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Pneumonia? Are You Serious?

So, I have pneumonia. Which is dumb.

I had a fever for a few days and finally dragged myself into Urgent Care. With two kids in tow. You can imagine the fun.

I mean, I probably shouldn’t have even been driving with a fever that high. So I was only capable of mildly fussing at my small people as they sprawled all over the exam room floor (Yes, I know that’s disgusting. I felt disgusted inside, but I didn’t have the energy to figure out a solution.)

The doctor asked if I’d taken anything for my fever, which I hadn’t because I wanted him to see just how high it was.

“Can I give you some Ibuprofen, super high dose?” he asked. (Yes. Yes you can. It’s not like I’m enjoying this fever here.)

Then he told me about the meds he was going to give me for my pneumonia. He said they were a VERY high dosage, but he’d almost always seen them work up until now. He was sure that in the future, they wouldn’t work because the viruses would develop immunity to them. But for now they’d probably work. (That’s encouraging. I think.)

But if they don’t work in two days, I need to go to the ER. (Yay me!)

And then he gave me all the cautions about the meds. He said, “Now, don’t exercise while taking these.”

Even in my semi-delirious state, I laughed and assured him I wouldn’t be doing any exercising. Exercising? I’ve barely been out of bed for the past few days.

And Isaiah, who had already been talking the whole time the doctor talked, at that point said, “Yeah, my mommy doesn’t exercise.” (Thanks, Son.)

So, now I’m medicated and resting and staying hydrated, but not with anything dairy, because my super high-dosage pills don’t like dairy.

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Respect the Kids

Whenever your kids have a meltdown because they can’t have an extra piece of candy, or because you asked them to pick up their play-doh, or because putting on their shoes (slip-on kind) is such an overwhelming task…. If you’re anything like me, you roll your eyes and sarcastically comment to yourself, “It must be REALLY hard to be 3!” (or whatever the respective age of the Whiner may be).

This past week, I’ve kind of been compelled to eat my words. Turns out, it might be harder to be a kid than I thought.

We visited my husband’s family in Arkansas for the holidays and about halfway through our trip, my ear plugged up. I was mildly annoyed. Then it started to throb with pain, which led me to become increasingly… distraught.

I filled myself up with sinus meds and attempted to sleep it off. Eventually I awoke, due to feeling like an atom bomb had exploded in my eardrum. I stumbled into the kitchen to find Chris. He said, “How are you feeling?” and I started bawling… in front of his whole family. Now, I’m not a big crier and it usually only occurs if God is touching my heart, or if I’m dying. This crying was due to the latter.

On the 30 minute drive to MedExpress, I deliriously hypothesized about my diagnosis. “It’s just an ear infection,” I said. “They’ll just give me Amoxicillan like they do for the kids,” I said. “I’ll be all better in 24-hours, just like the kids,” I said.

Ha.

The doctor looked in my ear and, being the master of understatement, said, “Looks a little tender in there.” He then gave me 5 prescriptions: everything from antibiotics to steroids to ear drops (valued at $130). I was starting to realize that my dreams of being right as rain in 24-hours might be shooting a little high.

And a week later? I’m still not right as rain. Oh, the pain is gone (Thank You Jesus), but my ear has apparently decided to remain permanently stopped up, dizziness has become normal, and I’d really prefer to go to bed at 8:30 pm each night. Not to mention the never ending ear drops, which I wouldn’t exactly call pleasant.

Seriously, this whole ear infection thing is not the quick heal my kids played it up to be. If I’d known it was this rough, I’d have given them a little more respect. Like I said, maybe it’s harder being a kid than I thought.

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Family Vacation, A Comedy of Errors

If you know my husband, you know he’s an overachiever.  Chris never does anything half way.  He doesn’t even do things 100%.  He goes above and beyond, every time.  Of course I should remember that this applies to family vacations as well.

We had a few days off and I wanted to go see my best friend and her new baby.  So Chris paired this with a visit to another family we’re friends with and a trip to DC.   This still sounded manageable, but a couple days before we left he called up our friends in NYC and added the Big Apple onto our trip as well.  Now, I should have been alarmed, but that man can talk me into anything.

(To preface this trip, all of us had been sick with some kind of stomach bug the week before.  But it seemed to clear up in 24 hours, so it shouldn’t have affected our trip in anyway.)

We set off with great excitement on what Isaiah dubbed a “Family Adventure”.  First stop was New York.  We did a whirlwind drive through tour of the city and caught up with our friends.  The next morning, as we were about to hop in the car, my son developed a bought of diarrhea.  Mind you, this is a good 4 days after his “24 hour bug” had been all cleared up. We got that situation as under control as possible and set out on the next leg of our journey.

I had already nixed DC from our trip, since I wanted to relax and didn’t think two major cities in two days counted as relaxing.  So all we had to do was get to our hotel in Maryland, where we could rest, swim, hit the mall, etc.

Chris had specifically chosen a hotel with an indoor pool… which turned out to be closed.  Four-year-olds only have two emotions: elated and devastated. So it took awhile to calm Isaiah down, but we promised him that we would make sure the hotel for the next night had a pool.

At least we still had the mall, right?  Yeah… no.  This was what we call a “po’dunk mall”.  I have no idea what that means, but you get the idea.  Still, there was a play place and pet store.  We were finishing up with the Thomas Trains in Barnes and Noble when the diarrhea hit again.

We made it back to the hotel in sort of one piece.  Chris got on the phone with the friends who were supposed to be our next stop and it turned out their whole family was sick in bed too.  So they weren’t so sure about a visit.  And then Leah decided to stay up all night with an upset stomach.

After our sleepless night, I started to think bringing my children around my friend’s baby was not a great plan.  All we wanted to do was pack the kids in the car and head home.  But we had promised Isaiah a pool.  So we loaded our apparently sick children into the car and set off for a hotel Chris had booked outside of Pittsburgh.

And it was fun!  Surprise, surprise, something started to go right!  Not only did the hotel have a working pool, they also had an indoor jungle gym and game area.  The kids actually slept through the night.  The hotel breakfast wasn’t too bad.  And kid Imodium?  It works!

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Happy Birthday, Leah!

It’s hard to believe that our little Leah turned 1 last Thursday! It’s crazy how the time has flown. We went to Rita’s for Italian ices and then had a little party the next night. I’m really happy because Leah actually like the Little People castle we got her. Usually we buy our kids toys that seem really cool to us, but they aren’t interested in them or they are too young for them. But the castle was a hit. She spends a lot of time putting the people on the turrets and banging the dragons together and fun stuff like that!

In the midst of all the birthday celebrating, we’ve discovered what a little drama queen Leah is. She started not feeling well the night of her party and it persisted through the weekend. By Sunday, she was just laying with her head on my shoulder and moaning. We knew she was teething, but she kept tugging her ears, so we were afraid it was more than that. Chris took her to the doctor, who told us that she had a mild virus… it was not serious, she did not need medicine, and we should just give her tylenol (which we’d already been doing). So basically, she was making a big deal out of nothing! I’m so not used to little girl style.

Isaiah is obsessed with birthdays, ever since he went to a party for one of his friends. He is convinced that people give HIM gifts on their birthdays. So we weren’t sure how he would handle Leah’s birthday. He actually did pretty well. He understood that the presents were for Leah, but he still couldn’t wait to get his hands on them to play.

Overall, I think Leah’s birthday just gave him more ideas for planning his own birthday. Everyday, sometimes more than once a day we have a conversation that goes like this:

Isaiah: “But it will be MY birthday later!”
Mommy: “Yep.”
Isaiah: “And Mommy and Daddy will get cake for my birthday! You will do that!”
Mommy: “Yep.”
Isaiah: “And eberybody will come for my birthday. And Pastor will come for my birthday.”
Mommy: “Probably.”
Isaiah: “And Sara will give me a present for my birthday. It will be a car. That will be real cool!”
Mommy: “We’ll see…”

There’s a lot more details he has all planned out too, so I just hope his birthday lives up to all his expectations!

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Isaiah’s Ears

As you may know, we’ve all had colds these past few weeks.  I don’t like being sick, but it’s really frustrating when my kids are sick.  The other day, Isaiah woke up from his nap saying his ear hurt.  At first we thought he’d rolled over onto a train (my son doesn’t take stuffed animals to bed; he sleeps with metal trains).  We kept asking him throughout the day if his ear hurt and he said no.  But that night, he woke up complaining that his ear hurt again.  The next day we took him to the doctor and both of his ears were infected.  This was Isaiah’s first ear infection.  He seems to be all back to normal now, so the medicine must have done the trick.When we were flying to Wisconsin, Isaiah claimed that his ears hurt on one of the flights.  Mine had a lot of pressure too, so it must have been something with the flight.  This may be very unscientific, but I wonder if that had something to do with him getting the infection.  Like maybe the pressure pushed junk into his ears or something.

The other night Isaiah did something that made Chester mad enough to bark at Isaiah.  Isaiah was trying to tell me about the incident later.  He said, “Chester, he broked… he brok… he… he brok…”  When he just couldn’t  get the word “barked” out, he opted for giving me a demonstration,  “Chester, he ‘argh, argh, argh’ at me!”

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It’s cold in Wisconsin!

Family is forever, but it’s a good thing vacations only last for a week. We’ve been visiting my family in WI for the past week and my son has been terrorizing their house. I’m sure my parents are glad that they have their home back to normal.We had a great trip! It was Leah’s first airplane ride, but it was something like Isaiah’s ninth time. He’s a pro! Leah slept the whole way there. Isaiah wiggled a lot, but we made it.

Of course, Wisconsin was freezing. We thought we’d be all tough, since it’s only been two years since we’d lived there, but I guess we’ve gotten used to our nice California weather. We were so cold! I actually bought gloves! The upside of the cold is that it snowed while we were there! Isaiah got to go outside and play in the snow a little and he thought that was great.

Isaiah loved being at his Grandpa and Grandma’s house. Aunt Emmy played with him and Grandma helped him build tunnels for his trains, but his favorite part was Grandpa. With Isaiah, Gran and Grandma and even Mommy are nice, but Daddy and Papa and Grandpa are the best! He really likes the men in his life. Before we left he said he wanted to take Grandpa home.

My mom made all my favorite meals and we went to all my favorite restaurants, so I probably gained a bajillion pounds. Food is never as good as you remember it. And, because every day I had one of my favorites, it kind of took away the impact. A favorite once in a while is a treat, but a favorite everyday makes them all not as special. But it was still fun… because I love food!!!

We visited our favorite WI Mexican restaurant. Of course it isn’t as authentic as the amazing taquerias we have out here in Cali, but everyone who works there is Mexican, which is an important criteria in our minds! One of the ladies that works there remembered us and couldn’t believe how much weight Chris has lost. She made her husband come out and see Chris, because he wanted to lose weight but didn’t believe in diet plans. Chris is such a walking Weight Watchers advertisement!

Everywhere we went, people didn’t recognize Chris. They’d say hi to me and then look around a little and realize Chris was with me and then they would figure out who he was. The funniest was when we stopped by the Wal-Mart where Chris had been personnel manager. His old boss walked right past him and even greeted him in a generic way, thinking he was a customer. Chris’ old assistant was with us and she had to stop the boss and make him look at Chris again before he realized who he was.

It was fun to see family and friends that we haven’t seen in a couple years. Isaiah went to a Children’s Museum. And we got to shop at Buckle. Buckle is our current favorite store and we don’t have one very close to us. It’s kind of sad that we live in California and we go to Wisconsin to shop!

I had a cold when we left for WI and I still have it! Isaiah caught it half way through the trip and now Leah has it too. Leah is the saddest, because she has this little baby girl cough that would melt your heart. She was feeling really yucky yesterday and she slept a lot to try to get over it. She started smiling again last night, so I think she’s feeling a little better.

Chester is glad to be home. Poor guy, he’s been staying at the puppy hotel. He’s nice and skinny again, because he doesn’t get people scraps at the puppy hotel. He was pretty excited when he came home, but now he’s happy to go to sleep on our couch.

Isaiah is starting to tell us when he has to go potty (thank the Lord!). Today he even went in the bathroom and went potty all by himself, of his own free will. There is hope in sight! My son will not be 14 and still wearing diapers!

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