The Hubby Returneth....Thank God!

Chris finally made it home last night. The friend that he went with told his wife he would be home at 5, and being that I tend towards excessive worry, I started calling his cell at noon to make sure they got out okay and were on the way home. Seeing as there is no cell phone reception up there and they don't have a SAT phone, and I hadn't talked to him since last Wednesday. I called his phone every hour until 5 and got nothing. Finally, at 6 he called me. They got almost a foot of snow when they were out in the BWCA wilderness and had to fight that plus extreme wind all the way back in to civilization. Plus driving home after all that snow on the roads. Crazy, and I have to admit I was a tad worried about them driving. But they did make it home, Chris got back about 11:30 last night. But they had a great time and all that stuff. Although he did admit that it would have been a bad first time for me to go with. Hmmm. Maybe next year? (Envision lots of snorting!) I did promise him that I would go with him one time, but every time he comes back with stories about it, it just makes me not want to go! Not to mention that he was home for 1 1/2 hours unpacking his gear and showering off and I didn't hear anything. Not one single thing. Kind of makes me feel like a failure in the protect my family category. Normally I think I would have heard something but since Truitt had been up the previous 4 nights about 5-6 times a night, I am going to blame it on exhaustion. I do have plans to take a gun safety and conceal and carry class though. At least that way if I am on my own in the future when Chris is gone I'll feel better about myself. Plus, Chris wants me to go deer hunting so I need to do it anyways. It will be me and a classroom of 30 eleven year olds in the gun safety class. But that's another story for another day. Man I go off on tangent easily.

Anyway, the kids and I did survive. It actually went a little better than what I was expecting because Moyz had some good moments where he didn't freak out every time I wasn't holding him. I was desperate to get out of the house and risked a trip to IKEA where they all did wonderful, I couldn't believe it. People looked at me like I was a tad insane bringing five kids there all by myself, but thank goodness for the ERGO because I carried Moyz on it and pushed Truitt and Kembia and all was well. Seriously!

The saddest part of our weekend was that Owen's crab got out of the cage and "disappeared" somewhere in our house. We cannot for the life of us figure out where he went to. Poor little guy. I am sure he is fossilized somewhere in here and we may never find him. We looked and looked but no such luck. Owen would watch his crab all the time during the day, so I felt bad and got him a new one. But I did tell the kids they both only get a "lose one get one free" crab. Meaning I will buy them each a new crab one time if it escapes and we can't find it, but then after that, no more crabs.

We also did a little project. I bought a ton of those rag rugs thinking I would sew them together for one big rug and stick it on the floor, but I didn't like how it looked so we decided, and I have no idea why, to nail them to a wall. Here's a picture of our little endeavor:

So that's my 5 day solo parenting story in a short nutshell. And then today, Owen threw up. Ah, the joys of parenting.

I'm All Alone....

You know the song on Shrek that Donkey sings? "I feel so all alone inside" (or something like that), well that sums up yesterday and the next 4 days for me. Chris and his good friend are in the Boundary Water Canoe Area winter camping because they are insane. There is no other word for it.

And I, I am here all alone with my 5 children. And bonus, my house is probably the worst it have ever been because last night instead of leaving on time after work, my hubby decided that, oh yeah, I should probably pack for this crazy adventure that I am going on. Now, to give him credit, he has done this for many years, so he knows what he needs, but most people would have packed you know, before the day you are leaving. So there is literally all sorts of crap spread around my house and my kitchen, lets just say that when I walked into it this morning I could feel the bad thoughts kicking in. As in, someone has to clean up this mess or I am going to freak out, and then I remembered that that someone is me. :(

Add in that Moyz had 18 months shots yesterday, plus his general whining and neediness of the last two weeks and you have a recipe for some serious disaster. And Truitt decided to not sleep last night, because who needs sleep? A better choice of your time is laying in your crib in your parents room and talking to yourself all night long because that is simply so much fun and entertaining.

And to top it all off, I am supposed to go in to my yearly exam tomorrow. Pretty sure that's not going to happen and I am not even one of those people who dreads that. But can you imagine me on the table with 4 kids in the room with me? "Okay kids, everyone up above mom's waist" I can hear myself snorting over the fact that this is not going to happen.

I'll be real honest with you, these next few days are all about survival, forget thriving. I am talking just making it through the days and nights. I foresee a fair amount of PBS, pizza and cereal for supper. My older kids will probably think it's the best thing that ever happened to them!

Blogger Burnout and General Tiredness

Have to admit that I am just plain old tired. This doesn't exactly contribute to good blogging. More like no blogging at all. I probably wouldn't even have blogged this post, but mostly a guilty conscience kicked in.

You see, life has been crazy, and not necessarily in a good way. I am going through a time in my life where my kids are driving me up a wall. A time where although I love them, I don't really like them a whole lot right now. Mostly, to be honest, it's Moyz. He is going through a faze where all he wants is me to hold him and if anyone gets near and bugs him in any way, shape or form, he will scream and scream in this high pitched, makes me want to bang my head against a wall, scream. I cannot hold him all day long, it's like a rerun of Kembia in her early days. I am not sure I have the strength to deal with it again. And of course, in typical fashion, it is only with me. Not around Chris or anyone else who may happen to pass his way.

We had an extended family birthday party for Ava and Owen this past weekend and he was fine. But if he could see me, he would freak out and want to be near me and would yell and all that crap that I just can't handle right now. But as soon as he was in a different room away from me he was okay.

Right now, as I type this, he is hitting my leg for me to lift him up and I am not picking him up because then I can't type well. So he is screaming and yelling and generally being unhappy. Ah, the struggles of meeting his needs and also teaching him he can't have what he wants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What a fine line with a child coming from an orphanage.

Moyz, my Trouble Maker

Even less time to blog now because I cannot keep Moyz off the table. For real. Why, oh why, does he feel the need to climb on everything now? Just because you can doesn't mean you should...

Quick fish tank update. Two of our goldfish have succumbed to, drum roll please, not brackish water, but death by crab. Ah, what a glorious way to go when compared to "dying from salt". I think I may need to find a different type of food for them.

My kids are already planning their next fish to get from the store, but first we have to lose another goldfish. They have their hearts set on a dragonfish, even though we don't know what it looks like. Walmart mentioned that they were getting those instead of puffer fish now and they live in the brackish water environment we have. Who knows. I hope this hobby doesn't get too expensive!

Impulse Pets

We have tried various types of pets, and most of them just don't mix well with us. Our favorite was a chihuahua named Goliath. He was a wonderful pet back when we only had Ava. But then he got hit by a car, and it was a very sad moment for me. We also had a cat, but when our basement flooded she started peeing all over the house, and so we had to get rid of her. (We also had a sunfish from a lake, and a salamander)

Since we now have 5 kidlets, we have decided that pets probably aren't a good mix with this many kids and the fact that we don't have oodles of land. But on Saturday we were at Walmart and my kids always like to look at the fish, and while there I managed to convince Chris to impulse purchase 5 goldfish and 2 crabs for our kids. Okay, so it's not a humongous dollar amount, and we already had the tank and all the stuff necessary, but still, the fact that he "Mr. Always Needs a Plan Ahead of Time" agreed was great and my kids proudly carried those fish around Walmart telling him to hurry up because the fish and crabs were running out of air.

Fast forward to Saturday night. We set up the tank, didn't have enough rock, and put the fish and crabs in it. Then I got thinking that at the store the crabs had this tall thing so they could get out of the water and I am thinking our crabs are going to die unless they have something like that too. So I start googling, and as we all know I should just stay away from Google.

Turns out our crabs are not freshwater crabs but brackish water crabs meaning they need aquarium salt, and guess what? Goldfish don't like salt. And the crabs do need access to air or they will die. Plus, pet stores generally sell the crabs as freshwater, but then you get them home and they only live for a few months because basically from day one you put them in their new home you are essentially killing them. Awesome. Now, I am not a humongous tree hugger, but I have enough of it in me to feel bad that I would knowingly be killing these poor crabs by not giving them the right type of home. Plus, they were $3 a piece and the goldfish were 38 cents, so really I am going to save the more expensive thing first, oh, and the fact that the kids bought the crabs with their own money added to my "save the crabs first" plan.

So yesterday, I went back to Walmart with the kids and we looked at crab tank options. After spending probably close to an hour in the fish aisle trying to figure out the cheapest way to get another set up, I came to the conclusion that this was going to cost me like $50 for a stupid crab tank. So Ava and Owen and I had a little chat. It went something like this "You guys bought the crabs with your own money and they are way cooler than the goldfish. It's really expensive to get all the stuff we need for a separate cage for the crabs, and we don't really have room for another cage. How would you feel if we kept them in the same cage with the goldfish and got something for the crabs to have air, and we put the salt in, which will probably kill the goldfish eventually, but then we can get a puffer fish and some other fish who like that environment as the goldfish die?" And they said okay. So we left with a puffer fish to put in until the other goldfish die and rock for the bottom of the tank. So far, the goldfish are doing okay, and maybe they will live because the amount of salt needed for the puffer and the crabs is so low. Kembia and Moyz are enthralled by these fish and crabs. Had I known how much it would have fascinated them I would have done this a long time ago!

I am exhausted about all this fish stuff, really all I wanted was an easy, cheap, fun thing for my kids and it evolved into something way more than I had imagined. But now that we just added the salt and will let whatever happens happen, it is much less stressful for me and I can now enjoy it again. Although my kids keep saying that they think the puffer fish is "bored", and are wondering when the crabs are going to have babies since we have a male and a female. Plus they always think they are starving and want to feed them all.day.long. At least they're not torturing a cat or dog to death with their "love".

Owen

So Owen informed me this morning that he was not going to get married and have kids because "kids are annoying". I have no idea where he would come up with something so ludicrous! I mean he lives in the calmest house I know and there is never anything going on here!

And then two seconds later he informed me "besides, I only like girls with lip gloss." When I asked him why he only like girls with lip gloss he told me "because it makes them look pretty." Can't argue with that.

Of course, I had to ask him who he thought was the prettiest girl he knew. I was kind of torn asking him because he is only 5, but I couldn't pass up the moment. And do you know what he said? He said the prettiest girl he knew was "the littlest girl from the family that adopted 5 kids from Ethiopia and we played with." For real. I am so proud of him! My little white boy, raised in a white house with white friends in a white town thinks the prettiest girl he knows is a black girl! Take that all you giant racists or anti-biracial couples out there! That is that kind of world I want for my kids, that they can think a girl is cute and it doesn't matter what color her skin is, because to Owen IT DOESN'T MATTER!!

Okay, so now I will go back to telling Owen that he is too young to date!

Truitt and the ER

Well, little man didn't get better. Yesterday started out better, but then after we did errands and all that jazz and got all the way home, he started breathing really funny, almost like he was hyperventilating. I called the pediatrician's office to see if they could squeeze him in but they didn't have any room. They did, however, listen to him over the phone and told me to get him to urgent care immediately.

So I packed up the kids in record time and Chris met me at the ER/urgent care. They ended up putting him in the ER because of the wheezing and his age. Funny how you think just because you go to ER things will move quicker, but we waited an hour to see a doctor. The good news is that his O2 levels were good so I suppose it wasn't technically an emergency, but I was still a little annoyed.

They tested him for RSV which involves putting a small tube up the nose and squirting saline in it, he was not a happy boy, in fact he was crying so hard he stopped breathing and turned purple. And then after that we went to do the chest xray. I have never seen the crazy contraption that they use for babies, but it basically is a bicycle seat that the baby sits on and their legs dangle below it, they put their arms all the way up in the air and then close these two plastic walls around the body so the baby can't move. I had to stand in front of him with a vest on and hold his hands in the air and try to make him understand that I was doing this because I love him. At least he wasn't as mad as after the RSV test. After 3 hours, they ended up calling it bronchitis/bronchiolits and sent him home with steroids and antibiotics.

After a long and rough night for the little man and me, today rolled around and we happened to have both Truitt and Owen scheduled for well childs. I noticed he was doing the crazy wheezing thing again, and it turns out his oxygen levels were dropping and was getting worse. $200 later we are now the proud owners of a nebulizer machine and are giving him those every 4 hours. Super fun.

At least hopefully with everything we are doing we can finally kick this in the butt. Our pediatrician rocks and she said that they are seeing a lot of this this year, which is rare. She basically said that it is RSV but not RSV. And the bonus is that Moyz and Kembia have a good chance of getting it too, but now we have the machine and the medicine so we can always just neb them if necessary. When I asked about Owen and Ava she said that it would be basically a non-issue if they got it, that the smaller you are, the worse it affects you.

Still, watching your baby struggle to breath sucks. I am glad that we have insurance and are able to take care of it.

Poor Truitt Part 2

Little Truitt's weekend got a whole lot worse. On Saturday we went down to IKEA to try and find a creative solution to a huge wall that we need help with. His eyes looked a little runny that morning, and by the time we got there he was all red and had a fever. The last 2 days have been him with fevers and a horribly croup-y cough and troubles breathing. Of course, when I told my mom he was sick she thought it was probably due to the fact that Moyz shoved a recorder down his throat....

Luckily, we are going in for his 6 month appt. tomorrow, minus the vaccines now that he has been ill. And my friend is an RN and we happened to be at her house for the Super Bowl and she listened to his chest and told me what to look for like retraction below the ribs and in the throat. So he should be okay to wait until tomorrow. Poor little guy. I was reading about this lost tribe in Peru where people made contact recently and the wife had pneumonia and her husband was carrying her in a bag to try and make it to a clinic to help her. Sure makes me grateful to be able to have access to medical care, even if we have to pay an arm and a leg for insurance.

Still no camera yet, but I did find the camera battery charger that I didn't know was missing. I have this horrible fear that the camera is at my parents house from our last visit, and this could be a huge problem since my mom has more than a few hoarder tendencies. But, moron that I am, I have not taken any of the pictures off it for the last year, including when Moyz and Kembia got home, and it's killing me to think about if we never find it all the pics. we will lose. The good news is is that other people were there and took pictures so all is not lost, but so many would be. Hopefully we will find it soon!

Poor Truitt

Truitt had a very rough day yesterday. First, Kembia threw a hard ball at him and it hit him in the face. Then when we had him down in one of the seats that keep you upright on the floor, I heard kind of a gagging noise and crying, and when I turned around from making supper, Moyz was jamming a recorder in his throat! I almost died. And I kind of freaked out and yanked Moyz off him so fast Moyz started crying. Later in the day, he was laying on the floor while I tried to clean the babies room and Moyz tripped and fell and both of their heads smacked into each other. Worst day ever for little Truitt.

We try to keep him off the floor and out of the babies' way, at this rate, he will be like 2 before he walks because he is definitely not moving along in his abilities as my other two bio kids. At 6 months they were both sitting unassisted for decent lengths of time playing with toys. Truitt can sit for a couple of seconds before he tips over and you better not move too far away from him because if you can't catch him as he falls he will hit the wood floor. Both Ava and Owen walked at 10 months. I just don't see that happening with Truitt since he is almost never on his stomach. Part of me worries a little bit, but I guess it is more important to keep him alive and away from his big brothers and sisters who have no control over their bodies!

Fights over Balloon Balls and Finger Pus

You know those balloons that are humongous and have the rubber band attached to them? We bought a 4 pack to celebrate Owen's fifth birthday. I thought that they would totally rock and the kids would love them.

Well, it probably wasn't my smartest move. At first there was just one because I almost passed out blowing it up. But then Kembia and Moyz went to town fighting over it, so I bit the bullet and blew up a second one (and then had to sit down!). Foolish me, I thought that everything would be okay because there were now two. Nope. Then they fought over which color they wanted. And I mean an all out brawl with tears and baby yelling and hitting. I finally hauled one kid to the living room with their balloon, and left the other in the kitchen. That didn't work either. They flocked to each other like magnets.

And then it happened, the blue one popped and the kids went ballistic. Tears and yelling. I had to take the second one away because they went insane over trying to be the one to get it. Of course, then they followed me down the hall crying and yelling because I put it away. And Kembia, sweet little thing that she is, is in a hitting mode, and tried to hit me the entire time going down the hallway. Pint size peanut packs a punch! Of course, she gets into trouble when she hits but that didn't stop her from trying.

They were royally upset that I ended the balloon play, which is funny because it's not like they even had fun with them. By the time everything started and ended about 5 minutes had passed.

And now onto the pus. My key chain broke and so I had to transfer all my keys onto the new one and from opening the circle I separated my fingernail from the skin underneath. Well, last night it was waking me up it hurt so bad. When I went to look at it, it was red and I ended up squeezing pus out of the nail. It hurt so bad and my endorphins kicked in that I almost passed out. Lucky me. Today I have been periodically squeezing out the pus to relieve the horribleness of it all. I can't even feel when I rub my other finger along my thumb. I am thinking that this is not a good sign. It hurts so bad that I can barely use it. This is going to be a problem during diaper changing when my kids try to escape. I might have to employ the "leg technique" , you know the one where you put your ginormous man (woman) leg over the kid to keep them from squirming away.

One other time I got an infection in a finger, it swelled up to literally double its size, and then I had to go and get it "drained" at the clinic. They did this by jabbing a tool under the fingernail without any type of local anesthetic and squeezing everything out. It hurt so bad I almost kicked the doctor. And then because my skin had stretched so much, the outer layer sort of deflated and peeled off. Disgusting. And aren't you so glad I shared?!