Fever

Hubby took this week off.  Christmas week and what could be better than your husband taking a week off to spend with his family?  This is even more true when the kids are also home and are excited to have him be there.

That is unless you're sick.
And your 4 year old.

Wednesday I was out and about and noticed that I couldn't seem to warm up.  I mean I really couldn't warm up.  I was tired so I went to bed early wearing sweatpants, sweatshirt, turtleneck and socks... and I was still cold.  For some reason this didn't concern me too much, I just thought I was still cold from being outside... 6 hours earlier.  My back was also hurting but again, I assumed it was from the activities I had been doing earlier in the day.  Once in bed, I continued to wake up every 30 minutes or less until around midnight when I finally fell asleep for good.  Or rather I was asleep for good until Monkey came in our room crying.

Monkey had woken up with a bad dream.  Usually the best thing for him is to give him a hug and walk him back to bed.  By now I really wasn't feeling good (was it because it was 3am, I wasn't sure), but I told Hubby to do just that.  He came back in our room a little while later and announces that he has a fever of 103.5.  Now any normal mother would have gotten up to take care of her baby, I could barely move.  (Please give me some credit, I did question when we were supposed to go to the hospital, we've never had fevers that high.  I told Hubby where the medicine was as well.  I'm not completely cold hearted.)  I left the nurse-care to Hubby and collapsed backwards, woke up a half hour later and he still wasn't in bed.  I figured Hubby would have gotten me if he needed me so I fell back asleep again.

The next day the 2 of us were fairly miserable although Monkey did seem to bounce back from it sooner.  I slept.

For the next 3 days I slept all day and went to bed early.  I ate and drank almost nothing and watched my own fever get up to the mid 103's.  I hate crazy sick fever dreams that only occur when you are truly sick, i.e. not staying at home because you have a "headache" when really your headache is an Algebra test you aren't prepared for.  Now at one point in my life being able to sleep all day would have been wonderful (mostly in my early teens when, yes, I was capable of sleeping until 11am) but now that I'm a Grown Up, I actually had plans for our week of with Daddy.  I had ideas and places we could go to, me sleeping on the couch was not one of them.  At all.

To be fair though, I'm happy he was home.  It may not have been the best vacation for him but I'm not sure how I could have handled it on my own.  He did everything, feeding them and taking them to speech, and taking care of me.  A couple of times he called me into the kitchen to eat and I sat up to go and collapsed back down.  When that happened he would bring me food and then clear away the almost completely untouched plate.

Sunshine was awesome too.  Someday she is going to make a great nurse, doctor, vet - mom.  She would come and gently rub my back, cuddle next to me but not on me.  She would make sure no one was fighting so I could rest and she made sure I had water to drink.  Monkey brought me water too, he gave it to me and said, "I brought you water Mommy.  Wasn't that nice of me?  It's because I love you so much."

I'm not sure how people are able to do everything on their own as it is and I can't imagine doing it when I'm that sick.

The silver lining in all of this?  I've lost all of the holiday weight I gained in a matter of 3 days.  I really am a lucky girl.

Vicky

Merry Christmas Day!

Santa did indeed visit our house, however, he does not give the best presents.  Usually he'll give the smaller toys or games not the big presents.  This year was unusual, Santa gave the family a Wii, it wasn't for one particular person though and all the other gifts under the tree were from us.  I spend too much time, thought, energy and not to mention money, to let some fat stranger get all the glory.  Maybe it's a little selfish, but I want the thank you and the great big hug.  I also want them to be able to say thank you for that amazing gift they just received.  Sunshine wanted a microscope, we managed to find one on Amazon for an amazing deal and she was so excited to get it.  It's a digital one that hooks up to the computer and has a 50x power.  Not quite strong enough to see on the cellular level, but we were able to see all the little beads of moisture on Hubby's fingertips and the dry barren dessert of my fingertips.  Monkey wanted superhero stuff and was ecstatic when he received them.  Although he would have been happy if we had stopped after his first gift; a double sleeve shirt of Snoopy with a mustache.  Bug didn't want to open anything.  They had each gotten their own container of Teddy Grahams in their stocking and they were all he wanted.  I was practically forcing him to open the presents.  He got some basic toys, he's 2 and doesn't have much of an opinion on what he does or does not want.  Once the Teddy Grahams were gone he was much more excited about the toys.  His favorite was a train and a car carrier.

A morning of presents led to more presents at my parents.  More presents and more food.  Imagine 15 people and 5-10 gifts for each person.  It's absolute chaos.  Paper was not being thrown this year as Bug was doing a good job keeping the floor clean.  Throwing wrapping paper is such a pet peeve of mine.  Really?  You have to wad something up into a tight little ball and whip it at someone?  Gee, big surprise when something gets broken or someone says ouch.  It really, really annoys me.  I know everyone thinks I'm being ridiculous and I don't have (Christmas spirit?) but at what point did this wrapping paper ritual become a holiday tradition?  Anyways, Bug kept the floors clean and we didn't need to worry about paper being thrown.  There were no tears about someone else getting something they wanted, only a slightly upset niece that wanted to do one of her crafts with her 2 cousins but her craft thing was paint.  She got over it and then that was it.

Dinner was good, dessert was good, spending time with family was good.

It was a wonderful Christmas with our families and what more could you really ask for.

Vicky

Merry Christmas Eve!

What a fun Christmas!  Bug was truly old enough to understand presents this year and enjoyed opening his presents, Monkey "yuvs" everything, and Sunshine is grateful for and to everyone.  Big hugs and huge thank you's were given freely and frequently.  They all found the spirit of the season and enjoyed giving possibly even more than receiving.  They picked things out for each other and chose things they felt their sibling would truly like.  Sunshine was sick when we went shopping but was still able to find something and she truly enjoyed wrapping the presents and giving them to her brothers.  She, with the help of my mom, made me an apron.  It was completely her idea and except for the cutting out part, she sewed the whole thing, then she "hid" it under her bed.  I use the word hid loosely as she told me not to look under her bed because she hid my present under there.

Christmas Eve was at our house with my in-laws.  My father-in-law was sick and wasn't able to make it.  It must have been pretty bad as he doesn't normally admit when he's not feeling well.  My mother-in-law, brother-in-law and his wife and their 3 year old daughter were also there.  I decided to be wild and crazy with our dinner and do a bunch of experimental foods, because, after all, the best time to try new foods is on a major holiday!  We had cream of mushroom soup (I had made it the week before as a test run and Hubby and I devoured it), goose (I've never even had goose), apple pie (never made a homemade pie), apple/currant stuffing (sounded pretty good), mashed potatoes, green beans, fruit salad, and cranberry relish.  Everything turned out good and everyone seemed to like everything.  The pie crust recipe was for a 10" pie and my pie dish was 9", I should have just left some and not used it but I couldn't get myself to throw it away.  I ended up having a fairly thick crust, good, but thick.

After dinner was presents, lots of presents.  The kids all seemed happy with what they got though which is always nice.

Following presents was church.  Monkey enjoyed some of the Christmas carols and announced it, loudly, when the song was over.  I figured it was better than a whining child complaining they were bored and was it time to go home.  

After church we came home, left some cookies out for Santa, some water for the reindeer (they get thirsty you know, mom) and the sending the kids off to bed so we could finish doing all the last minute stuff.


Vicky

It's not the end of the world, or is it?

Today is the end of the world.  Honest, that's what I've been told again.  It must be true because I was told that an ancient culture made an amazing calendar that suddenly ended on December 21, 2012.  Of course they say they didn't take into account leap year.  This amazing, accurate culture forgot a day every 4 years.  It couldn't possibly be that maybe, oh, I don't know, they got tired and didn't want to continue making a calendar, the stars aligning was a perfect reason to stop.  There couldn't possibly be a better event than complete line up of all these stars and planets so they should stop while they were ahead.  Regardless, the Mayas who created this are probably laughing their asses off.  Current day Mayas are probably mortified so many people have put so much faith in this event, even enough to make a movie out of it.

Of course we still have a few hours before December 21, 2012 ends.  Just like New Year's, the day can't officially be over if people are still partying in Hawaii and it's only 10am over there.  We still have 14 hours folks before the end of the world has officially passed.

That said, last night Hubby and I spent about 3 hours wrapping presents.  We wrapped and wrapped and wrapped.  I suddenly realized, if tomorrow is the end of the world I was going to be pretty pissed if I just spent my last day wrapping all these presents for nothing.

Vicky

What Animal Am I?

The kids love this game.  We've spent many of hours in the car playing this game.  Many hours.  Sometimes they do very original animals, other times we hear their favorite animals over and over again.  (It's very difficult to not guess cheetah when Monkey has said a yellow animal with spots when his favorite animal is a cheetah.)  Sometimes it's not as easy to guess.  Especially when animals change halfway through.

Sunshine:  I'm an animal that is gray.
Monkey and I begin guessing, they had been on a water animal trend so we started there:  "Fish, shark, monkey (not a water animal but it IS brown)"
Sunshine: "Monkey, I said brown, sharks are gray"
She gives us another clue.
Sunshine:  "They live in the water.  Well they sometimes live water.  Wait, they actually don't live in the water at all."
Very confused so we do more random guess: "Bear, monkey (you have to sometimes repeat things)."
Monkey: "Pups"
Sunshine:  "Puppies!  Puppies don't live in the water."
Monkey:  "NO!  Not puppies, PUPS.  You know those animals that are called pups."
I've realized what it is and wait a second to see if they figure it out.  They don't.  Or Sunshine is too stubborn to admit it.
Me:  "Do you mean seals or sea lions?"
Monkey:  "Yes!"
Sunshine:  "No, he said pups!"
Me:  "Baby sea lions and seals are called pups."  (Thank you PBS for this argument.)
Sunshine: "But that doesn't make sense!  Puppies are baby dogs!"
Me:  "Ok, well baby seals are also called pups.  Good job both of you.  It's my turn."

I choose my animal.  It was a bison.  Sunshine guessed it not by name but "that animal with the beard".  Close enough.

Then came Monkey's turn.  Monkey's are always... interesting.

Monkey:  "I am an amimal that's red and orange."
Me and Sunshine:  "Bird, fish, frog."
Monkey:  "No., and I live in the water."
Sunshine:  "Fish (remember what I said about repeating), octopus."
Monkey:  "I'm kind of big, but not super, super big, and I'm red and orange."
Sunshine:  "Are you a shark?"
Monkey:  "They're not red and orange!"  He says this with a 'duh' sound in his voice.
Sunshine:  "Maybe some are."
There is a long pause and I know...
Monkey:  "Yes.  It's a shark."
Sunshine:  "Monkey!  You said it wasn't a shark!"
Monkey:  "OOOHHH!!!  I didn't know you meant an orange and red  shark!"

And this is how he manages to make his turns last 3 times longer than everyone else's.  I sometimes don't think he always knows what he's going to say until something sounds good.

Vicky

Dream a little dream

Monkey isn't a morning person.  At all.  He is like me (again) and could sleep through just about anything and sleep until someone decides to wake him up.  Even when he wakes up on his own it still takes him a while to wake up.  Sunshine is a morning person (usually) and truly takes after her nickname.  She wakes up bright and sunny, ready to start the day (I don't know where she gets this from, neither Hubby nor I are like this).

The other day, Sunshine wakes up and crawls into bed with me and Hubby.  It was a school day but Hubby had taken the day off.  Regardless, she was cuddling and not wanting to get out of the warm bed.  Bug was sleeping.  For the time being.  After coercing Sunshine out of bed and telling her to go get dressed she keeps doing a loud whisper.  "Ssshhhh, Bug is sleeping!"  Please don't wake him up, he doesn't like being woken and I prefer not to have a clingy baby at 7:00.  As she's walking past his room, Monkey comes out of his bedroom.  Laughing.  He's talking in, what we call, his 'loud Monkey voice', and announces (loudly), "I just had da funniest dream.  We were all flying in da clouds and there were burds all over da place."

How can you be mad at a little boy who is happy as soon as he wakes up and wants to share his excitement with you.

A couple of days later was his parent/teacher conference at his preschool, the teachers were telling me how he came in the other day laughing about how he had been flying.  Apparently, it was a very funny dream.

Vicky

Forgetful

I don't know what happened to me.  I never used to be like this, maybe it happened when Sunshine started school or maybe when I was pregnant and pregnancy brain never really completely left and I've forgotten what I used to be like.  Or maybe my brain is just used to too many mundane things that having to think is painful so it chooses to shut down.  Regardless, I have decided that I am just plain forgetful.  I have things written down and I forget the paper.  If it's on the computer, I forget once I leave the computer.  Hubby now knows that if he wants me to do something after I hang up the phone he needs to have me write it out or he'll email me as well; not because I won't do it, but because as soon as I hang up my brain forgets.  I have been known to call someone (my sister) and by the time I push the TALK button, I have forgotten that I was going to call someone.  She has been on the other line, yelling trying to get my attention before it dawns on me that Oh yeah, I was making a phone call.  If there was an actual reason to the phone call that is long gone.  Who the heck forgets they are making a phone call, mid-call? (I'd like to add that I had a thought of a sentence less than 2 minutes ago and have since forgotten it.  It was supposed to go before the last sentence and it was an awesome one, but alas, it too is gone.)

I suppose the good thing is no one should feel bad about me forgetting their special day.  I forgot Hubby's birthday.  Now this may seem like just a bad wife thing to do, but I knew it was his birthday, even the day before I knew it was his birthday.  How could I NOT know it was his birthday, after all, his birthday is the day before mine.

So when I forgot my parents' anniversary (again, I remembered the week before and even mentioned something about it to my mom) I felt really bad, but then I realized, if I can forget my husband's birthday I suppose I can forget anyone's birthday.  As long as it's not the kids'.

I have since gotten a smart phone and I'm hoping that it will some how be my savior.  Alarms are going off, bells are ringing, chimes are chiming.  I won't forget to pick my son up at preschool, take my medicine, or go to speech.  I have my calendar on me at all times, this is going to work.

I'm sure of it.

Vicky