Tuesday, November 29, 2011

I’m Baaack!

I hope your Thanksgiving holiday was as great as mine. We had a fabulous time in Galveston. We kicked it off Tuesday, oh yes – Tuesday. We were supposed to leave Wednesday, and I was in the mind-set to leave then but The Hubs came home around 2:30 Tuesday afternoon and announced we were leaving. Thankfully I had already packed the kids bags, but this meant that my clothes and The Hubs clothes were kind of just thrown in and away we went. He does this to me every time we go anywhere, I should be prepared by now, but for some reason I am never ready for his “Let’s leave a day early” craziness he puts me through. Thankfully the only thing we forgot was his OTC meds, like melatonin (that was fun when we arrived at the hotel that night and discovered no sleepy pills for him, which I was totally blamed for.) And his heartburn meds was left behind (my fault as well).
So we got no more than fifteen miles down the road and the storm of the century hit. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that bad but it was ugly. We trudged 140 miles through visibility that was 10 yards at most in traffic where we were pretty sure nearly 90% of the other drivers were suicidal. It wasn’t pretty. So in Baton Rouge we decided to find shelter. We got a nice big suite at a brand new Holiday Inn Express with 2 beds plus a sleeper sofa. We all climbed into bed only to have the kids fight over the sleeper sofa. Oh no – it wasn’t who was GOING to sleep in it but rather who HAD to sleep in it. “I wanna sleep with mamma.” “You always get to sleep with mamma! It’s my turn!” “I love my mamma!” “Not as much as I do!”
Yea, I should feel super-duper loved but I just wanted to get some rest. It was finally decided: boys in one bed, girls in the other. It worked. I got settled in nice and comfy, ready to drift off into dreamland when the buzzsaw started. My husband snores, and when I say snores what I wanna  do it mix the words “snore” and “roar” together because that’s what he does. It’s horrible. So I laid there and listened to him and mentally poked voodoo pins into a voodoo doll of him. Around midnight, suffering from complete delirium I said “So help me, if you don’t stop that snoring I will go get my own room. Now shut it!!!” I’m not sure if I worked magic or if he was just too scared to go back to sleep but he didn’t snore anymore.
I was up by 5:30 in the morning and ready to get on the road. We changed routes and decided to take the ferry over to Galveston Island. So. Much. Fun. The kids flipped out. It took about 20 minutes and the whole time dolphins were swimming all around the boat. It was great.
So we got to the beach house. The cousins were already waiting for our kiddos. They hit the beach and had a blast. It was windy and chilly, but that didn’t stop them from getting soaking wet, with all their clothes on. Thank goodness the house had an outside shower downstairs, cuz let me tell ya, we wore that shower out!
The house is gorgeous, just beautiful. Here’s a pic with KK headed up to it:

(A huge thank you to Grandpa Ken and Jo! We love you and are so grateful for your generosity!)
Every morning we would walk the beach in search of shells. And without fail there would be 20 or so bright blue jelly fish washed up on the beach:


Thanksgiving was great. We had a feast!
On Friday we took the kids to the Rainforest CafĂ© for lunch and afterwards they rode the boat ride. Then they shopped in the store. Jon discovered the Build-A-Bear workshop that was there. I’m not sure they have ever even seen a Build-A-Bear store. He was amazed. He immediately picked out a frog and announced we needed to “make a frog”. One of the workers came over, and I have to really give them props - they were great. They had Jon pick out a heart, talk to the heart, rub it and put it in the frog, and then they let him push the pedal to the fluff machine while they filled the frog. They “sewed” him up, and sent him over to bath and scrub his frog, then clothe him and name him and make him a birth certificate. Jon picked out camo clothes for this frog who he named “Froggie”, as well as camo boxer shorts.
Well, KK was A-Maz-ed!!! She NEEDED one to. I don’t blame her; with all this I wanted one too. KK picked out a penguin. The guy who worked there was just as awesome with her. She went through all the motions of cleaning up her penguin, and brushing her up, picked out clothes, named her “Happy Feet” (yea, original I know – but she’s only 5) and made a birth certificate.
After this we hit the Strand, which is a big shopping place. And guess what? Palace horses!


That’s what KK called them. Too funny! I love that girlie-girl!
We had a great visit with Jack, Gloria, Jill, Richie (Or Rickie as my kids insist on calling him) Eric and Joshua.  A storm blew in Saturday so we headed back a day early (yes, driving again in the rain –fun!). And this time when we stopped for the night I warned The Hubs “If you snore tonight and ruin my sleep I will mess you up!” He still snored but I just jabbed him in the side and he’d stop. Magic!


Monday, November 21, 2011

I’m not proud of my outbursts, well not usually

I try not to lose my cool. I am not proud of myself when I do. But here lately I have been teetering on the edge of insanity with these kids. It’s Thanksgiving break and they are already driving me bonkers. Seriously.
Thursday was their last day of school, so basically they have ten days off. I remember back when I was in school, we got four days; Thanksgiving Day, that Friday and then the weekend. When did it leap to ten whole days? Ludicrous I tell ya.
And with Jon recovering from his surgery he isn’t supposed to go play outside, and we aren’t supposed to have kids over – you know, germs and all. So it’s like we are in prison and we’re all driving each other nuts.
Plus, we are on a countdown to leaving to Galveston to spend Thanksgiving with The Hubs’ parents. SO EXCITED! I can hardly wait, and neither can the kids. So that doesn’t help one bit.
But, anyway, the kids are getting a bit testy with each other, and now they trying to pull “get out of my room” and “I only want to play with one of you and I want to exclude the other one” and the best one yet “to get into my room you have to have a password”. This is The Boy’s favorite, and he is only telling my oldest daughter the password which is reducing my youngest daughter to tears, which I could pass off as just life and having siblings but she is also the one that is being excluded. So – yea – no fun for her. And I can feel her pain since I was the youngest in our family as well.
So, and again I am not proud of this outburst, after hearing for the billionth time this morning that The Youngest did not have the proper password in order to enter The Boy’s room where he and his older sister was watching a movie, and after watching her hang her head and walk away from the door slowly I saw red.
“Hey! Ya wanna know what MY password for the whole house is?” I bellowed out. “My password is 'there are no more passwords or you’re gonna get your butt whooped', that’s what it is.”
Jon looked at me for maybe three seconds and said “That’s probably the best password EVER! I’m using that one!”
On a side note, all three kiddos are in his room watching tv happily, so I kinda feel like I won.     

Saturday, November 19, 2011

They’re using my words against me!

Hannah and KK are sitting at the table; I am in the laundry room folding clothes though I can clearly hear what they are saying. KK says “I’m getting hungry, guess I’ll go ask the maid to make me something to eat.” Next thing I know she pokes her head in the laundry room and says “Mom can you make me something to eat?”
“Sorry, dear, I’m a bit busy here with the laundry. How ‘bout you go ask the maid to make you something, mmmmkay?”
“Oh. Well, you always say ‘guess I have to do it since it’s the maid’s day off’ when the house is a mess or something needs cleaned.”
That’s it, I’m censoring everything I say, The Youngest is using my words against me.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Pitiful, Just Pitiful

Jon’s tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy went great. The whole procedure lasted about 15 minutes, he went back around 7:30 and was out by 7:45.
Ok, first let me back up – at our pre-op appointment with Dr. Hodges, as we were leaving I was totally expecting the whole “See you tomorrow” and a wave, but no – not this doc. He sat down, looked me in the eye and said “I promise you I will give him the best possible care I can. I will treat him as if he were my own son, Ms. Matthews. I just want to assure you that.” I was shocked and touched. No other doctor in the past for any other surgery had ever done this. It meant the world to me. I would love to send out a mass letter to every single doctor out there and say “Hey, listen up! This – this right here, what this doctor did – it took no more than one minute, but it brought me to tears and put my mind at ease. It also made me a huge fan.”
Ok, now back to the surgery, everything went great and they were prepping him for going home (they released him at noon) and they were telling us what he could eat and what was on the “definitely do not eat” list. One of those “do not eat” items was bacon. The Boy loves his bacon. He adores it. He would eat it every day if he could. Tragic.
So today Jon was craving a strawberry shake and I promised him Sonic shakes and slushies anytime he wanted one. So as we were grabbing a shake he mentioned that he really, really, really wanted a new Halo Lego vehicle to put together. *sigh* I’m a sucker for this kid.
We ran in and grabbed a really cool one that he had eyes on for quite some time (plus grabbed some goodies for the girls), and then went to stand in line. We had our stuff up on the belt, but it was only a few items, so the lady behind me began putting her groceries up on it. First item up: BACON.  (also, the lady in front of me was writing a check and was having a difficult time, so we were in for a wait!) Jon saw the bacon and gasped, grabbing my arm and pointing to the yumminess.
“Mom, look, baaaaaaacon. I remember when we used to eat bacon. I love it so much. Will we ever eat it again mom? Will we?”
The lady looked at me with shock and pity, almost like she thought I couldn’t afford to feed my child, but before I could laugh it off or answer Jon, the Boy sighed so dang loud saying “BAAAAAACOOOOOON!”
By now the ladies jaw had dropped.
“Sorry,” I said. “He loves bacon, but he had his adenoids and tonsils taken out yesterday so bacon or anything scratchy is off the menu right now.”
Relief swept over her face. “Oh!”
I then looked at Jon, “Yes, you’ll be able to have bacon again. In two weeks to be exact.”
But still, I could not have left soon enough.

Monday, November 14, 2011

We're Ready for the Next Surgery!

Jon has his surgery on Wednesday; this morning I got a phone call from the Woodall Lowery Outpatient Surgery Center where Jon will have his surgery. She just wanted to touch base and go over his medical history. She also said, since all the centers were computer linked with the clinics and hospitals in the area that they get an alert if a patient has been in the ER in the past 30 days and she noticed Jon had been to Wesley Medical Center’s ER on the 3rd. Why, yes, yes he had, I informed her.
We went over everything and it does look like he will be able to go ahead and get his tonsils and adenoids removed as planned. She was a very nice lady, with great bed-side-manners. Though I think I caught her a bit off-guard when she asked about his weight.
The conversation went like this:
Nurse: Mmmmm-kay, and he’s 4 foot 2 inches tall?
Me: Yep.
Nurse: And, let’s see here…… oh, that can’t be right. We have his weight at 50 pounds.
Me: No, that’s the right weight.
*crickets chirping*
Nurse: Does he any other medical problems that we aren’t aware of?
Me: Dysfunctional taste buds that only allow him to eat McDonald’s chicken nuggets and Ramen noodles.
Nurse: I didn’t mean it like that. I am so sorry. It’s just that ….. Wow, he must be a skinny boy.
Me: No worries, and yes – he is quite skinny.

After I hung up I giggled a bit, I’m sure she will word her conversations differently from now on. She did not offend me one bit. He is skinny. He does need to put some weight on those bones. But, quite frankly, Jon is perfect just the way he is!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Parenthood + Surgery = Putting Your Kids First and Dealing With It!

So, my surgery date was November 3rd and everything was going great, Jon had been super-duper sick but had gotten all better (he is scheduled to have his tonsils and adenoids removed next week). After trick-or-treating on Halloween he did have a mild asthma attack (minus 25 cool points to me for forgetting his inhaler), but he got through it. Then Wednesday, the day before my surgery the school called and says “he’s coughing so much that he’s gagging and throwing up.” Awesome! I picked him up and his health quickly plummeted. His fever spiked up to 100.7, not bad but not great and his wheezing was HORRENDOUS!!!! I was giving him breathing treatments as much as medically advisable. 8:00 p.m. rolled around and I loaded up the girls to go spend the night at Ms. Stacey’s, who would then take them to school in the morning (a huge “thank you” to her) without my boy in tow. We hoped and prayed Jon would magically be healed and we could run him over to her house before I went to check in at the hospital at 6 the next morning. That didn’t happen.
We showered and got ready for bed, he climbing into bed with Corey since we had already made up Jon’s room for me as “Mom’s Recovery Room” and I climbed into Jon’s bed, but I just lay there and listened to him coughing more and more, the wheezing became more and more evident. It wasn’t long before Corey poked his head in the door and said “We need to head to the ER”. I jumped out of bed and said “My thoughts exactly!”
Wesley Medical is a great hospital here in Hattiesburg. We love them. They are thoughtful and observant and, well, private. They took Jon immediately to a “cardiac room” and Corey and I knew we were in for a doozie of a night. His oxygen sats were hovering around 90%, they would give him a treatment, the sats would zoom up to 98 maybe even 99 but within three minutes of the treatments ending his sats would be right back down to 90%.
His x-rays showed haziness but no pneumonia. Good but not-so-good. The ER Doc said we had moved from “seasonal asthma” to “full-blown-asthma” and that we needed to see a specialist. After several more breathing treatments and some steroids we were released ….. it was almost 3:30 a.m. We went home and slept for one hour, and then we got up and headed back to Wesley Medical for my surgery.
At 6:00 a.m. I checked in for my surgery and was promptly taken back to prep, with my husband and son in tow. They sat in Pre-Op with me as I got into my gown, got my IV started, got counseled by anesthesiologists, chatted with my doctor who would perform my surgery (telling him about our adventurous night), and at 7:30 I was rolled back for surgery. During the 2 hours that I was under they went to the little coffee shop and tried to stay awake. At 9:30 their smiling faces were the first thing I saw before demanding drugs, then my doctor came in, I asked how long I would be in recovery and he said “until 2:30”. I told my husband to take Jon home and sleep, they did not resist.
At exactly 2:30 p.m. his head popped back in the curtains of post-op, and following him were my nurses who took me to the third floor to my private room, where I was situated and informed I was on a liquid diet. Awesome. I sent Corey downstairs to Starbucks for a mocha, God love the man - he immediately went and got me one.
At 3:30 p.m. Corey and Jon left to pick up the girls, promising to come back in a bit with the touchpad so I’d have something to do that night just in case I got bored. Only, sometimes plans don’t work out the way we want them to. Corey was just too tired. It’s okay, I told him, I’ll be fine.
I told the kids how much I loved them and promised to see them the next day when they got home from school. They were crying. I had never not been there. They may have gone and spent the night somewhere else, but “mom” had never been absent from the home except to give birth to the kiddos. So it was hard on them, for that I am sorry.
I slept off and on. Checked FaceBook. Went to the bathroom a lot (the doc ok’ed my catheter to be removed around 5:00 that day, so WOOHOO!). My nurse was super great. She came in and checked on me and finally came in and just sat and we had a great conversation. That was nice.
My doctor was back by 7:30 the next morning and declared me fit to go home, so by the time Corey got there after 8:00 I was ready, all I had to do was eat some breakfast and change clothes. That was easy. What wasn’t so easy? THE WALK TO THE CAR!!!! I thought it’d be like when I had my babies and they rolled me to the front door in a wheelchair and my husband would pull up to the front door and help me into the vehicle. Yea, not so much. The nurse comes in and says “I’ll walk with you to your car.”
Yea, but we’re on the third floor and he parked in the parking garage. Crap.
But I did it!
We got home and I got situated in my recovery room. Jon got to go on the field trip to the Petrified Forest (along with Hannah).
I huge THANK YOU goes out to Susan for bringing us dinner. If you live in the Hattiesburg area please check out What’s For Supper. It’s delicious food. Seriously.
And I’m on the mend. No news on any lab results. Jon has his surgery on Wednesday and I get my stitches out on Thursday. Keep your fingers crossed for us!  Thanks for sending good thoughts our way!