Flu, day 6

Well, day 6 if I count last Friday when neither of them was really sick, they just felt sort of icky and then ran around the house after school instead of going to karate.

I dragged DS1 back to school yesterday and today. He's still a bit pale and said he had a headache this morning. DS2 still had a fever last night and then threw up (on my bed - thank you dahling) at about 8 PM. It was his first puke, only a bit of juice, and it was easier to clean up than DS1's middle-of-the-carpet cranberry juice one over the weekend. (Too Much Information?). Anyway, no fever this morning and he's eating a piece of toast, so fingers crossed he'll get a couple of days in at school this week.

One of my midwives will be here in a little bit. I'm not sure, but it seems like after this I'll be seeing them every week instead of every other week. Woah.

Little baby clothes are washed and in a drawer. Little baby diapers are washed and in a drawer. I dug out my old Hug-a-Bub baby carrier, which I hadn't had the nerve to part with. I'll have to dig a bit deeper in the place I found it to see if I still have the instruction video. They have better instructions on their website than they did 5 1/2 years ago, so I don't desperately need the video, I guess. So now I have the h-a-b, I made a Mei Tai/Asian Baby Carrier, plus someone gave me an old sling.

I have offers of bits and pieces from various people and I think that will cover everything. Then we wait.

UPDATE: I hadn't posted this yet when the knock came on the door. Baby's fine, I'm fine. Baby's head is down, but she's still lying facing forwards, which is a no no. So time for more pelvic rocks and all that optimal fetal positioning, trying to convince her to turn around.

*snifff* *Waaaah!* the chocolate elf ran out of chocolate

None in the house other than Halloween and Xmas candy that belongs to the kids. Not that they'd notice, actually, if they didn't actually catch me at it.

Chocolate - any sugary things, really - have been upsetting my stomach worse than any other foods for the last few months. But one piece of chocolate? And I have the whole day with both kids home sick - DS1 recovering, DS2 seems to be coming down with it for real after a weekend of announcing he felt sick with no evidence.

I neeeeed some chocolate. We have some ice cream. That might work, but the kids would definitely catch me getting some of that...

Dresser, sickness, malingerers, and books

Got a dresser! I went to another consignment store and they had several good chests for good prices. I was out running errands with a friend and though it wouldn't fit into her van with all the seats in there, she had her husband help her take the seats out and she took me back today. I can start doing baby laundry in earnest now!

DS1 is still sick. He's not as feverish today - his head and neck are still hot, but not burning up. That's my scientific way of not taking temperatures. He hasn't thrown up since this morning. He has had some juice, some water, and a whole piece of toast. He's also awake watching videos instead of sleeping fitfully like he did for most of the day yesterday. I'll probably keep him home from school tomorrow.

DS2 claims to be sick, too. Not much evidence for that, but maybe he feels a bit off like I do and/or wants the extra attention. I've had basically only toast in the last day or so. I don't feel like I am going to throw up, but my tummy's not happy with me at all.

Books. I've read a lot of books in the past few days. Notably one called The Spymaster's Lady. Can't remember the author off the top of my head. Joanna Bourne. Looked it up on Amazon, my all-purpose book search engine. Anyway, it's really good.

It's the story of a French spy in Napoleonic France who has been caught by a rival spy who is up to something bad. When she escapes, she frees the Englishmen who are being held captive too. Turns out, they're spies as well and one of them is a lead spymaster. They then go ahead and capture her and decide to take her to England because she is supposed to know where a copy of Napoleon's plans to invade England is. All the while, they are pursued by the French spy who's up to something, she's trying to escape, she and the master spy are falling in luuuuuuv, she's revealing and learning about her past (just who were her parents really?). And that's just the first half of the book.

It dragged in a few places - unfortunately toward the beginning where she's trying to escape over and over again and can't get away from them. The second half of the book picks up pace a bit - more things are answered though in a way, fewer things happen - when they get to England.

The characters were really well-drawn, though the bad guy was mostly a one-note puppy-kicking ne'er-do-well. Well, the main bad guy. These are spies, you're never sure who else could be a bad guy. The book also dwells in the shades of gray of having the right people on your side - the right people aren't necessarily nice by any stretch and besides they might think you are a traitor or trying to double-cross them.

I also read one called Divorced, Desperate, and Delicious, which is quite well written, though more a fluff piece - the author has a LOT of promise. Well, she's already a published author of non-fiction, but I think this is her first novel. I promised to write a review of it for Dee and Dee Dish, so they sent me a free copy. Score! I am almost done and need to get my thoughts together.

Saturday morning laziness

After school yesterday, DS1 announced that his tummy hurt when we were on our way to karate. I had already dropped DS2 off at home (DH was home) because his face was very hot and he said he felt sick and picked up our friend who lives down the street. So I went and dropped DS1 off at home, too, and just took S to karate. S's brother, C, went home sick from school yesterday (and started puking as soon as he got home) and we were going to have S come and play for a while after karate. I dropped him off at karate, stayed until the class actually started, and went to the library instead of watching the whole time. The class was really small, which is usual on Friday, but even smaller because I knew of at least 3 kids (mine and C) who would have been there if they had not been indisposed.

I took S straight home, figuring that my kids' germs were better kept in the family, since S was already exposed to C's.

Not that I really believed they were very sick at all. They were a bit tired, but had their bounce off the walls silly moments as usual.

I was up late reading - I had a horrible stomachache and had eaten dry toast for supper myself and then couldn't settle because of the indigestion - and had turned out the light and was almost asleep when I head DS1 coughing, then his door thumped open and I heard him gagging and retching in the bathroom. He didn't actually throw up, but thought he was going to.

So anyway, DS1 was burning up, so I gave him some tylenol and a drink of water and tucked him back in. He still felt lousy this morning, but wasn't as feverish. I gave him some more tylenol and some toast and juice and now the two of them are watching "Cars" which I borrowed from the library, figuring that it was something they hadn't seen since it was in the theater and it would keep them entertained if they really were sick.

Andd.... what else was I going to say?

Oh, I went into Toys R Us yesterday and they had a really good crib on clearance, so I snapped one up. Or rather, I paid for it, it took them 15 minutes to find it in the stockroom, and then there was no way in the wide world that it was going to fit in my car, even if I had taken it out of the box because the back is really tall. My friend, S & C's mom, picked it up in her minivan on the way home from school and even with the back row of seats taken out, we had to put the first passenger row as far forward as it would go to fit that huge box in there.

I'm thinking of going back to the consignment shop where I saw a decent, sturdy dresser for a reasonable price a few days ago. Only if they deliver! A worker at TRU tried to talk me into the matching baby armoire, but there are only a couple of drawers and a couple of shelves and it wasn't all that sturdy.

Oh, and I had gone by a furniture in the midst of its big! huge! closeout! and the dressers were, oh, between $2000 and $6000. "Oh, don't worry about those prices, since we're closing so soon, everything's negotiable." OK, $100 for that $3500 dresser? $200? No? Well why ever not?

Am I obsessing about dressers? I just feel that I can't even start to get organized until I have something to put baby clothes in.

Sigh

So it was about 40 degrees out this morning, not raining right then, but everything was wet. I was standing in the house and realized I could hear the recycling truck coming (it sounds like the garbage one, of course, but it comes between 6 and 8 am while garbage comes later. I just heard it and it's almost 11). Luckily, I was dressed, though only had socks on my feet. I peeked out the window and the recycling bin was not out at the curb, only the garbage one. So I whipped my socks off and took off out the door and rolled the bin down.

Barefoot, pregnant and in the driveway. T-shirt and pants, no bra, feet rapidly icing over. Very glad the driveway's so short. I waved cheerily to the garbage woman and took off. Brrrrrr.

I guess DH thought it was a green waste week and didn't put the can out.

So I get the kids ready for school, drive them in, and head for the dentist. Teeth cleaned, no x-rays obviously, gums are sore but he said they look pretty good, actually, considering hormone levels and the fact that brushing and flossing make me gag.

I decide to stop for gas on the way home. I am in a pretty good mood, thinking that DH filled the tank the last time, maybe even the last two times. I put some cash in the machine, pull the lever inside the car and pop the little door open and discover --- no gas cap. Sigh. So I fill the tank and head for the auto parts place. Only $6 for the gas cap, but the guy at the parts store had to search around in the back for one because our car is so old.

I told Dh when I got home and he said, "Oops". People drive off without them all the time. I've made it to the edge of the station lot a few times myself. Never actually lost one before, though.

Unless you count the one from the car we borrowed from a friend of DH's when we lived in France. The door locks weren't working properly, so the friend and DH changed them. We found out a week or so later, while out driving in the countryside (lovely spring flowers, big brown and white Montbeliarde cows) with my mom that they had taken the keys to the gas cap, too. We were already hard-pressed to find a gas station and then the guy had to drill the cap off. A few days before our wedding and I was a ball of stress and didn't handle it well.

Two more sewing pictures

Wooooooahhhh. Duuuuude. Like, psychedelic, man.




ROAR!


I went shopping today, too. Do you know how much a plain, little t-shirt costs? I hit the clearance sales and a consignment store. I think I'm about ready, except for that pesky dresser-to-put-it-in detail.

Some places, I ended up with more stuff for the big boys than for the little girl, but I hope that the long trousers I got will fit them next year.

And some pictures (belly and sewing)

Well, posting up a storm today, aren't I?

Here's the almost-35-week belly:



Taken by Dh sitting down and me standing up, so that belly is positively LOOMING. The fleece jacket is really hard to zip over the tummy. I got it in San Francisco several years ago for less than $10 and the fleece is sewed so that it stretches up and down instead of around. If you're not a sew-er, then let me tell you that it is wrong wrong wrong. But hey. Almost 4 years of use and it's one of the few things I can still wear, so oh well.

And then a teeny tiny baby shirt I sewed today:


Fabric from the 99 cent table at Hancock's. I wanted to be sure I could get a decent result before I used something that cost more. It's really thin fabric, but nicely stretchy and I have about half of the half-yard piece left, so it's a 25 cent shirt ;) I used the first ribbing I came across in my fabric stash, so now it's Ohio State colors. I have some wacky odd-colored floral from the table, too and want to make a t-shirt from that. Less time sewing on tiny blasted snaps.


And a bunting (Grobag, baby sleeping bag thingy, whatever you want to call it) that I did a couple of weeks ago:



I need to either put snaps or buttons on the straps or sew them together and call it a day. The fabric is from Hancock's - ready-quilted fabric from the Portobello collection. We have less than a yard left in the store now, but I have almost a yard left at home because I changed my mind on the pattern to use. In case you want some quilted fabric, because I have no idea what I will use the rest for.

Oh and do you want to know what the baby's name will be?

I'm hesitating between "Bonus Surprise W." and "Surprise Bonus". I think Surprise sounds more girly, don't you?

(And this is how I get my mom riled up)

Where's my stuff?

I'm, um, planning a home birth. Shhhhhhh! Yep, eco-feminine-earth-mother-radical. *Insert eye roll* Also a lot cheaper than in the hospital for those of us with cr*ppy insurance and a good track record of uncomplicated, unmedicated births. Anyway.

My midwife told me which company sells a complete kit of pads, gloves, cord clamps, etc that I would need and gave me the order form and list. I went on the internet and ordered it there. I got a box a couple of days ago and got around to opening it today. All the pads seem to be there and some of the other stuff, but about 5 or 6 things are not there. Including scissors and cord clamps. I mean, we have some steak knives and a drawer full of rubber bands and twist ties, but I was kind of hoping for the real thing. And when I went to their website to check exactly what they thought they sent me (they just noted the name of the kit on my invoice) and it wasn't quite the same list that my midwife had handed me, so I guess I'll need a suction bulb thingy, too, which they sell, but which is no longer in the kit.

So I am going to hope that they get back to me soon, unlike a certain seed company from whom I ordered seeds OVER A MONTH AGO and they haven't sent them and haven't gotten back to me about them. And well, I have 5 weeks and 2 days until my due date. Which is over a month, but not much.

UPDATE from the dumbhead (That's me): I had sent an email to my midwife and she wrote to be sure to unroll all the various sheets and pads. And there the rest of it was. Well, one the herbal powders was leaking powder, but otherwise, everything's intact. She says I don't need to get a bulb aspirator doohickey.

Also, I called the seed company, since they haven't responded to my emails and the guy who was looking it up for me was having a hard time figuring out what in the world the computer was doing with my account/order. And his supervisor wasn't there. So I should get a call on Mon or Tues to tell me what they've done with my wildflower seeds.

Too stinkin' early

to be up on a Saturday! Yeah, I know. Kids get up when they get up.

But the first one up this morning? About 7:30? Is the lovely child that I have to use a crane on to get out of bed *after* 7:30 on a school day. Then he was pouting because I didn't want him to wake his brother up. Then he needed me to put in a DVD for him (pick a tape, honey. You can do those yourself.). Then the brother got up anyway and pretty soon there was yelling and the brother talking in his wound-up, high-pitched screech and then there was crying. DH got up to see if he could get them to calm down. Then a few minutes later, the screechy sound again so I got up and told them to settle down or go back to their rooms and start the day over. Then I got roped into getting out cereal bowls, even though they have no problems with climbing on the counter to get candy out, just to get cereal bowls.

So what the heck. I'm up now.

Nasty sore throat, still blowing nose and coughing, head feeling woozy and stuffy.

Need to get some stuff done today. I want to get a dresser because once this baby's born, I don't think cardboard boxes on the floor of my room is going to be a very good organizational system for her diapers and clothing. Oh, and still need a crib for naps, nursing bras, maybe a baby-in-a-bucket carseat. I have enough fabric to clothe a family of twenty and even some I want to make t-shirts from. Want a diaper bag and want to make a new baby carrier. Need to count diapers and covers and be sure of those.

I suddenly had a freak out moment at the beginning of the week. SIX WEEKS. Well, now just over FIVE. And if the baby is here in two weeks, that's still on time and not preemie. Ummmm....

Interesting OT stuff

Not Off Topic because I don't have a topic. Talking about Occupational Therapy this time.

The therapist who works with kids at my kids' school came up with some OT things that they started using in DS1's class today. A couple of the kids now have a special cushion with bumps to sit on when they work on the floor - I guess it might fit on a chair, too. A couple of them now have stress-ball squeeze toys. One has a plastic tube thing to chew on. These are meant to help the kid get their fidgets out without them wandering around the class, etc.

I think DS1 might need something - not because he fidgets, but because he zones out. He needs something to keep him focused.

Latest baby news

Midwife visit yesterday. Baby is apparently head down and settling in the pelvis. Seems to have her back toward mine, so I need to convince her to turn back to front, but it's good to know that she's at least not lying sideways. Hooray!

We talked a bit about diabetes, mostly about this article which says that routine testing is pretty much unnecessary and doesn't help anything. (Note: The UK, where I had my first two babies, stopped doing a routine GTT sometime between the time I had the two of them. Oh, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists even says that there is no reason to do routine screening. So why is everyone doing routine screening?) Then I peed on the stick and everything was normal and she did the little glucose monitor home test on me and my results were just fine and my belly measures within a centimeter of where it's supposed to be. So I'm not going to worry about it again.

I have a nasty cold, possible sinus infection. If I blow my nose often enough and really, really hard, I can keep from coughing up a lung more than once or twice an hour (and wetting myself - shhhh).

I have some round ligament and muscle pain in the places that are holding up my burgeoning belly. I'm sure a lot is just the rapid expansion of the belly, but those are also muscles that contract when I cough hard.

I tried to take a nap yesterday afternoon, but kept coughing myself awake. I lay down with a book for a while before dinner and fell asleep before 6. DH fed and entertained the kids and got them to bed. Hooray for DH! I woke up several times during the night, but slept until 7:30.

The kids went to bed in their own beds for the third night in a row. YAY! and this was the first of those 3 nights that DS2 has come into our bed, where he proceeded to snuggle up against me with his knobby knees until I had just enough space between him and DH to sort of breathe, but not to roll over. Oh, then his nighttime pull-up got so saturated that it leaked. Sigh.

But I forgot to set my alarm clock this morning, so we got up a but after 7:30 and had to work fast. And we had to have toast instead of cereal because there was about 1 fl oz of milk in a gallon jug in the fridge. I was going to make a quick trip to the store last night, you see. And apparently DH didn't recognize the emptiness of the milk jugs. They magically refill? And why 1 ounce?

I helped in DS2's Kindergarten class today. One of the girls told me she hoped I was having two girls because then I would have two boys and two girls. EEEEK! No, honey, just one in there. One baby at a time is enough work for me, thanks.

The class was more chaotic than usual because the main teacher was out and there was a sub. The assistant runs the class well, but with only one teacher really knowing what to do... I am snack micro-manager, but was helping as best I could around the edges, even being so forward as to check the kids' work and check the jobs off their sheet.

DS2's best school buddy (BSB?) came in in a howling, shouting bad mood this morning. He hates school, it's too easy, he doesn't like the jobs, he was doing something one day and some kids were messing around and messed it up and he had to start over which meant he didn't get to go to recess. Actually, most of what he said was stuff that I agree with completely and I have even chatted with his parents about and vented about on here. I mean, the kid can read, but they still have him writing out three letter words instead of reading books. He knows all the math jobs and they don't have harder ones for him, etc etc. So in spite of the teacher telling me to just leave him alone and he'll snap out of it, I sat and listened. I told her that he has legitimate concerns. He then went ahead and did his work with no problems.

Then I went to the grocery store and realized that I hadn't had enough to drink AND no caffeine, so bought a soda, which I usually avoid - artificial colors, sweeteners, fizz, caffeine. Went down smoooooth. I finished the bottle before I checked out, while I don't usually even open it until it's paid for.

Right. DH is going to get the kids from school and drag them around on some errands, so I am going to get my new library book out of the car and go take a nap.

Ah finally (tooth all the way looth)

DS1 just came to me while he was eating his bowl of cereal and there's the tooth in his hand.

He did manage to eat cake (twice) and pizza yesterday, so it wasn't bothering him as much anyway, I guess.

So back to our regularly scheduled programming :)

Oh, and a looth tooth

DS1 (8 yo) has a tooth on the side that is barely hanging on by a thread. I just asked if we could try to pull it out, but he said that would hurt. So in the meantime, he has eaten basically nothing but milk since yesterday morning, when he had a cut-up apple for snack at school. He cranky and listless.

I just suggested soup for breakfast, but I don't think we have any tomato soup. He doesn't want runny oatmeal, either.

I guess we'll go by the store this morning.

Birthday Party Day!

Still not for DS1, whose birthday was nearly 2 weeks ago now. As of last night he was still shrugging and saying "I dunno" when asked where he wanted a party.

A party at 1:30 for one of DS2's friends and DS1 is invited (the friend has an older brother and he and DS1 chase girls together at recess sometimes).

A party at 5 at a bounce house place for our friend who lives down the street.

There's only 1.5 hours between parties and both are a good 1/2 hour away (just by chance, in the same area of town). So do we hang around an area we don't know for 1.5 hours or do I drive them home for a few minutes before piling back in the car?

And DS2's eye was a bit goopy again this morning. Might have stopped the pink eye drops too soon...

I just got a call from one of my supervisors, asking if I would cover another person's shift tomorrow afternoon. Since the manager hasn't been putting me on the schedule, I said of course. I only have a few weeks left where I'll be willing to plan ahead.

Ew yuck!

Yesterday, DH had the car in the afternoon and his job was to pick up the kids from school and take them to karate. So just after 2, I get a call from the school office saying that DS2's eyes were red and he kept rubbing them. They were a little red yesterday morning and had a tiny bit of goop the night before, so I wasn't surprised. Just a bit peeved that he had been itching and red ALL afternoon, maybe even all day, but it was the after care program (he's in it for an hour from when his K class ends until DS1's class gets out) that sent him in and called me, not his regular teachers. A new line for my too-big-class rant!

Anyway, I then had to call Dh, who got there as soon as he could and then had to wait around for DS1 to get out of school. Then he took them both to karate where DS2 joined in anyway - probably got infection on the punching bags.

Then last night, he was still itchy. This morning, he was even redder and his eyes were really nasty, so he stayed home. We saw the doctor, who wrote a prescription. Waiting for the pharmacy to finish making it up now. I'll go get it when I pick DS1 up.

So. Yeah. Pink eye. His annual case of it. It's only been 11 months since the last time, according to the records at the dr's.

Everyone blink and try to not rub at your eyes now....

Didn't you know I was officially a "Lady"?

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Venerable Lady Phyllis the Unusual of Fritterton on the Marshes Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

update on our friends

Since my mom asked, I guess a few other people might be vaguely curious.

Our friends got up in the mountains to their hotel through wind and rain and a bit of sleet only to find that the hotel's power was out and wasn't likely to come back on for 10 days or so, with a boatload of snow still expected. So they turned around and came home, stopping about an hour away overnight and returning early Saturday afternoon. So we fed their pets once a couple of hours before they got home. That's it.

DS2 kept me awake most of the night. He has a really stuffy nose and couldn't be shifted from our bed, so I spent the whole night digging his toes out of my spine and shoving him back toward his edge of the bed so I could roll over. So I am seriously cranky. But DH has the car and is now in charge of picking the kids up and getting them to karate, so I have a few extra hours to slack off and take a nap. Yay!

Woah. Storm.

The night before last and through a good part of yesterday, we had a storm. It dumped down rain and the wind blew and blew. It actually got worse in the morning and it was really raging out there. My midwives had to drive from downtown through it all, dodging giant puddles and downed trees.

It was really crazy, and then my friends decided to drive up into the mountains after all. Ooooo-kay. It's been snowing like crazy with the same sort of winds on exposed, winding roads. Yeah, they're nuts.

They actually came and dropped off the keys a couple of minutes after the power went back on. It went off while the midwives were here and came on after we had been grabbing things out of the fridge for lunch, over an hour later. We got it easy, compared to floods and the places where power is still out.

The midwife visit went pretty well. I have shown too much glucose in my urine for the last couple of times, so my main midwife is going to bring me a blood sugar monitor. I'm trying to be better about what I eat. So far, the baby isn't showing signs of being a giant, though. The second worry is that the baby seems to be lying sideways - though it's pretty hard to tell. My other kids were compliant and went head-down from fairly early on, so now I have to worry about this. My midwife says that breech births aren't too bad for 3rd babies, though there are some risks.

Anyway, it was sunny this morning when we went to feed our friends' pets, but it's supposed to rain again today. I hope it's not quite so wild.

Christmas and birthday pics!

Lower half of tree and all the presents!



Now, isn't he the cutest thing? And no, he doesn't generally wear as many clothes as you'd think he'd need.



DS1 opening birthday presents with DS2 watching. Woooo what a haul!



DS1 and a present. That one's from DS2, who picked out one of his trains to give him. Awwwww...