All our love

All our love and prayers go out to Grandma Lu that the surgery tomorrow goes well and the recovery is speedy!

We love you!

Blackberries

Alex surprised me with a new little word that I thought he'd been saying recently but was never quite sure. He was eating breakfast and I got him some blueberries to go with his waffle. Here's how the exchange went:

A: Blackberries too, Mama.
J: We don't have any blackberries.
A: Yes Mama, blackberries too.
J: Alex, we don't have any blackberries. We have to get some next time we go to the store.
A: Get some more blackberries, dammit (fist pumping while saying this).
J: What did you just say?
A: Get some more blackberries.
J: And then what did you say?
A: (very matter-of-factly) Dammit.

Unfortunately he did learn this one from me. So I had to explain how Dammit is not a very nice thing to say and that Mama shouldn't be saying it either and that he should tell me not to say it if he hears me say it.

J: So Alex, what happens if I say dammit?
A: I say "you no say dammit, Mama. It's not nice."

I'm very proud of myself that I didn't laugh through the entire exchange.

The power of the bill

Wasn't sure what to title this one. An addendum to the previous post:

Grace's 101-102 fever continued all Friday night and through Saturday. The only respite was when we could persuade her to take some Motrin, which once it kicked in had her feeling great for at least a few hours. The hives continued itching horribly, and still covered most of her body (seeming to have shifted into areas not previously hit). She would periodically get the shakes, and still couldn't stand to be touched or moved when not under the influence of the OTC drug. I'm pretty certain that even though that flu test came back negative she actually had it.

You know, the thought just hit me that maybe they got the snot swabs mixed up between the two kids, because Grace sure was the one exhibiting flu-like symptoms.

Anyway, early Saturday evening we noticed that Grace's hands and feet were swollen. Called the 24-hour nurse line and were told that since a rash was involved that she couldn't diagnose anything over the phone and we needed to take her to the hospital.

So Jim stayed home with Alex and I bundled Grace up into the car to take her to Children's Medical Center. It was awful - she was burning up with fever and was in pain anytime she moved. Luckily we didn't have to go to the ER; Children's has a "referral center" for cases just like ours where a nurse tells you to go in. We were there for probably only about an hour total, they gave her a big dose of Motrin and determined that everything was still the fallout from the allergic reaction. But we do have an actual medical term - Erythema Multiforme. Which pretty much means multiple rash spots. By now Grace's huge swaths of red welts had changed to these weird red rings with discoloration in the middle, but were still all over her body. They did say she was slightly dehydrated and we needed to really watch that. So I ended up sharing a bed with her again last night, and every hour or so waking up to her whimpering to rub more cream on her itchy spots and to urge her to drink water out of her cup.

Now to the title of this posting. She was still somewhat sick this morning, though not as itchy as she had been. Jim gives her Motrin while I was at work. By the time I make it home at 1pm, her fever is gone and the nasty spots on her are almost faded away. And the fever didn't return once the Motrin wore off. So I figure it was kind of like watering your lawn and then it raining the next day - maybe her body knows I'm going to get stuck with a hospital bill for last night and figured it could finally fix itself. Because it certainly couldn't have healed itself BEFORE we took her in to the hospital.

I don't care. I'm just overjoyed that my little girl isn't sick anymore.

Whew, what a week

Well, after Grace's strep throat diagnosis last week, things have just gone downhill. She had a couple days of 102 degree fever, and Alex started having a fever on Thursday night (much lower than Grace's). When his continued all the next day I decided to take him to the doctor Saturday morning to try to nip what I figured was strep in the bud. His strep test came back negative, so we assume it was a virus that Grace also seemed to catch since she started taking on his symptoms even though she was on an antibiotic.

Sunday grants us 24 hrs fever-free for Grace, but not Alex, so she goes back to school on Monday. I have to pick her up early Monday due to the fever returning, but Alex is now fever-free. Both kids are clear on Tuesday and running around like they feel totally fine, so they both go back to school on Wednesday.

Wednesday night Grace breaks out in HORRIBLE hives. They are covering her entire body. We don't realize it until about 5am the next morning, so she gets Benedryl then. Alex also has a 101+ fever on Thursday, so a visit to the doctors office yesterday afternoon gets us the following news: Grace is apparently allergic to Amoxicillan and needs to start new antibiotics for her strep, Alex tests positive to both strep and flu. Grace was negative for the flu, but they want to treat her with Tamiflu to try to keep it from hitting her (I am told to have my doctor call in prescriptions for Jim and myself too for preventative measure).

Jim picks up $350 worth of prescriptions on the way home. After dinner Alex takes his two doses and then promptly spits up all of it plus his dinner on the kitchen floor. Grace takes her three doses, fighting it all the way, then goes to sleep in our bed for an hour until waking up and barfing there. Today Grace has a 101 fever and is on day two of hives hurting her so much she can't hardly move. Alex acts as if nothing is wrong with him at all and has no fever. Mommy has loads of spit up laundry to do and just wants to run away for a couple hours to escape it all.

Jealous anyone?

Here's a few pictures to share.

Grace on Valentine's Day. I was praising her outfit (telling her how much she looks like cousin Emma when dressing this way). She is such a "dress" girl that I have to do whatever I can during this 30-something degree weather to get her to dress warmer. This was her "cute" pose she kept wanting to do. Don't know where she learned the head-cocked-to-the-side thing.


This is after I made her open-up to show off the outfit. For those of your former dancers out there, don't you just love the pointed toe she has in this stance.


Here is a couple of attempts to show her hives. Of course, it doesn't do justice to the extent of the coverage. She has huge swaths of red on her back and belly, and tons of spots on her arms and legs. The circle on her forearm in the first picture is actually the bruise left over from the bite(!) her brother gave her last week.


Alex today. He's been very reticent lately to having his picture taken, but once I had him show me the Playdoh alien (hair squishes out the top of his head), Alex was all for the photos.


He'll also proudly show off his dinosaur. Is the love of dinosaurs ingrained in boy DNA? Because I sure don't know where it came from.

Sharing the wealth

So we've had two days of no school due to teacher training. Yesterday we had a wonderful playdate with Justin, Sarabeth and Aidan (Grace's "boyfriend"). Last night weekly dinner with friends so Grace got to play with Bella. Today I had to work so Grace and Alex were in the nursery with other church friends. And immediately after work we went by Brayden's house so Grace wouldn't be freaked out when she went home with her tomorrow.

And then we went home, Grace was wiped out, found out she had a fever, and after a trip to the doctor we end up with a POSITIVE test for strep throat. So I got to spend the next half hour or so contacting parents for all the kids we saw over the past two days. It's like we were trying to pass this bug around as much as possible.

Here's a few pics from the playdate yesterday:

The musical parade that started the festivities off. Poor Alex couldn't navigate the stairs quick enough to keep up. Aidan is the one in the green shirt.


Art time after wearing themselves out playing Superheroes outside. We discovered pool noodles make awesome superhero swords.

Cutie-pie Sarabeth.

Good day today

So I had a great day today. Yesterday turned out to be a tough one. Started out with attending the funeral of a friend's mother. That in itself was sad, but it really was a beautiful service - Catholic mass that both mourned the loss but also gave blessing that the pain associated with the 5 year fight with cancer was finally over. I had a nice lunch with two other friends who also attended the funeral, but then the rest of the day dealt with rushing back, putting an hour in at work, taking both kids to the grocery store after school (what hell that is!), laundry, dinner, etc. Just one of those days that wiped me out by the end of it.

Today was quite different. Still busy - work was crazy this morning. Plus when we left school at noon, I had to go get into the safe deposit box which ended up being an ordeal because the bank has switched over to this futuristic hand-scanning system to eventually eliminate the need for 70-something year old Betty who used to have to let you in to open the box. They had to get our account up to speed with the new system, which took much longer than I expected it to with two kids once again in tow. So I treated the kids to Happy Meals, eaten on the picnic table on the deck in the beautiful 70 degree weather we had today. And other than Alex's freak out this morning, there were no major tantrums from either kid.

Maybe it was the weather that kept me calm today. With apologies to the Ohio Kennemers dealing with frigid temperatures, it was pretty much a perfect day today. Hopefully tomorrow will be the same. We have no school, so I've got three of Gracie's friends coming over to play and I'm planning on them spending most of their time in the backyard.

On one last (totally unrelated) note, Grace had to create more "No Alex" signs for her bedroom door to keep her brother out. They crack me up, so I figured I'd share them here.

This one shows frowning Alex next to Grace.

Here is Alex's frowning face in a sea of "No Alex" x's.

And this is the one I like the best. Frowning Alex (wearing bunny jammies), big "No Alex" x's, and a big block of "No No No's" to really get the point across.