Snake Day Reenactment II

Ear Infection ) :

Ok. As I write this, Rick is taunting me holding a baby doll making it cough incessantly...that thing is about to go where the sun don't shine, buddy!

So, yeah. After the snake incident we called it a night and I hear Aubin coughing and coughing and coughing some more. (She had caught a new cold on Monday and now started with the cough.) And then she's up. Until 4 am. Then Hayden walks in at 5:50am and announces that he's really, REALLY hungry and ready for breakfast.....so I get his pre-breakfast of a bananna, milk, and cereal. (He's going through a MEGA growth spurt. That boy's an eating machine.)
Yadda, yadda, yadda.
We went to the new pediatrician's office.......which was wonderful. Got a script for an ear infection (left ear) and they gave us samples of liquid gold (mom slang for good cough medicine).

I feel like we are a constant episode of 'General Hospital' around here!

I am NOT Bindi Irwin.

Rick and I were playing darts in the garage tonight, splitting a 7-up and a new rocky road snickers bar. One of the "flights" (plastic wing-like end piece) of the dart fell off and Rick went to pick it up. Can you see it beside the snake in the picture? CREEPY! What is the DEAL with reptilian close encounters this summer???

Family fun

Aubin is doing well on the steroids....a little bit of an "incredible she-hulk" in the beginning...picking up her brother and trying to throw (yes, throw) him in his room, biting him on the chest, and trying to take down 3 of his friends at the 'jumpy place'...but that has subsided (to Hayden's relief!) I thought about how I could put this energy of hers to constructive use. I tried to drop her off at the local limestone quarry to move rock, but the managers cited something about child labor laws.. so taking the family bowling was the next logical (and legal) "kid-moving-something-heavy-to-expend-excess energy" activity I could think of. We then had dinner at Texas Roadhouse, a place where you threw peanut shells on the floor. The kids got a kick out of that. It was so nice to have a fun family adventure again, minus the eye cracks.
Enjoy the slide show, but first here's my favorite photo from the day: Hayden trying so hard to bowl without the little kiddie ramp.

Eye Cracks and an update

Hayden crawled up beside me the other morning and asked, "Mommy, why do you have eye cracks?" ....He was talking about my bloodshot eyes due to recent all-nighter's with Aubin. Then both kids started to make fun of me. Hayden said, "Let's be Mommy, Aubin!" And they squished up their faces, stretched their lower lids and said, "I have eye cracks, oh, oh, I have eye cracks.."
I am not making this up.
I quietly got up and made an extra pot of coffee.

Aubin is doing great. I am so thankful. I've learned that it's quite possible A's issues are due to a virus and not allergies after all....which makes sense to me in that none of the allergy meds have been working! That's good news! The steroids have done a fantastic job and we all plan on sleeping well tonight.

Help is on the way.....

Thanks GPDoug.......Aubin will have steroids today and hopefully she'll start to feel better soon. We're getting a new pediatrician and we LUCKILY have an ENT appointment for Monday!!!! Hoorray!

She's going to be okay.

I keep telling myself that, and it's certainly true...but it is so hard listening and watching this and trying to re-position her at night so her little chest won't do this. I'm going to try and send this clip to the nurse at our pediatrician's office....she's really great. I need to hear one more time that everything is okay (just one more time I swear!).

Rough nights ) :

Poor Aubin.
Here's her medicine for the day:
morning: 1/2 Zyrtec, Motrin
lunch: Singulair mixed with a teeny bit of icing
bedtime: Zyrtec, saline nasal wash, Nasonex, Motrin

.....And still no relief! I called back the doctor and we need to go ahead and wait for another week to see how she responds to the singulair before he'll give us a referral to the ENT. I hated to call, but I just had to check in to make sure I was doing everything I could for her. I am hoping that we'll soon see improvement this next week.

Massive

That's the adjective the doctor used to describe Aubin's tonsils today. She has had a hard time breathing at night and sounds awful. Her passages are very swollen from allergies even though she is on Nasonex and Zyrtec. The doctor said that he wouldn't be surprised if she needed her tonsils/adenoids taken out. He put her on Singulair in addition to the other meds as a last ditch effort before sending us on to the ENT (ear, nose, throat dr.). I hope beyond hope it works. I do NOT want the image of my little Aubin in a hospital bed as a blog moment. Tomorrow I am going to Howard Hughes-ify her bedroom complete with allergy friendly sheets & air filter. Probably won't help, but I've got to try and do something!
I'm behind on my email replies and comments, so sorry everyone! I'll get to it soon. Getting ready for our garage sale tomorrow....and obsessively checking on Aubin every 5 minutes.

-LM

Zilker park

We met Nanna at Zilker park today. This picture is of Hayden on the train wearing his new frog hat (compliments from Nanna). We rode the Zilker Zephyr without incident and then went to Spaghetti Warehouse for a tasty lunch. Thanks Nanna for a fun day!

Bats

"The Bat" -by Ogden Nash

Myself, I rather like the bat.
It's not a mouse, it's not a rat.
It has no feathers, yet has wings.
It's quite inaudible when it sings,
It zig zags through the evening air
And never lands on ladies hair,
A fact of which men spend their lives,
Attempting to convince their wives.

Austin is known for its Mexican-freetailed bat colony under the Congress bridge. We too, have a colony living underneath the I-35 bridge. In fact, it has been said that our colony will soon be larger than the Congress colony! These bats nest and roost underneath the bridge during the day, and leave at sunset to go feed on insects east of the city. People gather every night to see the exodus of bats emerging for the evening. These pictures don't do the experience justice. As you can imagine, there is a strong smell around the bridge....and the sound of those bats! You hear a loud, high pitched, oscillating squeak sound. (does that make sense?...probably not.)
Anyway, I enjoyed sitting around, visiting with the out-of-towners about fire ants & guano before snapping my pics.

















I had to throw in a picture of a big Texas sunset from this evening.

Ladies Man

Hayden frequently comments that he's "busy" when he plays. When we were at the jumpy place the other day, he met a little female friend of his. They jumped, played, & had a good time. When he took a break, he came up to me and said, "Hey, mom. I'm having SO much fun getting busy with my girlfriend!"

Too hot for ice cream

Friday surprise

I had the camera ready before I told them the "surprise". What was the news? A family afternoon trip to the movies to see Wall-e! Dad took time off of work and met us at the theater. We had a great time and enjoyed the show. We all gave it two thumbs up!


PS......yes, Hayden is wearing his spiderman costume again. If he's inside, it's on. And NO, I don't let him wear it outside in the Texas inferno.

Talent show 2008

Aubin loves doing a "belly spin" on the sit-and-spin! I took this video tonight. The whole scene cracked me up. Butterscotch looks like he was watching and nodding/neighing in approval at Aubin's shenanigans. In the background, you can hear Rick playing the trumpet and Hayden telling him he's not very good, but that he's good at the harmonica. Here's a picture of Hayden playing the trumpet this evening.

gymnastics clip

Today was the last day of "session 1" for gymnastics. Dad was able to meet up with us and watch the class. The kids were so excited to have him watch all of their "tricks". I'm signing them up for "session 2" which starts in a couple of weeks.

formatting issues

I couldn't get the pictures right in the last post, and kept messing with it. I'm not sure if that sent out a million emails to people alerting to an updated post. If that happened, oooooops.

messy start to a Monday

Hayden has recently had a spark of independencewhen it comes to the kitchen. He loves to get his own water from the fridge, make his own toast, PBJ sandwiches, etc. Which is GREAT, right? Well, not this morning when he got up at the crack of dawn, got Aubin, & went downstairs to make punch. I don't know how he found these punch packets, I don't buy them. I don't even know where they came from. (So if any of you out there got us these packets, forgive me for not remembering!) Anyway, as you can see, it was quite the mess.

Happy Fourth of July

We are finally feeling much better around here. I ended up sick with Aubin yesterday and Rick came down with it yesterday afternoon. I was feeling better by this morning, but Rick was a bit miserable until late today. But hey, we're all well now in time to celebrate July 4th!
No fireworks are allowed since it has been so hot and dry, but did a few "snakes" with our neighbors this evening.
Oh, yeah. Hayden's hand wasn't THAT close to the fire. It just looks that way.

Poor little thing.

Rough night for Aubin. Fever and feeling miserable. I just snapped this shot. Isn't this the saddest picture? I took her temp and she's running 103.4. It was time for her Motrin dose so she should be feeling more comfortable soon.

sick kids

hayden's better today, no fever. Aubin came out of her room tonight with a high fever and same symptoms as Hayden. Luckily, the worst of this bug doesn't last long. Hopefully she'll feel better by tomorrow night.