Is It Spring Yet?

There has unfortunately been more sickness in our family. After Alissa finished her antibiotics from Strep Throat she came down with a virus that had a fever. I know it sounds strange, but I think that get a sore in your mouth somehow accompanied this virus. Caleb and I both got it too. Alissa and Caleb were really feeling bad a few days this week. Luckily for Caleb he wasn't sick on his school day. No one has been eating very good and everyone spent a lot of time laying around on the couch. Here Caleb and his teddy bears are getting some quality couch time. Luckily, everyone is starting to feel better, except me. I show how ended up with a cold. Lots of congestion and sinus headaches, but better me than the kids. I just hope the kids don't end up with this next. This winter has been lots of snow and sickness!

It's almost March and I hope that means that the snow will at least stop falling and maybe even start melting. As everyone knows this has been one of the snowiest Februaries. I am so tired of all the snow and having to dig out. This morning the kids were supposed to have a Church activity, but it was cancelled because we got another 2 inches last night. There has been a lot of cancellations, but at least Leah did have school everyday this past week. Caleb was finally able to have his valentine party this past Tuesday at his school.

Today, Rod is out digging us out again and Caleb and Alissa were excited to go out with him. Caleb still likes to go out and play some, but it's hard to get them to go out and stay out for more than a few minutes.

Caleb loves to take his loaders out and dig in the snow. Too bad they aren't a little bigger.

Alissa decided to mow the grass! I wish we could see the grass!

This is what Leah was doing while everyone else was outside. I think she's had enough of the snow.

Sick Week

It's not that I have completely forgotten about the blog, I just have been having a rough week. Last week, Alissa had a virus that caused vomiting and diarrhea. It was bad and went over the course of a few days. She got better and no one came down with anything for several days. I thought that we were all safe. However, on Sunday Leah complained about her stomach. She came home from Church and said that she wanted a nap (we were shocked). She went to bed and sleep for almost 3 hours. Then when she got up she continued to complain that her stomach hurt. She laid around most of the day with a bucket that she never used, but by evening she was off running around and playing.

On Wednesday, my stomach started hurting really bad. Things just got worse from there. Unfortunately, Rod had to come home that evening instead of going to his brother, Travis' as planned. He had to stay home from work on Thursday because I was completely out of commission and spent most of my time in the bathroom or in bed. By Thursday evening I started to feel a little better. We did learn from this experience that Rod would not want to be a stay at home dad!

Although, I was feeling a bit better on Thursday night, Alissa was especially grumpy. We thought that it was just because she was tired, but she woke up a few hours after we put her down to sleep with a terrible fever. I gave her medicine and put her back to bed. She was still running a terrible fever (102.3 under the arm pit where the say to add a degree) in the morning. The medicine is keeping it down, but I am planning on taking her to the doctor this afternoon. I think she has another ear infection. She has told me a couple of time that her left ear is oowee. This is the same ear that she has been having trouble with infections. If she has one this will be her 3rd infection in the same ear over a 3 month period.

Too top it all off, it is snowing like crazy! This would be no big deal if I was staying home, but I couldn't get an appointment until 3 in the afternoon. I was going to try and go when Leah was at school, but they cancelled PM kindergarten today. So now me and the kids will all venture out in the snow to the doctor. I guess I'll leave early and hope that my kids don't touch anything in the doctors office.

Sorry to complain so much. I'll try and make the next post more upbeat!

Alissa is better

Alissa is finally feeling better and life is getting back to normal. I am still not sure what Alissa had, but she didn’t have a UTI which is good. I am sure it was some kind of infection because of how miserable she was and the fact that no one else in our house got sick. We were really worried about her for several days even after we started the antibiotics. She I now back to eating and playing and actually last night she slept through the night. Before she got sick we had finally moved her out of the cradle in our room and put her in the crib in the bedroom with Leah. Leah was very excited about this.

Alissa's first night sleeping in the cradle.

Leah is very happy to have a roommate for now. She probably won't find this very exciting for long!

After Alissa got sick and was waking up several times throughout the night, we moved her back into the cradle in our room. Now that things are back to normal, we can move her back into Leah’s room. Alissa still isn’t sleeping through the night every night, but at least we are moving in the right direction. Alissa has definitely grown out of the cradle and now she is sitting up and pulling up in it. It’s not very safe for her in there anymore. Although I am trying to keep her a baby it isn’t exactly working. It’s hard to believe that I have to start planning for her first birthday. I have to keep reminding myself that she really is almost a year old. It really doesn’t seem possible.

We are so happy that she is feeling better! She is back to her old happy, chatty self!

Three is enough

This has been a very busy week and I am glad that things are finally beginning to calm down and get back what I call normal. On Tuesday morning, my SIL asked me to watch two of her kids for a couple of days while my other nephew had some medical tests. I knew that I would have the kids from Tuesday morning until Wednesday evening. Rachel and Nathaniel are 4 and 17 months, so this gave me 5 kids age 4 and under. I figured that it wouldn’t be any problem but wow, did it wear me out. Rachel and Nathaniel were well behaved, although I think that they were both afraid of me after seeing me punish Leah and Caleb. The hard part was that all the kids were so excited to see each other and everyone was out of routine.

Two more children added a lot more toys all over the floor, a lot more food to cook and spills to clean up. By the end of the first evening, I was very eager to tell Rod that I definitely don’t want 5 children! I am still getting used to having 3! I think that the hardest part both days was nap time. I didn’t have any good place to lay 5 kids down for a nap and nap time is a very important time of day for my sanity.

Rachel and Nathaniel hanging out at the Windle's

To makes things even more difficult, Alissa has been sick since Monday. She has been trying to convince Rod and I that due to her sickness she needs to be held all the time! She does this by screaming! She has been refusing to sleep by herself at night or for naps. She has been running a terrible fever. At first I figured that it was just a viral thing, but today I decided to take Alissa to the doctor. The appointment was over an hour and not very fun. Alissa had to have multiple tests. The doctor thinks that she might have a UTI. They put her on antibiotics and are sending her urine out for a culture. I guess that if it is a UTI that she will have to give another urine sample which was not an enjoyable experience for her and then she’ll have to have an ultrasound to make sure that her kidney’s aren’t infected. They said it would take 24-48 hours to determine the results and let us know what’s next.

Tomorrow I hope that the craziness level will be lower since I will not have any extra children nor will I be running to the doctor and the store. I am very happy about this, however, not everyone in our family is happy about it. Leah has been asking for Rachel and asking why she had to leave multiple times since she left and now Leah is ready to go to Rachel's house.

Recovering

It's a blessing that when kids get sick, that they recover quickly and are up and playing around again within a few hours, but why can't adults do that too? Unfortunately, Caleb got sick on Saturday while we were out of town visiting Rod's parents. Luckily he figured out how to throw up in the potty and preferred that method, but he didn't always have the best aim and one time we didn't make it in time. We all felt terrible for the little guy, but after throwing up 3 times and just 5 hours later, he was up running around playing like nothing ever hit him. At the time we figured that he must have eaten something that didn't agree with him because he didn't have a fever and it lasted such a short period of time.

The next day we were on our way home and I wasn't feeling very well. We are in the car and I just want to be at home but we still had most of the two hour ride ahead of us. We were still an hour out and I got sick in the car, before we made it home I got sick 2 more times. We got home around 7. The sickness didn't stop there, but I won't go into all the details. It was midnight before I was finally able to spend some time away from the bathroom. I didn't sleep at all Sunday night because I just couldn't get comfortable and I was still so nauseous. Yesterday, I spent all day laying around and let the kids have the house. I frankly didn't even care about what they did as long as they weren't screaming. I slept a lot of the day. Finally yesterday evening I was feeling well enough to get up and move around. This morning I am still only eating toast, but I am feeling so much better. The goal today is to help the house recover from the kids reign yesterday!

Leah is so tender hearted. She felt so bad that I was sick. On the way home Sunday, Rod was talking about how Leah had kissed me and how he was worried that she might get sick. Leah had also kissed him so he was worried that he might get it too. Leah must have heard all of this and thought that he was saying that she was responsible for making me sick. Sunday night she came to me and told me that she was sorry that she made me sick and how she shouldn't have kissed me. I guess that she had told this to Rod as well. We both explained to her that she did not make me sick and that we were just worried that she would get sick because of me. She was so worried about me yesterday and was so happy that I was up moving around today. Luckily, Leah and Rod have both made it through so far. Hopefully, it will stay that way.