Annnnnd...

I've got strep. Again. Or still. Whatever.

I am feeling significantly better already and am so happy for the invention of antibiotics.

The pediatrician's office just called to let us know there was a mistake with Luke's labs.

It was positive for salmonella.

As far as I know it has resolved itself and there is nothing to be done. We will be contacted by the health department so they can track it and any similar cases.

It doesn't change anything really, though it does add a little something to our 2 week total, don't you think?

Totally unrelated, or maybe not, this hymn has been following me, like a shadow recently. Popping up here and there and always running through my mind. I sung this once in college with my friend Lara, and once in Katy with Val and Kerry R. though now I am singing it by myself with only my babies to hear me.

The tune is beautiful, but the words, oh these words. I am feeling these words. Especially the last verse.


Come , thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount, I'm fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.

Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I'm come;
and I hope by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.

O to grace how great a debtor
daily I'm constrained to be!
Let thy goodness like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here's my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.

Hold the phone

and shut the front door!

Do you know what this is?



This, my friends, is Ava. In jeans. Denim jeans. They don't have an elastic waist, they are not made of spandex. Real Jeans, on a real girl.

She thinks she looks like a grown up. I think she looks like an 8 year old.


This is such a big deal for her for a few reasons, and what I know today is that I am grateful for peer pressure. I think it finally got to her that she is the only kid she knows who wouldn't wear jeans (cause they bug her, of course). I shouldn't be so desperate to get her into jeans, I'm sure. It's just that I'm finding that the wardrobe choices dwindle significantly as she gets bigger when all we can consider are stretchy pants.

After years of her socks and pants and shirts (among other unmentionables) "bugging" her, she is finally showing much less sensitivity to these sorts of things. She asks me, "If I just try to think about something else, then this won't bug me so much?" I always tell her yes and I think it is finally working. That or she is just growing up.

Ian came for the fastest visit in the West this weekend. It wasn't actually that fast, he was just working for the majority of it, so we only logged a couple of hours together.



But I'll take what I can get. Now if only I could see my brother Bret, then I would have seen everyone in the space of a month.

The good news is:
Luke's bloody diarrhea results came back normal leading us to believe it was an effect of the antibiotics he was on and has since finished. Also, x-rays showed that Luke's foot wasn't broken either. Dan has what I would call a mild version of the flu. He is doing better and back to work. And finally, the computer mouse has recovered well from its swim in the toilet, a la Max.

This past little while has felt like I was at the helm of a sinking ship. I started bailing water and any time it started to look promising another leak would spring up. I feel like shizzle and have pretty much since I finished the antibiotics for strep. I've just been dealing with it because, what's new? But I am really getting tired of it. Tired of everything. And just tired. I'm hoping to make it to the doctor this afternoon.

Max on the other hand, is still pretty sick. The follow-up with the pediatrician was very disconcerting for me. It was our first time meeting and it made me miss my old doctor so much. From the moment I said, "alternate vaccination schedule" she thought I was an idiot. And the way she acted from there on out made me think she was an idiot.

We aren't the type of family that sees their pediatrician just for well-checks and the occasional cold or ear infection. My old Dr. Haney was like a part of the family, we saw her so much. It feels really bad and kind of scary not to have someone I trust and like to help me with the health side of things.

But we're doing what we can now, which is keeping Max on the Tamiflu (in case he got it from Dan) and having frequent visits with Nebby.


Nebby, the nebulizer, joined our family back in '07 when Luke was such a bad breather. And it looks like Max is following in his footsteps. He's so used to it now he cooperates pretty well.


The weather has been gorgeous this past week so we busted out the water table.



And it's been nice to have a little sunshine in our life literally if not figuratively.

Is this a joke?

When we were little and we played tag or hide and go seek, one of the first things we did was designate "base".

Today I would like to know where "base" is. I want to call "TIME OUT!"

TIME OUT!!!!!!!


Max has pneumonia. And another ear infection. Dan has the flu. The real flu. And a sinus infection.

Pretty much we haven't been well since the new year. And in the last two weeks alone we have had a combined: 5 ear infections, 3 strep throats, 1 uti, 1 bout of bloody diahrrea (apologies to my Facebook friends), 1 case of pneumonia, 1 sinus infection, 1 case of the flu.

And as we speak, Luke has an unexplained limp.


Seriously.

Like I said, time out.

Conflict of Interest

Ava just called me back into her room to tell me she loved me and that she would love me forever and ever and ever and ever.

Then she asked me if when people die they still remember their family. I think she gets very think-y at bedtime. I told her they would. And I told her I thought that when we die we can still watch over our family. And she said, "Yes, but we will be very busy because Jesus still has to teach us things." Then she paused and said, " But maybe we get a little free time. You think so, Mom?"


For Valentine's Day Mimi appropriately gave Ava something she loves. For all the TV Ava watches she is still very sheltered. She rarely sees commercials and her repertoire of shows consists of those on PBS or another kid channel. Since I don't really watch TV at all while the kids are awake, they just don't see much. This is all a roundabout explanation for why Ava doesn't exactly know what a cheerleader is, yet she was beyond excited for the cheer uniform that Mimi gave her.


I guess to be more accurate she has a very vague idea what a cheerleader is. They are at games. They yell stuff. They shake their pom poms. They are always rooting for "the good guy". And that's about it.



And here is where I apologize to anyone who is, was, loved, birthed, or married a cheerleader. I do not mean to offend. Cheerleading just isn't my thing. I am aware that it takes a lot of skill, athleticism, and practice to be good. I guess I just always preferred to be the one playing instead of the one rooting for the ones playing. And I have never been impressed with the stereotypes that accompany them. But luckily Mimi didn't get me a cheer uniform for Valentine's Day.

Ava on the other hand, sleeps in hers. She changes for school and then as soon as she gets home in the afternoon, she immediately changes back into it. She is so excited to go to the BYU vs. TCU basketball game tomorrow and for the first time I am actually excited to go and hopefully see the cheerleaders, if only for the purpose of showing them to Ava. Somebody should show her how to hold the pom poms.


Prior to receiving this gift she had been getting the hang of the jump rope. When she asked if I would please sign her up for Jump Rope Class, I really wished that existed. Now she is asking to be signed up for cheerleading class and all I can think is, I really wish that didn't.



I know I should let her choose her hobbies. She should have my support to pursue her interests (within reason of course) and she will. This may not be my favorite thing and I cannot promise that I will not "guide" her towards some other activities. Neverminding the fact that at the moment, she is far from physically coordinated and most likely destined to be the bottom of the pyramid as far as size goes. Oh well. She's five.

As far as Dan is concerned, I don't think he has given it much thought. He's probably still hung up on the fact that she is cheering for the wrong team.

Mimi Time

By the end of last week, all the kids had ear infections, and Dan, Luke and I all had strep and for the first time in our family's history we were all on antibiotics at the same time. Which actually works out pretty well.

No worrying about who drank out of who's cup.

No worrying about sharing spoons or toys. In fact we pretty much just ate off of one plate with our fingers for the whole week.

Just kidding. But it did make it easier to remember medicine. Even though more of us were taking it, it was almost like an assembly line. I could just yell, "Next!"

And the best part was, we didn't have any germs to spread to our out of town visitors.

Mimi is here for her annual visit. She usually comes in February to get a break from the winter in Kentucky. This year has been kind of stinky for that, since she was cooped up just like the rest of us for the ice storm.


One of the nice things though, about being near my parents is that when people come to visit them, they visit us too. And in an attempt for Mimi to see all of her grandkids this visit, my two sisters came to Dallas this past weekend.



My brother Ian will come this weekend, and then my parents and Mimi will take a little road trip to Colorado to see my brother Bret and his family at the end of the month.


So there was some girl time this weekend. We didn't do much of consequence other than be in each others presence, which when I think about it, actually is of consequence. Dan took over kid duty for the most part so that I was free to come and go as I pleased and even had a slumber party one night. I fell asleep to the sound of my sister's voices and I think the last time that happened we were sharing a room in Kansas when I was around 5 years old.

I love my sisters. And my Momma. And my Mimi.

Cast Away

I woke up early this morning, thinking about how many fun things there were to look forward to-

My birthday present iPhone was scheduled to arrive today.

Max's cast would be removed today.

My sister Chandra arrives on Friday.

My sister Leah arrives on Saturday.

Yes, yes lots of fun things. But I could also tell that something was wrong with my throat.

And then today turned into some crazy goose chase which involved strep throat and two steroid shots in the "hips" (which was more like "butt"), and Max and I showing up for his cast removal in our dirty pajamas at 3 in the afternoon.

The doctor promised that the shots would make me feel better in record time, and she was right! I feel about 50 times better than I did this morning, which is totally worth the pain in my "hips".

The only other time I have been prescribed steroids, I got my only technical foul in basketball for hitting another girl.

So if it is likely we will see each other in the next 10 days, don't cross me.

But today, the star of the show was Max. He was a champ while they sawed off the cast. He was so funny to watch as I set him down and he realized that he could bend his knee. And his ankle. He had gotten completely proficient at walking like a ballerina on point with one leg.

Watching him try to walk again was a little heart wrenching, though. He was hesitant to bear weight and even his crawling is looking funny. But by tonight, he had managed to take a few steps. It will be a little while before he is really going again. Anyways, we are off to a new start and we can't wait to stick that buddy in a nice deep tub.

He is the best.

The Week of a Thousand Days

It all started on Monday night. As I slept alone in my bed because Dan was gone on a quick business trip, I could hear the house being pelted with rain. Unfortunately and unbeknownst to me, the temperature was so cold it was immediately turning to ice.

I woke up Ava the same as usual that Tuesday morning. But something told me to check the tv right before I was about to wake up Max to get in the car for school. Good thing I checked because school was canceled.

And school remained canceled for the entire week. It was a little touch and go getting Dan home, but the airport finally opened an he got on a flight that wasn't canceled. He caught one of the few cabs working to bring him home.

Since last week was hit or miss with Ava's school because she was sick, I already had my fill of being home-bound with all the kids. So this week's weather felt like it was just piling straw after straw on my saggy back.

The temperatures didn't even reach 20 degrees and because Dallas is totally unequipped to handle such weather, the roads remained coated with ice day after day.

Once Dan got home things were much better. His office was closed all week as well. But honestly there is only so much time the same people can interact with the same people for constant hours on end and not go crazy!

I whipped out the big guns. And it makes me sad even writing that because there was a time not long ago, when these were just the regular, everyday guns. Since we've moved I've relied more on the TV than any of my creative Mommy activities. Hmmm, time to change that I guess.

So we painted,



we cut out Valentine hearts, we painted them,


we made cookies,




we made and played with playdough,



And of course we still watched a lot of television. It was too cold for the kids to even go outside.

I kept thinking how lucky we were that nobody was broken or super sick and needed to get to the hospital or doctor. Because in our family, that is not unusual.

The sun came out yesterday and the snow and ice began to melt, and we were outta here! We piled the kids in the car and just drove!

Max considerately waited until last night to get sick so that we could take him to the urgent care without fear of crashing. Double ear infection.

That makes three of us on antibiotics right now (Ava-ear infection, me-uti). And seeing as how I have trouble even remembering to put on my bra to take Ava to school most days, I am thinking about setting up some kind of alarm system to be sure I get everyone their medicine on time.

But here's where I am really wacky:

This past week took forever. It dragged on and on. I checked everyday with fingers crossed that by some miraculous happening, school would be back in session, only to be disappointed each time. I thought I would rip my hair right out of my head multiple times each day. I dreamt
of peeing (constantly) alone or just having one minute to sit in silence with my thoughts.

Now, the ice has melted, the snow is gone, school, preschool, and work are on for tomorrow. Looking back all I'm really remembering are the snuggly, cozy parts of being so close for so long. And I am already missing my babies.