UPDATE -- (Moms Are Not Allowed to be Sick)

Off to the doctor again because Youngest who is about to have a birthday is having high fevers again this week and has missed more school -- obviously the amox isn't working. The doc is swamped today but called back in 45 mins and is concerned over him--and last week was first time she met him. Without my asking the doc says she has a strong antibiotic that is very expensive but that she has samples she will give me. Poor kid has a birthday party sleepover at our house in two days and no party last year so we will see what happens.
She is my doc too and was wonderful at my check up last week--why did I wait so long? Still hot flash city over here ... and traveling out of state on planes a couple days ago didn't help that!
You'd better believe that after I met this doc a few years ago I gave her a glowing review on Ratemds.com

Will post soon!



(Original post from 9/9/10 below)

I've been a little discombobulated this week but the good news is that today is the first day in almost a week that I have not had a headache. Over Labor Day Weekend I had some major hot flashes every single day (which have continued every single day, many, many times) and a hormonal headache. Not to mention weepiness. Very much like when you give birth and then your hormones go wacko and everything is fine but tears fall at anything. I went walking and vowed to take better care of me. I made a list of different doctor appts I needed to make, some that I had not seen in years. I researched hot flashes online and went to the store to buy Vit E, a Vitamin with B-6, B-12, Vit C, zinc and more all in one. And Black Cohosh for the heck of it.

My youngest son didn't feel too perky all weekend and Tuesday morning he said he felt awful. Seems he had a 100+ degree temp.....and I have been home with him ever since. It gets up to 102.5 every day, including today and off to the doctor we went. There is something in his chest and we got some meds. Poor guy missed his first baseball game and this is the first time he has coaches who asked him to pitch. I emailed his teachers again today and asked if they wanted to send home any schoolwork. I picked it up and....there is a huge stack of work to be done. I knew he worked hard every day and now I really know.

I did make a doctor's appt for myself tomorrow for full bloodwork....I don't know why I was putting it off except that I didn't want to sit there with muffin top and see the scale at 8 pounds higher than last time I was there.... I need to see the eye doctor and the dermo...it has been a few years as well.

Lots going on with these three boys. Let me just say that if I thought life was busy with two working parents and three children who have lots of school work and interests, and are on three different sports teams, and a husband who slept on his shoulder wrong who needed help getting dressed for past couple days and had to go to the orthopedic doc on Tuesday and have no relatives nearby to help with anything....just add a high schooler into the equation. I didn't know what busy was. More details to come.

Last week Hubs and Youngest were throwing the baseball in the front yard and a missing ball could not be found. I was trimming a rose bush and voila. I find this photo significant to my life:
And I have adored being home with him:

They have lots of vitamins and minerals, right?

“Cereal”.

(silence)

“Cereal”.

(silence)

(then a little louder):

“I want cereal”.

When my now 9^th grade son was a toddler, he’d stand by my side of the bed on Saturday and Sunday at about 5:45 a.m. and quietly say those words until my eyelids stared open long enough to wake up. We quickly taught him to recognize when a clock turned 7:00. When he got a little bigger we quickly learned to set a cup of milk in the fridge at our bedtime and a bowl of dry cereal ready for him to self-serve in the a.m. That worked out fine.

Now that he is in high school the bus picks him up the street at 6:30 a.m. and he is the first one up in the morning.

Sometimes he will have a bagel but most weekday mornings it’s cereal.

We are up to at least 4 gallons of milk a week for the three boys.

When I get home from the store, the boys unload the groceries. They told me we now have 12 boxes of cereal. I guess I go a little crazy when I have coupons and see the two-for-one sales.

This was a few days ago.


But now we are down to 6 boxes.

Full Moon in August

The full moon in August is called the Full Sturgeon Moon, as the Native Americans in the NE area did their best fishing then.

Still thinking of the good times my fish had last month.....
Amazing how all three of them built this fort for hours.....
I am in love with my sons' backs. What can I say?

Don't forget to look at the last moon of the summer of 2010 tonight!

Fast Food and Flowers

Does your Chick-Fil-A have fresh long-stemmed roses on every table? This Chick-Fil-A near us was closed for a little bit while undergoing some remodeling. The remodeling included building a double or triple-lane drive through.


The other day I went through the drive-through alone. I glanced up to order my chicken sandwich, fries and lemonade and was completely shocked to find not only a speaker, but a video screen with a Chick-Fil-A employee whose face took up the entire screen, smiling at me (albeit nervously) and repeating my order and stating the cost. I was startled--like--was this employee really sitting inside the restaurant for real? My next though was I wished I had my camera ready to take his picture. I'll definitely have to do that next time. It was weird, though. He was not at the window when I paid and picked up my food so I guess he is hidden.

BTW there is another Chick-Fil-A near us a few miles in the other direction. I sat there and ate one morning while waiting for an oil change nearby. No roses at this one, but a worker stopped by to offer to refill my coffee, or get me anything else, and took away my tray and trash. So, roses, table service.…sheesh, next thing you know this is where we’ll go on a date night. We’d even have enough money for a movie.

Anyway, here are some flowers in front of our house that have Loved the hot, hot summer. When we moved into our house, like many in the 25 year old neighborhood, there were holly bushes right up against the house. The older neighbors thought my Hubs was crazy, tearing them out and planting small groups of perennials. Now whenever I see big, thick, mature bushes right against a house, I always see a fauna makeover in my mind.

This is the first year we've been able to grow sunflowers. This one ended up too heavy and its head is flopped over from the weight now. But it's the only one of a few that deer didn't chomp off while it was a bud.


Speaking of sunflowers (seeds), baseball is starting up here . Soon our weekdays and Saturdays will be filled with sunflower seeds, Gatorade, bubble gum and Chick-Fil-A food, and maybe even more stories of the other parents!

It May Be Back to His and Hers Irons

We had to get a new clothes iron last September and I wrote about our marital dynamics over the iron here.

It has been a hectic week back to school and yesterday (Monday) was not a great day. I have barely needed to iron all summer long and if I did I just laid out a skirt or a shirt collar on the rug and ironed for about 30 seconds and was done. Hubs of course was on vacay all summer and no ironing was needed.With school back in session he has been getting out the ironing board in the morning to quickly iron pants. Yesterday I told him to leave it up for me (he leaves the house before I do). Big Mistake. Before I hopped in the shower I set up the iron on the ironing board and turned it on. About 7 minutes later I return to the bedroom and find the iron on the carpet, face down.

Here's the iron now:

Here's the carpet:



Melted carpet fibers in the traffic area of the bedroom. At least it is not black....it looks like someone spilled something. I guess I'll be buying a small area rug for our bedroom.

Hubs called me at about 4:30 p.m. He was heading out to do an errand and so I told him about the iron incident. He says, "Oh, I'm right by Target, I'll get a new one." The new one is called a Shark. Now, 20 years ago he would have reacted, but once you have 3 kids the incidents are way more frequent and some things just mellow out over the years. (Some things don't: Middle Schooler left the garage door wide open on Saturday for about 1.5 hours after we explicitly told him to close it before he left and use the front door. But no, he skate-boarded down the driveway and away to a park. He is now grounded. I hope the neighbors didn't hear all of the ranting about how the tools could have been stolen, the door to the kitchen is right there, etc.).

I noticed the new iron had a shiny silver bottom and not the dark Teflon kind and I commented on that. Hubs said he likes these better (I bought the last one last year). I think that Hubs really wanted a different iron anyway.

Boys. It’s What I Do

For the fifth year in a row we’ve taken our boys to Six Flags on the last day of summer vacation before back-to-school. It started as just our family of five and then grew into a get-together with another dad who’d walk around and get on some rides with the boys. We’ve had a system the past few years: I hang out alone with our youngest son who was not tall enough to ride the extreme rides and since I won’t get on those rides if you paid me large sums of cash, it worked for us. Hubs and I would coordinate meeting up at the entrance for lunch back in the parking lot (we bring a huge cooler with about 85 drinks and a picnic).

Well. A few things changed this year. First, take a look at this dad:

Looks healthy enough, right? Lifted that large cooler up into that vehicle. He is at week 5 post-op of appendix removal. Weeks 3 and 4 were spent in the salt water--feeling fine. Heard of how salt water is the cure for pimples, scabs and whatnot? Add laproscopic surgery to the list. But at week 5 back on land he doesn’t feel so great (and had much to do to get ready for his new students). And that other dad? He broke his leg horribly earlier this year falling off a ladder at his house—he would have gone—but I told him I’d just hang out with Youngest as the others were old enough to walk around like a gang on their own.

So, eight boys and me. We left at 9:15 a.m. and arrived home at 5:15 p.m. (here are 8 boys ready to go with some double-buckling action in the back seat):

I left Hubs written instructions on how to have dinner ready when I got home: cook beef stew in the crock pot, and what needed to be bought at Target and the grocery store.

The second thing that changed is that Youngest reached 54 inches this summer, which is the height requirement for ALL of the rides. Even Goliath, which lasts almost 3 minutes, is 4 stories high, goes 70 mph and the tram thing you sit on plunges practically straight down in the beginning of the ride. And he wanted to go on it, which means we would not be separate doing our own thing. In fact, once they let everyone in the park at 10:30 a.m. all the boys took off running for Goliath, youngest included, with me left in the dust. I pretty much just tagged along the whole day. We had the picnic I’d made at about 1:00 back at the closest parking lot.

(here are a couple of rides they did NOT go on and this is Six Flags last September when Atlanta flooded and many rides were under water).

Here is part of Goliath:

I did go on Thunder River, the rafting ride. At one point, bystanders can use these water guns near the waiting line from up above and blast water down at us riders. I got soaked and yelled at the people, “COME ON! I AM ONE LADY WITH 8 BOYS!!!” It wasn’t too bad though, being 97 degrees or so. But as one 14 year old put it, “It feels refreshing, but the water smells like butt.”

The day was a success and when we got home beef stew was ready in the crock pot. Hubs took one look at us and suggested we take a shower before dinner. I was included in that request. And, I am still worn out from all the walking.

The third thing that changed this year? We now have our three boys in three different schools—HIGH SCHOOL (!!!), middle school and elementary. My mornings are very long with three shifts: High schooler leaves for the bus at 6:20. Elem schooler leaves at 7:20, and middle schooler leaves at 8:40, and in-between all this I get ready and leave at 8:40 also. Hubs leaves at 7:10. As soon as I get used to these new mornings, then sports will start in the evenings….with three boys on three different teams. The crock pot has already been used three times this week.

(Monday morning at 6:15 a.m. on first day of....HIGH SCHOOL!!!! I ran up the street and gave him the extra cell phone to use for the day. I cried a little on the way home)

Other quotes heard on the last day before the start of school…..

“Well, let’s just say a diabetic needed his insulin after lunch” (said by a 13 yr old boy in jest after seeing needles and syringes on the ground at the Six Flags Parking Lot).

“Wow, I can feel my voice changing because it hurts my throat when it cracks” (said by my middle schooler to me).

“I told the grocery store cashier that my wife was going to kill me” (said by Hubs at dinner telling me how he forgot to use the coupons I left for him).

“Even though I go on all the rides now at Six Flags I will still be your baby” (told in private to me by Youngest. For reals. He knows my buttons.).

A Bad Day

This morning I was driving in my neighborhood with my 4^th grade son in the backseat and going about 25-30 miles per hour. Suddenly a dog ran in front of me into the narrow street from a yard on the left hand side of the street. I slammed on the brakes but I hit him.

I have never collided with an animal before. Not that time I was driving on the highway a flock of geese waddled across the interstate but they made it past my car in the nick of time. And weekly there are suicidal squirrels that dart into the residential streets and dodge my tires somehow. And there have been deer that have dashed in front of me in time.

But today it happened. As soon as I slammed on the brakes I felt the thud and was horrified, and then surprised to see the dog quickly upright again in front of my car and then he high-tailed it into a yard and went behind a fence I assumed. It was a 7-8 month old size of a dog that resembled a German shepherd mix. I got out of the car and didn’t see the dog anywhere. I looked at my front bumper and saw some spit and dirt on it (and no dents, no blood). When I got back into the car my son knew the details better than I did. He knew it had a red collar. He said as I was looking at my bumper he saw it dash in front of us again and went back to the side of the street from whence it came, and across a lawn and disappeared. I drove around the neighborhood (which consists of several streets) a little bit before going back home (we were on our way back home after being at the school to turn it forms and prior to my heading in to work).

Then I had to go to work but I drove around the neighborhood again and saw no one. Halfway to work I called home to remind the boys something (the two older boys were just getting up) and my oldest son told me he heard about the incident from his younger brother and said it might be the new dog of his friend (let’s call him Justin). Great. So I asked for Justin’s phone numbers (I know the parents from some phone conversations and baseball field chat and that time their son fell off a skateboard in front of our house and I bandaged him up better than the ER the mom told me later). No one answered the home phone or Justin’s cell phone. I then asked my oldest and youngest to walk a block away from our house to their house and just put them on the phone with me so I could talk to them. They did but no one answered the door. About an hour later no one at Justin's house was answering their phone still, so I asked my two sons to go back up the street and try again and just put me on the phone if they answer the door.

Well, this time the mom answered the door and my son told the mom what happened (he didn’t call me till he walked back home since it was good news for Justin’s family) and they saw their own dog sitting right there with a black collar and of course my youngest son confirmed it was not the dog I hit. The mom told my son that the same thing almost happened to her the other day with probably this same dog.

Anyway, I have not been to concentrate on anything else today although I have had to do lots of things today. I’ll probably have post-traumatic feelings later tonight. I’ll be walking around the neighborhood tonight to see if anyone knows anything. That dog has to be hurting and I feel really, really bad.