Stuology

Ada went to her first school-invited birthday party. It even had a bouncy castle! They served cupcakes, and when they were brought out, Ada started jumping up and down and squealing “Cupcakes! Cupcakes! Look! Cupcakes!” She was the only one to do the Cupcake Dance of Glee. That’s my girl!

My throat isn’t hurting today for the first time since I was hit with the group P^* streptococcal bacteria. Yippee for that!

James had to be brought home today because of a fever. The verdict after a run to the doctor is ear infection. He will have to stay home tomorrow.

I have been loving the weather lately–cool, rainy and cloudy. It is a welcome sudden change from the heat. The air conditioner has been turned off and windows opened. I had to go on a emergency run for fall clothes when I woke up last week and had to dig for clothes from last year to fit the kids. I wasn’t ready for the extended cool weather this early, and I had wanted to go clothes shopping on Labor Day, but I was in bed with the plague. Everything outside is still green, but I’m starting to see small peeks of yellow. I’m ready for autumn. Of course, knowing Kansas, we will have another heat spell before it is all over.

The cool weather also brought about a change in food. I’m holding off on making chili though. The first cooking of chili has to be in perfectly cool weather–today almost qualifying! We have had soup though, for my throat, and a shepherd’s pie. I’m really in the mood to bake something. I’m thinking cinnamon rolls. I have some good cinnamon from Penzey’s waiting in the wings for that.

I really do love the change in seasons, even winter–kind of. When I don’t have to really be out in it. Which I will since Ada has to be at school unless it is canceled. And we don’t have busing.

*The P stands for the “plague strain.”

This evening, I decided that I wanted to eat food–at least something beside chicken broth and really over cooked noodles. I was hoping that I was full of enough pain reliever to counterbalance the agonizing pain of swallowing food. I made sandwiches. I chewed thoroughly and swallowed slow. It hurt a bit, but in my mind, it was a fair trade off because I was starting to get hungry. I haven’t eaten food since early Sunday evening. It was the most bland sandwich I have ever eaten. It had sharp cheddar on it, and it tasted like nothing. I then grabbed a popsicle from the freezer to provide numbing coolness to my throat. It tasted like nothing. I ate some 2-year aged cheddar–nothing. The hint of lime corn chips had lost its lime. I decided to use salsa, which not the best idea, but it tasted like the most bland salsa ever made, and the only reaction it got from me was the horrible burning in my throat. Okay, peppers still work. I was out this evening in 57 degree, raining weather, so I decided to make me a hot cup of beef broth. IT DOESN’T TASTE LIKE ANYTHING.

I don’t have any congestion, no runny nose, no sneezing. I can smell things. I have just today developed a taste bud malfunction.

I still had a fever for most of today, but this evening that has disappeared. My throat was really, really sore and swollen until I took my next pill though.

I am going to go ahead and try to work tomorrow. I didn’t get the rest that I had intended to get today because Mac has started to feel bad, and if I can’t completely rest to get over it, I might as well work.

P.S. Where is my Dr. House!?! I want to know what is wrong with me. Of course, if I did have a Dr. House, my kidneys would have to fail before he figured anything out.

P.P.S. I’m too tired and lazy to go to the nearest wood. Please, I don’t want my kidneys to fail.

I went to the doctor this morning. He ruled out strep and mono, and just labeled it as a virus. They took a culture for more info.

In the meantime, I have terrible, horrific throat pain, and I’ve been having chills and a fever since Sunday night. I had two episodes of almost passing out yesterday. One time was while I was making Ada a glass of milk. I told her to go get daddy while I crawled to the sofa. She ran to the bedroom and then came back and said “daddy is sleeping.” I guess I should have told her to wake him up, but it didn’t matter. The dizziness passed only to happen again that afternoon while I was taking a shower.

Just having my throat swabbed and having them look down it doubled my pain. Mac is picking up Ada from Raintree and then picking up my prescription Ibuprofen to try to get the swelling down in my throat. In the meantime, I get to lie in bed almost wanting to cry everytime I need to swallow and going between feeling freezing cold and hot and sweaty.

Oh, and a small section of the ceiling in the shower decided that it wanted to fall down. Seriously. My house is falling apart. We get to add that to the list of repairs that have plagued us the last few weeks.

Last week just wasn’t my week, and this week isn’t looking good either.

Day 56: Gobo Fraggle

This is Ada’s recent craze–Fraggles. Which is fine because I like watching Fraggle Rock. She put Gobo on my legs to get me to take a picture of his feet. I adjusted him a little to get something a tad more interesting than stuffed Fraggle toes.

Yesterday all Ada wanted to do was listen to music–in particular the Fraggle Rock theme song that started this whole Fraggle craze. I uploaded it to my server and put it on my download page: Fraggle Rock - Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. My iPod is now dead and recharging for her. I’ve made a bigger playlist for her, so I’ll sync it soon and go put it back into the monkey iFlop.

James is sick, and spent the morning snoughing^*. My head is feeling stuffy and my ears are hurting, and I keep sneezing. It will probably make its rounds through the house. Ada has spent the morning being entirely unpleasant. I don’t even know what her deal is.

*Sneezing and coughing at the same time. Everytime he did it, his little eyes would tear up.

I tried getting ready for work this morning. I felt nauseated, but got in the shower anyhow. By the time I got out, I was dizzy and nauseated. I went to bed to lie down a bit to see if it would pass, but when getting back up, I just felt dizzy again. I wrote into work sick yet again. Plus my stomach is hurting. Ugh!

Also, Flickr is having issues, so I can’t upload my picture for today. I’ll try later.

James went to sleep around 2:00. He woke up at little after 5:00. I got up to check on him. He didn’t have a temperature, so I tucked him back in. He whined for only a few minutes before he fell silent^*. He woke back up a little before 8:00. I got him up. He still doesn’t have a fever, so yeah! He just ate and seems to be content. I’m going against the no tv on Sunday rule and letting him watch Baby Einstein. He’s smiling and babbling at it. So all appears to be better.

*Or I fell asleep quickly and dreamed about silence.

It is almost 1:30 am, and James is still awake. He still has a fever, and it is obvious by his red rimmed eyes that he needs to go to sleep. I turned on some light music and made a bed on the living room floor out of all the spare blankets I could find so I could lie by him to get him to sleep. He was only fine with that for a few minutes before he started crying again. I turned on some anime to try to distract him. He rocked with me and watched for awhile before starting to cry again. I just put him back in his bed to see if he will give in to sleep.

It reminded me of around this time last year. We’d be up all night. First we would play Viva Piñata or RoboBlitz and then around 3:00am we’d turn on and watch/nap through amine.

This is the first time that he has ever been sick. I’m going to blame his shots, although this is the first time either one of the kiddos had a fever afterwards.

He has been silent for about 3 minutes. Maybe he finally fell asleep!