Play, play, play

On Sunday, the weather was amazing. The humidity was low and the temps were in the 80's. The kids and I packed a lunches and went to the park. Daniel is so cool, he wears his shades everywhere.
Joshua is such a creative kid. He climbs all over the park using every inch of the jungle gym.
Megan makes friends everywhere we go. She found some other little girls to play with and she was thrilled. There was a set of 2 year old twin girls playing on the park and Megan kept calling them her "little sisters". It was pretty cute.
This is not a pre-Halloween celebration. This is just an ordinary day at our house.
Megan's classroom went on a field trip to Build-A-Bear on Monday. Megan made a panda bear. She named it Mr. Nothing. Her class has a teddy-bear picnic on Friday.

Keith came home from the hospital late in the evening on Sunday. He's doing great.

We had some friends from Kodiak over for dinner tonight. It was so good to see Becca and Jason again, they are so much fun.

Pink Eyes and Blue Skies

Last night was Daniel's last dose of medication for his pink-eye. His eye was still a little on the yucky side last night, so I was worried about bringing him to church this weekend. The doctor said he's fine to be around other people, but I'm more worried about other moms being worried that their kids are going to catch it. So the decision was made last night that Daniel and I would stay home from church, and Grandma and Grandpa would take the big kids to church with them. Unfortunately, Grandma called this morning sounding terrible, announcing that she and Grandpa are sick with the crud. Thus, for the second week in a row, nobody is going to church this weekend.

It was a beautiful morning. It was 68 degrees with bright blue skies.


After breakfast, I loaded the kids up with some old bread to go feed the ducks at our favorite walking park. Our park had previously been under water as a result of the hurricanes. It's nice to be able to enjoy our park again.
When we got to the park, we were expecting a quiet walk. However, I wasn't aware that there was some sort of Christian ministries benefit walk today. Each of the kids were given a balloon.
We always have to stop by the fountain at the park. It brings everyone great pleasure to toss pennies into the streams of water.
The water was finally below our favorite walking dock. We were able to see quite a few turtles floating in the water.
The kids were racing ahead of me, looking for the next super-cool thing to look at. Between the turtles and the ducks, it was a pretty exciting walk.

We fed the ducks all of the bread that we had brought with us. Daniel wandered down a little way from us and fed the birds instead of the ducks.

We were home in time for lunch. After lunch, we brought Daddy a get well balloon and some artwork for his walls. The kids enjoyed visiting him in the hospital. Keith was looking great. He feels pretty good, aside from his IV infiltrate. The doctor said Keith might come home Sunday night or Monday morning.

On our way from the hospital, I called Grandma and she suggested we all meet up at a pizza place down the street for dinner. I had a wonderful eggplant parmesan sandwich. Unfortunately, the kids were not behaving their best, and there was pouting from all of us.

Keith's doing great!

Thanks everyone for the calls, emails and/or cards.

Keith's surgery came out as good as expected. Keith is still in the hospital recovering. Hopefully, by the time he comes home, all the sicky/germy kids will be better.

Add two more to the sick kid list

As per the usual chain of events, the littler two managed to catch Joshua's sickness. So now that Joshua is feeling better, the smaller two are falling apart. Daniel is so snuggly when he's not feeling well. Poor Keith, everytime he'd try to sit down with me to cuddle, my lap would already be filled with a sleeping Daniel.

Megan slept most of the day yesterday. This morning she was feeling much better, but was still very tired. I kept her home from school so that she could get a little more rest. About an hour ago, her fever spiked back up, so she's now back in bed.

Everybody is much more moodier than usual when they are sick. It makes for a very long day. Keith is joking that he is counting down the hours until he gets to have surgery and stay in the nice quiet hospital for a few nights.

Swimming

Poor Joshua is still very sick, so he hung outside with us while we swam today. Megan and Daniel can both swim across the pool with the help of pool noodles. We are working with Megan to help her remember to keep her mouth closed. Daniel likes to blow bubbles in the water.
Daddy and Megan having a father-daughter chat in the deep end.
We've had fun playing around with Daddy this weekend. Keith's colon surgery is this week on Thursday and we know it might be a few weeks before he's feeling up to rough-housing with us again.
Megan and Daniel like to swim over to each other to chit-chat.
Daniel is quite the little swimmer. Those little legs just get to kicking along and before I know it, he's across the pool. He was so exhausted tonight, he was asleep within minutes after I tucked him in.

Our visitor

I was talking to Keith on the phone an hour or so ago and I shrieked in his ear that there was a HUGE lizard in our backyard. I've never seen a lizard this big (iguana?) out in the wild, so I was thinking it might be some one's pet. Our neighbors in Kodiak had a huge iguana and we were responsible for going over to feed him every time the neighbors went out of town. Keith suggested I call animal control to see if anyone has called about a missing iguana, or it could just be a wild iguana. The animal control people suggested I keep an eye on it until they get here, so I rolled a few grapes over to him (her?) and watched him for about 30 minutes until he went into the neighbor's yard. Animal control informs me that these animals are common in more southern Florida, but not usually seen in the Orlando area.
I will now hesitate every time I go outside, wondering if the sticks by the pool pump are really sticks, or if they are gigantic iguana tails.
I watched him climb a tree in our backyard. I had no idea he could do that!
And as he sad hiding in the tree, it made me wonder if he is the reason that tree is so noisy at night. Keith and I sit outside on most nights when he is home and it always sounds like a squirrel party in that one tree. Perhaps it's an iguana party instead?

Poor guy, poor me

Joshua woke up feeling yucky this morning. By afternoon time his fever was pretty high, he was vomiting and pretty weepy. After a long day, he's now in bed sleeping.

Keith's surgery is on schedule for Thursday morning. However, I nearly lost my mind when the insurance person called to tell me we needed to look for another Urologist because it was thought that the Urologist that the surgeon chose is not a "network provider". However, after a quick search (by me) for the Urologist's tax ID number, he is listed as a billable provider, crisis averted. I truly feel as though my time in Kodiak working a the clinic was really a lesson in learning how to work the system. I don't know how people that don't understand the system manage to survive in this awful, messed up health care system that we have in this county.

I'm feeling some anxiety and frustration about the chain of events that all need to fall into place over the next few days. I know the end result is that Keith will recover from this surgery and aside from some dietary restrictions, he'll be all back to normal. However, it's this journey leading up to the surgery that has me feeling out of control. I had a conference call today with some very nice folks in charge at the Air Station clinic and shared my concerns with them. The end result is a list of phone numbers of some VIPs just in case things don't go as smoothly as planned over the next week.

Our Weekend

This weekend was filled with ups and downs. I realize now that I failed miserably at preparing the kids to turn their building blocks into church this weekend. It was tough getting everyone in the car because they wanted to hold their own block, but also needed to get seat belts secured. After weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth (the former from the children, the latter from mommy!), we were finally on our way to church. This week there was a choir and a brass ensemble. Megan really doesn't like loud noises, it's almost like the stimulation is just too much for her and she starts falling apart. Daniel sat with his hands over his ears and Megan buried her face into my arm. I knew when they woke up that it wasn't going to be a good morning and once we got to church, it went further downhill.

I kept a record of their sleep this week and I noticed on days that they've had a lot of sugary treats given to them at school they just don't sleep well making the next day terrible. I can't really describe it as a sugar-high, but more like a coming-down-from-the-sugar-low that results in meltdowns for a day or two after whatever sugary celebration the kids have had. I really didn't mind it when I thought treats were going to be few and far between, but they are becoming a regular occurrence. After much discussion between Keith and I, the plan is for me to send a letter in with both of the kids outlining our stand on sugary treats and our preference to not use sugary treats as rewards. I'm really not a big fan of confrontation, however, when needed, I can be pretty assertive, especially when it comes to the kids' health.

Anyhow, back at church, Megan had a really rough day. Her grumpiness continued on for the rest of the day. She was a weeping willow at Grandma's house for lunch that day, too. After church, Keith, Daniel and I went for a walk.
Daniel and I get out and run on this trail a few times a week. I'm hoping to get my bike serviced sometime this week and then we can ride together while the big kids are at school. I think the bike trailer will give him more shade than the stroller provides.
The kids and I went to the Maitland Farmer's Market this weekend. We watched the violin players, sampled some caramel apples and kettle corn and enjoyed walking around in the shade.
The kids were fantastic! Megan pushed her little shopping cart around as we shopped for produce. For less than $10 we bought a huge loaf of fresh bread, Daniel's huge cucumber, 3 very large zucchinis, 2 pounds of strawberries, 2 pounds of green beans, a watermelon and the Sunday newspaper.

FROGS!!

For the past two mornings, getting the kids out of the parking lot and into the actual school was harder than usual. I've been jokingly calling them my herd of turtles, since it seems the faster I need them to move, the slower they become.
We arrived at school this week to see hundreds of little frogs all over the place. After we walked the big kids in, Daniel came back outside and was running around trying to catch them all.
There were little dead frogs all over the driveway. Daniel kept trying to put them back on their feet so that they could follow the crowd.
I'm not sure where the frogs were headed, but it sure was fun to watch the tiny little things hop-hop-hopping along.

Bits of This and That

Daniel had been doing wonderful potty-training when we were able to be home. Unfortunately, running around doing errands proved to be a big distraction for him. He had a potty accident just before we picked up the kids earlier this week and unfortunately, spent the rest of the day in a disposable pull-up. He did purchase a Woody doll at the Gift and Thrift this week. He was really proud of his purchase and insisted on taking Woody with us everywhere this week.
Keith promised a friend of ours, Shelley, that we would post a "yecko" picture. Daniel loves to hunt yeckos. These are actually brown anoles.
Daniel was watching out the window while I was searching for a yecko to take a picture of. Daniel has named the anoles, "yecko"s. Somehow a yecko got into the house earlier this week. The cat stayed up all night playing and pouncing. Finally, she ripped it's tail off and played with her new dead toy until I managed to get it away from her.
Megan had a great week this week. At first, she was coming home from school quite whiny. Now she's back to her normal bossy self and all is right with the world again.
Joshua had a great week as well. I helped his teacher coordinate a few speakers and field trips in the next coming weeks. Because we were at the school during lunch time, Daniel and I had a picnic on the soccer field bleachers.

Setting up surgery

After some disappointing lack of communication from the GI doctor's office, I was able to pick up Keith's records from there and hand carry them to the surgeon's office yesterday.

The good (no, make that great!) news is that the biopsy came back just fine. The somewhat bad news is that the portion of the colon that needs surgery requires a urologist (kidney doctor) in the OR because of the high possibility of damaging a ureter. So now the pressure is on the surgery scheduler to coordinate the two physicians and get us all on the surgery schedule.

Disney on Ice

This afternoon, Grandma took us to see a Disney on Ice show called Worlds of Fantasy.
Megan had on the cutest little Tinkerbell shirt, but she kept shoveling the popcorn into her mouth, so this was the best I could do to actually prove she came with us. I honestly don't know where the girl puts all the food she eats.
Daniel was slightly apprehensive at first. He was under the impression that he was going to be skating and that we were going to be watching him.
Joshua seemed to enjoy the show the most. He was clapping along with the beat, dancing in his seat and laughing at the jokes.

Mickey and Minnie were the opening act, along with Goofy and Donald.
Next up was the cast of Cars. Daniel was excited to see McQueen, but even more excited to see Sally.
The Little Mermaid act was next. The skating was amazing and the music was very fun.
The costumes for the Lion King were amazing. The colors and choreography were just mesmerizing.
After intermission was the Tinkerbell act. It was really cute. I have to admit that at first, I had my doubts since some of the other fairies were into teasing and girl snarkiness. But in the end, it turned out okay and Tinkerbell saved the day.

Overall the show was fantastic. It was really cute to watch all three kids enjoy themselves.

The cure for the grumpies

Everyone went to bed so easily last night. They must have slept hard, too, because the first little person came out at 5:45am yelling, "good morning, mom". With barely one eye opened, I could already tell that it wasn't really going to be a "good morning". Joshua followed behind little brother about 15 minutes later. Yuck. They get crazy by mid-morning when they get up too early. Today they were all out of sorts for most of the day. I instituted mandatory naptime for everybody between 1pm and 3pm today. Once everyone woke up well rested, we took a drive to look for a new park we had driven past a week or so ago.

I had remembered seeing signs for "Candy Land Park" and was thinking it would be pretty cool and maybe even have something to do with Candy Land (a game the kids like to play). Not so much. It was a regular park. Actually they bigger kid section was the part we saw first and all three ran off in three different directions.


After about 3 minutes of being in the park, Joshua decided to slide across the zip cord type contraption. He lost his grip halfway across and belly flopped onto the ground, knocking the wind right out of him. He was really upset over the whole situation. A walk towards to van for a cool drink seemed to shake it right off.
Going past the van, we saw the toddler play area. It looked more like a park I could handle. The kids had a blast running around in there and actually playing nicely with each other.

The best part of the park was when the train went by. The kids were jumping up and down and waving frantically to the train.


It was a fun way to spend the late afternoon. We got home just in time to eat dinner and wind down for bedtime.