Lumps and bumps and bruises....oh my.

A week ago today, we had a scare. Kind of a big one.

I was working down in the Mom Cave, and the boys were upstairs. A friend had come over to play, and they were getting more than a bit rowdy. I listened to them getting louder and louder, and when it became more obvious that they weren't going to calm themselves down, I started to head upstairs.

Just as I put my foot on the bottom step, I heard a drastic change in the noise - now it was punctuated with screams of pain. I started running up the steps and the door opened, with Daniel yelling at me "MOM COME QUICK JARED'S HURT!"

Long story short, as he was racing through the house, he misjudged a turn and ran into a wall. Hard.

When I peeled his hands away from his forehead, I was relieved that there was no blood, but I watched in fear as the goose egg grew right in front of my eyes. We iced it immediately, with him still lying on the floor in the hallway. I talked to him, watched his eyes, listened to his responses - and decided within about 20 minutes that he needed to be checked. 

We got to the ER and he was taken right in to be seen (so thankful again for small towns). The doctor was awesome and decided almost immediately to do a CT scan to be safe, and because he had some concerns. Thankfully, the CT was clear, he was diagnosed with a concussion, and we were sent home.

He recovered quickly (almost too quickly) and was running around again later that day. The bruising started a couple of days later and other than being tender, he seemed fine. 

I took him to our pediatrician on Monday for a follow up, and she did an eye exam - which he failed miserably in the eye on the side of his head that got hit. Fearing that he might have done some damage to the eye, she referred him to an optometrist - where we went today.

After an extremely thorough exam, which included dilating his eyes for the first time ever, it was determined that he did not damage his eye. But, his vision sucks.

At the ripe old age of 11, he's getting bifocals.

There's a good chance that he'll grow out of his crappy vision. Or, since I've already cursed one kid with emotional scarring I guess he can blame me for being blind as a bat. Either way, I'm just so incredibly thankful that it's not damage to his eye.

Never a dull moment. Ever.

Electronic observations

I had to take Daniel to an ENT today because we found out last week that one of the tubes that was put in his ears in 2009 or 2010 is still in there. He hasn't been having any issues with it (obviously, or we would have known that it was there) but his pediatrician wanted to have it checked.

Because of the distance and timing of the appointment, I pulled both him and Alex out of school for the afternoon. The Dude went with us and we headed out for the appointment. When we got there, The Dude and Alex hung out in the main waiting room while Daniel and I went to various locations throughout the clinic - one place for the check in, one place for the hearing test, another place for the actual exam....

While we were in one of the waiting rooms, I watched a little girl who couldn't have been more than about 2 years old. She was there with her mother and as soon as they walked in, the mother handed her cell phone to her and the little girl proceeded to watch a video or something on it (I'm not sure what it was, but the accompanying music was ...... interesting). I didn't think too much of it until the phone dinged with what I assume was a notification, and the mother took the phone from her to check it. The little girl FREAKED OUT and started screaming, until the mother handed it back to her. A few seconds later - same thing.

Around that time, a boy walked in with his mother. He was older, maybe 4 or 5. He sat down and immediately started doing something on an electronic tablet gizmo. When they got called into an exam room, he pitched a fit about having to put the tablet away.

In the meantime, Daniel was sitting on a chair beside me, reading an old copy of Sports Illustrated. He occasionally pointed out a picture to me or asked me what certain words meant. When it was his turn, he put the magazine back on the table and walked into the exam room.

The exam went well. This is a new ENT to us because ours apparently left town at some point in the past few years, but this guy seems pretty cool. Daniel's hearing is perfectly normal, although the wayward tube does need to come out of his ear. It's not an emergency, so we're waiting until after he is done wrestling in a few weeks to do it. It's all good. No biggie.

When we were done, we got The Dude and Alex from the main waiting room where they had been reading an issue of Time together. I said something to The Dude about the kids in the other waiting room with their electronics, and he said that he had seen some of the same while he was waiting for us.

After that, we decided to take the boys and go see a movie and get something to eat. We had a blast just hanging out and goofing off and made total pigs of ourselves at the restaurant. While we waited for our food to arrive, the boys worked on the word searches on the kids menu, and then had more fun finding words that weren't even on the list. But while we were sitting there eating, I noticed it again. There was a little girl, maybe 7 years old, playing on an iPad-like gizmo. But she wasn't just sitting at her table - she was wandering around the restaurant with it, staring intently at it the entire time. She didn't look up and ran into several people, including waitstaff with trays full of food. The adults with her (I assume her parents) just let her go for the most part, although I did see the woman go and get her and bring her back to the table a time or two.

When we go on our family road trips, people always ask me what video games I take along to keep the kids amused. Or they want to know if we want to borrow their portable DVD players for the ride. They are always stunned when I say that we make these trips without the electronics. (The girls do have iPods that they bought with their own money, but without wifi all they can do is listen to music that they've downloaded - which they do because they don't like our music.) Instead of playing with the electronics that would inevitably get lost, broken, or tossed aside with dead batteries, we play those silly old travel games. Or we look out the window to see the scenery. Or we teach the kids how to read a map. Or we talk to each other.

Personally, I think it's pretty cool that we do the road trips the "old-fashioned way".

Seriously people - when did it become "normal" to shove an electronic gizmo into a kid's hands and count on that gizmo to keep the kid amused instead of doing it ourselves?

I see it more and more. Kids who are barely more than infants who pitch an absolute screaming fit if Mom takes away the phone or the iPod or whatever the gadget of the day is. Older kids who can't even go to the grocery store without their iPod. Teenagers who aren't able to find their way to the local grocery store because they are so busy playing handheld video games that they've never paid attention on the ride there. Kids who have crappy social skills because when they go to the neighborhood block party they are too busy looking at a screen to even figure out that there are other kids there and they could all be running around playing and having fun if they weren't trying to get the next high score.

Why is this becoming the norm? Why have we become so electronics-centered that we can't go anywhere without them?

I'm just as guilty as the next person when it comes to my phone. It goes everywhere with me for many reasons. Besides the fact that as a single parent I rely on it in emergencies, it's also the only way that the school can contact me if something happens with the kids. It's how my family reaches me if something happens with my parents, which sadly is happening more and more often these days. But I also play around with it in waiting rooms at doctors and while waiting for my food to arrive - but I can also put it away while I'm eating or while I'm at the movies or whatever. Other than the girls and their iPods, the kids don't have electronics. If we go somewhere that might involve waiting, they bring books to read or draw pictures or people watch.

We don't have video games at home. We don't even have cable. They watch DVDs or occasionally play on my laptop - or they read or color or play with Legos or ride their bikes or play ball in the backyard.

They aren't perfect. They can act spoiled or self-centered or entitled or downright nasty at times. But for the most part they are fairly well-behaved and can have awesome social interactions with people and are excelling in school and sports and almost everything else that they do. There is no way to know if it's because they have limited screen time, but I do think that it has something to do with it.

I do know that when they get bored, they can usually create a game to play with each other. Granted, sometimes it ends in a fist fight, but more often than not they can amuse themselves for several hours.

I know that they love to go to the library to get new books to read, and that even my very hyper and active boys can plop themselves down on the couch when the weather is bad and get lost in a pile of books for an entire day if I let them.

I know that they enjoy the road trips and love to talk about things that they've seen along the way, even if we didn't stop to play tourist at that particular spot. They've also asked me to find out more information on things that they spotted, so I know that they're paying attention to the world around them.

I also know that avoiding electronics is impossible in this day and age. I just wish that more parents would find a better balance in their use.

Poopocalypse 2.0

A few months ago, I touched on some issues that Alex has been having with his bowels. I'm not going to go into gory detail about it for a multitude of reasons, but suffice it to say that it is still an ongoing battle - and it's not fun for him or for me.

Today he had a follow up appointment with the pediatric GI doctor (who is AMAZING) and after discussing every possible scenario and idea, it was decided that he is going to undergo a colonoscopy on Thursday morning..... and they're also going to do the down-the-throat one (can't remember what it's called).

So, starting Wednesday, from the time he gets out of bed, he's not allowed to eat anything. It's Gatorade, popsicles, and jello only until after the procedure is done on Thursday - and for the kid who loves to eat even more than I do, this is going to be horrible. When he realized that he couldn't eat ANYTHING, he looked at me with a look of almost terror on his face, and in that moment I promised him that if he couldn't eat, neither would I.

It costs approximately $50 to prepare for
Poopocalypse 2.0.

So we went to the store after Scouts tonight and got what we needed. Luckily Gatorade was on sale so we got lots of that, but we were kind of limited on flavors for both that and the jello - nothing red, orange, or purple (we're going to separate out the popsicles). Lots of Miralax and some Dulcolax too. And pullups and wipes because I don't expect him to be able to control anything with what the doctor wants us to do to clean him out before the procedure.

We used a similar - but not quite so extreme - method to clean him out a few months ago, but unfortunately the effects were not long-lived. Honestly, we don't expect to find anything physically wrong with him, but we are attempting to rule out a physical cause for his issues so that we can better figure out how to deal with it and how to help him. He will be put under general anesthesia for this, but the entire procedure will take less than 30 minutes. He's been put under before and has always done very well - but it's still scary for both of us.

So, starting Wednesday morning, I might be a little crankier than usual - but it'll only be because I'm hungry. And stressed. And worried. But, this too shall pass - and hopefully it'll give us the answers that we need in order to pursue the best possible treatment.

And now, I'm going to go make finger jello, just because I can. And if I have to eat it, it's not going to be boring old jello in a bowl.




Note: Yes, I kept things vague as far as the "issues". There are a lot of different opinions floating around as to what is happening here, and for Alex's privacy I'm just not going to go into the specifics. I'm not thrilled about running tests like these on someone his age, but I discussed it at length with the specialist and we both feel that this is the best way to go at this point in time. 

Not exactly what I had planned...

OK, seriously, when your day starts off with a sunrise like this, what can possibly go wrong? Really?

Wrong question to ask.

My plans for the day were fairly simple.

Get the kids to school. Come home and clean and whatnot. Get the kids from school. Make supper. Have The Dude come over and watch the kids for about 2 hours while I go to a meeting. Come home. Hang out. Put kids in bed.

Easy, right?

HA!

I got the kids to school. I came home and putzed around and didn't do much of anything for a while.

Then, it happened.....*cue ominous music*

The Dude called me from work to ask me to bring some ibuprofen or something to him because his back was hurting. I had just gotten a shower so I finished getting ready and ran across town to give him the medicine. I could tell that he was hurting - badly. But he had to wait for his boss to get there before he could leave so I came back home.

He called me again a little later. And it's one of those calls that no one ever wants to get.

"Babe, can you come and get me and take me to the ER? I can barely breathe because it hurts so bad."

I took off and got him from work and he was miserable. We got to the hospital and it was all he could do to walk in the door. It was busy but luckily they got him in fairly quickly - and then we waited. I had to leave to get the boys from school so I took off across town. As I was driving, I called a friend of mine to see if she could watch the boys for a couple of hours, and luckily she agreed so I told her that I would be there as soon as I got them. I hung up and called Ex1 to explain what was happening and to ask him if he could just keep the older three kids instead of bringing them to me, and he agreed. I got the boys, dumped them at my friend's house, and got back to the hospital about 30 minutes after I had left.

He had gotten the xrays done by that time and was even more miserable than when I left him half an hour earlier. The doctor came back and said that things looked ok on the xrays and that it did not appear that his lung was collapsed (wait, what? you mean you thought that was a possibility???) and that it was a severe thoracic strain and the muscles were spasming. He got a couple of shots in the butt and a handful of prescriptions, and we left.

I dropped off the prescriptions and then we went back to his work to drop off the doctor's note and to lock up his truck since we were leaving it there, and then I took him back home and poured him into his bed. Then I left to go back to pick up the prescriptions and bring those back to him.

At that point I realized that if I rushed I could still make the meeting that I had planned to go to, so I raced home and changed my clothes and went to the meeting. While I was there, Ex1 called to let me know that Emily had forgotten some stuff she needed for school but not to worry about getting it to her since she was the one who forgot it. We touched base about a few other things and then I went back to the meeting.

After the meeting, I went to my friend's to pick up the boys, back over to The Dude's house to get some money, ran out to get him some food, and then took the food to him - and then finally got the boys home. They ate a late supper and fell asleep on the couch.

Emily texted me about the stuff that she forgot - apparently the lines of communication got crossed and she thought that I was bringing it to her tonight. I talked to her and Ex1 and we decided that there was no way I was doing it tonight (25 miles round trip at bedtime for the boys? I think not...) but I would bring it out in the morning after I drop the boys off - but only because if things hadn't been so crazy tonight she would have been able to get it and would have had it for tomorrow.

And then to top it all off.....

I had gotten a message while all of this was happening that the blankity-blank-blank Tooth Fairy letter had been posted on cheezburger(dot)com. I didn't worry about it too much at the time because, well......I was busy. I looked into it tonight, and sure enough it's on there - under the "Parenting Fails". And yeah, that bugs me. It was just a silly letter, and it's totally being taken out of context and it's driving me nuts. And I know that it shouldn't bother me, but it does.

But it's also a good reminder that judgmental people suck.

Stop listening to the horror stories.

When I went back to Pennsylvania this summer, my friend Vanessa and I had sent out a mass invitation to everyone back there to try to get together - sort of an informal class reunion. On July 1, we got this message from one of our classmates, Kelly:

Hi amy & vanessa -saw the post u were in town,would hv loved to have met up w/you girls today but I was just diagnosed w/breast cancer & am having a double masectomy on Tues. Please, if you haven't had a mammo yet, please schedule one. I just went for my 1st & am thanking God I did. Its early stages & they are hoping I don't need radiation, let alone chemo. Hv a safe trip back Amy & hope to catch you next time. Xoxo

Kelly graduated with me, so she is my age. I was stunned to get this message from her - because obviously, if this could happen to her, it could happen to me as well. Luckily, her cancer was caught very early and she is doing great now - and I am so incredibly thankful for that.

A few weeks ago, she posted a link to an article about mammograms. Unfortunately, for some reason, the article now seems to have been removed, because I can't find it anywhere. I have tried the link, I have searched for it, I have done everything that I know to do, and it looks like it's gone. Basically, it said that many women do not get mammograms for one ridiculous reason:

Because other women scare us away from doing it.

Seriously? I had never thought about it before. But think about it - when you hear the word "mammogram" what do you think? I know I generally don't think of "a slightly uncomfortable test that only takes a few minutes and could potentially save my life". Instead, I think "OMG it's a boob smasher! It hurts! It takes the 'girls' and flattens them between these freezing cold plates like they've been run over by a truck! It's horrible! It hurts! It's the worst. thing. ever."

Why do women do this to each other? Why do we scare our sisters, our daughters, our best friends - out of getting a test that could save their lives?

Here are some interesting statistics according to breastcancer.org:

• About 1 in 8 U.S. women (just under 12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime. 
• For women in the U.S., breast cancer death rates are higher than those for any other cancer, besides lung cancer. 
• Besides skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women. Just under 30% of cancers in women are breast cancers. 
• In 2011, there were more than 2.6 million breast cancer survivors in the US.
• A woman’s risk of breast cancer approximately doubles if she has a first-degree relative (mother, sister, daughter) who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. About 15% of women who get breast cancer have a family member diagnosed with it.
• About 85% of breast cancers occur in women who have no family history of breast cancer. These occur due to genetic mutations that happen as a result of the aging process and life in general, rather than inherited mutations.

After reading that now-missing article, doing some research, and talking to Kelly some more, I decided to take action for myself. It's no big secret that I don't have health insurance - which has been the other factor that has prevented me from getting a mammogram sooner. But I had heard about random programs where they could be provided for free. So I started doing some digging - and in less than 5 minutes, I found a program in the state of Kansas. I called the number for information, answered a few questions and found out that I am eligible for a free mammogram and pap smear. I called to make the appointment, and got it set up within less than 2 weeks - had it not been for the Thanksgiving holiday, it probably would have been quicker than that.

I went for the pap smear on Monday, and thought that I was getting the mammogram at the same time - which is why I had planned to write this post then. But, there was a slight breakdown in communication, and the mammogram had to be scheduled on a different day.

Today was the day. I went for my first-ever mammogram - and I did it for a couple of reasons.

1. Because I'm *cough* over 40, and I needed to get it done.
2. To see just how horrible of an experience it actually is to have done.

Let me tell you - relatively speaking, it's probably one of the easiest medical tests that I have ever had done. Ever. The technicians were friendly and amazing and funny, and they made it so easy.

The scans themselves? Painless. Completely and totally painless. I'm not going to lie and say that it was  comfortable, because it wasn't. But it didn't hurt a bit.

Basically, I had to strip from the waist up and wipe off my deodorant. They gave me a gown to wear while they explained the machine and how it would work. Then the one technician got me into position - and no, it was not weird to have someone maneuvering my breast around to get it into the right place. They're boobs, plain and simple. They've been seen by dozens of doctors and nurses before and the tech sees dozens of them every day (not to mention that she has 2 of her own) so I was not embarrassed at all. She got my left one positioned on the plate (which was not that cold), lowered the top plate a bit, scooted things around a bit to get the perfect shot, lowered it some more, I held my breath, and the xray was taken and the top plate lifted. This process was repeated 3 more times, for a total of 4 scans (2 on each side).

All in all, the whole process took maybe 15 minutes, and I was back out the door and on my way home.

Fifteen minutes. Less time than it takes to get a shower on some days.

Some women claim that it hurts so much to have a mammogram. They talk about it as though it is the most painful and horrible thing that they have ever experienced. Maybe I was lucky that it didn't hurt a bit. I've heard that those of us who are *ahem* well-endowed have it easier with mammograms, and that it does hurt more for women with smaller breasts. But still - isn't a few minutes of being uncomfortable worth it?

Maybe it hurts some women a bit - but think of how much having undetected cancer hurts. Think of the surgeries, the chemo, the radiation. Think of the anguish of watching a loved one have to go through all of it because she was too scared to get a mammogram to detect it earlier.

Luckily, Kelly's cancer was caught so early that she didn't have to go through chemotherapy or radiation. Her right side was loaded with microcalcifications and a biopsy tested positive for beginning stages of cancer. She wasn't eligible for a lumpectomy because there were so many spots, so she chose the double mastectomy. She will be monitored forever through MRIs because there is no guarantee that it won't return - but for now she is cancer-free, because it was caught so early. Imagine what her life would be like if she listened to the horror stories and put off getting it done. Her story might have a very different ending.

So please, if you don't pay attention to anything else that I ever write, pay attention to this. If you are a woman who is 40 or older, and you haven't gotten a mammogram, go get one. It's easy. It's painless. It's not scary. And the next time someone tells you that it's horrible, or painful, or terrifying - ask her if she would rather go through 15 minutes of uncomfortable or years of surgeries and treatments because someone scared her out of doing such a simple test early enough to make the treatment easier.

Right there - the most important reason of all for me to get it done.
Because I love my family - and I will do anything in my power to
be here for them.

Kelly - Thank you. Thank you for sharing your story with me, and allowing me to share it here. You are an inspiration to me, and I would not have gone and gotten this done if it wasn't for you. So I thank you, from the bottom of my heart!

What am I up to this time?

I mentioned something over on the facebook page earlier tonight about starting another project. It's not really one that I'm starting, but let's just say that I'm starting to finish it (finally). I don't even remember when I started it, but it's been a while ago.

I have a bazaar/craft show on Saturday, and I remembered that I had this - so I'm going to see if I can finish it (without going insane like I did on the last quilt that I finished) before then. This one is considerably smaller, so I'd say I have a shot. Plus, I'm not going to set it up on the big frame to quilt it since it's smaller - I'm just going to do it normally. We'll see how it works.

So I might be scarce for the next day or so while I work on this. I have it ready to start the quilting, and I'm going to just get it started tonight to see how the machine handles it before I make any final decisions on how I'm going to do it.

Tomorrow, I have to get up early enough to actually get dressed *gasp* before I take the boys to school so that I can get Emily to Wichita bright and early for a doctor appointment - this should hopefully be the final follow-up on her back, which should release her back into sports - just in time for basketball season.

So it'll be yet another busy day. Imagine that. Woohoo!

Crazy day - but in a good way

So. It's been a long day. A really really really long day.

But at the same time, it's been a really good day.

Snapshots of the day - literally:

Because I had to have Emily at the orthopedic surgeon at 7:45 this morning (ugh) The Dude came over to take the boys to school for me. So he rolled in my front door at about 6:00am - normally, that would be reason for me to be not-so-nice to someone - but when that someone comes bearing donuts and chocolate milk, all is forgiven.

We ended up having a breakfast picnic on my bed.

The breakfast picnic then caused me and Emily to run around the house like idiots so that we could get out the door in time to get to her appointment - which we did manage to do. With time to spare, actually. And this is the view that greeted us at one point on our trip this morning...

The appointment itself was fabulous - after we waited for close to 45 minutes to be seen. Seriously, how does that happen with a 7:45am appointment? How can they be running that late 15 minutes after they open the doors?

Anyway, the orthopedic surgeon was a very nice guy. He examined Emily - and really questioned her about her pain and whatnot. He talked to us and listened to our concerns. He showed us the xrays and went over them in detail with us. And his final determination is that she does NOT have any compression fractures. He still wants her to stay out of sports for a month just to be safe, because she does hurt - and he'll check her out again in about 4 weeks just to be sure. But she's ok.

When I got home from that, I found a package in my mailbox - one that I had been expecting. A friend of mine had a spare digital camera laying around, and so she sent me her old one! I have been without mine ever since the tail end of our vacation this summer and it's been driving me nuts - and now I have one again. It's actually a really nice little camera, and a little more advanced than what I'm used to, so I'm sure that I will be spending quite a bit of time over the next few days weeks taking lots of pictures to figure out all of the settings on it. And I know she's getting tired of hearing me say "thank you" but I'm saying it again - THANK YOU!!! You are awesome, and I appreciate it so much!

Then we had Sarah's volleyball games this afternoon/evening. 139.2 miles round trip to get to these games. We didn't get home until almost 10:00, so getting the kids up for school in the morning is going to be more of a nightmare than usual. But, she played well - and there's only one week left!

Downtown really reminded me of "Back to the Future"

Victory! (Sarah in white jersey)

Meeting with coach

When we finally got home from volleyball, the kids all went straight to bed (one bonus of being out so late) and I'm sitting here looking around my trashed house debating what really needs to be done before I go to bed.

I'm actually leaning towards nothing at all. I might just hit "publish", clear off my bed, and crash.

Tomorrow's another day.

A quick project

I took a little bit of time today and went in town to a quilt shop that is closing. All of the stuff in the shop was marked down 25% today, so I went to see what I could find. I managed to restrain myself and not buy any fabric, but I did go through the patterns and I found a few things that I just couldn't resist.

One of the patterns that caught my eye was for something called "Key Fob Pockets" - just a cute little pouch that can be attached to a key chain or purse or backpack, and used to carry ChapStick (my addiction) or a USB drive or other little trinkets.

It took me about an hour to make it. It wouldn't have been that long but the directions kind of sucked and I might have put it together wrong the first time and had to tear it apart and redo it....so it's crooked and a little wonky, but that always happens with the first one.

Now I have better ideas for how to make it easier and faster - and to make it look better when it's done. So now I'm all sorts of excited to make more of them. And sell them. Yup yup.

So other than my craftiness tonight, it's been kind of an 'off' day. I finally decided that I was going to take a nap go straight back to bed after taking the boys to school - and I crashed hard for a couple of hours - before the phone rang and I had to go pick up Daniel from school. He got hit by the Vomit Rocket again and had it all over him from head to toe. I got him home and cleaned up and he was fine for the rest of the day - like I knew he would be.

The usual Wednesday night chaos wasn't quite as bad as it typically is. Sarah and Jared ended up going back to Ex1's house so that his wife can take them to school in the morning - The Dude is coming here in the morning to take Alex and Daniel to school - and I am taking Emily to the orthopedic surgeon (Ex1 is meeting us there). So the morning is going to be a bit funky, but at least we figured out a way that Ex1 and I could both be at the appointment, and all of the other kids would get to school. After we are done there, he will take Emily back to school.

Tomorrow afternoon, we have to travel about 70 miles each way to get to Sarah's volleyball games - which means leaving directly from school when I pick up the boys and heading straight there. Once again I'll be packing supper in a cooler to eat in the stands at the games. I love watching the games - but not the chaos that they tend to create. We'll be lucky to get home by 10pm and then getting the kids up for school Friday morning will be a nightmare.

Thankfully, volleyball is almost over. Then we get a break for a couple of weeks before it starts all over again with basketball - but this time there will be 3 kids participating instead of just two.

I. can't. wait.

Life keeps happening.

It seems like every time things seem to calm down a little bit, they go right back into an uproar...

We had the whole volleyball injury on Saturday...which meant that yesterday was spent getting her into the pediatrician, who then consulted with a neurosurgeon... and at that point we were simply told to eliminate sports for a month and see what happens.

Given that this is her BACK that we're talking about, Ex1 and I discussed it at length and we decided that we are going to get a second opinion - that way, if the injury really isn't that severe - we don't have to worry so much. But on the off chance that something was missed, we'll know now instead of later.

Today was spent making phone calls to make the arrangements to pick up the xrays from the hospital and then to make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon to get the second opinion. I got that scheduled for Thursday morning, but the receptionist strongly suggested that I come and get the "new patient packet" before then so that I could get it completed.

So I went and picked up the xrays and then made the 60-mile round trip to the orthopedic surgeon's office. On the plus side, now I know where it is so it'll make Thursday morning a little less stressful. The trick will be getting the other 4 kids to school, but Ex1's wife and The Dude will be helping there so that Ex1 and I can both be with Emily at the doctor. And I'm glad that I got the paperwork now, since it took me over an hour to complete all of it. Ugh.

Last night, Alex had Scouts again - and he was absolutely thrilled that he finally got his shirt! He feels all sorts of official now, and has been working on memorizing the stuff that he needs to remember. He likes going to the meetings, and Daniel has fun too - even though he's technically not a Scout.

We found out last night that the one little boy who goes to the meetings is actually Nice Neighbor's grandson - I had seen him at the meetings before, but just never put the two together until last night. So now when he comes to visit his grandmother, he and Alex can play together, which is always a good thing. He's not over there very often so we don't know him well, and he goes to a different elementary school than Alex does so this was a good opportunity for them to get to know each other.

Today was Daniel's first day of all-day kindergarten! He has been looking forward to this day for months. I swear that he's been asking since the first day of school when he could go for all day, and now it's finally here. I dropped the boys off at school for breakfast this morning, and then used my 7 1/2 hours alone to get some things done around the house - not to mention all of the running around that I had to do as well.

When I picked them up from school this afternoon and asked Daniel what it was like to go to school all day, all he could say was that "it was AWESOME!!!!" He's growing up so fast - and I'm just thrilled that he loves school as much as he does.

 The Dude came over this afternoon and we finally got to spend some time together. We took the boys and walked up to a local Mexican restaurant for an early supper. The chairs were all carved and painted and colorful - we were trying to decide if they were handmade or not, and I'm not 100% convinced either way.

 This was the back of the booth where Alex and I were sitting. OK, it looks really really cool - but it's really not that comfortable to lean back against, especially after eating the massive amounts of food that we got.

 I can't decide if the look on his face is cute or evil. I'm kind of leaning towards evil at this point.

After we all ate and got the check, we were amazed at the price. It was about half of what we were expecting to pay. We both looked at the total a couple of times, and then I realized that we were only charged $0.01 for each of the kids' meals - then we realized that this was one of those restaurants where kids eat for free on Tuesday nights.

SCORE!

After we ate, we walked back home and stopped to take a few pictures of the wildflowers along the way. I got the boys bathed and into bed and then The Dude and I hung out while he watched a movie and I filled out the paperwork for Emily's appointment, and then he had to go back to his place to take care of some things.

And now, as usual, it's time for me to work on more laundry and more cleaning and more stuff around the house before I finally crash for the night....

Volleyball with a side of pain

We got up this morning and prepared for another fun-filled Saturday morning full of volleyball games for Emily.

Unfortunately, it didn't turn out that way.

She played her heart out through the first match, but they lost.

That's Sarah in the stripes, line judging.
Emily has on the long black shorts and tall white socks.

Then before the second match started, she and her teammates decided to explore. They found this set of steps that went up from the gym and they wanted to see what was at the top of them. It was the weight room. So they came back down the steps.

The Steps of Doom

And that's where the day went horribly wrong. Emily slipped or tripped or stumbled or something and went down the last 3-4 steps on her back. And if you look closely, you'll see that they're cement. No padding.

Long story short, Ex1 took her to the hospital, and I followed. The Dude took the boys and my van and went back to the house while we took care of her.

We honestly thought that she was fine. We figured that they'd do x-rays and say that nothing was broken and send her home - but we were ok with that because then we'd know that she was fine. After a lot of poking and prodding, a few hours, and several x-rays, it was determined that she did indeed end up with some minimal compression fractures in two of her vertebrae. The ER doctor feels that she won't need any sort of treatment or anything because they are minimal - but he wants her to take it easy for a few days and then follow up with our doctor on Monday.

So Ex1 gave me a ride back home since The Dude had taken my van, and Emily went and hung out with some friends to watch a movie (that had already been planned) for a few hours. She came home and crashed  on the couch pretty soon afterwards, and I'm just allowing her to sleep there tonight. If she's comfortable, I'm not going to make her move.

I swear, this week has it out for me for some reason. We had our drama from the other day and then this today - hopefully this is the end of it, because I'm exhausted and I need sleep.

Doctor, potential sinkhole, and lots of laundry

I had to take Daniel to the ENT this morning - nothing major, just a follow-up. He had his second set of tubes put in his ears and his adenoids removed just over 2 years ago, and his pediatrician just wanted to have the ENT take a look at them again. Everything checked out fine, and we don't have to go back again for another 6 months - at that point, if the tubes are still in, the ENT might go ahead and remove them, but he's not too concerned about them right now. Luckily this kid has been uber-healthy so I'm good with just maintaining the way that we are for now.

In the meantime, I noticed this morning that there was a puddle of water in front of my house, but I didn't think too much about it. Then later this afternoon, after The Dude got here, I noticed that it was still there - and it was exactly even with my water meter. We went out and looked, and sure enough, the water is seeping up through the street. So I called the water department and was told that they'd deal with it in the morning (it was 4:50pm when I called). But at about 5:30, the city guys showed up, looked at it, and said "yep, the water line is going to need to be fixed, but it can wait until tomorrow" - uuuuuhhhhh ok. You want to put some cones around it or something? "Nah, it'll be fine." Whatever. It's definitely getting worse, but I still have running water - until about 8am, when they're scheduled to fix it. Luckily, it's on the city side of my water meter, so it's not affecting my bill...but they did warn me that depending on what they find, they might have to tear up my (already hideous) yard. The pavement is already getting squishy out there, so it's just a matter of time and traffic before a sinkhole appears out there.

I've been working on baby laundry all day long - started at about 7am and it's still going. I had to go to a meeting at my church tonight, so The Dude came over and stayed with the kids while I went there - and unbeknownst to me while I was gone he did a few more loads of laundry and even ran the dishwasher since I won't have any water tomorrow. Then he helped me to fold a few loads of it and sort it out - there's some girl stuff (and some adult stuff) mixed in, so we're putting that stuff aside to donate to the thrift store here in town.

This.....this is what we have done so far. There's still a few more loads to finish yet. Yes, there is a loveseat under there somewhere.

Tomorrow, other than running the kids back and forth to school (and folding laundry) I actually don't have a whole lot of stuff happening. Another friend is bringing some more baby stuff over in the morning, and once we get everything sorted we're going to start bagging it up to make sure that we can even fit it all into the van. I have a double stroller that I want to take to her too, but I have a feeling that we're going to have to put that on the roof of the van (literally) to get it there on Saturday.

I have actually caught some grief for doing this - someone (not anyone from this blog or my facebook page, but someone from a group where I had posted the request for donations) seriously all but accused me of gathering all of this stuff so that I could sell it and keep the money for myself. I'm amazed that someone could even think that, but I refuse to let it get to me. All I know is that I am so incredibly grateful to everyone who has helped with this little project - you all know who you are, and I couldn't have done it without you. And to The Dude - thank you. For watching the kids tonight, for helping with the dishes and the laundry, and just for everything.