Worst Week in a Long Time

This week has just sucked.  I got really sick on Saturday night (Mike and I actually had a date night which was really nice).  It was a really bad cold but I haven't been that sick in a really long time.  Fortunately, Mike let me sleep all day Sunday and even got the kids up on Monday morning and got them off to school so that I could keep sleeping.  All that sleep helped so much.  I'm still not 100% but I'm much better than I would have been had I not been able to sleep. 

Monday morning, when I did wake up, Mike told me that Oriana had pooped in the dining room again.  I cleaned it up and ran some errands.  I actually had to take Jacob to the dentist...I took him to mine since his dentist didn't want to do anything about the pain in his back teeth.  My dentist ended up pulling the teeth (they were not going to come out on their own and the pain was because the adult teeth were trying to come through) and we were out of there in an hour.  If we'd been at their regular dentist, it would have been a fight for him to do anything at all and we would have been there for 3 hours.  I've already switched all of the kids for their cleanings. 

Jacob and I came home and I took a nap.  I got up and picked Daniel and Hannah up from school.  When we get home, I hear Oriana panting like she does when she really has to go out.  So, I called her to the door and I heard a lot of thumping.  I go check it out and Oriana has gotten up but only the front part.  She can't move her back legs at all.  She starts doing this head tilt thing and keeps falling into the couch.  I call Mike and tell him that I don't know what to do.  He says he's on his way, call the vet.  So I do and they tell me to bring her right in. 

Somehow, Mike and I get Oriana onto a blanket and we use it like a stretcher.  We carry her to the car (she's 100 pounds) and we all head to the vet, knowing that this is the last car ride she's going to take. 

We get her into the vet and she just loses all control of her bowels and the vet says she has some thing where her equilibrium is off.  Her eyes look like she's been spun around a billion times.  It could be a thing that will go away or it could be a brain tumor.  We could wait and see, we could do a CT scan or we could  put her out down.  The vet was awesome.  He explained everything very well and really made it our decision.  We decided that she'd had a long life and that we didn't like her being in such obvious pain.  So we put her down.

While the vet went to get the medicine, the boys (Hannah stayed at home with a friend) came in to say goodbye but we didn't think it was a good idea to let them stay in the room.  I sat down on the floor with her head in my lap and Mike sat and took the back end while the vet did his thing.  We told her what a good dog she was and how much we loved her and she went very quickly.  We sat with her for a little while longer and went home.

Alice was confused when we came home without Oriana.  She looked for her for most of the evening and she's been really off all day.  I hope she gets over it soon.  I really feel bad for the puppy.

Today, I go to take the kids to school, come home to find the garage door won't open.  I can't find my house key and the house is locked tight (since we no longer have Oriana, I made sure to lock the doors.  Normally, I wouldn't care).  Since the Holiday Parties start at 10am (I need to leave at 9:30 to get a decent parking spot) and it was already 8:30 and I wasn't even dressed, I booked it to Target to get some needed essentials (a new bra for starters!) and came home to see if the door would magically work.  No such luck.  So, I checked to see if the doors magically unlocked.  Nope.  I walked around to the side of the house and decided to try the basement window.  It was OPEN!!!  I slid it to the side and hopped into the basement, burglar style.  I was never so happy to get to take a shower in my life.

Mike got the spare key back from Stephen and I'm making a ton of copies of those bad boys.

I have to say that I'm really scared to see what's going to happen tomorrow.  Lots of errands to run before our trip to Illinois.  Say a little prayer for me.  I think I need a few.

March is Stupid

Today has simply sucked. No other way to put it. It started of nicely enough...got the kids off to school with no major fights and came home and cleaned up a little. My phone rings around noon and it's one of Mike's co-workers telling me that he had taken Mike to the ER and that he was having similar symptoms as last time, minus the 100 degree heat and basketball game. I was fine until I got into the car on the way there when my hands began shaking.

I talked to Dad until I arrived at the hospital and the nice lady in the front showed me to Mike's room. The guy that brought Mike in took off as soon as I got there and we hunkered in. We just didn't know we'd be hunkering in for as long as we did.

At the three hour point, we'd only been seen by a nurse twice and not a single time by a doctor. I went out and complained. This brings in a nurse who says, "so I hear that you're thinking of leaving." We really weren't but I did pull that card out of my back pocket. She and I get into a scuffle while Mike just sank deeper and deeper into the bed. I'm quite sure he was thinking, "just shut up. Just shut up." Unfortunately, I went into Mama Bear mode and there was no turning me off until I was done.

She tried to tell me that there were 5 more important cases that came in...I told her that, to me, there was nothing more important than the case in that room. I told her that I understood there were other people in there but it takes nothing for a nurse to poke her head in and just ask how we're doing. Two visits in 3 hours is unacceptable. I ended my rampage with a few surprise tears. I hadn't been expecting those. They added a nice touch because the nurse went from all pissed off to very apologetic. Wow...Mom would have been so proud. Fortunately for the nursing staff, I had to leave to pick up the kids. I had intended on coming back but Mike told me to stay at home with the kids (amazingly, a lot of times I had called, there was now a doctor or nurse in the room) because he had to have some more tests done and he didn't want the kids going out of their minds.

We get home and realize I have forgotten to put Alice in her crate. The one time I forgot. Ugh. Daniel says, "Mom, there's something wrong with Alice's eye." I take a look at her and her right eye is almost completely swollen shut. Seriously? I call the vet and they tell me to come right in.

I pull up to the vet's office only to discover that I'd forgotten my purse at home. We pull out and Alice begins throwing up all over my van. This is just getting better and better.

Back at home, I grab my purse, a towel and Oriana's leash (Alice's is now gross) and we head back to the vet.

When we get there, I explain that I don't know if she's gotten into a fight with one of our other animals or if she's just gotten into something. The vet tech comes around to take her back so they can test her eye for abrasions when we both notice the huge red splotches on her tummy. Fanfreakingtastic. After the abrasion test, they take us back and the vet says that her eyes and ears look good so we're looking at some sort of allergic reaction. They give her a shot of Benadryl and a shot of steroid and tell me to take her home and give her a bath. He also tells me to give her a children's Benadryl every 8 hours for the next 3 days and to give him a call on his cell at 7 tonight to let him know how she's doing. He gives me the receipt with his cell number on it and sends us on our way.

Back at home, I give Mike a call to see how he's doing (it's now 5pm) and he said he was still waiting on test results. About this time, Scott (one of Mike's employees who is also a friend of ours) calls to see what's up. I tell him that I'd been sent home (probably for bad behavior LOL!) so he says he'll head over there on his way home and give me a call. The two of them decide that Mike will catch a ride home with Scott (Mike wasn't in a condition to drive) so that I didn't have to hike up there. Nice.

Mike gets home a little after 6pm and tells me he has Mastoiditis, which is "an infection of air cavities within the bone behind the ear, called the mastoid It starts when germs from an ear infection move into mastoid air cells. Mastoiditis is much harder to treat and much more serious than ear infection." No wonder he'd been so freaking dizzy. They gave him a prescription for Cipro and a referral to an ENT. He'd better make that ENT appointment.

I called the vet a little after 7 and he thanks me for the call because he'd be worrying about her all night. Too cute. I love our vet.

We still don't know what she got into that caused the insane allergic reaction. Nothing was out of the ordinary (aside from a chewed up cardboard box) so we'll probably never know.

I'm so tired and the tension in my back is unbelievable. I've got some Peeps, some carmel cone Haagen-Dazs and a glass of wine. Hopefully, that'll help.

It's Been A Long Day

Since I last posted, things have gone very well. I've gotten Jacob all registered for baseball (although we haven't landed on a team yet. I'm hoping for a very low level team since his skills aren't quite there and so that he can actually have some fun!), I got the quilt pretty much done (I'll post pictures tomorrow) and the house has stayed remarkably clean. I helped out with first grade workshops all morning Wednesday and then helped out with Chat 'n' Chew for both boys during their lunch hours. One of the secretaries, Mrs. R, asked me if I wanted my own desk since I was there all day.

Thursday started good...I went in to the school to help out with clerical work for Hannah's teacher. I wish I had the parental involvement that her teacher has. Every Thursday, a parent goes in to do her grunt work for the week. Copying, laminating, making folders, sharpening pencils...that sort of thing. It's usually an hour or two worth of work but it's fun because I usually get visitors from various people (other parents, teachers, counselors and paras...occasionally, the principal will stop to chat) so I get to feel the heartbeat of the school. I usually volunteer once a month so I've gotten to know everyone pretty well.

I was in the office, sharpening pencils and off in my own little dreamland when I feel a hand on my back and hear, "how'd you get this crap job?" I jump about 10 feet into the air and turn to see Mrs. R, one of the secretaries. I laugh and say, "well, it's a mindless job. I don't mind it much." She laughs and begins talking to Miss Kim, one of the paras, who is making booklets. I didn't even notice her walk in. Who knows how long she'd been there...I was fantasizing about my trip to Chicago in April while sharpening pencils. Mrs. R and Miss Kim begin talking about Starbucks and how Miss Kim's bringing everyone coffee on Friday. Mrs. R starts to write down her very complex order.

I laugh and say something about her not being very particular and we all start to talk about how Miss Kim got this commercial espresso machine for free and how she's scared to use it because she'll blow up her house when it hits me that I love really being part of this school and that it's really nice that I've gotten to know everyone within the school so well. I finish up my work and head out for home.

I get the dishes from the morning done and dinner into the crock pot. I even get the kitchen swept and mopped when I begin to do more work on the quilt. Wow! I'm feeling productive today!

Back up to the school for Jacob's mock trial. I meet Mike there and laugh when Mrs. R goes to ask Mike if she can help him. I decide to head back home for 40 minutes since I've been at the school for what seems like an eternity for the past two days.

Once I pick up the kids, all hell breaks loose. They can't even get out the door of the school without a fight breaking out. I'm not talking verbal...I'm talking a kicking/pushing kind of fight. That Hannah, she's a little instigator.

Somehow, we make it home and I get the kids a snack. They're getting along fairly well when I announce it's homework time. Daniel can't do his homework without talking to himself and that causes Jacob to punch Daniel in the arm. WTF? Of course, the punch in the arm does not go unanswered so Daniel tries to push Jacob out of his chair. At some point, they stop pounding on each other and begin teasing Hannah. Okay. Everyone to a different room.

Daniel finishes and Hannah finishes but Jacob's left a ton of work for himself for tonight so he's frustrated and mad that he's still working. He begins arguing with me about vocabulary. Seriously? I have a freaking English degree. I know what I'm talking about. My writing may not be grammatically correct all of the time but I know that the word modest can be used to show that someone thought their raise was too little. That argument caused a 20 minute stop in work. Mostly because I told him that I wasn't going to do it for him nor was I going to even help him ("but mooooooooom! None of these words make sense!" Yes they do but you don't believe me) so he was totally on his own. Amazingly, once he realized I was done, he got the work done in record time.

Unfortunately, it was now 5:45 and time to go to TKD. he was mad that he'd been doing homework from 4-5:45. Well, that's what happens when you pout and whine about not wanting to do the work instead of actually doing the work. He would have been done an hour earlier if he hadn't been complaining about the amount of work he had to do for about an hour.

Any two of my kids, on their own, are fine. Add all three and you've got a fight. They fought all the way to TKD and didn't even get out the door to go home when the fighting started again. That landed both Hannah and Daniel in their rooms for quite some time once we got back.

It doesn't seem as bad when I write it out but, believe me, it was horrible this afternoon. If I could have started drinking at about 4:15, my life would have been much easier. 53 days until I leave for my Girls' Week with Emily in Chicago. I might get a tattoo.

Ugh!

It's been a seriously insane weekend.

Since Daniel's birthday was last week, we decided to throw together a little sleepover for him. It started out as four boys (Matt, John, Jett and Quinn). Little did we know that Daniel had invited several other boys to spend the night as well. I began getting phone calls on Thursday night from the moms of these other boys. I couldn't say, "no. You're kids are not invited," so, they were invited as well. Friday at 5 pm (1 hour before party time), Melissa calls me and says that her son, Michael, is talking about Daniel's party. Was he really on the list or was it something Daniel decided on? I told her that it was fine if Michael wanted to come, so the guest list grew from 4 to 7.

The boys were great until it was actually time for sleep. I threatened, Mike threatened...no sleep. I guess they fell asleep around 4:30am. Yep. 4:30am.

It was with so much glee that I went downstairs at 7:30am to wake them up.

I threw the lights on and said, "good morning party people!" They began stretching and Mike says, "well, this is what 3 hours of sleep feels like." No kidding, they looked at us, bounced out of their sleeping bags and asked when pancakes would be ready. Figures.

The last of the boys left at 9:30 and we began focusing on getting ready for Daniel's last basketball game at 11:30. This season has flown by...mostly because there was no complaining about going to games or practices. Daniel's even asked to play again next year. Next up is Hannah's soccer season which starts in a couple of weeks. Then, Jacob has asked to play baseball again this summer, so, we'll be doing that after soccer ends. Oh, and did I mention that Daniel joined the school's Running Club? I'm so tired already.

We got a bunch of ice on Saturday night. We woke up Sunday morning not sure whether or not we'd actually have Sunday School. We called, looked at the website, checked Facebook...nothing told us they were closed. After seeing the radar, we decided it wasn't worth trying to get there. Snow doesn't bother me. Ice scares the living heck out of me. I posted on my FB status that we weren't going and got a couple of responses, one from the educational director and one from the rabbi, telling me that they'd cancelled classes. The rabbi even told me that she felt better about cancelling classes knowing that someone with our excellent attendance wasn't risking it. Of course, when I checked my e-mail later in the day, the e-mail from another educational leader said that Sunday School was cancelled. Figures. That was the one place we didn't check this morning.

Next week is the Blue and Gold Banquet for Cub Scouts. The boys will get their new ranks (except for Jacob who will be moving on to Boy Scouts. He's finally picked a troop, too!) and there's a big dinner thing. They also have a centerpiece contest within the dens. Daniel's den has won for the past two years. Mostly because we think outside of the box and don't go for the obvious. The first year was Chinese New Year and we did a papier mache "pack rat" (it was the year of the rat) and dressed him up in Cub Scout gear. It was way cute. Last year was Presidents and we made macaroni art presidents (a la the Three Wise Guys). This year is Happy Birthday Scouting (it's Boy Scout's 100th Anniversary). Almost every den is doing a cake or presents. Of course we're not! We're making a quilt. Yep. A quilt.

Each boy was responsible for two squares. One for an era from the last 100 years and one personal one (what I love about Scouting). They all came in today and I pulled out my dusty sewing machine and got to work. I couldn't believe how fast I got the top put together. I was really expecting it to take me a couple of days. Literally an hour after I started, the top was all ready. I decided to add a thick border around the outside so it should be all ready to go for quilting tomorrow. Fortunately, I didn't expect to start quilting until at least Thursday, so I'll be able to go a little more elaborate on the actual quilting part (I'm a purist and have to do that by hand). Even if we don't win, I'm really proud of the work the boys did and will post pictures after it's done.

Of course, pulling out the sewing mahine makes me want to start sewing again. I'm going to have to head over to the local quilt store when I'm all done.

I'm In There!

I made it into the article...it's just one line and she kind of took what I said out of context but there I am! :) It's fun to be in an article!

Here's the link:
The Jewish Week: Gentile Women And The ‘S’ Word

Ugh!!!

Well, it's taken me 3 days, but it seems that I can finally log into Blogger. I couldn't even open my page let alone post. Blog withdrawl is not a beautiful thing.

Lots going on this week. The kids should get their new belts tomorrow instead of next Tuesday, so that they'll have them for photos and for the tournament on Saturday. Saturday...that's going to suck. Big time. Daniel's having his first sleep over on Friday night so I'll be shuffling kids out the front door so we can make it to TKD in time for the tournament Saturday morning. After that, Daniel has a follow-up den meeting to finish their centerpiece for the Blue and Gold banquet. Thank goodness it's a three day weekend.

I didn't know if I was coming or going yesterday. I dropped the kids off at school at 8:20, came home and got Hannah dressed for my MOPS meeting at 9. I got home around 11:45 and cleaned. At 2:15, I raced to Target to pick up supplies for the den meeting that was going to be at our house (which is why I cleaned) and made it to the school by 2:55 for the 3pm powwow between me, Daniel's teacher, the school COUNSELOR (she's not even a psychologist!!!!!!!) and the school's psychologist (whom I've never met, or even seen before.) We're talking about stuff that's over 4 months old...I'm not in the mood to get into this right now, so I'm going to drop it before I get myself all worked up. After the meeting, I picked up Daniel and we went to put gas in the car. We headed back to the school to pick up Jacob from math tutoring and then headed home for 45 minutes. Then it was TKD time and we headed there. Mike took Daniel home a little early because of the den meeting and I took Jacob and Hannah to pick out Valentine's cards for them to take to school. I was never so happy to see 9pm come as I was last night.

Today was a down day and I certainly needed that. I'm really looking forward to Friday when my MOPS table members and I get together...I'm quite sure that I'll be venting a lot there.

Anyway, I just thought I'd put in a quick post to let everyone know that we're still here. Oh...priceless quote from last night...

Mike (to the kids in Daniel's den): Okay everyone, since we couldn't do a radio station tour here, we're going to do one online. We're going to be looking at a radio station in Maine.

Daniel: Oh No! We're going to get lost!

I'm All Messed Up

I've been working on knitting a blanket for Daniel for a couple of days now. I took it downstairs to work on while catching up on some TiVo after the kids went to bed last night (I freaked out when Project Runway cut off just as they were announcing who was out...thank goodness Bravo runs it 3 or 4 times a night!). I was so into the knitting that when I decided it was time to call it a night, it was 2AM. Oops. So, go figure that I would accidentally turn off my alarm at 7AM instead of hitting the snooze button. I knew there was a reason I set my clock 15 minutes, or so, fast...I totally freaked out when I saw that it was 8:00. I was trying to figure out how to get the kids to be able to eat in the car on the way to school...then I realized that it was 7:45. Those 15 minutes made all the difference. Of course, the kids weren't happy at all with the way that I woke them up...screaming like a banshee. They did make it to school on time, fully clothed, fed and hair brushed, but now I'm feeling like I'm behind on something.