Spring Break

This week is spring break for my kids in school.  We don't usually ever go anywhere.  We just stick close to home and enjoy a change from the usual schedule.  It doesn't mean we are not busy.  Haha, when are we ever not busy?!?!  I made several appointments for the kids (3 dental, 1 hair) and let the kids go spend an extra amount of time with people/places they don't normally get to see.  Mandy is spending the week over in Iowa with my parents.  Brianna is going out to a friend's farm for 2 days.  Angel is going to a youth conference in St. Louis.

This is a little glimpse of what our usual schedule looks like: 5 a.m. (I'm up & running most days), 6 a.m. (at  the Y & often teaching classes), 7 a.m.(heading home from Y), 7:30 a.m.(taking first set of kids to school), 8:30 a.m. (taking second set of kids to school), 12:30 p.m. (waiting for bus to pick up Andrew) 3 p.m. (kids getting out of school, various pick ups).  4 p.m. (waiting for bus to drop off Andrew).  The evening...well, that just depends on the day, but we don't have any completely free night.  So you get the idea.  To run the zoo as tightly as we can, scheduling is the key!

Without all of that restriction we are much more carefree with playing outside & getting things done.

So yesterday, it was the nice warm & beautiful day outside.  I happened to be checking my facebook (shocking, I know) and saw a friend post about a free princess tent she was giving away.  I love....no wait....I mean....LOVE free stuff!  So she dropped off it off right away and wow, were we blown away.  It was much bigger than I anticipated.  In fact, I can completely stand up and my head touches the top, but doesn't lift it off the ground.  (no snickering or short jokes please).

I set the girls up with a tea party right away.  Carmen is in total princess heaven right now.  I knew she'd love it!  A special thank you to Cece for giving us this special tent!!

The boys wanted to play too, but wouldn't be caught having a tea party. So I told them to be the castle guards.  They had fun protecting their sisters and taking out snipers along the way.

 They eventually left the castle & took their gun/snipper play into the front yard.  Give these boys a gun and they will have non stop hours of fun!

We are only half way through our week.  Today Brianna gets her first perm and tonight is the Awana skating party.  On friday I head back over to Iowa.  My sister Blanca is having her baby and the boy I babysat for many years is getting married.  The weather is getting cooler as the week goes on, but it's still going to be a great spring break!!

ER visit #2

AKA: a post about my son's poop & gas problems.  Don't say you weren't warned!

Last night around 1:45 a.m. Andrew came down to my bed to wake me up & inform me that John did not feel good.  I was out of it, I mean, dead asleep.  I gave a wave of my hand & "ya ya".  Andrew woke me again, this time more urgent.  So I headed upstairs with bucket in hand (I thought he meant THAT kind of sick) to figure out what was going on. 

What I found was John in utter pain, screaming & crying.  The pain seemed to be specifically local on his mid/lower left side.  I got him downstairs before he woke up anyone else.  He was slow to move & hollering in pain with each movement.  I had him lay in my bed.  Ok, bad mommy moment....I was so tired, I sort of just shrugged it off.  I mean, come on boy...get over it!!  It became apparent though that this was not just a short bout of drama or whatever.  No matter how much I tried to settle him down (and he would for about 30 seconds at a time) he would just start screaming in pain again.

I got on my ipod to look up webmd because the first thought I had was his appendix.  He was mostly complaining on the pain being on the left side.  You appendix is on your right side.  I have heard of a rare chance of it being on your left side, but I knew that was quite a stretch.  So what do you do at 2 a.m. when your son won't stop screaming in pain.

I packed up & got ready to be there for awhile (let's see...phone, check - ipod, check - book to read, check - post on facebook, check) and we took off at 2:45 a.m.  On the way there John got really quiet & goes "oh, wait, I think it's gone away".  I sat there, seriously thinking about going home, but then he doubled over again & started to scream.  I knew that no matter how minor or serious this was (or wasn't) I had to get it checked out.  It's one of those, you just never know situations.  I could blow it off and then regret it later when he was being rushed in on true emergency status.  Or I could go in & it turned out to be something minor.  Guess, you'll have to continue to listen to me ramble to find out : )

Luckily there was no one else waiting in the ER, so we got taken back rather quickly.  They did the basics to get him screened in.  The first question the Dr. asked was "when was the last time he pooped".  I had already asked John that question.  He was pretty sure that his poop status was fairly recent.  Dr. listened and confirmed that at least his bowels were very active & moving.  He ordered an xray and that showed the real culprit.

John had 3 large (like the size of my fist) pockets of gas in his intestines.  You could see it clearly on the xray right on his left side.  Which, knowing that I suddenly completely understood my son's situation.  I've dealt with that a time or two before.  And, yeah, you feel like your insides are being ripped out.  To put it in perspective for me....it was worse than giving labor.  Seriously!

So once again I feel a little sheepish for the big hoopla, just to find out that he just needed to get some gas out (usually NEVER a problem in this household) and maybe poop a little more.  What else can you do?  Better safe than sorry, right.  And, hey, it gives us some memories and blogging material.  It's what goes on at our zoo.  It's what we call life : )

Couldn't resist a few pictures!  John getting his xray:

 He wasn't amused at my picture taking at 3:30 a.m.

My kids are so smart!

Brianna & John were awarded for their ISAT scores from last year.  The school makes a big deal about kids who meet or exceed the standards for these test.  John exceeded the standard in math & reading.  (They did not test in science last year).  Brianna met the standard in science & exceeded in math and reading.

I give all the smartness credit to Jim.  They sure didn't get their smarts from me.  Now their, music ability - me, a hundred million percent.  Their running ability - me (ok, Jim gets some credit there too, but mostly me).  Their unbelievable good looks - come on now, is that a no brainer, or what.  Ok, I'm kidding with the last one. We get 50/50 for that one.  I get credit for a lot of good things that m kids naturally inherited from me.  Brains/smartness is just not one of them.  I'm totally ok with that!!  Really, they can enjoy all the math & science knowledge out there.

Good job, Brianna & John.  Keep up the good work in school!

AWANA games

A few weeks ago Brianna & John participated in the AWANA games along with other kids from our church.

The team placed 1st.  Although, I'll be honest, there were only 2 teams.  Winning doesn't matter as much to these kids.  They just love to go out & have fun!  We didn't win all of our matches.  We lost some & the kids were very gracious about accepting it.  The other church/team put in a very good effort.

Here is a pictures of our church team:

Here is Brianna & John: 

I took plenty of video from the games.  Even though we were 1 team, most of the events were boys vs. boys & girls vs. girls.

Weekend Chaos

WARNING!  This post contains graphic pictures.  Not for the faint hearted.  WARNING!

Ok, if you continue to scroll down, don't say I didn't warn you!  : )

On Saturday Andrew was invited to go to the Y with another family.  The Y is like home away from home, my kids have all grown up there since the day they were born.  So I didn't give it another thought to let Andrew go play there with his buddy.  This family have always been good friends.  I'd trust my kids with them any day of the week (and still do).

Ok, so you know how you teach your kids some things.  Like common sense things.  Things that you tell them all the time to NOT do.  But, you know, that when you are not looking they do it anyway.  For example, I tell John....DO NOT ride your sister's scooter.  She is 3, you are 10, you are TOO BIG for her scooter (duh!).  But when you look out the kitchen window what do you see sometimes?  Yep, he's on her scooter.  So, this was one of these great example.

Andrew KNOWS he should not play on a railing that goes up & down a ramp.  The rail is not intended for that.  Yet, what do I catch him doing from time to time.  Playing & climbing on that railing.  Despite knowing that I've told him a MILLION times to not do this, he does it.  This day it had some big consequences.  He flipped over the rail, fell to the ground and whacked his chin on the edge of the ramp.

Here is the initial wound as we saw it when he got home.  I took one look at it and said "yep, he needs stitches".

So, we pack up & take him to the emergency room.  There was only 1 person waiting ahead of us when we got there.  We didn't have to sit long before getting called back.  Which by this point I've already sent out a text to some friends & family to alert them to our situation.  Jim is always amused when I spring into action & notify the "whole world" of our plight.  And yes, I had even posting something on facebook before being called back to be seen by the doctor.

The nurse we were assigned was so nice.  She even laughed at Jim's jokes ; )  Here is his wound after getting it cleaned up.

The doctor on duty was also very nice & wonderful.  He did a great job at putting Andrew at ease.  We listen to music on my ipod the whole time and the doctor high fived Andrew for his song choices.  We even put in a favor for the doctor who loves Michael Jackson & playing one of his song (yes, I have several MJ songs on my ipod).

Andrew only cried when the doctor had to numb up his chin.  Otherwise he was a very brave little boy.  I could tell he was in a lot of pain, his chin kept trembling.  But he was very cooperative & laid still while the procedure was being done.

I was very interested in watching the while stitching process.  If I could have I would have taken pictures.  I didn't even ask the doctor.  For legal purposed they might not want pictures being taken of the procedure.  It could also have been a distraction to the doctor.  Not to mention I was "being there" for Andrew.  Just standing by his side and holding his hand.  Jim was also there by his side, holding his legs, just in case he decided to move suddenly.  Jim at one point though had to grab the stool behind him.  The nurse warned him that she was not going to catch him.  So he sat on the stool....just to be safe.  I'm telling you, I missed my calling to be a doctor.  I was completely amused & fascinated by the whole process.  Those kind of things are "cool" in my book. 

Hopefully Andrew learned his lesson and won't be climbing & playing around any railings again.  He is all boy though and at church the next morning he was running around like a mad man.  I was having visions of him falling & busting his chin back open.  Every time I told him to slow down he'd give me this look that said "why?"  Siiiigh!  Well, until our next ER visit.....

Big Brother x2

I spoke on big brother a few posts ago to explain my feedjit tracker that I added to my blog.  I also wanted to point out that I also added another tracker section to my blog.  If you look off to the right side of the blog below my feedjit (which I nicely re-named People That Stalk Me) I added my own list of People That I Stalk.  I must say this was Stephanie's brilliant idea to name this section so.  It's really there for my own viewing pleasure.  It's (almost) all the blogs that I follow & have bookmarked in my computer(s).  I check them often, sometimes, yes obsessively.  Now instead of scrolling through my bookmark section to see who did or didn't update their blog I can just look at my blog (cause remember I'm looking to see who stalked me) and see who has updated their site. 

If, by chance, you see your blog over to the side & you would rather me not display it, please just send me a nice sweet little message & I will take it off my list.  I may still stalk you, but I will have to do it the manual way : )

I'll go back to blogging about my family now.  I'm sure you are a pretty smart group of people.  You can figure things out & enjoy my site on your own.  Have a good saturday.  Don't forget to spring forward those clocks.  If you can get away with it, change the clocks WITHOUT the kids seeing you and get them to bed early.  A little extra sleep never hurt them.  They'll need it anyway since they are losing that hour.  Always thinking of these kids & doing what's best for them : )

New Look!

Woo Hoo, we did it!  Stephanie came over this afternoon & we revamped the look of my blog.  In case you don't realize this, red & black are my favorite colors.  Anyway, Steph may not feel like she contributed too much (she DID), but having a girlfriend over is just what I needed, blog re-do or not!  I'm still fine tuning a few things and I'm certainly open to constructive criticism, thoughts, additional ideas.....COMMENTS (no pressure).

Have a good friday y'all : )