kindergarten drama!

Abby hasn't let me pick out her outfits since she turned 2 years... so I should have known better than to buy her "school clothes" for kindergarten. But, I did anyway and she still has cute shirts, leggings, and skirts she has never worn. Should have known better.

On any given morning, I have no chance of convincing her to wear certain things. Take last Friday for example... she went through 3 outfit changes before settling on the "right" jeans & t-shirt. Then Monday she wanted to wear jeans, OK, and her red cowgirl boots, OK, but the jeans had to be rolled up so as to not cover the boots and she insisted on a turquoise shirt on top... not OK but I've decided to choose my battles wisely.

Then there are her jeans. She wants to wear jeans every day. I tell her that's fine as long as they're clean... another battle. She tells me the clean ones are not soft enough or too long because they touch the top of her feet or not dark enough or they have a hole (I'll give her that one). Are we in high school yet?

On Tuesday morning I had to go in early to talk to Mrs. Webb about some "mean boys" who sat next to Abby at her table, who called her stupid, told her to shut up, put glue stick down her arm, refused to pass supplies to her and what takes the cake is they told her that they'd pee in a bucket of water and she could drink it. (all over the course of a week) Seriously! All this girl has ever been to is Primary on Sundays and preschool with the sweetest teacher with a class full of other LDS kids. This was too much for me and Jon--he said he was ready to punch someone's face in. Great anger management skills honey.

I did have a talk with Abby telling her that she needed to tell Mrs. Webb about stuff like that. Abby had told the boys each time that if they did it again, then she was going to tell. So then instead of doing it again, they'd do something different and then Abby would "warn" them again. Oh the soap opera.

Of course Mrs. Webb moved a whole bunch of seat around that same morning and had a talk with the boys and with Abby about being able to tell her stuff. I met Abby for lunch with Parker (he had his own sack lunch to eat next to Abby) and she told me all about the new seats and seemed very happy about the situation.

On Wednesday morning different drama started all over again.  She had a melt down that her heels hurt from wearing the boots the day before, so that meant she could stay home that day. I told her I'd write her a note for flip flops. 30 minutes later I was carrying her into the van with no shoes on because she absolutely did not want to go to school and it was time to go.

I got her shoes on in the parking lot and we (me and all 3 kids) sat with her for the first half hour of class so that she could calm down and stop crying and get in a better mood. She didn't even want to take attendance for Mrs. Webb. What started to calm her down was being able to show me all of the things around her classroom that were hanging up, like last week she made an "Apple Book" and had brought in some purple things to tape onto the color poster of the week. I snuck out and she made it home on the bus just fine.

Abby has had lots of days so far where she hasn't wanted to go to school, but this was by far the worst. When I ask her why, she just tells me that it's a lot of work and that all she has to do is sit there and listen the whole day and be quiet. "What would you do if you stayed home?" I would just play with my toys all day long. Doesn't it break your heart just a little?

On Thursday I started my volunteering in Abby's classroom as the MommyHelper for 2 hours. They call me "Miss Jill" It's kind of cute. So on Thursday morning we had what you would call the polar opposite of what we had the day before. Abby was ecstatic and on top of the world. She want to pick out my outfit and do our hair the same and wear makeup with me. And we were ready for school 15 minutes early!

Today is "Fun Friday" which I hope means that she did not just have to "sit there all day and listen and be quiet!" Of course I know that's not what Kindergarten is really like, but for a girl who's used to 7.5hrs/week in preschool, 30hrs/week in kindergarten is A LOT. I wish we had half day.

nap time

Mia fell asleep in the car right before nap time today. I tried to "transfer" her to the crib, but she woke up and decided that she just wanted to play. But I'm the mom and I decide how these things go, so I stuck her in her crib anyway. Now, an HOUR later, after she has played and rolled around in her crib, she is somehow in the loft peering through the bars say "moooom, mmmooommm."

Child #3 to climb out of the crib at 18 months old...

Soccer Starts!

Abby and Parker started soccer on Friday. They will both be on the same team with Jon as the Assistant Coach. The fun part is that we were able to get enough people we already were knew to be on the team... so it will be a party every Friday evening =) The have practice for 30 minutes and then two 20 minute games right after, so it's only a once a week commitment. Also, the teams only have 6-7 players so that everyone gets lots of ball time!

Mia's 18 month's Old!

Mia turned 18 months old on September 2nd!
I took her into the doctor for oodles of shots as well as her stats:
Weight: 22 lbs. 26%
Height: 32.5" 85%
Head: 45cm 16%

The thing to note is that her head has grown from the measly 10th percentile to a whopping 16th percentile... I don't know why it's so small, but I do know that I can still squeeze her into her itty bitty delicious baby headbands!

Mia is impossible during church these days. Seriously. I can't remember the last time we made it to the Sacrament song before having to take her out. And if she ever gets out of our pew, she beelines it straight for the pulpit. Last testimony meeting she got so close that I thought I was going to have to bear my testimony if I was going to get her back to our seat. It takes all of our energy to keep her with us at church. A few times I have ended up in the Primary room with her. I can listen to the speakers in there and set up my singing time stuff and she gets to run around. Win, win, win.

She is going through a huge separation anxiety phase right now. If I leave she wails and screams and thrashes. Especially when we take her to nursery... it's like she doesn't want to be told what to do. If we tell her to go play in the nursery, she wants to stay with us. If we tell her to stay in our pew she tries to run and get away from us. Her "red hair" is really starting to shine these days if you know what I mean.

This is her "cheeeeeeese" face.

And her teeth... I know already that we're in for big orthodontist bills from all of our kids. But Mia might have to wait until her 20's before she ready for braces since her teeth are the slowest things EVER to come in. She just started getting some signs of molars 2 weeks ago when she turned 18 months... other than that it's just her 4 1/2 front teeth. Maybe by high school she'll get to have some apple and carrot slices.



uncle jay

uncle jay (Jon's brother) came to stay with us for about 4 weeks. He was able to work with Jon on some jobs and polish his resume at the same time... that was inbetween learning how to change a diaper and cooking delicious dinners for us several times! It was so nice having him here to entertain the kids with his duck call... he's big in to hunting.

The funny thing was Abby though. She kept referring to them as "the two dads." So every time she got home from school, she'd ask "Are the two dads home?" or "Yeah, the two dads are home!" I got a kick out of it!

our little red headed "ginger" (as uncle jay calls her) especially took a liking to our visitor!

uncle jay-you couldn't come back soon enough!

Labor Day

Today we were invited to a friend's house to go swimming/bbq... What Fun! We stayed for hours! Usually the kids are done swimming after about an hour, but today we stayed for 3 1/2 hours and I had to pull them out of the pool. I think it was extra special that this pool had a diving board with endless possibilities.

And little Mia... what do I say... she thinks she's a fish! She will jump in the pool and go way down deep and then when I bring her up, she has the biggest smile. Jump, Smile, repeat. That was her day. We'll see if she feels the same way next year when I put her in lessons with the infamous "Bonnie" who does sink or swim survival lessons for youngsters.

Jon is feeling better with the exception that he's had migraines everyday since last Monday... Hmmm too many days honey! His new best friend is Excedrin which seems to help, but we've got to get a handle on them since he has never ever been one to get headaches (except for those few short months when he was called into Nursery at church).

I tried to make Abby get ready for school this morning, but she didn't fall for my trick. She thought I was silly and explained to me that it was a Holiday... then she asked me if next Monday she could stay home too, and every Monday. This school thing is taking it's precious time to grow on her.

Abby's Frenectomy

Abby has had a very large frenum since the beginning of time, preventing her two front teeth fron growing together. We were able to take her to the dentist this week on Tuesday morning (the day before Jon's hospital extravaganza & the last day of dental insurance since we've been on COBRA for the past year) to get it fixed with laser surgery.

This is the 2nd time we have tried to do it. The first time was in February of 2008 when she freaked out because they basically put her in a mummy bag, velcroed to the dental chair and then have to give her Nitrous Oxide through a Mickey mouse breathing mask. We decided to wait a little while before trying again.

This time we role played the whole procedure at home a few times. She had a very hard time understanding what "numb" meant. She gets to go to the store to pick a special prize out -she chose the dollar store so that she could get 10 prizes instead of just 1 prize at the regular store.

The part I was more nervous about is that they made her drink a special orange cocktail about a 1/2 hour before a procedure so that she's be "extra" relaxed. I have only ever been able to get her to take the blue-raspberry flavored Advil, so for her to drink this, she had to genuinely 100% believe that it was juice. I had to lie to her. I also had to lie to her when I told her that it wouldn't hurt and that she wouldn't get a shot. I lied to my daughter, but I felt it was in her best interest. She doesn't mind being in different situations as long as she knows exactly what to expect. She was so drugged up they said that she didn't mind the numbing shot and that she did great.

  This above picture is from 1 1/2 years ago, and I'll spare you from seeing the after picture. Basically the dentist took a laser and vaporized the tissue connecting her lip to her front teeth. It was black then purple and now turning pink. Her top lip has been pretty swollen all week but she hasn't noticed and I have been very glad that she hasn't really thought to look in the mirror at it since that would make things WAY worse if she saw it. She does enjoy lifting up her lip though and showing it off to every person that asks about it... gotta love her!



Jon's Hospital Visit...

It's become a regular thing in our marriage... random trips to the ER here and there for things that pop up out of the blue. If we go a whole year without any ER visits for Jon, then we're doing really well.

Last week half our little family had fevers. It started with Parker on Wednesday evening, who got taken to the doctor on Thursday and was given an antibiotic even though his strep test was negative. The Jon started getting fevers on Thursday, pretty high though- up in the 103's, regularly if the medicine wore off. And then Mia got a fever on Friday.
By Sunday, Parker and Mia were better but Jon was still fighting it. His fevers were pretty bad with shaky chills each time they'd break. He also sweat every ounce of water in his body every time, having the change his shirt 4-5 times each night.
By Monday everyone was telling Jon to go to the doctor but he didn't, and I quote, "have time". On Tuesday he said he felt better, and his fevers had gone away, but he had a MoNSTeR headache. He went to class that evening (the evening MBA program at ASU) felt okay still, came home about 11pm and went to sleep.
12am, September 1st arrived and our new Student Health Insurance kicked in and we were no longer on COBRA... well we paid for it, so why not use it now??? I'm sure they're loving us.
Fast forward 2 hours...
Tuesday, 1:30am Jon was out of bed, walking around, holding his lower back because it all of the sudden hurt so bad. By 2:15am we had pulled up WebMD and decided to go to the Emergency Room. Jon called our good friend Tim 3 doors down, who came over and gave Jon a Priesthood blessing. In it he mentioned being able to ask the right questions to the doctors in order to receive the right answers in getting relief.
Jon's brother Jay is visiting for a month, so the nice part was that he was already here to stay with the kids.
We got to the ER at 3am, were the only ones there and by 3:30 Jon had a nice big dose of morphine. The doctor was 100% certain it was a kidney stone and would run a test or two and then send us on our way with some medication. Well that sounded quick and easy... maybe we'd be back home by breakfast... Think again.
His back/abdominal CT came back showing not a kidney stone but a calcified deposit just outside the lining of his kidney. Also, their standard blood workup came back with several red flags which could be related or unrelated to the kidney thing. His white blood cell count was very low, his liver function was elevated to 480 (it's supposed to be below 80) and some other fancy things which I didn't get a medical degree to understand came back Low. The next thing they did was a Spinal Tap to test for Bacterial Meningitis. Then they did a head CT because of his MoNSTeR headache. That combined with his achy neck were signs of Viral Meningitis.
They started a broad spectrum antibiotic right away and then would adjust it once they had more information. Jon's pain was dulled by the morphine, his headache was starting to come back, but he was happy to finally be able to rest. The doctor decided to admit Jon based on the blood results to see if his numbers would improve over the next 2 days. And all this was done before 5:30am... now that was and efficient trip to the ER!
I was able to run home from 6am-8am to get the kids ready and off to school and find 3 different babysitters at a moments notice. Mia went to my neighbors for the day who also happens to be my visit teacher--Thanks Lindsey! Parker went to Jen's (supermom/neighbor) who was able to get him to preschool, and then he went to Nikki's (the Primary President in our ward with the cutest little boy you've ever met) after school. Abby went to school and then to Jen's (neighbor who saves my life daily) until dinner time.
 It was crazy and amazing all at the same time. I had so many people drop their day to help out with mine. Seriously I don't know what people do without Relief Society. These women are amazing and offer to help out without being asked... and when you let them help you, they don't make you feel guilty or like you owe them somehow. You just feel like they genuinely care and want to do something anything to ease the situation. I had several more offers from others as the day progressed to help out with the kids and sincerely appreciate you more than you know.
8:30am Dropped all the kids off and headed back to the hospital. Called family and friends to give them updates... which was actually No update. See they had worked so quickly and efficiently in the ER and had given us so many results so quickly that it got in our heads that that's how things worked there. However, we were sorely mistaken. The whole day we sat at the hospital in our room thinking the doctor would walk in any minute with some answers. Nope. We just sat and sat and sat. Jon's back and side were comfortable with the morphine. He had no appetite though and still had his MoNSTeR headache.
3pm they took him for an ultrasound which could tell us more definitively about what they saw on his right kidney.
5pm I went home to get the kids fed and in bed. I was exhausted and falling asleep having been up since 1:30am.
6pm Jay (Jon's brother) came to stay with Jon and got the nurse to track down the doctor at home to ask him what was up. See the only time Jon had seen the doctor was at 6am down in the ER. All the nurse could tell us is that they were running more tests and waiting. We were put in a room way at the end of the hall which kind of made us feel forgotten about. The doctor said there was a cyst on his kidney and they had ruled out meningitis. The Spinal Tap came back clear and the head CT was clean. Also, his spleen was enlarged. A Hematologist would be by to figure out the blood work at some point. Well Thank You sir for giving us some kind of an update! Hope we didn't interrupt your dinner.
7pm the hematologist came by and talked to Jon, read his file and ordered some blood work.
I stayed home to sleep and Jay stayed with Jon until about 10pm. Jon slept OK through the night and his headache was finally relieved by early morning.
4am the nurse came in a drew about 5 vials of blood, Jon slept right through it and doesn't remember a thing.
6am the nurse came back and drew about 17 more vials of blood. Now that was a lot! He was awake for that one.
10am the hematologist came back and said that Jon's numbers had all improved slightly. They tested for mono, Hepatitis, different Autoimmune diseases, and a slew of other things which all came back negative. He then recommended him for discharge.
11am the other regular physician came in and said his liver function had come down just a hair- it was now 475. He told him to follow up with more blood work in a weeks and that he could discharge him with instructions for a low-fat diet to bring those liver numbers down even more. His conclusion was that Jon probably had something viral in his body and that it just had to run it's course. And that it probably irritated the cyst on his kidney. I personally feel like Jon had a kidney stone and that all of these other things were evidenced because of it... but I don't have a medical degree.
11:45am FaSTeST DiSCHaRGe eVeR! And we've had our share of hospitals stays to prove it.
12pm we're home! Jon is resting and planning on going to class tonight...
and we are a happy somewhat-healthy family once again!