The Winter of '10-'11

Will this winter ever end? Here the beautiful Northwest winters aren't all that bad, in my opinion. I prefer the rain and 30-40 degree temps here than the snow and below zero winters I grew up with in Idaho. However, this winter feels likes its thrown me to the ground and then stomped on me again and again and again. It has nothing to do with the weather.

Its illness. Someone in my family has been sick since OCTOBER! This is not an exaggeration. Emma alone has been to the doctor with 4 ear infections in 2 months. She is now scheduled for surgery to have ear tubes put in again and her adnoids taken out. Coughs, colds, fevers, vomit, aches, pink eye, and one very strange case of ring worm (which isn't a worm by the way, its a fungus).

As the mother of three children I can handle the illness. What's killing me is the lack of sleep. Sick kids don't sleep well. Which means Jeremy and I aren't sleeping well which means, at least for me, I've had a terrible time staying well myself. And poor Madilyn has been coughing, the hard croupy cough, for three weeks. I'm heading into two myself.

I try to stay away from others when we're sick. I don't take the kids to the library or the play place at the mall so we don't spread our germs. But I'm apologizing now to anyone who may run into us from now until about June - I'm coming out. That's right we're leaving the house with our snotty noses and smokers coughs. We can't stay well but we can't stay house bound for 3 more months either.

I'm sorry. Germs are coming your way.

Together We Can...

The PTA Reflections contest theme 'Together We Can...', didn't start out too promising. Madilyn wanted to take pictures of something. Her automatic response to the question, Together We Can, was 'make money'. Now I'm not artsy fartsy or anything but I didn't see a lot of potential for photos with that. So I let her think on it for a couple of weeks and we tried again. Below are the four pictures she entered in the contest.

She did a little cropping on a couple of them so the entries looked a tiny bit different than these but close enough. Two of her pictures were chosen to represent her school in the K-2 division in the school district (the first two pictures). Both pictures were finalists and one was chosen to represent the Puyallup School District at the state level. I'm not sure which of the first two was chosen as they haven't sent back either of them yet. The state judging takes place in April.

Last Friday Madilyn came home, as proud as she could be, with two giant ribbons. Since starting school, she has struggled feeling like she is talented at something. I'm not sure why because as mother I see talent everywhere including places it probably isn't. Its given her confidence in herself and now she wants to try out for the school talent show...hula hooping... to Lollipop. We'll see how it goes.

All is Well

We took Garrett to a burn center yesterday. Oddly enough we were referred to one in Tacoma but they didn't have anyone physicians in yesterday so they sent us to Harborview in Seattle. They are FABULOUS. I have never had a better experience at a doctor's office before. Attentive, helpful, and nice. (I can't tell you how many hospital visits have left me loathing the human race.

As it turns out, the burn isn't as bad as we thought. Yes first degree burns up his arm, but we treat them pretty much like a sun burn. Second degree on his hand and fingers that we keep wrapped simply to keep them moist.

They were so reassuring. Pretty much, they made us feel like it wasn't that big of a deal, which considering what they must see on a regular basis it probably isn't. Plus they said when they see burns from a wood stove they are usually a lot worse than his.

So all is well. He'll be fine. He probably won't scar.

BONUS - He's slept through the night the last two nights. (He doesn't normally do that.)