Our neighbour came over just after lunch and invited the girls over to play with her daughters. (No school for the big kids today, just for a change - it's a teacher work-day). It's been two hours, and I'm amazed at how much I can get done, and how easily I can do it, if I'm left in peace. I've swept, mopped, vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms ... and now I'm sitting down in a clean, quiet, house. The only thing I can hear is the periodic thunk of Stephen's skateboard - he's practicing some new manoevre in the garage. Of course, now that I've stopped working, I'm starting to feel guilty, and wondering whether I should go over and bring the girls home. When I have neighbourhood kids over, I send them home (nicely) when I'm tired of them - I hope she does the same.

Having nice neighbours is one of the reasons I'm enjoying the new house so much. In the apartments, people pretty stayed indoors and kept to themselves, unless they were at the pool. Whereas here, in the evenings, people stroll round the neighbourhood and stop to chat when they meet a neighbour, and kids scoot and ride bikes and play hopscotch and basketball on the sidewalks together ... It's relaxed and low-key, and very pleasant.

I took Ems to get new clothes this morning : we are absolutely thrilled to find that she's grown out of most her clothes. She has been in a 6X for ... gosh, two years at least. Maybe three years, thinking about it. And the clothes we bought today were all 8's. Heck, maybe one of these days she might even make it onto the growth chart! She has her check-up with the endocrinologist on the 30th; it'll be interesting to get an accurate measurement and see how much she actually has grown since the end of May. I think it might be as much as an inch and a half.

She has a different doctor's appointment on Monday, this time with a paediatric haemotologist. A while ago, our new endo. called us to say that when he was reviewing Emily's chart, he'd noticed that her white blood count was low. Normally that wouldn't raise any flags, as even a slight cold can depress the count. But he had a look through her past records, and they were all on the low side. He said it was most likely nothing serious, but that he wanted us to consult our family doctor about it. Which we did, and he in turn referred us to the haemotologist. 99% of me thinks that this is a big fat nothing : just one of those things that aren't a problem, and are only discovered because of too much testing. The other 1%, though, is rather tense about the whole thing. Poor Ems, I'm pretty sure that, at the very least, she's going to have to have blood drawn on Monday.