Need a break!

Well yesterday I took the boys to the doctors. I needed to bring Blake for a recheck on his tonsillitis. He is doing much better and actually went to school today. He is fighting a post nasal drip, but other than that he is fine.

Colby on the other hand, was fighting a fever for most of yesterday. He has an ear infection and his throat was starting to red too, so he is probably on the way to tonsillitis too. Last night he had a tough night since he couldn't get the fever to break. He is now on a anti-biotic and lots of Motrin and Tylenol. He slept in this morning, he's actually sleeping as I type this at 10am. I just hope he can fight this soon.

Richard is not feeling well either. He has been working crazy hours trying to get something done. It never seems to fail that when the boys are sick Richard is busy. When Richard is stressed and busy he is much more subseptable to getting sick. Last night he went to bed shortly after getting home from work. His throat is sore and he had a fever too.

At least the dog and I aren't sick. Shoot I hope I don't jinx myself by typing that!

This weekend Blake has soccer and we have a community yard sale on Saturday. Not sure what is on the agenda for Sunday yet, but I can only hope that at some point I get a few minutes to relax. Sick kids means no workouts for me. No breaks for me. Yep this momma needs a break. But right now I think I'll go spray Lysol throughout the WHOLE house!

Happy Easter?

I hope everyone had a very peaceful and happy Easter with their friends and family.

Our day started at 5:30am when Blake woke up looking for his water cup, luckily he went back to sleep. Colby woke up around 7:30am and Blake shortly after that. We headed out to see what the Easter Bunny brought, but didn't really get that far. Before we left our bedroom, Blake was complaining that his stomach hurt. After going to the bathroom we thought he'd be ok, but he wasn't. We found the letter that the Easter Bunny left, and then Blake felt sick enough to put himself back to bed. (If you watch the slide show, the first picture was taken before Blake went back to sleep. You can see how miserable he looks.) Richard decided to go for a bike ride. While he was gone Blake woke up came out for about 20 minutes, threw up and went back to bed. Not a good way to start Easter.

After Richard returned from biking, we put Blake into the shower with him, gave him some motrin, since he now had a low grade fever. We decided to have some lunch to see if that would help. Blake then asked to search for his basket. (again you can see in the slide show that he is feeling a bit better, but still not himself). Blake was seeming so much better so we decided to head out to my parents.

Shortly after we got there, Blake put himself back to bed again. Not a good sign! After taking his temp we were off to get Tylenol. 102.5 temp is never a good sign. The Tylenol helped and we were on our way home. After dropping off Abby, Richard and Colby, Blake and I headed to the after-hours clinic. Guess what... he has tonsillitis AGAIN! Yes, they swabbed for strep. Again it came back negative. So it is viral tonsillitis. His throat was swollen with lots of white puss... Gesh just when I thought we were out of the woods on all this, NOPE!

Hope your Easter was a lot more uneventful than ours! Enjoy the slide show of the hunt for Easter Baskets (the bunny hid the baskets and left clues to find them)

Update and Thanksgiving projects

Oh the joys of the ups and downs. Well... I took the boys to the doctors on Monday. The strep has cleared up in both of them, buttttttt.... Colby now has an ear infection (yes that is an ear infection that occurred while ON antibiotics) and his wheezing warranted a dose of steroids daily. Blake now has pneumonia. Yeppers you read that right.

So needless to say we've been doing a lot of staying inside lately. This weekend felt like a week. On Sunday I said to Richard, can you believe it was only a week since Halloween... are you sure that wasn't like a month ago? We are all going a bit stir crazy. We were out from 9-1 on Monday, but that was at the doctors, getting chest x-rays, back to the doctors, then to the grocery store to fill 4 prescriptions. Today we only went out for about 45 minutes. We headed up to Blake's preschool so he could be in the class picture and the ran to get gas for my car.

Both boys slept through the night, for the most part. Colby is having a hard time falling asleep because of the wheezing and coughs and coughs. He also woke up really early this morning because of the same thing. Today he decided that for most of the day he needed to be held. Ummm, you weigh 28 lbs. 28 lb's of dead weight is heavy!

Oh well... we did get a few cute projects done the last few days so I thought I'd share them with you.

The body is their foot. I cut a bunch of feathers, beak, waddler, and eyes and let them glue as they wanted


Color the top of the paper bag (something they weren't really in the mood to do), stuff, tie off, cut the top into strips. the head is their foot, and again I cut eyes, a beak and a waddle


We painted paper, cut into leaf shapes, wrote on them what the boys are thankful for:

Blake was thankful for: playing at the playground, going to the Y, Mommy and Colby

Colby was thankful for: Blake, Daddy, Abby and our home

Hope you are thankful for a healthy family. Can you believe in 2 days Blake will be 4? Lets just hope he is well enough to go to school to celebrate!

I is for...

Hop on over to 1 Photographers Journal's Alphabet Shoot Challenge and join in the fun!  

I is for...

Indian Corn

I made these with the boys on Tuesday, and thought they came our really cute.

Things got crazy in life after that. We were in full swing birthday party cleaning mode. Cake baking, favor making... and then....

I is for...
Illness!

On Thursday Blake was diagnosed with strep and being treated for wheezing again. As you can see from the picture, Colby decided to join in the fun. Saturday night he went to the after hours pediatrics clinic and guess what... he has strep too and fluid in his ears too.

Oh and Blake's birthday party was canceled or actually postponed until next weekend. Yes, if you follow my blog you may remember this happened to Colby's last birthday too.

So that brings on a lot of inactivity indoors.

Colby seems to be on the mend today, but Blake isn't so much, so back to the doctors we go tomorrow.

Colby decided to play with Mr. Potato Head and made a very interesting version

Don't you think?

I hope everyone has a better weekend than us! I just hope Blake is fully back to his normal self by Thursday so he can bring in a birthday treat to school to share with his friends.

Cough, hack, sneeze...

...that is what I hear now. Gesh! Colby has been fighting the cough and runny nose for a while now. Last night Blake started coughing. Today when I picked him up from school it was written on his report that he was coughing a lot. I'm over this!

Today was a pretty good day considering how tired I was this morning. Last night Colby woke up because he had a wet diaper and was cold, this would have been fine if it didn't take over an hour to get him back to sleep. I walked him back to his room 4 times in an hour... that makes for a LONGGG night. He slept in until 8:40ish, not so much me. Blake woke up at 6:30am so that is when I was up. So that meant I slept from 11:00ish until 2:40, then again from 4:15-6:30.... does anyone else see a tired momma in those hours?

I spent some time this morning putting together a "family picture" for Blake's class. We don't have many pictures of the 4 of us together. Soooo, I took a head shot of each of us and digi-scrapped them into a 4 x 6 picture. When Colby woke up he wanted to watch some tv and have his breakfast so I finished up the picture. Next thing I knew it was 9:45am... ummm not going to make it to my 10am pilates class... oops! I did get the two of us to the Y and we went to his "class". We then headed to Publix and home again. I got the groceries put away, the boys laundry done, dinner made and played with Colby all before needing to head to pick up the picture at Walgreens and pick up Blake.

I do enjoy my days alone with Colby. When Blake is home he gets a lot of my attention just because of the differences between their personalities. Blake has a hard time letting Colby answer questions and loves to make all the decisions. Don't get me wrong I love spending time with Blake and he impresses me all the time with what he knows, but I enjoy giving Colby that same kind of attention.

check out the new poll... and vote!

************************************************************************************
Today's goals:
-- go to the gym [check... I went, I just didn't do exactly what I had planned]
-- go to the grocery store [check]
-- type up my TT recipe... looks like you want to see the Hot Chocolate Cookies [check, click here if you didn't see the recipe]
-- do the boys' laundry [check]
-- make mac & cheese for dinner [check... bacon mac and cheese... yummy!]

Tomorrow's goals:

-- go to the gym with the boys... maybe try the ab and stretch classes?

-- make cookies with the boys

-- strip the bed and wash the sheets

-- clean the master bath (other two got cleaned over the weekend0

-- make meatball subs for dinner

-- post wordless Wednesday pictures

-- get outside to play

Back on the couch again

Well, I got to sleep on the couch again. That is never a good sign. It means one of my boys isn't sleeping well/at all. Last night it was Colby. He has been fighting some nasal congestion, he even taught himself to blow his nose this week. Last night I didn't give him any allergy medicine since he hadn't been coughing and seemed to be doing better... WRONG.

Shortly after falling asleep he began crying in his sleep. Well 3 hours later I finally got him to settle back down and sleep. I think it was 3 hours... who knows. He did end up taking a nap today and went straight to sleep tonight so hopefully this was a one time deal. Needless to say it through my goals off just a bit.

When he woke up in the morning not only was he tired, but he was also coughing a lot so we decided to have a quiet morning of watching tv, snuggling on the couch and a bit of playing trains. After he woke up, he decided that we needed to have some computer time which he doesn't ask for very often.

I did manage to get a few errands done that I was going to do tomorrow so that works too.

************************************************************************************
Today's goals:
-- go to the Y [nope]
-- do laundry [check]
-- clean bathrooms [ummm partial check... need to finish the 3rd bathroom, but I did start the process]
-- make cheesecake [check]
-- make grocery list for BJ's [check and actually went to BJ's and finished the shopping too]

Tomorrow's goals:

-- story time

-- clean the house

-- make cole slaw

-- make burgers

-- grocery shop

-- ummm who knows what else, but I know there is more!

Birthday party take 2.... nope

As you know, we had originally planned Colby's birthday last weekend. But, that didn't happen since Blake was very sick with tonsillitis. We rescheduled it for this past Saturday. So we baked the cake, fired up the crock pots to make apple bbq pork and bbq beef. Then Friday night at 9:30pm Colby woke up with a 102.5 temp. We decided that we would take him in to the After Hours clinic just to make sure... yeah well that was the right decision. Colby ended up with tonsillitis too. His was also viral and there was nothing to do but wait it out.

My in-laws already had come in for the party so we decided to have the bbq for dinner and then do cake and ice cream anyway, since it was all made.

I had already decided that their would not be a 3rd attempt on the birthday party. We will find a time to celebrate with my family soon, but not have everyone over.

At least yesterday he seemed to be feeling better. The fever had broken and other than being a bit tired he seemed to be doing well. Now to just get him to eat a bit more we will be all set. At least he didn't get as severe a case as Blake did.

Back to normal?

Hmmm what is normal. I'm not sure I know anymore. We took the boys to the doctors today. Colby had his 2 year check-up and Blake had a re-check from the ER visit this weekend.

Colby is doing well. He had to have two shots, but that should be the end of the shots until he gets ready for kindergarten.

Blake is doing better too. She said his tonsils looked a lot better, now we just have to convince him that he can eat normally again. But it is nice to see his fevers gone, his throat not throbbing and his mood... well ok that isn't quite back to normal yet.

The challenge with Blake is he is a structure and routine kind of child. So when he gets sick and has to stay home he is off schedule. Guess what else happens this week,... school ends. Tomorrow is his last day of speech in the public school so that means his schedule will change until August. Guess we will have to find some fun and exciting things to do this summer.

One interesting turns of Blake not feeling well is he has been napping the last few days. Hmmm wonder if we can keep this up even after he is feeling himself again? It has been a nice break for me. He has also been going to bed around 6:15 and there have been nights that I could have put him down earlier. I won't hold my breath for him asking to go to bed early much longer.

I didn't have a new recipe this weekend. To be honest we didn't do much cooking at all this weekend, but I think it is slightly understandable. There should be a new recipe next Tuesday as I have a new recipe planned for Colby's party which is scheduled for Saturday (yes, one week late, but it works... right?)

What a weekend

What a hell of a weekend. It really stinks when you start the week thinking that the weekend should be fun and end up with it being anything but! Blake was not feeling anywhere near himself this weekend. We actually ended up calling the after hours nurse and she sent us to the ER with Blake. So after getting everyone dressed off we headed to Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital. I was very impressed with the efficiency and even more impressed with the bedside manner of everyone there. We walked in and signed in, within a few minutes Blake's vitals were taken and we headed over for triage. After that, we were brought back into a room. He was seen by two doctors who both cringed when they looked at his throat. Never a good thing to see, but it was done with humor.

They decided that the tonsilitis is viral so sadly there isn't much we can do but treat the symptoms. They gave him some steriods, motrin and a perscription for tylenol with codine. You could see the steriods kick in. You could see a glimpse of hte happy boy we hadn't seen in a few days. Last night Blake ate food for first time since Wednesday at 3:30pm. He drank more than a sip... and the best of all, well in my opinion anyway... he slept through the night.

Is he better... no. He is still whining a lot. He is still grumping at his brother. He is still talking with a major muffled voice. But he is not cowering in pain. He is not screaming and crying. He is not refusing everything and anything. He is eating a little bit from time to time and drinking a normal amount of liquids now. I'll take it!

The ER docs suggested that we may want to consider talking to our ENT about a tonsillectomy... great another surgery, but if it means that he is better. If it means that we may get over this year of hell... I say I'm all for it!

No pictures

I knew you probably thought you'd get to see pictures of Colby's birthday today. Or maybe you expected them tomorrow after the party, but there will be no birthday pictures this weekend.

What fun thing did we do yesterday? We took Blake to the doctors. Thursday Blake got his tubes put in. Yes, that should have been a one day ordeal, and for the most part it was. But, that isn't why he was at the doctors on Friday. Blake now has tonsillitis. So needless to say... Colby's birthday party was canceled... well postponed.

Oh joy oh joy.... NOT!

Yawwwnnn

Yawwwwnnnn. Boy has it been a long week already... wait it's only Wednesday I'm in trouble. On one hand I feel like life is just starting to get back to "normal" and on the other it's still all up in the air. Blake is feeling and acting more himself which makes life so much more enjoyable. Colby on the other hand isn't. I think his teeth maybe bothering him and he seems to still be tired. Tired little boys around this house means cranky and grumpy children.

Then there is me. I seem to finally be getting over the cough and congestion. I'm trying to go without taking anything today just to see how I really feel. Yesterday I felt fuzzy headed which I hate and it drives me crazy trying to take care of the boys when all I want to do is sleep. I had Richard come home on the early side yesterday and laid down once he got home. Not that it worked since the boys came in and played on the bed while I was reading. I decided to call it an early night. I was asleep by 8:30pm and slept until 5:30am when Abby decided to scratch on the bed.

I can only hope that the long night sleep helps me feel more myself. Next week is going to be a crazy busy one for us. On the weekend we need to finish the deck and try to get some more work done on the shelves and alcoves. Then next week is the clean and prep for Colby's birthday party. Blake has to go in on Monday afternoon for his pre-op check in. He gets his tubes put in on Thursday morning. This means I have to bring Colby out to my mother's on Wednesday so she can watch him while Blake has his surgery. At some point I have to go shopping, make all the food, cake and clean the house for the party and Richard's parent's visit.

EEEEKKKK! Anyone have some energy I can borrow?

grrrrrrrrr

Next time I complain about all that is going wrong, stop me before I ask what's next? That sarcastic comment may come back to bite me... as it just did.

In 4 months Blake has had 4 ear infections, chicken pox, possible seasonal allergies. Colby had 2 ear infections. Oh and don't forget the stomach flu that took out the whole family.

You begin to feel like... ok enough is enough... right? Don't I have the right to think that this should be over with? Ok time to make a doctor appointment with the ENT to see if Blake needs tubes. Fine, that will help. I have no problem with that... not that I want him to have to go through another out patient surgery, but if it helps... I'm ok with it.

Well... Wednesday night and Thursday night Blake had rough nights due to coughing spells. Friday morning both boys woke up and were coughing way too much. But, it would slow down and then they would be fine. It sounded to me like they were dealing with post nasal drips... oh joy the Zyrtec isn't working or something. By 4:00pm Colby had developed a low grade fever that didn't seem to be getting better with Tylenol.... now what? After Richard gets home, and I realize that the fever isn't breaking, we decide that it's time to pack them up and take them to the after hours clinic. We decided to have them both looked at since they both are still coughing up a storm.

Well we left with: times TWO.

Yep... both my guys are on nebulizer treatments. So every 4 hours this is now what I see


Is it 2011 yet? Not sure I want to see what the 2nd half of 2010 has to bring..... or maybe I should just say BRING IT ON! I'm ready to take on the next challenge.

Ahhh the joys of life

Remember last Thursday when I posted about the boys and Richard having head colds?  No... well you can read it here. 

Welllll... here's the update on all that.  Richard is fine.  The boys... not so much.  We took the boys to the doctors on Monday (let me tell you I was really shocked they were actually open on President's Day).  We wanted to make sure that the cough was just a post nasal drip and that there wasn't more we should do for them.  Well it turned out that Colby has an ear infection and Blake has a double ear infection... oh joy! 

Ok.  We can do this... trip to Publix to fill the script.  Wooohooo Amoxicillin is free at Publix.  Ok.  Get 3 bottles of  Amoxicillin, two different amounts and times.  Cool we can do this.  Even better... I can mix it in milk, juice whatever and trick them into taking it. 

Give them a dose as soon as we get home.  Give them a second dose in the morning.  Both boys seem to be doing better, and in better spirits.  Off Blake goes to school.  I pick him up and he seems better than he has in a while.  Later I pop them in the tub... hey wait what's this?  Blake has a "rash" on his chest... wait and his back.  Time to call the doctors to find out what is going on.  After playing telephone tag with the nurse, we decide to try a dose of benedryl and call back before the bed time dose of Amoxicillin.  Rash is still there... ok no more Amoxicillin.  Give him more benedryl in the morning and they will call in a different script for the antibiotic. 

Get up in the morning and head out to speech. After speech we get the new Rx.  Read the paperwork on this one since the Pharmacist told me that if it is a true allergy to penicillin then he will react to this one too... oh great!  Go on with our day.  After we come in from playing outside (I had to laugh as I had them out in sweatshirts with winter hats on since it was in the high 50s but windy), I decided to do an early bath.  Hey look... more spots.

I call the nurse again.  Off to the doctors we go.  Richard actually left work to meet us there... and let me tell you I was glad he did.  They squeezed us in so we waited and waited and waited.  Oh and then we get seen.  Wait I'm not sure what this is, but it's not a reaction to the medicine.  Here let me have my nurse look at it too.  Here let's have the other peditritian on staff look at it.  Ok we think it is an atypical case of Chicken Pox.  Yes, chicken pox.  Yes we know he had the vacine, but he has chicken pox.  Oh wait we can't tell you how long it will last.  We can't tell you if it will get worse.  We can tell you that when you have a normal case of chicken pox we tell the parents they have to wait for 24 hours after the fever breaks... wait he doesn't have a fever.  In the normal case you have to wait 24 hours until the pox scab over, but wait his don't have the same type of pus heads so they may not all scab over.  Ok just wait until he goes 24 hours without getting a new spot. 

So now he can't go to school tomorrow. 

Oh and did I tell you that Richard is going away on business next week?  Let me tell you these spots better stop showing up by Saturday!

Sickness hits the house...again

Well, head colds are back with a vengeance!  Richard seems to be worn out and coughing a lot more.  Of course, the fact that he is working until 7pm every night could have something to do with him feeling worn down. 

Blake is feeling snotty and you can tell he is fighting a post nasal drip.  Colby is feeling just as crappy as Blake... it just came about with him a day a or two later.

Tuesday night was the night from hell for me! Richard woke up coughing around midnight.  He fell asleep around 12:45am, guess who didn't fall back to sleep.  I decided to get up around 1:25am and go play on the computer to see if I could shut back down.  At around 2:40am I was getting ready to come back to bed, and Blake woke up.  He was coughing so hard he was crying.  I picked him up and put him in the shower (something he wanted NOTHING to do with).  Around 3:15/3:30 we got Blake settled down and back to sleep.  In the process of that, around 3:20am Colby woke up.  He had leaked through and was wet.  Ok change Colby and put him back to bed... yeah no.  I brought him out to the couch to see if having him sleep out there with me would settle him.  Around 5am he finally fell asleep, only to wake up at 6:30am.  Blake slept in until 8am.

Yesterday, Blake seemed to be doing better and Colby seemed to be getting worse.  Colby struggled to nap since he was so congested he had a hard time settling down.  In his three tries to nap, I think he may have got an hour and a half nap.  We went outside yesterday, took long hot baths and all had LOTS and LOTS to drink.  All those good things to get the snot moving.  I also opened the windows for a bit and aired out all the bedrooms.

Then last night Colby had a hard time falling asleep... granted that is part of our going to bed struggles we still haven't figured out completely.  Colby woke up around 11pm.  Into the shower you go!  I then decided that he was so congested that I'd try to sleep on the couch sitting up and let him lay on me.  Ok that wasn't fun.  He finally fell asleep around 12:45am.  I put him back in bed and then had to check in on Blake who had begun coughing himself.  Ok, both boys asleep... to bed I go.  Yeah that didn't last long.  Colby woke up coughing so hard he was crying (do you remember reading this before?).  I brought him back out to the couch, this time I forgot my heavier blanket and pillow... oops.  After about an hour or so Colby was sound asleep.  At 2:30am, I put Colby back in his bed.  Hmmm should I go to bed?  Should I sleep on the couch since it is closer to Colby's room.  I figured... if I go back to bed, Colby will wake up again in an hour, but if I sleep on the couch, he'll sleep through the night... you know that logic right??  So I grabbed my pillow and a fleece blanket and slept on the couch until Richard woke me at 6:30am. 

Blake woke a bit after 7am and seemed well enough to go to school.  Colby woke about 7:30 and was still coughing.  So, Colby and I are having a quiet hang out and stay warm day.

Is this winter over yet??