Barn Animal

So, I realized it has been a long time since I've posted. Actually, Vicki pointed it out. :) It has been a busy week and a half and I hope to update soon, right now I just have a couple of minutes.

I've been lonely and missing everyone, due to the fact that I've had sick kids and missed playgroup and Easter Sunday at church. :( So, I invited a family over for dinner. I'm walking around tidying up and went into my dining room, a room we don't use everyday right now, and remembered I still have a barn animal in there.

That's right a real live barn animal....I'm gonna have to move that thing to another place... and soon.

Ward Conference - Blessing #10

Yesterday was Ward Conference. Truthfully, I have never really enjoyed ward conference before. But yesterday was different. It was great, even if I had to listen to half of it while sitting in the Primary room. (with my noisy 3 year old)
A man in our ward who I have known since I was 14 bore his testimony. He has a real tough exterior. Stern and gruff with a real hard handshake. I have heard him bear his testimony before, but I never heard it like this. I don't know if the difference was anything he said or just the way I heard it. He was so tender and sweet. I haven't heard him talk about the Savior and the gospel that way before. I was so thankful that I was there to hear it.
Then, a women's choir sang. And while the singing was beautiful I kept watching the pianist and the chorister. Two beautiful women who I also met when I was 14. They are so gifted with music and have blessed our ward for many, many years. I wondered if there is even anyone in the generation to come who will do as good of a job as these two women have. They are both older women, but still in terrific shape. I found that I was so appreciative of what they do, instead of taking them for granted. I truly saw them for the beautiful talented women they are. Next, we heard from one of my favorite speakers in the stake. (2nd counselor in the stake presidency) He always does a great job. Halfway through his talk is when I had to head to the Primary room. I struggled to listen, through the distractions in the Primary room as our Stake President spoke.What I did get out of ward conference was awesome, and I am honestly looking forward to next year.

Friend or Foe?

I had a lot to say this morning, so that I wouldn't have one really LONG post, I decided to break it down into several smaller posts. More wrestling.....

I don't know how I went from thinking this other kid's dad (I really need to come up with a name for this kid Andrew wrestles against every week........um........George), so I used to think that George's Dad was such a jerk. The bad call in New Orleans, the fact that he was asking Andrew about his teammates...I just didn't like him. Bobby just listened but told me he wasn't bad. What dad is going to tell the ref to take away points awarded to his son (controversial or not)? Anyway, I now find that I can talk to this man and he is so nice!! We talk about how hard it is to watch the kids and he pats me on the back and says "see ya next week". He is always smiling and seems to really like Andrew, even if Andrew beats his son. I feel so bad now about having hard feelings towards him and walking away from him when he tried to talk to Spencer. :( Guilt!

The kids are great with each other. They can run around and play, hang out with each other all day, then get out on the mat and give it their all. We see the same kids week after week and Andrew is making some good friends. They are learning wonderful lessons in great sportsmanship.

Andrew is really building quite a fan club at the tournaments. He has been described by older kids as "an animal", "a beast". By other coaches (especially George's Dad) as "very polite", "a good sport", "Tough Guy".

1st place!

Saturday was also our home wrestling tournament, which was very convenient. Since we were so close, Bobby stayed home most of the day and I was able to go pick him up so he could watch the championship match. Andrew absolutely amazes me. He is so tough! Last weekend at his greatest competitor's home tournament, Andrew brought home the gold in his age bracket. The first time he has ever beaten that kid. He also brought home the bronze in an older age bracket, wrestling against 12 and 13 year olds.
This weekend, he did it again! In a 14-man bracket Andrew won 1st place.

It makes for really exciting matches when the competitors are both really tough and evenly matched. Exciting and intense. It is sometimes hard to watch!

Good Weekend!

After such a bad week, it was nice that the weekend turned out so well. Bobby went to the Dr. Friday afternoon and found out that his stone had passed, but had what the Dr. described as a "rip-roaring" infection. I guess that means it was bad?? Anyway, he told Bobby which hospital he would be on-call this weekend in case we needed anything. That had me a little nervous. But he started Bobby on one of the "strongest antibiotics on the planet" - again, those were the Dr.'s words. By Saturday he was already getting some color back in his face. Sunday morning, he told me to leave Spencer home from church with him. :) I think they enjoyed some nice cuddle-time. This morning, I didn't hear the alarm go off and he didn't wake me. He just turned it off and got the boys ready for school. Wow - dramatically different that just a few days before. He goes back to the Dr. tomorrow to find out when he can return to work. :)

Rude Awakening

So it hasn't been the greatest week for us, but I think I've been doing fine with everything. Until last night. After cooking dinner, I got a headache. So, I sat down and decided I was taking the rest of the night off. I didn't clean the kitchen, tidy the living room, make the boys clean their rooms, set out the boys school clothes for the next day...Nothing. I watched 7th Heaven until I started dozing off and climbed into bed at 10 pm.
Monday morning I said I crawled out of bed at 1:30 am. Well at 3:00 this morning, I heard a noise. I jumped out of bed, screamed and ran toward the bathroom. When I reached the door, I turned around and saw it. My husband was puking on the bed. Right where I had been sound asleep just seconds earlier. It was awful. He said he was "so sorry. I didn't know I was going to throw up until it was happening." Well, apparently I knew a split-second before he did because, luckily, I did get out of the way just in the nick of time.
Then I walk into the kitchen and see all the dirty dishes on the counters and the big mess I left in the living room. So I start cleaning. I'm tidying things up and found something that belonged in my son's room and opened the bedroom door to put it away. It stunk in there. Really bad. So I investigate. My son (I won't tell you which one) apparently did not know he had diarrhea. His bottom half and sheets were covered with it. Poor guy! I had a 5 second pity party and cried, then woke him up and told him to take a shower. This is the 2nd time this week we found a son covered in diarrhea. The first mattress is sitting outside by our garbage can. Sunday morning the gruesome discovery was made with another son. How do they not know?
So, I have been up cleaning since 3 am and decided that now at 7:30 am I deserved a break.
What's left to do today? Not much.
Just scrub the bathrooms, mop the floors, go visiting teaching, clean the boys' carpet, make sponsorship signs for the wrestling tournament this weekend (it's our home tournament so at least we don't have to travel!), move my brother's table out of the way because my new table is being delivered today, Bobby's doctor appointment (he still hasn't passed the stone), I promised one son I would take him to the store after school, and let's not forget the three kids I babysit. .................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Just answered the phone. My visiting teaching companion is sick and needs to go to the doctor. She thinks we should reschedule for next week. Yippee! Don't get me wrong, I really like going, the ladies are awesome. But this morning, probably not the best idea.
As soon as I got off the phone, a truck pulled up in my driveway. I told Peyton's grandmother this morning when she dropped him off at 6:30 about the stomach problems in the household. Both of Peyton's parents have been sick most of this week and his grandmother has been picking him up after work and taking him home with her. Well, she said this morning that his parents were feeling better, but not ready to go back to work yet so they would stay home and disinfect everything. So she called his parents and his dad just came and picked him up! He really is a good baby, just not what I need to be dealing with today if they are feeling better.
Looks like I might even find time to eat and take a shower! Maybe I'll even be able to buy a new mattress this weekend!
Well, break time is over. It's back to work.

Still Waiting.......

Apparently I'm not supposed to give too many details. But, we are still waiting and he is still in a lot of pain........He will be out of work at least this whole week.

Hooray for Morphine!

Blessing #9 - Morphine!

I am so thankful that morphine works so well and so FAST! Yeah!
I read on a friend's blog that she crawled into bed about 1:30 this morning. Well, that is about the timed I crawled out of bed. I knew Bobby had been to the bathroom a couple of times, but didn't know why. He turned on the light and told me I HAD to get up. Still not quite awake, I stumbled into the bathroom. He looked like he was in pain.
He comes out of the bathroom and starts getting dressed. "You need to call someone!"

"WHO?"

"MY DAD. SOMEONE. I DON'T CARE"

"WHY??" (remember I'm still half asleep and not sure what is going on)

"TO WATCH THE KIDS!"

"WHY??"

"BECAUSE YOU NEED TO TAKE ME TO THE HOSPITAL"

"HUH?" Crud, is it really that bad?

So I run around getting dressed, called his parents, and laying out school clothes for the boys. Bobby seems to be worsening by the minute.

His mom arrives and we leave. I stopped at a red light and he is frustrated at me for not running it. I am going 10 mph over the speed limit. He is pulling on the seat belt telling me to drive faster! I turned to him and said, "You need an epidural!" The man was in PAIN!

So we get to the E.R. and he runs to the bathroom and I sign him in. As soon as the triage nurse called Bobby's name and checked him out, we went straight to the back. The doctor was there in about 2 minutes and the nurse was starting an IV. Doc was pretty confident he knew right away what it was. Kidney Stone.

So they started running fluids in him and the nurse said he was going to get some morphine. He came back and injected "something" into the IV. He said give that a few minutes and if it doesn't work we'll try something else. Bobby is laying on the bed, moaning, on the verge of crying, twisting and turning in pain. 10 minutes later there is no relief. The nurse says he'll be back with something else. "Now we'll try morphine."

I'm thinking "NOW". Isn't that what he told me he was going to get the first time. "What did you give him before??"

"An anti-inflammatory. Sometimes it works." Bobby wouldn't even let me stand next to him. He yelled at me to sit down. AHHHH! Get this man some relief.

Morphine goes in about 3:00 am. Minutes later he is visibly starting to relax. He closed his eyes and started to rest. Yeah! Which means I can take a deep breath and relax now too. Thank Goodness! He pain decreased from a 10 to a 7. Not great at this point, but we'll take it. He was down to a 4 by the time we left.

A CT Scan confirms it is a kidney stone and he just has to wait for it to pass. So after two bags of fluid, an anti-inflammatory, 2 anti-nausea medications, a CT scan, 3 doses of morphine and 2 prescriptions, they let us leave at 6:00 this morning. He is pretty well-medicated right now and resting nicely. I don't know if it's over, but I'm sure not going to wake him to find out.

I got home just in time to see the boys off to school. I made the baby a bottle, feed him and put him to bed. When Kaylie got here at 7:45 she was pretty tired, so I told her to climb into the recliner and take a nap. Even my own two kids slept late this morning! Yeah! So I was able to take a nap until 10 am, when Spencer finally decided to yell from his crib and tell me it was time to wake up. I'm thankful I got the nap I did. :) Now if I could just get a shower...

March for Babies!

Blessing #8

Child proof door knobs! My baby man sent his Daddy running to the store for some this morning. We locked the door and baby man just unlocks it and walks out. He seemed a little confused by the addition! Yeah!

Blessing #7

I am so thankful to have great neighbors! The couple who live across the street from us found my 1 year old escape artist in our front yard. They could have ignored him, but they made sure he found his way safely back into my arms. Thank You!