Snot, ears, a weakened heart, and an escape artist
Feb 06, 2014 in Uncategorized
Well, maybe we can call this a monthly update or maybe I just needed to vent. The last three weeks I’ve been living in snotsville. All the kids, plus Joel have had a horrible cold – a never-ending, ever mutating, horrible cold. Goldilocks was the first to succumb and after a week, I took her to the doctor to find out her ears were infected, again. Round 1 of antibiotics started. Goldilocks is such a good kid when it comes to snot, coughing and sneezing. She blows her nose with such a force, that I’ve started rating nose blowing on the F scale used for tornadoes. AND, when she sneezes, and snot is hanging from her nose to her arm, 6 – 12 inches below, she waits patiently for me to run to the Kleenex box, grab a tissue, and mop her up. The best part about it is, she is happy when she is sick. I needed that because the boys turn into grumpy, slightly pathetic beings.
About that time, Nicky started his runny nose and Dexter remained cold free. I was astounded. Dexter always gets it. It seemed liked the kids where started to mend when two weeks ago, in the middle of the night (it is always in the middle of the night. Why is it always in the middle of the night?) that I woke up thinking how is Joel snoring and talking in his sleep at the same time? That’s how out of it I was. I shook off the sleepiness to find that Nicky was wheezing up a storm. Darth Vader was back. Nicky had a strider and the croup and was panicking. I got up, woke Joel up, we got the Nebulizer set up and then I nebbed Nicky while Joel went back to sleep. I was fully awake and charged. Hearing Nicky sound like Darth Vader always makes me a bit panicky. Put him back to sleep. Crawled into bed and Joel, also sick with a cold, started to snore so loudly that I could hear nothing else. I poked him, I pinched his nose twice (his suggestion), I slammed the bathroom door, I grabbed the blanket off the bed and went to sleep in the other bedroom. That was the same night I had picked my folks up from the airport. They had just returned from two cruises. My dad’s legs where all swelled up and he could not breath well. As I dropped them off at home, I told him that he better not end up in the hospital tomorrow (which was Tuesday). He didn’t but managed to get checked in on Wednesday with congestive heart failure. To say that that sucked was an understatement. He finally got to return home on his birthday, Saturday Feb 1st with an oxygen tank in tow. He and my mom both have the nasty cold too. We also found out that Grandpa Don was in the hospital in Florida on the 1st due to kidney stones. We had to call Grandpa Loren to see if it was a triple crown but alas, he was well. Good job Grandpa Loren!
So, two kids sick, two grandpas hospitalized and one husband with a snoring problem. I was getting little sleep. Then Dexter came down with it. I swear, we had about 8 Kleenex boxes strewn about the house and I was running from kid to kid, checking the nose blowing status on the F scale. My hands are cracked and bleeding from all the hand washing I’ve done. With Dad home from the hospital, we celebrated his belated birthday with a very good non salted dinner and the Seahawks in the Super Bowl! WHAT A GAME!!!!! At half time, we headed home and watched it on our projection screen. Super cool. With 4 minutes left in the game, Goldilocks vaults head first off the couch and into a table. Cuts her head open over her eye. There was no one on the road as we traveled to the walk-in clinic and no wait. The doctor super glued her head shut and I had him check her ears. The ear infection was back with a gusto – both ears again. Round 2 of antibiotics. The next morning I took the boys in because I was sick of this cold. No infections but because it had been going on so long, their doctor wrote me prescriptions for both – just in case the tide turned – not in our favor. Nicky complains his hear hurt around 5pm, looking in his ears confirms it. Joel fills the prescription and Nicky starts antibiotics.
Once again, at 1 AM, Nicky comes crying into our room. His ears hurt so bad. We drug him up and put ear drops in. At 3 am he comes back still crying. We prop him up in a chair in our room and all of us get a little sleep. On Tuesday, I look at Dexter ears. I think I see pick but he doesn’t complain. At 2 am, he comes into our room crying in agony. Ears hurt. Really? Again in the middle of the night? THIS SUCKS! We drug him up and at 5am, I prop him up in the chair in our room. So much for sleep. I think it is overrated.
I am amazed I am still standing. I feel like there is a dark cloud of sickness surrounding me, just waiting to strike because everyone around me, and I mean everyone – kids, husband, brother, parents, are all sick. I am hoping that it waits until they are all well before I succumb. With the kids on antibiotics, they should hopefully mend soon.
That has been my last couple of weeks. Anyone know a good remedy for cracked hands. No lotions work anymore. I have three fingers taped up. I’m up for suggestions. Email me. :) Thank you for letting me vent. I needed to get it all out.
Oh, I almost forgot two very funny stories – both involving Mig, our resident escape artist. Recently, we had our frankenfence torn down and a new one installed. It looks beautiful. And now that Mig is officially 1 year old, we’ve been dabbling in letting her roam free inside the house while we have been gone. As you all know, we live very close to the boys’ elementary school and we walk there every school day. Mig has come with us less than 10 times this past year. One day, I decided to let her have the house while I walked to pick up the boys. On our way home, outside our fence-line, there was Mig, happy as a puppy, running up to greet us. The boys and I were all “What the Heck?” How did Mig get out? As we rounded the house we saw the gate to our backyard was open. I could have sworn I had closed it. To make matters worse, Mig was without her collar – we had just given her a brush the night before and forgot to put it back on. I closed the gate and we went on with our day.
A week later, I tried again only this time, I made damn sure that gate was closed. I was a bit early for pickup and thus waited a couple of minutes before the boys were let out. As they ran out to greet me, so did Mig. What the heck? Holy SH*T – where did she come from? I was freaking out. It’s a good couple of blocks and across some streets to get to the school. What was really strange is the day before the boys and I had watch Myth Busters and the episode was about police tracking dogs. I had had the idle thought on the way to school would Mig be able to track me. Well, question answered because that was not our current route walk or previous route walk. The other parents had seen her bounding down the sidewalk at MIG speed and she was overjoyed to see us. I carried her all the way home wondering what the ? We got home and the gate was wide open. How in the hell had that happened? I had checked. I closed the door and started to bop it with my hand. About the 5th bop it popped open. So that’s how she had done it. The green/grass bin is now firmly keeping the gate closed until Joel can fix the lock.
Last Mig/boys story to make you laugh. The Saturday morning before the Super Bowl, Joel and I lay in bed asleep. The bedroom door is flung open at 7am and in strides Dexter, loud and happy. Joel and I grumble at him and tell him to go potty. Dex disappears into our bathroom and Joel takes Mig out to pee too. He climbs back in bed after his job is done and we try to ignore Dex. The door slams open again and it’s Nic. Yippee. He heads to our bathroom – why they don’t use their bathroom, I have no idea. Joel and I are in bed. Mig, Nic and Dex are in our bathroom. The bathroom door slams open and closed every 10 seconds or so and there is lots of laughing going on. As good parents, we try our best to ignore it. Then our bathroom door slams loudly and I’ve had enough. I’m just a little ticked off at this time. I stumble into the bathroom and take in the situation. There stand the boys next to Mig with toilet paper in one had and a toothpaste tube in another. Mig is trying to get away from them seeing that they have just squirted mint toothpaste all over her back. After deciding this might not have been one of their better ideas, they tried to wipe it off with toilet paper ensuring that it was smeared in good. I asked them what they were thinking. They responded with that seeing they couldn’t get the toothpaste up Mig’s nose because she wouldn’t stay still, that squirting it on her back was a good second choice. They had to write an apology to all involved and they are currently not allowed to use any other toothpaste until the mint one is gone. They hate that mint. I thought it was a good punishment. What do you think?