Saturday Adventure- Hint: it involved multiple tickets

We took a family outing today. The girls were dressed up in dresses, tights and black patent shoes. So cute. Nicky had his pirate shirt on and looked very cool. First we picked up Nicky's new glasses. So handsome! Now we just have to convince him to keep them on his face. He picked out a pretty green case that "looks like a sea cucumber" for them, and he would much rather put his glasses in there thank you very much.



After that we tried to go bed shopping. We're planning to finally get a king size bed (or two twins to make a king size) for Tom and I. We checked out a discount place called "The Dump" (really, that's the name!) but I didn't really like anything I saw there in the way of a bed. Then we headed to a mattress store near my work to check out the important part (and OMG the expensive part!)

The kids were actually really good, but it's still exhausting to try to do anything like shop with all three of them in tow. We found a kingsize that Tom really likes, but it's on sale for $1434 and I really had hoped to not spend that much. And while it's perfect for Tom, it's not really perfect for me. Hence my idea about the two twin mattresses. Our tastes are different enough that it makes more sense I think. And it would make for more versatility later (when the girls are ready for twin beds they could have them and we could get a new one). AND it would be a lot easier to get two twin mattresses up the stairs than one king mattress I think.

I'm also hoping it would be cheaper, because OMG that seems like a lot of $.

Anyway, we definitely need to shop around more for mattresses and beds, but two stores felt like the kids' limit. So we went to take them to lunch. Now Tom and I had already scouted it out and decided to take the kids to Chuck E Cheese, but we hadn't let Nicky know yet. He's been dying to go there since we moved here.

Nicky was all psyched up about going to Cici's pizza for their macaroni and cheese pizza (I know right?) but I told him we weren't going there. He was all depressed about it. Then I pointed out that Cici's was right there! (YAAY from the backseat.) But that we're not going there. (Crushed hopes in the backseat.) Tom pointed out MacDonalds, but Nicky didn't want that (although earlier that had been his first idea.

I said, we're not going to MacDonalds but that he'd just have to figure it out.

When we came around the corner and he saw Chuck E Cheese he just about lost his mind he was so excited! I think we won Parents of the Year at that moment.

This was my first time going to one of these kinds of places in about 30 years, so I actually didn't really know what to expect. They stamped all of our arms with matching numbers before we could even order. Then they let us in to order. We got a pizza, two drinks, 3 waters, a sandwich for Tom and a salad bar for me, and 35 tokens. All told it was $43 or so.

We sat at a booth that was ridiculously tiny. (I think they must either expect adults to stand or only figure for one adult at a table.) We had two highchairs for the girls at one end which was tricky too. But I was able to get some salad stuff to tide the girls over while we waited for the food and Nicky was able to wander around and check things out for a while.

After the pizza arrived, Nicky and I ate some and then went to go win some tickets. He played a few games, although I think he liked the skee ball the best. The girls started to get really tired and cranky though, so Tom and I decided it was about time to go. We didn't see Nicky, he'd moved from the game he'd been watching, so we walked the girls back to our table and then I was going to go look for him. But it was only a minute when a tearful Nicky found us. He'd gotten lost and thought we'd left him, poor boy. I think it was an excellent lesson for him about paying more attention to where he is in relation to us, and it was a nice safe place for him to learn it. But he got hugs and kisses, reassurances that we'd never leave him behind, and he sat to have more pizza.

Tom went to take the girls to the car while I found a box to take the pizza home (OMG worst pizza I've ever had, but Nicky seemed to like it. Tom said it was like Chef Boyardee sauce, so that's probably why I don't like it, but ugh.) Nicky and I counted up his tickets (78!) and he was able to buy a little frisbee with 18 tickets and several tokens left over for another visit.



All in all he had a ball and we found out that Saturday right about noon is a good time to go, because we left at about 2:30 and it was a line out the door!

The girls are so overly tired they're screaming their heads off through their nap. I'm trying to keep occupied to give them a chance to sleep, but I think it's hopeless. They're just going to have to go to bed early I guess.

Diagnosis: Not in danger of exploding

Sometimes I suppose it's good to know what ISN'T wrong with you.

Although it would be nice to know what IS wrong sometimes too.

I was hurting today, and so after having been in pain since Friday night I tried calling to get in to see a doctor. Not the easiest thing to do since I don't actually have a doctor here yet. Since I couldn't wait for March to be seen, I ended up going to Urgent Care. They pretty much looked at me, listened to my symptoms and sent me to the ER.

Super.

I got to the ER about 3pm. I got triaged just after 4pm. Shown to a room around 5:30. Drank a "banana smoothie" at 6:30 and waited for that to work. Then CT scanned at 8pm. On my way home around 10pm.

Lovely way to spend an evening. I don't really recommend it.

Diagnosis is that they have no idea why I'm in so much pain. While they were able to confirm the hernia, it's not causing vascular issues at this point. They did find out I have diverticulosis, but it's not inflamed and shouldn't cause pain. They mentioned that I might have fibroids, but that shouldn't cause pain where I'm feeling it. (Note to self to get to an lady-doc sometime in the next few months about that!) No tumors, no torsions, no obstructions.

So the good news is I don't have to worry about anything exploding. That's actually kind of a relief.

In the meantime we're to treat it as a muscle tear or strain and use naproxen, heat, support and don't do things that hurt. So don't anyone tell me any funny jokes for a few days!

The doctor said this will either "resolve or evolve" Either get better, or turn into something with more symptoms and evidence they can diagnose.

By the time I arrived home, Nicky and the girls were all asleep. I'll talk with Nicky tomorrow about my adventure at the hospital. I'm sure he'll be impressed.

Long weekend!

Taxes are done. Nicky's been to the eye doctor and we have a new pair of glasses for him on the way. The trees were trimmed in front of our house. All the kids saw their first snow. We've moved the queen bed to the shed and Nicky's twin top-bunk to his room. It's been a busy weekend!

Nicky is doing fairly well on his sight words and staring to practice on his new whiteboard in the kitchen. We had used my old business cards (that were due for destruction since they had the wrong address), there are about 1000 of them and they make perfect flashcards. He has 55 cards with his sight words plus a few extras.

We made them like a game. If he gets the word right, he gets the card, if not, then I get it. The first day he got 27 and I got 28. Then last night we did them before bed. He was tired and not focusing, but he still got 22 of them right. We totally forgot them tonight. We had a lot going on!

He also has started using the whiteboard we made for him in the kitchen. I showed him how it worked and then invited him to write. He spontaneously decided to write math problems on it. He did subtraction problems, which as I recall, was fairly advanced for Kindergarten in my day.



My hope is that by making writing fun, he'll get in some practice with letter/number formation, spacing and sizing. So even though I didn't expect him to come out with math problems, that works just fine for my purposes!

Saturday morning I took Nicky to the eye doctor. His glasses are just about a year old, and he'd scratched them all to hell right before we left Gainesville. No one was willing to get the prescription off the glasses without an exam, so that's what we did. He was very good for the exam. His vision is only a hair different that last year. He's farsighted with astigmatism in the right eye. I'd noticed his difficulty reading the sight words on the cards, so being farsighted really makes sense. Hopefully his new glasses will help. I made him try on like 20 frames, but he wanted a particular pair of blue frames, so that's what we got. They're more rounded than his old ones, but not really round.

On the way home we noticed that we couldn't get to our house. There were three huge tree trimming trucks exactly outside our house. We parked around the corner and walked around. Nicky was very excited about that!





But he was even more excited when Saturday night it started SNOWING! He was running around in his underwear before dinner (he's hard to keep clothed) and he was running around the house like a lunatic he was so excited! It took him about 15-20 minutes to get his act together long enough to get dressed (mostly, I found out later he'd gone without socks). And then he went outside with Tom and got to play in the falling snow with his friends.

Sunday morning the snow was still there!


I woke up Nicky to check it out, but he wasn't all that excited. He is definitely not a morning person! But after an hour he was ready to get dressed and play in it. He lasted about 5 minutes before coming back in. His hands were red and cold. It was about 27 degrees out, so it was really too cold to play much. I warmed him up and got him changed to go, because...

we went to do the taxes Sunday morning. That was fun. We had all the kids with us, but then it turned out that while we were 15 min early, the guy before us was running late, so it bumped us back about 30 minutes. There was no way the kids would make it thru such a long wait, so Tom took the kids home and I stayed, did the taxes in peace, and they just came at the end for Tom to sign things. It worked out really well that way! We're not getting back as much as the last few years, but still it will be good, and we didn't owe. I do need to adjust my W4 though so that I'm not claiming so much this year.

Tonight we had Chicken Taco Chili, which is delicious! I'd first had it with my Bunco group a few months ago, and got the recipe from the ladies there. It's done in the crockpot, which is awesome, and it's easy and fairly cheap too. (Also awesome!) We used this recipe.*

Gabi had a short-lived stomach bug last week. Basically we found out in the morning that she'd thrown up sometime in the night, but that was it.

Well, Lily came up with it tonight. Right at dinner. I could tell she wasn't feeling great, and she wasn't really interested in food much, and then blurrp. Not the most fun at the table, but we dealt with it, gave her a little Tylenol as she felt feverish, and then she perked right up. Hopefully it is the same one-timer thing.

After dinner we moved the twin bed from the girls' room to Nicky's room. We'd moved out the old queen bed earlier in the day, and we had to get that moved around so that he could go to sleep. It's all done now, and he's happily ensconced in his new bed with his Transformer sheets and Micky Mouse comforter.

Actually, as soon as it was made up, the girls crawled into it and pretended to snore. Nicky soon joined them. It was super cute.


The only other thing is that we've done all this with me being practically disabled by some kind of stomach pain since Friday night. We think the hernia that I'd gotten with my first pregnancy and that got a lot worse with the girls' pregnancy, is finally acting up. I'm back to wearing the binder I'd worn after having the twins. Now i just have to find a doctor to see me ASAP so that I can get this taken care of. It makes breathing, bending over, lifting things, and pretty much everything else excruciatingly painful. And don't even let me think about coughing or sneezing! I'd really hoped Friday that it was just really bad gas pain, but since it hasn't moved or gone away after 48 hours now I think it's got to be the hernia. We'd hoped maybe just a muscle strain, but a strong muscle relaxer hasn't helped, so there you go. Lovely.

I'd probably be inclined just to put up with the pain, except that it could be dangerous and I really don't want to end up in the ER, and it makes me next to useless in doing things around the house or with the kids. Basically, once something hits the floor, chances are it's staying there till I can convince someone to come get it for me.

Anyway, that was my long weekend. How was yours?


*I can say "we" because I found the recipe. Oh, and I shredded the chicken! But really otherwise it was Tom's cooking. You know, "technically."

Good morning IRS!

We're off to get our taxes done this morning. Wish us luck!

January photos/movies are completed and February photos/movies are up.

And this morning:


It snowed last night! Nicky was so excited! He finally got ahold of himself long enough to get dressed so he could run outside in it. Big clumpy snowfall last night, and then this morning he went out for maybe 5-10 minutes before coming back in frozen. It was only 27 degrees out there, so he was really cold! But it's so much fun to have him experience his first snow.

Goodbye Susan

You see that pink and white banner over there on the right? The one that says Team Whymommy? It's been there for a few years. Since July 23, 2007 to be exact. It's been there to show my support for a wonderful woman and blogger I "met" over the internet through reading her blog back in early 2007. Shortly before she found out she had Inflammatory Breast Cancer (the cancer without a lump).

Susan fought that cancer, and the next iterations of cancer that just kept coming, for over four years. She was able to stay an extra four years to see her boys get a little bit older, to enjoy time with her husband a little bit more.

But dammit it just was NOT enough.

Susan passed away today, February 6th. And while part of me must be thankful that she is no longer in constant pain, my heart is just broken for her husband, and most of all for her boys. They're just about Nicky's age, and it hits hard to try and even imagine it.

Goodbye Susan. You are already missed.

Opening doors, sword fighting, flying to Chicago, and tossing the bottles. Just a little busy.

Whew. That was a busy week!

Last week I went to Chicago on a business trip. I thought for sure I would freeze to death and so had gotten a wool coat for the trip. But apparently we brought the warm weather with us and the temps were in the 40's and 50's for the most part. Weird. The only snow on the ground was the odd pile of dirty snow. Can't say I'm sorry though, at least I wasn't cold!

Tom spent the week with the kids, and while I was gone, the girls learned how to open doors. That's fun. We thought about getting those doorknob protector things, but remembered that Nicky learned to dismantle those pretty fast. So instead I remembered how I'd tied a sock to the doorknob in Gainesville and that worked well for him. I rigged that up on Saturday. At first Lily figured out how to pull it off anyway, but then I cut holes around the ankle of the sock, and then threaded the string through it. Now she can't get them off. It's been two days and they're still on. So we'll see how that goes. We only have them on the bathroom door and Nicky's door. They're still opening their door, their closet and the two hall closets. But hopefully the novelty will wear off. The one thing we really need to do is put slide locks up high on the front and back doors though. They can't reach the deadbolt yet, but better safe now!

This weekend I had my bunco night on Friday, and won back the money I spent, which is always nice! But mostly I had fun laughing and talking with a great group of women. I'm glad I went even though I was tired from the long week. Sunday was Tom's day to get out. He went to sword practice with some friends and then later to a Super Bowl party. He had a great time and it was a well deserved break.

And the biggest thing over the last week or so? The girls are officially off the bottle! Starting Sunday they're off them totally and just have a sippy of cold milk, about 6-8 ounces, before their nap and bedtime. Then a little cuddle with their blankets through one song, then down to sleep. It's working really well so far. I'm really glad to get this transition done!

So we're all healthy and happy, just busy!