Britany’s Blog

Well, just when we thought we were nearing the end of the Flu Epidemic of 2009, last night Peter’s temp shot up from the 99 degree range to 101.

I have to admit that when he first started complaining about feeling bad, I ignored him. I think I was in the 3rd Stage of the Flu, which is denial. Or is that the 3rd Stage of Grief?

Whatever.

But I finally broke down and took his temp. I nearly cried when I saw 101. That means that he really does have it, and by now we’ve missed the 48 hour window with which to get Tamiflu. So we’re looking at approximately 6 more days of fever for Peter.

And now Brad and I think we might have “a touch of the flu” as well. It’s really the strangest thing. We are exhausted but our symptoms keep coming and going. One moment, we feel sick at our stomachs, the next, we feel hungry. One moment, we are achy all over, the next, we’re feeling okay. We’ve had low-grade fevers on and off again, and a headache.

But other than that, we’re fine! No, really! I don’t have the flu! I’m just…tired! Yeah, that’s it!!!

Seriously, I keep trying to convince myself it’s all psychosomatic and not real. But I have no other explanation for this weird health rollercoaster we seem to be on. The good news is that it’s not really that bad. We can still function and that’s pretty important since we have these kiddos who insist on meals and stuff.

In fact, I took Samuel to his first day of Small Fry Basketball this morning. What a hoot! I wish I had been able to take pics with one hand while helping Samuel learn to dribble with the other but, well, hello! Coordination has never been my special gift.

In fact, when I was little, my dance instructor had a special section just for me. It was called “the back, BACK, row”. It’s not that I didn’t try – I just could never remember which way to turn. Or where to put my arms. Or my feet, really.

Okay, I was a terrible dancer. But I was sure cute in those little costumes! And I had fun, which might have been okay back when I was six, but was no longer enough justification when my parents released copies of the videos for the world to see at my rehearsal dinner. Thanks, Mom & Dad.

No, really, it was all in good fun. I’m just glad I didn’t have any girls. I really can’t imagine having to endure years of watching my poor daughter try to swim against her genetic tide and master the art of turning the same direction as the other girls in her line.

Although, now that I think if it, watching Samuel continually bounce the basketball off his shoe is not all that different. Same lack of coordination, different sport. But it could be worse. I could be watching Samuel in a ballet class full of girls, turning the wrong direction and thinking “That’s just wrong”.

Actually, I would never consent to allowing one of my boys to take dance – not because of the obvious crossing of the gender roles – but because of the humiliation he would have to endure for the rest of his life.

Because if there is anything worse than being the one always turning the wrong way at a dance recital, it is being the only boy in a pink tutu turning the wrong way at the dance recital.

It was last Thursday when Samuel first started running a low-grade fever.  Matthew threw up the next morning and, well, you know the rest.  Samuel had to have a chest x-ray yesterday because of his extended fever (eight days and counting) but it was clear.  They were checking for pneumonia.  Peter took a flu test but it was negative.  They said it was too soon to test.

I do wish someone could explain this mystery to me: Peter’s test was inaccurate because it was only about six hours after the onset of symptoms.  But Matthew’s test, while registering the flu, came too late for the prescription of Tamiflu.  Apparently, you have to hit it at exactly the precise time in order to get the treasured medicine, sometime within the first 48 hours from the onset of symptoms but after the “too early” window, which is a real trick, especially when the pediatrician’s office pretty much just gives you the next appointment on the list.

Not only that, but I learned yesterday that only certain doctors within my pediatrician’s group are even prescribing Tamiflu!  So the odds of us getting Tamiflu are about as good as being struck by lightening while winning the lottery.

Which begs the question, why bother going to the doctor at all?  In our case, we have now invested $80 plus whatever we will owe for the trip to the x-ray people (probably $100 copay for that) for the grand prize of…ding! ding! ding!…being able to tell everyone that ONE of our boys has a confirmed case of the flu.

You know what that’ll get you?  A mask, some stickers and a pencil.

Leaving the x-ray place

Yes, that’s right.  They made all 3 boys wear masks at the medical center where we went for the x-rays.  And you want to know what’s sad?  The lady that runs the x-ray machine now knows me by sight.  She actually said “Weren’t you just here recently?”.  Oh yes, as the mother of 3 boys, I have now spent quite a bit of my life at the x-ray place.

On a happier note, today we had to get out of the house for a few hours so the cleaning ladies could come.  They were so welcome and appreciated, and I have never been as happy as when we walked through the door and smelled the fresh, clean scent of pine.  It was momentary nirvana.

While we were out, I decided to surprise the boys with a trip to “Picnic Hill”.  It’s in the adjacent neighborhood and the boys have been begging to go for a long time.  It was really a nice change of pace after being cooped up for so many days in a row.  I took some pics with my cellphone.

View from Picnic Hill

Picnic Hill

Boys eating lunch

Looking back toward our house.

So while we are still sick, at least we are sleeping on clean sheets tonight and using clean sinks and clean wash cloths, etc.  And maybe – just maybe – we will finally be on our way to getting healthy again.

But on the off chance that that doesn’t work, does anybody know how to score some black market Tamiflu???

If I had been more awake, I would have grabbed my phone and shot a picture of Peter doing “Ring Around The Rosie” with Samuel at 7:15am.  You would never have guessed by the look of glee on his face that his temperature had just registered 100.0 – finally.  He’s been asking me to take his temperature for days, now, hoping against hope to get what Matthew and Samuel have so he could stay home from school.

Last night, it was 99.3 – not quite high enough to warrant a day off of school.  This morning, the first reading was 98.6, the second was 99.1, then finally, he hit the 100 degree mark – his ticket home for the day.  I have to admit wondering briefly if he had been able to figure a way to beat the ear thermometer, but it was too early and I had not had any coffee yet.  I decided to think about that when my mind was awake and fully functioning.  I’m still waiting for that to happen, by the way, which begs the question, is it possible to blog with only half my brain awake?  I guess that is yet to be seen.

So why is my brain still half asleep at 8:05am?  Well, I’ll tell you.

I went to bed at 10:30 last night.  At 10:45, Samuel came down coughing and crying.  I had already given him Benadryl and Motrin at 8pm so he couldn’t have anything else.  He went potty then tried to crawl in bed with me but I took him back upstairs and put an extra pillow under his head and tucked him back in – to his own bed!  I think he stayed there until 3am, but I’m not sure – those in between hours get so blurry.  When he came down at 3, he told me he would feel better if he could just sleep in my bed and I was too tired to argue.  I told him he could sleep with me as long as he stayed on daddy’s side of the bed and didn’t talk!  (Daddy couldn’t argue because he was away on business last night.)  So he slept – for a while.  At 5am, he woke me up to ask me if it was time to wake up.  At 6am, he woke me up to ask me if he could turn on the TV.  At 7am, he woke me up to tell me it was 7 and he was going to go poo poo on our potty.  (Gee, thanks for that announcement.)  At that point, I knew I had to get up as well.

So forgive my blog post if it’s incoherent.  I have a feeling I will be saying that to a lot of people today.  And if you are able today, take a nap for me.  I have a feeling it’s going to be a long one.

Now, where did I leave that coffee cup?

Here are some cute pics of the kids from Halloween night.  You might notice there is only one with Samuel in it – that’s because, as soon as the picture was taken, he asked if we could take off the costume so he could go lie down on the couch and watch TV.  His temp that night spiked at 104.5 so it was no wonder he didn’t want to participate in the fun, but more on that below.  Here’s the boys in costume:

Halloween

Casper, The Friendly Ghost

Have you ever seen the movie, Space Balls?

Okay, it's really Matthew under that helmet!

He fought the mask and the mask lost!

So here’s how the evening went.  First we ate dinner, then put on costumes, then took pictures, then removed Samuel’s costume so he could rest, then Brad took Peter and Matthew to about 4 houses right by ours while I answered the door.  After that many houses, Matthew, who was also running a temperature, wanted to come home.  Meanwhile, Samuel would NOT remain on the couch.  Too much excitement with the doorbell ringing every few minutes.  I wondered what the moms must have thought when my snot-nosed kid without a costume on answered the door.  I still maintain that that sight was much scarier than any of the costumes the kids were wearing (at least for the parents).

So after bringing Matthew home, Brad took Peter out to Trick or Treat.  After about half an hour, I was really starting to wonder where they were and I got a text from Brad asking if we still had kids coming by.  I wrote back, asking where he was and they had wandered into the adjacent neighborhood!  Apparently Peter was enjoying hearing how cute his costume was and all the extra candy he received as a result.

About the ghost costume…lest you think I’m just cheap, when I polled the boys a month ago about what they wanted to be for Halloween, Peter already had his costume planned out – minus the mask which was given to us by Jana at the last minute.  (By the way, I offered to cut a bunch of holes in the sheet so he could look like Charlie Brown but I guess he hasn’t seen that episode because he didn’t go for it.)  As for Matthew – yes, that is his costume from last year.  Again, it wasn’t my idea!  He already knew exactly what he wanted to be, so hey, who am I to argue???  And Samuel – that poor costume has been worn so many times, it is ripped in several key places, like under the arms and right in front.  But for his school parade, they had to dress up as a civic hero or Bible character, and since this was all we had that fit the bill, he went as a firefighter.  Then on Halloween, he forgot the Superman pajamas (see previous post) and decided to wear his fireman costume.  For about 5 minutes anyway – long enough for a picture and that’s all that matters, right?

So about the sickness.  It started with Samuel on Thursday of last week.  He was running a low-grade fever and said he had a headache, but that was it.  Then Friday morning, Matthew threw up and started running a low temp and complaining of a headache.  I figured it was the flu or a virus but it didn’t really matter which since I had heard the Swine Flu was a pretty mild flu compared to the other versions.

Over the weekend, Samuel’s temperature kept spiking and Matthew’s would go up, but not above about 102.  They both complained of body aches and headaches, but nobody threw up again.  With Motrin, they were pretty comfortable.  Then came Sunday night.

Sunday night, Samuel woke up around 11pm and had a pretty high temp.  I gave him Motrin and something to drink and put him back to bed.  He was up again about half an hour later saying he couldn’t sleep.  He wasn’t kidding.  I could not get him to stay in his bed so I finally put him in our bed until he got sleepy, then took him back to his.  He was awake again at 6am.  I decided it was time to rule out an ear infection.

Since Matthew still had a fever on Monday, I made the appointment for both.  They did a swab for strep and flu on both kids and both strep were negative but only Matthew’s was positive for flu.  I still can’t figure how Samuel’s isn’t flu – he has exactly the same symptoms as Matthew!  So I’m assuming the test was wrong.  Anyway, turns out if I had taken them in on Saturday, they would have given them Tamiflu (I thought they weren’t giving any of that out anymore).  Oh well, live and learn.

So today is Tuesday and we were up the better part of the night with Samuel.  His temp comes down with the Motrin/Tylenol, but he complains of stomach aches, back aches, bottom aches, even hands and feet aches and just can’t sleep.  He spent the whole night in our bed so I slept very little.  But the good news is that with the flu, the fever is only supposed to last 5-7 days and we are now on day 5 for Samuel.

So that’s an update on us – how are you?  I love to read comments when they are posted so please feel free!  It will give me something to do in between wiping noses, taking temperatures and administering medicine!

So not a lot to report but today was a particularly successful day – in a couple of ways. 1) We switched Peter and Samuel (their rooms) and put together Peter’s new bed. Pictures to follow. 2) We rested. 3) We did both 1 & 2 while taking care of sick kids. I guess we’re finally getting the hang of it after all these years. I don’t know if this is THE SWINE FLU or just a virus but who cares? In my mind, it’s just sickness like all other sickness. So besides that, we have been enjoying family time with movie night tonight (purchased Monsters vs. Aliens and I laughed harder than the kids – cute movie), dinner at Sonic one night (the boys pooled their marbles and we sat on the benches at their request. I personally didn’t see the appeal but they loved feeling like all eyes were on them) and then working together to switch rooms today. Good times. We have also made a couple of trips to the park, which is included in the pics below, and then there’s one pic of Samuel cleaning off his wall. Again. The child is obsessed with writing on anything and everything. Except, of course, any of the thousands if sheets of paper or hundreds of coloring books I have provided for him. I guess you can tell he’s our third because he’s not afraid to keep doing it like the other two would have been.

Finally, I just got an email from Bethany and (drum roll please) – they won custom builder if the year again!!!!! I’m so excited for them – 9 awards at tonights Star Awards at the Gaylord Texan!!! I wish I could have been there to see their faces! They emailed a pic but I don’t know how to move it from my email program to my blog on my phone. Anyway, congrats to the 2009 Custom Builder of the Year, Jenkins Custom Homes!!!!!

I always thought the little sheets the preschool sent home was a waste. I mean, it’s nice that today Samuel was line leader and they read the story of Jonah, but seriously? I’m just after the six hours of freedom from the non-stop questions that Samuel dreams up in order to keep me engaged in constant conversation. Questions like the ones he is asking as I type this: “What if we played outside? What if someone runs over that sign in the road? What can Grammy’s car do? Why can it drive in dirt? What if I drives in the dirt with him?”. On and on the questions go, and it’s very taxing. So forgive me if my four-year-old’s education is the least of my concerns.

But today, I came to appreciate the little piece of paper in a new way. I picked Samuel up as usual, then scanned the sheet, which said that they had a special visit from a Dental Assistant. It then went on to describe how she taught them the importance if brushing twice a day, as well as what foods are healthier for our teeth. Makes perfect sense – to a grown-up.

But this was the report I got about what Samuel learned in school today: “Today the doctor came to my school and told us about salt bugs. Salt bugs come up to my chin and bite it – see the bite, Mommy? – then they dig a hole in your tongue and eat the salt and stuffes you put in your mouth! But if you don’t eat too much salt then they will die.” This colorful story has gone on for half an hour now and currently, we are on the chapter where the salt bugs are afraid of cars and are being scared away by them.

Earlier today, I asked Samuel what he wanted to be for Halloween, he said “a scary superman!”. Then he went on to tell me he wanted to wear his new superman pjs with the cape. I’ll probably let him. Then he went on to tell me he wanted to wear them for Halloween – and Easter! Of course! The scary superman that visits your house on Easter morning!

Brad tells me that when they were driving home Sunday night, there was quite a lightening storm going on around them. This precipitated a conversation about what heppens when lightening hits…(fill in the blank). The most entertaining question was “What happens when lightening hits Jesus?”. (I’m glad Brad was there to handle that deeply theological question.) When we prayed tonight at devotions, all we could figure was the part about Jesus using shock to kill the bad guys was the result of that conversation. Who knows? I, for one, have given up on ever understanding how his mind works. I just hope he doesn’t have nightmares tonight about those salt bugs. Then again, I hope I don’t either!

On the way down to church tonight, we passed this apartment fire in Plano. Don’t know anything about it but hoping everyone made it out okay!

Mom,

It’s only been a few hours since you left but I’m feeling your absence already.  I’m sitting in the guest bedroom – YOUR room – and smelling your lingering perfume and it’s all I can do to keep from crying an ugly cry.  And I don’t want to cry because 1) I already put on my mascara and 2) I’m wearing contacts.  So let’s just move on.

You said you felt like we didn’t get much done while you were here, so I want to prove you wrong.  Because my heart and mind are full of all the blessings your visit brought – not all of them tangible or picture-worthy – but I want to do my best to record them here for all posterity.

Let’s start at the very beginning (a very good place to start, FYI).  Here are some before pictures:

Here is what my house looked like:

Living Room With Garage Sale Piles

Living Room - Before

Here is what Matthew’s hives looked like:

Matthew's hives

And here is what Samuel looked like:

Samuel's PJ dilemma

Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the flowerbed with all the grass and weeds.  Or the guest bedroom without the new nightstand.  But I just happen to have a few after pictures:

Here is the new bed we found for Peter – on clearance – then transported home by ourselves.

Peter's new bed

Here is the guest room nightstand:

New nightstand

Here’s the living room:

Living Room - after the maids and donations

Here’s the front of the house:

House with cleaned-out flowerbeds

Close-up of the front door decorations:

Fall Decorations

And the Dining Room:

Dining Room

But wait!  There’s more!  Here’s Samuel in his new PJs:

Super Samuel

And Matthew’s hives are gone (as well as a lot of his hair, but this picture was prior to yesterday’s haircut):

Matthew post-hives

The truth is, mom, your presence in our home was like a warm, comfortable blanket.  You provided help for all of us – just what we needed, when we needed it.  The boys cherish your friendship.  Brad loves you and appreciates all your help.  I – well, what can I say?  I love you so much it hurts but that’s okay.  I mean, as we both know, there are no words to describe a mother’s love for her child, or a child’s love for her mother.  I have a great mom.

Thank you for nursing me through bronchitis.  For driving the kids back and forth to school.  For all the meals.  For just being here.  I will miss your hugs (I wish I had gotten more of those while I had the chance).  I will miss our visits, finally saying everything we never remember to say on the phone.  And we will all miss beating you at UNO Attack.

Because, after all, that machine really hates you.

UNO Attack!

Matthew dealing

Grammy playing UNO Attack!

I apologize for not posting sooner.  With all the strep, and then mom coming and so on, we’ve been busy.  That seems to be the mantra lately – busy busy busy busy busy.  Boys get up – run around getting them ready for school until they leave and I breathe a sigh of relief.  Run around chasing my tail all day trying to do everything that needs to be done for the day.  Boys come home – spend the next 5 hours filling out forms, helping with homework, coddling tired and hungry kids and preparing meals: dinner, tomorrow’s lunches and if I’m feeling ambitious, even breakfast.

Once baths are finished and the boys are down, Brad and I collapse in a heap until we are finally able to drag our tired bodies off to bed.  Then we start all over again the next day.

It’s a crazy life, but I have to admit that I’m enjoying it.  Especially since we have been cleaning out and clearing out and have been blessed with the help of my mother, a maid service and potentially a crew to clean the grass out of our flowerbed.  For me, it feels like Spring cleaning.

So enough about all that.  The boys are doing well and since I know that’s why 95% of you read my blog, here are some recent pics.

Blocks at doctor's office

Lunch at school with Peter

Samuel put on his own pjs - backwards!

Peter's "scientist" shows what he wants to be when he grows up.

Peter reading the Chronicles of Narnia

Matthew's "scientist" has some serious bling!

Peter's playing flag football...

...and loving it!

First football game

I was watching an episode of Super Nanny recently and she told the parents to use marbles to reward good behavior. So we have started a marble system.

I have to admit to being desperate at the time of induction. At first, the marbles represented 30 minutes of Nintendo, TV, or computer time (what we call “screen time”). If they disobeyed, we would remove a marble. The problem occurred when Samuel lost all of his marbles (pun intended) then had nothing left to lose. So now they cannot lose their marbles – just redeem them for their reward. The consequences come in the form of time outs and loss of privilege. This is especially effective when they are using one their marbles to have screen time, then lose the privilege (and that marble) for poor choices.

I really like this system of discipline because the marbles serve as a reminder for us to praise the kids and give them positive reinforcement. Meanwhile, when they lose a privilege, we try to word it this way “I’m so sad you made that choice! Now you won’t get to finish (blank).”. It’s called “the language of choices” and it serves two purposes: to help the boys take ownership for their wrong behavior (they also have to tell me what they did wrong and what they should have done before they are allowed out of time out), as well as maintain our relationship.

I think one of the most destructive things we did with the boys early on was to take everything they did wrong so personally. As a result, we often got angry with them and our relationship was temporarily severed. Besides mirroring our anger back at us, they also had no outlet for their feelings. By cutting them off, we gave them no way to work through the situation. This new way puts the burden on them, and they can still remain close to us.

Well, that’s my update for today. We continue to work toward getting everyone back to full health after another round of Strep, and I’m hopeful that once that is done, we can finally start to get back into some sembelence of normal around here. Maybe I can even get the garage sale stuff out of my living room!!!

(The pictures are of our living room, the blocks are at the pediatrician’s office, and the marble buckets – not necessarily in that order.)