Girly Kaboom

The jury is still out on Girl's uber-expensive medicine (see last post). She seems to be feeling better though she is still a phlegm bucket. A really, really awful side effect of the meds is that she is moody. Actually calling her moody is a vast understatement. I might go as far as saying bipolar.
Observe the following from the Animaniacs:



Now put this attitude on a four-year-old and you get the idea of where we are at with this medicine.

Girl Again

Despite her fever being gone, I decided to bring Girl to the doctor because as I was laying next to her trying to get her to nap, I heard her lungs crackling again. Unlike in February, there aren't 50 bazillion people trying to see the doctor so they helpfully set up an appointment at the same time as Boy's allergy shots. Zip, zip, zip nice and simple, right?
Nope, my regular pediatrician was at an emergency c-section so we waited 20 minutes got called in for Boy's shots and then had to go out and wait another 20 minutes to see the other doctor. Then we went in, and waited FOREVER before he finally came in, freaked out and immediately ordered a respiratory treatment for Girl.
Then after the 15 minute treatment, we waited for him to come back and give us a prognosis, which is basically: Girl is bordering on pneumonia. She may have had it, if I waited another day or so, but I am a spaz so she doesn't. But we have to do at home breathing treatments for the next few day and hope and pray that it doesn't get worse. Luckily we still have "Puff the Penguin" from when she had RSV.
Still, I went to pick up her 3 different medicines (including the mist for "Puff") expecting to pay $45 and the pharmacist said "that'll be $75."
Holy frejoles! $75!!! It turns out the nebulizer juice was $45 all by itself! Plus, that was just our co-pay because on the nebulizer juice it says "Co-pay $45. Your insurance saved you $172.99." Thank Frieda Mr. H. works for a major insurance company, because who knows what it would have been otherwise.
I guess that's the major difference between the kids regular pediatrician and this other guy. Our regular doc knew us when we were on Medicaid and hesitates to give us expensive meds. This guy just gives us anything he can think of. I don't know which is better. I guess I'll make that judgement after I see how well these uber-expensive medicines knock out Girl's almost-pneumonia.

Wah!

It is a beautiful spring day and I am trapped inside because my daughter sounds like her bronchitis is back. It is frustrating because we're going to go to her doctor and the doctor will insist that she has allergies and will want to increase her allergy meds.
She won't listen to us that it's something else. She'll focus completely on the fact that Boy has bad allergies and won't hear my objections that BIOLOGICALLY Girl and Boy have different fathers and Boy inherited all his allergies from his biological father and not from me. Then she'll prescribe antibiotics and allergy medicine and send us on our way. It makes me want to not even bother.

Spring Break Makes Me a Bad Mom.

Two weeks ago Boy was on spring break, now Girl is. This has been rough on me making me want to retreat into my room and hide. Also, Mr. Hobbitfeet is going to school 4 days a week after work and it is just me and the munchkins from 6:30 a.m. to 7:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday.
Quite frankly I've run out of ideas. Also, due to excessive rain, we can't go to the park because it is a bog, and one can only go to the library so many times before it gets dull.
We have covered every inch of the driveway with graffiti and played more Barbies than I ever did as a kid (mostly because my sisters always gave me the crazy naked Barbie with no hair and refused to interact with her).
I am losing my mind.
Boy has a new interest in kid sitcoms of the variety they show on Nickelodeon and the Disney channel. God, those shows blow, and if I see another commercial for Muzzy, I may lose my shit.

I am perpetually cranky and haven't managed a well-balanced dinner in a good long while. It is safe and quiet in my room, but I don't have that option. Now Girl is sick.

Grrrrrrrrr.

This Post Has Been Interrupted. . .

I had started a post talking about what a crapfest my birthday was yesterday. How Girl and the dog colluded with the vet and the doctor's office to make everything I needed to get done impossible to do. I was going to talk about my wonderful husband's half-assed attempts at making my birthday as wonderful as I make everyone else's and how they totally failed and ended with me jamming four candles in a frozen pie lighting them myself and demanding that someone sing happy birthday right now damn it!

But instead I am opting to complain about health professionals, namely those who are supposed to be caring for my daughter. Girl has had a cough on and off for about a week now. Over the weekend it got steadily worse until she stopped eating, refused everything but water, was running a high fever and wouldn’t get out of bed (my bed because there is a TV in there). Monday was a holiday, so the pediatrician was closed. At 9 a.m. on Tuesday I started calling the doctor. By 9:45, I was still only getting a busy signal (after having called every two minutes). Finally in anger and frustration I called the main number and complained. A half hour later I got called back by a secretary who took my daughter’s info and said a nurse would call me back. A half hour after that (of course when I was finally laying eyes on the vet) a nurse called me back, and after half-listening to my daughter’s symptoms, repeating them back incorrectly and ignoring my corrections, she told me it was the flu and that I didn’t need to bring her in because they couldn’t do anything for her. She said if she got worse, I could try again tomorrow.

Denied!

I respect that it is flu season and that the pediatrician’s office is getting a billion calls, but there is no reason they can’t look at my daughter, before deciding she has the flu. I’m willing to pay, they should take my money. So after listening to her lungs crackle all night, I decided that nothing was going to keep me from seeing the doctor, if I had to run in and plop my daughter on the counter and let her cough in the secretaries’ faces.

Luckily enough, I didn’t have to do that because the nurse that I got this morning was the one who administers Boy’s allergy shots every week. At first she was going to try that whole “a nurse will call you back” line, but I told her who I was and how sick Girl was and she gave me an appointment. I guess it’s not how sick your kid is, but who you know.
So we got in, and yes there were a billion kids in the waiting room, all looking as pathetic as Girl, but there are also four doctors there. We got in and our favorite nurse kept going on about how bad Girl looked (duh).

Finally our doctor came in and looked at her. She couldn’t believe how bad her throat looked (she let me take a peep it looked like Girl had been gargling nails) and listened to her breathing (“Oh! Heer lungs are soo noy-say”- She’s got a thick Russian accent). It turns out Girl has Bronchitis, Tonsillitis, and an ear infection. Take that flu-pushing nurse! I wish people would listen to me once in a while, I am surprisingly smart, it’s just no one believes me. Obviously I had no idea about the trio of diseases she had, but I sure knew it was more than the flu.

Just look at my sicky, see how pale she is. Even her stork bites which are barley visible normally, are standing out see the red marks on her eye lids and the middle of her forehead, and also, she's napping during the day which never usually happens.

Hearing her breathe is awful. It's like this:

Innnn-out crackle, crackle, crackle, Innnn-out crackle, crackle, crackle

Almost like hearing breathing on a staticy radio.

Adventures in Bowling

So we're handling our week one kid short. Boy as always is spending the week after Christmas with his other grandparents. Mr. Hobbitfeet, Girl, and I are all sick, but we're trying not to let Girl be bored. Last night we saw Enchanted at the cheap theater and tonight we bowled.
It was Girl's first time bowling, Boy claims he hates it and the lanes in town are lame. I'm a weakling and only want an 8 pound ball, which they don't have. They also only have one five pound ball for the kids, so we don't ever go.
Mr. H. loves bowling. Before we moved in together, he and his nephew went bowling every week, so he has his own ball and shoes. But like I said the lanes here suck so we've only gone twice before tonight.
It was fun even though logically we shouldn't have done anything but pile all together in our beds with boxes of tissue and our humidifier.
Girl did awesome for her first time getting a 62 in the first game, and only having her ball stop in the middle of the lane once (but there were a couple other times we thought it might). She begged to play one more but got bored two frames in. To keep her from lapsing into a cold-induced, full-on freak out we had a contest to see who could dance the silliest
after they released their ball. Girl won hands down with a squatty butt-dance with her tongue hanging out. The dancing got her through the second game without a fit, and I'm very sure the people around us were entertained because there were several times that all our neighbors eyes were on us (especially after Girl's ball stopped mid-lane).
All and all it was wonderful family fun and I think Girl will ask about it a lot. She already plans to bug my mom to go on their Saturday together.
Oh, and in case you are wondering Ella came with us and she and Girl both wore ponytails (because they are sisters and all sisters have to wear their hair the same way). Ella's not much of a bowler so she sat out, but she did get in on the dancing.

In Which I Complain (Are You Surprised?)

I know that Pelmo will probably write a big post about how stupid today's moms are, but I have to say that no matter how many times my kids beg for them, I will never buy another damn robotic toy again. For the two months between her birthday and Christmas all Girl could talk about was the Real Loving Baby (sick name huh?). So of course, Santa bought it for her, and she played with it for all of fourteen seconds.
The $10 Barbie car and $4 Barbie that Santa brought were much more highly prized. Then all the other presents were forgotten for the doll my mom gave her. Girl has been dragging that thing every where. We can't leave the house until "Ella" has her coat on. I have to fix Ella and Girl's hair the same way. If Girl is being a princess than Ella has to be one too, and Girl had a touchy moment until I found Ella some pj's that fit (just barely) in Girl's doll box. Ella even came to the movies with us tonight to see Enchanted and was very afraid of the wicked queen.

Yummy Weather! Yucky Kids!

Right now I am enjoying the 63 degree weather. I'd enjoy it more if Girl wasn't too sick to do very much.



Mr. Hobbitfeet even took the plastic off our windows. The plastic was very helpful this year. When everyone else around us were complaining about the end of the rate freeze and skyrocketing utilities, ours actually went down by about $40/month. I credit the plastic and the fact that I was constantly turning off every unnecessary light.
Boy tried out the hammock that I got for Christmas. He was a little scared.

Update

I know a lot of you were wondering, Girl is doing much better. She's still congested; still using the the nebulizer. She no longer fights it though which makes it much easier. She is also still cranky as hell.
Boy is back home. He had fun, but was homesick, though you'd never really know because after two nights in his own bed, he wanted to spend New Year's Eve at the farm. He definitely had more fun there than he would have with Mr. Hobbitfeet and I as we were both asleep well before midnight (hey, you deal with a sick kid for a week and see what a party animal you are). Boy on the other hand stayed up til 2 a.m. watching Little Nicky, which I would have never allowed (edited television version notwithstanding).
My house is still a mess, but the Christmas decorations are gone, much to Girl's dismay. She sobbed and wanted to kiss all of the decorations goodbye. She also got very mad when I packed up the few decorations we had allowed her to keep in her room (a snow bear that my mom gave her on her first Christmas and a wreath with her picture in it that she made at school). She also tried to hide my Santa nesting doll so it couldn't be put away. She got in trouble for that one. I truly felt like the Grinch when Cindy Lou Who says "Santy Claus why? Why are you taking our Christmas tree? Why?" But I had all the Christmas spirit I could take. Nevertheless, the minute the Christmas purging started to take place, Girl demanded that she be allowed to watch Elf one last time, and we relented for no other reason then it would keep her occupied long enough to get the tree down.
Honestly though, we don't pack away the Christmas movies. They are just kept behind all the other movies, as are the Christmas CDs. So if Girl really wants to indulge again before next year, it may be allowed to happen.

Living in a mess.

Spending every Christmas away from home is a challenge. Coming back home with a sick kid, being thoroughly wiped out, AND coming back to the huge mess you left in the rush to get gone is down right frustrating.

I remember the mindset that I left with. I spend my Friday, December 22 doing every speck of laundry that I had skipped for so many days when I had been trying like mad to finish my shopping. I also had to buy ingredients for party noshes and then prepare said noshes (which took some doing as my grinder broke). So I said, what's the big deal. We'll do the dishes and we'll get busy cleaning when we get home. It'll be easy, we'll have one less kid, maybe we'll even get rid of some old toys to make room for the new ones.

What we didn't count on was Girl being SO sick, neither Mr. Hobbitfeet nor myself getting more than 4 hours a sleep for almost a week, and just how overwhelming the mess would be once we added all the Christmas stuff to it.

And it's not like there is a lot of stuff. The gods blessed us this year and everything we got was smallish. Small enough that we were able to fit everything into our car, even with a bike (though truth be told, had Boy come home with us that wouldn't have happened).

But the house is trashed, which makes it difficult to function. Does anyone else have this problem? When the house is a little messy, I can rush around and clean it. When it is a big mess, just the thought of how long it will take, makes it nearly impossible to move on it. I guess it's just the lazy-ass-bitch in me coming out.

Where's Mary Poppins when you need her?

RSV is Not for Me!

If you have been keeping up, you know that Girl got sick on Christmas. Well it turns out that she has RSV, a virus that is apparently going around her daycare (although we weren't told that).


She's had a fever, cough, and runny nose for days. Also, intermittent vomiting. So she's not looking so hot:Of course her pediatrician is on vacation so we had to go to the on-call pediatrician (the one that gave her the amoxicillian that caused us to discover she is allergic to cillins). He gave her Zithromax (pointless as it is a virus) and Albuterol that she needs to take via nebulizer. Let me tell you despite the cute friendly penguin design of the nebulizer and the friendly dinosaur face mask, trying to get Girl to use the nebulizer is like trying to fit a size 16 woman into size 6 pants. She's cooporative in this picture because she wanted to see what she looked like.

The doctor says she's going to get worse before she peaks and starts to get better. Mr. Hobbitfeet is hoping that today, which is the worst she's been all week, is the peak. I'm just hoping she's better soon.

What I've Learned as a Mom...

1. You can live with getting pooped/peed/vomited/sneezed on.
2. You might be sick of Ring-Around-the-Rosy, Duck, Duck, Goose, or that book after the sixth of seventh time but kids WILL NEVER GET SICK OF IT!
3. It is entirely possible to load the washer, while talking on the phone, opening a juice box and helping a kid go potty.
4. Toys you played with as a kid are still awesome, cartoons that you watched...not so much.
5. You can survive on three hours of sleep a night, but everyone will tell you that you look terrible.
6. The minute your pediatrician goes on vacation, your child WILL get sick.
7. Your kids seem a lot younger than you did at that age.
8. Smudges on everything don't really matter.
9. Little kid socks are not designed to stay on.
10. Ditto for panties when your little girl is in a dress.
11. There isn't a kid alive better than yours.
12. Santa Rocks.
13. The Tooth Fairy has a much harder job than Santa.
14. If your kids do half the things you did as a teenager, you'll cry.
15. The words butt, fart, and poop will always get you a big laugh.

All Done!

Well Christmas is over, and despite the mess in our house, it was a great one. Between Boy's overexcitement keeping him up until well past midnight on the 23rd, Santa, and Girl getting sick, throwing up, and being up shivering (even though she was under 4 thick blankets) with a fever all Christmas night, I didn't get a lick of sleep, but it was worth it. Even if Santa forgot a part of both Boy and Girl's present and left them at our house instead. I even got to see it, since Boy ran in my room at 7 a.m., poke me in the back and screamed "MOM WAKE UP IT'S 7! PRESENT TIME!!!" He had been awake since 6, but like a good little boy, followed my rules and played his video game until his wristwatch alarm went off at 7. The lack of sleep made me turn on the video mode on my camera rather than the picture mode and I caught this short gem of Boy seeing his Santa gifts for the first time:

This to me is what gift giving is about, the sheer joy that people can experience. Most of the things Boy asked for were bought for him by other people. He only asked for one thing from Santa and it was a little thing. So it was all guess work. But Boy says when this little clip was taken, he was thinking, "These are the best presents ever!" Awesome!

Santa also gave Girl the wrong size purple helmet. But to be fair it's really hard to fit a helmet to a head without the head there. Here she is with her too small helmet.

But she had lots of fun with the same dollhouse my sisters, cousins, and I used to play with at Grandma's house every year at Christmas.

You're Going to Hell!

Just when I think I might have a tiny little spark of belief that people maybe are okay, I see stuff like this in my local paper:

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TMX Elmo, 10th Anniversary, $300, cash only, All sales final. (phone # deleted)
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PS3! LIMITED QUANTITIES, going fast! $2000. Call (phone # deleted) today.
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(3)TMX ELMO , $300 each. Cash, All sales final. (phone # deleted)
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TMX ELMO , giggle chair, barbie w/elmo & elmo gift card, 3 sets for $500. a set,
Cash, All sales final. (phone # deleted)
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First -the people who bought these things to resell them at Christmas at 10 times what they are worth have no souls, see the title of the post.

Second-I have kids, and I know how cool it is to buy them what they want, but if you are paying $300-$500 for a stupid toy that normally costs $39.99 you are sick in your head. Or $2000 for a PS3? Look, if you have a kid whose Christmas will be ruined if he doesn't get his/her PS3 you are doing something wrong!!!! Wait until January Damn it.

I know that maybe I am getting backs up, I have an original Cabbage Patch Kid that I got from Santa. But I have my doubts that my parents would have asked the big guy to go to that much trouble for me.

When ever my sisters and I found ourselves in this situation my mother would always sing (yes sing:

You can't always get what you want,

You can't always get what you want,

but if you try sometimes.....

You know the rest, and does that explain alot about my family?

Fed Up and Cranky!

This weekend, Mr. H. and I got hardcore sick of being parents. As my mom, Meander, and the smurfs could attest, we were SUPER cranky.
What could have happened to make us normally FANTASTIC parents such creeps?
Three words:
No!
More!
Plug!
About a month ago we decided that Girl (who is abnormally attached to it) must lose the pacifier once and for all and have been preparing her for it all this time. Telling her it was time to wrap them up and give them to her new baby cousin, and that this would happen when she was three.
She was really ready, but, like other things, she was resisting it. Almost six months ago we made it something for sleeping only because I was sick of looking at her with it in her mouth and sick of hearing her talk around it.
See the trouble with Girl is that she very much lives up to her name. She is EXTREMELY loud.

I think we were addicted to it more than she was because, as a very quiet family, we could not handle the noise. Even now she has not changed, she screams and talks loud even when she's happy.

The good news is that after a few nights she has adjusted and is back to her normal self. Although that doesn't mean she sleeps all night in her own bed.

That's just crazy talk!

P.S. Sorry to all of those upon whom we inflicted our crankiness.

Sick and Other Things...

I stayed home from work today because Girl is sick. I used to really like my pediatrician, but lately I've started to think of her as a sort of one trick pony. Certainly not every time my kids get sick can they have an ear infection, or sinusitis whatever that is. And I thought Doctors aren't supposed to prescribe antibiotics because of supergerms or whatever.

Anyhow, I hate taking Girl to the doctor because she is allergic to cillins (as in penicillin or ammoxocillin) and we have to go over that every time. This time was particularly bad because after waiting at Walgreen's for 20 minutes (which really sucks because the pharmacy is right by the toy aisle and Girl wants everything) the pharmacist told me my prescription was going to be $43.50.

"What," I scream, "We have ninja insurance we're only supposed to pay $15 for medicine!!"

"Well, your insurance isn't covering it." muttered the idiot with the bad facial hair

"Why," I scream (once again, I was being those people I hate) "They did last time."

"Well last time you had a medicaid card so they covered it."

"No, last time was like in January, when I know for a fact my insurance from Blue Cross/Blue Shield WHERE MY HUSBAND WORKS covered it. I know what our benefits are!" (I was really obnoxious, but you try sitting in a toy aisle with a sick,whiny 3 year old for 20 minutes and see how calm you are)

"No, no last time you had Zithromax and this is ceflecor (or something)"

"Well I don't want your crappy expensive medicine, come on Girl we're going back to the doctor"

"Why, " she sniffled "So she can make me feewuh bedder?"

Bottom line my doctor was scoffing at the stupid pharmacist's idea that she had ever prescribed Zithromax, but asked what was covered and we got that instead (after another 15 mins. in the toy aisle). Also, Mr. H. says that as long as we were getting a generic, it was covered so the idiot was truly an idiot, I wasn't just imagining it.

In other news, I had decided to cut down on how much TV I watch so I thought I'd do some crafts. I made some ticking curtains for my kitchen like I saw in Martha Stewart Living, and a nice witch that was a combo of this one, and one my Grandma had when I was little. I did learn one thing though and that is you can still watch TV while crafting and so it didn't really help at all.

These are the curtains, they are the same color, but the other picture didn't turn out so hot.

See I used the nylon witch's face, and her basic idea but I used the old witch's body frame and pose (though not her scale)
I think La Sirena is Juliet, Meander is Cleopatra, and I am Scarlett O'Hara.

In Which I Discuss Parenthood....

There are some pretty wonderful things about being a parent. But far and away my favorite thing is hearing the things kids say. Girl recently started saying "That was totally wicked" which is a line in The Incredibles. The difference is, whenever she says it, she says "That was totally wick-el-ed!" which makes us crack-up and leads to her saying it 500 more times, but guess what, I still haven't gotten sick of it. She has also paired it with another of her favorite sayings from Finding Nemo so it comes out like "Sweet, totally wick-el-ed!" But least you think my daughter only repeats things she saw in movies I will tell you that Boy taught her what has become her favorite joke: "Your epidermis is showing!" She says it perfectly though I am not sure she has any clue what it means. Another favorite thing she does is throws her arms up and says "Yeah! Woo-hoo (insert activity here)" for instance she'll say "Yeah! Woo-hoo! Tumbling!" when it's time to go to tumbling. She also scrunches up her eyes and the effect is pretty hilarious.
Boy is also pretty funny. He's at the age where he'll do anything if you pay him, and his prices are pretty low. That's how we got him to face his horrible Lake Allegan fear this year. In previous years we couldn't get his feet off the dock, but this year we did. At first he came to the shallow end by himself, but he wouldn't go more than two feet from the ladder and forget swimming off the boat. But thanks to his fear that Big D might think he was a baby and a total bribe of $6 from various people we had him paddling around the boat in no time (he was wearing a lifejacket and had 2 noodles at all times. Come on, this is Boy we're talking about). I am sure parenting experts might question my parenting skills, but if you had battled Boy for as long as I have to get him to do things you know he would love (list of other things I had to force Boy to do-with many a "I hate you," "you're the meanest mom ever"-that he later loved: swimming lessons, sledding, swimming in the deep end, getting a dog) you'd gladly exploit his new interest in bribes to try new things. Next on my bribary list: a new Bionical if he learns to ride his bike.

Happy Birthday!

Last year on my mom's birthday I blew out my knee. This year I was very sick (which is why I didn't say it sooner) Happy Birthday Mom! I hope you're having fun. Some fune facts about June 21 for my mom from Wikipedia! Lots of blood, gore, and supreme court decisions. But woohoo! Go Skateboarding Day!

Another Post About Boobs....

In yet another attempt from the government to whip us women into line comes the new ad campaign from the Department of Health and Human Services: "You wouldn't take risks before your baby's born, Why start after?" Recommending that women breast feed for at least 6 months, comparing the effects of formula feeding to that of smoking. To that I say, give me a break! Article

I am not saying that formula is the best thing, I know that breast feeding is best, but the fact is that some women can't do it, including me. When Boy was 2 weeks old I got a terrible infection as a result of his birth (not mastitis), I was breast feeding so Boy got really sick too. His pediatrician told me not to breast feed for awhile, to pump and toss and give him formula until we were both better, especially since I had to be on Mega-antibiotics. Have you ever used a breast pump? It sucks (ha-ha I know bad pun). Pumping when you have a 103 degree fever is even worse. So I couldn't do it as well as I should have and Boy wouldn't go back.

And with Girl, after three months of not sleeping and never leaving the couch because she wanted to do nothing but nurse, I couldn't take it another minute and slowly tapered out during the next few months.

Now Boy is in the gifted program, and though he has problems because of the allergies he inherited from his father's side, overall he is a healthy kid. Girl has overall been a healthy child. She walked at nine months (so much for breast fed babies walking earlier), and according to the early childhood studies she is operating at a four-year-old level.

I think the whole thing is designed to make already neurotic moms even more neurotic.

To All the "Real" Dads....

Happy Father's Day to all those Dads.....

Who tuck their kids in at night, know the names of their kids' teachers and friends, change diapers, and take care of them when their sick or hurt, The ones who play with their kids....

(Mr. Hobbitfeet and Boy)

Who play with their Grandkids......

(Girl and Grandpa Hobbitfeet)

The ones who never miss holidays or birthdays...

(Me and my Dad some Christmas morning)

Who coach their kids teams, or come to all the games....

(Me with the bat, my Grandpa W. in the circle)

The ones who wanted to stay, but were taken away...

(Me with my Uncle Tom)

And the ones who fought for their kids with everything they had....

(My sister with my Uncle Rick)

In short for all the real Dads in this world or the next, you're really wonderful!

And heaps of bad karma for those who don't do these things, you stink!