Another week wanting Grandma

Monday morning, we started out with a bang. Eden was feeling better, so she went off to daycare. Al always takes Easter Monday off, so I was hoping to get in the car with him and the baby, take a drive or just sit around and chat with my husband. Instead, he was sick and I made him another appointment with the doctor, who put him on a 10 day antibiotic and a Medrol pack. He then came home and slept all afternoon on the couch while I paced upstairs with Lars, who cried and cried and cried. Before we picked Eden up from daycare, we took a partial family trip to the chiropractor, who put us all back together. Supper was kind of a ‘whatever you see, you can have’ so, Eden had cottage cheese and ice cream. She then wet her pants, crawled into the tub to wash up, and threw up in the bathwater. Al had to take care of that, because I was still pacing with Lars.

Tuesday was another trip. Al was still feeling under the weather and I was hopelessly miserable with a cold. Eden was having to play by herself this day, and she did very well. She was bored by the end of the day, and we managed a 20 minute trip outside to the back yard. We sat and read a lot of stories. She had a major pooping episode after Al left for his Elder’s meeting that evening, so I put her in the shower. I ran up to settle Lars, who had been sleeping fine until this moment. When I came back, the shower door was open and Eden had taken the shower head and was spraying the entire bathroom with it. I had a big mess to clean up while she was jumping in the ‘puddles’ on the floor, laughing.

Wednesday, I determined my week long cold was in need of some better drugs. I hauled over to the clinic and came home with bronchitis. Ok, I probably went over with it, but I still think it was just a bad cold. Since Lars had the same cough, I took him over later that afternoon. I’m glad we live only a block away. He, too, is on the verge of pneumonia. They gave him a steroid shot and some more antibiotics. He just cries and cries. Wednesday night, I had a final fundraiser meeting for next week’s BIG auction event. This is going to be a lot of fun. Bridgeport is going to be on the map after this!

Just as I’d turned into bed that night, the pager went off for a car fire.

I got home at 0200 on Thursday, just in time for Lars to wake up. From 0200 on, he slept in exactly 20 minute increments from then until 0700. Thank goodness the steroids were keeping me awake and sustaining me all day! By noon, I was desperate for adult help, so I called Laura, who came over after work and rocked Lars until he fell asleep. We visited for a bit. She then took Eden home to play with her girls and brought her back for supper. It was WONDERFUL and THANK YOU LAURA!!

I also got a phone call from the clinic that day, advising me that my daughter has tested positive for the HIB Virus (Haemophilus influenza type b) which, according to the CDC’s website, “often leads to pneumonia, meningitis and other invasive respiratory diseases in children almost exclusively under age 5.” She has a secondary infection of Maroxella, which is basically the same thing, with an average of 400 deaths resulting each year in America. Needless to say, she is now on her 3^rd high dose of antibiotics.

Friday, I got to sleep in until 0800 as my wonderful hubby couldn’t’ sleep and fed Lars twice in the night. Eden wanted pancakes, so I was quick to oblige. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t take her medicine and had to forfeit the pancakes. I had to have our pharmacist refill the script in a liquid form. I had a BIG meeting at the hospital, and all of our food and supplies got dropped off at the fire hall for the REALLY BIG auction next week. The boxes take up nearly the entire space of the fire hall. When I got home, Eden was putting her coat on, ready to go to the park. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we got to spend some good quality time together as a family. I’d show you the pictures, but the card reader to our new camera melted.

Saturday, we went out to the Easter Egg hunt which was cancelled last Saturday due to a sudden snowstorm. Eden had a good time, but still really didn’t know why she was doing this. Both kids napped in the afternoon, and I got some much needed quiet time. My daffodils bloomed, too.

Sunday started out with snow and turned into a typical Sunday…mom and dad hoping for a nap and instead having cranky children. Lars still does not feel good. Eden still will not take her antibiotic. Mom and Dad are still in the midst of their drugs. Hopefully, we’re on the uphill side of this now!

Happy Easter

Easter Tidings to you!

Our week can be summed up in about two words: Holy Week. Or in our house, Hectic Week.

If that doesn’t suffice, how about a short list?
Monday night: Sarah Weight Watchers meeting (I lost another 1.2 pounds!)
Tuesday night: Sarah EMS meeting
Wednesday night: Confirmation class - Sarah Fire dept. meeting.
Thursday night: Maundy Thursday service.
Friday night: Good Friday service
Saturday: It snowed three inches. My children cried all morning.
Sunday: Breakfast at 0700, Service at 0900, Dinner with the Halls at 1:00p

A few highlights:

Thursday afternoon, a bunch of little girls came over to dye Easter eggs. That was an hour of fun and excitement. What egg dying day would be complete without stained carpet and broken eggs, though?

Eden is sick again. Has had a fever on and off for about 3 days. When the fever was gone, the coughing fits started and a runny nose followed. Daddy and baby finished up their antibiotics on Thursday. Eden started new antibiotics on Friday. Mommy has a self-diagnosed ear infection and is taking old antibiotics from the last time she had an ear infection. It is helping.

Lars cried most of the week. Four continuous hours on Wednesday, until he finally gave up and fell asleep. Thursday morning, he had a tooth! Thursday afternoon, he again cried until supper time when he fell asleep. Friday morning, he woke up with a second tooth! A full six months before Eden had teeth. I need consistency, people!

On Saturday, the community wide Easter egg hunt that the fire department puts on was cancelled due to the 3” on snow that had fallen overnight. I missed the memo and showed up anyway. It was good to get out of the house for a few minutes.

Sunday started our early, with Easter Breakfast beginning at 0730. Worship was at it’s regular 0900 slot. I had put a ham in the oven before we left for church, so we came home to change clothes, photograph the kids for Easter and then take off. It was 60 degrees this afternoon, so everybody got to play outside a bit. I played with our new camera at the Hall’s.

Mommy, Daddy and Eden all have nasty coughs. Since Daddy has the cough medicine with Codine, Mommy has to refrain from taking any medicine at night or else nobody would hear Lars. I keep thinking Al’ll get better so that I can have a shot of it, but alas, no such luck.

That’s all for this week.

A true flower child

Eden attempted to climb into Lars' crib, but got stuck.

Can you hear her yelling, "MOMMY I STUCK!!"

The painting is finished!

Wow, what a busy week! I don’t know where the time goes this time of year. I am so anxious for spring to be here, I can hardly stand it. The weather was so nice last week and this week has been cold and snowy. We’ve not been able to walk much because of the wind. Yesterday, we took the kids out at 45 degrees and by the time we were walking home, it was 30 and snowing!

Eden went to daycare two days this week so that we could finish the house painting project. Phase four was quite an undertaking, but we are so pleased with the results. I hope the slideshow of pictures tells our story well. I love the stripes!

On Monday, I went back to Weight Watchers as soon as Al got home from work. Hesitant to step on the scale, I slipped my shoes off (every little bit helps!) and I had lost 2.8 pounds! I was estatic and treated myself to ice cream that very night.

Al had a meeting in Harrison on Tuesday, which is 100 miles away, so it was a long day for everybody. I had a fund-raiser meeting that night, so as he was coming home, I was going out the door once again. The fire department is going to host several meals the first week of April, due to the World’s Biggest Auction which is going to be held here in Bridgeport that week. More on that later.

Wednesday was much of the same, with Chiro appointments for Daddy and baby in the morning, then church in the afternoon and evening. It was 7^th-8^th grade questioning night after service, so I took the kids to another fund-raiser meeting for the fire department and then home to bed. Lars still was not feeling well and cried himself to sleep in a fellow volunteer’s arms. Al got home shortly after we did.

Thursday, Daddy and Baby had a doctor’s appointment at the clinic. They both came home with antibiotics and cough syrup, due to double ear infections, sinus infections and general ‘icky-ness’. Lars is croupy, so he got some steroids, as well. Now, trying to get him to swallow it is another illness all it’s own.

Friday morning, Al and I were relaxing in bed with Lars, enjoying Eden’s decision to sleep in. Then the pager went off and it turned out to be a long morning. I got back just in time to go get my hair cut. After lunch, Al and I managed to get most of the house back together and pictures hung on the wall. Mark and Laura stopped by with the girls just as we were finishing putting the last frame on the wall. Their girls wore Eden out, so bedtime was a breeze for me.

Our big excitement for the week was that Al’s new camera came. It’s a Canon Eos Rebel digital and it cost as much as my first car. He purchased it with the money he got from selling his ’78. It arrived yesterday and already, it’s got nearly 90 photos on the card! It’s been fun to play with.

Sunday morning (it’s Confirmation Sunday, mind you) during the sermon, after much coaxing, Lars fell asleep on the floor. Eden looked up at her daddy in the pulpit and yelled, “Daddy, be quiet! Lars sleeping!” There was much laughter in and around our pew. Then, I left him on the floor to go up to communion. While I was gone, Eden pulled his pacifier out of his mouth and he woke up. I was not happy. Somehow, we made it to the end of service without getting kicked out.

If you watch the slideshow, this will make more sense. Some of our living room re-do includes the two blue chairs, the kitchen cabinet (which is an old wardrobe Al remade for me) which will have doors after Easter, as well as the artwork above the piano, the fall picture above the new chair and the “umbrella-scape” art. Keep in mind all of the walls were white upstairs, except in the bathroom and bedrooms. We started with the orange-y color (which, honestly, did not photograph well. It’s much better in real life), then went to the yellow-cream color in the stairwell, then the brown in the kitchen, and finally the green in the living room. Two of the walls are striped.

On a final note, I asked Al to touch up the copper wire colored paint along the railing just before we cleaned up for the night. It was nearly 10 p.m. and maybe that should have been my first clue to just forget it and go to bed. As I was in the kitchen putting paint supplies away, I heard a loud crash. I looked in the stairwell and Al was standing there painting, the look on his face unchanged. I said, “That didn’t sound good” and without looking away from his painting, he said, “No. No, not good at all. Pretty bad, actually.” I peered down the steps and concurred with him. “Not good at all.” An hour later, I was still cleaning the same spot….

Thus concludes our upstairs re-do.

A flurry of activity

While Eden is entertained by Tom & Jerry (whatever would we do without them?), I will make a quick re-cap of our busy week.

My new bed this week has been the floor in Lars’ room. He’s in the stage of being able to take his pacifier out of his mouth and not be able to get it back in. Though he thoroughly enjoys his thumb, he favors the paci in the dark. If I have to go upstairs 3x in the same hour, I just camp out on the carpet. If I don’t use a blanket or pillow, I don’t fall asleep hard enough to stay there all night. However, if I hit the creaky floorboard when I leave, I may as well have slept in the hallway.

Yesterday, Mark came and put a new garage door opener in our garage. Hopefully, this one will go up and down on command. Also, got a new washer door for my new washing machine. When they installed it a few weeks ago, it was cracked. Not to mention, it was installed incorrectly, and Al had to have Mark help him level it before I could do any laundry. But I digress….

I was also able to rake the front yard. We had a bad case of snow mold and it all needed to be raked out. That was a lot of work, but the weather was perfect & it's worlds better.

The biggest change of this week is that I started Weight Watchers last Monday night. Day one was on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I was standing in the kitchen at 3:00 in the morning, starving. By Thursday, I was pretty much near death and Friday, I thought I should give it up for the brownies that were on the counter. Then I remembered that I had purchased a one month pass for $40 and if I quit, my husband would probably finish me off for supper. I considered drinking beef broth from the can, as that is zero points, but I couldn’t find the can opener. So, I went back to bed with a large glass of water. I lived until the weekend, but it was touch and go for a while. I have taken a brisk walk every day this week, so I’m going to splurge with some ice cream tonight. Real ice cream. Not that fat free crap that take the sensitivity out of your taste buds. I’d rather eat pea soup.

Eden has a new nap time routine. It involves the customary story, followed by picking out two matchbox cars from her daddy’s box. Then, she gathers up 1-3 dollys, their respective blankets, pacifiers and bottles. We must change the dolly’s diaper and take at least one to the big girl potty. All of this involves stripping them down naked, wiping them with a wipe, then either redressing them and or putting on a diaper. Lars is running out of diapers at a fast rate. I tried to teach her how to use cloth diapers and pins and she looked at me like, “you’re joking, right mom?”

Since she wakes up Lars if she naps in her room, she has the privilege of sleeping on Mommy and Daddy’s bed. Friday, I found her fast asleep in the cradle that still sits by the bed, holding daddy’s jackknife, several screws and anchors, and a 1” drill bit. Mother of the Year Award. Right here.

Al is very close to having my new wardrobe-come-kitchen cabinet finished. He stained it on Saturday. It’s supposed to be in the 60’s the next few days, so, hopefully, we can get some polyurethane on it and ready to put in the house as soon as the walls are painted.

Which brings me to our latest project: painting the living room. Phase 4 of 4 will prove to be the most time-consuming. I had to take all the stuff out of the china cabinet, move and all the books off the large book shelf, as well as move out a dining room table and an open shelf that’s been chocked full of kitchen “stuff”. Then, I moved the couch and chairs, photos and wall stuff and looked at the piano thinking, “How can I move this upright all by myself??” That had to wait for help. Hopefully, tomorrow’s daycare day will let me get a base coat on.

Eden has learned that my name is Sarah. She uses it frequently when I am on the phone and ignoring her.

She has also potty trained herself almost completely. She can’t get herself up on the toilet, but is self sufficient in every other aspect. As soon as you get her butt to touch the seat, she’s looking at you, saying, “get out”. A minute or two later, she’s screaming, “WIPE!” I’m quite happy to have this much progress, however, she will only go on the toilets in our house. I hope this is only a phase!