So the last post about preschool group was scheduled.
What was NOT scheduled was me canceling preschool group due to my kids being up all night sick. Reese had a fever of 101.4 this morning and Q was coughing so bad that she threw up.
Gross.SO
BACK to the pediatrician we went. I think I hold a regular time slot there on Monday's now...or at least I feel like I do.
Dr. There's Nothing Wrong With Your Child: Well...what's the problem with Reese
this time?
Meg: Um. She's still sick. They both are, actually, but I only made an appointment for Reese this time, since last time I payed for two appointments to be told there's nothing wrong with them.
Dr. There's Nothing Wrong With Your Child: Hmmm... ok, well does she have any symptoms of illness this time?
Meg: the same symptoms she had last time. Fever. Coughing. Psycho-ness. Is that a symptom? It usually means an ear infection in our house.
Dr. There's Nothing Wrong With Your Child: Let's take a look...
The verdict? EAR INFECTION. Someone get me my Harvard Med School Diploma please.
THEN Quincy started to cough up a lung and he suggested giving her a breathing treatment.
Meg: Yes, if you recall, I SUGGESTED giving her Xoponex at our last visit, but you said that it wouldn't do any good, because she had allergy induced croup, and NOT an infection in her lungs.
Dr. There's Nothing Wrong With Your Child: Hmmm...she sounds pretty wheezy now. Let's just do a treatment here, see if it helps her lungs, and if it does I'll write her a Rx.
Meg: an antibiotic? (music to my ears after last week) sounds great.
Of COURSE the nebulizer helped, so we got a prescription. Doc claims her immune system was weakened and this is an entirely NEW illness, which is why he didn't give her meds last week.
Whatever. I won't be back to see him, anyway. Time for a new doctor. After the treatment, and 2 prescriptions later, we check out.
They
BILLED me for an appointment for Q also! I mean, it's good, because I left with a Rx and her ears are full of fluid, so this saved me a trip back in 2 days when they are infected, but really? charged for two kids, when I was there a week ago only to be told "they're FINE" when clearly they were now? It's not like I ASKED for her to be treated. AND we have a box FULL of breathing treatments and a nebulizer at home. Now I get to pay for the Xoponex they gave her in the clinic
and use of their nebulizer.
lame. I think I am cursed. I don't know what I did to piss off the Pharmacy gods, but I am truly sorry.
We went to Sams Club to fill the prescriptions this time, to avoid the drama and hassle that went down last week at the Wal-Mart pharmacy.Lunch with Dad, a traumatic experience involving my 4yr old and an automatic flushing toilet, and like a zillion chocolate muffin samples later, Rx's filled.
....WITH HORSE PILLS for Q, and Capsules for R.What 2 and 4 yr olds do YOU know that can swallow a pill the size of a nickel? I'm just glad I thought to look in the bag.
Here we go again...Meg: Um, excuse me, but these are pills.
Tiny Pharmacist with glasses the size of her face on the tip of her nose: Yes. This
is a pharmacy. That's the general idea.
hahahaha (fake laughing)
Meg: ???! (my-my! she was an angry elf!) Yes, but my children are 2 and 4. The prescriptions I gave you are from a pediatrician and have their Date Of Birth on the top of the slip. Do you carry amoxicillin in an oral suspension?
Angry Elf: If you wanted an oral suspension, you should have said so. It's almost lunchtime. There is no way we'll be able to get a hold of your pediatrician today to confirm that it needs to be in a suspension.
Can't you just FORCE your children to take pills? Smash them up or something.
Meg: yeah, she's TWO. I can't get her to even eat PEANUT BUTTER or bananas right now, so I'm thinking that shoving a giant pill down her throat isn't gonna fly.
Angry Elf: You should tell her it is medicine and that it will make that cough go away so she can feel better. THEN she will take the pills.
Meg: I could tell her they are chocolate coated jelly beans and she isn't going to touch them. And I'm not going to try. If the medicine is the same, why does my doctor need to specify whether is is in a pill or a liquid form? Can I just have my Rx back to fill somewhere else?
I already knew the answer to that question before I asked it. But, it DID irritate the Angry Elf enough to push her glasses back up over her eyes and call my doctor.
Angry Elf: He's willing to make the change for you. It will be ready in an hour.
Another hour?
Kids: crying.
Me: irritated.
Aaron is going ot pick up the meds on his way home from work. We came home to take a nap.
I am SO SO SO tired of having sick kids and having to deal with doctors.
I almost don't care though.
Today is STILL a fantastic day.
FABULOUS actually.
You might even say..."It's a BEAUTIFUL DAY..."
Why???
We have tickets to see U2 LIVE in Dallas, baby! That's why.
October will be a
wonderful month.
Jeff and Laurie...want some visitors? How about 5? (wow. will I really have a 5 person household, soon?! Look out Brady Bunch)
Yay.I'm going to go take a nap now, and get fired up for Round II of the grouchies when my poor sickies wake up.
Sometimes I start kissing these cheeks and I don't think I can stop.
e you realize that you are even awake, you are halfway down the hall to check on your babies....who are both, of course, HYSTERICAL. UN-CONSOLABLE. We did our best, and after everyone was calm, the storm raged on and no one was going to go back to sleep. Finally, I grabbed a pillow, put Q in bed with R, climbed in beside them, and wrapped my arms around them until the rain and wind and flashing lights and thunder that shook the house stopped. (3 1/2 hours later).
These are ideal for anyone who lives in an apartment or condo and doesn't have space for a "real" vegetable garden. They're also great for people who travel or don't have a green thumb and want to avoid the hassle of remembering to water and care for their vegetables more than once every few weeks. I made 6 of them, just so I can have more space in my garden beds this year. I want to attempt to can dill pickles this year, so I'm going to need a lot of space in the beds for the cucumbers.
You will need:
Electric Drill 
Jerushia, my lovely assistant, you did a fabulous job! This photo can be your proof to Dan that you did your own buckets.
Cut your pipe so it will be long enough to reach all the way to the bottom of the outside bucket, and stick out the top of the lid with a few extra inches. You want the part of the pipe that will be in the water to be cut on a 45* angle, so the water can run out easily. Put the pipe in the bucket, then the lid on the pipe. Place a cap over the top of the pipe to prevent mosquitoes from making a home in your water reservoir.
tie a knot in your rope and place it in the hole so the knot is sitting at the bottom of the inside bucket, and there is a "tail" hanging below to the bottom of the outside bucket. This will act as a wick and carry water up from the water reservoir into your soil.
The best thing to put in the buckets is potting mix, because there is vermiculite in it to keep the potted soil from becoming too dense or too moist. Since potting mix is $8 a bag, I made my own using the soil from our garden beds. (Don't worry MOM, I used a wheelbarrow. No more lifting 40 lb bags for this prig lady. But in my defense I've been so sick for so long that it feels nice to just be outside in the dirt.) Our beds have a mixture of compost, peat moss, horse manure, straw, fireplace ashes, topsoil, bagged manure, and peat compost. I just added 1/2 a bag of Pearlite ($4.44 at WM) vermiculite to the soil and mixed it in a wheelbarrow to fill the buckets and hope it will work. 
A not-so-beautiful garden made from recycled products. The nice thing about these buckets is that you can move them inside during the frost. I was at my friend Sherry's house the day after Thanksgiving, last year, and she still had big Roma tomatoes on the vine! That's what I'm talking about baby.
Reese is very excited.
We are also going to plant cherry Trees and early girl Tomatoes. Remember when I made all that jam? I saved the strawberry containers. I think they will make perfect mini greenhouses for the kids to plant in. They have slots in the bottom for drainage and a cover to keep the plants warm and moist. Plus, each is the perfect size for the kids to take home with them!
Telling Time-it is still pretty early for most of these guys to learn how to tell time on a clock, since time telling requires the ability to count by 5's.
The crib skirt will be more visible when the mattress is lowered in a few months. The cream things under the crib are baskets to house blankets, burp cloths, etc. Right now they have books in all of them because I STILL haven't hung the book shelf yet. I keep thinking I might put a coat of (neutral) paint on the walls, since they clearly haven't been painted since the late 70's when the house was built.
If you click to zoom in you'll see that each of the squares and circles have been QUILTED by the lovely Hillary. For the record, I did all the other sewing (thank you very much for your patience with me, H!) but NEVER could have imagined machine quilting each individual square and stripe of the baby quilt. It looks so professional an will last FOR-EV-ER! After Baby Brother arrives, I'll have his first initial monogrammed in the little blue square.
The Roman Shades:
Read the following post about these little lovelies!
I made two 24" x 75" roman shades in about an hour. (I had already done the sewing though, so tack on extra time for that). Scroll down for photos and instructions on how to make your own....which you will want to do once you see how easy it is!
There are 3 cords on a mini blind. Two that go on the outsides of the blinds that are attached every inch with a tiny thread (like a ladder) and support each blind in place. These are the tilt cords. They're gonna go.
Do some math to figure out how many blinds you will need to have one every fold in your shade. I like the look of 9 inch folds (pretty standard for a roman shade) so I kept 7 blinds. My top fold is a little larger than the others, but I never fully draw my shades, so I liked it this way.
Bust out the Fabri-Tac and start gluing. I started at the bottom, and worked my way up with the slats. Then I went back and folded the sides over and lightly glued them down. When you glue the slats down on the fabric, make sure the fabric is not wrinkled, and that you don't get any glue on the string, because you will need the cord to be able to pull through the holes still.
When your glue has dried (5-10 minutes) go over your outside seams with an iron to set the crease a little better.
I'm also making little cornice boxes to sit a the top and cover the exposed hardware....eventually I'll to those!
I also wanted to do something about the super ugly, but super cheap, easy to clean, and very comfortable rocker glider that we've had since Reese was born. I used a leftover scrap from the bedding and recovered it.
You probably have to see the finished bedding to appreciate how cute it looks in the room, but I love how it turned out...and it took LESS THAN 5 minutes. Love the No-Sew projects!
Yes. She wore swimming goggles for security. Produce can be terrifying.
We checked out the Deli.
Got a banana from the produce guy.
Reese decided that the giant walk-in refrigerators looked a little too much like the dungeons in her Barbie movies and refused to go inside to check it out. She clung nervously to my side for this half the tour, but was miraculously healed when we toured the bakery and she discovered that the workers were handing out cookies at the end.
After the grocery store, we took a picnic lunch and headed to the park.
Success! Our next field trip is to fly kites at the lake. Hopefully, Barbie will stay in the sky a little longer this time without all the trees and power lines to get tangled up in.
She is still grouchy, but her cough is finally clearing up and at least she is acting semi-normal again.
Thank you Baby Gap, for not covering all of your baby clothes in cartoon baseballs, puppies, trucks, or tacky phrases like, " little stinker", "big guy", or "mommy's little darling". Now that I have SOME hope that my child will not be covered in obnoxious cartoons, I'm going shopping.
A couple hours before bedtime on Saturday, we decided to take the girls fishing at one of the lakes near our house. We are lucky that it's only about a 4 mile drive to this particular fishing spot, and have gone there many times just to eat under the pavilion, throw rocks in the water, and watch the geese.
It was a beautifully serene evening.
