What the haps?

It's increasingly difficult to find the time to blog... sometimes I really feel like my entire day is spent feeding people and cleaning up after them. If it wasn't for the iPod touch I would never be online at all. 

1. Chewie is doing great with the solids. I am so glad I waited until 6 months. I just started her on lunch this week. I've done everything on my own, except the cereal and prunes. She's had peaches and pears and sweet potato and green beans. I think I'll start peas soon. I did prunes this past week and they definitely worked. She seems to have her brother's habits and if I can get her to like prunes now I can avoid the miralax later! She's still nursing great & sleeping great and I barely remember her not sleeping 12 hours a night. Which is why I need to blog more so I'll remember things like that. 

2. The Princess just got over a bad fever. It must have been a virus, but the only real symptom was the fever. Her urine was clear and that was the big thing we were worried about. She complained about her tummy hurting, but never vomited or had diarrhea. She is almost never sick so it's always weird when it's her... it was much better than when she was 10-11 months old though. At least this time she could communicate with me and tell me what was going on & I could see that she wasn't in any pain peeing. But 104 fevers are just no fun, regardless of the source. It's funny, whenever I see someone say something about a fever and it's 99 or 100 I feel like saying that Crocodile Dundee line "That's not a [fever], *this* is a [fever]!" It's tiring when the others are sick, but when it's the Princess there's an extra level of worry that makes it emotionally exhausting.

3. SkyWalker has been home for a week and goes back to school tomorrow and I think we are both glad. It's been a good break with Vader home a lot & holiday distractions, but we both need to get back to our routines. And the girls and I need to leave the damn house.

4. Vader and I saw Clutch at a local venue. I enjoyed the show, but Vader was disappointed that they played all the songs from one of his least favorite albums instead of a mix of all 6. I'm glad we saw them in NYC first because they were much better there. I spent half the night worrying about the Princess (it was the first night of her fever) but it was still good to get out.

5. Christmas was good. SkyWalker got a big boy bike. The Princess got a little girl rocking chair. Chewie got the shaft. No, not really, she got her first doll & lots of practical things. They were all happy with the socks & underwear in their stockings (Chewie got diapers in hers because Santa is wicked funny). Because SkyWalker was happy with the long johns & underwear & crayons & chapstick & non toy items, the Princess was too. Santa did good with the bike & rocking chair and a couple of small things, but the rest was up to us & it seemed to work out well. 

6. We HAD New Year's Eve plans, for the first time since before I was pregnant with SkyWalker, but alas we could not attend because of the Princess and her fever. I was bummed & seeing the happy fun pictures of everybody made me bummed more, but I'm focusing on the fact that we had plans at all & that I was prepared to leave my children (for the second time that week) to do so. Which is huge for me. We DVR'd the ball drop since we didn't stay up and then we all watched it together the next day.

7. 2/3 children are now awake. I'd better pee while I can.

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Didn't I say DOWN with the sickness?

Things actually worked out well for us yesterday--I managed to get an earlier doctor's appt, he sent the prescription to Wal-Mart through his cool electronic pad thing so we went to Target and got a few things (including a new set of toddler sheets and comforter for the Princess's big move to the toddler bed) and then went to Wal-Mart to pick up the prescription. I only had to wait a couple of minutes as opposed to 2 hours as usual. The doc said that he's heard that before about them and he recommends people go to Target because they have the same $4 plan but are much quicker. Vader never has a problem when he goes food shopping each week so we'll keep the Princess's amoxicillin there but I think from now on when we have a one-time only prescription we might just go to Target. I'd rather fart around there than Wal-Mart anyway...

The Princess has a 102 fever but is climbing on the couch now. SkyWalker has no fever, but puked on the couch. So far he is the bigger baby. We did not go to preschool. He said the Princess needed to watch some TV since she picked up the remote and he managed to find Nickelodeon. Diego just happens to be on. How do these things work out for him?? So the both of them are watching Diego, with the Princess taking breaks to bring him a new toy or jump on the couch. I have a feeling it's going to be a long day. 

We had all of these plans for tomorrow and now everything is up in the air. 

The Princess just handed her brother a tissue, got one for herself, wiped her snotty nose and then threw it out in the garbage. She is quite the little mother. She helped me clean up the couch after SkyWalker puked. Even though she is sick herself. Just like a mama.

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My day

Before I forget--I am enjoying the Shark Steam Mop. The floor expert in the house was less than impressed and would not use it on his hardwood floors. I definitely have to sweep up before I use it in the bathrooms, but it does a good job of cleaning the piss off the floor and that is what I got it for. The swiffer left a sticky residue. The hoover floormate worked well, but was a pain in the ass with the filling and emptying. In an ideal world I will use the Shark weekly and then maybe once a month use the hoover to really suck the dirt up. It works perfectly for what I need it for--piss.

Alrighty then.

At 7:30 when the Princess woke up she had a 100.3 fever. I gave her breakfast and took her temp again and it was 100. I gave her a little motrin mostly because I thought it was her molars and I wanted to nip the fever in the bud. She was acting normally and went down for a nap. We went to the beach and had a great time despite the weather forecast of rain. Yeah, for once it did not rain on my parade. Well, not at the beach. She was a little bipolar... having loads of fun one minute and then whining/crying the next. She felt warm but so did I. When she started shivering I figured it was time to go. 

We got home at 2:40ish and I took her temp and it was 103.7. I gave her more motrin (she responds better to that than tylenol) and put her down for a nap. I took a shower to get ready for work and planned to wait and see because that's what I like to do. But my gut kept telling me that I can't wait and see with this kid. So I got out of the shower and called the pediatrician and explained that she had a slight fever this morning and was teething and she was just at the beach desperately hoping that she was just a little overheated. But neither the molars nor the beach would give her a fever so high. So we packed up and headed to the doc. 

Just as we got there at 4 p.m. the skies exploded and the rain poured down. That was fun. They poked and prodded her and she cried and screamed. They had to get rid of the was in her ears before they could see anything. Luckily they were indeed red and she just has an ear infection. She has been pulling on her ears so I was hoping that was the cause. If she still has a fever in 48 hours I have to get her back there and cath her for a UTI. But I really do think it's her ears. We got in the car at 5 and I called Vader to make sure he was going to leave work at a reasonable time and to pick up dinner since we had to get the prescription filled. We figured we'd both be home by 6. 

There was a crapload of traffic in the good ol' city of Albany but it was going the opposite way that I had to so I thought I would be alright as I left the parking lot. Then when I got down to the end of the street I realized what was going on. It was completely flooded! I managed to turn around and waiting for-freaking-ever and finally had enough of that and managed to turn around one more time so I could cut through a parking lot. I got back out to where I needed to be, in the opposite direction of everyone else and thought things were looking up. This was at 5:30ish. Then I got to where I needed to get on the damn bridge and ha! Another street flooded. This time I had no idea where I had to go. On a whim I followed another car and it actually led me to 787. I wound up going north when I probably wanted to go south. I got stuck in more friggin' traffic. At 6 pm I made it to Wal-Mart in the 'bush. We were all tired and hungry and cranky. Did I mention that the entire time we were stuck in traffic the Princess whined and cried? Yeah. Fun. We had to wait "25 minutes" for her augmentin. So we bought this:

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Because baby girls who get poked and prodded while having high fevers deserve to get their first bicycles. 

We left Wal-Mart at 6:45 and made it home for dinner at 7. My poor baby girl was so tired that she pointed to her crib. Sadly, I had to give her a bath, not only because she had been swimming in the lake but also because her fever was still high. She laid down at 8 and immediately put her little heiney up in the air in the classic "I'm going to sleep now so get out here" pose. I have not heard a peep out of her. I did give her some tylenol though.

I've canceled our playdate tomorrow. I think we all need to sleep late and not worry about getting dressed and cleaning the house. I have a feeling she will be a little needy tomorrow and she certainly needs the rest that having boys running around the house will not bring. And Mama needs to not play hostess and to just be Mama.

And that was my day.

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The Princess

We took the Princess to the ER for her second round of shots today. Her last fever was at 7 pm last night (another 103.1) but it went down quickly and hasn't coming back. She's eaten today and barely napped and smiled and played and banged her spoon against the plate at Denny's and I think she'll be okay. Aside from some really stinky diarrhea from all the antibiotics she has in her tiny little body, she is doing well. She's just eaten her yogurt so hopefully that will start to counteract the diarrhea. She played outside today and went to the mall and only did a little fussing from being tired. 

So now the next step will be to go to the urologist and figure out if anything went wrong with her surgery. I'm really starting to think that it was just a fluke--the UTI she had/has was full of ecoli... I think with all of her massive pooping she's done lately eating big people food that she just got some poop up her pee-pee. Because when she poops, she POOPS. Her last ultrasound was a month ago and was great. How could there be something wrong now? I am going with the poop in the pee-pee theory until I am told otherwise. 

And now we know that *I* am okay as well since I have managed to once again bring poop into a post.

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The week that's lasted a year

Took the Princess back to the doctor on Wednesday. Full-blown UTI. Got a different antibiotic (ironically enough just amoxicillin). With instructions that she should be fever-free by today. This morning she was 103.2. 100 or 101 would have been okay. 103.2 was not. We took her back to the doc today. She got a shot of ceftriaxone in her legs. We'll go to the ER tomorrow for her to get a second shot. We also got augmentin, an antibiotic stronger than amoxicillin to give her in the meantime. If she's any sicker she will be admitted tomorrow. If she seems to be doing better we'll get the shot and go home. 

The one amusing part of my day was when her pediatrician asked me what unit I work in. I said "Unit? Work?" she said "Aren't you a nurse?" I laughed and laughed. Apparently I am just so knowledgeable and smart that she assumed I was a nurse from the way I talked. Ha.

The Princess is sleeping. SkyWalker is watching Spongebob Squarepants. And I am about to go poop. And that has been our week.

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Chucking a big birkett

The Princess woke up Sunday morning with a 104.3 fever. Called the doc's answering service and was told to just keep watching her, make sure she doesn't have difficulty breathing or get dehydrated. The fever went up and down all day. By dinner time it was 103.7. One of my friends gave me the secret formula for determining the correct dosage of tylenol/motrin (Tylenol should be 15mg per kilogram of weight, Advil/Motrin should be 10mg per kilogram of weight.) and I discovered I could give her a little more. I took her to the doc today. Her urine is not looking so well... looks like a UTI. She's on some fancy antibiotic since she took Amox for so long before. If there is no improvement in 2 days I need to call/bring her in again. They'll be sending the culture out to confirm whether it is indeed a UTI. Because of her history with her kidney surgery it was safer to treat it and find out later. It if is then we'll have to talk to the surgeon and see if he wants to do another ultrasound to make sure that everything is okay. 

Have I mentioned that Vader is in Buffalo for his trial?

Her fever is 103.2 now and she has done nothing but sleep and nurse all day. My little fettucini alfredo eater doesn't even want to eat cheerios. She whimpers and softly cries and my heart shatters in a million pieces. I have never seen her like this. 

Vader called from Buffalo. He'll be home on Wednesday (so I took the days off for nothing, but now with the Princess sick I'm glad I'm not working this week). He has to go back next week. Wed & Thursday. So I'll have to take NEXT week off now too. And the following week we'll be in North Carolina. AND on top of that, the trial won't be done next week and who the hell knows when it will be scheduled again. I'm sure it will be on a day that I work. 

I am about to give my kid Ellios pizza for dinner because I don't have the energy for anything else. He had Burger King for lunch. Again. 

I must have done a lot of bad shit in my former life to have karma like this.

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