A New Room

Sickness is bad enough, but lately another problem of ours has been sleeping arrangements. A little clarification. After Erin was born last year, she mostly slept in the room with us. We had our bedroom set up in the laundry room/play room/back add-on with the sliding glass door/back door. Comprende? Thus, the baby's room was empty and unused. When it started to get cold, we decided to move Ian's room into the smaller baby's room and move us and the baby into Ian's room. Then we could close off the back room and save some money on our gas bill. And we could be closer to the baby stuff instead of having to change a diaper on the other side of the house. A year later, we have this problem.

If/when Erin wakes up in the middle of the night, she rolls over and sits up. She looks through the crib bars and sees me sleeping in the big bed 3 feet away. She stands up, jumps up and down and screeches like a banshee until I get up and get her. Then, we either have to walk and sing or lie down in the big bed and go to sleep (ha ha on #2). Since she's been sick, it is a tossup as to whether or not she'll go back to sleep without a commotion.


Since I have 2 children, sometimes I have to get up to go to Ian. I have noticed this: when I'm not in the room and she wakes up, she looks around and lies back down. She Goes Back To Sleep!
So for the last month I have found myself sleeping on the couch in the living room at different times of the night so she will go back to sleep. This has worked for all but 2 cases. One was the breathing episode and the other was a prelude to some really nasty diarrhea, so I can conclude that this method will work in all but dire circumstances. My HC may or may not be sleeping in the room during this, since he works evening/night shift, but even if he is in there sleeping, he can sleep through everything except a wet bed. But last night, he couldn't go in the room to sleep because the baby was just lying there awake, staring at the lava lamp. I had been sleeping on the couch, trying to wait for her to drop back off so I could go back to sleep (I can practically hear people rolling their eyes, but don't worry a solution is nigh) and my HC was home from work. It was about 6 am before we faced each other and realized that we had to do something about this. Finally. After 5 or 6 weeks of sick and not a full night's sleep for any of it, I am not looking my best and my reaction time is frankly embarrassing. My HC just wants to get in bed without being screeched at. It was quiet, so we sucked it up and decided to be the parents and to get in bed. Screeching commenced. My HC went straight to sleep. I was left to console, carry and sing to our noisy bundle.
So today after church, we moved.
After lunch and naptime, we cleaned out half of the back room and moved our bed back into it. Then we moved my HC's wardrobe and my drawers. The rest will follow eventually. Then I headed to walmart to get a rug, some blinds, a clothing rack (I will really miss the closet in that room, but I miss my sanity more. I need sleep!) and other things that we needed to make the rooms habitable. I'm pretty sure the tub of candy corn jumped into the cart all by itself.


So I have been cleaning and arranging Erin's new room and after supper she went in there and uttered a big "Hi!" to her new corner of toys and played until bedtime. The monitor is up next to my bed and my bed is on the other end of the house in an entirely different room. I am SO ready for this.
I am praying so, so hard that this is going to work. But either way, I am not going to miss the couch at all.

Sick of Sick

This week has been another round of sickness. Monday, Erin had her follow-up appointment from her previous round of cold/cough/yuck. She seemed better, she really did. Everything checked out just fine. While at the doc's office, I found out that they've changed to a 4 day work week. They are closed on Wednesdays and open earlier and later on the remaining days. Tuesday, Erin had a runny nose and a little cough. Ian still has his cough, but only in the middle of the night and first thing in the morning. Tuesday night was horrible.
I noticed Erin breathing harder and harder and crying about every 30 minutes. In the middle of the longest night in the world, I counted her breaths at 55 a minute. I tried everything in my arsenal, since cough medicines, etc have been pooh poohed by the FDA and are no longer even available. It was a long and sleepless night.
The next morning was Wednesday. Uh oh. Our doctor's office was closed. I called the other pediatrician that usually gets our business whenever the office is closed. I explained, begged, pleaded and must've sounded as insane as I felt (all wild-eyed and wild-haired) because she put us in.
We left early. Poor Erin was breathing so hard she couldn't sleep and couldn't cough up whatever was blocking her throat.
After the normal paperwork, we got in and Erin was introduced to the wonderful Nebulizer. The doc thinks she had an asthma attack, though it may not turn out to be chronic.
So we have steroids and a z-pack and the nebulizer every 4 hours until the weekend where we will go to every 6 hours and then off if she is doing better.
So far, 4 hours have not gone by fast enough. But she is sleeping better and feeling a little better. She is still not eating much, but that will improve as soon as I start listening to reason and fixing chocolate and french fries for supper every night, like Ian has been suggesting for years.
Ian is relieved that the crying has stopped and has resigned himself to sharing his toys for peace and quiet.
Things are starting to look normal to me now and not as if I'm looking at them from inside a floating bubble.
Sigh. I'm just sick of being sick!

A little taste of fall

It's been a little cooler, which is a great thing. We've actually been able to turn off the air conditioners a bit. Which is weird because then we have to turn the tv down and talk quieter. haha. This has also given us a chance to play outside more. When Ian is at school learning new shapes like Ovals and Diamonds and new colors like gray and purple and his lower case letters, Erin and I go outside and swing on the swingset and blow bubbles and play on her little plastic slide. And get chewed up some by mosquitos. Erin loves it and loves the dogs. When Buddy gets too close sniffing at her, she pushes his face away and then pets him so his feelings won't get hurt. She even tries to call him. We call the dogs by making a 'pop-pop' sound with our lips. She does a much quieter and cute version. She does it every time we look out the window or go into the yard. It's amazing how much her personality is growing. She is also getting tooth #6. 3 on top and 3 on the bottom. Sort of like Gollum except much cuter. He only had 6 teeth, if you're up on your Hobbit reading.
So for the past 3 or 4 days, I have learned how to air the tires on the bikes and the bike trailer and we have gone for bike rides. Yesterday my HC went too. It was really fun and wears Ian out fast. He is currently having a hard time learning to stay on the side of the road, much to my noisy chagrin. And he can't hear my hollering over the rattle of his training wheels. But I holler anyway.
My HC would put it a little less mildly, closer to "screeching like a fishwife" but I disagree. I prefer "correcting at an increased volume." I'm getting another Look.
Fine then.
I am currently waiting for my cinnamon raisin bread to finish in the bread machine. I modified it a little bit because last time it didn't taste like cinnamon at all, it just had a brown swirl through it and tasted like regular bread. And I didn't add raisins last time either. It is rising. And smelling all yummy and yeasty.
Yesterday I made some pot pourri. It's really easy, but only lasts for a day or so. You need some apple peels and some orange peels in a small sauce pan. Add some cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc (or just some apple pie spice) and let it simmer. Just remember to add more water when it gets low or you'll end up with a nasty smell and a scorched pan. Yup. Kinda cancels the whole thing out, doesn't it?
We've also done some cleaning this past week. My highlight was cleaning out Ian's toybox and getting rid of all the broken toys, dried play-doh, forgotten papers, broken crayons and odds and ends. Then wiping the inch of dirt and questionable remnants from the bottom with a quart of bleachy water. Then it was bookshelf time. Now Erin has a lot more boardbooks and Ian has more room on his bookshelf for Dinosaur and Car books. Current book favorites are: "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies" by Numeroff (this is a library book that gets rechecked constantly), "How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?" by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague, and the one we just got from Scholastic Book Club that we've read 3 times a day since it came home: "The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark" by Ken Geist and Julia Gorton.
This is an aquatic version of the three little pigs, complete with "Not by the skin of my finny fin fin!" "Then I'll munch and I'll crunch and I'll smash your house in," roared the shark. It helps if you do the voices.
And another weekend is before us. I will be greeting it with cinnamon raisin bread. Mmmmmm

New Bike

Ian's old bike broke. The whole bolt or axle or whatever that held the back wheel and training wheels on was stripped and one training wheel broke completely off right at the stripped bolt. JB Weld miraculously held it together for a day, but it broke on the way home from school. Thankfully it was Friday. Over the weekend, my wonderful HC made some comments and some inquiries and we were very blessed with someone whose boy didn't ride bikes much and had outgrown/abandoned his old bike and did we want to buy it? Yay!! It's a nice bike, as you'll see and needed some pumping and polishing and a lot of WD-40. I had no idea of this transaction as it was done after bedtime last night. I awoke this morning to Ian lying on the couch wrapped in a blanket (it was 51 last night! Brr! Yay! Fall (no, it was Ike)!). "What are you doing?" I asked him. "I'm watching my NEW Bike," he answered smiling. I turned to go and change Erin's morning diaper. "No, your new bike will come at Christmastime if you're a good boy," I said back to him, wondering if he was fully awake or still in some really great dream. "Mommy," he said, following me to the changing table, "I ride my NEW Bike today?" "Ian, your bike is broken, we don't have your new bike yet." After a few more exchanges of this nature, he grabbed my hand. "Mommy," he said pityingly, "you come see my new bike, ok?" I let him lead me into the living room and there, against the kitchen/carport door was a bike. My eyes came close to bugging out. "Wow!" I said. "So, can I ride my NEW Bike to school?"


After some minor tweaking today After school, I got it to where the back wheel actually touches the ground all the time instead of most of the time and now we're in business. On a Big Boy Bike. Wow.

We Don't Like Ike

Last night, Ike hit our piece of Oklahoma. I'm really glad that I (sort of) knew where the lighter, the kerosene lamp and all the candles were. My mama emailed today to ask how it went and this is what I emailed back to her:

'The weather was awful. We lost power around midnite last night and didn't get it on until almost 2pm today. It was very hot last night! We had only 6 inches of rain and wind gusts up to 60 mph. It was pretty dramatic out there. HC and I watched a bit of it thru the sliding glass doors and the windows. It was pretty impressive. It was all gone by this morning and it's been a pretty nice day, though everyone has been tired. We are grateful though that the power was fixed in time for HC to take a shower before work. :)Ian was extremely inconvenienced by the power outage (No TV, no video games, no ice, no hot water, even the Dryer doesn't work?!). Erin didn't really care except for naptime. She woke up completely soaked with sweat and didn't like it. Everyone cheered (except for HC; he was napping) when the Electric Co showed up in their bucket truck.'



It was so NICE when the power came back on. We did have some fun outside today, on the swingset and in the yard. I'm really thankful that it wasn't so hot today or we would have been really miserable inside. As it was, there's a really yappy chihuahua down the street that serenaded me awake at daybreak this morning. I was not amused. Nor was I amused at the yahoo who burned out up and down our street a couple of times at 7:30am. Another perk of having a cop car parked in the driveway.




But there was no hail, not a lot of thunder and lightning and the dogs made it through ok. They were both running around barking at all the flying leaves and protecting their part of the backyard. Then they both curled up inside the shed and went to sleep. At least for a little bit.



But it was very close and quiet last night. It's weird when there's no more white noise or fan circulating. But windows that actually open? Priceless!!!
[note: our last house had only two windows that were not nailed shut]

Ice Cream After Dark

During the summer reading program, Ian and I read hundreds (yes, really) of books for the reading logs, and his name was entered several times into the drawing for prizes. A great upside, especially for those kids to whom reading 55 books was like being picked for varsity anything, a smaller incentive was provided. For every 20 books you read, you got a Sonic food card for a free ice cream cone. For a then 3 year old, who cares about a drawing for prizes when you could have Ice Cream???
But we got a bunch of ice cream cards (and a bunch of cards for free tater tots too, but they didn't last as long). While she was handing them to me, the Head Librarian/Director, whatever her title is, told me that one of her favorite memories from her childhood was when her parents would load the kids into the car after supper and bathtime and take a drive. They would always end up at a drive-in/drive-through for ice cream. "Maybe you could do that for your kids, too," she said to me with a fond smile. I guess the muggy air, lightning bugs and long days were giving her some sentimental moments. It was catching.


Last night, that's what we did. My HC was at work, but the kids and I were just doing our thing. We were all bathed and fed and playing around and then I decided. "Get your shoes on!" I told Ian and picked the baby up. I dug around for some spare change and clutching it in my hopeful fist, headed to the car.
Our normal bedtime for the chillens is around 8:30 and they get cranky when this is not observed. I can remember only one or two time when the kids have been with me driving after dark, other than driving back from a friend's house in a residential area. Well, we went to Sonic and you'd think it was Ian's first time in the real world. "Ooooooh! Look at all the lights! They're boooo-diful!" "Yeah, wow," I tried to sound impressed. Really, I was thinking "What am I doing to my children that they are bowled over by neon lights from gas stations?" Even Erin cooed and oohed as we turned into Sonic.
Finally, our ice cream was ordered and the change was counted out (Erin and I got a 99 cent Banana Split! Ian's was free). I put Ian's ice cream cone in the Tupperware bowl that I'd brought for just that purpose (otherwise you have to hold it, dripping, all the way home....ew) and we went home, oohing some more at the pretty lights (they ARE pretty if you just look at colors).
We got home and chocolate syrup and sprinkles were added. Then Ian wanted some banana in his too and we had a good time all sitting there chowing down.
And there's nothing like the chocolate ring around little smiling mouths to give you a good feeling.
Everyone went to bed happy last night, let me tell you.
Then my HC's dad, who lives in FL, popped in for a short visit. He surprised him at work and it was definitely a surprise. Then he (with an aunt and 4 of her kids) came to the house to see everyone else. Everyone else was sleeping. It was 11:15. My HC tried to get Ian up to see his cousins, but he refused. His head just lolled drunkenly on HC's shoulder and the eyes wouldn't open. It was an ice cream induced haze, I'm sure.
They left around 12:30. It was good to see them. It was definitely a big surprise, one that we never would have expected otherwise. They headed back to the aunt's house, which is about 2 hours away and then I went to Bed! HC went back out to work a little more and assist the officer on duty. And guess who was up at 7:30 this morning??? Yup, my little Banana Split Princess. Another side effect of Sonic. :D

The Best Part of Waking Up

Earlier today, my HC told me what happened while I was in the bathroom getting ready to take Ian to school:
I had already gotten Ian dressed and he had brushed his teeth. He wandered into our bedroom blearily. My HC turned around and asked him if he was okay. "I need chocolate," Ian exclaimed desperately. "Huh?" my HC asked, not certain if he had heard correctly. "I need chocolate," Ian repeated.
Holding back a smile, my HC went to the fridge and got out the chocolate syrup. "Just a little bit," he said and put a tiny dot on the tip of Ian's tongue.
Ian closed his mouth and let the taste roll over his tongue and palate. He closed his eyes, savoring it and finally swallowed. My HC looked at him expectantly. "That's better," Ian said and perked up. Then he went outside and got on his bike.

"Don't Wanna Go To School Today!"

Today was the first time I heard this momentous phrase. And I'm positive that it won't be the last. But we got tears dried and the nose wiped and plopped him on his bike for the ride to school anyway. He didn't want to get up this morning and he didn't want to wear those pants and he didn't like those shoes and he wanted fruit snacks for First Breakfast. And when I said no to the fruit snacks, that's when the outburst occurred.
I didn't want to get up either. I don't think anyone did because it's all cloudy outside. We are supposed to be getting rain for the next 4 or 5 days. And hello Ike.
On a happier note, a week or two ago (I have no clue as to the passage of time due to recent illness and many sleepless nights) we went to the grand opening of the town's new ambulance building (it was privately owned, but the town decided that it needed its own ambulance, so they bought it). We went to it and got a tour of everything and got to see the inside of the ambulance.



I think Ian was expecting to see blood or something because he spent a long time in there and then he asked if he could drive it. But he couldn't find anyone that would give him the keys....



Afterwards, we didn't feel like going home yet because it had turned into a nice day, so we went for a drive. And we ended up here:


Ian really had fun and didn't want to leave. We threw a whole bunch of rocks in and put leaves on one side and ran to the other side of the little bridge and waited to see the leaves come through. It was fun.



Erin and I took a more spectator-like approach, though we did get to splash some. I tried to stand on a rock in the middle while I was holding her, but it turned out to be deceiving and unstable and we almost fell in. I got my shoe wet in any case.



Now we have decided that we need to find a stream and camp out beside it. We have talked about going camping in the fall (hello? is it fall yet?) when it gets cooler, using one of my HC's sick days. But it gets trickier and trickier when you add in school days and days off and then the weather.
But we'll see. I'm sure that Ian wouldn't mind taking a day off of school to sleep outside and play in a stream. Nope, I don't think he'd mind it at all.

Sick of September

We've been sick since August. The kids had little allergy-type colds that just haven't gone away. Erin has had her phlegm/cough/congestion/runny nose yuckiness for 2 weeks. It has been 12 days since I have had a decent night's sleep. Since she is so stuffy, it is hard to lie down flat (even though she is using one of our pillows to elevate), so she gets up a lot in the night. So I hold her and walk back and forth in the living room until she 1) coughs up all the yuck that is keeping her from sleeping well, 2)warms up and 3)falls back to sleep. Number 3 isn't always accomplished as fast as I would like. I'm not saying all this as a contest, like some women do. One person complains and the next person says, "oh yeah? Well, I haven't had a decent night's sleep in 6 months!" and then it's some sort of weird, deluded competition. No. First off, I'm saying it in disbelief because I can't believe it's been that long, even though the rings under my eyes could tell their own story. Second, in the middle of the night, it seems so much longer than that. Third, it's only because of how great God is that I am even functioning right now and haven't been late getting Ian to school.
Saturday night, Ian had a really nasty bout of cookie tossing. He had eaten his lunch in his room at his little table so he could watch whatever movie he wanted to watch in there and he had gotten some pizza on the floor. Before bedtime, I asked him to pick up the two little pieces that were under the table and throw them away. I'm not sure if he was just grossed out or bending over made everything in his stomach shift or what, but he proceeded to eject everything that was still in his stomach all over his rug. Then he took a deep breath and did it some more. I just stood there, holding Erin and watching in some kind of suspended animation horror. Then my adrenalin kicked in and I herded him to the toilet, where he stood there and stared (like "Ew! I'm not throwing up in THERE! I pee pee in there!").
I dumped (with a very fast song) the baby in bed and she stood there and protested missing all the fun (one of those times that it's completely gross to be the only grownup) while I cleaned Ian up and made him stay in the bathroom until I had cleaned up his room (nothing like the sight and smell to cause a relapse!).
It took a while.
I can tell you right now that we won't be having chicken divan again for about 15 years, if ever.
We ran out of carpet fresh. sigh.
I found the baking powder.
I was leery about putting Ian in bed because I didn't want round 2 to get the mattress. He didn't want to go to bed, so I made a little nest on the floor and gave him a pot in case he had to upchuck again. He asked for milk. Um, NO! So I got him some juice that he said tasted yucky and popped a movie in for him. An hour or two later, he had round 2 in his sleep and there was no clean floor left for him to sleep on and no clean blankets left (or stuffed animals).
So I covered his bed with towels (that's a trick that a great doctor gave me from when Ian had the stomach flu and I couldn't keep crib sheets clean) and got him a big beach towel to use as a blanket. Thank you Lord that there were no more eruptions.
Except this morning Chris felt queasy and nauseous. Groan! I took Erin to the PA (physician's assistant) and she got some Z-pack and better allergy meds to get rid of her bug (thank you Lord! I need Zzzzs!). I am very optimistic about this treatment. It's been really rough since the FDA or whoever has declared that any kind of cough meds, etc are not to be used on a child under the age of 6. Tell that to a parent who hasn't gotten more than 2 hours of sleep at a time for almost 2 weeks. I dug some old cough meds out of the bottom of my medicine chest and gave the proper dose to Erin anyway. And no, I don't feel bad at all. Or like a bad parent. It's hard to listen to your miserable baby cough and gag and choke. Then you're supposed to suck out their nose with the Blue Beast (nasal aspirator), slap some Vick's on and call it a night? Ha!
Anyway, I hope this z-pack works really really fast. Because tomorrow is grocery day and bill paying day and I won't have time to take a nap then either, even if I had the opportunity.
But that's okay, because I am thankful for medicine and for a little boy who is happy to see me after school and who is not throwing up gallons of supper. And for a little girl who can feel like the inside of a dirty diaper and still give gorgeous smiles and be happy to see me when I come to get her out of her crib.
So we've been through another one of those Parenting Trenches and boy are we happy to see the other side. Now if I can only get rid of the Marianna Trench under my eyes...

Ian the Biker

Here is the long awaited premiere of Ian doing 'tricks' on his bike...he is very excited about this video and had to watch it a couple times already. ;)

New Car!

Before you get too excited, it's a mommy (or daddy, or brother)-powered car and it's for Erin. It was on clearance and it was just too good to pass up. You'll see why.





The wheels are plastic, so I'm not sure if it will make it to school and back on those rocky roads, but it definitely did some laps around the driveway yesterday afternoon chasing Ian on his bike. ;)

On the cold front, we are still battling it. Erin still gets stopped up several times in the middle of the night. Ian coughs a lot too, but can sleep through it better...Last night was night 7 of being up with the baby and there's not enough makeup in the world (even if I knew how to apply it) to cover up the bags under my eyes!

Trusting

Right now, everyone in our family would rather be doing these things (together, of course).




And I'll tell you why.
Ever get one of them days where darn near everything is going wrong???
Well, my poor HC is having one of those weeks. I am too, indirectly, but I just feel so BAD for him. Right now he is at his workplace working on our only vehicle, who decided to give up its will to live this morning when we were ready to go home. But let's back up. Last night was night #5 of Erin's Phlegm, a Lifetime original. So she gets coughing fits and needs to be held upright to hack it up. This requires walking on my part and interrupts my HC's sleep (Erin is very noisy about phlegm hacking). He has been sleeping on the couch. At 3am, he got bad news about work and couldn't seem to get back to sleep after that. At 7:45, I got up. Late. School starts at 7:55, ya'll! So we did a flight of the bumblebee and got everyone dressed and out. Chris had managed to fall back asleep and stumbled around drearily. He had an important meeting at work at 8 about a complaint being made on him (which was groundless, as usual). Gustav, now a tropical storm, has hit us and we are getting massive rainfall, flood warnings, etc, so we drove to school today. I got reamed by the crossing guard/school security about the Jeep sticking out in the road (he was trying to drive over to get me and I guess he was blocking traffic? uh....). I told Chris and he stopped and had it out with the security guard (in a small town, everyone knows everyone and I think the guy was having a bad day too), then drove us to the 'office' for this meeting. We were late. We waited and waited for the chief to get done talking to this complaining person with the law-breaking 17 year old. Turns out my HC wasn't even needed; the chief handled it and sent the complainer on his way. My HC had 2 fillings fall out and has had trouble eating. One filling on each side, top plate. And then we got in our car and it wouldn't start. Everybody groan.
Great, it's the corroded battery cables. We had this problem last time we went to Fayetteville, when we went to Golden Corral. But just a tweak and a ping on the cables and we made it out of the parking lot and back home. Today was not the case. After new battery cables, it still wasn't starting. To make a 5 hour fix-it job short, we had to get a new starter. An expensive starter! I am thankful that it wasn't anything major, but it was a whole lot more expensive than we are comfortable with!
It's just rough to have all this added to near-sleepless nights with sick kids and problems at work for my HC. Everything just builds up and feels like one big throbbing...something. So I stopped and had a talk with God and felt better and now I'm waiting to see how we're going to get through this. And I'm trying to convince my HC not to cancel his dentist appointment.