Finally Healthy?

Oh, this has been a looooooong month.

Nora has been sick since the first day of summer vacation, which was 15 days ago.

Within a few days of her starting Amoxicillin, the strep and sinus infection were improving and she was starting to feel a little bit better. By day 8, however, she was getting worse. She would start the day feeling sort of OK, but by afternoon she would start spiraling downward again. All of her original symptoms came back, and the sinus pain was so bad she just laid on the couch and cried. I called the doctor on call at 9:00 one night because she had a temp of 102 and was inconsolable. She called in a prescription for Azythromycin and said that if she wasn't dramatically better in 48 hours, she had to come back in.

At 48 hours, she was laying on the couch crying, and she could feel her head throb with each heartbeat. Children's Advil and a hot pack eased her pain, and I intended to call the clinic in the morning.

And then we all woke up, and I looked at my watch and it was 10am. And Nora was all smiles, with her dimples popping out to say good morning. I don't know what happened overnight, but her fever finally broke and she started to actually get better.

And so we baked a cake! Because feeling better after being sick for 15 days is worth celebrating.

Chocolate on chocolate-that'll make anyone feel better!

And since she was feeling so good, she thought it was a good opportunity to spray all of her hair cobalt blue. I guess that's another way to celebrate.

Nora almost busted a gut laughing at the deep blue color of the bath water after she washed her hair twice.

I myself laughed until it all drained out and I had to get out the Soft Scrub. Then it wasn't quite as funny.

And we completed the celebration by putting on our Halloween pajamas and climbing into bed to snuggle.

Today is the first day in 2 weeks that Nora has felt good, hasn't asked for Advil, and hasn't had a fever. It was pretty phenomenal.

See ya, resistant strep! We won't miss you!

Hola

Hello! I am still trying to recover from my first semester back at school. School ended almost a month ago for me, and I have spent that month playing catch-up at home. You know-cleaning things that had been neglected, doing boatloads of laundry, etc. Nothing that interesting. Finals week was exhausting! I can't handle going on 5 hours of sleep anymore. Ugh! However, I got 100% on my bio final, I got 82 out of 80 on my physics final (2 extra credit points), and I set the curve with the highest grade in my communication disorders class, so I can't complain. First semester back and I got a 4.0! I guess this old lady's still got it. At least, I got it when it comes to freshman-level classes. Ha!

Then I chaperoned a handful of field trips the girls took for school:

Kindergarten tug-o'-war at the all-day picnic. Dana's class won! Woot!

Kindergarten trip to the zoo-another all-day event.

Nora brought her own camera to the nature center, so I have no photos of that trip. Oops.

Zak graduated on Wednesday (HOW did that teeny-tiny, under 4-pound preemie grow into a 19 year-old man?!) and I made his cake:

I was a little disappointed with my very rusty cake-decorating skills, particularly with royal icing, but I am my own worst critic-nobody else seemed to notice the flaws. For example, nobody but me could see that I accidentally broke off the Greyhound's tail and reattached it. Also-because I am rusty, it took twice as long to make the East logo as it would have 10 years ago. I also decorated about 65 cupcakes for the party. I used 2 pounds of butter and 6 pounds of powdered sugar to make all of the buttercream and royal icing. Yikes!

Now that all of that is over and the girls are also on summer vacation, Nora is sick.

This morning, after 3 days of strange symptoms and a temp of 101, we took her in and she tested positive for strep. Sore throat was nowhere in her assortment of symptoms. Leave it to Nora to get sick in her own way.

We are hoping that she feels better soon so we can enjoy the gorgeous sunshine and the joys of being on summer break!

Christmas and Stuff

I have been really bad about posting, and I'm afraid it's going to get even worse.

After being home with my girls for five years, I temporarily rejoined the workforce. I initially planned to work one or two days a week as a substitute teacher. While things started out according to plan, it wasn't long before I was working every day. I used to do all of my grocery shopping, cleaning, errand running and laundry during the day, and suddenly that is not possible. Plus I am really tired, which doesn't help things.

Nora is completely smitten with Elsa. Seriously-who can blame her?


After Christmas vacation, things are going to get even crazier. While I will no longer be subbing, I will have my hands full with other things. I will spend my mornings with Elsa and my afternoons at school. That's right-I am going back to school.

My parents got the girls digital cameras for Christmas, so now we have 2 gigs of photos like this.

I am working on a degree in communication science and disorders so that I can become a speech therapist. My first two semesters will be full time, and the remaining 3 semesters will be part time. And then I have a 2-year master's program to complete.

Kevin's parents got the girls beds for their American Girl dolls. These dolls have nicer furniture than we do. For real.

Starting in mid-January, I will be taking human communication disorders, physics, biology (plus a bio lab), and statistics. It's going to get hairy, but they are prerequisites for my fall sequences, so I have to just motor through. I hope I remember how to write a paper.

Dana practically fits into Felicity's bed.

I have been trying to spend as much time as possible relaxing because I know my time is going to become a premium very shortly. We've been playing lots of board games, lolling around in our pajamas, hanging out. I have been baking, knitting and sewing, trying to get it out of my system for a while.

Kevin and his grandma looked through the American Girl catalog on Christmas. They were amused by the selection and the prices. For example, camping chairs for dolls are more expensive than camping chairs for humans.


Anyhow, I probably won't be on here much until mid-May.

And then I might sleep until June.

Health Night at School

PTA organized a family health night at school in early October. It was a great event, with lots of fun activities and a spaghetti dinner.

Dana was one of the first kids to attempt the climbing wall, despite the cold drizzly weather. She climbed all the way to the top, then stopped to look down at everyone with a great big grin. And then she climbed back down, while the climbing guy said to the crowd, "Everyone watch Dana. She's climbing down exactly right." When she got to the bottom, he gave us a brochure for climbing camp and told us that Dana's a natural. Oh, good. That's what every mother wants to hear about her kindergartener.

Dana thought the yoga station was pretty cool, too.

It was a really fun night, and Dana still brags about her climbing skills.

Bayfield Apples

About 100 years ago, back in September, we hopped in the car for an impromptu trip to Bayfield, Wisconsin to pick apples.

It was unseasonably warm, so we stopped at a lakeside playground for a while before heading to the apple orchard. It is the most awesomest playground ever, according to the girls.

Nora liked the climbing wall a lot. They both loved the tire swing and made us push them until we all got dizzy.

I don't know what this crazy contraption was supposed to be, but it was pretty fun, until Dana knocked her noggin.

After the girls ran off some energy, we climbed back in the car for the 5 minute drive to the orchard.

The dwarf apple trees were a huge hit with the kids. Dana was thrilled that she could reach fruit without help.

Nora was pretty psyched, too.

It took us about 15 minutes to pick an entire bushel.

I baked 2 apple pies, but we ate the majority of these straight up. I used the last of them the day before Thanksgiving to make 2 quarts of applesauce.

We are looking forward to making this an annual tradition. It was good family fun.

Dana's Got Skills

Nora, Dana and I were sitting on the couch one evening this week when Dana started giggling. We looked over at her and saw this:

And then we made a big fuss over her spoon hanging on nose trick, and we both tried it and failed. And that encouraged her and then she started to get sassy about her new skill.

"Watch me! I can walk with the spoon on my nose!"

"Look! I can do the splits with the spoon on my nose!"
Honey, the fact that you can do the splits at all is impressive.

"I can dance with the spoon on my nose!"

Showoff.

Our bellies ached from all of the laughing. Dana put on a great show.

First Day

School started the Thursday after Labor Day, with Dana entering kindergarten and Nora starting third grade.

Dana's a pretty independent kind of kid, so we weren't really surprised that she was 100% excited to climb on the bus and head off to school. No tears, not even from Mama. We lucked out in that kindergarteners and third graders have lunch and recess together. So Dana and Nora sat together on the first day and Nora showed Dana the ropes.

PTA has a Tears and Cheers event on the first day of school, just after the school day begins, so after we got the girls on the bus, I drove to school to help set up. And I snapped a few photos of the girls getting off of the bus (I was not the only one) and then I got this one of Dana waiting to go into her classroom. I don't know when my baby got big enough to zip her own coat, put on her own shoes and head out the door.

We're a few weeks in now, and they are both doing great. They both adore their teachers, and they are both happy to go to school in the morning. And I have been spending my days racing around tackling the world's most ridiculous to-do list. But it feels pretty great to be getting projects done.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

August is a big month around here. In our house alone, we have two birthdays and our wedding anniversary in the very same week. There are three more birthdays in the extended family in a ten day stretch, so things get a little nuts.

This year, to celebrate Nora turning 8, me turning 33 and Kevin and I being married 13 years, we hopped in the car and headed to the Minnesota State Fair.

I must be getting old because this sky ride freaked me out. It's just a chair lift, really, that takes you from one end of the fair to the other. But Dana is so small and the bar over our laps had a gigantic gap, and I was sure she was going to slip under it and land on the roof of a barn or in the box of a shiny new pickup truck. I kept my arm tightly around her for the whole ride. The photo above (see Nora and Kevin in the yellow seat?) was taken with one hand when the ride stopped for 5 minutes or so, with us hanging out in the blazing sun 200 feet above the fair.

Dana has a thing for butterflies, so when she saw the butterfly house, she HAD to go inside. It was pretty wild-butterflies were just flitting around landing on people. Dana was a little freaked out at first, but also intrigued. She was very interested in getting them to climb onto her fingers, but she was worried about them landing on her face or hair.

We got to the fair before 10am and by 4am we were ready to go. Except it took us another 2 1/2 hours to actually exit because we kept seeing more and more interesting exhibits. The sheep barn was particularly interesting. I wish I would have taken a photo, as the sheep had all been shorn and were wearing these robes over their entire bodies, including their heads, to keep them clean. They had little eye holes to see out of, and they looked like they were getting ready to go trick or treating. And then there was a really sweet little guy for kids to pet. The girls thought he was adorable and soft and they wanted to take him home.

Oh, you noticed Nora's green hair in the sheep photo? She was really excited to get a Fair Do. We waited in line for 15 minutes to pay and get an appointment. The appointment wasn't for 45 minutes, and so we waited. And waited. And waited some more, until it was finally her turn. And then she went into the salon and within 10 minutes she came out with two green and blue pompoms covered in glitter. Totally worth the wait.

Neither Kevin nor I had been to the State Fair since we were kids, and the girls had never been. We all loved it, and we can't wait for next year! We ate snow cones, caramel apples and cheese curds, but next year we need to try roasted corn and some deep fried craziness. It's shocking that we were there for almost 9 hours and we didn't see everything we wanted to. But we DID see the American Red Cross building after Dana skinned her knee pretty badly. They had air conditioning and plenty of ice cold water, plus they cleaned as much grit as they could out of Little D's knee before coating her in Neosporin, bandaging her up and sending us on our way.

Camping

In June, right after school let out for the summer, we went camping. We rented a camper cabin at Wild River State Park and it was fantastic!

The girls were absolutely thrilled to sleep in bunk beds, and even more thrilled that there were TWO top bunks!

There was a beautiful trail leading down a very long stairway to the river. It was infested with more mosquitoes than we had ever seen in one place, but the view was worth it.

Some of us were disappointed that there was nowhere to swim. The current was pretty strong, but there were people boating and fishing.

Dana honed her marshmallow-roasting skills. She still likes to light them on fire and then blow them out rather than gently browning them. Something about being 5 and impatient I guess.

Campfire coffee is pretty awesome, too.

We're hoping to get out again before summer ends. We'll see. As you can probably guess from my lack of posting, we've been really busy.

I also have some really sad news. After ten days with our puppy, we could no longer ignore the fact that Kevin is allergic to dogs. He had never lived with one before, so he had no idea. His eyes were fire-engine red and swollen nearly shut by day 9. We had a very sad family meeting and, on day 10, my lovely sister agreed to take her. They had been looking for a small dog for Keenan, my nephew, for about 18 months, but never had any luck at the local shelter. She is doing great, is still the cutest little monster ever, and is now named Charlotte. And we still see her often.

Family Vacation

Our family flew out east over Memorial Day to spend a week with my good friend Jessica and her family. Jessy lives in New Hampshire, about an hour out of Boston.

While Nora had flown before, she was so young that she couldn't remember it. It was Dana's first flight. We were thrilled to learn that both girls are awesome travelers!

We arrived at Jessica's house on Wednesday evening. It was about 94 degrees, and the four kids started an impromptu water fight with Justin, Jessica's husband. It was probably Nora's favorite memory of our trip.

We got up early Thursday morning and took the Downeaster to Boston. A normal person would have taken plenty of photos of our day in the city, but I was too busy having fun. We visited the New England Aquarium, Feneuil Hall, Boston Common, etc. We even rode the subway, which was not as exciting as the children had envisioned. At the end of the day, we were all happy to hop back on the train for a lazy ride back to NH.

The next day, Nora told us her stomach hurt. We figured that, between the excitement, the early hours, the late nights, and the weird food, she was just out of sorts. Travel tummy, you know? And so we headed out for the ocean.

We went to York Beach in Maine so the girls could dip their toes in the Atlantic and play in the sand.

Oh, man! This one brings a tear to my eye.

And really, would it be a trip to Maine without a photo of a lighthouse? We found a geocache here, which was pretty sweet.

Nora was feeling pretty crummy by this point, so we went back to Jessica's house, where she promptly threw up. Then we took it really easy for a couple of days. We took a long drive along the coast, through New Hampshire and Mass. We ate a lot of noodle soup and popsicles. We wandered around Portsmouth.

On our last full day, we took the long way to Boston, stopping in Concord and Salem.

Here are Nora and Dana at the Salem Witch Trial Memorial, very near another geocache. Which is a funny story. Kevin thought he found the cache, as he pulled a blue plastic bag with some stuff in it out of a little nook in a rock wall. I was voicing skepticism over it being the cache, despite the trinkets inside, as there was no official geocaching info, when Dana walked over with a container and said, "Daddy, is THIS a geocache?" Which, of course, it was. Leave it to the five year-old to find the real one. She was so proud!

And here's the requisite airplane photo.

We ended our trip with a 4-hour visit to urgent care, where we learned that poor Nora had strep throat. According to the ER doc, vomiting is a common symptom of strep. Since nobody in our household had ever had it before, we had no idea. Luckily, after taking only two doses of the Penicillin, she was feeling significantly better.

Despite the illness, it was a pretty great trip. Nora was such a trooper! And I learned that I need to make a bigger effort with the camera. And maybe take more than 30 photos. Jeez.