Unfortunately, this isn't an April Fool's Joke. And it also isn't very funny. I'm more than a little bit annoyed and frustrated by how the past week has gone, but I'm trying to inject some humor, for my own sake. After Lev got sick on Friday night, we realized he had just consumed some of the smoothie that was in the freezer from the day before Finn got sick. Upon further examination of the ingredients, we discovered that the kefir in the smoothie was more than a week past the date printed on the bottle (we are still unclear whether it is a sell by date or an expiration date). Finn's doctor informed us that kefir is a very capricious product that can go from good bacteria to bad bacteria quickly and without obvious signs. I'll be honest, I have never been diligent about checking expiration dates, rather, I tend to rely on looks, smell and taste to determine whether or not something has expired. And I've also brewed plenty of my own kefir in the past (with no printed expiration date) and never had a problem. But maybe the kefir here is a different culture than I'm used to? Either way, if it is as capricious as the doctor says, I think I'll just stick with yogurt for my cultured dairy of choice. Matt found a Russian website that says you should consume kefir within 24 hours of opening! Which I think is ridiculous; who does that?! It comes in a liter-sized bottle! I still haven't decided if I'm convinced that was the problem. The smoothie also contained a cube of frozen spinach, and we all know spinach is notorious for contamination. As much as I hate throwing good food away, the bag of frozen spinach will be going in the trash, just in case.

Finn is almost back to 100%, although he still complains about his tummy a little bit. He will go back to the doctor hopefully for the last time tomorrow to get a medical check so he can return to school. I guess we can appreciate the fact that this bout of illness lit a fire under us and we had lots of testing done and ruled out all sorts of potential problems Matt has worried about in regards to Finn's health.

Lev only had one day of being feverish and insisting on being held, but he certainly isn't back to normal yet. He produced seven unfortunate diapers within just a few hours this morning. Blech! I'm not sure who to feel more sorry for, the one producing the deposits or the one responsible for changing the diapers.

In unrelated news, Lev continues to rapidly expand his vocabulary and I'm surprised at how many Russian words are coming out. It is rather disarming to have a tiny human yelling "nyet!" at you in the middle of the night. My favorite is when I ask him if he is all done with something and he responds with "Vsyo!" and a big smile because I think he knows he's being coy. Finn has started drawing/creating people and it is awesome. He'll be famous in no time, hah! Oh, and many trips to the doctors office means I got a picture of the awesome french braiding book.