Another month under our belts

How can February feel like the longest month and also simultaneously the shortest month?  I had big plans to blog every week and then our evenings were filled with sports and feeding people.  Then I told Glenn to count the sewing machine I'd already bought myself as my Valentine's present and I found yet another way to not write. Side note, I've been making reusable gift bags which involve little technical skill, thank goodness, but they look cute and I'm having fun putting them together. 

So that's our February.  Will finished up his basketball season on Saturday. His team lost in the championship.  Unfortunately, Will dislocated the pinky finger on his shooting hand a few days prior and while he's on the mend, he couldn't play on Saturday.  I'm not sure who was more disappointed (me or him, probably him) but he has a baseball season to think about and needs to be all healed up.  He had a great basketball season and it was so fun seeing how much he improved as the season went on.  He's also staying busy with 7th grade homework and confirmation at church.  He's figuring out the grind of homework and maintaining good grades even though his mom still knows that HE COULD BE DOING EVEN BETTER. 

Reina has battled just about every bug or virus that has come through Cheyenne in February.  She had a trip to the doctor on Friday to rule out strep and influenza, both were negative and she's back on her feet this week.  We're all practicing extra hand-washing and avoiding germs where we can.  Reina's been busy with dance and piano and added volleyball to her schedule last week.  She joined the school's team and is more excited about it than even she expected.  She has two parents who are willing to practice with her in the front yard when the wind isn't howling.  She's also a voracious reader.  Before we left the school's annual book fair on Thursday evening because of her rising fever, Reina talked me into 4 books plus a few more for her cousin and brother.

Glenn and I are pushing through these winter months.  We both have a little travel in March but nothing extensive.  We're starting to have those days when the wind stops and the sun is out and you can imagine that Spring is somewhere around the corner.  We are playing co-ed volleyball on a team once a week and it's a lot of fun.  Glenn's competitiveness laid dormant for years when we were dating and first married.  Between kid sports and our own games, Glenn is not a fan of losing.  But we have fun and he doesn't mind when I coach him on the court... coach, bark orders, tell him to hit the ball harder...

The best part of February ending is that my sister is done with her chemo.  How's that for good news to wrap up a post?  Works for me. 

We interrupt this blog again for kid and dog sickness

Our Spring of Weirdness continues.  Last week, I took a half day off from work because Trigger pulled a muscle/slipped a disc if dogs do that/has something we still haven't discovered after two trips to the vet and was feeling very poorly so I stayed home to keep an eye on him. It worked out well because we had new windows being installed and workman finishing up in the kitchen and I could keep all of the pets corralled in the basement.  Trigger had us pretty worried for a few days but he seems to be feeling better and is getting back to his perky self.  

Tootsie the Nurse Dog doesn't just look after people.  

On the way back from the vet - snuggling the gear shift because he couldn't reach my lap. 

Our kitchen finished up on Wednesday and we are really enjoying the changes - pictures coming soon!  Thursday, everyone went to school and work and Glenn and the kids went to a hunter's safety class that night.  Reina felt a little warm when they left but I didn't take her temperature until they got home. It was almost 102.  Oops.  She slept fitfully, which means I slept fitfully.  She threw up once and then woke up about 4 a.m. and coughed and watched cartoons until the rest of us crawled out of bed. I stayed home with Reina on Friday.  We zipped to the doctor where she was thankfully diagnosed as NOT having influenza even though she had all of the symptoms.  We were sent home with instructions to buy lots of juice boxes and watch movies and get some rest. 

Rockin' the mask and cat pajamas.  

Doctors orders - naps and movies!  

 On Saturday, she felt a little better but was still feverish and a little droopy. I had to run a bunch of errands while Glenn and Will were at hunter's safety so Reina came along.  Letting her sit in the cart really cuts down on my overspending at Target because there's no room - who needs coupons?!

So there you go.  Another weekend in the books.  Another week closer to springtime when the warm weather will hopefully burn off the germs that keep infecting our house.  One week closer to Aunt Vicky being done with chemo.  One week closer to gardening time and green grass.  We have a blizzard warning for Wednesday, is it too early to be talking about gardening?  Stay tuned for snow pictures and stir crazy kids. 

We interrupt this blog to bring you kid sickness part 5006

Flu positive but looking stylish anyway.  

I had big plans to blog several times last week, but influenza impacted my plans.  Will had a cough on Saturday, was a little droopy on Sunday and was at the doctor's office on Monday where he was diagnosed with influenza A.  Yes, we all received flu shots but influenza has been running wild in the schools apparently.  Will wasn't as sick as some kids can get with the flu so the doctor thinks that Will's shot worked on some level.   The doctor prescribed tamiflu, we bought juice boxes and chicken soup by the bagful and headed home to help this kid feel better.  

Will and I stayed home together on Tuesday and I worked a little bit while he set up camp on the couch.  We watched some movies and lots of sports news and just hung out.  It was nice to get to spend some time with my tween.  On Wednesday, he was still home but starting to feel better.  He missed the Jessup basketball team playing for a spot in the playoffs but we had some good friends who kept us updated on the score and Jessup won!  Will's fever stayed away so he was back to school on Thursday.  

Will and I played some cards when he was able to sit upright and someone found the card-playing to be fascinating.  

The dogs miss laying on couches will Will all day but everyone is back to good health and so far, none of the rest of us have caught it. We hope it stays that way! 

President's Weekend and Flu-like Symptoms

Good grief.  How many times have I blogged about this family and illnesses on a three-day weekend?  Too many to count and regardless, it happened again.  The kids had Friday off and had a fun day, feeling healthy, shooting baskets outside, playing video games inside, etc. Glenn and I were going to go on a date Friday night but decided to postpone for one night because he had to work a little late.  (Spoiler alert, we still haven't had that date.)  On Saturday morning, Reina woke us up a little early because her stomach hurt.  She was feeling puny so I took her temperature and she had a mild fever.  She complained that her legs hurt a little bit and I started to see the rest of our weekend mapped out in influenza-land.  As Saturday went on, her fever got higher and she was basically glued to the couch.  I called her doctor's office to see if we needed to get her tested for the flu and they recommended that we just keep her at home with pain medicine and lots of cool drinks.  Cool as in cold, not as in trendy or stylish.  I'm not sure why I need to make that point. 

So that's what we've been doing since Saturday.  We did catch Will's last basketball game and went to church in stages.  Will had acolyte training which was very exciting (for me anyway!) and he'll be on the list to acolyte soon.  Today was cold and snowy and luckily we all had the day off so no one is missing school or work, yet. 

Reina seems to be over the worst of it today and I'm hoping one more day of rest will get her back on her feet.  In the meantime, I'm playing that fun game of "how do I feel?"  I think I feel fine?  My nose is little runny but I'm mostly fine.  I'm fine, right?  Oh Reina just sneezed in my face?  I'm fine!  Glenn's fine.  Will's fine?  Will's stomach hurts?  Oh I'm sure it's something completely unrelated.  He's fine.  Everyone's fine! 

We are also disinfecting everything in sight and Glenn commented that he's been washing his hands so much they almost hurt.  But everyone is fine! 

Saturday.  Reina and her cat nurse who is concerned about her symptoms and only slightly cold and wanting to snuggle something overly warm.  

Will suggested I B&W this photo for a better effect.  We were wanting to document the number of people and pets on one couch.  2 + 2.  Look at that handsome kid!  

Coco sitting on my work laptop.  She doesn't approve of working on a state/federal holiday.  She's also hungry.  

Mom/son bonding time

No pictures in this post.  No shots of us hanging out at a sporting event or catching a movie.  Maybe working on a project for school. Nope, none of those.  Our bonding time today involved the two of us, two couches, a few cans of sprite, one tv and one bad case of the stomach flu, which Will shared so generously with me. This blog features a few instances where both kids were home sick at the same time, one memorable weekend when 3 of the 4 of us were barfing, but it's been a while since we had a day like we had today. 

Will and I did go to the UW football game on Saturday which had an 8:15 p.m. start time.  We didn't make it through the whole game because sleeeeeep and by the time we got home, Will had a bad stomachache.  The longest night in recent memory followed with him getting up every hour or so to head to the bathroom and yelling for my company.  By Sunday afternoon, however, he was perking up and watching some football and nibbling on dinner.  He went to school on Monday and played in a flag football game. More on that sport later.  I felt fine, I had a volleyball game last night and had fun and came home to a concerned Glenn and a super sick Will, again.  Earlier in the day, I had foolishly told my co-workers that I was pretty sure that Will had food poisoning because I felt FINE.  Really!

So I sat with Will for a little while and tried to get him to do some homework, thinking he'd wake up feeling fine.  I had something unmentionable for dinner (unmentionable to me because I'd see it again later in the evening) and then noticed that my stomach was starting to make weird noises.  Will went to bed early, I went to bed early but long story short, we saw each other in the hallway a lot last night.  It was rough. 

So today, we camped out on the couches, watched some tv and frantically tried to change the channel if any commercials with food came on.  We nibbled on toast later in the day and started to get our feet back underneath us. It's not my favorite way to hang out with my kid, but if I had to be home trying not to barf, he was pretty good company.

So far, Reina and Glenn are fine.  Here's hoping they stay that way. 

March hodgepodge

It's been another busy month at the Pauley household. I probably don't even need to start posts with that sentence anymore, it's just a given and evident by my sporadic posting.

Will caught a bad virus last weekend and spent a few days on the couch watching basketball tournaments.  The night before he got sick, he was complaining about his body hurting and a few warning bells went off in my head but he didn't have a fever the next morning so off to school he went.  The school nurse called me at 1:00 to say that he had a headache and wanted to know if he could have some tylenol.  I said 'no problem.' Forty-five minutes later she called back to tell me that he had a fever of 101 and someone needed to come get him.  That night, I took Will to our local urgent care to make sure he didn't have influenza.  Will fought the influenza test for a good 5 minutes and then the nurse told us that the doctor wanted to run a strep test.  Ten minutes later, she got a successful swab of Will's throat.  Luckily both tests came back negative and Will recovered with popsicles and juice boxes.  Will getting the strep test reminded me of the 5 yr-old Will getting his kindergarten vaccinations and the 4 nurses plus me that were needed to hold him down.  This time we didn't try to hold him down, we just (tried to) reason with him to get the test done.  He argued with me,argued with the nurse, asked for alternative methods for swabbing his throat (I told him he could grow up and become a doctor and invent a new way to test for strep), refused to open his mouth, begged to go back home (that one was tough), cried and finally relented.  In the car ride home, he told me that he'd been "kind of a jerk" to the nurse and he should've apologized.

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The whole family is participating in an NCAA bracket challenge and we all have our own brackets. Will has watched enough college basketball in the last few weeks that he has strong opinions about who's going to win and lose.  I'm a sucker for the old favorites.  Glenn knows just enough to be dangerous. This year, I let Reina pick her own teams and I wish I could've recorded the conversation.  We went through each game and sometimes she'd know one of the teams and pick that way.  A few times she asked about the mascots and made her choice that way (Jackrabbits vs. Terrapins?  Jackrabbits all the way.)

Me:  Reina, this team is called the Providence Friars.
R:  What's a friar?
Me:  It's kind of like a pastor.  Someone who works in a church.
R:  Well I like our pastor so I pick Providence.

Then we came to Butler and Reina startled giggling and chose them obviously because they have the word 'but' in their name.  Needless to say, she has them going to the championship and losing to Oregon.  Go Butler!

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We have some pre-Spring Break squirrely-ness going on right now and nighttime behavior hasn't been the easiest lately.  Reina handed me a note tonight and explained that she wrote down some of our family rules to help everyone remember:

Are home ruls
be nice no bad
words or
butt talk
and lisen
to mom
and dad
or no fiting.

Strep

Reina and I are hanging out today because she has strep.  In July.  I know.  When I asked the doctor the chances of Will catching it, she just smiled.  Stay tuned.  It's Frontier Days week so all in all, not a bad time to be stuck at home.  Reina was fine until yesterday morning when she mentioned her throat hurt when she woke up.  By mid-morning, she had a fever that continued to climb.  She even asked if she could rest after church which sent off giant warning bells.  Reina never asks to rest. I took her to the doctor this morning where she tested positive for strep but she's already feeling a little better.  Her throat still really hurts but not enough to stop her from talking and asking me questions.  Here's a sample from today:

"Mom, when Malificient is being evil, does she wear shoes?"

"Mom, when you were 16, did you get to wear a bra?"

"Why do people die in Africa?"

"If I brought a man home who needed a place to live, would you let him stay with us?"

I'm exhausted.

The week in pictures

After all of the snow and cold from the last few weeks, we are now in the middle of a warm snap.  Last weekend, the kids spent every extra minute outside playing.  Reina even talked me into a new box of sidewalk chalk at Target one afternoon so her artwork adorns the driveway.  I think that's a self-portrait. In hindsight, perhaps that stick figure girl should be wearing a jacket, a fact that will be important shortly. 

 

Hey look, it's Tootsie and Trigger enjoying the view from the front door on a sunny Wednesday morning.  What a minute, why are they inside on a Wednesday morning?  Not that they mind. 

That's because it's a sick day!  Wheeeeeeee.  On Tuesday night, Will went to bed with a nose that was running like a faucet.  Reina's cough from last week came back but just at night and no fever or anything so I didn't think much of it (spoiler alert, I should have thought more about it). Will woke up Wednesday with achiness and droopiness, a low fever and general malaise. Reina was perky so she went to school and Will and I hunkered down on the couch for a day of movies and Ipad games.  It was nice to spend a little time with my oldest. I  picked Reina up from school and noticed that she was coughing quite a bit.  Again, no fever so no biggie.  Will seemed to be perking up a little bit so I naively thought everybody was on the mend.  Wednesday night Reina woke me up with her coughing and when I reached for her hand, she was burning up.  Fever of 102 and constant coughing translated to her and I watching cat videos on youtube at 1:30 in the morning and me trying to decide if we needed a trip to the ER.  We got a little bit of sleep and took her to the doctor first thing yesterday.  (Ear infection, cough aggravated by all the coughing but not pneumonia or bronchitis, no influenza.)Will stayed home again because he was still under the weather.  Both kids and a sick day and a mom who was starting to crack up just ever so slightly. 

Tootsie the critical care nurse.  And also probably looking for leftovers from Reina's lunch.

Big brother feeling a little better but still home. 

She sleeps! 

So incredibly boring, long story short.  Will went back to school today.  Reina still has a high(ish) fever so she's home.  I'm reminding myself that at least I get to watch basketball from home and hang out with the kiddos.  Here's hoping everyone wakes up fever free and perky in the morning. 

Another one bites the dust

For the last few years, I've tried to blog every day in November as part of a national blogging movement thing.  And just like last year, I find myself blogging about sick kids during national blogging month.  Yesterday, I picked kiddos up from the after school program, came home, started dinner, Glenn and Will left for a wrestling camp (more on that later) and Reina threw up.  I thought because four days had passed since Will's "food poisoning" (which was obviously not food poisoning but just a stomach virus that seems to be racing through our town) that we were all in the clear.  Not so much.  Glenn and I still fine and I hope we stay that way.  We have a bunch of fun events planned for the weekend and none of them involve vomiting.  Fingers crossed!

Reina was sick all night, but true to form, woke up this morning, asked for some Sprite and cartoons and was jumping on the bed when I called home to check on her mid-morning.  Glenn and I took turns on Reina duty today, but we probably would've been better off hiring a lion tamer to come over and hang out.

When Will and Glenn came home from wrestling camp last night, Reina was using our barf bucket and Will walked over and patted her on the head and said "poor Reina."  He doesn't always let on that he kind of likes his little sister but that moment sure touched my heart.  In stark contrast to Reina's reaction on Monday morning when she found he was sick.  She came bursting into my room crying that she didn't want to see Bobo throw up because she doesn't like to hear about people barfing.  I guess we can cross ob/gyn or internal medicine off her list of potential professions. 

Warning: this post features a discussion of barfing, ad naseum

Will, who hasn't missed a day of school since November 2013, woke up in the middle night and proceeded to throw up at a regular interval until noon, at which time I took him to the doctor and got the magical medicine that helped him last year when this same thing happened but we let it go for about a week.  Wow, long run-on sentence.  What can I say, I've been up since the middle night helping someone hold the puke bucket.  The rest of us feel fine even though I keep checking in with my stomach, "You okay buddy?  Feeling good?  Nothing bad happening, right?"  I think Will must've eaten something yucky on the hunting trip.  When I asked if he remembered anything in particular, he described an energy bar that tasted "gross" and that he tossed it in the woods. I told him that there's probably a raccoon running around those woods with a bad stomachache now too and that briefly made him smile.  Tomorrow is Veteran's Day and Glenn and I have the day off.  The kids are supposed to have a half day of school, but we'll see how Will's doing.  Reina might be the sole Pauley who has to be anywhere by 8:30 a.m., and boy won't she be thrilled by that.  It's better than barfing!

Pop Quiz

Can you guess which one of these guys had to get some blood drawn this afternoon?  (Hint - it's the really scowl-y one.)

Well, Will and I succumbed to the great stomach flu virus of 2013 that Reina so generously brought home and shared. I felt great until early yesterday morning.  Will came home from school Monday afternoon with a very grumpy demeanor that usually foretells trouble.    By yesterday afternoon (two days later), he was feeling pretty chipper and we sent him to school today even though his stomach was still hurting.  By 9:00 a.m., Glenn had a phone call from the school nurse where letting us know that Will had thrown up three times.  I think that's still a badge of honor to a first grader - to throw up at school!  And have one of your friends have to go get the teacher!  As I spent the afternoon at home with him (Glenn had taken the early shift), I noticed his temperature was rising and he was really complaining about stomach pain.  After a phone call with Glenn, I took him to the local urgent care.  The doctor there was worried about appendicitis so they wanted to draw some blood. I called in for reinforcements and also because when Will cries about medical stuff, I usually cry and that's probably not the most helpful thing in the world.  Will was not interested in being reminded how brave he was when he got his shot, that was so last week lady.  But he survived the bloodletting and the good news is that there wasn't anything alarming about the lab results.  We are still watching out for appendicitis because apparently in kids it can simmer for a few days and most kids who get it have recently had the stomach flu.  Who knew?!  He also received some anti-nausea medicine and he seems to be doing better tonight.  Fingers crossed that tomorrow's blog pots is a recounting of all of Reina's precociousness and not a retelling of a midnight trip to the ER. 

We Interrupt this Blog to Bring You a Post about The Stomach Flu

The Bronco Baby Mom is stinking, stinking tired.  What started off as a quiet night (Glenn was hunting) evolved into a (for lack of a better word) Giant Vomit Fest starring one Reina Pauley.  I'll spare you the gory details but I have to say that this kid is a trooper. I was dozing on the couch trying to stay up for a late football game when I heard her calling for me at about 10:30 p.m.  I went upstairs to find her quietly sitting in the bathroom with a bunch of that that-shall-not-be-named on the floor around her.  No crying, no drama, just a very pale face and a quiet "I'm sorry Mommy" that nearly broke my heart.  I cleaned her up, cleaned up the floor and brought her downstairs for what I was hoping would be a quiet night. I had given her some Tylenol at bed because she said her head hurt and I thought that maybe the you-know-what was caused by a tummy sensitive to the pain medicine.  Well, no such luck.  She was a regular you-know-what machine last night, on the hour, on the half hour.  Sometimes taking a break for more than an hour but then making up for it during the next hour.  To add to the horror of this story, I had already taken my shingles medicine that makes me super tired and kind of wonky so for a few of the episodes, I woke up to see her bravely using The Bucket (seriously, a real bucket.  From the garage) and then laying back down by herself.  Mother of the Year!  What's so amazing is that she never cried, she always said that she felt better and she didn't think she would barf again and that she just wanted to lay down for a while.  A very, very stoic 4-yr old.  She's perked up throughout the day and seems to be feeling much better now. Thankfully no one else shows any signs of joining the GVF tonight.  Fingers crossed! 

Mother's Day 2013

We had one of those weekends where I'm not sure we could've crammed one more thing into either day.  We held our annual garage sale on Saturday morning and made some money and cleaned out more stuff.  Saturday afternoon involved a long nap for most of us and yard work, although Glenn did the bulk of the heavy labor.  Saturday night we had an early Mother's Day celebration with some of the grandparents and then went off to sleep thinking about a busy Sunday.  

 

Still waiting on that pony.

However, Mother's Day started shortly before midnight by waking up to the sound of Reina crying, me offering Glenn $10 if he'll go check on her, Glenn yelling, "Honey, come in here!" from Reina's room and hearing that briefly terrifing noise of a 4-yr old gasping for air and then recognizing the barking seal stridor cough that is croup.  Since this wasn't our first croup rodeo (although it was the first one with our little cowgirl), I tried sitting with Reina outside and having her breath in the cooler air.  That only resulted in both of us shivering but it did calm her down.  At that point she told me, "Mommy, I think I should go to the doctor."  Not wanting to rely completely on the advice of a barking 4-yr old, Glenn and I debated for a few more minutes before deciding that I would take her to the ER.  Better safe then sorry.  I was also thinking hey, it's midnight, I'm up might as well go now instead of three hours from now.  The ER on a Saturday night is an interesting place.  Thankfully, the doctors don't mess around with respiratory issues and pretty quickly, Reina was in an exam room getting a breathing treatment and feeling much better.  While checking on us, one of the nurses asked Reina if she could bring her anything?  Reina answered, "I'd like a pony."  A little while later, we listened to every excruciating detail of a guy in the room next to us getting a catheter.  Reina said, "Mommy, why is that man saying AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH?"  He was also saying a lot more, but I'm happy she only heard the yelling. 

Reina and I rolled home at 3:30 a.m. with a clean-ish bill of health and slept until almost 11:00 the next morning.  I felt like I was in haze all day and Reina was just out of sorts.  Reina on steroids is like well... Reina on steroids.  When she woke up at 11:00, Glenn fixed her scrambled eggs and cereal for lunch.  However, that just threw her off and she couldn't understand why she wasn't eating lunch at 3:00 p.m.  She really could've cared less for my irritating reasoning and my insistence on pointing out that we slept through breakfast. 

The rest of the day was a blur of laundry, jogging with the dogs, and getting ready for a big work week.  Hopefully this is our one trip to the ER for 2013.  And hey - it wasn't beta hemolytic strep.  Whoo!! 

Little snippets from the week

It's been one of those weeks.  Again.  I think it's always one of those weeks this time of year.   Last week was full of after-work activities, the wrap-up of birthday festivities and Valentine's craziness.  Reina carried the birthday glow with her to school all week.  On the Monday after her birthday she wore this birthday outfit from Aunt V and Uncle M. The sparkly kitten is so her personality right now.  She can be sweet and cuddly and purr and then she's sinking her sharp little kitten teeth into your hand.  True story.

On the Tuesday after her birthday (on Monday, Reina came home because she was "sick."  We think she just missed all of her new toys.) she had her Montessori birthday celebration.  She took it very seriously.  For as much as she walks around this house bossing everyone around and making her place known, at school she seems quieter and shy.  She's still on the younger side of her class, maybe this will change as she gets older. 

On Thursday, I helped at Will's kindergarten Valentine's party. Oh the candy-coated chaos!  While I was waiting to help set up, I noticed the artwork in the hallway.  Each student had their own self-portrait and I had to snap a picture of Will's.  I love his jaunty cap.  Coincidentally, the girl below him is the only girl that he ever talks about and the one I mentioned in the last blog post.  I think it's destiny. 

So while the parents were setting up the party stuff, the kindergartners were drawing on white boards. Will and I'd had a slightly rough morning - nothing major, just fighting over why one of us had to wear a winter coat (in February.  In Wyoming) and so it made my morning to turn around and see this.  It was a nice peace offering. 

On Saturday, we headed down to Denver for the day.  The kids visited Pop-pop and Grandma and Glenn and I ran some errands and shopped.  On the way home, we visited the Workshop That Shall Not Be Named because two members of our household want to live there and two of us are still stinging from the price tag.  Needless to say, the two in this picture had a b-l-a-s-t and are still carrying around their bear and cat today.  Although, naturally the bear is wearing a Star Wars outfit and the pink cat has an age-inappropriate halter top/ballerina dress.  I tried to talk her into a tshirt/capri ensemble but why did I even waste my breath.  

By mid-afternoon Saturday, I was feeling pretty achy and a little droopy and by the night I was sick.  A quick trip to urgent care on Sunday clarified that I didn't have The Flu but instead I had a virus called "that virus with influenza-like symptoms."  So all of the fun of the flu but none of the Tamiflu relief.  I'm still getting over it today.  I made another trip to my regular doctor to make sure that I didn't have something else (I don't).  I asked the doctor about the chances of Glenn or the kids getting it.  Her response?  "Super high."  Stay tuned. 

The fever

Last weekend, Reina seemed to be coming down with a little cold.  She had a low-grade fever and seemed a little droopy Sunday morning, but nothing major was going on.  Long story short, I came home from running errands with her and Will on Sunday afternoon and Reina had been really fussy at Target, she kept asking if we could go home yet which should have been a warning sign for me because normally the girl loves Target.  So we came home at the same time that Glenn was meeting with someone who wanted to buy our old car. (I have a new car, it's fabulous and blue and has satellite radio and there's no time to write a big long goodbye post to the old car so I'll just point out that I bought it when Glenn and I were just dating, drove home from the wedding in it, brought both kids home in it, Trigger barfed in it several times and then I backed into a bunch of stuff in it this year.  Thanks for the memories Mazda Tribute).  So the buyers are at our house with a handful of cash, we are trying to track down a notary for the title and in the midst of all of this, I take Reina's temperature and the thermometer reads 104.3.  I panic.  I yell to Glenn that we need to take Reina to the ER.  He yells back that we need to sell the car.  He was right and I called Reina's doctor.  The nurse practitioner on call talked me off of the ledge and I followed her instructions to try to bring the temperature down.  It worked and we never did have to go to the ER.  We did take her to the doctor on Monday and they confirmed that is just viral and we needed to ride it out.  Reina stayed home Monday and Tuesday but is back to her fully animated, energetic self today.  One silver lining is that she was pretty droopy on Monday and was content to sit next to me for hours on end.  It wasn't a bad way to spend the day.  The flip side is that it takes 104+ degree fever to slow her down even a little bit. 

It's now the following Sunday and Will has a fever of 102.5.  Here we go again. 

Well, shoot.

So I missed yesterday's post but I'm determined to NOT let this NaBloPoMo thing go flying out the window.  I missed yesterday's post for basically good reasons.  1) I had actual work 'work' to do... big report that's hanging over my head and keeping me up at night.  2) I had to spend several minutes speculating with Glenn as to whether or not Will was coming down with the flu because a) we haven't taken him to get a flu shot yet and b) he was really droopy, lethargic and mildly feverish and 3) I really had to watch a tv show I like at 9:00 p.m. and 4) I've almost completely run out of things to blog about.  Truly, I don't know what else to write about this month and it's only the 14th.  I've covered Reina's impishness, Will's kindergartnerness, Glenn's glennness and dressed up the dogs in costumes.  Short of detailing my love for pumpkin oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, I'm not sure what else to write about. 

In the meantime, back to the influenza question.  I've been wanting to get the kids all flu shot-ted up but every time we've had some time one of them, or one of us, has been running a fever.  So it may or may not be too late.  Will actually seems to be feeling better tonight so we'll see.  I'm already so tired of this year's cold and flu season.

Tonight, Reina and I attended a literacy event at our local high school.  Will was supposed to come with me because it was designed for elementary aged school kids but he was still on the couch, so Reina came with me and pretended to be a kindergartner. She fit right in too.  She strutted around and did the activities and picked out her free book. She also posed with the cheerleaders and looked a little too natural waving around those pom-poms.  Not sure how I feel about that but we'll tackle that issue in a few more years. 

Another one bites the dust

I started this post on Monday night.... wrote a paragraph, collapsed back on the couch and now it's Thursday.  Here's what I wrote originally:  So I caught the Great Unidentified Virus of 2012 and spent the weekend in a semi-coma on the couch.  So another weekend without any pictures of me and the kiddos, Glenn and the kiddos, the kiddos or the dogs.  Well, I did take a picture of the dogs yesterday to send to my mom and sister because it looked like someone had snuck in the house and shot said dogs, so comfortable they were on the couch.  Tough, tough life for Trigger and Tootsie.  Anyway, so it was also a weekend with no shopping for the rest of the Halloween costumes, no exercising, no party, and no hanging out. 

So Monday through Thursday looked a little something like me attempting to go to work for a few hours every day, losing my voice completely for about 24 hours (that was scary actually, it made me feel claustrophobic for some reason.  Trigger liked it the most because I couldn't yell at him), I went back to the doctor for different medicine, my voice came back, Reina had to stay home today because of similar symptoms and now here we are at the end of the week.  I'm just hoping that we can keep everyone healthy for the weekend.  We have a halloween carnival, Will's last football game, and a bunch of pumpkins to carve. 

Back in a few days with actual pictures and hopefully paragraphs that don't involve me whining. 

A month ago today

One month ago today, I took Glenn to the hospital after a bad night of what we thought was the stomach flu. In my wildest worst-case scenario imagination, I could never have imagined where we would be today. The last month has seemed like a blur and I still have a hard time wrapping my mind around all of it. The good news is that Glenn is making great progress. He's getting stronger every day and he starts physical therapy this week to help with the strength and flexibility in his arm. I've probably mentioned this in previous posts, but the doctors think he can be 80% by his birthday next month. Turkey season starts the week after that, so Glenn's counting on those words.

The day before the hospital visit, we celebrated Reina's birthday at the Old West Museum in the Kid's Room. With a horse crazy 3-yr old and cold Wyoming temperatures, where else could we go? The kids' room has fun hands-on activities and as you can tell by the smiles, everyone had a good time.

'Horseback' riding with Daddy. She asked about fifty times, "Daddy can I ride a horse when I'm bigger?" Eating an ol' timey meal of chicken nuggets, juice boxes and fruit salad in an old schoolhouse desk.

Singing "Happy Birthday" to the 3-yr old.

Cupcakes and ice cream and friends!

Speaking of cupcakes, here's this year's entry into the Baking Hall of Fame. For the Old West theme, Aunt Vicky found cute horse and cow cupcakes and I attempted to follow the directions and make them myself. You can see how that turned out. They were yummy at least.

The Kids' Room has a bunch of dress-up clothes and Will and the gang had fun acting out a variety of scenarios. Here he's wearing a bull rider's arm protector thing. I think he also had knee pads and cowboy boots on. I have no idea what he was supposed to be, but I really hope it wasn't a bull rider. Reina found great entertainment in the leadrope. She drug it around for about half of the party. Who needs fancy presents? Get that kid some rope!

Finally, the night before the day before we went to the hospital, we had a small family celebration at home, on Reina's actual birthday. We sang the song, she opened some presents and we ate more cupcakes.

Capt Jack Sparrow graced us with his presence. How fortunate for the birthday girl.

Next time, pictures of Glenn recovering. Yeah!

Today was a good day

I have so much to write down and remember from this weird time period in our lives but I have so little time in which to do that. Between work and kids and Glenn and Trigger, there's not much time for anything else. So this will be a short update but I know I'll be back to blogging with pictures someday soon. Anyway, back to the point of this post. Glenn is still recovering but he's making a little bit of progress every day. Since coming home from the hospital last Thursday, he's been pretty tired but diligent about walking and trying to regain some of the strength he's lost.

He started to have a lot of pain a few days ago and we both worried that perhaps the infection was coming back. He didn't have any of the other indicators like fever or redness but the pain was pretty difficult to control. Glenn saw the orthopedic surgeon today and the good news is that the pain is normal. It's a result of inflamed tendons in his hand and with some different pain medication and a few exercises to try, it should resolve itself soon. He also had the wound vacuum taken off today, which we were all pretty excited about. Me - because it's yucky. Glenn because, psychologically and physically, he doesn't feel as 'sick' by not being tethered to that thing. The only drawback is that I am now in charge of checking the wound and reapplying the dressing when necessary. I think I'm going to rely on my handy-dandy brother-in-law who's comfortable handling all sorts of animal parts to help me with that one.

Glenn is still receiving the IV antibiotics and will probably continue that for at least another week or more. The doctor also wants him to eat as much as he can and gain some of the weight back and he's instructed Glenn to stop worrying about eating healthy and just eat whatever I put down in front of him. I'm excited to take on that challenge. It would make my job a lot easier if Glenn liked chocolate but I'll see what I can do. It's going to take a while for Glenn to get back to 100% but I feel like we are finally starting to see that light at the end of the tunnel.

There's been a lot going on with the kiddos and my goal is to get some of that written down this weekend. Reina's been a hoot. She's suddenly come up with all sorts of weird pronouncements and opinions. Me: "Have a good nap, sweetie!" Reina: "I'm not fweetie, I'm Reina!" Will is equally entertaining but came down with a double ear infection and general guckiness yesterday. He and Glenn have been negotiating over the remote and who gets their medicine first. He's counting down the days until the 0-5 next weekend.

So we're still chugging along, trying to get people healthy and keeping the chaos down to a manageable level. More soon.

Not how we thought this week would go

Glenn and his space-age, Jiffy-Pop, pre-surgery, head cap thing on Monday night.

Well, after writing what I thought was the first and only chapter of the saga of "Glenn and the Beta Hemalytic Strep Bandit," he ended up back in the hospital on Monday night. The infection came back, but was thankfully just isolated in his elbow. He had surgery Monday night to clean it out again (yes, that is as gruesome as it sounds) and then spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in the hospital for observation and IV antibiotics. He's home tonight but we'll be making daily trips to the Infusion Clinic at the hospital for more antibiotics for a few more weeks. He has also this handy-dandy device delightfully called a "Wound Vacuum" that's attached to his incision and gently vacuums out the infected fluid from his arm every few seconds. It makes kind of a loud gurgling, purring sound and I like to imagine that we have adopted a lion and it's curled up at Glenn's feet, purring happily. This positive imagery keeps me from dwelling on the fact that just a few feet away from me, my husband's infected elbow fluid is being extracted from the giant (to me anyway) incision on his elbow and draining into a device that looks a lot like some of the purses I've carried recently (black, kicky, compact).

But he's home and we are all happy about that.