Our Hospital Stay

For those of you who heard Emma was in the hospital, but didn't hear the whole story . . .

Last Friday Emma started to get sick. She was pretty exhausted, running a low fever and complaining of stomach pain. I thought she had the flu, so we just waited it out. But she never started vomiting or showing any other symptoms, and the fever and stomach pain just kept getting a little worse and a little worse. By Sunday we had ruled out the flu, but couldn't figure out what was causing the fevers and the stomach pain. Her fever was up to 103 degrees, and was only coming down to 101 with Tylenol. So, about 11:00 am I ran her into urgent care and they couldn't figure out what was wrong either, but decided she was dehydrated and told me it was a possible ruptured appendix. So, we sped to the emergency room (our first ever ER trip) where they rushed us into triage right away. Then, we sat there for 4 hours while they tried to decide what was wrong. By this point her fever was up to 104.5, and she is just laying in bed, not talking or playing or sleeping, just laying there and almost completely unable to walk on her own. Can I just say . . . . SOOOO SCARY!!

Finally they took a 2nd urine sample and determined that she had a urinary tract infection which had most likely spread to her bladder/kidneys/bloodstream. So they started her right away on an IV antibiotics. Since the fevers weren't responding well to tylenol and her white blood count was pretty high, they admitted us into pediatrics. We stayed until Tuesday morning when the fevers started to stay under 100, the white blood count was down by 1/2 and she was getting back her energy. Then they released us with a really strong antibiotic that she gets to take for a week.

Now she is back to her normal self (happy, talkative, busy, eating and drinking, etc!) What a relief that it was a fairly quick fix with no surgery required! Thank heavens for antibiotics! When the doctors were talking about her elevated white blood count, people were throwing around words like kidney failure, burst appendix, and even lukemia. You cannot imagine how thrilled we were to hear urinary tract infection.

Just a couple of notes . . .
1) Trying to nurse Noah while he was at home and I couldn't leave the hospital (Emma got nervous when I wasn't there with her) was not the most fun I've had in my life.
2) So grateful for my friends who showed so much support when I was falling apart (Jen even came and cleaned my house and cooked, and frosted my birthday cake while I was gone!)
3) Thank goodness for my Mother-in-law who rushed up from Fresno to take care of the kids while we were stuck in the hospital

And, on the funny side. Emma kept hearing people talking about her kidneys over and over, and finally she was starting to get really scared, and kept asking me "Like Archie?" (that's our cat's name), but I couldn't figure out why she was talking about Archie and what he had to do with anything. Finally I figured out that she thought she had a "kitty infection." She thought she had a cat inside of her and that's what was making her so sick. Poor kid. She was relieved to hear that a KIDNEY was part of her body, not an animal!

So anyway, we are happy to be home, and happy to have life back to normal, and most of all happy happy happy that Emma is ok now!!

Trip to Nana and Papa's House!

Last weekend we drove down to The Dalles to spend a few days with Nana and Papa! We had so much fun, and the drive really wasn't that bad. We left wondering why we don't make the trip more often (life just seems to get in the way). Anyway, we got some really great pictures . . . so prepare for the deluge!


The girls were old enough this year to take turns riding and leading Santee.

Here is Midnight star (Lady's foal who is about a year old now) giving Emma a kiss! I love this picture of my dad! It was so great to be there with him and see for myself how great he is doing since his surgery. He is back to his old self now!!




Hiking the mountain with Papa in search of the horses

Lindsay riding Socks by herself!



Emma riding Socks by herself!







Nathan riding Socks by himself!


Papa leading Lindsay and Emma at the same time. Emma is on Scout and Lindsay's on Socks.




Roasting marshmellows by the campfire. Finally we have a couple of pictures of Nana . . . I don't know how she managed to avoid the camera all weekend, but luckily we did get a few shots of her!











I can't believe I didn't get a single picture of Noah on the horses, but here he is playing on the floor at Nana's house.



Lindsay, Emma and Nathan playing with the puppies

There just really isn't any place like my parents house with all the animals and the mountains and the trampolines and, of course, Nana and Papa!

Life

We have been in school for a month now, and the Girls and Nathan are loving it. They all three have really great teachers (thank Heavens)! And I hear nothing but good news when I go to pick them up! It is so fun for me to see them growing up and making friends and learning to be a little more autonomous (makes me proud but a little sad that they need me less and less). The first two weeks I kept my phone right by me and jumped every time it rang (I was sure someone was desperately needing me). But, now we're settling into our routine and it is just normal. FYI: only one of those rings in the first couple weeks was one of the kids desperately needing me -- Nathan fell of the ladder of the slide and bit through his front lip, but he survived and so did I!

It has been pretty nice because 5 days a week I only have foster son and Noah at home for about 3 hours of the morning, and they usually take a two hour nap during that time. (YEAH!!) I am amazed at how much STUFF I get done during those two hours with no kids hangin' on me, and how happy I am to have them all come back to hang on me after a little break!! ;-)

I have to say though, I am not sure my mommy-mush-for-brains are up to the challenge of having three kids in school. Two kids in school means 2 different library days, share days, homework days, fun days (that require food/supervision/permission slips/etc.), violins and violin classes, lunch times, sack lunches, snack preferences by teacher etc. Plus then there is Nathan who also has his little field trip days, and books from school and things to be donated. It is definately taxing my brain to keep up with all the STUFF I'm supposed to be remembering and reminding kids about. For the first two weeks I had to write EVERYTHING down because I was so worried and stressed that I would forget something the kids needed. But, I guess we are settling in now (although as I typed that I just remembered that today is Emma's share day and I forgot to send something with her to share. DANG!) But, other than that, I guess I'm getting the hang of it. It does make me think though . . . what's it going to be like when I have all five in school with their own library days, homework days, snack and lunch needs, and extracurricular activities?????? I may have to hire an assistant, or maybe I'll just post sticky notes up and down my arms, or I could glue a calendar to my forehead!

Well, at least I know my life will never be boring!! There is definately something to be said for being needed.

Emma lost her first tooth!

Emma lost her first tooth on Lindsay and Nathan's birthday (Aug. 4th)! She was so funny about the whole process. As soon as the tooth started feeling loose she wiggled it like crazy and spent all her time for about 3 days wiggling away, but then when she finally has it hanging by a thread she starts to get scared it will hurt when it falls out, so she spent the next 2 days trying not to touch it or bump it or eat on it. Finally it was so loose she kept having to push it back into her mouth (it was just hanging out), and one of the times she went to push it back in, it just fell out! YEAH!!!

Here she is holding the precious tooth!!

Now she has a very difficult problem. She REALLY wants to keep her tooth, but we told her the tooth fairy won't give her a dollar unless she gives her the tooth (I want to keep it with all her memory stuff), and she REALLY wants that dollar. So, for now, she has decided to keep the tooth until she has another one fall out, then she can sell this one to the tooth fairy!

Birthday Cake . . . again!

So, after my previous post, I have to show the final product. Here is Lindsay and Nathan's birthday cake. Since it was for both kids, I decided to make it really big! Then as I got going on it I realized it was a HUGE project! I used two cake mixes and made two 11X14" cakes and stuck them together on a huge piece of cardboard covered with tinfoil. Then, I frosted them with the blue and green background frosting. After that I traced this picture (off our 32" TV) of Dora, Boots, and Backpack onto wax paper with a permanent marker.

Then I traced the wax paper picture with white frosting and turned it over onto the cake, pressed down gently, and then removed the wax paper. It was supposed to trasfer the tracing onto the cake . . . it kind of did, but it took me so long to trace the whole picture that about half of the frosting was dried before I could turn it over, and the dried frosting refused to come off of the wax paper. So, then I re-traced/outlined in free-hand the whole design onto the cake again. And then I got to the hard part!

I filled all of the tracing in with stars in the appropriate colors and finished the cake of with blue and green shells along the bottom. It was a TON of work and took me at least a few hours (probably more) to finish. But it was the design that Lindsay and Nathan really wanted (they were adamant that it have Dora, backpack, AND Boots! And I have to say, I was pretty psyched about the finished product. By far the biggest cake project I've tackled, and of course it was all worthwhile because . . . Lindsay and Nathan LOVED it!

Here I am filling in the traced outline.

And here is the finished cake!

And here are some pictures from the actual birthday party . . . it was Dora the Explorer themed.

Painting Dora the Explorer pictures

Playing musical chairs

Pin the tail on the Donkey

Blowing out the candles

Eating Pizza and cake and icecream

Gathering up the goodies after breaking our hand-made piniata!! I forgot to get a picture of the piniata before it got smashed to smithereens, but it turned out pretty cute and we had tons of fun making it!!

Opening the birthday presents!

Pictures with the whole Coleman Family

We went down to Fresno at the end of July to spend some time with the Coleman side of the family. Jerry had a ThomCo meeting he had to go to on Friday morning, so we all tagged along and spent a few days swimming and playing at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I, of course, completely forgot to take any pictures, but Saturday morning we had a photo shoot with the whole Coleman family and ended up with some really cute pictures!

Jim and Carol, their four children and all their families!

Grandma and Grandpa with all their grandkids!

Jerry with his brothers (Mike and Scott) and his sister (Kristi)

The Jerry Coleman Family

Our five munchkins!!

This is the best group pic we've gotten of the kids so far . . . it's unbelievably hard to get them all to sit still for more than two seconds and even harder to get them all to look at the camera at the same time.

A cute picture of Noah!

He was the only one of the kids I didn't have a recent picture of . . . they grow/change so fast at his age!!

Birthday Cake Anyone?

Okay . . . true confessions??? I LOVE birthday parties! Not the actual party which tends to be a lot like babysitting a visiting troupe of monkeys. I love the buildup and the prep work and the excitement. It gives me a much-needed vent for my creative juices! I love all the little details like matching tablecloths and plates and napkins and party hats and decorating the house. I love coming up with outrageously difficult cakes and spending inordinate amounts of time making them turn out better than I could have imagined (sometimes better than others, but always a pleasant surprise)! I like coming up with games that match the theme and that I know my kids will be excited to play. I love planning menus that don’t include a single green vegetable but are filled with my kids’ favorite foods. I love spending hours making a piñata that they will break in a few minutes. I love the excuse to give in to my children’s every whim and buy them at least some of the things they’ve been asking for for months. I love wrapping the presents up with bows days in advance and giving silly hints about what they might be. I never get tired of singing happy birthday or watching them blow out their candles. I love their enthusiasm—I love my enthusiasm.
I know, I REALLY need a hobby. But I guess in a life that is mostly filled with chauffeuring and playing referee in inane arguments and cleaning up messes and cooking and tears and tantrums and laundry and poop and slobber—any diversion is welcome! Plus, I get to lick the frosting when I’m finished decorating the cake!!