Snow Day

Hey didn't I just write about snow?? We haven't really had the snowiest of winters as they predicted, which is really irritating me. However last night it snowed then we had freezing rain, making a great combination for school closing. Pete didn't have off, which he sometimes does. Now we need to have 3 more snow days. It isn't the kind of snow that Celia would enjoy, okay she hates the stuff, but it is covered in a layer of ice so you get the picture.

In anycase I was happy to have a day off because I am beyond stressed and exhausted. I have been staying up late doing school work and well honestly just staying up late. Then Celia has been getting up at least 1x a night. Last night she did not get up however she decided it was time to wake up at 4:30 am. So I put Celia down for a morning nap at 8 am and I settled in for a nap, something that I rarely do. I drifted off after about 20 min, then about 30 min. later my neighbor calls me to throw out my keys and he will move my car for me. I woke up suddenly and made a mad dash for the phone so that it didn't wake Celia. But I really wasn't fully awake and I had to think about the request, I was semi incoherent for Brian. Then I knew what he was talking about. So I threw my car keys out and realized there was no way I was going to sleep and there was also no way I was going to let Brian see my messy car. My car is a wreck and I am embarassed by it but currently I don't have the time to clean it out. I keep my house clean, the car just doesn't get clean. Oh, why do I have to move my car?? Well we live in a town house and we move our cars to the other side of our parking lot (not far at all) so that the plow will get our parking spaces. So I threw on some clothes, hat, coat, etc. and joined in the fun of clearing my car (Brian did most of the work). Celia's favorite person came out, Amber- Brian's 7 year old daughter and I threw a snow ball at her, and it landed right on her mouth. Ooops!! She thought it was funny and I cleared it off of her.

Celia woke up about 5 min. after I came in and we had some fun. We did some building, ate some fishies and then later some "unch", she took a ride on a blanket while I pulled it, we danced, we looked up elmo on the internet, we read some of the "Happiest Toddler on the Block" while it was upside down, Celia read the instructions to our Swivel sweeper, and we read some books. Oh she wore a bowl on her head for a long time, went poopy on the potty. Don't get too excited about the last thing, it was just a coincidence and Celia looked at me like I was a nut when I started clapping and congratulating her for going poopy in the potty. We aren't toilet training but she sits on the potty, usualy without a diaper, when I go to the bathroom.

Okay will I should end this so I can do some school work. Yesterday was a frustrating day. My phone was broken in my classroom, my computer stop working, and they kept calling me on the loudspeaker which I can't hear because there is no speaker in my room. I had to keep running into the Early Intervention office to borrow someone's phone. So hopefully things are fixed tomorrow.

Snow and the week is done

No I did not take my daughter who had been very ill for over a full week out in the snow on Monday, nope not me. I would never do that... Never, never, never. Okay, so we went out for about 10 minutes. I bundled her in her snow suit, at least maybe we will get one use out of it this winter!! I thought that she would have a blast however Miss. Celia wasn't so impressed. When we initialy went out she was very excited to go outside as she hasn't been except to go to the dr's office in awhile. However once we started walking in the snow she got really ticked and very annoyed. Why you ask. Okay lets travel down through the pictures.

Here she is treking through, somewhat enjoying it





Her shoes got snow on them, aren't they the cutest, tiniest feet?

And this is my daughter looking down at those cute little feet.

What is her response?

"What the heck, what is this stuff all over my shoes??"

Then she says "off, off, off"

She held her feet up to me and I brushed them off. She got up and walked through the snow only to discover that the white stuff had covered her shoes again so we repeat- "off, off, off" and I wipe them off. Then repeat. Then she just says "uppy Mommy, uppy". So she is picked up, no more snow on her shoes. She was happy to go inside the house.

I love the snow and I know she will outgrow her obsession with keeping her "shoe shoes" clean. But it is dissapointing that I don't have a little snow bunny. Of course it isn't a fair assessment either as she was still recovering some from being sick. We shall try it again.

How is Celia doing? She is almost 100%! I say almost because she is just a little more sleepy and she isn't eating quite as well as she was pre illness. She is so happy to be back at daycare but something that has changed is that she is excited to go home at the end of the day, at least this first week back!! It could be because she has been extra clingy to Mommy lately (though she almost pushes me out the door when I drop her off in the morning) or because her afternoon teacher Miss. Jen K left to do student teaching. She loved her so much and so there has been different afternoon teachers each day this week. I know there will be someone consistent soon. She still has her regular teacher, Miss. Jen there and she is so excited to see her in the morning. Of course Celia's favorite person at daycare is Olivia, a little girl in her class.

School for me has gone well this week as far as my students are concerned. The good thing about our small classroom is that some of our behaviors are decreased. When there isn't very much room to run, kids don't run!! So in a way, I am not too excited to get back to my old classroom. Of course the kids seem extra loud in the tiny, tiny classroom!! Not having a sink or a bathroom is a hardship too. I am so proud of my students though, they are really learning a great deal. They all know the sight words yes and no (along with the ASL signs for them). They have been really hard workers these past two weeks and seem to be a big more calm then in the beginning of the year. It is different to be with students who make progress at a visable rate.

So the week is done and I am tired. Celia has exhausted me with getting up every hour for a week, and then 1 or 2x a night some this week. I have a cold and Pete has a bad cold with his usual cough. I wish he wasn't so stubborn, he gets this cough several times a year, always around this time of year. His allergy meds don't work as well (well they don't work now because it is a cold) around this time of year. He likely has a sinus infection and hopefully will go to the dr tomorrow. But he suffers with this constant dry post nasel drip cough and he won't see an ENT or an allergist. I hate to see him suffering every year. He thinks I nag him about seeing someone but it is only because I care! Oh well, you can't force someone to something they don't want to do. From talking to others, he seems to be in the norm with the male population when it comes to illness. So for this one time he is normal... Pete is going to hate this post.

Hope everyone had a good week. Oh and I have a request for many, many thoughts for a snow day (4 preferably, more on that later) this winter.

You know your child feels better when...

You know your child feels better when..

She swats at you for trying to take the remote away (she has never done this before and I am blaming it on a week's worth of sleep deprivation)

She dumps her container of Mega bloks and puts the container on her head

She trys to take your blanket away and finds it hilarious when you say that you are cold

She eat's some of her Daddy's pancakes

She dances and says "Hey Celia" while nakey (with her sadly smaller tummy) and says some pep to the dance (as even with a 104 temp she would do this)

So Celia is feeling better after only sleeping about 2 hrs total last night. Her cough kept her up. She is feeling better. Her cough is still impressive and we will likely need a nebulizer treatment today. But for the first time in about a week she is actualy playing some. I don't know how. The poor girl hasn't slept well all week. This was such a long bug, we are going to be paranoid with the next cold. There will be another cold of course. So who knows what worked, the antibiotic, nebulizer or she was just going to kick this thing on the 8th day. So happy thoughts for a continued improvement and for Celia to get some sleep. Oh and she needs to eat, she has obviously lost some weight, not as much as I thought but enough.

Oh and I would like to get some sleep, though that is not as important. Pete has a cold too and would like some sympathy. He deserves some but I am, well not as sympathetic with 2 hrs of sleep.

Thanks to Sara, Maggie, and Amy for the get well comments!

Little Celia, Update

So more thoughts for Celia. Her fever went back up to 103 and wasn't responding well to tylenol so I called the Dr's office. They asked us to come in and we saw the original Dr that we saw on Wednesday. This time he seemed not so rushed and spent a good amount of time with us. He heard some wheezing and didn't think that there was any improvement in her ear infection (still not considered a severe ear infection though) since Wed. So we are going to go to a stronger antibiotic and start giving her nebulizer treatments. It does look like it is likely RSV. She is beyond miserable, especialy after the neb treatment- she didn't appreciate the mask that she had to wear. So if no improvement by Monday then we are back to the Dr's office, if worse tomorrow then we are to head to the ER. We are hoping that the neb treatments help her breathe easier and the antibiotic does it's trick. She is very sick. I feel so bad for her.
For once, I am the only one in my family healthy. Usualy I am the sick one. Pete now thinks he has a cold and he doesn't feel well. So Celia is upstairs napping and Pete is in the basement napping. I am trying to chill after the eventful morning and watching one of the more intellectual movies made- John Tucker Must Die, yes, I wanted to do something that didn't involve using brain cells.
Poor Celia though, they want us to keep up with both Motrin and Tylenol for her fever, since she has had it so long. Motrin gives her an upset stomach and the Dr. said that the antibiotic will also. I have a feeling that her little Northern Essence Diaper Balm ( the only diaper ointment that my sensitive child doesn't get a worse rash from!) is going to be put to work.
So send happy thoughts to Celia. We are supposed to get snow on Monday and I so wanted Celia to enjoy it.

Poor, Poor, Celia

Dear Stupid Virus,

You are no longer welcome to stay in my body. Please leave your key in my mouth and make the bed before you leave. I want no traces of you left in my body. I see that you are thinking about leaving because my fever is down. It is about time, 6 days with a temp over 101 was not fun. You suck. You really do. So now that I am down to 100 degrees (Mommy is writing to correct this, you stupid bug, my temp is back up to 102), I should feel better, at least I thought I should. But no, you are still beating me up. Why? What did I ever do to you?? I want to be able to eat, it has been almost a week since I last ate anything more then a few bites of food. Thank goodness I am still nursing. So leave, you are not welcome back- EVER. Pick on someone bigger, someone not in my family, someone that I hate (okay, pick on someone that Mommy doesn't like, I like everyone except you), pick on them. Go on, go on. Leave! I want to feel like doing more then sleeping or just sitting and staring. I want to play. Do you know how many cool toys I have now??? You can't play with them though, don't you dare touch a single one- because you suck. Your mean and you drain me completely. So fairwell, leave quickly, by this afternoon.

One pissed of 16 month old,
Celia


That was a letter from Celia. She has been so sick and we have all been very worried about her. She started getting sick last Saturday, ran a fever on Monday and was just miserable. I took her to the Dr. on Wed and they put her on an antibiotic for a slight ear infection secondary to a virus that could be RSV (It doesn't look like that is what she has, they don't know what she has). The Dr. was clear that the antibiotic would do nothing to make her feel better, that it was a virus. But I expected improvement. My wonderful Father in law watched Celia Thursday and Friday and despite the attention from Grandpa, she was worse each day. Thursday evening her temp was 103. 5 (okay, not extremly high for a baby but that was her 5th day of this!). We brought her back to the pediatrician yesterday and it was our regular pediatrician, Dr. Meyer. We think he is the greatest, we were not as impressed with the one we saw on Wed. But that just might be a personality thing, I am sure he is a good doctor. In anycase Dr. Meyer's plan was that if her temp isn't down by Sunday then we will likely have to do an ER visit. He thought that it would just be 1 or 2 days more of what ever this thing is and she would start getting better. Celia had me worried, especialy when I checked her temp when we got home from the pediatrician and it was close to 104.. So last night was rough for Celia, coughing with gagging, just miserable. Her fever went way up around 10:30 and I was thinking that I really didn't want to put her through an ER visit on Sunday. Well she woke up again around 1:30 and I wanted to do a dance when I picked her up and noticed that for once she wasn't on fire. This morning the highest reading I got for her temp was 100.2. So send good thoughts her way that it won't go up this evening as it has been. She needs a break. Updated because it has gone up, hoping tylenol will bring it back down. She is miserable.
The picture above is what she does if she is put down, she might walk for a few seconds but then she just prefers to curl up on the floor. This is more concerning then her fever, she doesn't really want to play, just sleep and cuddle.

Poor Celia..

Oh and poor Pete is having a sinus attack, so send good thoughts for him. He doesn't handle feeling bad very well. Changes in the weather always do this to him and we certainly have a change with our frigid temps.

New Years Resolution to Swim in the Water and not Drown

So it is the New Year and typically I do not set New Year's Resolutions, personally I don't like them. One of the reasons that I don't like them is that every year when I started high school swimming season they asked us to write our goals for the season. I viewed this as the same thing as a New Years goals. We had to put a time on it for a particular event, etc. I hated that. I don't know why because quite honestly I never had a huge committment to my highschool team as I also swam for a YMCA team almost year round and a summer team. Perhaps I was bitter about it because I don't think I enjoyed the highschool team. Practice was at 5 am, yes that is right. Getting up at 5 am in highschool isn't exactly what I considered fun. Luckily since I also swam for another team, I only had to go 1 or 2x a week. But swimming is what I did and I did/do love it, just not that particular team. In anycase I also became a little more ticked off when they gave us our little pieces of paper to write our goals down and 90% of the swimmers started writing immediately. I always, thought, what the heck?? Have they thought about this all day. Of course I did always enjoy the random person near me who quickly wrote swim in the water and not drown.

So I have thought about it and I think that one of my goals is going to be to Swim in the Water and not Drown. It has alot of meaning if you think about it. Basically I am viewing it as getting through life day by day and not letting the little (or big) things get you down. My husband needs to think about that perhaps, okay alot of people need to work on that. It isn't easy. Right now I am dealing with an unknown that I am trying to just relax about and not let me get it down. My school, okay only my wing, has been severely damaged by a water pipe that burst. We are off next week and the damage to my materials is unknown at this time. I know some of the things are lost, I know that some of the materials that I have created in the past are destroyed. Nothing I can do about it. I also know that my classroom was the least damaged in that hallway so I am glad about that. I know that getting things back together is going to be hard. I also know that I may not have any days off the rest of the year, again nothing I can do. So I will wait and see.

Okay so typically I should tell you that if someone asks me for New Years Resolutions I give the following type of responses-

Eat less chocolate
Eat healthy
Exercise alot
Drink less beer

Okay, sounds reasonable except the humor in this is that I don't like chocolate, I am a health nut, I am a marathon team coach, and I hate beer with a passion.

So here we go with some New Year's plans- I say plans and not goals because I am not going to stress if these things don't happen.

Update my blog more frequently
Watch Less TV (which I am proud of the fact that I have been doing this for awhile)
Take 30 min. for myself daily
Use my crockpot at least 5x a month
Buy new black shoes- I should take a picture and you will understand, I hate buying shoes
Spend 1 day a week staying late at work so that I don't have to bring work home
Spend less on Groceries
Exercise more- okay, I do exercise but not as much as I used to and I miss it
Praise my dear hubby more
Go on 12 dates with my hubby without Celia, can be at home when she is asleep or out
Complete 1 home repair a month

So leave some comments about your New Year's Resolutions.