August 6
Well, Gimli's earache didn't get any better, so we took him to the hospital to get checked out. Turns out that he has swimmer's ear, and he'll be needing drops in it three or four times a day for a week. Problem is, he has to lie still on his side for five minutes after he gets the drops, and that isn't easy for him! He also can't get any water in his ear for a while, and he was upset that he couldn't go swimming – but the doctor said that we can just use wax earplugs to keep the water out, and he can swim after all.
We had another thunderstorm last night, but for some reason it didn't scare me so much this time around. Maybe because it was somewhat milder, or maybe because we have gone through it before – but for whatever reason, I managed to fall asleep while it was going on. It was really rather soothing, actually, hearing the thunder rumbling and the wind blowing through the palm trees. For a while, even, Thorin and I thought of getting romantic; but Frodo, of course, decided to sleep in our room last night because he was frightened of the thunder, so there was the end to that idea.
It's okay, though. We've gotten rather used to not having any alone time these days, due to the cat's odd habits. We can't shut the door to our room at night, because if he is in there he meows to get out; and if he is not in there, he meows to get in. I honestly don't know how he went from attacking me every time I looked at him to wanting to sleep on my feet; and stranger still is how, on the rare occasions when he doesn't sleep with me and Thorin, he curls up next to the dog.
Anyway, in the morning we went outside to find the ground all muddy. Well, we couldn't waste that! We all had a marvelous mud-fight, and afterwards we were coated with dirt; and it was in our ears (Gimli was careful to avoid that, though!), and our hair was matted and gritty, and Frodo was such a mess that all we could see of him past the mud was his eyes and his wide smile! And we just couldn't go back into the trailer like that, of course, so we took turns chasing each other around with the hose, until we were relatively mud-free! And, well, we couldn't get all of the mud out of our hair with just water, so we scrubbed up with shampoo a few times, then we all sat out in the sun to dry while we played 20 Questions!
A little while later, Thorin and I went to the store with Frodo and Gimli to pick up some more shampoo (and to get some more laundry detergent and some quarters for the machines, since after the mud fight we definitely had a few extra loads), and while we were gone, the older boys made us lunch. It was nothing fancy (grilled chicken sandwiches and a nice slaw on the side), but it was really tasty and nothing went wrong!