Oh, What a Week

Let’s see.

Monday, I found out that my sore knee is actually a fairly common running injury called IT Band Syndrome.  Just Google it if you want details.  The short version is that it’s relatively easy to “fix,” but that “fix” requires not running for three to four weeks, a regimen of Aleve to reduce inflammation, and a couple meetings with a physical therapist to learn some convoluted stretches and massage techniques to loosen up my IT band (which, incidentally, I didn’t even know I had).  After a couple of days of denial, I called a friend who really likes his sports-injury PT to get a recommendation and then set up an appointment.

Bottom line:  I either stop running altogether or I deal with the aggravation of fixing it.  Since I can’t see myself giving up running yet, I guess I try to fix it.

Tuesday was fairly normal.

Wednesday, Charlotte had a follow-up appointment for her sprained ankle and then an orthodontist appointment to get a mouth guard, her Step One in the braces process.

Thursday, when it was barely past 9:00 a.m., Jeremy pulled a barstool over on himself and sliced his chin open.  I called the pediatrician’s office while Charlotte and Elijah, respectively, pressed a cloth against the wound to slow the bleeding and held his arms down.  The nurse told me that it sounded as if stitches were necessary and that I needed to take him to the ER because “they were better equipped to deal with possible head injuries there.”

So, off the four of us went to the hospital.  (Did I mention that Jeff had left for Thailand on Monday morning?) 

This is a home school field trip at its best.

We got to the ER around 9:45 and were very fortunate to find it nearly deserted.  Jeremy went to triage right away, where the nurse determined that, yes, he did need stitches.  Within minutes, the nurse, doctor, and admission personnel had all visited.  I put Jeremy in a gown, and the nurse put a big bandage with numbing liquid on his chin.  The doctor said she’d be back in about 15 minutes to stitch him up.

Well, 15 minutes was more like 45, but Jeremy managed to entertain himself while we waited.  Please excuse the fingers in some of the pictures; I’m still getting used using my phone as a camera!

He tried to relocate the medical waste basket.

He thought the light switches made wonderful playthings.

He wondered why everyone thinks stickers are such great things.

He tried to break something else by climbing up and down on the bed.

Every once in awhile, he let someone hold him.  But that wasn’t as interesting as trying to tear up the room.

The doctor eventually got back around to us, and the real fun began.  We strapped Jeremy into a baby immobilizer, which absolutely infuriated him.  He screamed and screamed and then screamed more all during the stitching process.  His chin was completely numb, but, each time the nurse held his head so that the doctor could stitch, he just more and more angry.  It took three of us to hold him down and still.

The doctor ended up putting in five stitches.  The cut was deeper than she had originally thought, and she was trying to minimize scarring.  So this was a noisy, tiring, 20-minute ordeal. And that was just for the adults!

Finally, it was done.  Jeremy had gotten so angry that he was flushed red from the top of his head all the way down to his chest.

But, less than two hours after we arrived, Jeremy was discharged.  I think we have some sort of a record for getting in and out of an ER!

And I took this photo of his wound later on at home.  Jeremy has a pretty big abrasion around the stitched area, but it’s healing pretty well.  He will occasionally point to his chin and sign “hurt,” but he mostly doesn’t seem to notice it.

Poor baby!

On Friday, we made up all the school that missed during this crazy week, and then I dropped Charlotte off at church for a junior high youth group retreat.  Elijah, Jeremy, and I proceeded to sit around all day on Saturday, waiting for Jeff to get home and recovering from this crazy week.  It was nice having a clear calendar!

Today, we went to church, retrieved Charlotte, and enjoyed another afternoon with nothing on the calendar.  We got some finishing touches put on our upcoming vacation and watched about six innings of Game 4 of the World Series.

And that’s our week.  Hope that yours was a bit less eventful, with no trips to the emergency room!

These I Love

Because time just seems to accelerate toward Christmas once October hits, I decided to beat the rush and have our yearly photos taken last Thursday.  The upside?  No crowds, laid-back photographers, and plenty of time to pick what I liked.  The only downside (and this is an iffy downside) is that the “Christmas” backgrounds were not yet available.

The upside wins!  I am very pleased with what we got.  Allow me to share a few of my favorites.

Since we had our Halloween costumes, I decided to get a few of the kids in their costumes.  I posted my favorite earlier, but these are pretty cute, too!

Jeremy had a love/hate relationship with the rooms at Portrait Innovations.  Fortunately, we got a quite a few more “love” shots than “hate” ones, but this picture is pretty funny!

Have a good one!

A Week of Bigs

Here are the highlights from a very eventful week.

Big Games:  Elijah scored his first goal of the season a week ago Saturday.  His team lost 6-4, but he played his best game ever.  Yesterday, his team played its last game and won 5-1.  It was a terrific way to end the season.

Big Injury:  On Monday afternoon, Charlotte sprained her ankle at a soccer clinic at a local university.  The people putting on the clinic told us that the kids didn’t need shin guards or even cleats.  However, they then had the kids playing a game of keep-away, in which Charlotte was kicked very hard by another child, who was wearing cleats.  I took her to Prompt Care on Tuesday morning; nothing is broken, but she is on restricted activity until her doctor clears her otherwise.  Bottom line?  One broken leg + one sprained ankle = soccer is not Charlotte’s friend.  The Mama says, “No more.”

Big Appointment:  On Tuesday afternoon, the kids both had eye check-ups.  Charlotte found out she is far-sighted and needs glasses.  We will pick them up later this week.  She’s not overly happy about this.  As she told me, “At least, braces come off.  Glasses are forever.”

Which leads to…

Big Money:  On Wednesday, Charlotte had a consult with the orthodontist.  Braces are also on the near horizon.

Have I mentioned that it hasn’t been a banner week for my daughter?!

Big Leap:  Into the 21st century, that is.  I got my first smartphone on Friday.  With the release of the new iPhone, the next version down was on sale, so Jeff and I both replaced our phones.  While it was a rather large pain manually transferring all of my numbers off my old slider phone and all of my important data off of my iPod, it’s done, and, I must admit, I’m loving it!

Big Taste:  As Jeff’s parents visited this weekend, Jeff and I had the chance to go out on a date.  We went to a place called Sushi PoPo, and I tried, as you might guess, sushi for the first time.  Jeff has been eating it for years, but I never could get on board with the whole raw fish thing.  However, Jeff made our selections, and we were brought the most beautiful food.  I loved it!  I remarked that, after 16 years of marriage, there aren’t many culinary experiences that we have not both shared.  Sushi was one such thing, and I think that Jeff rather enjoyed introducing me to the ins and outs of this Japanese delicacy.

It has been a mad, mad, mad, mad week. 

This week brings a big more madness, as we start out the week with Jeff leaving for Thailand again and my seeing a doctor about lingering pain in my knee.  I haven’t been able to run over four miles for the last two weeks without stopping due to sharp pain in my left knee.  I figure that I might as well get it checked out now before I manage to do any further damage.  As you might guess, this a bit demoralizing after running a marathon, but I’m hopeful that the orthopedist can help me.

And that’s that.  Sometimes, you just have to put your head down and repeat after Dory from Finding Nemo:  “Just keep swimming.  Just keep swimming.”

Have a good one!

Hee Hee!

I took the kids to Portrait Innovations on Thursday for Christmas pictures.  We took a few Halloween-costume shots, too.

Here is the definite highlight!

Have a great Saturday!

Baby Update

Jeremy turned 18 months old on October 2.  At his checkup, he got two shots, was in the 98th percentile for height, and was in the 71st percentile for weight.  He is meeting all of his milestones with flying colors, and I even learned a new word to explain all of the nonsensical babble that regularly streams forth:  jargoning.

But those are just numbers.  Let me catch you up on this little bundle of energy that has taken our house by storm.

Jeremy can climb on just about anything.  For awhile, I kept the diaper bag and my purse in the middle of our bed because he kept raiding them when I kept them on the floor.  That didn’t work long.  Here he is, up on the bed, eating some puffs scavenged from his diaper bag…right before he dumped the entire thing in the middle of our bed.  Sigh.

He also likes to climb up behind his sister while she’s trying to do her school work.  On this particular occasion, he started out by gently patting her shoulder and hugging her neck.  He ended by taking giant handfuls of her hair and giving it a good yank.  He thought it was pretty funny when she hollered, “Ow!”

And, as with all children his age, he loves big people’s shoes.  He was trying on his Halloween costume (more on why he’s a toddler policeman in a later post) and thought that walking around in Elijah’s shoes was a good idea.  He could certainly find worse shoes to fill!

Jeremy is also the most stubborn of our three kids.  He still hates holding my hand in a parking lot, which means he gets carried a lot.  If I try to force him to hold my hand, he sits down, so I can either drag him or carry him.  I’d probably get in trouble if I dragged an 18-month-old across a parking lot, so up he goes.

He is constantly into things that are just bad news…pencils, markers, breakable objects, my Kindle.  When he gets caught, he throws whatever is in his hand before someone can take it away from him.  This isn’t such a big deal with, say, a pencil, but I don’t like it much when he pitches, say, my Kindle. 

Jeremy’s also been known to fish things out of the trash can that catch his fancy.  The worst, thus far?  Some moldy grapes that he thought looked delicious.  I walked out of the room for 30 seconds and came back to find the trash can cabinet open and Jeremy’s cheeks bulging.  He spit the grapes right out, but holy smokes!  Can you say, “Choking hazard”?  I cut some good grapes up into eighths, and he happily munched on them.  Sheesh.

He’s also an incredibly picky eater, although he still does like weird things.  He eats better when I let him feed himself, but not much.  Often, just to get him to try things, I hold his mouth open and force it in.  About half the time, he likes it and doesn’t spit it out.  But that’s no guarantee he’ll eat it the next time I offer it.

The pediatrician suggested I keep offering him a variety, after which he told Jeremy, “I’m not much for the vegetables yet, either.” 

Thanks, Doc!

But, I’ll tell you, something changed in Jeremy when he hit 18 months.  Our baby, who cried EVERY SINGLE TIME we dropped in the church or co-op nursery, suddenly turned into a toddler who walked in to both smiling, happy as can be. 

This makes my heart both happy and sad.  I’m glad that he’s no longer totally miserable for the few hours a week that he is away from me.  But it’s still a bit sad how quickly my baby is growing up.

I wouldn’t trade this little boy for anything in the world!

Funny Face

This year, science at Travelers’ Academy (which is what Charlotte dubbed our home school after we returned from France) is Human Anatomy.  A couple of weeks ago, we were studying the muscular system, and one bit of reading was about how many muscles are in the face.

The lesson plan suggested that I take pictures of the kids using their facial muscles in ways that communicate emotion.  Of course, this degenerated into a silly-face fest, but it’s been a long time since I’ve taken pictures of the kids just being silly, and I’d forgotten how much fun it is!

So, without further ado, here is a glimpse of the serious educating that goes on at our house…

I asked for the goofiest face possible here.  What really cracked us all up is that Jeremy seemed to understand the emotion for which I was asking and happily participated!

These were the sad faces. 

These were the scared faces.  Or something like that.

I love home schooling.  And I really love these three kids that make it possible!

Welcome, Fall!

How about a post that has nothing to do with running?!

The Friday before my marathon, my dad came to visit.  It was a rare free Friday…no co-op, only a makeup guitar lesson later in the afternoon, and Jeff not arriving home from Thailand until later that evening.  The kids had been asking to go to Tanner’s Orchard, a veritable fall institution up here.  So, as soon as my dad walked in the door at 8:30 Friday morning, we asked if he would like to go to Tanner’s with us.  He was game, so we loaded up and headed to Speer, Illinois, a 45-minute drive from our place.

Tanner’s boasts a huge market with the best cider and apple cider donuts in the area, a sprawling playground, goats and llamas to feed, and a gargantuan corn maze.  Last year during peak Tanner’s season, Charlotte had a broken leg, so the corn maze was out.  But this year?  Well, why not?!

So that’s where we started.  The corn maze is in the shape of a train this year and is actually two separate mazes.  It has 12 checkpoints, six of which are “clues” to solve a “crime.”  We got maps and punch cards when we paid, and we were off.

For the first maze, we pushed Jeremy in the stroller.  The ground was hard-packed, but it was definitely not smooth enough to make that a good idea.  We parked it before we headed into the second maze.

Here are my dad and the two older kids at the first checkpoint.

And here’s stroller boy.

And here they are after Jeremy was liberated from the stroller.  We’re probably lucky we didn’t lose him in the cornfield.

Despite my misgivings about navigating this thing without Jeff, we did pretty decently.  Charlotte only got us lost three times, but we were able to get back to the starting point.  We did eventually get all 12 checkpoints punched, and we solved the crime of which animal did away with Farmer Joe.  (Spoiler Alert:  It was the llama with a stick in the barn.)

We spent 90 minutes in the maze, which was plenty of time for all of us.  Next stop:  the goats and llamas.  Then:  the playground.

Charlotte and Elijah absolutely love the Tanner’s playground.  It has tetherball, several large play sets, a big hill for running and rolling down, a hay maze, and, best of all, on this particular day, friends.  Two other families from our homeschool co-op were visiting Tanner’s, so Charlotte and Elijah each had other boys and girls with whom to play.

This was Jeremy’s first Tanner’s experience.  He wasn’t nuts about the animals, but he did love the slides.  He went up and down this one at least 10 times in a row.  I got tired of it before he did!

We ended up staying at Tanner’s for something like four hours.  I was completely unprepared, so we all ended up having donuts and sample cups of cider for lunch.  (Once again, I win Mom of the Year.)  The kids kept asking if they could stay just a little longer, so we did.  Finally, as we had to get back home and grab the guitars for lessons, I rounded them up, and, after a few last pictures, we headed home.

I had great hopes that I could get a cute fall picture of my three little angels.  Eh, not so much!  Oh, well!

Have a good one!