Happy Easter! (Busy, busy week)

For those of you close to me or who are following this blog, I have LOTS to catch you up on, but tomorrow we move and it will probably be a few (or many, who knows when it's ME involved!) days before we get our internet hooked up at the new house.  Hopefully everything will go smoothly and I can be up and running in only a few short days.

Check back with me and I will be letting you know how vacation went, posting Easter pictures of Punky and Chicken and telling the tales of the move.  I'm sure we'll have some...but here's a precursor to something that actually went WELL for us while we were gone...  The lady moving in here switched our utilities over to her name already so we got a free month and don't have to pay the $128.  Could be an error on the utility side but it came in her name with a different account number, so I guess we'll see.  She really should have asked her realtor about all this.  No telling what else we'll get free this month!!!  :oD  But hey, you live you learn.  We did a few stupid things when we bought our condo, so I think it's all part of it.  

Hope everyone had a great easter weekend!  I can't wait to get back into our groove and daily routine.  See you in a few days!

Murphy loves me

Haven't I had enough people?  Have I not had enough drama in the last two weeks to last me until I'm at least thirty?  These last few weeks have put a whole new meaning to "when it rains, it pours."

So the night of my last post, I noticed my ankles were swollen.  Really swollen at only 20 weeks pregnant.  Yesterday?  Yup, swollen again, so I called my OB because the swelling was accompanied by a severe headache.  Anyone who's been pregnant before know this could be a sign of preeclampsia.  So the doc, just as I knew he would wanted to see me and check my BP and everything else today.  I arranged for one of the awesomest friends around to come and sit with my kiddos while they napped (and she's extra awesome because she's also pregnant and in the throws of morning sickness - a reason I felt bad even having to ask her!).  

I get to the doc and the second he walks in, I tell him that I've seen him entirely too much in the last couple of weeks.  He frowns and says, "Well, I like seeing you!"  He was, of course, just playing back with me.  But I was thinking, "yeah, because I'm paying your rent."  The turkey.  My BP was good, swelling is down significantly today, but oh, what was that?  A bladder infection?  No, he says, wait.

A kidney stone.  

Youdidnotjustsayakidneystone.

Yeah, you've got blood and this such and such in your urine which means a kidney stone.

I haven't had a kidney stone in almost 13 months.  I guess it's about time for one.  Especially since I've been pregnant and not had one.  They usually increase when I'm "with child."  But you know, we are leaving for vacation Sunday.  There's no reason why I should be able to ENJOY my vacation.  Of course, we're going to be in the middle of my much coveted shopping day and it's gonna hit me.  Either that or I'm going to get stuck kicking and screaming and writhing in pain the entire time because a kidney stone is stuck in my bladder and refuses to come out, therefore causing bladder spasms.  

Yeah, I think I'm going to just puke from excitement over this kidney stone.  It's just what I needed.

Forget the vacation, just bring on the kidney stone!!!

Kiddo and moving update

So we're in the throws of packing now...er, rather I'M the one in the throws of packing.  Because of our vacation next week, Hubby is having to work a lot of overtime to build up his leave so we can go.  My mother in law and twin sister in laws came over to help me tonight and we got the master closet packed up.  Once the kitchen is done, I can say we're about 90% finished.  I'm ready to get this move underway and OVER.

Starting tomorrow, things are going to get very hectic.  We do have to finish up packing, I have to start packing for the untimely, yet NEEDED vacation and somehow manage to stay sane.  That, my dear friends, is probably going to be the biggest challenge.  Braxton hicks are picking up like crazy and I know it's from the stress.  I'm starting to not sleep well from everything that's going on, plus the little princess is starting to get rather vigorous in her exercising at 3 am.  It's a wonderful feeling to feel her moving inside of me, but I'd much rather be feeling it at...say 7 am instead.  

Punky is getting excited about our trip.  One of our stops is going to be an aquarium and all she can talk about is the "fishies."  And Grandma told her who all was going so she likes to name them.  I also have arranged for my mother to make her some dress up clothes, the first piece being a tutu.  So this morning when I went in to get her, she said, "Nana bring Punky tutu?"  I assured that yes, Nana would indeed bring her a tutu, but she had to wait.  Patience is certainly not my two year old's strong point.

Chicken is improving by leaps and bounds.  I barely know he's in the house now.  It makes me feel bad because I wonder how long he's actually been sick, aside from the cough.  He's been snotty going on four weeks, but he's been crankier much longer than that.  Now, with the antibiotics, he's been happy as a clam and back to the sweet, adorable Chicken and using that smile of his against me.  I'm telling you, he can get away with murder if he flashes me that, "you can't touch this" grin while he cuts his eyes around at me.  The little devil.  He's also walking great now with very few falls.  He gets frustrated when he does fall, but he can get back up from the ground without pulling up on anything, so he makes quick work of getting where he wants to go.  He's trying to learn how to run, so that's his next challenge.

The best part?  Now that he's better, he's back to putting himself to sleep, sleeping 12-13 hours at night and taking wonderful, long naps.  Now, if Punky would get her two year molars in, we might just be getting somewhere...that is until July and we start the whole process over.  The good thing is none of my kids get teeth until after 10 months (Chicken will be 13 months in 2 weeks and still doesn't have a single one), so I don't have to worry about teething for awhile with the little princess!

I don't know how much posting I'll be doing over the next two weeks with vacation and moving, but I'll try to do a quick update here and there, just for the memories if nothing else.  Our vacation will be the first one we have as a family of four, so it's going to be lots of fun with a even more chaos thrown in!

Long post, but important lesson

Sooooooo...what did I do after I got home from the hospital?  Went to the ER with Chicken.  Yup, less than one hour after I got home, he had to go.  Hubby had told me that he was acting very lethargic and unlike himself and wouldn't hardly move and his cough was much worse.  He finally got him to sleep and on my way home from the hospital, I called the pediatrician's office to see if it warranted a trip to the ER.  She told me to look for "see-sawing" in his chest where he was having trouble breathing.  Essentially, it was his stomach going out and his chest sinking in as he took a breath.  She said at the moment, to take him in first thing the next morning, but if I noticed any of the signs she told me to take him in immediately.

Well, I walk in the door, help Hubby fold about 5 pieces of clothing and chicken wakes up making a horrible sound.  I go in there and he's laying on his stomach moaning/crying/heaving for air and coughing and gagging.  He was "see-sawing" and could barely breathe.  Of course, Hubby and I both panic.  But wait!  Punky is sleeping so only one of us could go to the ER.  I told hubby I might as well be the one since I was good and hydrated and rested after a long day of sitting and doing nothing.  So I loaded him up and took off.

When I say I was treated like a number and an incompetent mother, that's the understatement of the century.  As I was put in our room at the ER, what I assume to be my nurse called to me from the door (literally across the room) and asked me a series of questions.  Another nurse, who was nice and concerned, had checked us in and I thought she would be my nurse.  I thought this other guy was just being nosy since he wasn't ACTING like a nurse.  I answered his questions a little hesitantly and watched him pop the door frame with his hand and say, "The doctor will be right with you."  One.Hour.Later.  Yeah, he failed to add that to his little flippant repertoire.  So when the doc finally came in (after the "nurse" brought us a popcicle and apple juice), he ordered a chest x-ray and I kid you not, every time I said something, he just grinned and acted like I was stupid for having asked.  When I told him about Chicken's episode, he sort of frowned and raised his eyebrows like it was the oddest thing he'd heard all night.  As he was walking out the door, I called to him and asked him if he could have croup and he just grinned.

"We'll just have to see what the x-ray says."  And.he.left.

After Chicken's traumatic x-ray, we sat for another hour or two (I lost track of time by then, but did get to see Jeff Corwin on Leno.  It was the highlight of my evening).  At that point, I had noticed a bad rash on Chicken's stomach and had to get the insurance lady to get my "nurse."  I still wasn't sure if the nosy guy was my nurse or if I just didn't have one.  He came in, squatted a bit in front of us and just looked at me.  "Have you told the doctor about this?"  I looked back at him, trying my best to reflect his flippant, who-really-cares look and said, "Nope.  Haven't seen him since I noticed it."  He stood up, snapping his fingers and said, "Well, just tell him when he comes back."

At this point, I'm irate.  It's nearing 1 am and I'm tired.  Chicken hasn't been asleep since 9, when he woke up gasping for air and being the schedule freak I am, I just keep wondering how on earth he's going to be fit for anything tomorrow.  I rock him, I do everything but he just won't go to sleep.  So we sit for a little while longer and the doctor finally comes in.  I show him the rash.  "That looks like a sandpaper rash that's very typical with scarlet fever or scarletina."  I look at him.  I'm no idiot.  I'm certainly no doctor but my kid does NOT have scarlet fever.  I've known kids who've had it and it's not that.  They actually run a fever with scarlet fever.  Chicken's temp was 98.1 when we checked in.

It was one of those moments I wish I could go back and do over.  I'm very obviously a bother to the entire medical field at this point.  What I would give to just go back and look at him and say, "Don't they have to have a fever to have scarlet FEVER?"  For some reason it never dawned on me to ask that.  He did ask me the last time he had a fever and I told him back on Monday when we got the stomach bug.  I guess he was going on that.  BUT, he wrote on my release sheet:  Diagnosis 1: Scarletina DX2: FEVER (huh?) DX3: Upper respiratory infection.  Did someone send out a memo that I missed deeming 98.1 a fever?  How is diagnosing him with something he doesn't have?

"Well," he said after sitting back and grinning at me, so very proud of himself.  "He's got scarlet fever.  I'll give him a round of antibiotics, write this up and get you out of here."  

I just stare.  Isn't that what he wanted from the moment I walked in?  Isn't a patient a doctor's worst nightmare?  Cause after all, he made about $1000 for 5 minutes of his time.  Sounds like he's gotten a little too big for his britches.

The next day, I refused to give Chicken the antibiotics until I talk with my pediatrician.  My doctor, as I've noted before, is wonderful.  She helped START the pediatric ER here in town.  I'm not sure if she said she was ON the board, or if she was just good friends with everyone still, but either way she's respected amongst the hospital staff.  At our appointment, I relayed everything that happened.

"What did his strep test say?" she asked me.

"They didn't do a strep test."

She's very angry at this point and started to get a little red in the cheeks.  "Scarlet fever is strep throat with a rash, if he's going to diagnose scarlet fever, he could have at least done a strep test."  I just raised my eyebrows in agreement and reiterated that he hadn't had a fever when we went in.  She then asked me his name, wrote it down and told me she wanted me to speak with administration about it.  I told her I had a lot going on at the moment, but she was welcomed to do whatever she needed to.  She apologized and examined Chicken very thoroughly.  Then she said, "I wonder if he's getting croup."  I cocked an eyebrow.  "That's what I asked the doctor last night because he sounds like he's barking AND he's losing his voice.  He ignored me."  She hung her stethoscope around her neck and shook her head.  "That's probably what this is.  I'm going to give him some steroids and a round of antibiotics just because he's been congested for three weeks.  I'm sure this will help him."  I ask her about Punky since croup is contagious.  She didn't hesitate to up the dosage of the steroid enough for Punky although she assured me that she wouldn't get as sick as Chicken because her airways were larger.  She told me what to do if Punky got sick, too and I left, feeling so much more relieved than when I arrived.  My gut was right, he didn't have scarlet fever and he might actually survive.

As I was leaving, I looked up at the doc and she was in a corner with one of the other doctors and was griping and I could tell she was mad as old wet hen.  I have a feeling Dr. Cocky is about to be castrated.  All I can say is...would you like a wah-burger with those french cries?

While the doctor didn't prescribe Chicken anything my pediatrician hadn't, I KNEW his diagnosis was wrong.  I KNEW something wasn't right from the moment I walked in and had the blase nurse I never saw and the doctor who just smiled and acted like I was an idiot.  While I'm no doctor, my pediatrician reminded me that in today's society people have access to information that they've never had before and they're not stupid and ever-trusting in doctors.  The only reason I had asked the ER doc about croup was because my mom, my mother in law, and the nurse that checked us in at the er said that was what it sounded like and they knew from experience.  

The moral of the rambling, really-ticked-off blog?  Trust your gut with your kids.  I've done it more than once and it's paid off.  It could have been more severe and the doc put Chicken through a bunch of tests or try to give him meds he didn't need.  I'm happy to report Chicken is getting much better.  He's still coughing but he's not waking up as much and not struggling to breathe.  Who knows where this could have lead if I had just put my faith in them?  (Sad when it's put that way, huh?)

And as for me...I'm happy to report that I'm all well.  We're living like hermits from now until our vacation and move though.  We're not going back out to church until Easter so the kiddos can have a reprieve from all of this.  

Thanks for all your prayers and sorry for the long post, but I think it needed to be said!

Just a day at the hospital

Well, I'm sitting here watching Lost listening to the steady pump of IV fluids going into my arm. Hubby left a little while ago to put the kidlets to bed. I figured it would happen but I guess I had just hoped I could avoid it. I went and got myself dehydrated, but thankfully only slightly. My doc basically left it up to me to whether or not I was going to get this done, and he assured me that I would only be here until later tonight. So far, I've got about an hour left on my IV and then I can go home.



I had delicious hospital rice, applesauce, an unripened banana, and two pieces of toast. Talk about the dinner of champions. Overall, not a bad deal. I've been blessed with a wonderful family who took my kids readily and I haven't had to worry about them once although I've missed them like crazy. I've been here for about 5 and a half hours and while I'm going stir crazy, I'm going to consider that a good thing.



Bad news is Chicken is getting sicker. Not with this virus but with his congestion. All of a sudden yesterday he developed a horrible cough and now he cries each time he coughs. I'm afraid as long as he's been congested, he's going to get bronchitis or pneumonia or something. I just don't know how to deal with sick babies. I don't know when to worry or when to relax. He doesn't have a fever so I don't know if that's a good thing or not a good indicator. ARGH! I'm more worried about him right now than anything. I've peed enough to last a week in the last 5 1/2 hours so I'm convinced I'm thoroughly hydrated enough for me AND an elephant for awhile. Now, if Chicken would get well, I might could enjoy life again!



Say a prayer for him! I think this is the sickest I've seen kids this winter because all of our friends around us are sick, too!

Blah, blah, blah.

So this nasty thing that Chicken and I have had is still lingering.  I sure hope for the sake of packing, vacation and moving that it goes away VERY quickly.  My fever is gone, for the most part all nausea is gone, but the...intestinal issues remain for both of us.  I can tell I'm dehydrated as I've been having dry mouth and braxton hicks are picking up a little.  I'm drinking water but it's just not staying in me.  I'm afraid I'm headed for an overnight rehydrating hospital visit just for the sake of the baby.  If the immodium doesn't work, I'm going to have to call my doc for sure and let him know.  Since I'm not that nauseous any more I'm really drinking a lot of water today and hoping it makes a difference.  Say a prayer for me and Chicken!

We've got a little less than 3 weeks to pack up and move.  A little less than 2 weeks until our vacation.  The timing couldn't have been worse for closing since we're not going to be around if something comes up with the house or for closing.  Hopefully everything will be resolved before then and we won't have to worry about having to possibly cut our vacation short.  We're excited about having a break with Hubby's family and spend time with them.  I'm really excited about shopping and as ohmommy pointed out, buying lots of clothes and/or dresses for the two girls!!!  ;oD

BTW, if anyone has any suggestions on what kind of toys to take on vacation with us for the kids for a whole week, I'm open to suggestions.  When looking at their toys, I'm feeling overwhelmed, cause they play with almost all of them occasionally and don't really seem to have favorites except the massive kitchen I got Punky for Christmas.  And obviously, THAT isn't going with us.

It's a...

A while back, I told Hubby that God wouldn't be mean to us and give us another boy.  When I said that, I didn't mean that I wouldn't want a boy or even be happy about it.  I've just always felt little girls should have a sister, even when you know it's out of your control and gender choosing isn't really all that accurate.  Hubby replied that he just wondered if God had a sense of humor, to which I replied that since he was VERY obviously behind this pregnancy since I was on birth control, he would give us a girl because that's what we both wanted.

Well, I'm happy to report that God, while I do believe he has a sense of humor, didn't have one in our case.  It is a girl although it was a very shy girl.  He said he was fairly confident it was a girl but of course, we wouldn't know for sure until it came out.  He assured us he saw no evidence of boy parts.  And since I've never been wrong about what one of my kids were, I'm going to assume it's safe and start planning for a girl.  

In other news, Chicken and I have been terribly sick this weekend.  I don't know if it's the flu or just a stomach bug, but it's rotten.  We've been nauseous, achy, had a fever, and Chicken's been throwing up.  I've kept the wonderful morning sickness medicine in me and thankfully have not called Ralph yet, although I've come close.  It definitely put a damper on the day today since we've been feeling so rotten, but finding out its a girl was certainly the highlight of our day!  

Chicken has been a wonderful blessing in our family and will carry on our name.  I wouldn't have been disappointed in the least (after the initial week or two) if I had produced the heir and the spare, but for Punky's sake, I just wanted to give her a sister.  Now we have our perfect family, exactly what Hubby and I wanted.  I can honestly say I'm happy that it's complete now and can't wait to meet our second little girl.  

Now on to the impossible task of picking out her name...

You suck

For those of you out there in the cyber world who didn't tell me you could buy Olive Garden dressing by the bottles, you suck.

AND you're no longer my friend.