Monthly Archives: March 2009

Hello from the tunnel inside my head. Where does the tunnel go? One would hope – I would hope -  the tunnel goes to the outside world. But maybe not. It may be more like the People Mover in Detroit, on a  little sad loop.

The antibiotics have batted back the illness in my sinuses, nose, throat. My ears don’t hurt. Instead, they feel like they need to be popped. Like when we flew to SF in May and my ears didn’t unpop the whole 5 day visit. I am on day 6 of the home game. I don’t like it.

The only plus I have found at all is that if I think the TV is too loud, I know without a doubt that I am right. And the kids can’t claim they can’t hear it. As the pain of the ear infection has left, I am thinking of crazy ways to clean out my Eustachian tube. I wonder if an airplane trip would help. Or diving. Or Scuba! What? I can hear most things, it is just the whisper or quiet aside that is lost. And I want to find it again. Maybe I could find it on a trip to somewhere warm…

There seems to be a practical joker in our midst. On Monday night, I felt horrible. My cold turned up the volume and filled my ears with fluids. I crawled into bed and slept for 9 hours. At 4am, I was warm. And uncomfortable. The blankets were all wrong. I went back to sleep. In the morning, Miranda asked Rob if he noticed anything about his bed last night? And he said that he barely slept in the bed between my sickly snoring and the cries of the children. Oh, she said, you did notice I short sheeted your bed?

So that was 1.

Yesterday, my mom reached for some Cheerios for Bella. This was after I went to the doctor and came home with an antibiotic for my double ear infection. My mom found the Cheerios bag in the Raisin Bran box and the Raisin Bran bag in the Cheerios Box. Laugh Out Loud!

Was that 2?

I went to sleep early again. As an aside – could that be my problem – “Going to bed before 11 ruins woman’s health, news at 11?”  And I woke up with my eyes stuck shut with oozy goo. Pink Eye. Lovely. As loyal readers know, Bella had pink eye last week. Urgent Care was doubtful I would have caught it from her now now. The doctor prescribed some lovely drops. And I can see again!

And I can only hope that there were no shenanigans planting germs for the worst practical joke ever. Or Miranda will never leave her room again.

In other news:

Urgent Care was hilarious as always. We were the first patients, I think. Rob was a sweetheart and drove me there and did the touching of all of the paper so I contaminated fewer surfaces. I had been keeping my eye closed and not wiping it so it had the full effect. The urgent care doctor started by saying that most conjunctivitis is viral. But this is not. This is classic bacterial. We then somehow discussed hand sanitizer. He told us about refusing to shake hands with patients who come in for STD examinations and then don’t wash their hands. And how he won’t eat at fairs because of the lack of hand washing and the high potential for food contamination. He went on and on. I guess we weren’t visually blanching enough at his fecal matter comment that he said, the young people working there don’t wipe and then they make food. So fecal matter, you know, poop gets on your food.

So true.

In retrospect, I only wish he had asked Rob, who was dressed for work, what he did. And then Rob could have said, “Oh, I’m a fair promoter.”

I’d have paid money for that one.

I may not have my health on my 33rd birthday, but I do have my sense of humor, my loving family and an active imagination.

Better than frogs, right?

Bella has pink eye. This morning, she had this little crust by her eye. At 11 am, I called the pediatrician’s nurse. She had seriously gunky eyes. The nurse surprised me by not having us come in but just calling in a script to CVS. Of course, it wasn’t there when I went to the pharmacy. When I followed up, the doctor’s office apologized and said it was was crazy and it would be called in ASAP.

Poor baby Bella is miserable. Her eyes are full of gooey icky yellow pus. The antibiotic drops sting, I think. She freaked out when she couldn’t open her eyes. I think it is going to be a long night.

My hands are chapped from the hand washing. I do not want my own case of pink eye. I don’t want my kids, who show such lovely talent at sharing, to share this. Is it time to wash down every surface of the house like a cruise ship when norovirus strikes?

Did you know that if you print more than 500 4×6 photos at Costco, the already delightfully low per print price gets even lower? From thirteen cents down to ten cents. Yes 10!

I actally printed 761 prints. No, I didn’t want to send a really cute picture of Bella to my closest 761 friends and I forgot how email works.

Henry is almost really better. Maybe. He has a rattly cough and stuffy nose, which was better than all green snot and sinus pain, and that was better than when it was vomit and fever. Two nights ago, my sinuses were full. My nose was running. And Henry had a hard night. So did Bella. So did Miranda. At 4 am, I heard each of my children fussing. I was comforting Bella. Rob was comforting Miranda. And Henry was convincing my mom he would sleep better on the couch.

I am such a mom now that when my head was full of snot and pressure and I felt like crap, I decided that if Henry wasn’t “better” in the morning, he was going to the doctor. He was no different – not better, not worse. In fact, in the inverse bell curve of that illness, he was still on the final upswing. But because I was sick, he was sick enough that I mentally rehearsed what I would tell the doctor.

I did not take him to the doctor. He continues to improve. Bella may still have a few more days to go.

Bella cut her second tooth! The other bottom tooth. She now thinks she should eat pears, apples, bread in large chunks. She is wrong.

Henry got glasses. He is wearing them, not quite 100% of the time. He sits further from the television screen. Pleased, I told the eye doctor. He said, oh. It turns out Henry is farsighted and the glasses don’t help with television watching.  Beyond that, Henry has amblyopia like Miranda, only a mild/moderate case. He can see 20/30 in the “bad” eye with his glasses.

Being five seems to tap some spiritual/religion/church region of the brain. At least in my two children who have reached age 5. In the car today (of course in the car), Henry was thinking about Jesus. I think watching Miranda make her First Communion banner might have been the genesis, but he had been talking for a few minutes without a response from me required.

Henry: Is God the same as Jesus?

Me: [Thinking rapidly about the trinity and unitarians] Yes.

Henry: So God is Jesus?

Me: Yes, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are all one.

Henry: Hmmm.

Me: Well, God speaks to us in different ways [trying to articulate on a 5 year old level why the Trinity makes sense. Even when the Trinity doesn't always make perfect sense to me.]

Henry: Yes. Like in Spanish

Me: ?

Henry: [giggling] Or in China where he speaks Chinese

Me: Well

Henry: Or Idaho.

Henry: Or New York!

* * *

We’ll be wearing the green tomorrow. And I might even try to translate the shamrock into the trinity a la St Patrick.

Arabella cut her first tooth on Wednesday (3/11 when I comb through this blog for facts about Bella for her baby book.) It is the lower right tooth. When I face her, it is the left tooth, so that makes it her right tooth. Have I mentioned I hate left and right? What a stupid concept. If someone tried to introduce this style of moving direction…it would fail.

Six months old and she cut her first tooth. Grandma said she had to “first” something over the other two. They both waited until 7 months.

Miranda has been working on her second teeth. We made the trip to the free consultation at the orthodontist. If we paid him, do you think he might have been more optimistic? The treatment – palette widening spacer applicances now, braces when she has all adult teeth – makes sense to me because it is the same treatment I had. The spacing appliance is crazy. It is removable for brushing. It has tiny little screws to be turned 3x a week. I don’t like this removable business. I can hear the begging now. Just out for 1/2 an hour?

The cost was sending me straight to the classified employment ads. As an aside, there are no jobs now. Miranda seems to have inherited my teeth to some degree. If the children are similar and the retail cost for orthodontic treatment is $5K per child…let’s just say I better get to work. Then the insurance estimate came through and the thought of $3K per child is so much more soothing.Which is to say, I am delusional.

Bella screams whenever her sharp little tooth touches her tender gum. I think we might see tooth #2 in the near future. And maybe it will be better spaced than Miranda and Henry’s adorable pearly whites, but I doubt it.

Last week, we started taking walks. We tried out Arabella’s new stroller.

Bella's red roadster

The wheel is a tad wobbly, but that’s neither here nor there. We should take advantage of the wind/rain/snow/flood conditions to try to true the wheel, but we won’t. We’ll probably just sulk. And enjoy the security of knowing we now have a generator.

On the bright side…

I wasn’t home when Henry threw up yesterday.

Miranda had a friend over, had a great time, and her friend left before the power went out.

We found my mom a pink Electra Townie bike for her birthday and we only had to drive to Sheboygan Falls to buy it.

My mom had a lovely birthday today. We had Costco chocolate chocolate cake.

The basement did not flood yesterday while the power was off for 4 hours through the heroic efforts of Rob and my parents.

Our neighbors were swell and hooked us up to their generator to run one of our sump pumps.

The Ace hardware stayed open an extra 5 minutes so I could rent a generator to run our second sump pump.

Despite not having heat for 4 hours and opening the door repeatedly, the hosue was only 69 degrees when the pwoer came back on. Score one for our general high temperature setting.

Henry slept through the majority of the power outage. (He was running a fever and that was concerning, but this is the bright side and having one less person complaining about all of the things she can’t do without electricity is a good thing.)

Miranda learned much more about electricity.

It didn’t rain today on my mom’s actual birthday. The horrible wintry snow-sleet mix that fell while I rushed to Ace melted.

Arabella is 6 months old today. She got 3 shots plus 1 oral vaccine to potentially save her life, someday.

Miranda had to write about her experience in a storm in school today. And she had one:

“Yesterday on 3/8/09, My family’s power went out. I had to take care of my baby sister 6 months for half an our because my mom was at the store. cause the electricity was out so our sum-pump didn’t work so our basement almost flooded. So while my grandma was filling buckets with water my dad was carying them up the stairs and outside. My grandpa was poring the buckets of water outside. When the power first went off I was a little afraid to youse the toylet cause grandpa would have to pour water into it.”

Bella is sitting up! Well, in a  sloppy sort of way. She can sit until she notices something to the left and then she flops. She is getting louder — when she wakes up, when she’s hungry (she’s always hungry!), when she thinks you’ve put her down to get a cookie and you’re not sharing.

And last night, Miranda went on a sleepover. She had a lovely time and I won’t detail that. I think 7.5 may be my Waterloo in kid privacy online. OK, more like the Battle of Lexington and Concord. But I still feel comfortable discussing my reactions. And writing down things I think we will all look back on with amusement. The house was so quiet while Miranda was gone. Even after bedtime. Even after my bedtime. I was delighted she was having fun. I didn’t want her to come home. But it was just so weird to have one less kid, especially considering we have only had three kids for less than 6 months.

When Bella was born, the floppy itty-bitty sleepy newborn baby stage didn’t scare me because we really lucked out and Bella was an easy baby. But at least a little of my perspective was due to perspective. This too shall pass. This stage won’t last forever. Whether I liked it or hated it, it won’t last forever. When I was changing diapers all day long – breastfeeding plus a willingness to respond to her every squeak – I could see potty training n the distant horizon. In 3 years, we’d have a little girl and she might wipe her own bottom. Hallelujah!

I still believe that. In nearly 6 months, Bella has stayed delightful, but she is almost an entirely different creature. She’s 3x the size for one thing. But I am not sure I was ready to see the horizon of when they all go off – to friends, activities, sports. I know they’ll all come home. But wow, will the house be quiet.