in stride, but me, perhaps you can call it a slight touch of panic, but I start in to praying as soon as I feel a hot forehead. Why not? The Lord knows the situation and cares, even if it is just a simple cold. But I've had too many "close calls" and, adding Rebekah's experience to the list, well, I just don't like to see a small child suffer. So, I start praying. Tuesday was miserable for everyone. Poor Audra fussed constantly! At first I thought it was her teeth, but that night, when I checked on her and she was running a 104.6 fever, I knew it wasn't just teeth after all, but probably what Christian had had the week before. Only he handled it a little better. 104.6 is a little high in my book for a 12 month old baby. Her face was beet red, and burning up to the touch. Her eyes were glassy and that really worried me. She couldn't stand up and, even when sitting, just the slightest touch would tumble her over. I ran a cool bath and rubbed a wet rag over her little body. She hated it! But who wouldn't? I remembered all too well the many times I ended up in a cool bath when I had malaria and we fought to get the fevers down. To this day, I despise cold water! After about an hour, the fever came down ever so slowly. I woke up every couple hours the rest of the night, checking on her, and giving her another dose of medicine. Needless to say, we're both exhausted today! Christian had been restless the two night prior, so that makes three in a row of rather sleepless nights for me. I used to be able to handle that, no problem. Those days are history! :) I need a good 8-9 hours, or I'm useless the next morning. You can be sure, I'm going to try ever so hard to get the kids in bed at the same time this afternoon! I need a couple hours to play catch up! :) Hopefully, this virus won't last long and Audra will be back to herself again.
   Several folks up here hunt Morel mushrooms. Ever had them? A lady at church gave me a bag of them for Andy. I've heard they're real good. BUT, any mushroom in my book is an abomination! They're kind of slimy, crunchy, mushy all put together that slithers down your throat! Oh, yuck! Did you ever research how they are "made"? You'll never want to eat another one again! My mom raised us to eat everything on our plates, ESPECIALLY when we were at someone's house! If I so much as made a face and the hostess OR mom saw it, I was in trouble when we got home. So, I learned to eat the little fungus. Well, "swallow" is more like it. On one trip we made during one of our furloughs, we were on the road for two weeks straight. You know what we were served every day of those two weeks? Italian! Now, I'm very grateful for those cooks who worked so hard to feed the missionary. But I've learned that you don't cook Italian for missionaries. Why? Because they get that ALL THE TIME! Its easy to make for a crowd, and so, its the perfect choice for company. We ate it everywhere, on every trip. Even my Italian loving family was getting weary of it by the end of that trip. Now, I'm not big on Italian...(did you guess?). Guess what everyone likes to put in their Italian? MUSHROOMS! So, I'd wait til the hostess turned her head, then I'd chop up those little abominations into tiny particles, and swallow them like pills with a gulp of water, one at a time, til the little pile on my plate was gone. There's more than one way to skin a cat! Well, spring is here and with it comes the Morels! Several folks at church go mushroom hunting and when my mushroom loving husband mentioned that he'd love to try some, a lady gave him a bag full. I've never seen a morel mushroom before now. They look a lot like a sea creature, the kind that comes in a shell, or crawls on the bottom of the ocean on rocks or coral like a snail! I really had a hard time working up the nerve to touch the ugly things, much less overcoming the smell of them cooking. My nose is working REAL well right now! BUT! I did it! My great love for my husband overcame my nauseated stomach! :) He's got a plateful of fried Morel mushrooms waiting for him in the kitchen. (That's only a fourth of the bag.......ugh! Maybe he won't like them..... We can hope, can't we!?)    Hey, does anyone out there know how to store the leftover uncooked mushrooms? Do they freeze well? I don't want to throw the rest out. ....Thanks to mom, I can't even throw a mushroom away!