Earl is Gone

I think we got a big gust of wind at about 2am last night. At least I won't have to water my plants today.

Waiting for Earl

I don't know if we'll actually get any bad weather from Hurricane Earl or not, but I do know that I risked my life today in extremely dangerous conditions when I made a trip to Walmart for bread and milk.

I've decided no more hard classes until my kids are all in school and I can actually take classes on campus. I hate online classes. It's taken me two weeks to get through chapter one of my Medical Terminology class. Unfortunately I have the first four chapters due in about two days.

Drake has a girlfriend.

Her name is Cinderella. She wears a blue dress. She goes places with us in the car, eats dinner with us, and does not like naps.
Luckily, imaginary girlfriends don't get cranky when they skip their naps.
Haven't been successful in getting a picture of the two of them together yet, but I'm working on it.

Sooooo

I feel so weird. I haven't typed for my own enjoyment for months now. My summer online classes completely burned me out and made me hate computers. At one point I seriously did not even check my email for three weeks. If you think I'm kidding, you have no idea how much stress I was under.
But it was such a fun summer once I decided that I was in over my head and started dropping classes. I really hate that I put so much on myself, but at least I know where my priorities really are and that what I thought I wanted to go to school for, I really don't want to do.
So, yea to lessons learned the hard way.

Let's see....
Skylar is being homeschooled. She just finished placement testing on Monday and yesterday and today we worked on finishing up getting her records sent to Southeast Academy. SEA is an online private school out of VA which we chose to go with rather than trying to go the homeschool route on our own. We pay a small monthly tuition and SEA sets up the curriculum (of which Sky gets to choose several electives) based on her test scores and past school transcript, grades the work (written and online), provides support, keeps the grades, provides the standardized testing and report cards, and a bunch of other stuff I'm leaving out. I'm hoping it will turn out to be a great choice. We just wanted Sky to have the organization and structure of a ready-made curriculum (not reliant upon her parents' poor planning skills), but still have freedom to go as fast or slow as she needs to, focusing on the things she needs or wants to work on. I want to be able to personalize her education to meet her needs, not the needs of public school.
Skylar plans on taking core subjects, as well as Spanish and (maybe next year) French. For her enrichment studies, there are lots of options. The art teacher at her former elementary school offered her the opportunity to come in and work on advanced projects as well as help with the younger art classes. She's getting plenty of PE in her dance classes. She's taking Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Lyrical, Hip Hop, and Pointe. The only other activity I'd like her to have on a regular basis is music. George could definitely help her out there, but we don't have any instruments in the house presently except for our keyboard. Sky said she'd like to take piano lessons, but we are already spending a small fortune on her dance classes. I dropped $150 in one day last week buying her pointe shoes, lyrical shoes, and a leotard. There is no way we can do piano lessons, too. Besides, I'm trying really hard to keep things as simple as possible (yeah right).
Bart and Drake and I are doing karate together. Drake is so cute! He actually does pretty well paying attention in class.
And Lucy, my "Miss Tippytoes", just had a birthday and is now actually two years old. Lucy dances around the house on tiptoe, just like her big sister, so she acquired the nickname "Miss Tippytoes". Even Drake calls her Miss Tippytoes. It's very cute.
Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned it, but since spring we have acquired a dog, two parakeets, and a cockatiel. I'm still not entirely sure how all this came about, but I will tell you it's kind of crazy but cool. The cockatiel is my bird, my early birthday present from George and the kids, and I named him Picasso. He likes to sit on my shoulder or hop down while I'm studying to nibble holes in the pages of my $200 text books. I don't mind at all - I think it's hilarious since the bookstore will only give me $10 for the things anyway, no matter how good the condition is. At least someone is getting some enjoyment from them.

Eat More Chicken

If you feel like hunting and catching your lunch:

http://conta.cc/a2mN3k

A couple of things

Sometimes you just get a reminder that you need to step back, look around, and remember what's important. After a bad scare with Bart last week, a visit to my psych, one really bad dream involving a drawbridge and being in too big of a hurry, and some tears of sympathy for a couple of friends who have recently lost loved ones, this is what I have determined:

What's really important to me:

#1) My kids - no explanation necessary

#2) My husband - since we're stuck with each other for a reallllllllllly long time, we'd better work on our compatibility issues

#3) The people who raised me, changed my diapers, loved me despite knowing me during my "big-hair" phase, or otherwise had to put up with me + hormones (parents, grandparents, siblings)

#4) Church and friends - they are the people who are really there for you & love you, after your family, of course, but you're not obligated to see them on holidays, special occasions, or buy them gifts

#5) Love - (this one needs some explaining since I've learned it can be translated two completely different ways, depending on whether you speak Female or Male. I do not speak Male, so I have learned by trial and error that Love can also mean Sex in that language. In Female, it almost NEVER means Sex, but usually always means a nice dinner, a movie, cuddling, an evening walk, holding hands, complimentary words, and even a new pair of shoes if you play your cards right---------- but this actually is probably the most important thing I have learned so far----------- Love means compromise whatever the language, so you have to be willing to do stuff you don't want to do when you REALLY don't feel like it because you love the other person)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#6) Possibly the dog - the jury's still out on that one, he peed on the laundry hamper today but he does this cute thing where he stands on his back legs and gives "high five"

#7) Sanity - it doesn't matter if I get everything done anyway if I get myself committed since the house will just be trashed again by the time they let me out, which leads to:

#8) Simplicity - if I'm not doing #'s 1-4 (and possibly #5) well, then it's time to cut back on the things that don't matter a hill of beans at the end of the day (this basically includes blogging, So You Think You Can Dance, keeping my toenails painted, and - luckily for me - vacuuming more than once a week). I am also using this one as an excuse for bombing my Precalc class this summer.

I'm not wise or anything, but after being with the same person for almost 14 years and raising a kid or four, you begin to notice certain patterns. Plus I just spent three hours in front of this computer doing Anatomy and Physiology homework and am pretty sure this is all a dream anyway!!!!!!!

It Figures

Wouldn't you know it? I decide to grow my hair out a little so that I can put it up in a ponytail on those days when I don't have time to blow dry and flat iron. And of course, my hubby tells me he prefers my hair chin-length like I got it cut last summer.

And this is after almost fourteen years of telling me that he likes my hair long. I've had it cut chin-length on several occasions before. Did he not notice? Did he black out for several years between 1997 and 2005? I just don't know. Is it because we're getting older? Does getting older mean you have to start liking short hair?

I've always liked a cute/sexy bob, but George has never been one for short hair on women.
I'm totally rambling, but I'm practically falling asleep at the keyboard after three hours of wading through quadratic equations and linear functions. Nothing makes sense. If my life were a function, it would be f(x)=-1. Constant, flat, unchanging!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brain is mush. I hate parabolas. Math is not a language I'm fluent in.

Guess where I went?

Yep. The hospital. Well, actually the Express Care, but it's attached to the hospital. Close enough.
That makes the third time I have been there in less than four months. This time, thankfully, it wasn't for Lulu.
I got bitten by a fire ant on my foot this afternoon, not a big deal. We get fire ant bites all the time. They hurt and itch like heck, but you put Benadryl spray on them and they're gone in a couple of days. This time, two of my toes and the top of my foot swelled up and over the neck half hour or so, I developed horrible itching and hives everywhere. It was so bad, even my scalp and the inside of my ears and my earlobes itched like the devil. My eyelids itched. It was gross. I didn't want to wear clothes because wherever my clothes touched, it was torture.
We had earlier gone to Skylar's non-dress dress rehearsal for her recital, and were headed home to get her ready for her very first school dance. (I don't know if she was excited about it, but I sure was). I was so looking forward to the whole thing - the getting her ready, helping her do her hair and paint her toenails, and giggling on the way over. I had bought her this really cute shirt to wear, and banana yellow nail polish.
I WAS NOT going to miss this, even if I swelled up like a balloon!!!!
It was close. By the time we got to the school, I was miserable. I couldn't stop itching for a minute, and the cafeteria where they held the dance was so hot, it was awful. My skin was so red and itchy and you could feel the heat coming off it. Hannah's mom offered to take Sky home for me if I wanted to go to the Urgent Care. At first, I refused to even think about leaving, but as the itching started to spread up my neck and face, I decided to take her up on her offer.
My Express Care experience was not too bad. I didn't even sit down in the waiting room, but was called right into Triage and given a room. While waiting, I got to watch some of Toy Story and The Incredibles on the Family Channel. In between the kids' movies were commercials for the Family Channel's "runaway hit" (their words, not mine), The Secret Life of the American Teenager. In the one commercial alone, the high school kids mentioned two different couples having sex and confronted a teen girl about a pregnancy. It's disgusting. The only thing more disgusting than the dialogue and plot is the acting. Shame on you, Molly Ringwald, for being a part of that!!!!
But I digress.
When the doctor came in, he said right off that I had had a bad allergic reaction to the insect bite. Luckily, it hadn't affected my breathing. He said that the swelling and itching wouldn't have just gone away by itself, that it likely would've lasted several days. I got a shot and some prednisone and they kept me for a couple of hours until they were sure that the swelling had gone down. I felt much better. I was no longer burning hot and itchy, just tired.
Once the swelling went down, my toe started to HURT!!!!!! And I was starving. Pizza Hut commercials kept coming on to remind me I had not eaten breakfast and had eaten very little lunch and even less dinner. (I had grabbed a couple of pieces of turkey bacon on the way out the door to take Sky to her dance).
Now I'm just whiny because I want pizza and even the back side of my ears hurt. Also, I hate fire ants, and I missed out on Skylar's first school dance. Oh, and I'm mad at George because when I texted him that I was starving and wanted pizza, he texted back "Sorry" and made me make my own canned cream of mushroom soup when I got home. And all of this after I didn't even flinch at helping him keep his junk iced with bags of frozen peas after his vasectomy!

MIA

I feel like I've dropped off the face of the earth. Honestly, the last two months have been so full. My brain feels like if it has to absorb one more piece of information, it will explode. Kind of like that Spongebob episode where Squidward turns the Krusty Krab into a fancy restaurant to impress his rival from high school and Spongebob becomes super-waiter. He knows everything there is to know about fine dining, but when he's asked what his name is, his brain malfunctions and he goes berserk.
Yep. That's pretty much me.
Let's see....for some bizarre masochistic reason I decided I would enjoy taking four (yes, four) classes this summer. That's in addition to working and trying to be slightly involved in my kids' lives and do my church calling, too. What was I thinking????!!!! Especially when one of those classes is Precalculus. I have literally been up until two and three a.m every night for the past week trying to complete homework and tests.
The good news is that I feel like I finally know what I want to go to school for, what would make me happy.
The ironic news: had I realized this just a few weeks sooner, I wouldn't be struggling to pass Precalc. I wouldn't even have needed to take it!
So bear with me while I ramble and post some really adorable pictures of some really cute kids.
It's nice to be back.

Spring Break

Wow! Where did Spring Break go? We had a ton of fun. George and the Big Two slept out in the backyard in a tent. The Big Two spent the night with Leslie-Grace and Mack. Sky went to the beach with a friend. We played at the park with Vanessa and the kids. Sky had a friend sleep over and they painted George's toenails pink. We colored Easter eggs and spent Easter with Mindy, Kevin, and the kids. Mindy & I took the kids to see "How to Train Your Dragon" in Kinston, which was a great movie & Lucy kept jamming little greasy handfuls of popcorn into my mouth. George and I caught up on DVR'ed episodes of "Chuck".
Thursday was really nice because after George got home from work, we went to Lowe's to look at flowers and things. Mom had given us a flat of really nice pepper plants which we planted and we also got some herbs and flowers. It was just so nice outside that we spent the rest of the evening after dinner in the front yard. We planted and watered and got dirty. Lucy discovered that the watering can was full of water and she bathed the front flagstones. Then she discovered that it was fun to splash in the little stream she created. Drake joined her and both of them splashed until they were very dirty. George carried the Little Two up to get a bath while the rest of us cleaned up the front porch. A cold wind blew up along with stormclouds, so we hurried up and went inside. George put Lucy to bed and Sky and I helped Drake plant watermelon seeds in this little Cookie Monster greenhouse George bought him. We thought Bart had gone in to watch TV with George, but by and by we heard a little tapping on the door. So half an hour after we came inside, Bart shows up at the front door, shivering. I had accidentally locked him out! I felt pretty bad, but he looked so forlorn and cute with his hair standing on end like a little hedgehog.
So it was back to work and school today, but the warm weather and the longer days keep reminding us it'll soon be summer break!!!!

Battle at Twilight

Last night, there was an epic battle with glowsticks for mastery of the front porch.

It was too close to call.

Lucy knows how to do "Ring Around the Rosies"!
It's so cute! At first I had no idea why she was toddling around and around in a circle on the kitchen floor and then plopping down only to get back up and do it again.
Then I realized she was trying to sing and I thought I could make out something like "ashes ashes we all fall down" just before she plopped her little diapered butt down on the floor with a big grin at me.
So once I caught on, I started singing too and we played Ring Around the Rosies for probably fifteen minutes without stopping. After we had "all fall down"ed, Lucy would bend her head toward me, catch my eye, and say "Gin?" And we'd get up and do it all over again, laughing wildly.
I love how kids can run with no apparent motive or direction, back and forth across the house, laughing and squealing like it's the funniest thing ever. I love how they can eat a bowl of Cheerios for breakfast every morning for a year and not get tired of it.
If I could just put the rest of life on pause and get reality off my back, I think I could literally spend the entire day doing nothing but playing with my kids and be the happiest person on the planet.

Skylar's glasses

My little Skylar - not only has she had the "my changing body" class at school, but she also just got glasses.

She's so grown up I could just cry.

George sent me this picture of her trying on glasses when they went to the eye doctor.

I used to tell Sky every other day or so, "All right, this is it and I mean it. No more growing up. You are not allowed to get any bigger."

Of course, she didn't listen to me.

Easter Egg Hunt

Pictures from the church Easter Egg Hunt last Saturday.

I took about a zillion pics of Lucy. This year she's old enough to realize that there is candy (or "na-na" as she calls it) inside the eggs.

Here are my handsome boys. They were a little disappointed that they only found a few eggs each. I was very happy about it, though.

I don't know why I didn't get any pictures of Sky at the Egg Hunt. I guess she was just too fast.

The Young Women's broadcast tonight was excellent. They're always good, but this one was especially moving for me. I definitely wish I had taken Skylar with me. She'd have loved the talks, too. It's hard to believe it's her last year in primary.

I'm going bananas

Have you ever watched an episode of the Fresh Beat Band on Nickelodeon? It's a kid show about four "teenagers" (I think they're really like 32 or something) who have a band and play a lot of music and dance. It's kind of catchy, and Drake loves to watch it. The only problem is that the songs get stuck in my head FOREVER!!!!!

So all day I'm going around singing, "We just have to go bananas. La la la la la let's go bananas!"

Lucy loves that song. She heard it playing on the TV from another room and immediately stopped what she was doing and pointed toward the living room and said, "Nanas".

And speaking of bananas, here is Princess Lucy in her favorite crown, desperately trying to get a banana from the baker's rack. Her Royal Highness is NOT happy.

Her Highness is quite content now that she's had her banana.

Our furry little houseguest

We're watching the Nicolaysen's little dog Percy for them while they're out of town. We haven't had a dog in a few years, and for some reason Drake and Lucy are PETRIFIED of dogs. They're definitely curious about dogs and they laugh and laugh with delight to see them run and play. But the second a dog comes within two feet of Drake and Lucy, they freak out and start screaming.

Anyway, Vanessa, if you read this, Percy is doing just great. He is eating and drinking and getting plenty of walking. Sky and Bart fight over who gets to take him outside. And George was actually the person who got him to start eating. Despite all the smack he talks, he has been very kind and gentle with him.

Oh, and he only peed himself once. Luckily it was in the entryway on the stone tiles. He's really being a good dog for us.

Soooo....I guess at some point (not for a while yet), we need to adopt another dog. I think Bart and Skylar are at the age now where they will really enjoy playing with him/her and can be trusted to help us feed and walk the dog. Plus Bart's doctor said that it would be a good idea to have a dog around for Bart. It would be really good for him to build a bond with a pet.

Alas- I have to go get ready for errands and work soon.

Conversations with a toddler

I had a conversation with Drake yesterday while he was busy playing Legos. It went something like this:

Me: Lucy is the prettiest girl in the world and Drake is the handsomest boy in the world.

Drake: No. Lucy is a poophead.

Me: If Lucy is a poophead, so are you. I must have two poophead kids.

Drake: Mom.... are you annoying me?



I can already tell it's going to be a continual battle of wits between the two of us.

Winners and Losers

Saturday Skylar had a dance competition in Jacksonville. She and two of her best friends are dancing a jazz trio this year. I really like the number. It's about three girls who wear the same dress to a party, which they all had thought was a "Paris original". It's right up the girls' alley because they are all good dancers and love to ham it up onstage.


The girls ended up winning a distinction in dance award for their trio, as well as awards for their tap number. For their tap production, the girls are doing a tribute to "I Love Lucy" and wearing hilarious red wigs. Skylar was nervous about her wig falling off, so all through her tap number, which she usually performs the heck out of, she looked like she was in pain.



Today when Drake was being naughty outside with the other children and the neighbor kids, George made him come inside. Apparently Drake called George a "loser" while George was reprimanding him.

When I asked Drake about it later, his explanation was that "Spongebob says it".

Skylar said that Drake called her a jerk one morning, something else he got from Spongebob. Drake also says "Shut your half-wit pie holes" which is what Squidward says in one episode.
On the one hand I'm embarrassed that he's learning bad manners from a cartoon, but on the other hand I'm kind of impressed that at age three he knows how to use the phrase "half-wit pie hole" correctly.

Our Valentine's Dinner

On Valentine's Day since it was snowy out and we couldn't really go anywhere on a date, George thought we should do a chocolate fondue. So we dipped strawberries, bananas, pretzels, and marshmallows in a chocolate fondue - the first time we've used our fondue pot since we moved to New Bern 3 1/2 years ago! The kids loved the fondue, but Lucy threw a fit and refused to eat anything except the marshmallows.
I had made some white-chocolate covered bon-bons the day before, so we had plenty of sweet treats. And I finally got to use my dainty pink and white plates I bought for Lucy's birthday party.

Our Fabulous Snow Day

I think hell froze over in February. It actually snowed in Eastern NC.

The children played with their neighborhood friends pretty much all day. We took the little two for a ride around the block in the wagon.

I guess you could call this George's enthusiastic face????

Skylar, Bart, Drake and their friends from the neighborhood built snowmen.
The boys' snowman didn't get very far (you can see it in the top righthand pic),
but Skylar and the girls were pretty successful with theirs. Amazingly, it survived the warm-up and Bart sticking a wooden sword through its head. Finally, George and Bart got out the machete and decapitated it. Why is everything about violence with guys?

Lucy loved her first real snow - as long as she could watch it from the safety of the wagon. She tried to eat a snowball but did not really like how cold it was.


Drake was everywhere. His gloves and pants and socks were so wet, but he didn't care at all. This was his first real snow, too. He's seen a couple of flurries but not enough to make snowballs and snowmen.

After a long morning in the snow, I took Sky and Bart and we went to see a matinee of the Percy Jackson movie with our neighbors the Kitchens. I thought the movie was really good, even if there were some differences from the book. I still think it was exciting and well-done.

It really has been a cold winter. Our heating bill, which is usually pretty decent, sky-rocketed for January and February. I'm just thankful we have Progress Energy and not City of New Bern.

Bart's Baptism

Bart was so excited to finally get baptized. He's been waiting forever, according to him.
Bart asked Skylar to give the talk on baptism and Josh to give the talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost. The talks were excellent. The water in the baptismal font was COLD!

But our little boy was so happy on his special day. I'm very proud of him. He's such a loving and wonderful child.

Renee and Leslie-Grace and Sky helped me get the food prepared and set out. We kept it really simple: peanut butter & jelly, egg salad, and turkey & cheese sandwiches. George made cookies and brownies and I made the Hershey's cake that Mindy brought to our house for Christmas dinner. It is absolutely divine! It contains ten chopped Hershey bars in the icing.

When we had asked Bart what kind of refreshments he wanted after the baptism, he automatically said, "Macaroni & cheese, cookies, and brownies". Not surprising.

Dad & Diane came over to visit with us for awhile at our place. Later in the evening, George took the two boys out and bought Bart a special baptism gift - a big Lego Star Wars set. Honestly, my husband is such a big kid when it comes to toys.

Grossness

OK, I was just looking back at some earlier posts & realizing that way too many of my posts center around the theme of poo or puke.

Unfortunately I can't really talk about the funny stuff that happens at work because of HIPAA. That pretty much just leaves kids and husband to write about, hence the focus on bodily functions.

Randomness

Looking back my last post was all over the place. I am operating on very little sleep and I don't think I've made sense in several days.
Things are starting to get back to normal, sort of....

George had to go to Atlanta on Thursday, last minute. It was kind of nice having the kids all to myself, but it was also a little nutty.

It snowed, which was really weird. Big, fat flakes which would've made for some really nice snow if it had just been a bit colder. It was really pretty, though. I took the little two to playgroup at church.

Friday was insanity. George told me not to worry about getting a babysitter since he'd be back in time. Only he must have blacked out and not remembered he said that because late Thursday night when he called he told me he would NOT be back before 4 or 4:30pm ( I had to leave for work at 12:30). So I had no choice but to take the little two to Play Date. Only, the max they can stay there is 4 hours per day, so I had to RUN over on my dinner break and shuttle them back home so Skylar and Bart could watch them for an hour or so until George got home, after 5pm. I felt like such a crappy mom.

I've been on anti-depressants forever and found Prozac to be the best one for me. Last week, my psych put me on Adderall, too, which I am liking a lot. The other day I felt giddy for the first time in probably five years. I was reading "Yo Mama" jokes on my iPhone at like midnight and laughing my butt off. I'm not even sure they were all that funny, and George certainly didn't think so, but they sure seemed hilarious to me at the time. Also, I'm able to get up in the morning and look forward to what the day will bring, even if it's just more of the same old. I just have to find my happy balance between energetic/enthusiastic and can't-sleep-at-night-hyper.

Sometimes I wish my brain worked right. I look around and wonder how many of us there are, walking around with smiles on the outside while on the inside it's basically a constant struggle to keep it together. I wonder how other people do it who do not have the support and determination I have. It's really exhausting. I wonder how many people go undiagnosed and go their whole lives thinking that their lives suck or that they're worthless or that nobody loves them.

I don't even know why I'm babbling on about this personal issue, but I think back to how I felt before I got my medication working well for me, and I can't believe I lived or felt like I did. And I don't want other people to feel like that. I wish there was some way to help. It's really amazing how wonderful life is when your brain is functioning semi-normally and you can appreciate all your blessings.

I wrote a novel

Where, where, where do I begin? I haven't posted anything because life since Saturday has been H-E-double-chopsticks (as Bart likes to say). That's h-e-l-l if you didn't catch on.
Soooo.....
Saturday was Bart's baptism. I'm going to write about that in a separate post because I feel bad enough that the crap hit the fan on his special day.
After the baptism we visited with Dad & Diane at our place & then I had to cook up some beef stroganoff and hightail it over to Super Saturday for our Valentine dance which we were hosting. Everything was going really well. Then George calls me, acting like a complete butt about when I was going to get home. He really ticked me off because I'm not at Super Saturday just because I love hanging around at teenage dances (I mean, I really do love being around the Youth, but I can think of a thousand other things that I could be doing that are less awkward than a Youth dance). I'm there because it's my church calling & I feel bad enough that I've had to miss some past Super Saturdays due to work and the like. So I was really happy to actually be able to be there and stay for the entire time.
So George calls back, only I didn't hear it ring, so he calls James who tells me George needs me to call him. Long story short, George is kind of freaked out because Lucy's temperature is 103 even having had Motrin all day and she fell asleep on the sofa and is being weird. So I'm pretty worried & we decide I'll take her to the ER (again), so I jet home.
She had been running a fever for several days and I had taken her to see her doctor the day before. It was pretty bad because they ran a whole bunch of tests on her and found that her white blood cell count was high, which indicated some sort of infection. The doctor thought due to the levels it could be either pneumonia or a bladder infection. They did a strep test (two, actually, which really pissed Lucy off), took blood, and (ouch!!!!!!!!) put in a catheter to get a urine sample. She came back negative for everything, but the doctor still felt like he was missing something. One of the first thing he had done was listen to her lungs, but he said they sounded OK. He told us to watch her breathing and to come back ASAP if there was anything amiss. I felt pretty freaked out and went to talk to my manager, who gave me the day off to stay with Lu.
So, back to Saturday.....when I got home, Lucy was awake but very clingy and VERY hot. The fever worried me a little because we were getting 103 with the forehead thermometer. So I took her straight to the ER, not even bothering to change out of my dress and stockings from church. She wouldn't let me put her down once I got home. The only way I convinced her to leave was to tell her we would watch Spongebob in the car.
Skylar came with us to help. We got to the ER and it was PACKED. Everybody and their mama was there. We went right into triage and Lucy had to have a rectal temp taken. She was an old pro at that by this point and didn't offer up too much protest. Her temperature was 103.2. They asked us a bunch of questions, got her weight, the usual. They took her back for chest x-rays which was tricky. She did not like it at all. Then back out the the waiting room where we waited. And waited. It was apparent that Lucy was in no imminent danger, so we weren't first priority. After a little while a nurse came out and gave Lucy Tylenol to get her fever down, telling us that there weren't any beds available, but as soon as one came open, they'd get us back.
Sky fooled around with my phone and snapped a picture of us looking fabulous.

Lucy drinking some apple juice on my lap while we wait.

So we waited some more. James was kind enough to bring Skylar some McDonalds, since she hadn't eaten dinner yet. By this time, Lucy had perked up a little from the Tylenol and ate a couple of fries and drank a little juice. It was just as Skylar was starting to tuck into her dinner that the nurse came to take us back to our room. I don' t know how long we were in the waiting room, but all I can say is thank goodness for my iPhone. It kept us all occupied and kept us from going insane waiting.
The room was usual, although a bit bigger than last time we were in the ER, only a few weeks ago. We were all becoming quite the emergency room conoisseurs. The nurses were wonderful.
We went through the rigamarole of getting an IV in her (I nearly cried when they told me). She hated the last IV, but did marvelously, considering. They had to draw blood twice, what seemed like such an awful lot from such a little girl.
The absolute worst was that they had to try to get a catheter in her. This time, I had to help hold her while two nurses attempted to insert it. I felt so awful. They could not get it in, so they decided to put a urine bag on her. If you've never seen one, it's like this plastic bag with adhesive on the top. You have to stick it you-know-where so when you pee, the bag catches it...at least in theory. Lucy has had it twice by now and both times the adhesive didn't stick well enough and the urine didn't go in. This time, Lucy went poo which made the adhesive come unstuck, so we got a bag full of poo, but no urine. I know, I know TMI. But if you're reading this blog, you probably have or have had kids so it shouldn't be that big of a deal.
After a long time, the doctor ordered antibiotics. They finally arrived and the nurses got them going in Lucy's IV. A nurse brought in a reclining chair for Sky so she could get some sleep, as well as warm blankets and pillows. I lay with Lucy in the bed, holding her. She fought sleep for the longest time and kept trying to pull on her IV whenever it came into her line of sight. Mostly I just tried to keep her arm under the blanket and stroke her hair. Finally, probably about two-thirty, she fell asleep. I had been dozing, too, and thought I should get up. Even though there were rails on the bed, I had this horror of falling asleep and Lucy waking up and tumbling off the bed onto the hard floor.
So I propped Lucy's head up on my sweatshirt and wrapped her blanket around her and went to sit in the other chair for awhile. That's when the doctor came in finally, when I was half asleep and not very coherent. He told me that Lucy did have pneumonia, which surprised me, because I just knew that they were going to send us home without being able to tell us what was wrong with her.
The doctor said she was also dehydrated, which made sense because she had barely had anything to eat in two days and had drunk only a fraction of what she usually drinks.
He gave us a lot of directions, and told me what medications she was going to get. She would have to take antibiotics, alternate Tylenol and Motrin for a couple of days, and have an inhaler and mask and Zofran for nausea, in case she needed it. He said that they didn't need to admit her to the hospital, that these days they were usually able to treat pneumonia in children outpatient, which was fine with me. I couldn't imagine having to keep Lucy in the hospital any longer than we had already.
They kept her awhile longer, and I used the opportunity to text friends and family to let them know the diagnosis. I also snapped these pictures with my iPhone.

Lulu wrapped in her favorite blanket, finally fast asleep.

Skylar was out like a light. I had a hard time waking her up when it was time to go.

I think we finally got home around three-thirty. Lucy went right to bed. She was very grateful for her own bed. Skylar and I had a quick bite to eat - we were starving - and got to bed by four. Like I said, a nightmare.
Lucy slept until about 1pm the next day, thankfully. Skylar and I slept until probably noon. We were all pretty grumpy all day.
Lucy's doing much better. She's not 100% herself yet. She's still really clingy and she didn't want to go to bed the first two nights home. George and I thought she was a little traumatized from the hospital because she only wanted to lie on my lap. Sunday night she didn't go to sleep until after midnight, which meant I didn't either. The next night was a little better. I had to work, so I wasn't there for bedtime, which actually made it a little easier, I think.
Anyway, that was our lovely hospital saga. Hopefully Lucy has gotten her fill of hospitals for quite awhile.

THE END

Bart's Baptism

Finally! We finally have a date for Bart's baptism - this Saturday at noon. He's way excited.

Today was full of good and bad.

It was good because I was off work.

Good because George & I DVR'ed a Muse concert last week. We watched it with the kids tonight. Love, love, LOVE Muse. I started listening to them last year, and I just keep loving their songs. My favorite song is Newborn.

Good because Lucy sat on my lap for the whole concert and snuggled with me.

Bad because I realized later that she had a fever.

Bad because I put my big foot in my mouth twice today & feel bad about it.

Bad because George made a mean comment about my weight tonight.

OK, I gotta end with something good -

Tonight Lucy got a tube of lipstick out of my purse and ate some of it before I found her. She looked like a clown and she was highly PO'd that we all laughed at her and snapped photos.

Last week she ate about half a tube of sparkly SoftLips lip balm. It didn't appear to cause her any harm, but I'm kind of ticked off that she keeps eating my cosmetics.

I'm just going to quarantine us for the rest of the month

I can't believe it. I'm sick again. That's what I get for thinking to myself a few weeks ago that it had been a really long time since any of us was sick. Ha! Life, you're so funny.
Honestly, I just want to get well so I can enjoy life and get my butt off the sofa. Today I got a small fever and I feel like poo.

On the bright side of things, I lost 7 pounds last week with the stomach virus. I gained 2 pounds back once I was able to eat again, but all in all not a bad deal.

Just kidding. It sucked.

Meanwhile, we keep putting off Bart's baptism due to illness or church being canceled. We are FINALLY going to have his baptism on Sunday February 21, nearly a month after his birthday. Bart told us that he didn't think he was ever going to get to be baptized. I was beginning to think we were just going to have to take him down to the Neuse and dunk him. OK, maybe not the Neuse, it's pretty gross, but you get the idea.

Yuck

Yesterday Bart got the puking virus with a vengeance in the McDonalds drive-thru. I guess it was the greasy smell of burgers that finally did it. I told him to get out of the car and go to the bushes nearby. For some weird reason he ran across the parking lot, across the street, and into the Arby's parking lot (in the rain) to puke in their bushes. I dunno.
Anyway....before we picked Skylar up at dance, we had to pull over again while he puked in this deserted parking lot across from a bar. I was really nervous about that one, because I think somebody got shot in that parking lot last year.
We finally got him home where he continued to throw up all night.
And joy of joys, Lucy had actually eaten a decent dinner (chicken noodle soup) for the first time since her trip to the ER....and promptly threw it back up about an hour later. Ugggh. And Drake fell asleep on the sofa with a fever of 100.7. I am so frustrated!!
I took the kids to the doctor today & found out that Lucy has a double ear infection to go along with the nasty stomach virus she had over the weekend.
The SECOND Lucy saw the nurse leading us back to the exam room, she began to freak. And she kept freaking until the nurse left. And she started freaking again when the doctor came in. She continued to freak until Skylar went out to the waiting room and came back with lollipops. I think Lucy was so traumatized by her visit to the ER, that she could not tolerate the sight of a nurse or doctor now. (And this is the girl who sits still for finger pricks and calmly watches the nurse squeeze the blood into the little tube).
Oh, and did I mention that Monday George and I both came down with the puking thing at the exact same time? It was so very much fun. Skylar had to feed the other kids cereal for dinner in front of the TV because George and I were basically passed out on the bed praying for the vomiting to stop. It was horrible. Our entire bodies ached all night, even when we finally stopped puking, making it impossible to sleep.
So now, we're just keeping an eye on Drake to make sure he doesn't develop any other symptoms of an ear infection or stomach virus, and hoping and praying that Skylar stays well, too.
And in the midst of all this, it didn't even have the decency to properly snow here. We just got crap and ice. At least if it's going to be cold and yucky, we could get some snow, right?
I am officially DONE with winter.

The Three Amigos

Here are my three little amigos, whooping it up on their horses.

Last week, Lucy puked every day of the week. On our way back home from SC on Monday night, she barfed in the car approximately 20 minutes from home. In Maysville, for crying out loud - two towns away! So we made a quick stop at Dollar General to get towels and cleaning supplies.
Then she puked once a day every day until Saturday she seemed to be back to normal. So she went a full week without throwing up and we figured she was back to normal.
Well, I had George check in on Lucy just before we went to bed and he yelled for me to come in. She threw up everything she'd eaten all day in bed and was basically swimming in about an inch of barf chunks. It was so gross. It was midnight and we had to strip the bed and Clorox it and give a very unhappy Lucy a bath. The funny thing is that Skylar slept through everything, the puking, the cleaning, the water running and baby screaming, and all the lights turned on in the bedroom. Unfortunately, Lucy kept throwing up until she was bringing up green stomach acid. She was really worrying us because she was gagging so much I had this fear that she might have swallowed a small toy or something and choking on it. Sooo..... George woke Sky up and the three of us girls ventured out to the hospital. Skylar was in charge of holding a towel to catch the barf when Lucy got sick on the way to the hospital. Of course, it was the one night we had ice on the roads, so I had to drive about 35 mph the whole way.
We were actually taken into the ER pretty quickly. There were quite a few traffic accident patients in with us. Basically, the doctor thought Lucy had a bad stomach virus. She was pretty dehydrated, so they gave her an IV and Zofran to stop the vomiting. It was sad because they had to strap her arm to a board to keep her from yanking out the IV. She did really well as long as I had her arm covered with a blanket and she couldn't see it. She was pretty ticked off at the nurses after the IV episode and would only glare at them and the doctor, even when they tried to make her smile.
I just held her for several hours while she rehydrated. Eventually, she perked up enough to play the "Mouth, nose, eyes" game and blow me kisses. She was so sweet. After awhile, the doctor gave her ginger ale with Pedialyte to drink and some crackers. She drank a little of the liquid, but mostly just dipped the straw in and out of the cup and drank the drops. She tried a bite or two of cracker. Finally, we were released once the doctor was sure Lucy had had a wet diaper.
Skylar and I were starving and exhausted, so we stopped at the 24-hour McDonalds drive-thru for a drink and a McGriddle sandwich. We finally got home around 5am and put Lucy to bed. She had fallen asleep almost as soon as we strapped her into her carseat. She was happy to get into her own bed and we all slept in until noon, except the boys.

My little monkey girl

Lucy loves her monkey (actually, now she has two monkeys) and her blankie.
She also loves bananas.
Sometimes she gets her toes involved when she eats.
I think that she must have a monkey gene that she inherited from someone.

I just finished the last Percy Jackson book, the Last Olympian. It was so great, I was laughing out loud. Skylar and I are excited that the first book is being made into a movie. In fact, I just saw the trailer for it on TV. I really hope it does the books justice.

To celebrate Bart & Sky's birthdays, we took the family to Myrtle Beach over the weekend. We went Saturday through Monday. The kids were way excited.



We stayed at this really cool hotel called Dunes Village Resort which had two indoor water parks. We went to the water park in our tower all three days. There was another park which we didn't even explore because it was in the other tower and none of us wanted to have to venture outside in our wet bathing suits. We had plenty to keep us busy, though. There were two big water slides, a lazy river, hot tubs, and a kiddie playland which had all sorts of sprinkling, spraying, and water-falling devices. I wasn't enthused about getting into a bathing suit in mid-winter, but I sucked it up (literally) and just had fun. I got Drake to go on the water slides and to go into the hot tub. He called the hot tub the "bubble bath" and liked to stand in front of the jets so his swim trunks ballooned out.



Our suite was oceanfront, so we woke up to a gorgeous (and blindingly bright) view of the sunrise. Sunday dawned with a weird fog that obscured the horizon so you couldn't tell where the gray sea ended and the gray sky began. It was beautiful. It was in the 50's Saturday and Sunday, and on Sunday it ended up raining. We went out on the beach and we could see the line of rain moving down the beach toward us. It was pretty cold out there, so we didn't stay too long. Luckily we made it back to shelter just as the first raindrops started falling.





One thing we really wanted to take the kids to was Medieval Times. We bought tickets before we left. I signed us up for the birthday club, so we ended up getting free tickets for Skylar and Bart. We still spent a ton, but were able to save $60 or so.



I knew Sky and Bart would love Medieval Times, but Drake really enjoyed it, too. I think the show was a little long for him, but he really got into it. He and Bart bought wooden swords and Drake slept with his Sunday night and kept poking Bart with it. Skylar bought a princess headdress. I actually caught a flower that our knight threw. It was kind of cool because we were on the very top row, but he aimed and threw the flower right to me. It was even cooler because I actually caught it. I ended up giving it to Skylar. Lucy did not enjoy the show. She hadn't napped that day, and boy was she cranky. She didn't want to eat or drink really. George and I took turns with her in the lobby, letting her run all her bottled-up energy out.





We to had gone to Broadway at the Beach earlier that morning to do some shopping and dining. We visited this awesome candy shop and ate too many sweets.

Here's a photo summary of our shopping excursion.

Drake tries to figure out why his older siblings are wearing a coconut bra.

Drake finds a stray dog, we spy a cool restaurant with a pirate ship on the front, and I feel a surge of pride for America the Beautiful when I see all these flags flying.

We get a little crazy at the Hard Rock Cafe.
(Drake is pretending to be a saber tooth tiger).

Lucy is hyper.

And Skylar meets the man of her dreams....

Yep. It was a pretty swell vacation.

My favorite things

My favorite things right now are:

My Amazon Kindle

the Shark steam mop

the Yes to Carrots line (I LOVE the lotion, shampoo, conditioner, and lip balm) at Target
(George smelled my hair yesterday and said for once it smelled pleasantly neutral. Apparently all this time my hair has smelled like chemicals & he never told me. He said he figured it was all the hair products I use. Oh, and George tried the shampoo & conditioner and said how it made his hair soft, that he had never had soft hair before).

Organic milk - who knew milk was that tasty??

El Tequila, the Mexican place near Harris Teeter

Cashmere socks

the new Cardamom-flavored gum. I can't remember the brand - it's over in my purse right now. It's delicious.

And did anyone know we have an Asian Market here in New Bern now? I didn't. I think it must be fairly new. I just saw it the other day on Glenburnie & was so happy. I used to shop at one in Raleigh & the kids love the spinach noodles I would get there, plus they have certain spices (like white peppercorns) for such a great price.

My bed is killing me

I cannot remember the last time I slept well. Seriously. When I wake up in the morning, even if I've had 10 hours of sleep, I feel like I've had only 2 hours, or that a truck backed over me repeatedly. I can't take it anymore. If I can't get a good night's sleep, I'm going to go bananas. I don't even like to go to sleep because I know it's just going to hurt, so I stay up late and write stupid blog entries or zone out in front of the TV. Anything to postpone my tossing, turning night of lower back pain.
So we tested out a Sleep Number bed and a bunch of others. So far, we really like the Sleep Number and the Tempurpedic. Unfortunately, we would have to auction off a kid in order to afford one. But can you put a price on a good night's sleep?
We bought our current bed like a week after we got married. After a few days as newlyweds sharing a twin bed, George and I went right out and bought a king-sized bed. They told us it was a 10-year mattress, and boy were they right. Almost exactly after 10 years, it kicked the bucket and it is now killing my back.
If anyone out there wants to give me a Sleep Number or Tempurpedic bed because I'm a really nice person, I'd really appreciate it.

Lightsaber duel

Lucy and Drake battled it out tonight with lightsabers.

Then Drake brought out the big guns.


Lucy called for reinforcements.

Good Soldiers, Good Book

I just finished reading David Finkel's The Good Soldiers. If not for the excessive (but I'd say probably accurate) use of the F-word, I would suggest that it be on the reading list for high schools and colleges. I apparently did not know a thing about the war in Iraq. I'm staggered at what our troops sacrifice for this country. They are absolutely heroes and deserve our 100% support and admiration.

Sunday was Drake's first day in Primary. He's such a big boy now! He's been wanting to go to Primary for weeks now so he can "sit in Bart's lap".
When we got back home, we gifted him his first set of scriptures. Skylar "wrapped" a Book of Mormon by placing it in a Lightning McQueen shoe box. I thought Drake would be pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, but he LOVED his "stippers" as he called them. He took them to dinner, he made me "read" them to him half a dozen times, and he even slept with them last night. Bart gave him his old scripture case and Drake has been carrying it everywhere. He took it to Melissa's today when I went to work. It's too cute.

Monkey Attack

When monkeys attack:

I'm watching the end of "Field of Dreams" which is a bad idea since I'm already a little melancholy tonight. I ALWAYS cry when I watch "Field of Dreams". George makes fun of me and asks me why I'm crying, and I just sob, "Didn't you ever play catch with your Dad?"
I dunno. It's just one of those movies that brings back childhood.

More Christmas

The children were really sweet with their gift-giving. Bart gave me soft,warm red socks. Skylar made a notebook for me with pictures of me on the cover that she had taken. She wrote the sweetest note inside the cover that made me tear up. She also sewed a purple and green scarf for me with George's help.

George gave me my favorite perfume, Estee Lauder Sensuous, and an Amazon Kindle which is just the coolest thing. George adores it, too. We've already downloaded a ton of books and I'm working my way through the second one, which is called "The Good Soldiers". It's about the war in Iraq and some of the soldiers that really served there. It's an excellent book, although the "F" word is used a lot. George is working his way through the complete works of Jules Verne which he downloaded for 99 cents.

Here Lulu and I hang out and eat raisins.

Dad, Diane, Aunt Rose, & Uncle Randy came over in the early afternoon and we had Christmas with them. Let's just say it was a very Star Wars Christmas for the boys. A little while later, George's family came and we ate a huge dinner before having our third gift-giving. It basically looked like a bomb went off in my house.


Mindy made a delicious Hershey's cake and Aunt Rose made a yummy red velvet cake. I had some of both and they were superb. Lucy really enjoyed the red velvet as you can see.


Even though we'd had a spell of cold weather, Christmas Day dawned balmy and gross. It was in the 60's and it rained. We were going to take the kids out for a walk, but it started raining before we left the front yard. Yuck. By the end of the night, Skylar and Leslie-Grace were playing outside in the rain. Crazy girls.

It was really nice having so much family over for Christmas. Even though it was a lot of work and I was exhausted by the end of the night, Christmas really is about being with your loved ones. I know the children all had a blast, which is the point.

That morning, we were talking with Drake about the real meaning of Christmas. We asked him what Christmas was all about and he said "presents" of course. So we told him we celebrate Christmas because of Jesus. And then we asked him what Jesus did on Christmas Day and he answered "party".

The end of the night found Bart sitting on the bathroom floor reading a book with Master Yoda while he tried not to puke anymore. I guess he'd eaten so much and run around so much with his cousins that he made himself sick.



I had to work the day after Christmas which kind of sucked. I was so tired that I accidentally turned my alarm off when it went off and went back to sleep. I woke up about ten minutes before I needed to leave for work and hauled butt to get there in time. The one good thing about going to work was that I didn't have to stress out about the mess in our house left over from the day before.

On Tuesday we made a trip to Raleigh to see our old friends the Claytons. How we missed the Claytons when we moved! They moved to Texas soon after we moved to New Bern, so we hadn't seen each other in three years. It was so great! It was like old times. We met at Crabtree Valley Mall and the boys hit the Lego store. We just chilled out in a little carpeted area for a long time, catching up. Then we headed over to the Natural History museum to meet another old friend. It was really great for all of us. Skylar had been really scared that when she saw Rachel again, who had been her best friend before we moved, it would be weird between them. At first it was a little awkward, and the girls were quiet, but by the end of the day, she and Rachel and Abby were giggling like old times. It was so good to see all of the children playing together so well.

While we were getting back in the car after the museum, we saw a segway tour.


Being in Raleigh at Christmastime brought back a lot of memories. George and I spent our first married Christmas there. Also, Skylar and I used to go with Jodi and her girls to see the Nutcracker at the BTI Center every year.

We left Raleigh and went to visit Dad and Diane. We had dinner with them and just relaxed and hung out for awhile. The kids were silly of course. We got back pretty late, but it was a great trip.

Catching up from Christmas

Wow, did the month of December fly by! I felt like I pretty much worked every dang day and when I wasn't working, someone was asking me to do something.
We did a lot of fun stuff. Let's see....we went to George's friend's house for poker night and I had no idea what I was doing, but at least we came home with more money than we left with.
The Young Women had dinner out at Arturo's for Christmas which was a good time.
A few days before Christmas we went out to do our annual Christmas light-seeing tour, which the kids love. When we lived in Middlesex and had to drive a long way to see lights, we used to order a pizza and eat it while we went light-seeing. It's a nice tradition.



The Wednesday before Christmas we had Christmas with Mom and Mimi. I'm not even going to go into that, but let's just say they had a really hard time getting to our place that day. When they finally got here, everything was fine, although I had to leave for work in about half an hour, so we didn't get a lot of time to visit.
The kids seemed to really like their gifts. Lucy loved the wagon. She just climbed right in and she sits there so nicely when we go out for walks. She looks like a little lady.

George and I actually got along this year (thank you, Prozac). He gets really weird and mopey on holidays and I get really hyper and anal about every little detail. So you can imagine that we have a bit of head-butting when it comes to Christmas. But this year was nice. We had a lot of fun picking out gifts for everyone and as I said before, I scaled back on my decorating and cooking. George tried to relax and not be a big old stick in the mud. Drake was really excited about Santa this year. Every morning he tried to convince me that it was Christmas morning and time to open presents.

My work had a little party with Santa there a few days before Christmas and I had George bring the kids so we could take them to sit on Santa's lap. The boys RAN to him. Skylar politely waited her turn. Lucy freaked out and wouldn't go near him. She does not like the Big Man in Red AT ALL. Santa gave each kid a little toy from his sack, pretty nice stuff like Matchbox cars and coloring books, but Lucy wouldn't even go see him for a toy. The only way I got her to let me give her back to George so I could return to work was by giving her a cookie.

Christmas Eve was busy but fun. We did our usual Christmas Eve stocking stuffer-shopping run to Dollar Tree. The Nicolaysens came over and we ate a lot of food. I gained probably five pounds over Christmas. The kids were so excited about Santa coming - especially Drake this year. He was all about Santa.

We finally got the children tucked in bed. I doubt they were dreaming of sugarplums, but they went easily enough. George and I did some wrapping and tucked ourselves into bed. Before we knew it, the children were waking us up at 7am sharp. We have a strict rule that no one can get us up before 7am. Skylar had apparently woken up at 2am and then again at 5:30. We allowed her to sleep in her alcove this year. Hopefully she didn't peek.

We always start out by seeing what Santa left. Santa had left each kid a book under the balcony tree upstairs. Bart had written Santa a note and he had written back! Bart was thrilled. We proceeded downstairs and found Santa's big gift for each kid. Bart got a skateboard, Drake got a Lightning McQueen scooter, Skylar got a pink beanbag chair, and Lucy got a wooden food set.



We opened our stockings and the boys ate candy. Lucy found her favorite gift so far - a bunch of little boxes of raisins. She ate probably three or four mini boxes before we were done opening gifts.




Drake got a pirate eyepatch and hat we found at the Dollar Store. He and Bart are totally into pirates. He looks pretty fierce, huh?


Drake is trying out Bart's favorite gift, his clone trooper blaster rifle. In fact, I think it was George's favorite gift, too. Drake is also showing off his underwear since he's a big boy now and only wears a pull-up at bedtime.


Skylar got a lot of clothes this year. She also got monkey socks that made her look like she has Hobbit feet.


Lucy's favorite toy turned out to be the $5.00 tea set from Walmart that Drake helped pick out for her. She loved it! She walked around pretending to drink out of the little teacups and pretending to eat the little teacakes and cookies. It was really adorable.