We started school 2 weeks ago. I can't believe it. I haven't written in a while because I can't seem to get my life in order enough to find time to write.
It's not that I'm really that busy. When we moved to SD, I made a conscious effort to cut back on the number of things I try to cram into one day. For the most part, I have stuck to that, and I'm glad I'm able be a working stay-at-home mom.
But the sudden impact that school has on my otherwise leisurely schedule has come as a sudden jolt after the lazy hazy days of summer.
Xander started school on Monday (August 22) and he had his first sick day on Friday the 26th.
Poor guy! He was really sick. I awoke from a dead sleep at 1 am to the sound of his wretching into the toilet coming through the transmitter of the baby monitor (our bedrooms are not close together anymore). I went down 2 flights of stairs and helped him clean up, gave him a barf bucket and put him on the bottom bunk of his bed. Then I came back up the 2 flights of stairs and tried to sleep.
Repeat the above scenario every half hour until 4 am. Then the barfing stopped and the diarrhea began.
Yuk.
I sure was tired of running steps by about 7am.
Luckily, it didn't last too long, he picked at a dry toast breakfast, skipped lunch and took a long nap in the afternoon. By suppertime, he was perking up, and ate another piece of toast. Saturday morning, he was back to himself. Whew!
Sadly, he missed bowling day at school, but we took our whole family bowling Saturday afternoon and had a good time together. Xander almost won. I think he beat me. That was with the bumpers up. Our family does not excel at bowling.
Sunday, Matt started feeling a bit queasy and by Sunday night was squirming around the bed enough that he had to go sleep on the couch. "Sleep" is not really the word. He groaned and moaned and made several trips to the bathroom. About 4am, he threw up, but got no relief.
I took Xander to school Monday morning (it's about a 20-minute drive kitty-corner across town), and about the time I dropped him off, Matt called and notified me that we really needed to go to the hospital. We strongly suspected his appendix was the cause of all the trouble.
I zoomed back home, where he had gotten Maia out of bed. She had her pajamas on, but her clothes in her hand and said, "Daddy got really hurt!" I sent Matt out to the car, and I got Maia dressed, grabbed some snacks and coloring books, and we went to the hospital.
I took him to the emergency room at Sanford hospital. This was a major step for us, as we don't carry health insurance (I know, I know... gambled and lost). Everywhere we went, I kept marveling at how beautiful and expensive everything looked. "I'm paying for this parquet floor." "I'm paying for this aquarium." "Really? Flatscreen TVs in every room?" "Does it have to be so cold in here? You could save a lot of money if you turned the thermostat up a couple of degrees..." "wonder how much they charge for that toast?" stuff like that.
Matt was disappointed to be so unoriginal as to be the 2nd appendectomy of the day. I felt reassured that a laproscopic appendectomy was all in a standard day's work for the surgeon.
They took him in for surgery at 12:30, and Maia & I waited in the surgical waiting room. It was nicely equipped with a children's area that included an aquarium, Lego table, TV and some other toys. She ran out of steam on coloring and stickers in the ER waiting room, but entertained herself nicely with Mega Blocks for most of the time we had to wait. They had vending machines and complimentary cookies, muffins and coffee, which was pretty much our lunch.
The surgeon showed up around 2:30 and let me know that everything went well, though the appendix did rupture when he went to remove it, but he irrigated the area and cleaned it out thoroughly. Hopefully no complications from that.
Then we moved to the post-op waiting room, which was prettier (more $$$ racking up in my head), but did not have as nice a kids' area, but we did find a TV playing SpongeBob, so Maia was entertained there for a while. There was a fresh supply of treats and the option of decaf coffee this time. They let us in to see Matty around 3:45 or so. He was looking pretty peaked, but had already done some vital things like pee and eat a piece of toast, so they were pleased with his recovery.
The nurses kept asking him how his pain was on a scale of 1-10. When he was in the ER, it crept up to a 10, and after surgery, it was down to a 7, then a 5... But they wouldn't let him leave until it was at a 4. So the next time they asked, I whispered, "You're a 4!"
We were home and had Matt tucked into the couch "watching" a movie (read: zonked out in front of the TV) by 4:30. Amazing.
Many thanks to all our friends and family who were so loving and supportive. My mom came up that evening and helped me get the kids put to bed. (I had a couple of meetings to go to that night, so it was nice to have her help).
Xander went home from school with his friend, Isaac, and their family kept him until almost 8:30.
Kim made dinner for us and Martha brought it over- and she repeatedly offered to take Maia for the day if she got out of hand, but it wasn't necessary. How nice not to have to make dinner!
Many phone calls from prayer supporters and well-wishers. Thanks to all!
So Matty gets the whole week off from work, and we get to go to Lifelight this weekend. It's a Christian Music Festival right here in Sioux Falls that's absolutely free. We've never made it over there, but the weather and the circumstances are right this year, so we'll go check it out. Of course, Matt gets tired pretty easy, so we'll probably only take in a little bit.
Whew! Long post. That's a brief synopsis of what's been going on in our world.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Xander's going camping
This week, Xander's little best bud, Isaac, called and asked if Xander could go with his family up to their cabin for the weekend.
Yes, Isaac is also 7, so the fact that he had such polite phone skills is quite impressive. Xander still chooses to ignore my phone, even when it rings right next to him, and yells, "MOM! PHONE!" instead.
Isaac's family is a wonderful Christian family, and I really like his mom, Mary. They're picking Xander up Friday morning and will keep him until Sunday afternoon. Their cabin is near the ND border, and sounds like he'll experience typical cabin life for a couple of days, complete with fishing, swimming in the lake (river?), hiking, forts, no TV, etc.
He's going to have so much fun! It'll be good to have him do something besides play on the computer all day long.
School starts the next day. Summer's officially over. How sad! I guess life goes on!
Yes, Isaac is also 7, so the fact that he had such polite phone skills is quite impressive. Xander still chooses to ignore my phone, even when it rings right next to him, and yells, "MOM! PHONE!" instead.
Isaac's family is a wonderful Christian family, and I really like his mom, Mary. They're picking Xander up Friday morning and will keep him until Sunday afternoon. Their cabin is near the ND border, and sounds like he'll experience typical cabin life for a couple of days, complete with fishing, swimming in the lake (river?), hiking, forts, no TV, etc.
He's going to have so much fun! It'll be good to have him do something besides play on the computer all day long.
School starts the next day. Summer's officially over. How sad! I guess life goes on!
Happy Anniversary
Yesterday, Matt & I celebrated 15 years of marital bliss.
15 years.
I know! Am I really that old? That's what you get when you get married so young.
We spent the day shopping for new bedding in our master suite. Our anniversary gift to each other. We finally found one we like. It looks mostly like this. This one came from Bed Bath & Beyond, but they didn't have it in Queen size, so we got a very similar one at Target. I did get that funky brown pillow in the front plus a couple more. Boy, throw pillows are expensive! Also, we got chocolate brown sheets instead of tan.
So now I can finish decorating the master bedroom suite. Meaning I can pick paint colors and get the junk cleaned up from in there. It is currently the repository of all our framed tabletop pictures as well as the bazillion books we don't have bookshelves enough for. Big challenge!
So this morning, Maia threw up on my new comforter. She's fine, but I'm a little grumpy that she chose my new comforter to puke on. Not her disgusting stinky blanket that spends more time in her mouth than anywhere else, not even the eternally stained carpet in front of the TV that needs to be covered with a rug anyway ... nope. My new comforter. Now I have to figure out how to wash it. Luckily, we're taking a little trip to Grandma Marilyn's this weekend, and she has large capacity, front loading washer & dryer that will probably handle it. Look out, Grandma, I'm bringing 3 comforters to wash (old one, new one and down-filled one)
It's good to have these connections.
Speaking of connections...
This morning, I met with several other voice teachers from Sioux Falls, and we had a lovely brunch at one of the teachers' house. There were 8 of us there, including a few new ones. Nice to get networked and share information a bit.
We have a back-to-school ice cream social at All City this evening. Matt has to go to church for a meeting, so we'll divide and conquer.
Oh, the rest of our anniversary was nice. I taught one lesson in the middle of the afternoon, and "let" Matt do the grocery shopping (a gift in and of itself). I also showed him my Rachel Ray cookbook and let him pick the recipe for supper. He chose "Martini Shrimp and Manhattan Steaks" which were delicious! Also, because there was so much alcohol in the recipe (vodka, lemon zest and chopped celery added to the shrimp cocktail sauce- served in martini glasses with the shrimp hanging over the sides; and pan-seared steaks with vermouth and whiskey as a glaze), I got to light the pan on fire to burn off the alcohol, which set off the smoke alarm. Nothing tasted burnt (even though my skillet looked like a Grandma Eitemiller dinner creation), and even though the kitchen filled with smoke, we really enjoyed our dinner.
The kids had hot dogs. They enjoyed those too. Xander said it was the best meal I ever made.
15 years.
I know! Am I really that old? That's what you get when you get married so young.
We spent the day shopping for new bedding in our master suite. Our anniversary gift to each other. We finally found one we like. It looks mostly like this. This one came from Bed Bath & Beyond, but they didn't have it in Queen size, so we got a very similar one at Target. I did get that funky brown pillow in the front plus a couple more. Boy, throw pillows are expensive! Also, we got chocolate brown sheets instead of tan.
So now I can finish decorating the master bedroom suite. Meaning I can pick paint colors and get the junk cleaned up from in there. It is currently the repository of all our framed tabletop pictures as well as the bazillion books we don't have bookshelves enough for. Big challenge!
So this morning, Maia threw up on my new comforter. She's fine, but I'm a little grumpy that she chose my new comforter to puke on. Not her disgusting stinky blanket that spends more time in her mouth than anywhere else, not even the eternally stained carpet in front of the TV that needs to be covered with a rug anyway ... nope. My new comforter. Now I have to figure out how to wash it. Luckily, we're taking a little trip to Grandma Marilyn's this weekend, and she has large capacity, front loading washer & dryer that will probably handle it. Look out, Grandma, I'm bringing 3 comforters to wash (old one, new one and down-filled one)
It's good to have these connections.
Speaking of connections...
This morning, I met with several other voice teachers from Sioux Falls, and we had a lovely brunch at one of the teachers' house. There were 8 of us there, including a few new ones. Nice to get networked and share information a bit.
We have a back-to-school ice cream social at All City this evening. Matt has to go to church for a meeting, so we'll divide and conquer.
Oh, the rest of our anniversary was nice. I taught one lesson in the middle of the afternoon, and "let" Matt do the grocery shopping (a gift in and of itself). I also showed him my Rachel Ray cookbook and let him pick the recipe for supper. He chose "Martini Shrimp and Manhattan Steaks" which were delicious! Also, because there was so much alcohol in the recipe (vodka, lemon zest and chopped celery added to the shrimp cocktail sauce- served in martini glasses with the shrimp hanging over the sides; and pan-seared steaks with vermouth and whiskey as a glaze), I got to light the pan on fire to burn off the alcohol, which set off the smoke alarm. Nothing tasted burnt (even though my skillet looked like a Grandma Eitemiller dinner creation), and even though the kitchen filled with smoke, we really enjoyed our dinner.
The kids had hot dogs. They enjoyed those too. Xander said it was the best meal I ever made.
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