Tubes

L had tubes put in both ears today. I was actually very calm about the whole thing. After his emergency testicular torsion surgery this summer, all other procedures are a breeze! I still worry a teeny tiny bit, for good measure, but not nearly as much as I would if I hadn't experienced the TT surgery. The facility where we had the tube procedure done was wonderful. It's a fairly new building that has a lodge feel to it. The decor and furnishings make a medical facility feel as homey as possible. The staff was outstanding. Our nurse had a little collection of toys in our room for L to play with before we arrived. She was careful not to get into L's personal space too much as he made it abundantly clear that he did not want her to. Ha! She got a wagon out for L to ride in. She padded it with warm blankets and pillows to keep him comfy. She didn't mind that L protested wearing the baby sized hospital gown, so we let him wander around in his diap and sock shoes. D took him for a wagon ride while we waited our turn. When our turn came the nurse pulled him down the hall in the wagon into surgery. L was oblivious to the fact that Daddy wasn't pulling the wagon any more until he came up to a group of people all dressed in green scrubs. I saw him look up and around at everyone, then he started to look back for D and I. Then the doors closed. I couldn't hear him cry when we didn't come after him, but I can imagine he probably did. D and I got our own private room to wait in. After about fifteen, twenty minutes I could hear L crying as they brought him down the hall. I stepped out the door and the nurses smiled 'cause they knew I recognized that cry. L did well in surgery, he took a little while to get out of the grouchiness afterwards, but he popped back to himself after a good nap at home. Such a little trooper! We'll see how things go in the days and weeks to come. Hopefully this will eliminate or drastically reduce the number of ear infections he gets!

As for the rest of us and our battle with this nasty respiratory flu...We're hangin in there. We're still getting over it. N had to miss another day of school because he got a temp yesterday afternoon. D made it through his first full day at work and I made it through the day with help from my Mom. So, we're making progress, but it's a slow recovery.

Stay well!!

Out of the Woods

D and I really feel like we have overcome something at our house! And by that I mean the illness that swept through our house and knocked us all to our knees. It all started a week ago Wednesday. L woke up from a nap with watery eyes, a little cough and a few sneezes. By Friday he was tugging at his ears and was very needy. With the weekend approaching and a vacation coming up, I wanted to get him to the doctor and get him well ASAP. The doctor confirmed that L had a double ear infection and a virus. He prescribed an antibiotic. L had a high temp of 104.5 that night. Super scary! I honestly did freak out. A temp that high is so dangerous for a child to have, but everything I've read and everything everyone's said is to take the child to the ER when the fever reaches 105 or if the fever doesn't respond to pain relievers. L's fever didn't respond to meds immediately so we gave him a good old fashioned luke warm bath (85-90 degree as rec'd by our pediatrician). I thought L would scream and cry while in the tub, but he enjoyed it. He played and laughed and his temp when down. Agh! Relief.....Later that night the same thing happened, we did a bath and L was not so keen on the bath this time. He cried, but eventually calmed down. His temp eventually went down. I woke up every three hours that night to check on him and give him meds. By Saturday afternoon his temp was gone and it stayed 98.6 until late morning on Sunday. His other symptoms had drastically improved, so we went ahead with our plans to take a road trip to an indoor water park. Our plans were to stay three nights and return home on Wednesday. The plans changed when L's condition changed. We headed home early on Tuesday.

Tuesday night I was sick. Sick, sick, sick. I had a temp of 102.7, the soarest throat I've ever had in my life and a cough. I had a case of the chills I could not shake. We didn't get home from our trip until 8pm. When we finally got home I couldn't help out with bed time or unpacking. All I could do was wrap myself in a blanket and sit on the couch and shiver. D was still feeling well, so he unloaded the car and put both boys to bed. He took good care of me by getting me meds and anything else I needed that night before we went to bed.

Wednesday morning I woke up with the afore mentioned sore throat, fever and chills, but also had a tightness in my chest and my sore throat extended into my chest. I told Dave it felt like I'd swallowed an exacto knife. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to cough, I couldn't talk. I whispered all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I headed to the doctor on Wednesday. The strep tests came back negative, so the doctor said I had a virus. She said antibiotics won't touch a virus, so I'd have to ride it out. She recommended several over the counter meds, so I made a stop at the local pharmacy before heading home. Going to the doctor took every ounce of energy I had, so I came home and immediately took a nap.

D was the next to get sick, then N. All of us had about the same symptoms, but a few differences, too. D had body aches. I didn't have that. N had the terrible cough, but no sore throat. Thank goodness! I would not wish that sore throat on anyone! Thursday night was the hardest time of the entire week. D and I were both sicker than dogs. Neither of us had the energy to take care of ourselves, let alone the boys. But, as parents, ya just have to suck it up and do it. Somehow we both found it somewhere in us to take care of everyone. We alternated resting and caring for each other.

Thursday was N's worst night and my worst night. I had just gotten done crying about how sick I felt when D went to check on N and discovered his temp was 104.5. D gave N meds, but the temp wouldn't budge. We put a cool pack on N's head, changed him to lighter weight jammies and opened the window in his room to cool the air down, but none of that helped. So, we gave N the old fashioned luke warm bath at 11pm at night. We had to talk him into it by letting him watch the portable TV (I held it away from the water) while he soaked and D gave him a new toy semi afterwards. Fortunately the bath brought his temp down to 103.3 but it bounced back and forth between 103.3 and 104.4 for a while. We knew if N's temp didn't go down we'd have to take him to the ER. I was completely exhausted at this point. I lay in our bed trying to figure out how we were going to get N to the ER. Neither D or myself felt well enough to drive anywhere, so I figured one of us would have to ride with him in an ambulance. I decided since I was the sicker parent I'd go and N and I could both be patients. As an alternative I was trying to figure out how we could hire a nurse to take care of all four of us until one of us parents was well enough to take over. Forntuntaly D was able to get up every half hour that night as planned and he nursed N through the night. What a guy!!! I told D he could be a Navy Seal for staying up all night and for being sick on top of it. I think being up all night took a toll on D, but I got a fairly good night's rest, so I was able to take care of everyone that morning.

I still felt sick on Friday. My chest was getting tighter so I headed back to the doctor. I thought for sure pneumonia had settled in. The doctor took an xray and nothing was found! She said this virus must have settle in my throat and my chest and I'm having a hard time getting over it because of my asthma. She prescribed a new inhaler. I went from taking an inhaler once every few months to using two puffs every four hours. And I mean, when that four hours were up, I was ready to use it again! I haven't used my inhaler that much in years. But it sure has helped!

It is now Sunday night and D and I are finally feeling like we are getting back to normal. My mom came over and played with the boys today. Thanks again, Mom! That was a tremendous help. The boys were suuuuper excited to see her. D and I desperately needed to go to the grocery store, so we did that while she was here. Neither of us had the energy to go to the store alone, so we both went. I divided the list in half, gave one half to D and took one half myself and we met up along the way to save time and energy. It worked really well. It was nice to have both of us there to share the task of loading and unloading.

As we recover from being so sick I keep telling myself a few things. Being this sick makes me appreciate what are bodies are able to do on any given day on a daily basis when we are healthy. It makes me thankful that nobody in our family has a long term illness and it makes me grateful for the medical facilities we have right here in our town.

Now that I'm feeling well, I've gotta get this house back into shape! It looks like a natural disaster hit this place!

Oh man am I sick!

Sore throat? Check (Sorest throat I've ever had!)

Ear ache? Check (Both of them)

Fever? Check (102.7)

Cough? Check

Sneezing? Check

Gonna go lay on the couch? Check

Blizzard 2011: Days Three and Four

On the third day of the "Blizzard of 2011" the boys and I did snow themed crafts in the morning. Snow theme. Imagine that! I got out cotton balls and glue for N to make a snowman picture. He did glue some cotton balls to a piece of paper, but then decided he'd rather fill his Magniformer creation with whatever white stuff he could find. He said the white stuff fueled his car..or was it a truck? I don't remember. I made some snowflake shapes out of cut up paper towel tubes. I had intended on the snowflake project to be one that N and I would do together, but he wasn't interested.I ended up doing that project by myself, but I enjoyed it.

I will be honest. By late morning of day three I was starting to get just a little touch of cabin fever. We had plans to go to our neighbor's house for lunch and play time,but, my neighbor called to adjust the plans. Her case of cabin fever was worse than mine, so we switched things up and they came to our house. It's amazing what time spent with friends can do for your spirits! I enjoyed conversation with an adult and the kids enjoyed playing together. Refreshing!

I was thankful that our friends came over, but by late afternoon, my cabin fever returned and in a mean way. The boys and I made a big fort. N called it "camping out." He convinced me that because we were "camping out" that we needed to make S'mores. We didn't have graham crackers, so we made S'mores with Ritz crackers, an old Hershey bar from a Birthday party last June (Ha! I'm laughing at myself right now) and mini marshmallows. We watched them cook in the oven through the oven window. The boys liked watching the marshmallows get bigger. When they cooled off we ate them inside or tent. N was elated! I had fun camping out with the boys, but I was soooo glad I had plans to meet friends for supper at a local restaurante. Mexican. Yum!

On Friday the roads were passable, so the boys and I set out on a very badly needed day out! I honestly can't remember what we did to pass the morning. I know I worked out and showered, but other than that, I can't remember what we did. I think I was so excited to leave the house that my brain does not remember anything else. Ha! Where were we going on our big day out? A newly remodeled McDonald's. Every stay at home mom's (SAHM) dream! It was new, it was fairly clean and we met up with two other moms and their kids. We stayed as long as we could before the kids melted down then returned home. By Friday night the week of the Blizzard had me totally burnt out! I was done with crafts, I was done cleaning up crafts, I was done cooking, I was done playing, I was completely burnt out and tired...no exhausted....no I think exacerbated is the word. I made dinner, ate dinner with the fam and headed upstairs to watch tv. I told the guys "I am going upstairs. I am watching tv. I am not doing anything for anyone for the next fifteen minutes. I need to sit down!!" The boys completely understood. They didn't seem to notice the dinner mess 'cause it was still there when I came back downstairs, but they were in the basement playing, so I got to clean things up alone watching my tv channel.

And, after four days of dealing with the "Blizzard of 2011" my dear husband left me at home with the boys so he could take a solo trip to a toy tractor show. The nerve!! Yep, he left at 5am and returned at 5pm. I had to call in "reinforcements" for this one! Luckily my mom was able to come over for the majority of the day to watch the boys while I went out and bought some desparately needed groceries. I told D if my mom was not able to come over and help us there was no way I'd let him skip town after the boys and I been cooped up at home for so many days in a row. So, thanks mom! You made everyone at our house happy.

Looking back on the week, I'd say we did really well. We made lots of crafts and lots of memories. I know I sound like I'm griping alot, but I really did enjoy the week. I kept telling myself to enjoy it to the fullest because this time next year N will be attending all day

kindergarten instead of playing at home with me!! They grow up so fast!

Chilaquiles

I tried something new at a local Mexican restaurant a few weeks ago and I fell in love! So much that I crave it every weekend. Every time I eat the dish I think "I could totally make this at home." So I tried making it at home tonight....and I must say it turned out really good! When I searched "chilaquiles" online I found a wide variety of results. Some were dinner dishes, some breakfast. I took three recipes and put them together with my own twist. Here's what I ended up with.

Chilaquiles (pronounced chilla-key-las)

1lb Lean ground beef

2 (14 oz) cans petite diced tomatoes

1 pkg taco seasoning

1/2 teaspoon lawry's seasoning salt

I added the following:

Pinch cinnamon

Pinch chipolte powder

Pinch cummin

1 pkg restaurant style tortilla chips

Mexican melting cheese

Reduced sour cream

Monterey Jack shredded cheese

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Brown lean ground beef. Drain. Set aside. Pour undrained tomatoes, taco seasoning, lawry's, cinnamon and chili powder into the pan used for browning beef. Simmer ten minutes. Pour meat back into pan and let meat and sauce simmer five minutes. Spoon just enough sauce on bottom of greased casserole dish to barely cover dish. Next layer with chips, meat and sauce mix and Mexican melting cheese. Bake at 325 for 20 minutes. Smear sour cream on top of dish, sprinkle monterey jack cheese on top of sour cream. Return to oven to bake at 325 an additional 10 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips for scooping.

Blizzard 2011: Day Two

Blizzard 2011 Day One extended into Day Two much longer than D and I had hoped. Late last night we noticed our furnace was not keeping up with the demands of the cold weather. The furnace vent on the outside of our house is situated in such a way that any significant amount of wind disrupts the ....I honestly can't remember the technical terms for what happens. (D could tell you more) I'll just say that the furnace works for a bit, then doesn't work. D does a few things to fix it, then it works for a little while, then it doesn't. This results in a cold house. D was really good about keeping up with the situation the best he could through the night, but the temperature in the house was still dropping. N's room is the coolest room in the house and the whipping winds were making it very chilly. I decided we could move the boys to our room and we could all stay in the same room. I put the pack-n-play up for L to sleep in. I pulled the twin mattress out of the guest room, covered it in layers of blankets for N. I rounded up four or five blankets for our bed. After fighting with the furnace for a few hours, D and I decided it would be best to move the (already sleeping) boys to our room. N had no problem sleeping in our room. In fact, he loved it. He's been begging us to "camp out," so we called this camping out and he thought it was pretty neat. L, on the other hand, was not keen on sleeping anywhere but his own bed....I don't know any other person in our house who likes to sleep in his own bed. Wink, wink. So after struggling with L for a while, we decided L's room was warm enough and he ended up sleeping in there (with two layers of jammies on) the rest of the night...or the rest of what was left of the night.

Even though the boys had an interrupted night of sleep, they still got up at there usually time this morning. Ugh! Why don't preschoolers and toddler sleep in? I'm just sayin. I had some activities lined up for us to do to pass the day along, so we ate breakfast and got right into activity numero uno, stained glass hearts. N made one and I made one. The prep and clean up ended up taking longer than the act of actually making the craft, but we still enjoyed it. N has his proudly displayed on his wall in his room and mine is hung on our sliding glass door. While I sat with N to do this little art project it became clear to me that being up so much in the night was catching up to me already, so I took a nap. I couldn't talk N into taking a nap, although he really could have used one.

After nap it was time to make lunch and get on to project number two. Making homeade pizza dough (Thank you, Pioneer Woman). At this point L was napping, so N and I got some quality time together just the two us. N did a really, really good job of helping me. He followed instructions, didn't sample any of the dough and helped me with some of the clean up. D had a 2:00 teleconference meeting, so I decided I'd get in a good work out before that. While D teleconferenced the boys and I played Play-doh. And, honestly, it looked like a Play-doh bomb went off in our house! The nook and the kitchen were a complete disaster. But, the boys were occupied for about 45 minutes. I got to work on a little project while they played and we listened to pandora, so it was a nice time.

N went outside to play with the neighbors after doing a good job of cleaning up the Play-doh, so I started on supper. (Oh, and talked on the phone with my mom while doing the dishes. Could ya tell I was doing the dishes, mom? Ha!) When N came inside he helped me assemble our yummy chicken ranch pizza. And again, he was a good helper! N did not end up liking the pizza, but D and I really liked it.

The night ended with the boys (all three) playing in the basement while I cleaned up the kitchen. N talked Daddy into letting him "camp" in our room again tonight. We'll see how that goes. After I get done blogging I need to make a game plan for tomorrow....Snow day #3. Yep, no school again tomorrow. At this point, we wouldn't be able to make it to school anyway because our road is still in bad shape.

A snow plow attempted to plow our road and got stuck. He had to call another plow to pull him out. A little while ago there was a backhoe and a snowplow shoveling the road behind our house. I suspect they will have to use the back hoe to clear the road in front of our house as well. The snow in the road is about two feet deep and it's very, very dense. D was outside a couple of times today and he said the snow is so dense you can walk on top of it in places and not puncture it with your shoe. We have a drift in front of our house that I am estimating to be four feet high, but we also have patches in our yard where you can see the grass poking through. So, it's not a blanket of snow. The wind really whipped and swirled it all around our house. Here are some pictures below.

Stained glass tissue hearts

Pizza dough (making it after lunch)

Play-Doh EXPLOSION!!

Digging out (Four feet by the front door)

Two feet in the street, three feet in the yard

Pizza dough (assembling for supper)

Blizzard 2011: Day One

We are hunkered down over here as "The Blizzard of 2011" hits. We are expected to get 12-18 inches of snow over the next few days. We've had sleet, wind, snow and lightning today. Yes, I said lightening. Strange! D did make it to work today, but came home around 1:30. We don't have any trees surrounding our property, so the wind is coming at us without any type of breakage or barrier. Our grill cover froze, became brittle and has been torn to shreds by the wind. The grill was starting to walk it's way across the deck, so D bundled up and fastened it to the railing of the deck with a bungee cord. We have a couple pieces of siding coming loose. Other than that we are doing well. We're just doing the best we can to have activities to do inside to pass the time. N's school was cancelled today and will likely be cancelled the next two days. He was supposed to learn the letter "P" this week. I used that as our theme for the day today. We painted this morning, had a picnic lunch in the living room at noon and made pumpkin muffins this afternoon. I also let N wear his pajamas all day. N is also learning to count to 100 at school, so we worked on that by throwing a ball back and forth. N counted each time he touched the ball all the way to 100. Below are some pictures from our day. Tomorrow is Ground Hog's day. I plan on taping some large pieces of paper to the wall, shining a light on it and tracing the boys' shadows on the paper. We might also stick with the letter P theme and make soft pretzels or pizza. We'll see. Oh, and we'll likely play Play-Doh. Hopefully that will be enough to pass the time along at an enjoyable pace w/o being too busy.

Painting

Picnic Lunch.

Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

Pumpkin Muffin Recipe

1 1/2 C packed brown sugar (Cut back to 1 cup)
1/2 C vegtable oil (do 1/4 oil, 1/4 applesauce)
4 eggs (2 eggs, 2 whites)
1 15 oz can pumpkin
1/2 C water
3 C flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 salt
1 C Dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray muffin pan with non-stick spray or use paper liners.
Mix sugar, oil, eggs, pumpking and water until smooth. In a separate bowl mix flour, soda, powder, spices and salt. Combine wet and dry ingredients until smooth - stir in chocolate chips.
Fill muffin cups 2/3 with batter. Bake at 400 20-25 minutes.

Number of Servings: 28 http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=292497