Madalyn broke her arm on the monkey bars at a park at a Christmas party about 5 minutes after we arrived.  (This was the week before Christmas.)  I took her to the clinic and left the two older boys with friends- thank you, friends!  These pictures were when we were leaving the clinic and headed to the hospital because her arm was literally in two pieces right there (you can see the pain on her face- it sort of sedated her, poor thing,) and she needed to be anesthetized to set it back in place.

She was so tough.  The x-rays made her nervous because she knew they'd be moving her arm around and so she vomited once during those, but she really was a trooper.  We were at the ER for probably 7 hours, till after midnight, she and I.  I stayed in the room to witness the loud CLICK when the doctor got the bone back in place... she said ow, ow, ow... really steadily and methodically and monotone during this process because they said technically she could feel everything but wouldn't remember it.  Uh.  My heart hurts remembering that.  And then when she woke up she was hilarious.  She kept saying, "thwhy am thy thalking thike this?"  And "why doth my Barbie hath two heads?"  Then she would look at the super sweet grandfatherly nurse and say "why do you hath two headths?"  And he would laugh.  She also stared at the red light clamped to her thumb like she was on an acid trip.  The entire staff was thoroughly entertained.  A five year old girl is a precious thing.

This was the sling and stint she left the ER in because they couldn't cast it until the swelling went down.  And it was bound to have swelling.  When I first got to her after her fall I lifted her sleeve to see her arm bent into an unnatural S curve.  The clinic doctor said he'd seen plenty of grown men come in crying over a fracture like that.  Poor baby girl.

Took these pics Christmas morn.  I have seen that dress about every other day for the past several weeks, by the way, because it was one of the few things that would fit over her arm.

Having your bones in place is a glorious thing, isn't it?

And after Christmas this was the cast she got.  The cast with the ginormous elbow.  Not real impressed with the cast job the doc did, but that's ok because it served its purpose and guess what... it's OFF now!! She got it off last Thursday and didn't even want to save it.  I kind of wanted to because she went to her first sleepover and told me she stared at what I wrote on the cast when she was trying to sleep and she said, "and it was so sweet and it made me miss you."  :(  But can I really blame her for wanting to trash it and never look at it again?  I mean... you can imagine the SMELL.  Not something most people would hang onto, I guess.  On a side note, isn't Sam getting BIG?!!  :)     

Labels: boo boos, Madalyn, milestones, pics, pictures, sick days

Yesterday morning Madalyn walked out of her room to find me in the kitchen: "My throat hurts like I'm gonna throw up" she said.

And then as soon as she'd spoken she threw up bile.

She does this in the mornings every so often... if she doesn't eat her dinner and wakes up with low blood sugar or dehydrated or an empty stomach... for whatever reason both she and Jack have these mornings once in a blue moon.  It is usually a one time episode, but yesterday I must've given her muffins and milk too soon because right after we got her all dressed and bathed, complete with hair bow, she did it again.  Twice.  At that point I was in the bathroom giving a slightly constipated two-year-old a potty pep talk.  She came in, sat on the floor and said, "I'm gonna throw up again."

"Okay," I said,  "well do it on the floor- on the tile- move to the-"

And I will spare you of sound effects but let's just say she didn't move from the bath mat to the tile but heaved chocolate chip muffins all over her legs and skirt, and the bathmat. 

It was one of those moments when I wasn't sure what to address first... the now-hungry baby crying in his crib, the toddler who had just had victory on the potty and needed wiping, or the vomit...  I decided to go get cleaner (having a newborn in the house, and just in case it was a virus,) and while I was gone the toddler, who was given strict instructions to not dismount the potty, had done just that and was jumping on our upholstered bedroom chair.  At this point, I should add, I had already sopped up some of the vomit that had, after all, reached the tile as well as the bathmat, and sprayed cleaner there.  Now, once I realized the toddler was jumping with a soiled derrière in our bedroom, all else became background music (if background music from a horror flick.) I tore into the bedroom after him, yelling, and probably appearing like some monster from that horror flick, head spinning like girl from The Exorcist.

His natural response to my furious chase was- to run.  And so he took off running away from me, back toward the bathroom in all his nakedness, in all his fear... at this point I am telling him not to run because I see where this is going... and it does... he slides through the vomit and cleaner as if on ice, clear across the bathroom until his feet go up in the air and he hits his head on the tile.  And what do I do?  In all of my nurturing glory?  I tell him this is what happens when he disobeys mommy- he gets poop on my chair, and vomit on his feet, and hits his head on the floor- all because he didn't stay on the potty. 

Long story short, and somehow or other, the two middle children end up in the shower and the baby gets fed... although not without me first walking by the eldest, who was sitting by the front door sniffling because he thought I spanked his little brother (he has never cared before but he had not been part of the fiasco and felt left out) and so I had to answer to him, the third parent in the house, and tell him I had not, in fact, spanked his little brother but he had hit his head running from me in disobedience, hence the racket.  The eldest responded by saying he would just sit by the front door and play his video game until his grandmother arrived.  You know, an adult who would be, how should he put it?  Sane.

Wow, am I super mom or what, I thought.  Whatever, I thought next.  Then my third thought wasn't really a thought but more of a hysterical, crazy-woman laugh. 

This is because:  A) with your first kid you are determined to not mess up... and then you do.  Once.  B) So you have another kid, and you look at them in all their pure, newborn glory and think, okay, this one I haven't messed up yet, clean slate.  And then you mess up.  More than once.  C) Then, with your third, you start learning it's okay to mess up and be, you know- fallen and human and all of that- because if we could attain their salvation then Jesus died for nothing... and besides which, mess-ups and all, they are still turning out to be really great kids...

But the fourth?  By the fourth kid you just start laughing;  a good, hysterical, long laugh at how serious you used to take yourself and your parenting, because now you know it's ENITRELY up to Jesus, your parenting highs and lows... and if they sit in a counselor's office saying as much, lamenting about what a horrible parent you were, you will not only be okay with that, but you know your next best move will be to say "Amen, son, amen" and "I am so sorry."  (Not that we ever stop trying to do them better...be better... but at some point we have to accept that we are imperfect and they will get some of our baggage and be imperfect, too, no matter how hard we try to prevent it... that's the nature of it.  Literally.  This stuff called sin.)  And because you realize this you are able to laugh, free to laugh... to have a really pleasant, if seemingly psychotic laugh over your morning.

I'm not making sense, am I?  I'm overanalyzing, aren't I?  Okay, so maybe scratch all that.  That's because I should be napping.  And instead I'm going to tell you another story, another confessional, if you will... about this morning.

This morning I was watching the kids swim outside when Evan broke through the surface of the water with a piercing scream and holding his ear.  I glibly mentioned an ear infection possibility and that we should see if it keeps bothering him, but you don't glibly mention anything to Evan.  (What I should've said was that it was his imagination and to stop pretending so hard or something to that effect.)  Anyway, I didn't, and next thing I knew he wouldn't move his head,  and was keeping a permanent hand over his ear as though it might fall off if he moved too suddenly.  He was also screeching in sudden pain every time he moved right or left. 

SO, seeing as how it was almost lunch time, I packed three lunches, got the other two kids out of the pool- loaded up the baby- and we headed for the clinic because none of us want to hear screams like this for the rest of the day.  The clinic was so full there was nowhere to sit, or stand, really... so we left... loaded back in the car, all five of us, two in car seats, where the kids ate lunches and I nursed... then we drove to a different clinic- much further away.

On the way we got ice cream cones at Chic Fil A and after we got on the road again and made some headway, Madalyn dropped hers between the seat and the side of the car... 

I dare you to ask me if I was cool and calm- ask me if I was patient and collect- go ahead, ASK ME!  (I wasn't.)  I said why in the world couldn't she now pick it up, why couldn't she reach it, I said things along the lines of "you've got to be kidding me" and "unreal"... things that I'm sure will resurface in our counseling days.  We pulled over and I climbed in the way back from outside the car and cleaned it up best I could, and cleaned her up, too... soothed her and told her we'd get another and I did know it wasn't her fault... all of that pasting together what had come unglued, you know...  It was a really pretty scene for the Shell station to witness, let me tell you...

So an ice cream cone and drive-thru line later, we were then on our way to clinic #2 with ice cream cone #2, where there was no line (praise God!)  The kids were great in there (praise God.)  The only upset was that when the doc looked in Evan's ear- finally- while we all held our baited  breaths, knowing we were about to get a nasty report on how his bloody, pussy ear drum had already ruptured and he would be partially deaf for the rest of his life (judging by his carrying on)- what happened? 

The doc said: hmm.  Well, it's certainly not infected.

And then she suggested that maybe he just had a little pressure from his sinuses when he swam way down.  Pressure?  A little pressure?  Let's talk about pressure, SHALL WE.  And right now I am laughing again.  And dancing a little... to that song that just popped in my head from the 80's or 90's- "pressure- pressing down on me, pressing down on you..." I could do a really rad break dance to that song right now and I think I would feel so much better.  I love that song, do you?  WHY do I love that song?  It's probably perverted, right?  I have no idea what it's talking about but I dig it.

But I digress.  So nothing is wrong with his ear, (but don't try to tell him that.)  Because now his neck hurts from straining it to protect his not-hurt ear for the last three or four hours.  Seriously, he walked around for hours as though he were wearing an invisible neck brace, wincing in pain.  So by this point in the day, when we were leaving the clinic, he really was in pain as he had given himself a neck ache, and I made him nap when we got home. When he lay down in his bed (after many cries of pain to get comfortable) he looked at me and said very matter-of-fact, "I think I'm dying." 

Wow.  Dying?  Really? 

Let's hope not because I will not be able to live with the amount of guilt I have from not believing him.

Ah, and now see how this ends... he just walked in here just now and said he feels better after sleeping and is fine. 

Sleep.  I forgot how magical that stuff is.

On another note, our 9 year anniversary is tomorrow.  NINE years.  Wow.  I said to Shaun who knew in nine short years here we would sit- with 4 kids and a dog- and after 6 moves, 10 job changes, 1 business started... I told Shaun if someone told me 9 years ago that all of this would happen in the next decade, along with some family deaths and a divorce, a surgery for a two-year-old and who can remember what else... I think I would've stuck my head in the ground. 

But as Beth Moore says, sometimes God wants to show us that we're capable of a lot more than we think we are... 

You know, like being able to move our heads around without our ears falling off.

Labels: dumbhead parenting, Evan, sick days

Went to the Dermatologist. He loved me. I felt completely exploited while he took pictures, (all too excitedly,) of my arms and legs and feet and hands... and as he chose which part of the rash to biopsy... where to leave behind two little stitches. (And for the record, my inner thigh is NOT the "place least likely to annoy me," GENIUS.) Maybe for a person with twig legs, but these two thighs touch each other... in fact, they are good friends, and sometimes they flat out make out.

I took out my dad's stitches once when I was little, so I know how, and I can see that I'm healed and I think- shhh, don't tell Shaun, (he thinks I'm nuts)- that I might be sneaking them out myself as soon as I can buy scissors small enough...

Anyway, the Derm seemed to lean toward Guttate Psoraisis. He said it can be chronic. He said if it was, our treatment might be limited with my fair skin and with as wide spread as it was but let's just wait two weeks and go from there. TWO. WEEKS. I have already waited SIX weeks, two more seems like an eternity, but yeah, okay...

He was a real Pollyanna, that guy.

Right then I knew that some tears would go down, but could I hold it together till I got to the car? The nurse's empathy didn't help. Be strong, be STRONG... eeerrrrr. I growled inside my head for motivation and clenched my teeth like Rocky.

I made it to the car and called Shaun and the sound of his sweet voice might as well have been a megaphone commanding the floodgates to open. Poor guy thought I had been diagnosed with Lymphoma for sure because I couldn't even pull it together to say hello. Silence, while my chest bobbed and nothing came out. And I'm not really a crier. Seriously. I'm not.

I pulled it together enough to tell him I wasn't dying, and then I had to sob like a baby a few more times. I said, "you know, I've tried to be a good sport, I've thought 'well it's all relative, my health is generally good, it's no big deal,'" But I forgot that I was human and humans have to- occasionally- you know, be human. And part of being human is having emotions and ups and downs. So I threw myself a big pity party and Shaun was an awesome guest.

I called my Uncle R. when I got home (plastic surgeon) and he tried to lift my spirits and remind me that I was told "CAN be chronic" and that the doctor was doing the right things. I called my friend Jennifer who has, ironically, come down with the SAME thing, Guttate Psoraisis, and we're going to start a support group, so I think I'll get through...

Spent the weekend at the Springs and Gaylord Palms shooting sessions, so there's plenty of work to distract me. Two weeks will fly by- as they always have since having Evan.

But in the meantime, my Aveeno bath calls. Thanks for listening. If you made it this far, you are a better person than me. I would've tuned you out by now.

Labels: Illness, sick days

Many of you sweet friends have emailed and asked about my rash, or asked me in person... more than once...

Look, I know. I know you're SICK TO DEATH of the whole thing. I am, too! More than you! I promise. I appreciate your caring and your empathy, I really do. But for future reference, you don't have to ask anymore. It's really not worth losing friends over, so if you're bored with it, just talk to me about the weather. You can just check rash updates here. Or not. Makes no difference to me, except that I am so over this rash dominating my conversation... my face... my LIFE!

So here you have it, the latest update:

This is our dishwasher caddy. How many droppers do you see? Go ahead. Count....

There are 15. When you give three kids doses from three bottles of antibiotics twice a day, it adds up. But we just gave them their last doses, so hallelujah, Strep Throat is now behind us!

But the rash, with me, remains.

I have had 4 pills for 5 days, 3 pills for 5 days, and just dropped to two, only not with much visible improvement.

A couple weeks ago we learned that Shaun would be at a business conference over his upcoming birthday weekend while I'm in Gainesville shooting my cousin's wedding. I felt so bad about it I decided to plan a special night for him in advance, to celebrate his turning the ripe old age of 28.

I made reservations at Manuel's on the 28th, (fitting, is it not,) and reserved tickets at the SAK theatre and told my rash it had two weeks to disappear. Period. No arguments.

It obeyed me about as well as my children:

Okay, so you can't really see it here, but it's a funny picture. Can you tell that I was physically making Shaun smile while he was madly changing out of work clothes and into formal clothes?

How about this one:

(And I've blown it up nice and big here so you're sure not to miss my elbow there in the bottom right corner... and my neck... and the dried up creases around my face that have me looking 50 years old.)

Yes. It's still very much with me. Don't make me take a picture of my legs! And I'm hoping that when it does finally go it will leave me with brand new skin underneath. Kind of like having a professional face peel. That might make it worth it.

Also especially wonderful for this night, I had the lovely accent of a black eye, courtesy of Jack, who, while having his diaper changed first thing the other morning was holding his janitor kit broom and thought it hilarious to slam the frame of it down on my face while I was half-asleep. Yes, that woke me up alright, if you were wondering:

Now, I tried to do some heavy eye make-up on the other eye to make them kind of even, so I think that really worked it, but you can see the extensive damage this kid is capable of. (I circled it and starred it in case you were to miss it, and then I decided the star looked like a horn and couldn't help but add another one. I'm all crazy and wild like that on this Prednisone. LOOK OUT!)

Soooo, what can I say? I mean, I'm not sick. Not really. I'm not throwing up. For that, I've tried to be a good sport, but it's getting old. I've so over it. I'm tired of Shaun humming Sleigh Ride whenever I scratch my forehead. I'm tired of having to dust the snowy skin off my keyboard and my desk chair and my glasses frames... as it dries, and peels, and STAYS right where it is.

Despite the skin, we had a good night. (I'll admit, I chose the long sleeves and black tights to prevent people from gagging up their gourmet meals.) Who can enjoy food when staring at skin disorders? And I'm still not sure what, exactly, the waiter was using his little metal crumb scraper to scrape off the table- the fresh bread crumbs or my skin. But either way, the city lights were all people seemed to notice out the all-glass slanted walls of the 28th floor. It was a peaceful night. So peaceful we decided to forgo the theatre so we could sit longer with our butterscotch coffee and hot lava cake and do nothing.

We went home relaxed, every muscle limp. In a good way. And only until we awoke the next morning to a toddler's room smeared floor to ceiling with poop the next morning. Well, I should say until SHAUN awoke. (My Benadryl was still in full force and I've cleaned up poop 4 times this week, so I let his birthday bash come to a dead screeching, halting end.) Back to the real world. How quickly it comes at you.

Labels: funnyman, sick days

"Why are you writing a blog at 6AM, Katie, have you lost any shred of sanity you had left?"

"Why, because I've been wide awake on Steroids since 5."

"Why are you talking to yourself, Katie?"

"Because I lost every last shred of sanity I had."

Okay, I'm creeping myself out, and that sounds too much like church liturgy for being about a crazy person, but here is the thing:

Yesterday morning I went to the clinic again and was told we would be bringing out "the big guns" and I was to soon start a 20 day pack of Prednizone (sp?) along with daily doses of Zantac and Zyrtec- while this is not something out of a Dr. Seuss book, I still very much LOOK like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. One of the polka dotted Zats, perhaps? But what's more, the Steroids are keeping me from sleeping, and so I'm starting to ACT like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Madalyn before school, yesterday:

I picked Evan up from his Valentine's Party to find he had a fever, and Jack, at that point, did, too. Luckily, they had well visits scheduled for yesterday afternoon and were found to have Strep Throat. All three children are now on anti-biotics,\ (two days ago Madalyn told me her throat hurt and so we're not even waiting to go there- "just drug 'em up!")

Now when they go to a birthday party at Monkey Joe's this Monday they'll be good and sterile, I won't care if they lick the carpet and suck on the door handles. If I get any weird looks it'll be: "they're on antibiotics, it doesn't matter." And- 'I'm all drugged, so I don't think it would matter much to me either way.' (This part I would not share with said look-shooter.)

When we got home from going to the doctor and dragging our prescriptions and germs all through Publix, we hit a few bright spots in the road. The first was that we found two boxes on our front porch, one for me and one for Madalyn:

I think it's pretty clear Shaun is lying THROUGH HIS TEETH in my note. (See previous post pics if you are about to flatter me, YOU LIAR!)

And you wouldn't expect a three year old to get very excited about flowers, UNLESS you know Madalyn, who would rather get a spanking than obey directions not to run across the street and pick a flower. She was delighted and suppressed a very pleased smile while she tried to tear them from the box, along with the Teddy Bear. "It's my fav-o-rite bear in the whooole whird!"

Not only did we drive up to two boxes of flowers, BUT... drum roll....

NEW SOD!! (See behind girl holding flowers.)

And it's not even so bad that I'm up early this morning because: A)I haven't even had coffee and I feel like I've had 5 cups. B) I have already run the dishwasher and one load of laundry. C)I have now written a blog, very important and D) what will happen, I wonder, when I DO have a cup of coffee?

PS- If your children were in school with my children Thursday, I AM SO SORRY.

PPS- If your children were within the vicinity of my children anytime in the last 48 hours, you might want to see a doctor.

Labels: Madalyn, pics, sick days

Four days ago: Madalyn sucks the length and breadth of every pole and handrail Universal offers her while waiting in line for Lee Tee, and despite our scolding to stop already, haven't you heard about germs yet because WE TELL YOU ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME?

Three days ago: She incubates. She is, unbeknownst to us, a walking Petri dish.

Two days ago: She crawls in our bed at 4AM and coughs like she surely will die in the next 24 hours.

One day ago: She begins running a low-grade fever and throws some more deathbed coughs in for effect.

Tonight: Katie and Madalyn drive all over Orlando looking for a place that will take her and her spiking fever (as well as her drama-queen-whooping-cough.) Minute Clinic says she's too little. Pediatric After Hours says her chest is clear as can be, but finds her throat culture most positive for Strep.

(I should've known that's what she meant when she said, "my mouth hurts." But she says this when her stomach hurts, too... like 'my stomach is IN my mouth.') Her cough was just communication; "I think you may have temporarily forgotten how miserable I am, so let me put it this way: if how I felt were a noise, it would sound like this- uhuwaolauhua."

Currently: TWO HOURS and two pharmacies later, we are home and the first dose of Amoxicillin rests soundly in her stomach... right next to a Wendy's frosty. She may not have Pneumonia, not even a speck of phlegm in her chest, but she does have Strep Throat. And Strep Throat hath EARNED her a frosty, gosh darn it.

A friend of mine just commented on my last post and asked if we were now officially theme park people after having such a great time at Universal... um, no. I think this goes to show we are officially NOT theme park people. (At least not until Madalyn stops mistaking the handrails for candy canes.)

Labels: Madalyn, national lampoon family vacations, sick days