This sucks. I hate it.

I had the words of the title marching through my head last night like a mantra.

Emily was having a hard time with her asthma and I didn't know what to do to help her. Worse yet, there was little I could do that would help her.

She's had a bit of a cold for the last week or week and a half, but nothing that was enough to concern me. I was treating her with her albuterol and flovent inhalers and she seemed to be improving.

And then last night, when we put her to bed, she started coughing. And coughing and coughing. And she couldn't stop.

I gave her three puffs of her albuterol inhaler (two is her normal dose) and two puffs of the flovent inhaler, plus some cough medicine (yes, I know, not allowed in kids under 6. You'd have done it, too). I propped her up on two pillows and gave her some water to drink, trying to break the coughing cycle.

That seemed to help for a while and I was hopeful that the night would be smooth once she fell asleep.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. She continued to cough and cough and cough. I brought her out to give her a nebulizer treatment at 1030 and she coughed up some phlegm.

Again, I was hopeful. I thought with the goo out of her throat and the neb on board, she might feel better and go to sleep.

I went to bed and laid there, listening to her cough. And worse, listening to her gasp for breath as she tried to cough.

I got her out of bed again, intending to take her outside to get some cold air in her lungs, hoping that would help.

As I got her up, I noticed that her water bottle was nearly empty. I took her into the bathroom to refill it and she coughed up another bunch of phlegm (which, have I mentioned how much I HATE that word? Ugh - so gross.) I cleaned her up with the hand towel we have next to the sink and then was thankful I had it in my hands when she puked up a REALLY big glob of goo. And then she threw up.

I took her outside after all of that, but it wasn't very cold out and I don't think it did much to help her.

What really helped, was getting all that phlegm out of her throat so the poor kid could breathe.

I put Emily back to bed and went to bed myself, but of course, I couldn't sleep.

I laid in bed, listening for coughing from the other room. And in the absence of coughing, I thought about what I should do today. Do I take her to the doctor? Do I send her to the birthday party she was supposed to attend today? Why do my kids seem to be perpetually sick?

And so on.

I hate this. Asthma can kiss my ass.

This totally sucks. I hate that I can't make my kids feel better. I hate that they have this affliction that makes them more likely to get sick. AND when they do get sick, more likely to get REALLY sick.

I hate that I am forever walking the line between being reactionary and taking my kids to the doctor and being conservative and trying not to take the kids to the doctor for every little cough. I hate that I have to consider how much a trip to the doctor is going to cost and weigh that against how sick I think the kids are.

I hate that my kids seem to be sick ALL THE TIME. We had about a week break between the last cold and this one starting up. A week, where both kids were relatively healthy.

I hate that my daughter was suffering last night and there was precious little I could do to help her. Sure, I can give her nebulizer treatments and I can prop her up in bed, but the thing that helped her the most? Was the thing she did on her own; horking up the loogie that was causing all the trouble to begin with.

I ultimately decided Emily was NOT going to the party (the hostess has a small baby and the LAST thing she needs is my kid sharing germs with hers) and WAS going to the doctor.

I ran the Fabulous Dr Sara through the events of last night, and felt myself getting all worked up about them again. Just talking about it made my stomach get all tense and upset. Dr Sara said she thinks that there was a sinus component to last night's fun and so she put Emily on an antibiotic. She also told me to give Emily the Orapred we have on hand* tonight if she has another episode like last night's. She also suggested I try some chest PT on Emily if she has trouble tonight.

*And that's another thing I hate. My kid has a standing prescription for oral steroids. It gets refilled without question, whenever I ask. Because without it, Emily's coughing can get so out of control, she can't breathe.

Have I mentioned that I hate this? And it sucks?

The attack Emily had last night was by far the worst she's had in a while and that's great. I'm glad she's been healthy for a while. I'm glad that I was there. Glad that she came out of it before midnight. Glad that she didn't have to go to the hospital. Glad that I had medicine on hand that would make her more comfortable. Glad that we can take her to the doctor and get her prescriptions when she needs them.

But it still sucks that I have to do any of that to begin with.

It's Where Clothes Go

Last night, I took off the sweatshirt I had been wearing and set it on the couch next to me.

Lucy came up a few minutes later and said something that I interpreted to be: You put this down, Mommy. (Her speech is improving, but I am still guessing about 65% of time). I agreed that I did put it down and went back to my reading.

Several minutes later, I went in to Lucy's room to change her diaper.

I was surprised to see my sweatshirt in Lucy's hamper.

It would seem that Lucy took it upon herself to pick up my sweatshirt and put it in her hamper.

Because that's where dirty clothes go.

And how cool is that?!

I have been making Emily put her dirty clothes in her hamper since she started dressing herself. If she takes something off, she immediately puts it in her hamper.

It actually winds up being a bit of a fight if I tell her something doesn't have to go in her hamper.

And then I smile to myself. Because I am fighting with my kid about picking up her clothes.

I know that this isn't likely to stay this way forever. We will most definitely go through the messy room and the fights about keeping it tidy, but I am still excited that the rudimentary seeds of neatness are starting to grow.

Now if I could only figure out how to keep my kitchen counters tidy...

Back to work

This weekend was a whirlwind of house projects and picnics and fun.

It was also the beginning of Emily's summer break from preschool. I honestly cannot believe that she is done. Already.

We went to a birthday party for Mike's cousin on Friday night and didn't get the girls back home until 10:30. They were tired. They actually fell asleep in the car on the way home. Which almost NEVER happens. They played hard and then crashed. It was great.

Saturday, Mike spent nearly the whole day outside, after he installed a new deadbolt on the garage door to the house. He cleaned out the barn, swept up the grass clippings from our back yard and spread them on the garden. He moved his dad's boat out of our barn. And did about 100 other things, that I can't remember any more. I spent the morning installing a new light switch and 3 new outlets in our bedroom. Our house is 30 years old and some of the outlets are starting to loose their gripping power on the plugs. It's annoying and so I am replacing them as I discover them. Replacing them is easy and it makes me feel all handy.

Sunday we did the church thing and then went to Mike's parent's house in the afternoon for a picnic. We all ate a ton and then watched in awe as the girls ran around and around and around and around the yard. We got them home and put them to bed about 9:30. They passed out almost immediately and didn't wake up until 9 am. When Mike went in and woke them up. It was amazing.

Yesterday was another busy day. Mike mowed and string-trimmed the yard again and took down a tree that has been bugging him. In the course of taking the tree down, he nearly dumped his tractor in the creek. He explained how this all came to happen, but basically, it involves a hill and well, gravity.

While Mike was trying to take his tractor for a swim, I was installing new screen on our front door and garage doors. This is a project that's been bugging me for a while. The screen door to the garage was all holey and nasty when we bought the house. I nagged Mike for a while and he finally put new screen in. And then, not 3 weeks later, poked a hole in the new screen with a box. And that was how it stayed for nearly 2 years? Maybe 3. Until I got sick of looking like the Clampett's hard luck neighbors and bought new screen. And installed the stuff myself. Like the outlets, it's not hard and it makes me feel all handy. Apparently I like feeling handy since I've been doing more and more of that stuff lately.

After dinner last night, my parents and Mike and I were talking about what we would do if we didn't have to go back to work today. And the consensus was ... we didn't know. Continue working around the house somehow, but we weren't sure how or where. We knocked several things off the Honey Do List on the fridge, leaving only two things on it. They are fixing the passage door into the garage (it has a wonky latch that tends not to shut in the cold months) and fixing the garage door sensors. The sensors are really hosed up and we're not sure how to fix them. Our garage faces west and so the setting sun messes them up, preventing the garage door from closing. On top of that, they get knocked out of alignment frequently and again, the garage door won't close. And sometimes? Sometimes both things happen at once. That's all kinds awesome.

Sweet Potatoes = BAD

I need to remember this: My darling daughter, Lucy, CANNOT eat sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes + Lucy = VOMIT. (Much like Augmentin + Lucy = VOMIT.)

Sweet potatoes + Lucy + Bath = VOMIT in the hair. (Why, oh, why do my kids feel the need to puke every damn time* they have a bath? Why can't I enjoy the delicious scent of clean-kid hair without the extra essence of stomach acid?)(I could sniff Lucy's freshly washed hair for hours. Emily? Less so. She's starting to get that kid smell that is just not as yummy.)

*OK, so it's not every time, but honestly, it feels like it. It never fails that when the girls get sick, they are also freshly bathed.

I also need to remember that I DO NOT need to catch said vomit in my hands. It's not going to prevent the vomit from landing on the sheets, especially because my hands? Are not waterproof! AND having vomit on my hands then prevents me from removing items (MONKEY) from the vomiting line of fire.

The sweet potato containing item that caused the vomiting last night? Sweet potato pie. We told the kids (Emily, especially) that we were having "pumpkin" pie. That was great, except I started to buy the pumpkin-not-sweet-potato story. Until I watched Emily eat it with great gusto. And then I started laughing because Emily will NOT eat sweet potatoes. Mashed sweet potatoes go in that child's mouth under great protest. And I make my mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and lots of butter*. They are candy, masquerading as a healthy vegetable. Drenched in sugar, butter and milk.

*Where butter = Smart Balance buttery spread. But, you know, same difference. My kids wouldn't know what to do with real butter on their food.

****
Lucy went back to the pediatrician yesterday for her ear re-check. I was laying bets (or trying, but Courtney wouldn't cooperate with me) on whether Lucy still had an infection. It turns out Courtney would have won that bet. Lucy did not have an infection, but she did still have fluid in her left ear, which explains the digging that she had been doing at that ear.

I left with the suggestion that we take Miss L to see an ENT. To get tubes.

And, seeing how well Emily has bounced back from getting her tubes, I totally agree. This is what I was hoping for. Obviously, I don't wish for my kids to need surgery at the tender ages of 1.5 and 3.5, but all the same, if this will help them feel better and not be sick so much, I am all for it.

So we now have an appointment with a doctor in the practice we used to get Emily's tubes done. The doctor who did Em's tubes, Dr. K, is 1) booked solid for quite a while and 2) while totally awesome (hence the booked-ness), has a tendency to run terribly behind (see also the booked-ness). I am excited to go see Dr. Y and hopefully get Lucy in for tubes most soonly.

Quite Contrary

We put our garden in tonight. It was terribly exciting. Courtney and the kids came over to help. They, the kids especially, are going to help us with the garden this summer.
Elliott was the designated digger for the carrots. Until she got tired of that and then she went to help Lucy and Janna systematically empty the sand and watering (Emily's phrase) table of its gravel.
This is such a flattering shot of me, Courtney. Thanks! :) I'll set it as my desktop to remind me why I am walking my buns off to Leslie Sansone every day.

Anyways, these are the carrots, going in. They are a mat with seeds imbedded. Gabe got them in his Easter basket and is very excited about seeing them grow.

Emily and Gabe were less interested in digging in the garden and more interested in wrestling. Elliott really wanted to help, but was very unsure about the digging in the dirt and getting messy part. And even more so when it came time to break out the fertilizer.
Emily is digging a trench for the green beans.

So is Gabe. His line is a little, well, crooked and shallow. They both lost interest when we corrected them. Oh well. Hopefully they will be more interested when the seeds start growing.
Elliott is supervising the reconstruction of the bean trenches.

We also planted tomatoes, watermelon, pumpkins and zucchini. And now that the garden is in, I can't wait to start harvesting!

More Car Pictures

Because I am lame.

Mike has a New Car

And we couldn't be more thrilled. We left the house this morning at 6 am (which meant a wake-up of 445 am) and drove to Dover OH to "look at" a car that Mike wanted. We took it for a quick test drive and then went and got a loan to buy it. Mike was all red and blotchy from excitement (one of the downfalls of being fair-skinned - your excitement totally shows and your loved ones mock you for it. You can see the same blotchiness in the picture above.)

Some highlights of the trip:

- Telling Mike that he couldn't buy the car because his door was ajar. It's a terrible thing for a door to be, you know. Puns = awesome.

- Going to Dairy Queen and getting a chocolate Blizzard with peanut butter and peanut butter cups. Yum. My favorite Blizzard has gluten in it and I decided that eating a hamburger with the bun was plenty enough gluten for me for one day, thankyouverymuch. I really am trying to be good, but it is HARD when you are on the road. And I am lazy and reluctant to accept that gluten-free is the way I have to eat forever and ever and ever. Denial = not just a river in Africa.

- Playing tag with the TV people on the way home. There was a couple driving a pickup with a large-screen projection TV in the back. We would pass them and then they would pass us and then we would pass them. We stopped at a rest stop together and Mike and I were both tempted to ask them to put on a movie. We lost track of them for a while, but then caught up with them again just before our exit. In all, I think they were with us almost the whole way home.

- Being tailgated by a white Blazer while doing 70. And being unable to get over due to LARGE SEMI-TRUCKS in the right lane. And being on the receiving end of rude gestures from said white Blazer. And then being too mature to return the favor of the rude gestures, though I sorely wanted to. You'd think he'd figure out that I'm not going to cut off a GIGANTIC truck that could smash me AND my pretty new car with the temporary tag into a million pieces.

- Carefully getting out my money to pay my toll and then getting in the EZ Pass lane. The UNATTENDED EZ Pass lane. Where I could not give anyone the money that I risked life and limb to dig out of my wallet. I am so used to having the EZ Pass tag on my car that it was nearly impossible for me to comprehend that I had to get in another lane. Genius.

- Driving 674 miles in 13 hours.

Big Excitement

There are big things going on around here.

I stopped at the CVS that is less than 3 miles from my house and discovered this:

I know it doesn't look like much right now and I shouldn't be as excited about this as I am, but this? Is the site of a new Aldi grocery store. And that is VERY exciting.

I shop every week at Aldi and LOVE it. What I don't love is the fact that I have to drive 10-15 miles to get to the nearest Aldi. So the news that this store was coming was very exciting to me. In fact, I think I blogged about it, though I am too lazy to go through my archives to find the link.

Since that announcement, there has been a SOLD sign on this land, but not much movement. And then the economy took a dive and I've been anxiously awaiting signs of life here.

And here they are!! YAY!

In other exciting news, Mike has found a car that meets almost all of his criteria. It is a 2009 Chevrolet Cobalt. It's blue, it has a 5-speed manual transmission, power windows and power locks and cruise control. The only thing it is missing is anti-lock brakes. It has just shy of 4,000 miles on it and it is in our price range. It is a match made in heaven.

I have spent the afternoon on the phone with banks and the dealership working on securing financing and putting down a deposit so the dealer will hold the car until we can get there.

The only mark against it is that it is in Ohio. 5 and a half hours from here. So, Monday morning, we will be leaving here bright and early and heading for Ohio to test drive Mike's car and hopefully bring it home.

Tubed!

Emily got her tubes put in today.

Here she is, waiting with Daddy before the surgery, looking resplendent in her princess nightie. What a trooper she was. She cried when they wanted to take her to the operating room, but then agreed to sit in the wagon to be taken over. They said she never whimpered as they brought her in, laid down and then they knocked her out.

The doctor said he found a "raging" infection in her left ear, complete with bulging red ear drum. Awesome. She'd been on Zithromax for the past 5 days, but apparently that didn't stop this infection from developing.

Just proves that the tubes were truly necessary.

Post-surgery, enjoying a popsicle and a snuggle from Oscar. She had some mild pain from the surgery but some Tylenol cleared it right up. She was cranky and tired for a while, but she laid on the couch and watched The Little Mermaid for a while and then felt well enough to play Play-Doh with Daddy. She took a great nap and then helped Mike mow the lawn this afternoon (the first time of the season!).

After dinner, we went and got Emily's hair cut. She's been fighting me in the morning about getting her hair put up or brushed and I threatened to cut her hair. After some consideration, she decided that she would like to get her hair cut.

A few minutes after the picture above was taken, a weird man came in and asked for a hair cut, all while staring holes in Emily. He started complimenting her hair and while I am sure he didn't mean any harm, he totally freaked me out. I didn't like the way he was looking at her, to the exclusion of every one else in the place. The lady who was cutting Emily's hair apparently felt the same because she told him to come back later if he wanted to get his hair cut. After he left, I thanked her and told her how uncomfortable he'd made me. She agreed and said she was feeling protective towards Em, too.

And the finished product!! I love it. I would be ok with it slightly shorter, too, but this length lets me put it up in a pony tail without stragglers. She seems to be happy with it, too.

Y'know, it's funny, I was so freaked about Emily getting the tubes when Dr.Sara said she needed them. Today, I was ... fine. I knew it was simple surgery and I was working so hard to be calm about it in front of Emily that I actually believed my own press. The hardest part for me was when she walked away from me to get in the wagon and then chickened out. She came running back to me, her face crumpling as she started to cry. I was having a very hard time not getting all teary myself. Once she was gone, I concentrated on not losing it and then, in what seemed like five minutes, they were back, telling me that she'd done really well.

I am very hopeful that the tubes will help us this summer and winter to avoid going to the pediatrician's office once a week. It would be nice to NOT spend $6,000 in medical expenses this year.