The Puddles

So Ainsley is currently in front of the computer in the kitchen . . . making a movie with photobooth.  I think that she is feeling better.

We are still thinking about whether or not to send her tomorrow.  Her belly still hurts, but she is starting to act like herself again.  A friend kept Miss A today so that I could go to have lunch with Madie today for a special award that she won.  Ainsley was dressed and ready by 8:30am. Only problem . . . we weren’t going for another 2 hours.  I think I am not the only one with cabin fever.

Now I hope that no one else follows.

Poor Miss A. Another day lost to being sick.  She is at least not running a high fever.  But she is still miserable.  The doctor now thinks that it might be gardia(the spelling is not right.  But I “turtle-talked” the word so that I could hear all of the syllables.  I listened to Ben’s first grade teacher and hopefully learned something.)  The doctor is putting A on a medication for it, but we won’t get the results of all the “samples” that I dropped off today until much later.  So who knows.  We just want Ainsley to not feel so miserable.  She feel asleep on the toilet this morning.  Poor thing.  It was adorable. I’m not sure how comfortable that was but she managed to do it.

So another day at home.  I really hope that we don’t pass this around.  Lysol is my friend right now.  Chris walked in tonight and said, “I can smell that you’ve been cleaning.”

Now that is a quote of the day.

we have none. We are back from the doctor and after a urinalysis, strep test, and flu test, we know what it is not.  But because of the high fever and her inability to hold down even fluids, the doctor is concerned.  So we have to bring in samples and they did a blood draw in order to run more labs.  We have hopes that we will find out what is wrong soon.  She is just in so much pain the last few days.

The sick feeling in the house is overwhelming.  I feel the need to wipe down everything with disinfectant.  And hopefully Miss A will get better soon and I pray no one else follows.

“I can’t do this anymore. Call the doctor and tell her to fix me,” cries Ainsley.

2 days later and we can’t get this bug licked. She is leaking every where, running up to 104.6 fever and still not able to eat or drink.  I think she has endured enough.

I swear my children know just when to get sick to make it hard on me.

Ben got off the bus on Thursday running a 102 fever.  He said he was feeling bad all day, but didn’t want to bother the nurse (let’s ignore the fact that he already visits her everyday for a blood pressure check.  He could have told her then!).  So I call the doctor and they insist that I bring Ben in immediately just to make sure that it wasn’t strep or something that wouldn’t be good for him.  But . . . we were due to leave in 30 minutes to go to Girl Scouts where my troop was going to make dinner for 20 people that evening.  Luckily a quick phone call to one of my co-leaders put the wheels in motion for my wonderful troop’s other moms to step forward to take lead.  By the time I arrived after taking Ben to the doctor, there were 10 moms and 20 girls in the kitchen cooking and setting the table.  The building smelled great and dinner was ready.  I really do have the best moms!

The doctor wasn’t sure what was up with Ben.  But since the weekend was coming, she gave him an antibiotic while we waited for the lab results to come back. But after reaching 103.5 that evening (well really at 2am on Friday morning) and two doses of antibiotic, he was fever free and doing great since then.  He is ready to go back to school tomorrow!

Then there is Ainsley . . . who decided to come down with whatever Ben had on Saturday evening.  Lovely.  It’s not like I am suppose to do anything on Sunday or like Chris can stay home with her while I go to church.  It is what it is.  So Ainsley and I spent a lovely night in the bathroom, poor thing.  Her fever would peak. She would throw up. Her fever would break right after. Only to start the process all over again.  The poor thing just has those fever eyes. All mothers know what I am talking about.  You can just tell by her eyes that she doesn’t feel good.  Hopefully she will be on the mend by tomorrow.

Illnesses never come at good times, but Christmas time is especially busy. Debra and I were suppose to make jelly on Friday, rescheduled for today, and now who knows when!  First we have to get everybody better.  Hopefully this will be the end of no one else in the family will get sick.  I can hope!

“Hey, guys!  Gordon is going to be here this afternoon, so make sure all of your chores are done.”

“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I did not put that on my calendar.  Let me check my schedule and get back with you on that,” says Ben.

Ainsley making her apple pie

Madie and her pumpkin pie

Ainsley checking on her pie

The finished products ready to go to Grandma's

Got to do something while the pies are cookin'

Ainsley's talking to Grandma telling her what we are cooking

I swear they are just like each other sometimes, but I don't tell either that.

Playing with all of the good toys at Grandma and Papa's house

A good end to a good day

A year ago, my mom and I were taking turns going down to the Ronald McDonald’s house for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Chris was trying to catch up on sleep from spending all night at the hospital and Ben was in ICU trying to recover from open heart surgery.  This year was way better than last year.  We had a nice relaxing day.  The kids and I woke up early to cook the two pies and the corn casserole that I was suppose to bring.  We had planned on purchasing the pies from a local pie shop, but after discovering it was $20 a pie I decided to bake instead.  Each kid got to pick one thing to make with mom.  I finally sent coffee up to Chris to wake him up around 9:30.  Coffee helps him to wake up happy on these kind of busy days.  I thought for sure that we were going to leave by 10:30.  Nope. The pies took longer to cook.  But oh they smelled good in the house.  Then Chris decided to clean out my car.  Vacuum. Wipe it down.  The works.  It was so nice, but the timing could have been better. But his heart was in the right place.   We finally headed out to Grandma and Papa Grace’s house.  The food was good. The company was good. Madie was disappointed that none of her cousins were there, but she managed to have a good time once she realized that she had less people to share Grandma and Papa with.  Much better.   We headed home after the football game ended.  But we managed to wash and put away all of the dishes for Grandma.  Even Chris dried dishes.  Again a good ending to a good day.  I remember thinking last year that I would look forward to being on the other side of this.  It felt like we might never see the end of that drama last year and yet here we are. Thanksgiving meant a lot this year.  We have so much to be thankful for.

Done. The Sunday school Christmas program cds are burned and ready to be handed out.  I am ready for the lesson for my class. My chores are done except for the laundry.  And I updated the blog while I burned cds.  So I’m done.  And I am really ready for bed.  It is going to be hard enough to drag myself out of bed in the morning.  And to actually go to church.  The kids want to go see a movie tomorrow and I don’t know if I can make it.  I just might fall asleep during the movie which would not be good.  But I got a lot of things knocked off my list tonight ( and this morning) so that is good.  I will reward myself with sleep. Good night.

After we all got home from all of the fun at school.  The kids hung out while Papa enjoyed the grands before he had to head home.  I was amazed.  He managed all three kids at the same time.  He watched Madie do tricks outside while Ainsley sat on his lap on the ipad and Ben told Papa a story.  A good ending to a good day.

My apologies for the awful camera work, I didn’t realize that I took so many blurry photos that day.

It was a really good day.  It started at 7:00am with Donuts with Dad that even Papa G came up from Friendswood for.  He and Chris took the three puddles to school for some juice and donuts which followed with tours of the classrooms from the kids.  I stayed home to cook and prepare all of the items that I had to bring to school that day for three class Thanksgiving celebrations.  By 8:30am I was at school prepping the kindergarten classroom with a couple of other moms for their feast.  All five classrooms were to put all of the food in the hallway and then we were suppose to make plates for each child.  Talk about chaos.  All of the food sent was in various stages of preparedness.  From an unopened can of green beans to a fully cooked turkey in a roasting pan.  But the end result was good, the kids all had a plate of food set in front of them by the time they came back from their fun outside.  Papa and Chris arrived just in time to enjoy a feast with Ainsley.  I headed to the first grade celebration to help get that one started.  I showed up and I was the only parent there.  Luckily other parents showed up closer to the start time and were willing to pitch in to help.  Even Papa and Chris passed out hotdogs and napkins.  That’s right hotdogs.  Ainsley had a turkey dinner with all of the fixings and Ben had turkey hotdogs.  Both were tasty and fun!  After cleaning up for both classrooms and checking the younger two out of school, we headed home quickly to pick up a quick bite to eat for me (who didn’t have time to eat at either meal) and then head back to school for Madie’s family celebration.  The entire class prepared slide show presentations to share with their families.  It was cool to be there.  And we were all glad that Papa got to join us for everything.  I think he had a good time too.