January Update...In February

I continue to find myself behind on the blogging. For those who still read the blog, January was strep throat month. It was not fun....at all. I never realized how bad strep throat is. On the one had, Roo shows next to no symptoms so it's almost business as usual with him. Bug on the other hand is an absolute mess when he has strep.

Let's talk about getting puked on. Daddy and I are now even or I may have the lead of who's been puked on the most. We Bug gets a strep test, he pukes. When he gets upset or eats popcorn or takes his medicine or anything that disrupts his delicate equilibrium when he has strep, he pukes. It's really not fun at all. And not only that, he gets a really high fever that fools you during the beginning of the day so you think you can spread out meds and then shoots up at night, even after being on antibiotics for days. Oh, and he doesn't really eat either. So much fun!

So Bug had strep the first week of Jan, Roo the second, Roo's meds were poorly labeled so he actually got a fever and sick the third week and then Bug had it again the forth week. Amazing! And so after changing sheets daily, changing toothbrushes and nuks daily, I decided Daddy and I needed to get tested as well. Neither of us felt sick but I am the carrier of the yuck and actually tested positive. Good to know for the future. Someone at work had tipped me off to the fact that you can be a strep carrier, glad I remembered this conversation. Our ped called back last night to say that everyone's follow-up strep tests, including mine were negative.

I was in a training class the last week of January so that kept me busy and I really hated not dropping the boys off at school. It's amazing how much seeing them in the mornings really starts my day off right. It just didn't feel right not seeing them before I left for work...I wondered what time they woke up, what kind of mood they were in, did they get dressed nicely, what did they eat on the way to school. We really have that morning routine thing down. I may tell them to hurry hurry hurry every morning but I could probably stop saying that without it slowing down our progress, it's just part of the routine at this point.

Bug can wink. Yep, this is true and hilarious. It's adorable and totally going to help him get his way even more. He'll tell me things and then wink so he's using the wink appropriately and his timing of the wink is correct. Watch out world!

Roo is doing great with speech. He loves his new speech teacher and she's really honed in on what he needs help with. He likes to bring a Transformer or two to class with him and she is great about getting him to speak even on his shy days. It's just him and another little girl and it lasts about an hour once a week, so it's really been a great addition to his evening activities.

Roo is doing great with swimming. He moved up to the next class and really enjoys it. When I took Bug to his mommy and me class you could tell Roo longed to jump in the pool and join in. I may sign him up for lessons for twice a week for the spring.

Both boys are signed up for spring soccer. Bug has been so mad at me for him not being in soccer this winter. He's only three but man, that kid just loves soccer. I have no idea where he gets this from :) We asked Roo if he wanted to try t-ball or soccer and soccer was it, which I was pretty excited about. Would much rather watch soccer games than t-ball games!

Roo's asthma is doing great and he had a really good pulm appointment. So glad that's under control!

Oh, and then there was the plumbing....

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure there's more...so today I'll add my (relevant) Facebook posts from January so I can truly use the blog as a journal! Oh, and I got a new car and my back is thanking me very very much for it...amazing the difference the seat makes, should be a much better trip to Maine this year that will hopefully not be followed by a shot in the back for my disc!

January 5

At the doctor's office with a sick Bug he feels so bad he's laying down with his blanket on ...most calm he's ever been at the doctor

January 5

and now lets discuss Roo's version of step throat...no noticeable signs of not feeling well, no soar throat, no fever...only a random rash that appeared two nights ago that is already gone....but upon looking in his throat, yucky strep....ped called in a prescription for him. Would have never known if Bug hadn't gotten so sick. Crazy!

January 8

made pigs in a blanket an Roo declared that we should really be calling them "snakes in a sock!"

January 9

false start with Bug at swimming tonight, guess he's not feeling totally better yet....we'll try again tomorrow night.

January 13

Roo had a great pulm appt yesterday! Too bad I had to pick him up early from school today. He's got a massive headache and a fever, this kid NEVER gets a fever. Our weekly pediatrician visits are getting old at this point!

January 13

and it looks like we may have a leak in one of the bathrooms, there's a really nice new wet spot on the kitchen ceiling, fun! Oh well, at least the boys will enjoy going to Lowes to get the materials to fix it, and who doesn't like cutting a hole in their ceiling?!

January 13

hole in kitchen ceiling, check....source of leak identified, check...water directly from toilet leaking onto kitchen floor when flushed, check...dry wall guy scheduled for this weekend, check...silly interior wall with window identified as not load bearing and getting cut in half tomorrow, check...kid with fever b/c antibiotics not clearly labeled that they need to be put in the fridge, check...and why am I feeling stressed?

January 14

love when the kids sleep in on a Saturday...got the house picked up and ready for taking down the ugly window wall, woo hoo! Then on to fixing the toilet.

January 16

took Bug for his annual RAST blood work and as soon as he realized what we were doing he said "I hate this place!" Glad we only have to do this once a year!

January 16

the ugly window wall is now a nice knee wall, the plumbing in our bathroom is fixed, Roo is better and as I walked by the hole in the ceiling thinking about how much we got done this weekend, I stepped in water....seriously, is this a joke?!

January 18

bad news: need to hire a plumber to fix the tub overflow leak....good news: scheduled our Maine vacation...if only it were June instead of January!

January 19

Bug has been playing with a wrapped roll of red party streamer, throwing it and kicking it around the house. Tonight he figured out that you can open it up and unroll the streamer across the house. Roo called him a "genius" and remarked that he wished he had thought of that!

January 21

making the grocery list for tomorrow and asking the kids what they want for the Patriots game tomorrow...Bug's response was chicken head and Roo's response was chicken feet. Very helpful boys....

January 23

had to pick up a sick Bug from school...now he's resting on my lap watching Transformers...I love cuddling with my little guy!

January 24

Bug's got strep again and would you believe it, when they swabbed his throat he threw up on me again, I love him! In better news, we got his allergy blood work back and all of his numbers went down except egg; hoping for a great appointment in 2 weeks!

January 26

at home again today with my sick little guy, he's fast asleep on me, reminds me of when he was a newborn :)

January 26

decided to go to the local urgent care this evening for a strep test to see if I'm part of the problem for why Bug got strep again. Figured it was something they couldn't mess up. I tested positive and then the doc came in and asked if I can take penicillin. Guess the doc didn't read the file so I told him I'm allergic and he goes on to say that it's the gold standard for strep...yep, I get it, but I'm allergic, so please stop being an a** and just give me something else. Another reason why I never go to that urgent care.

Dear Blog Followers

I know we're two weeks into the New Year and I still haven't added pictures. I also know that I have an awesome new camera and haven't posted any pictures from that. But you see, just because it's a new year doesn't mean the chaos has stopped. In fact, it seems like it's picked up.

One New Year's resolution I thought about having was talking and blogging less about the kids medical stuff. But hey two weeks into the new year and we've been to the pediatrician twice already. Bug fell ill with strep and upon looking in Roo's throat he had strep too, just not the high fever and vomiting like Bug had. Roo just had a rash appear one day and it was gone a day later. However, the following week Roo was sent home from school with a 102 fever. Pretty high for him. We're not sure if it was more of the strep because his antibiotics were poorly labeled and should have been refrigerated and thus didn't work or if it was just some other yucky virus going around. Either way, he's on a new round of antibiotics and doing much better.

I played with my new camera a bunch but for some reason the software won't load properly. I need to investigate that further and am hoping there's a good download from the Nikon site.

I noticed that the water spot on our kitchen ceiling looked bigger and darker than usual. I had hubby cut a hole in the wall so we could inspect, it was a three day weekend after all, plenty of time to fix it. We figured out what was leaking and it was the toilet in our master bath. Since we already had one hole and had a few older water marks, one from when we moved in, I had him cut a few more holes just to be sure those leaks were inactive. We figured out that they were and I asked him to see if the ugly window wall was load baring or not. It wasn't, so I decided we should take down the wall and turn it into a knee wall.

We took down the wall and the hubby cleaned up and I told him it wasn't short enough. He was not happy but I had a chance to "live" with it and it was the wrong height. We called my parents to get the height of their knee wall. About 37 inches, so we made ours shorter and put trim on it to finish it. It looks great, it opens up the kitchen/family room area, lets more light in and makes the entire area look bigger. This may have been one of our best home improvement project yet!!

Hubby spent the day today fixing the flooring in our bathroom and reseating the toilet. On Saturday when he started the project he gave up. He's never given up on a project. I asked him how it was going and he responded that he didn't want to talk about it. That's not good. I posted on Facebook that we needed help. My friend Mary that I used to work with volunteered her husband Will to come and help. Will drove about 45 minutes to get to our house and spent the afternoon helping the hubby fix the problem. It needed to be fixed pretty much how I thought it did so I made sure to tell hubby that I told him so. He was really happy to have Will help him and walk him through the one step that made him think it was a "needs a plumber" kind of fix. It's great to have friends that are willing to help at a moments notice and it's always great that we can borrow Uncle Nate's tools too!

Since today is a holiday but doctor's offices are still open, I took advantage of the free day and took Bug for his annual RAST blood work, went to a doctor and dental appointment for myself and got a bathing suit for swim lessons with Bug. A productive day for mommy and daddy!

So tonight after we got the kids to bed and I got Bug's lunch all packed for tomorrow and I headed toward the couch to relax and thought about how productive we were this weekend, I stepped in water. Are you kidding me. I don't know how we earned this karma but I apologize for whatever it is that we did. Hopefully the fix for this will be easy. Looks like the overflow for the tub in the kids bathroom is leaking. The floor doesn't look wet at all, just the pipe, so please blog followers, cross your fingers for an easy fix.

Closet Auger/Snake...Huh?

So, what in the world am I talking about? A closet auger or a closet snake, what is that? Well, it's only the most amazing invention ever. See, with two little boys in our house, there's no telling what they'll do. And their most recent story is about an apple the stuck in the toilet. This actually happened a couple of weeks back. The toilet still wasn't perfect after lots of effort to fix it and finally this week, we had to close the bathroom. That's when Grandma emailed her sister to figure out if there was a less expensive option than installing the new toilet we purchased. Lo and behold, the closet auger! Thanks to Aunt Carol and the rest of the Bloob family for suggesting this wonderful piece of equipment. With it, daddy was able to totally unclog the toilet. We are now happy to report that the bathroom has reopened for business! And yes Grandpa, I think it's really funny that you suggested we keep the new toilet and put it in the playhouse outside...but we're still going to return it!

Oh, and for the record, I still don't believe that they actually put an apple in the toilet because they only had slices of apple not a whole apple, but Roo's sticking with that story so we will too!