mathmom's blog

Luke woke up this morning very unhappy. First he was sad because Alex (?) had given him his dinosaur jammies and he didn't like them. Then he was sad because people kept telling him that he was going to be a daddy when he was grown up, but you change into a daddy as you are growing up. Then he was upset because the melty -bead circle he had made and left on the floor had lost a bead. Then he wanted to wear "firework pants" that don't actually exist. I looked at Michael. "I think he's sick." So I asked him if his throat hurt. He thought it did. Michael felt his lymph nodes. They were swollen. I gave him a motrin , and he's now playing happily and not complaining so much. I think there is another prescription for antibiotics in our future...

Our entire family has been feeling off and on sick over the past few weeks. Ella was laid out for 1-2 days, but then seemed to get over it. Unfortunately, after she got over it, Michael was hit over the head for a few days---flat on his back. He finally got over it enough to go get a strep test, it came back positive and we got him some antibiotics. The Monday after Michael started taking antibiotics, Ella was sick again---a stomach bug, it seemed, but she only seemed to be sick about 1/4 of the time. The rest of the time she was wrestling with her siblings and running through the sprinkler, and so on. Finally at the end of the day, Ella felt sick again and Michael made me promise to take her for a strep test, even though I was sure there was a more benign explanation. I called and made the appointment, thinking all the time that this was a waste of time and I had other things to do. Ella really seemed to be fine. I had some other questions for the doctor, so I made an appointm...

I remembered the story about Eleanor I meant to post last night. Eleanor's hangers are mostly plastic and kid sized, but occasionally one of ours makes it to her closet. Last night, she found one of the hangers typically given by dry cleaners: plain metal wire. She looked at it and said, "This is a very beautiful hook! It looks like it's made of gold!" Last night she was sick, so no viola lesson today. Since her last one was scheduled for the snowstorm day, I'm beginning to wonder if the whole project is jinxed. So watch out for Monday, when her next one is scheduled.

Many of our friends have come down with the stomach bug. I am holding my breath waiting for the (almost) inevitable. I can almost hear the "Jaws" music: da dahh. Da Dahh... I would like to try to get away this weekend. We'll see if it works out.

Luke doesn't really get to watch much TV, although, thanks to his sisters, he watches more than they did. Also thanks to his sisters, he starts chanting "Tee Dee! Tee Dee!" whenever he thinks we are going to watch some. He has an ear infection today, and was pretty sick yesterday as well, and one of the ways we can take him out of his misery is to turn on the TV. Yesterday I found the perfect show: "Benji the Hunted" or something. No words, just a dog taking care of some mountain lion cubs. Luke was enthralled. " Oof ! Oof !" he would say whenever Benji did something on the screen. When Benji barked, that was the best. The biggest problem was the commercials---louder, brighter and more annoying than the show itself. The girls (who got to watch it too) were completely caught by them, since they watch PBS and Disney almost exclusively. Today after he decided not to take a nap this morning, we went down to try to find something else interesting....

Eleanor is on antibiotics for the third time in 2 months. It started before thanksgiving, when the teacher called on Friday afternoon. It looked like Eleanor had pink eye, so we brought her in to the Dr. and he announced that yes, she did have pink eye and gave us some eye drops. I'm glad the teacher caught it, so we didn't have to go to urgent care on Saturday. That Sunday, Eleanor complained again of a sore throat. It had been going on for a while, but she was still pretty healthy seeming so we knew it wasn't strep throat. Still, if you even suspect that your kid has strep throat, it is polite to bring her in to the doctor to make sure she doesn't, before you accidentally infect the whole class. The doctor agreed with us, after looking her over. "Probably not, but we'll do a culture, just in case." He came back in a few minutes later saying that the test was positive, and he had never seen it turn positive so fast. Thank goodness for amoxicillin...

Everyone (except Michael) has been very whiny and grumpy today. I know why: there is a cold going around which makes noses and ears stuffy and throats sore. But it just doesn't make it any easier, especially when I am afflicted with the same cold. When Luke whines about something not going his way (my not giving him his sister's juice, or not letting him play in the cold garage in his jammies ) or Amanda stands next to me holding her shoes saying " uhh ! uhh ! uhh !" it makes me want to whine. That is certainly not the motherly response, but it is a human response. I can't make these kids feel better, I can't let them do whatever they want, what can I do? I suppose what is called for is a little understanding, some hugs, and a bit more patience than usual, as this is the exception, not the rule. And perhaps I will go into the bathroom and whine at myself in the mirror.

Last night, just before we were going to eat dinner, Luke started wailing. He didn't stop, he wanted to be picked up and put down and curled up into a ball, all the while screaming at the top of his lungs. I gave him motrin , but it didn't help. So I called Michael and over the screaming, told him to come home as soon as he could. Since it was 5:30, I know that wouldn't be very soon, since traffic is awful at about that time. So I made Eleanor and Amanda eat their sausage beans and rice (several times I offered to let them go to bed early if they didn't want to eat dinner). I offered Luke a popsicle , and he wouldn't even eat that. Finally, after 45 minutes of uncharacteristic screaming, I called the nurse line. The nurse was helpful and asked a few questions, and then told me to take Luke into the emergency room. The hospital across town has a pediatric emergency room, and she said she would call them to let them know I was coming. At that point, I figured ...

Luke is still sick, so if he wants something to eat that isn't actively bad for him, he gets it. This morning, he was barely tolerating milk and soft foods. Shortly afterward, he asked for a corn chip. We thought maybe the corn chip tasted good enough that he would eat it even though his mouth seemed very sensitive. He brought it outside with him while we moved the last ( yay !) of the mulch to the back yard. (The formula for mulch moved over time had been approximating 1/x so we had been feeling hopeless.) When we noticed that Luke had been quiet for too long, we looked to see what he was up to. He was using the corn chip to scoop up dirt, and licking the dirt off the chip. Mmm . Salty dirt.

At the doctor's office yesterday, the Dr. mentioned that Luke had some ulcers on the inside of his mouth. "Has he had a fever? A rash on his bottom or hands and feet? There is hand, foot and mouth disease going around." When I answered no, she said that in that case, the sores were probably just from some virus and would go away. I went away thankful that Luke didn't have hand foot and mouth disease. Well, he woke up last night with a fever, and even after motrin this morning he still had a fever. He was sad enough to snuggle with daddy for about 10 minutes this morning (while Daddy let me sleep, since I will have to carry Luke around all day today). I think he pretty clearly has HFMD . Now the challenge is to try to keep Amanda and Eleanor from getting this. We have instituted strict hand washing protocols, but it is difficult to keep Luke from (for example) putting his fingers in Amanda's mouth, or having them both blow raspberries on the couch, or hav...

We went up to visit my sister and family over President's day weekend. We had a great time, and played outside in the beautiful weather. Unfortunately, beautiful weather means tick season. We arrived at our home airport at about 5, which is exactly dinner time. The nearest/best place to have dinner turned out to be Arby's (which has an allergy menu online), and while eating dinner I noticed that Amanda had a tick on her shoulder. I grew up in Minnesota, so I know in theory the methods used to remove a tick---pulling gently and firmly with a tweezers ( apparently Vaseline , nail polish and other removal methods are not recommended anymore). However, all the knowledge in the world doesn't help when you have a panicky 3-year old screaming for you not to touch the tick, being in a restaurant far from home with no tweezers, as well as having to take care of a tired 5 year old and 1 year old. I knew that we didn't have to get the tick out absolutely immediately (it hadn...

The other day Eleanor asked to have her training wheels taken off her bicycle. We had a few hours to kill and it was an absolutely beautiful day, so I got Michael's wrenches and took the training wheels off. I think I impressed Eleanor, she hadn't been sure that Mama could use Daddy's tools. Then Eleanor wanted to ride. I was trying to take care of Luke, but he was well (I had just dosed him up with motrin) so I let him play in the sand while I tried to push Eleanor. I wasn't able to get up very much speed, and she did not want to ride on the driveway, so she got a lot of experience falling off her bike in the grass. She actually got quite good at leaping free of the bike and landing so she wasn't hurt. Amanda seemed to think that she could help most by standing directly in front of Eleanor's bike just as Eleanor wanted to get going. It took a while to dissuade her of this idea. After a while I pushed Eleanor while holding Luke, which made the chances of ...

When I was in 2nd grade, my Grandma taught me to make Swedish hearts . Ever since then, I have made these for Valentines day (I often don't mail the ones I've made, so if you haven't gotten one, that doesn't mean I didn't make one for you...) I remember making 35 or so for all the kids in my class in elementary school. The best thing about them is that they look impossible, but they're really not too hard to make (although making 35 and writing names on all of them does take a long time, so I advise you to start much earlier than I did when I was younger.) When Eleanor started school, I continued the tradition by making the hearts for her class. When she was 2, I made all the hearts. When she was 3, she cut some of the hearts. Last year she did everything except weave the hearts. I was all excited this year to teach her how to weave the hearts, but when I asked her if she wanted to get started (it's best to start in January making a few each day) she ...

...by letting them throw up on us. Luke had a stomach bug (probably from something he put in his mouth while I wasn't looking) all Friday, and he still wasn't all himself today. He seemed to be getting over it by bedtime tonight. I had been looking forward to the first weekend in more than a month when the entire family would be well. Maybe next week. My theory of child illness: the two important things to do for sick children are 1) control their fever, and 2) keep them hydrated. If their fever gets out of control, they don't want to drink, and they get dehydrated, and then they can't keep anything down. With Luke, he had a hard time drinking anything, so I ended up giving him a few sips of pedialite in a medicine dropper every few minutes, up to 4 oz. per hour. He was mad that I wouldn't give him more at a time, but if I gave him too much, he would lose it all anyway. If you can keep the fever down and keep them from being dehydrated, the kids usually reco...

Sorry for being gone for so long without blogging! I would like to have some sort of excuse, but the real excuse is that I can't remember what I wanted to write about for more than 5 minutes. A semi-excuse is given by the fact that we have been variously sick over the past few days/weeks. Luke has had a constantly runny nose: it cleared up sunday , but was back running today. Eleanor had a stomach ache on Friday, and an ear ache on Sunday, and she's still not back to her old self unless she has regular doses of motrin ( ahh , better living through chemistry). Michael was sick on Friday with a bug that laid him so low he didn't even feel tempted to get work done (he sometimes gets more done on "sick" days than on days when he goes in to the office). My nose is running and my head hurts, at least until the motrin kicks in. We are all getting to bed early tonight, I hope. Another excuse is that I've been reading other people's blogs, and their comment...

Luke has been sick the last few days. Not quite enough to obviously go to the doctor: he had a low grade fever, was a bit sad, but wasn't throwing up or pulling his ear or dehydrated. Also, he always seems to get more sad at about 4:30, just the time when it's not practical to go to the pediatrician. Yesterday he was so tired that he glommed on to my chest and wouldn't let me put him down all afternoon---on the other hand, he didn't want to go to sleep in his crib. He has been much much better in the mornings. He was, however, sick enough at night that I've gotten 5 or fewer hours of sleep the last three nights. This makes me not want to take the time to write blog entries. It makes me not want to clean the kitchen, which is much more necessary (although less fun) in our home life. I have been falling prey to the problem that led me to start a blog in the first place: spending too much time reading random blogs and not enough time writing my own. Hopefully ...

Well, we have a cold. By that I mean that everyone in the whole family has one, from Luke to Michael. I feel a bit like death warmed over, although Eleanor and Amanda seem to be taking it in stride. "I hope I get over this cold by tomorrow" said Eleanor last night---Michael had to explain that it would probably take a while... Of course, the one who is most traumatized by the whole experience is Luke. His nose is running, and he just doesn't understand that when I bring a kleenex up to his nose it isn't for eating, so he cries when I take it away. Last night he was very stuffy, had a runny nose and probably a sore throat, too. He was awake every half hour or so from 9-11 (when the Tylenol kicked in) and then again from 3-4:30. The saddest thing was the look of betrayal on his face, as though he were saying, "I thought you told me it would be fun and exciting to be a baby! This isn't fun! I want a refund!" Sorry Luke, I can almost guarantee that...