Tag Archives: Sick

Is this thing on?

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Hello?

Sorry besides books and recipes I haven’t been much of a blogger.  Apparently we’ve had lots going on.  But nothing that really requires a lot of “reporting”

Shortly into April, we decided to take dairy out of Maria’s diet, because of her tummy aches that were less and less random.  We also started her on a probiotic regularly to see if that was the problem.  So far it’s going well. She has been a champ on missing out on some of the foods she loves the most…  ice cream, anything with cheese, yogurt…  And her tummy issues seem better.  We’ll probably start to reintroduce some things in again this month.  It sure has opened my eyes to how much we all eat dairy.  And also the challenges to making this work, which includes extra grocery trips to the local food co-op for the non-dairy versions of a lot of things (cream cheese, sour cream, cheese, yogurt…)

Maria has had 2 overnights in the last few weeks.  And what we’ve learned from that is that Charlie is a talker!  But only if there isn’t someone (Maria) here to dominate the conversation.  It’s pretty cute and definitely makes me worry less about his speech.  Although I wish I could figure out how to give him more opportunities to dominate the conversation.

I’ve definitely been doing a lot of cooking lately too. Trying new things (without dairy) and just trying to be more holistic with eating as well which means I’m trying to understand what the ingredients are in my food.

So good stuff going on, we’re enjoying the warmer weather and looking forward to Maria’s birthday in a few weeks followed by preschool graduation and the start of summer!

 

 

Post-Op

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Maria is home and recovering.  She is loving smoothies, ice cream shakes, popsicles and TV.

She impressed everyone at the hospital with how well she behaved for the anesthesiologist and then woke up and ate popsicles RIGHT away.    She was awesome. I don’t think she has shed a single tear today!

The doctor warned that day 3 or 4 might be worse as scabs heal, they may become more irritated.   But everything went well and recovery is going about as well as can be expected right now! I’m hoping I’m able to do a little work at home tomorrow while she recuperates.

Ready for February!

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I am ready for January to be over. And I realize I haven’t posted a lot.  I have plans in my head on what to write about (hint: it’s related to my new year intentions), but then part of achieving those intentions is why I’m not sitting at my computer blogging.

Plus some catching up on our life this January, but again I can tie it back to the other post.  AND yet, tonight I’m not writing about that, because tomorrow bright and early, Maria gets her tonsils and adenoids taken out.  So just a little prayer for my sweet little girl on getting through tomorrow and the next few days, possibly the next couple weeks would be much appreciated. Hoping to finally put an end to this vicious cycle of ear infections and antibiotics!

ready or not here it comes…

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Just a few more things to do, but I’m pretty proud of what I’ve done already for Christmas:

    • Kids saw Santa – Maria sat on his lap. Charlie did too, but screamed!

Maria & Santa

    • Completed my gift shopping.
    • Completed my grocery shopping(!)
    • Addressed, stamped and sent out Christmas Cards/Letters
    • Attended a Christmas Party
    • Made Cranberry Cheesecake Bars for a holiday treat sharing day at work.
    • Managed our Elf on the Shelf all of December (minus one night he forgot to move)
    • Made and ate Christmas cookies with Maria and Charlie (we just scooped sugar cookie dough into balls and rolled in the various sprinkles and baked… none of that fancy rolling or cookie cutter stuff for us!)

Baking Cookies

    • Helped Maria decorate her gingerbread house.

Gingerbread House

    • Attended Maria’s Sunday School Christmas program/service.

Maria & Mykaela - Church Christmas Program 2011

  • Taken Maria to the doctor & pharmacy various times. And scheduled a tonsilectomy for January. (OK, not Christmas related, but still stressful and time consuming, so I’m counting it!)
  • Called a roofer to come fix our leaky skylight (again, stressful)
  • Cleaned the lint trap in my washer (I had no idea it had one, so after 6 years, you can imagine we figured out fast where the musty smell was coming from! duh!)
  • Got all the presents sorted and in boxes ready to be wrapped
  • Got the house picked up and ready for my house-cleaner tomorrow.

My TO-DOs:

  • One more day of work (but from home)
  • Make Caramel corn
  • Wrap presents
  • Make more cookies
  • Make those pretzel & Hershey hugs things
  • Make meatballs for Christmas Eve
  • Watch Elf and/or Christmas Vacation
  • Take a shower.

Then I’ll be ready!

Ditto – Last December

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What is it about staying healthy after Thanksgiving and into December? I feel like this is Groundhog’s Day after reading this post from last December 3rd…

Here’s the order of events for this year:

  • After complaining of sore ears for a week on November 10, Maria’s temp went up so we went to the Target Clinic.  Double ear infection.  Ugh.
  • Recheck before Thanksgiving was good, still fluid, but what they would expect when she was on the mend.
  • Thanksgiving was good! We were all healthy. Weather was warm! We walked to the park and the Packers won!
  • Saturday after Thanksgiving, the kids and I started getting colds. I was miserable on Sunday and stayed home from work on Monday.
  • Tuesday the 29th, Chad took the day off for his birthday. Preschool called around 10:30 and Maria had goopy eyes. Chad took her to the doctor.  Pink eye.
  • Daycare was closed on Wednesday the 30th, and with pink eye we couldn’t use the backup daycare, so I stayed home with both kids.
  • That night, Charlie threw up twice.
  • Stayed home with Charlie the next day. Maria complained her ear hurt before preschool, but she wanted to go and no fever, so I let her.
  • Charlie threw up twice again Thursday night…
  • Chad left for Indianapolis (Badger football) on Friday morning.
  • I decided to keep both kids home to avoid exposing the stomach bug to daycare.
  • Maria couldn’t hear anything on Friday morning. I took her to the doctor. Another double ear infection, this time with a recommendation to follow up with the ENT doctor to have her adenoids checked out.
  • Friday night, Charlie didn’t sleep well. and his temp started rising.
  • Saturday morning, back to the doctor. Charlie’s ear was infected.
  • Grandma & Grandpa (Chad’s parents) came over to help out, but left before the snow started falling.
  • Around 6:30, I realized I had the stomach bug.  I cancelled a visit from my friend Karin.  Gave Charlie some advil and got him to bed.  Maria was not in bed and it was coming on fast, so I called my mom, who called Maria back and read her stories over the phone. And my big girl put herself to bed after that! I am so proud of her for helping me like that!
  • I threw up several times… no need for details.
  • Charlie woke up around 4:30. I had to let him cry it out after I couldn’t get him another dose of Advil and spilled the bottle all over in the kitchen. I got back to bed and turned down the monitor.
  • Grandma & Grandma came back the next day.  (hoping they aren’t sick as I type this).
  • Maria was a little out of sorts and Charlie just wanted to rock and his fever was higher than the day before.
  • Maria threw up around 6 pm. Just once as she hadn’t had much to eat and we were only giving her bland food as we figure she was next…
  • I am home again today with both kids.  Maria never threw up again and is ready to go back to preschool. Charlie is still fighting his cold or virus or ear infection and still has a fever.  Hoping it breaks tonight…

Seriously, I can’t make this stuff up!

Staying Healthy

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That is all I am trying to do these days. I am not ignoring this poor blog out of spite. I am ignoring it due to really concentrating on staying healthy.

Poor Maria threw up on the 17th. And on the 19th, had 2 infected ears and 2 infected eyes!

All healthy by Thanksgiving, which we hosted so kept us busy getting ready!

After Thanksgiving naps, I woke up with a cold. Managed to fight it off for a few days, but it turned to pink eye on Tuesday and I am now on antibiotics and eye drops. Meanwhile, poor Maria threw up again today at preschool! And Charlie is the last kid not to get a stomach bug at daycare, but not sure if we’re lucky yet, because he did manage to get ahold of the 2nd to last kid to get sick’s sippy cup just a few short hours before that kid threw up during nap. Yikes!

Could be a long weekend for us! Have I mentioned that I haven’t been to work since before Thanksgiving?

So not ignoring any of you. Just working on staying healthy!

You Looking For Me?

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I am still here. The illness in our house had not dragged me completely down! We have all recovered from hand-foot-mouth, stomach flu and chicken pox. Each person got his/her own illness (as stated in previous post) and kept it to him/herself.
Although this weekend, Maria did get the flu. Achy, fever. Threw up twice. Laid in bed and watched Diego for several hours and napped. Poor girl, but it is now just a cold for her and a cold for me. I actually worked from home today to avoid blowing my nose through meetings and bus rides. Yuk. Unfortunately these 2 September weekends of illnesses sidelined us from TWO birthday parties.

We already had a make-up party for my niece Elizabeth, but now must schedule a make-up party for Jana. It has been a crazy September, because besides illness, Maria started preschool and Sunday school! And another session of swimming lessons! AND Chad and I finally hired a babysitter! Just for one night, so we could attend a new member meeting at our church. But it was good! And now we can make plans to go out again soon! Yay!

This is really all I have time for. I am going to go pick up my kids and try to take some pictures of them, because along with the illness, came some ignoring of the camera…

House Arrest

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So I can’t even go into all my excuses for ignoring this poor blog lately. But today I have three!

1. Hand-Foot-Mouth (Charlie)
2. Stomach Flu (Chad)
3. Chicken Pox (Maria)

Going to check my supply of Clorox wipes and Purell!!!

Couldn’t Have Planned It Better

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So as our week started, we were prepared for some juggling since our daycare was closed.  Grandpa & Grandma were lined up to take the first couple days and then we had Thursday with a friend, and I was going to take a couple days off and had play dates scheduled.

Monday went as planned until we got home and realized that Maria had a fever (102.4!!)  A fairly quick visit to Urgent Care revealed sores in her mouth.  The Hand-Foot-Mouth virus Again!! but only in her mouth!  Luckily the virus did not scare Grandpa & Grandma off, so they stuck around through Tuesday to help.  But we weren’t ready to expose our friends, so we switched around our schedules a little so Chad stayed home today and I was home Wednesday and Thursday.

Wednesday was good. Maria’s fever was definitely better and was gone by evening. We ran a couple easy errands. Both kids were good and napped. Nice day!

Thursday Maria was feeling better and not sure if that was a good thing!  She was definitely 3!  Before 7 am, she lost her TV and Candyland privileges.  These are big things to her and unfortunately maybe contributed to just more naughtiness throughout the day.  She did settle down in the morning with the promise of an picnic lunch & concert at our nearby wading pool/park!  But immediately started screaming when I announced it was time to leave (even though I warned her with 5, 3, 2 & 1 minutes left)  She finally napped late afternoon and was pretty good the rest of the day.  But it was tough.  Reminder that I don’t think I’m cut out to stay at home!

We also visited 2 preschools on Thursday (rescheduled from Friday)  We want to give her some structured learning activities since she seems to really really want to learn.  Both schools were good and very comparable in cost, but Maria definitely talks about one more than the other, and we think if all things are even her opinion should definitely count in this issue!

Not much else going on… Our summer is going by sooo fast. I’m hoping to have some time off the end of August.  More on that later! 🙂  I know the suspense is killing you!!

Sick Time

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Last week I told a co-worker that we had all been pretty healthy this winter (with only 2 exceptions this year).  I totally jinxed it!

On Wednesday evening, Maria started exhibiting some symptoms!  Argh… but not knowing if it was a one time, ate something that disagreed with her or more, I sent her to daycare on Thursday. When I picked her up, I was informed symptoms had continued, as they did through the evening.

Friday morning (3 a.m.) I heard a whole lot of coughing/hacking followed by “MOM!”.  Poor girl had thrown up all over her bed. And was pretty freaked out about the whole thing.  Doubt she ever remembers throwing up. So after finishing that episode and getting her all cleaned up and her bed all cleaned up and starting laundry it was 4 a.m.  Luckily Maria was begging to go back to bed and luckily we have an extra lovey, so she went right back down. Fun stuff.

Saturday she was still tired, but wanted to go to the mall when we brought it up. She stayed in her stroller more than normal, but was happy to be out.

Sunday, she didn’t want to get out of bed. We decided to take her to Urgent Care, where they determined it wasn’t serious and we should just continue to monitor her.  She spent much of the day in the recliner with me.  I don’t think I’ve gotten that much cuddle time since I was on maternity leave with her!

Today, Chad is home with her, and she got herself out of bed this morning. A good sign, although she still didn’t fight naptime.

and YES, when I said she got herself out of bed, she figured out Friday morning (when I didn’t shut her bedroom door) that she didn’t need to wait for us to get out of bed in the morning or after naps!  We still have the upperhand a little, because she still has difficulty opening her door from inside by herself.  Although she just knocks and yells “Is it wake-up time?”