Pukefest 2010

So I haven't blogged for a while because our family has been fighting a rough couple of weeks of sickness. The best (okay, I mean worst) started a week ago Thursday. Matt had just picked Ben up from preschool and was taking him to "new" school and he harfed all over his classroom. Sorry about that. So Matt took him home and called me and said he was pretty iffy. I got an email update at four saying he was joining Ben in the bathroom.

I know this promises to be a wonderful blog post filled with fun and nothing at all disgusting and you are all probably waiting at the edges of your seats for it, but I knew I was pressing my luck by starting after 7 am and of course, now Maddie is awake and yelling for me, so I will have to continue later. It'll be good....

Album 01/23/10, by Matt Brogan

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Newton's Laws of Hotel Physics

We had went to Minneapolis this past weekend to a waterpark/hotel to hang out with some family. I knew we were probably pushing our luck because Ben had puked that week at school, Zach still wasn't recovered from his laringytis and Maddie was starting to get a cough too. But, we thought a change of scenery could do us some good so we all loaded up in the family truckster and headed north. Jeremy stayed at the pool with Abby and Evan and Ben while the rest of us did some shopping and according to him, he has never seen Ben laugh so much or have so much fun. It is amazing to me, the little guy would truck up a LOT of stairs to the top of this waterslide, sit and wait patiently for the poor schmuck who honest to God sat at the top of that waterslide for a good 8 hours with no breaks to tell him he could go and hurtle himself at Jeremy waiting for him at the bottom. Jeremy said it was like trying to catch a medicine ball coming at you all the while trying to keep the medicine ball's head above water. When we arrived, it was Matt's turn to take over medicine ball catching.

Anyway, I don't know if it was the pool water or the flu, but that night both Matt and I got puked on in bed by Zach and Maddie respectively. It was great. Maddie and I stayed up most the night watching DVDs in the hotel bed and I am still waiting to see if we get some sort of credit card charge standard for puke clean up.

But we got home on Sunday and poor Zach was still just struggling. So, I finally took him back to the doctor on Tuesday (I didn't want to be Miss Overreacting Mom who was just there the week before) but it turns out he now as pneumonia and thrush (so now I am the Couldn't You Tell Your Kid Was Sick for God's Sake Mom). Confirmed by an ever fun finger poke and chest xray. He had to get a painful shot of antibiotic in his leg and we had to take him back the next day for followup. On Wednesday I took him back and his white count was down (i.e. the antibiotics were working) so he didn't have to get another shot. However, our doctor decided he wanted to do some bloodwork to make sure there isn't an underlying immunodeficiency problem. The kid has had ear infection after ear infection and then to get pneumonia (oh and did I mention he also has thrush) so soon after getting his tubes is kind of worrisome. I didn't even ask what it would mean if any of the tests came back positive, because I didn't want to worry unless there is something to worry about, but of course, I am worried. The doctor did say that he is obviously growing and thriving, it is just of some concern that he can't seem to beat any little virus on his own. Finally, today, he seems to be doing a little bit better. We won't hear back from the doc for at least a week, but I will let you all know what we find out!

Why a Baby with Laringytis is (Mostly) a Bad Thing

So Zach has laringytis. I know, I know you are all thinking...perfect, a baby with laringytis...what's so wrong with that? Matt and I thought the same thing for the first day. It was both cute and pathetic at the same time when he tried to cry and nothing came out. However, three days later, you can tell that it is really starting to tick him off and I think it hurts quite a bit too. Everytime he tries to utter a sound nothing comes out and he keeps trying until he starts coughing from the effort. It is really quite pathetic. If you were wondering, according to our doctor there isn't much you can do for laringytis besides ibuprofen and a cool mist vaporizer. However, the last two nights Zach has pretty much slept all night (this is a huge relief after a really crappy night of not sleeping much at all...it's funny you can do it when they are a newborn but once you get used to them sleeping most of the night, it really sucks to go backwards) so maybe he is on the mend. He has been gracious enough to pass the cold onto Ben who, for a sick kid, stays surprisingly upbeat.

We have a door in our house that goes into the garage that has a tendency not to shut. You have to really slam it to get it to stay shut and so we call it the "ghost door" and the kids get a kick out of that. Well, yesterday morning was one of those days where nothing was going right, the kids were driving me absolutely nuts and when my mom left she didn't shut the door all the way. This was my breaking point and there was a small crack in my otherwise perfectly serene exterior and I said (in a slightly raised voice) "she can't even shut a god d$%m door!" to which Ben replied, "Mom, it's not a God door, it's a GHOST door". I'm super glad he didn't repeat the cursing part and reminded once again that I need to watch myself around them!

Are Poptarts Healthy?

So Ben has to be the "leader" at preschool when he goes back to school next week. I asked him today what he wanted to take for a snack. He said, "mmmm, how about chocolate chip cookies?" I said, "nope, it has to be something healthy," to which he responded "are poptarts healthy?" I said, "they sure aren't". So he said, "Well, what's healthy? You tell me.". Pretty funny. This from the kid who had a lunch of glazed donut and cheetos on New Year's Day. Wherever would he get the idea that poptarts are healthy? At his "new school" (aka daycare) they have "helpers" for things. He has brought this concept home and is the "helper" for everything including lights, doors, remote controls, phones, toilet paper, flushing, the list goes on and on. He will say "I will open this door because that is what helper I am.". It's great. However, the really, really great part is that I get all the crap helper jobs like taking off his shoes and putting the dishes in the sink. He tells me that's what helper I am. Awesome.

Zach and Maddie are also doing pretty great. We actually moved all three of our kids to one bedroom upstairs, by us, which has its pros and cons. I told Matt that when I originally came up with this concept that hey, the Gosselins had six kids in one bedroom. Later I got to thinking, I should maybe (just maybe) not be taking parenting advice from the Gosselins. Anyway, the kids seem to like it and it hasn't been too bad. It is great having them just across the hall from us instead of down in the basement, however, Zach is still not really sleeping through the night and he will take any excuse to get up.

I did get my Xmas cards printed. If you are lucky, you may just have them in your hands by St. Patrick's Day.

Happy Birthday Jesus...Let's Have a Poop Fest

C'mon kids, don't you know that Christmas is a sacred day? These things shall be held sacred: you shall sleep until at least 8 am on Christmas morning, you shall eat some sort of baked good for breakfast and you shall not take a disgusting poop that your mother has to clean up! Well, our Christmas morning was one for three. Our kids were up at 6:30 and despite us trying to convice them that Santa just may take their stuff back for getting up that early, they called us on our bluff and were ready to have at it. We did have a delicious baked good for breakfast after the disgusting show of materialism at its best followed by all three of my kids taking utterly disgusting number twos. I mean, seriously, on Christmas? But, what do you do?

If you are wondering where your Brogan family Christmas card is, well, honestly, it isn't even started yet. I am so behind that I had to give Matt's mom an IOU for Christmas because I also haven't even started the calendar we usually give her each year. And, as if to rub my face in my personal failures, I get a beautiful Christmas card from my good friends the Smiths (it was really cute Kerry), and I was like c'mon...even the Smiths got their Xmas card out and I don't even have a decent picture of my three kids together! (Kerry, I hope you know that I write this in love and appreciate the fact that I measure my personal failures against your successes).

We did have a big week if you don't count Christmas with the fact that Zach had his ENT visit, had another raging ear infection and had tubes four days later (he got them this Tuesday). All in all, it went pretty well. He was super peeved when they brought him back from recovery but a bottle, cereal bar and 4 hour nap later he seemed to be back to his old sweet self. He seems to be having some balance issues (or maybe it is the new laminate floor we put in (courtesy of Dennis) but I'm sure he will adjust. Apparently the ENT had to suck a whole bunch of crap out of his ear, and give him two more shots of antibiotics as the regular stuff just doesn't seem to cut it anymore, so hopefully this procedure will take care of all of that.

Ben and Maddie had a great Christmas morning, but Ben is a little confused on the finer points of how Christmas works. We kept asking him if he thought Santa came and he ran right by his presents to go upstairs to see if Santa was outside. So, he was a little disappointed by the fact that he didn't get a personal visit and present delivery from Santa Claus (thank you Polar Express), but did enjoy his spoils. Maddie just does a really good job of following Ben's lead. They were both pretty fascinated by the fact that Santa ate their cookies and drank their milk, more so then the fact that the old fat guy spent way too much on them bringing them all this great stuff that they asked for and then some, so....note to self for next year:)

I hope you and yours all had a great Xmas season and I promise I will get a card out as soon as I get a decent picture of all three of my kids, in other words, 2017. Merry Christmas everyone oh, and Happy Birthday Jesus!

I Don't Even Know Where to Start

It feels like I have been going non stop yet getting nothing done for the last several weeks. I have been CONSUMED with work, which is both good and bad. Our auction ended today and was a huge success, which makes the hard work seem sort of worth it, yet I look back at the last three weeks and it seems like a blur. We have also been having some crazy medical things with Zach. I can't even remember what my last blog was about, if I touched on the hospital trip with a chest xray and blood draws and antibiotic shot (s) for the ear infection that wouldn't go away. So last week we had his nine month check up/ear check up and the infection was gone (finally!) but being the monster he is, his head is abnormally large (and keeps getting bigger). To be on the safe side we had to get a head ultrasound to make sure there was no fluid around the brain. So three hours and much negative musing later, I hear back from the doctor that he is fine...just big headed. We are off to the ENT and tubes will most likely be in our immediate future (and hopefully before the end of the year as we have an already met deductible). Then there was a week or two there when Matt and I were toying with the will we/won't we go to the bowl game with the Hawks. The answer was we would go to Phoenix, we would go to Orlando, but not so much Miami. Now, we are back to deciding where we will head this spring for our five year anniversary (I am happily accepting destination advice). Ben and Madilyn continue to do pretty well at school. Ben is still having a pretty hard time getting dropped off, but is always having fun when we pick him up. He has been incessantly singing Frosty the Snowman as he will be performing this Friday at his preschool holiday party. I'm pretty pumped for our first preschool concert. Poor Zach, I'm sure by the time his first preschool concert comes around I'll be like "really, this Friday?....hmmm....I'll check my calendar." Ben has been trying to discipline me and Matt by saying things like "do you understand?" "is that a deal?" following long diatrides that usually include things like I will eat this pop tart and then wear my pajamas the rest of the day, do you understand? or I am going to play with Thomas trains all day, not go to bed and cry when you drop me off at school, is that a deal? Pretty great. Madilyn is two going on thirty five. She is learning all of Ben's xmas songs by osmosis, and claims that Jingle Bells is her song and is happy to tell you that if you try to sing it around her. She does awesome at school and we are going to try to knock out potty training over Matt's shutdown. That would mean Ben is out of pull ups and Maddie would be out of diapers. Throw a party...two down, one to go! Now, if we can just knock off paying daycare and buying formula, we may just be millionaires! BTW, if you are usually a person on my Xmas card list and I think I have resigned to the fact that I won't be doing Xmas cards this year. I might send out a nice holiday email or something, but seriously, the cards cost us like $50 and then it's another $100 for the postage...that is a nice Xmas present for me:) Or a charity or something. Anyway, I am eating into my precious alone time, so I best scat...I'll try to be a better updater:) And dieter:) and exerciser:)...who am I kidding? It'll probably be another three weeks, I'm having a snack before I go to bed and I may work out one more time this month (to bring my grand total up to twice). Ah, got to love winter.