The bug has hit our house and it's been a weird one. Jane and I were sick basically the same day (Randall's birthday-huge bummer) then nobody for a week, then it was Anna, and now 4 days later it's poor Kate's turn. I had just come home from the gym this morning, when Kate came down fussing. I said to Randall "Does she look green?" I've always heard that but never really seen that for myself, sure enough she laid on our bed and suddenly started vomiting. Awesome. I put her in the tub and threw our bedding in the washing machine- I love my washing machine.
Poor little thing has nothing in her tummy but just keeps heaving and heaving. Thankfully I had some help today with a friend taking Ethan to school and another friend running to the store for me to pick up the "sick necessities", like ginger-ale, crackers, and soup.
Hopefully this illness will be short lived like it has been for the rest of us. I'm just worried because Rand's company party is Friday and I really don't want to miss it, but Ethan and Rand have yet to get it.
I've washed all the towels and bedding, wiped doorknobs and light switches, cleaned bathroom numerous times, but it just seem with the stomach bug it just usually makes the rounds. Bummer.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Time Flies
I can't believe how long it's been since I posted. On Sunday a teacher remarked how important it is for us to keep a journal. I suddenly remember that this place is my journal and it's important to keep a record of my family.
Life has been busy lately. It seems like it just gets more so each day somehow. I am staying afloat but some days I feel like just barely, and that things like this blog just aren't/can't be a priority. But, when I remember the purpose here is to document what's going on in our home with or without pictures and that it's not a place to impress or entertain anyone I suddenly feel a renewed excitement and desire to visit here more often. So, if anyone actually still reads this and suddenly realizes it's changed it's "tone" and there are a lot more spelling and editing errors, so be it.
That being said, here's life in a nutshell.
Rand- Rand hit his 5 year mark with Adobe mid November. I can't tell you what a blessing his job has been for us. He is constantly being challenged and his responsibilities changing and he loves that. He can not be bored intellectually and I love that about him. It's important for him to continue to grow and be challenged. He is someone who will work until he figures it out, I wish I could same the same for me.
Me- I am staying busy with just the day to day stuff. At times I don't understand why I'm so busy and that nothings really changed but I guess just planing, shopping for and making meals, staying on top of laundry and house work, and running from piano, ballet, scouts, activity days and many, many doctor appointments recently then it's fairly easy to see where my time is taken up. I'm so incredibly grateful that we can afford to live on one income and that I get to be home with the kids full time. I know what a rare thing that is these days. I loved being a dental hygienist and was even asked to sub in my office in November but I told them I just couldn't make that work. I felt bad about it initially and was a bit sad because I truly love that part of my life... I like feeling like I am more than "just Mom", and I love interacting with patients and staff, but right now I'm glad I'm available to run my kids here and there and everywhere. I have to say that for whatever reason this year especially I have had moments where I feel immensely blessed and overwhelmed with gratitude for all our blessings. My kids make me nuts at times and about 4 o'clock when I've just come home from picking Ethan up, which is at least a 30 minute round trip and the girls walk in the door, with someone often crying about something like getting a 15 and half out of 16 on a spelling test I want to cry myself. I am trying to keep Jane happy, make dinner, help Ethan with his math, "handle" Anna all the while trying to make sure I'm happy and pleasant when Randall walks in the door so that he's happy he's home once he gets there. And those are the days we don't have activities right after school that we are running off to. It's busy but it's all good things.
Ethan- Poor kid has had a rough few months. His cast FINALLY came off after 8 weeks and boy was his poor little arm weak. His muscles were not only weak but there was a lot of scar tissue built up from his surgery so it took some time to work with that to have him have normal mobility. After all of that I realized that his coughing all night that was keeping him and me up all night needed to be looked into. Ethan is the sweetest boy ever, but had just started getting up set at the drop of a hat and just ornery in general. I took him to the Dr. and they tested his lung capacity because of all of his coughing. He was supposed to be at a 347 and his capacity due to inflammation etc was down to 140. Admittedly a shed a few tears feeling so guilty that I hadn't brought him in sooner. They did some other testing and a few nebulizer treatments and gave us a weeks worth of steroids to get him better. Thankfully within a week he was improving tremendously and started sleeping through the night which made him a much nicer kid to get around. They have diagnosed him with Asthma and sent us to an allergist to see what was triggering all of this. We saw the allergist and after doing skin tests determined he is very allergic to grass, and cats and quite allergic to many trees and dogs. Nice! Truthfully I'm just grateful he doesn't have any food allergies. His exzema was doing great but recently flared up so back to the allergist we will go. I tell ya I don't know how parents with severely sick children keep on top of it all. We have spent so much time and money on Dr.'s and surgeries this year it's unbelievable. Yet again, I'm grateful it's something treatable and that he's doing and feeling so much better. There were times he would get so frustrated with his homework and say things like "I just can't think!" I told the Dr. that and she said he wasn't getting enough oxygen. I felt terrible but what do you do?
One awesome thing is that Ethan finished reading The Book of Mormon on his own this past Sunday. His primary teacher in Jersey challenged the whole class to do it in January this year and he read like a champ while we were there. In the last few months he had tapered off quite a bit and I was sure he wouldn't be able to do it. In fact Saturday I told him I was disappointed he had come so far and wasn't going to finish. Sunday when he got up he announced to us that today was the day and he was going to finish. He read for 3 hours straight finishing off the last 26 chapters! I don't think he realizing what a big thing that it and how there are many who go on their missions without having done that. We are really proud of him and grateful for a good teacher who issued such a huge challenge. I spoke to her Sunday and she said all but 1 in the class (who is autistic) finished. That tells me our kids are capable and that we can expect great things from them, and can probably ask them to do more than we do.
Anna- Anna is such a girl and is so into her hair these days. Thankfully she doesn't change her clothes a hundred times but she does and re does her hair a hundred times a day. We have instituted a family economy recently and she often doesn't get her pay for morning things because she is late to breakfast because she is still doing her hair, over and over, and then crying about how it isn't perfectly even etc. She is quite the perfectionist. Not sure where she gets that ;) Her temperament is better but she still has tantrums once in a while like a two year old would but I guess as long as there is progress we are happy. Anna is taking ballet with her cousin and she loves it. She is so long and lean and precise so she does a good job. I love to go and watch them dance. Even at her age, I think the movements and the music are so beautiful that it makes me happy to go and watch her. I think it's good for her to feel like she has something that is hers that she is good at. She has started into the "I'm stupid" phase which I don't like and can't decide half the time to just ignore it, or tell her she isn't or try to distract her to something else. I love Anna but she is one that keeps me awake at night worrying from time to time.
Kate- Wow, is that girl ever an artist and creative. She is making or doing art constantly. She is good at drawing, painting and even making sculptures out of random objects or playdough. She even made a monster out of a pencil box the other day with opposing teeth an eye and eyebrow and then fish to throw into it's mouth to "chomp". it amazes me what she comes up with. This morning she made a penguin out of clay, a island for it to sit on and little eggs all around it, with little cracks in the eggs because they were "hatching". He eye for details is crazy and she can honestly draw better than I can (which isn't hard but she's good). She doesn't love school and that worries me a bit, but I think it's her teacher :( She is a recently single mom with 4 kids and this is her first year teaching. She just comes across and panicked and frazzled and not fun and stuff. Academics doesn't seem to be her thing just yet. Kate is extremely affectionate almost too much at times. She will come up and kiss me on the hip over and over and over until I'm like ok, thank you! She is still alittle sunshiny bright spot and easy going and just entertains herself.
Jane- Jane was our bright spot until about 2 weeks ago. She got the stomache flu and hasn't been the same since. I'd like to think she was bitten by the terrible two's bug. I also think because she is generally so sweet that we tend to give her her way and spoil her a bit, so we are working on that. I think now she wasn't her way all the time everytime. She also wants to watch tv all the time and I don't let her and she's not too happy about that. She is as smart a whip, seriously freaky smart. Must get that from Rand. She potty trained herself in September and is dry now for all naps and night. She's pretty amazing and we call her our family mascot because we all just love and she usually so much fun it's like having a little pet with me all the time as my buddy.
We have decided to build a house and have a great lot less than two miles from the new Adobe building. We are so excited about that. We break ground Feb 1st so we will see how all that goes.
Never a dull moment!
Life has been busy lately. It seems like it just gets more so each day somehow. I am staying afloat but some days I feel like just barely, and that things like this blog just aren't/can't be a priority. But, when I remember the purpose here is to document what's going on in our home with or without pictures and that it's not a place to impress or entertain anyone I suddenly feel a renewed excitement and desire to visit here more often. So, if anyone actually still reads this and suddenly realizes it's changed it's "tone" and there are a lot more spelling and editing errors, so be it.
That being said, here's life in a nutshell.
Rand- Rand hit his 5 year mark with Adobe mid November. I can't tell you what a blessing his job has been for us. He is constantly being challenged and his responsibilities changing and he loves that. He can not be bored intellectually and I love that about him. It's important for him to continue to grow and be challenged. He is someone who will work until he figures it out, I wish I could same the same for me.
Me- I am staying busy with just the day to day stuff. At times I don't understand why I'm so busy and that nothings really changed but I guess just planing, shopping for and making meals, staying on top of laundry and house work, and running from piano, ballet, scouts, activity days and many, many doctor appointments recently then it's fairly easy to see where my time is taken up. I'm so incredibly grateful that we can afford to live on one income and that I get to be home with the kids full time. I know what a rare thing that is these days. I loved being a dental hygienist and was even asked to sub in my office in November but I told them I just couldn't make that work. I felt bad about it initially and was a bit sad because I truly love that part of my life... I like feeling like I am more than "just Mom", and I love interacting with patients and staff, but right now I'm glad I'm available to run my kids here and there and everywhere. I have to say that for whatever reason this year especially I have had moments where I feel immensely blessed and overwhelmed with gratitude for all our blessings. My kids make me nuts at times and about 4 o'clock when I've just come home from picking Ethan up, which is at least a 30 minute round trip and the girls walk in the door, with someone often crying about something like getting a 15 and half out of 16 on a spelling test I want to cry myself. I am trying to keep Jane happy, make dinner, help Ethan with his math, "handle" Anna all the while trying to make sure I'm happy and pleasant when Randall walks in the door so that he's happy he's home once he gets there. And those are the days we don't have activities right after school that we are running off to. It's busy but it's all good things.
Ethan- Poor kid has had a rough few months. His cast FINALLY came off after 8 weeks and boy was his poor little arm weak. His muscles were not only weak but there was a lot of scar tissue built up from his surgery so it took some time to work with that to have him have normal mobility. After all of that I realized that his coughing all night that was keeping him and me up all night needed to be looked into. Ethan is the sweetest boy ever, but had just started getting up set at the drop of a hat and just ornery in general. I took him to the Dr. and they tested his lung capacity because of all of his coughing. He was supposed to be at a 347 and his capacity due to inflammation etc was down to 140. Admittedly a shed a few tears feeling so guilty that I hadn't brought him in sooner. They did some other testing and a few nebulizer treatments and gave us a weeks worth of steroids to get him better. Thankfully within a week he was improving tremendously and started sleeping through the night which made him a much nicer kid to get around. They have diagnosed him with Asthma and sent us to an allergist to see what was triggering all of this. We saw the allergist and after doing skin tests determined he is very allergic to grass, and cats and quite allergic to many trees and dogs. Nice! Truthfully I'm just grateful he doesn't have any food allergies. His exzema was doing great but recently flared up so back to the allergist we will go. I tell ya I don't know how parents with severely sick children keep on top of it all. We have spent so much time and money on Dr.'s and surgeries this year it's unbelievable. Yet again, I'm grateful it's something treatable and that he's doing and feeling so much better. There were times he would get so frustrated with his homework and say things like "I just can't think!" I told the Dr. that and she said he wasn't getting enough oxygen. I felt terrible but what do you do?
One awesome thing is that Ethan finished reading The Book of Mormon on his own this past Sunday. His primary teacher in Jersey challenged the whole class to do it in January this year and he read like a champ while we were there. In the last few months he had tapered off quite a bit and I was sure he wouldn't be able to do it. In fact Saturday I told him I was disappointed he had come so far and wasn't going to finish. Sunday when he got up he announced to us that today was the day and he was going to finish. He read for 3 hours straight finishing off the last 26 chapters! I don't think he realizing what a big thing that it and how there are many who go on their missions without having done that. We are really proud of him and grateful for a good teacher who issued such a huge challenge. I spoke to her Sunday and she said all but 1 in the class (who is autistic) finished. That tells me our kids are capable and that we can expect great things from them, and can probably ask them to do more than we do.
Anna- Anna is such a girl and is so into her hair these days. Thankfully she doesn't change her clothes a hundred times but she does and re does her hair a hundred times a day. We have instituted a family economy recently and she often doesn't get her pay for morning things because she is late to breakfast because she is still doing her hair, over and over, and then crying about how it isn't perfectly even etc. She is quite the perfectionist. Not sure where she gets that ;) Her temperament is better but she still has tantrums once in a while like a two year old would but I guess as long as there is progress we are happy. Anna is taking ballet with her cousin and she loves it. She is so long and lean and precise so she does a good job. I love to go and watch them dance. Even at her age, I think the movements and the music are so beautiful that it makes me happy to go and watch her. I think it's good for her to feel like she has something that is hers that she is good at. She has started into the "I'm stupid" phase which I don't like and can't decide half the time to just ignore it, or tell her she isn't or try to distract her to something else. I love Anna but she is one that keeps me awake at night worrying from time to time.
Kate- Wow, is that girl ever an artist and creative. She is making or doing art constantly. She is good at drawing, painting and even making sculptures out of random objects or playdough. She even made a monster out of a pencil box the other day with opposing teeth an eye and eyebrow and then fish to throw into it's mouth to "chomp". it amazes me what she comes up with. This morning she made a penguin out of clay, a island for it to sit on and little eggs all around it, with little cracks in the eggs because they were "hatching". He eye for details is crazy and she can honestly draw better than I can (which isn't hard but she's good). She doesn't love school and that worries me a bit, but I think it's her teacher :( She is a recently single mom with 4 kids and this is her first year teaching. She just comes across and panicked and frazzled and not fun and stuff. Academics doesn't seem to be her thing just yet. Kate is extremely affectionate almost too much at times. She will come up and kiss me on the hip over and over and over until I'm like ok, thank you! She is still alittle sunshiny bright spot and easy going and just entertains herself.
Jane- Jane was our bright spot until about 2 weeks ago. She got the stomache flu and hasn't been the same since. I'd like to think she was bitten by the terrible two's bug. I also think because she is generally so sweet that we tend to give her her way and spoil her a bit, so we are working on that. I think now she wasn't her way all the time everytime. She also wants to watch tv all the time and I don't let her and she's not too happy about that. She is as smart a whip, seriously freaky smart. Must get that from Rand. She potty trained herself in September and is dry now for all naps and night. She's pretty amazing and we call her our family mascot because we all just love and she usually so much fun it's like having a little pet with me all the time as my buddy.
We have decided to build a house and have a great lot less than two miles from the new Adobe building. We are so excited about that. We break ground Feb 1st so we will see how all that goes.
Never a dull moment!
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