Midnight Madness!

Last night I had to bring one of the girls to Target, then Walmart, to get a couple of items for a field trip she is going on from tomorrow until Friday. I also had to get a couple things for Baby that I've been putting off getting 'cause it's so hard to take her out still. So off we went with Baby and a couple others along as well. First stop: Target!

When we left Target, I suddenly got hit by a severe stomach ache. The kind that feels like you are going to throw up any minute. I think I was suffering Chocolate Toxicity 'cause I had eaten an excessive amount of chocolate that had been kindly left in my basket from the Easter Bunny. Well, we trotted off to Walmart and then on to home. It was already nearly midnight and I still had Baby's diaper to change, a few night diapers to get on, or have someone else do, a neb to give to my baby, nurse her, get myself ready, and such...

Well, after finishing most of my duties and on my way over to throw a blanket over one of the younger kids, who had fallen asleep on the couch while I was gone, I noticed she didn't have a night diaper on yet. At the same time, I was struck by a sudden, severe cramping in my stomach and knew I had to get to the bathroom. I threw the blankets on the sleeping one on the couch, crossed my fingers she wouldn't pee while I was in the bathroom, and ran. I finished up pretty quickly, grabbed a diaper, went out to put it on her and saw a fresh, huge wet puddle on the couch. I just cringed and woke her up to strip down while I began to remove blankets, start washing up the couch and send her in another direction to sleep so I could let the couch dry overnight.

I washed my hands again, got fresh blankets, threw wet ones in the tub to wash in the morning, and tucked in....only to see Baby's oxygen saturation level drop from the lowest they want her to be, at 90%, to the upper 80's. I was SO exhausted and felt SO sick that I tried first to just get her to shift around, which would hopefully make her wake up enough to draw deeper breaths and get her sats up again. For the next hour, from 12:45 a.m. to 1:45 a.m., I would drop to sleep, only to be harshly awoken to the alarm of her desat'ing...push "silence" button, wiggle her, fall asleep, and jolt awake again to the "beep-beep-beep-beep!!!" of the alarm!!!

I finally realized her sats were just sitting at 89% without going up and when it would drop, it was going down to 84% or so. I got up, got her oxygen tank set up (switching the gauge from an empty tank to full one, checking the level, get tubing on it), got her little cheek patches ready on the nasal cannula, and then had to get them set up on her without her whipping her head around and rubbing them off kilter with her fists (she hates wearing them). I managed all this, got her oxygen started and to a flow that brought her back to mid-90's, and tucked back in...only to be hit again by horrible stomach cramping.

Back to the bathroom...then on to get a cup from the kitchen for use for stomach content...back to bed....back up again seconds later, puking. Finally, some relief from the stomach ache!!!

Back to bed finally after being up about an hour....only to hear our young son wake up screaming, then his pounding feet coming down the hallway to find me. I pulled him into bed with me, got tucked in again, only to have him spy my puke cup and insist on having a drink of water. I hustled back out to the kitchen and got him some water and Cheez-Its, since I figured he was probably a bit hungry too (I knew he probably fell asleep without anyone that was at home with him making sure he got a snack before sleeping). He finally settled in about 10 minutes later.

A short while later, Izzy woke up crying and came to find me. I got her tucked in by me too and finally got to sleep about 3:45 a.m., in time to hear my hubby's alarm clock starting to beep. I passed out...only to be woken up by E about 4:15 a.m., letting me know he was leaving to work, then on a trip for the week.

Next wake-up call came at about 6 a.m. or so from my baby, needing to eat. I got her settled back in again about 20 minutes before having to start getting my school girls up!

Needless to say, I pretty much got nothing done today until this evening...now I'm finally getting some cleaning done with some of my middle girls.

Whew! Sometimes you have to wonder if you'll ever make it through all this!!! :P

But, I'm actually pretty surprised how good I feel finally...no hint of stomach flu or anything...only a trace of a headache left. Now, only hoping that my kids will go to bed early tonight!

Morning Izzies...

Morning started out with me peeling my eyes open to Izzy pounding Yodi on top of his head. I scolded her severely as he howled. She left with a royal frown, not to be seen again. Yodi and I ate breakfast and then went wandering down to the bedrooms to start stirring the household up a little. Izzy was just on her bed looking at a book, so as we were leaving the bedroom, she came cruising after us. Yodi did a little fast trot to get out of her way. I'm sure she was thinking he was afraid of another pounding so she quickly assured him, "I'm just going to the bathroom and then I'm going to get my Morning Dress on!" Sure enough, she went bathroom, went down to retrieve her Snow White princess dress, came up with it on a hanger, stared it up and down, and declared, "I don't like this dress, Mama!" I looked up and said, "Oh. Should I put the collar back on? Then will it be better?" She scowled and said, "No. I still won't like it. Even with the collar on." She stomped back downstairs and found another beautiful dress and came back up again, "Should I just wear this one again, Mama?" It was one she had taken off yesterday. She is just a princess, through and through, just like all little girls her age, I'm sure!

Baby has finally been baptized!

Well, Baby is six months old and FINALLY is baptised! We were supposed to have a joint baptism with E's sister's and her husband's new baby but our little lady ran a low-grade temp yesterday and, that, combined with the fact we had two other kids run temps earlier in the week, we thought that it was probably best not to take a chance and get her baby sick.

Some funnies this week: Izzy tells me, as I was lying next to her on the couch, hoping she would fall asleep so I could keep cleaning the basement: (as she was rubbing my eyes lightly) "That's okay if you fall asleep...'cause you're the Queen!!!" Yes, my dear dolly. I like that mentality! Now if any of the other kids ever question any of my commands in the future, instead of saying, "Because I'm the Mom, that's why!" I will say, "Because I'm The Queen, that's why!"

Last weekend, after we came home from the homeschool conference we attended a few hours away, and picked up kids from various places, our Princess Izzy flounced out of the van, pigtails swinging, and announced, "I feel like I'm never gonna cry again!" What a cute way of saying she is just that happy! We know we weren't the only ones who had a marvelous weekend! She and her cousins are Princesses and they had a royal blast together for the weekend! :)

And, the other night while we were celebrating our little guy's second birthday, Izzy announced to anyone who was interested, "Hey! Hey, I'm not three anymore! Hey, you guys. I'm not three anymore, it's not my birthday! I'm not three anymore 'cause it's someone else's birthday now!"

My Life...

I keep trying to wait until I have a minute or 30 to sit down and post a right proper post, one that has a title, a purpose, a direction. Now, I don't consciously think of it that way but I know myself well enough to know that is basically what I am waiting for. Well, if I wait for all that to happen, I might as well never plan to blog again. So here it is, quick, to the point, and with no real sense of direction whatsoever. Last night: Rocked baby to sleep in the bedroom, came out about 9:30pm to start chasing the rest of the little urchins to bed, only to find my sweet little Princess Belle (3 y.o.) standing there looking at me and explaining, "Um, Mom. I peed AND I spilled my milk." I look beyond her to see a puddle the size of Lake Superior of pee and another the size of Lake Michigan of milk. I veered straight into the bathroom for papertowel and straight back out to wipe up the mess, only to see my 2 y.o. boy running through the puddles on his way back from running through it a millisecond before. In other words, I saw two sets of his tracks going through all this wetness! This morning, after 2 poopy diaper changes of my young son's and hearing my infant daughter loading her second diaper of the morning, I hear my Sweet Princess Belle squealing in distress. I turn to see a few hard balls of poop hit the floor, following closely by diarrhea. The beauty: we have no carpet, so it landed on linoleum and hardwood. The unbeauty: the liquidy stuff also landed on the small, 1" gap between the linoleum and hardwood of subflooring...yeah, that stuff that isn't exactly non-porous. Yeah. So, I grabbed her very quickly, after depositing Infant Daughter into a (now feverish) daughter's arms (then I didn't realize she was sick...and, mmmm, Infant Daughter really shouldn't be getting sick for fear of hospitalization...oh, I never blogged about that but she's been hospitalized 3 times since beginning of Feb.), ran her to the toilet, ran back out to Young Son running through the diarrhea! That's my life. Oh, and as I'm blogging about it all, I still children up. At 12:45 am. Why? I don't know. I would ask them but I don't think they would know either. So, I will just sign off and go to bed. =)

Well Child Check

So, an addendum to my previous post:

I had noticed with my baby that since birth she had a really low-pitched cry. Then I began to notice that she sometimes struggled to get air...kind of like her airway would stick when she tried to draw air in. This is normal right in the first few days or week or so after birth but when she was about 3 1/2 weeks old, I noticed it really noticeably and felt like it should be resolved by then, or at least getting better.

This has been noticeable to me and when I ran it by a sister (Kristin), she seemed to agree that she seemed to be struggling a bit (right? if I remember right...at least you agreed that I should have her checked if I was noticing this issue). Then just before her well-child check, a cousin saw her for the first time and almost right away after taking her in her arms, asked if it was her normal cry to cry so quietly and also that she seemed to have pretty poor neck control and also seemed to be so uncomfortable or unhappy for some reason.

Well, at her check-up 2 days later, I asked the pediatrician about this. As she was examining her, she noticed what I was talking about (although, of course, she wasn't half as bad as she sometimes could get with the struggling to get a breath). She said that this condition is called tracheomalacia. It can be quite normal for babies to have and they typically outgrow it within a few months. It's just a softer, "flappy" airway. Most babies have a stiffer airway but some have a bit of an underdeveloped trachea that can then make the airway floppy when they especially are upset, eating, congested, or lying on their backs...seems to get better if on tummy or upright.

Long story short, it doesn't seem to be anything to worry about typically. I spoke with a pediatrician in church this morning too and she said that she's only once had a patient they had to trach for the condition to improve. All others that she's seen with this condition eventually outgrow this.

I looked it up also online on a site that my cousin sent me and it looks like some things to watch them a little closer on is when they are congested or have upper respiratory infections...these can more easily develop into pneumonia on babies with this condition.

So, hopefully she will get better all the time until she no longer has to struggle at all. When she's calm though, she really is fine and doesn't have to work at all at breathing...it's just when she gets upset or sometimes when she's nursing that it gets a little worrisome for me.

Alright, on to bed!!! :)

Baby's doing better...

She's been such of a fussy baby so finally, when I went to the chiropractor on Monday, I asked her to check her out. I had her gently adjust our 3 y.o. when she was such of a fussy one and it seemed to help so I thought I don't have anything to lose at least.

She said that her pelvis was twisted as well as her spine and one shoulder, just normal birth trauma. After one adjustment, she was much better. After the second adjustment, she was a different baby!

This baby has been one that requires almost constant holding, day and night. Now, she can nap for a couple hours during the day, even when awake she is content and just looks around and smiles and coos. Of course, not always, but so, so much more than before.

Just a minor detail, as I began typing this, she began crying and of course found her way to me, via a big sister's arms. Needless to say, I can't really concentrate on this too well with her crying at my elbow! She's hungry! :)

She also is pooping and burping so much better than before. The chiropractor told me, as she was adjusting her, that she was crinked up in her GI area.

Well, since she needs me, I better go. She also had a well check Tuesday, which I have to write about, but.....

Later!

Oh, the Choices We Must Make....

Do I starve the children and live in a shining castle or feed the children and live in squallor? I don't seem to have the time for both cleaning and making meals.

It feels like if I make a good meal, it takes all my time in the afternoon, I make a hideous mess, and don't have time to clean up the mess that I made for the meal or the time to regain the cleaning that didn't get done while cooking. If I clean, I barely finish wiping up the last crumb at about bedtime and our kids have existed on cold cereal, toast or nothing (according to them) that day.... Oh, woe is me! And to make myself not feel whiney!!! Distressing!

I can't complain though....exactly why I can't still evades me but I'm sure I can think of something.

***Thinking.................thinking............thinking.............................................THINK, THINK, THINK!!!***

1. I have a darling baby...fussy, but darling!!!
2. Our other kids are becoming more and more helpful...and complain less and less when I ask them to help.
3. My husband spend 1 1/2 mos at home while laid off. I think he gets it how hard it is to keep up with especially so many littles...like shoveling when it's still snowing....and when you add in a very fussy baby....nearly impossible!
4. Ummm.....hard to think with all the chaos here! Our littlest toddler, our little fella, is extremely nice and gentle and loving to his baby sister. He looooves her and kisses her whenever he can....and he only kisses her on the head or forehead or top of cheek...so when he has a booger nose he doesn't infect her at least.
5. I have really been enjoying my big girls....my oldest two are a blast to bring to school every morning and we get some really good gab time in.
6. My two middle girls have really grown up since we started homeschooling. They are really responsible and dependable.
7. Our 1st grader also has shown some considerable changes since she started homeschooling this year. She was really full of outbursts much of last year and most of the summer. When we started the school year, she somehow has just mellowed out and is extremely diligent when it comes to doing her schoolwork. She wants to learn every day and works hard.

There, I really do have a lot to be thankful for! :)

Oh, yeah! AND we have a BLIZZARD coming...similar to the Halloween Blizzard of '91. Remember Kristin and Joni? We had such of a blast being snowed in with lots of friends and family! And when it came time to start shoveling our way out, remember how we could hardly even find the cars in the parking lot...seriously! I can't wait!!! :)