Well... the good news is Cocoa is back home now. He's hyper and cuddly and his old self again. What a relief! Vet says NO table scraps at all for him. We're still not sure exactly what happened. I didn't have to sell any of the kids to pay for the bill though so that's good. It was a very reasonable amount. ;-)
The bad news is that Middle Son *did* in fact break his arm. *sigh* Actually he fractured his Humerus bone up by his shoulder. The very good news is that they don't usually cast for this kind of break and since it's just a hairline fracture and not a complete break he'll only have to be in the sling. The fracture is aligned beautifully and the DR thinks he'll heal fine in 2-3 weeks - wow, the body is an amazing thing! Especially the unaged body. LOL I would have snapped my bone in two! ;-)
The even better news for Middle Son is that DR. H said he can go on any ride in the amusement park this Friday when we go. He was so worried he couldn't go on anything. DR. H said he may be a little sore but he won't injure his arm seriously unless he hangs by it, gets is pulled sharply, or falls far on top of it. This is good news since he's my rambuctious one. I wish I could give him Motrin all day long but I find that if I do that, he uses it too much and is sore later. So, the pain serves as kind of a guide for him on how much to use it. And it's not terrible pain, he's pretty much himself so that's good, he's a tough kid. I give him Motrin at night to help him find a good position to sleep in.
Would you believe that Middle Sons total DR bill (X-Rays included) was about HALF of my vet bill? LOL
Thanks for your thoughts & prayers!
J
Showing posts with label I will survive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I will survive. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
Yoga with children
OK so I'm really, really trying hard to get into my best shape. Partly because I really want to be around for a long time and well, to be honest, partly because 2 of my in-great-shape friends want to take me to Europe next Fall. It's an awesome opportunity I'm thrilled about but not as thrilled lying on the beach in between those too. LOL Of course, I don't NEED to look my best for anyone since my husband has never stopped thinking I was beautiful but I really want to for myself and for my health.
SO... one of the new routines I'm adding to my day is morning Yoga. My original plan was to get up before the darling little ones and have my morning coffee & breakfast bar, do a Bible study peacefully at the table watching the sunrise and then do my Yoga routine before cheerfully greeting my children as they wake with a hot breakfast awaiting. Yeah, I watched WAY too much Nick-at-Nite growing up. Damn Donna Reed and the delusions she's caused me. *sniff*
So into my world of color, my reality. I wake up with the kids and drink my coffee as they enjoy their instant oatmeal and I read through e-mail instead of being productive. Then I remember the Yoga tape and pop it in. My older daughter wants to try it too so I give her the spare mat and away we go. For the first 20mins the kids played in and out of the room and left us alone pretty much. Then my daughter got tired and gave up. I was the sole yoga survivor.
So, I'm attempting the Downward Facing Dog pose and all of a sudden I peer down my shirt from the collar (you are supossed to hang your head) and I see my 2yo peering in from the waist side and he says cheerfully, "Mum?!??". Mum is our word for nursing. *sigh* Yeah, weaning is going well.
So... onto the mediatation series. HA! I've learned 2 things. #1 I am EXTREMELY good at ignoring the rest of the world and focusing inward. & #2 My oldest son (10) finally has developed EMPATHY! WooHoo I didn't think it would ever happen folks! I didn't think they EVER developed that trait! But, as my 4yo DD was screaming in my ear that the 6yo hurt her (this is commonplace and I promise you it's almost always not as bad as she says and no, I do not normally ignore it), my 10yo came to my rescue. He reassured her and told her to "leave mommy alone, she's exercising". At this point I'm lying flat with my eyes closed deep in focus and I hear my 4yo, "Is she dead?" Then comes the Peoples' Elbow (not normally involved in Yoga). My 2yo was the elbow culprit but doggonit, I kept focus!
So, that's Yoga for ya, mommy style. I think when I'm 100 and I'm doing Yoga peacefully I will miss the chaos of today. Or maybe it will be my husband peering down my shirt unexpectantly when I do Yoga in those days. LOL
SO... one of the new routines I'm adding to my day is morning Yoga. My original plan was to get up before the darling little ones and have my morning coffee & breakfast bar, do a Bible study peacefully at the table watching the sunrise and then do my Yoga routine before cheerfully greeting my children as they wake with a hot breakfast awaiting. Yeah, I watched WAY too much Nick-at-Nite growing up. Damn Donna Reed and the delusions she's caused me. *sniff*
So into my world of color, my reality. I wake up with the kids and drink my coffee as they enjoy their instant oatmeal and I read through e-mail instead of being productive. Then I remember the Yoga tape and pop it in. My older daughter wants to try it too so I give her the spare mat and away we go. For the first 20mins the kids played in and out of the room and left us alone pretty much. Then my daughter got tired and gave up. I was the sole yoga survivor.
So, I'm attempting the Downward Facing Dog pose and all of a sudden I peer down my shirt from the collar (you are supossed to hang your head) and I see my 2yo peering in from the waist side and he says cheerfully, "Mum?!??". Mum is our word for nursing. *sigh* Yeah, weaning is going well.
So... onto the mediatation series. HA! I've learned 2 things. #1 I am EXTREMELY good at ignoring the rest of the world and focusing inward. & #2 My oldest son (10) finally has developed EMPATHY! WooHoo I didn't think it would ever happen folks! I didn't think they EVER developed that trait! But, as my 4yo DD was screaming in my ear that the 6yo hurt her (this is commonplace and I promise you it's almost always not as bad as she says and no, I do not normally ignore it), my 10yo came to my rescue. He reassured her and told her to "leave mommy alone, she's exercising". At this point I'm lying flat with my eyes closed deep in focus and I hear my 4yo, "Is she dead?" Then comes the Peoples' Elbow (not normally involved in Yoga). My 2yo was the elbow culprit but doggonit, I kept focus!
So, that's Yoga for ya, mommy style. I think when I'm 100 and I'm doing Yoga peacefully I will miss the chaos of today. Or maybe it will be my husband peering down my shirt unexpectantly when I do Yoga in those days. LOL
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Feels like Egypt around here
At the time of the plagues that is. Lately it's been quite common to be sweeping or mopping the floor and come across one or two or three jumping frogs and toads. I don't know how Middle Son smuggles them in so ingeniously, I don't think I even want to know. I just know when he's coming back in the house he has this "I-did-something-bad" face on. But try as I might, I even frisked him once, I just can not find the toads/frogs! So, we'll deal with the occassional jumping creature, at least he's not smuggling in locusts. ;-)
OK so those of you that have known me for at least 4 years know what fun my Middle Son was as a baby. He liked to eat things. Especially things that weren't supossed to be eaten like pennies and medicine and carpet cleaning fluids. :-/ He also liked to climb high and too many times fall high. Oldest Son was like this too but he calmed down so much as he grew that it seems like a faint blurry memory. We have been to the ER with the first 2 boys at least 5 times combined. Probably more. My girls had their share of scary times but it was more natural things like ear infections & high fevers.
Enter Baby T. I'm not quite sure why I was given so many daredevil children but I'm not going to question God on it. I'm grateful for them all and love them more than anything but well, I am banking on a lot of gray this year.
The other night while I was cooking dinner Baby T and my 3yo were playing with the oversized rocks and gems I keep in a large coffee can. They like to sort them and count them and make up games with them. For some reason the scoop I have in there for the kids was a small glass bowl, like the kind you keep Betta fish in. You know that saying "Hindsight is 20/20"? Yeah, it's a bitch sometimes isn't it?
So he's standing on the chair with my 3yo DD playing nicely. I have my back to them cooking at the stove. I turn around to check on them just in time to see baby T fall off the chair with the bowl in his hand. I run over to him and pick him up and immediately see the stream of blood splattering onto the floor. I do what any self respected concerned mother would do, scream for DH (who has had prior medical training) to get in there. Now I'm good in emergencies, only if I'm the only one there. Otherwise I gladly give the medical reigns over to DH and I become The Nurturer. DH takes ones look and says he's going to need stitches, I try to make the room stop spinning. Thank God my dad is here because he was able to clean up the mess, finish dinner and watch the kids so we could go to the ER.
So let me fast forward through the waiting. We got great doctors and nurses for the most part. When they put in the stitches he cried but laid perfectly still. He was a trooper. Six stitches later DH is insisting I buy all kinds of pain meds for him at the store. I'm trying to tell him I don't think the baby is going to even miss a beat tomorrow but DH is thinking in terms of us adults and how much this would have affected us. Sure enough, by the next morning the baby hardly even mentions his "owie" and has adapted to use his forearm to climb up the playground instead of his hand. THey are simply amazing! The only time he gets upset is when we unwrap it to clean it he says "BUGGY! BUGGY!" because he thinks his stitches are bugs I'm assuming. LoL He really is a trooper.
When we followed up with the DR the first thing he said was "So this little guy is giving you a run for your money eh?" and I told him if he was anything like his brothers he hasn't seen the last of him.
OK so those of you that have known me for at least 4 years know what fun my Middle Son was as a baby. He liked to eat things. Especially things that weren't supossed to be eaten like pennies and medicine and carpet cleaning fluids. :-/ He also liked to climb high and too many times fall high. Oldest Son was like this too but he calmed down so much as he grew that it seems like a faint blurry memory. We have been to the ER with the first 2 boys at least 5 times combined. Probably more. My girls had their share of scary times but it was more natural things like ear infections & high fevers.
Enter Baby T. I'm not quite sure why I was given so many daredevil children but I'm not going to question God on it. I'm grateful for them all and love them more than anything but well, I am banking on a lot of gray this year.
The other night while I was cooking dinner Baby T and my 3yo were playing with the oversized rocks and gems I keep in a large coffee can. They like to sort them and count them and make up games with them. For some reason the scoop I have in there for the kids was a small glass bowl, like the kind you keep Betta fish in. You know that saying "Hindsight is 20/20"? Yeah, it's a bitch sometimes isn't it?
So he's standing on the chair with my 3yo DD playing nicely. I have my back to them cooking at the stove. I turn around to check on them just in time to see baby T fall off the chair with the bowl in his hand. I run over to him and pick him up and immediately see the stream of blood splattering onto the floor. I do what any self respected concerned mother would do, scream for DH (who has had prior medical training) to get in there. Now I'm good in emergencies, only if I'm the only one there. Otherwise I gladly give the medical reigns over to DH and I become The Nurturer. DH takes ones look and says he's going to need stitches, I try to make the room stop spinning. Thank God my dad is here because he was able to clean up the mess, finish dinner and watch the kids so we could go to the ER.
So let me fast forward through the waiting. We got great doctors and nurses for the most part. When they put in the stitches he cried but laid perfectly still. He was a trooper. Six stitches later DH is insisting I buy all kinds of pain meds for him at the store. I'm trying to tell him I don't think the baby is going to even miss a beat tomorrow but DH is thinking in terms of us adults and how much this would have affected us. Sure enough, by the next morning the baby hardly even mentions his "owie" and has adapted to use his forearm to climb up the playground instead of his hand. THey are simply amazing! The only time he gets upset is when we unwrap it to clean it he says "BUGGY! BUGGY!" because he thinks his stitches are bugs I'm assuming. LoL He really is a trooper.
When we followed up with the DR the first thing he said was "So this little guy is giving you a run for your money eh?" and I told him if he was anything like his brothers he hasn't seen the last of him.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Not exactly Moses but we parted something...
So yesterday I went to a craft store with my kids. I had a stepping stones craft session with friends that night and needed supplies. I don't usually even bat an eye taking my kids places. My middle son has an tendency to throw fits every so often for not getting a toy (we hardly ever buy things!) if he's tired. But even that's rare anymore. So I happily trotted into the craft store not knowing I was stepping into a nightmare.
It started out innocently enough. We visited the bathroom first. My 3yo dd decided to get upset way too fast that we passed the water fountains without allowing her to drink. I told her not to cry, that we could easily give her a drink if she just asks. She did and we took her back and all was right with the world again. In hindsight, I should have taken that minor tantrum as a clue. So we walked on and I'm reading a (fiction mystery) book about art pigments and whatnot so I took them down the art aisle and we spent some time looking at all the different styles of paintings and we guessed which ones were paintings and which were photographs. I told my 9yo how there was speculation about Van Gogh licking his paintbrushes and getting poisoned by the toxic chemicals in his paints. That could be a reason for his mental illness and odd perspections in his later works (halos around the stars in Starry Nights for example). We covered art right there in the store. ;-)
So things were going fine. We headed down the models aisle at my middle sons request and spent some time looking at planes, trains, & automobiles. We talked a lot and just had minor annoyances of being asked to buy random things Middle Son was looking at. I reach the aisle that has the things I need for the Stepping Stone.
I don't even remember how it started. But do remember vividly how it ended. I just recall at one point telling my 3yo dd (the first to throw a fit this time) that she was to get out of the cart NOW so we could leave. She took this as a cue to scream louder. *sigh* Let me tell you something folks. When you're the lone adult with 5 small ones there is no fast escape. I handed the baby to dd7 for a second so I could get dd3 out of the cart. Baby T did NOT like this one bit and proceeded to scream at the top of HIS lungs. It was starting to sound like a duet until Middle Son decided he wanted part of this concert. As I'm lifting wailing dd3 out of the cart and onto my hip Middle Son asks me if he could get a toy. A stern "NO" is all it took and then the screeching duo turned into a Trio. So I hoisted the baby back on my other hip, ignored my poor older 2 kids questions about buying what we had in the cart and started walking.
So, there we were. A sight to be seen. As the crowd parted (yeah, it was quite busy of course) and stared I couldn't help but think about Moses and giggle internally. Everytime I passed a concerned person (one that didn't have that "I've been there" stare in their eye) I'd say something like "I'm sorry guys but we just can't continue shopping if you insist on screaming" Just so that they'd know I wasn't kidnapping these children. I've never heard dd3 scream like that in public and combined with Middle Son (baby T calmed down the minute I took him back) it was just not a fun experience.
Thank God for natural herbs like St. Johns Wort that's all I can say! I had started taking them 3 days earlier and I could really see how well they were working. As I lifted the crying ones into the car I realized how embarrassed and angry I was. But, it was as if I was looking outside of myself analyzing it. I felt distant from the emotions. Distant enough to act calmly and rationaly, something I don't always do unfortunately.
So, after everyone was strapped in I explained sternly but calmly how I will never tolerate that behaviour while shopping. That even if the cart was FULL, we would leave it just like we did today and come home with nothing. I figured natural consequences were punishment enough. I have a feeling they'll be little angels for awhile in public anyway. ;-)
As for my 7 & 9yo, I later thanked them for being so calm and compliant and wonderful in such a difficult situation. It's got to be rough for them sometimes too.
So share your hideous public moments with children and make me feel better will ya? ;-)
It started out innocently enough. We visited the bathroom first. My 3yo dd decided to get upset way too fast that we passed the water fountains without allowing her to drink. I told her not to cry, that we could easily give her a drink if she just asks. She did and we took her back and all was right with the world again. In hindsight, I should have taken that minor tantrum as a clue. So we walked on and I'm reading a (fiction mystery) book about art pigments and whatnot so I took them down the art aisle and we spent some time looking at all the different styles of paintings and we guessed which ones were paintings and which were photographs. I told my 9yo how there was speculation about Van Gogh licking his paintbrushes and getting poisoned by the toxic chemicals in his paints. That could be a reason for his mental illness and odd perspections in his later works (halos around the stars in Starry Nights for example). We covered art right there in the store. ;-)
So things were going fine. We headed down the models aisle at my middle sons request and spent some time looking at planes, trains, & automobiles. We talked a lot and just had minor annoyances of being asked to buy random things Middle Son was looking at. I reach the aisle that has the things I need for the Stepping Stone.
I don't even remember how it started. But do remember vividly how it ended. I just recall at one point telling my 3yo dd (the first to throw a fit this time) that she was to get out of the cart NOW so we could leave. She took this as a cue to scream louder. *sigh* Let me tell you something folks. When you're the lone adult with 5 small ones there is no fast escape. I handed the baby to dd7 for a second so I could get dd3 out of the cart. Baby T did NOT like this one bit and proceeded to scream at the top of HIS lungs. It was starting to sound like a duet until Middle Son decided he wanted part of this concert. As I'm lifting wailing dd3 out of the cart and onto my hip Middle Son asks me if he could get a toy. A stern "NO" is all it took and then the screeching duo turned into a Trio. So I hoisted the baby back on my other hip, ignored my poor older 2 kids questions about buying what we had in the cart and started walking.
So, there we were. A sight to be seen. As the crowd parted (yeah, it was quite busy of course) and stared I couldn't help but think about Moses and giggle internally. Everytime I passed a concerned person (one that didn't have that "I've been there" stare in their eye) I'd say something like "I'm sorry guys but we just can't continue shopping if you insist on screaming" Just so that they'd know I wasn't kidnapping these children. I've never heard dd3 scream like that in public and combined with Middle Son (baby T calmed down the minute I took him back) it was just not a fun experience.
Thank God for natural herbs like St. Johns Wort that's all I can say! I had started taking them 3 days earlier and I could really see how well they were working. As I lifted the crying ones into the car I realized how embarrassed and angry I was. But, it was as if I was looking outside of myself analyzing it. I felt distant from the emotions. Distant enough to act calmly and rationaly, something I don't always do unfortunately.
So, after everyone was strapped in I explained sternly but calmly how I will never tolerate that behaviour while shopping. That even if the cart was FULL, we would leave it just like we did today and come home with nothing. I figured natural consequences were punishment enough. I have a feeling they'll be little angels for awhile in public anyway. ;-)
As for my 7 & 9yo, I later thanked them for being so calm and compliant and wonderful in such a difficult situation. It's got to be rough for them sometimes too.
So share your hideous public moments with children and make me feel better will ya? ;-)
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