Classic

Andy was playing with one of his old toys, a dog that when you touch it, talks back and sings song.

"Ding-a-ling. I see you," says the bear."
"No you don't," says Andy.

Where did this kid get his sarcasm?

Both kids are (fingers crossed) doing better on the new antibiotic. Meg's sinus infection (i.e. goopy eyes) appears better as does her super thick and chunky runny nose. What's left now is a dry cough. It's unclear if that's part of the sinus infection working its way through or something else new and fun.

Andy was a total pill yesterday morning. We met the famous Lizzie G. at the Gap Outlet in Old Town where he proceeded to whine and complain for the entire 1 1/2 hours we were together, even with mint chocolate chip ice cream. He then came home and took a four hour nap so I suppose the kid wasn't quite right after all.

We had a dinner to celebrate Mark being in town where Bjorn made his local favorite sausage risotto for everyone. It was nice to all be together. What's funny is Jennifer is now hinting that her month stay with us may turn into a longer stay and Mark is saying he might be home for the summer. It would be sort of fun having everyone all together although I might have to invest in bunk beds or something for the big kids to share a room. I don't think I could stand one of them sleeping on the couch in the basement as it would make that room off limits until noon most mornings and a mess if we had guests over. The logistics are easy enough though.

I'm in the middle of the fourth Twilight book. Sure, it's crap, but at this point, it's familiar crap. I just wish Bella wasn't such a victim. I haven't quite figured out why everyone in the book loves her so much as it's not like she's out sewing scarves for the homeless or anything. And Jacob -- dang, he seems a whole lot more fun than Edward. Am I alone here?

My budding teenager

Andy is just four, but I see glimpses of the living hell that will be his teenage years.

"Andy, how was school today? Was it picture day?"
"No. Nothing. I'm not telling."
"...Did you play with Christopher?"
"Christopher wasn't there today."
"Who did you play with? Eli? Kiki? Evan?"
"Nobody. I don't want to play with anyone."

To be fair, he is sooo tired and cranky this evening. He took a really long, weird nap yesterday after staying up too late with Mark and Jennifer the night before. That combined with the time change meant that he didn't get a really good night's sleep and then didn't nap at school today. Oh, and with the nice weather, he spent a lot of time on the playground at school and then I took the kids to the park on our way home. So he was T-I-R-E-D as I often spell to Bjorn.

Oh, and Meg's sinus infection initially seemed better only for me to pick her up from school and see her all goopy again. I tried to call the doctor's office and got the weird 16 year old high school afternoon receptionist who was useless at either getting me to a nurse or making an appointment for the morning so I called my friend who I'd run into at the doctor's office the week before where her daughter was also getting treated for a sinus infection. After a minute, she said, "You know to stay away from milk, right." Um, well, I was after the initially barfing, but once that had passed, I introduced dairy again on Friday and then milk yesterday. No wonder! I now need to go back to clear liquids for a few more days and see if that doesn't clear things up. I swear, this kids need instruction manuals.

In completely unrelated news, it is my favorite time of the year -- college basketball time! Right now is Championship Week with all the conference tournaments. Local college George Mason is playing VCU tonight on ESPN 2 for the CAA tournament and there are tournament finals on television all week. I am pscyhed! That also means the NCAA tournament is just in a few weeks. I am trying to convince Bjorn (and anyone else interested) to get together at a bar during the day on that first Friday to watch the games. That will be while I'm still in the pool at the office. Usually by Sunday, I'm mathmatically eliminated.

Diagnosis

I stayed home yesterday and got both kids to the doctor yesterday. Meg's vomitus interuptus from the evening before had subsided, but she woke up with a goopy eyes. Andy woke up Wednesday morning with a fever of 103. I forget that Wednesdays only one doctor is working so we couldn't get in until noon. Fortunately, after sleeping from 6:00 p.m. to 5:45 a.m., Meg was tired and took a good morning nap.

Anyhoo, the diagnosis -- ear infection for him and sinus infection for her. Prescription -- omnicef for both. Dr. Murphy said that the vomiting was due to the congestion dripping into her tummy and irritating her stomach. He recommended staying away from dairy for a few days since it can lead to increased mucus and also irritate the stomach. It's strange to stay away from milk products. I forget how much dairy she eats, from cheese to yogurt to milk.

With the kids being sick and thus turning my world upside down, I haven't had a chance to talk about how great it was having my mom here last week. A running joke with my sister has been that she taught Megan (as a joke) to say:

"Megan, what does grandmother like?"
"Grandmother loves malt liquor!"

It worked so great that we taught Andy to do that as well with phenomenal results. Jennifer loves asking Andy in front of friends what grandmother likes. When Mom was visiting, we braved going out to dinner with two little kids. Andy wanted hummus, which wasn't on the menu so he asked Mom to read him the menu to see if it was on there. She was kindly complying when he turned to her out of nowhere:

"Grandmother, is malt liquor your favorite?"

We nearly fell out of our chairs. Then we called Elizabeth.

More antibiotics

Andy goes in for his ear tube surgery a week from tomorrow. That didn't stop him from developing yet another sinus infection (as identified by the prodigious amounts of eye goo he had this morning) and reinforcing that this in indeed the right thing to do to keep him healthy and happy. Once we saw the goo, I put in a call to the pediatrician's office who called in a prescription for Suprex (at a cool $50). Hopefully that will clear him up until the surgery when the new found ear drainage should help prevent every cold from turning into something more severe. In this case, I think this is the same infections he's had for weeks that we just can't seem to get rid of.

As he's on his antibiotics, I am on amoxicillin for the cough I've had for weeks now. The doctor said it sounded like bronchitis, but she's an OB and not necessarily an expert at diagnosing regular stuff like this. I haven't noticed a difference since I started taking the medicine on Friday, unfortunately. It could be that like Andy, I can't seem to shake illnesses these days either. Apparently pregnancy weakens my immune system so that my body won't reject the fetus as a foreign substance. Yet another side effect I'm having these days. I'll admit it's been tough, being big and pregnant (read hormonal and cranky) is trying enough without adding on all the infections that make it harder to get through the day and sleep at night. The most irritating thing about this most recent illness is my left ear is totally stopped up so I have difficulty hearing as well as telling if I'm talking too loud. At least we're coming into the home stretch -- only eight more weeks to go to my due date. And that means just five weeks until I'm 37 weeks and considered full-term. Yay! (And shit! There is a lot to do between now and then, including Christmas.)

Meanwhile, I'm on Bjorn's computer tonight and found this old picture of Andy. I think it's from summer 2006. I love how round and babyish his features are. And I laugh to think I thought he was ready back then for finger painting. If I recall, he really only succeeded in getting his hands covered in paint and never really got the point of drawing on the paper and making a mess everywhere.

Antibiotics here we come

It's official - the never-ending ear infection is back. We went to the doctor's today who confirmed that he still has an ear infection and that's probably building up infection in his sinuses, causing the eye goop. Way better than pink eye, but it does mean we're back on this treadmill again. When asked about tubes, she said that the infection may be starting in the nose and sinuses, but it can't drain through the ears properly which is why he's still sick. The plan is to try another round of antibiotics (this time amoxicillan/Augmentin) and see if we can't clear it up without surgery. But she did say that this kind of perpetual infection this early in the cold and flu season doesn't look good. Sigh. One more thing to worry about between now and the end of January.

The only good news is that apparently his ears are so red, she said they most certainly hurt. And that's good because it means my kid is not the demon he has been portraying lately, he's just uncomfortable and I can help alleviate that.

Meanwhile, check the porn shot I posted. He really wanted to wear his boots the other day as I had him undressed for his bath. He looked so funny clomping around that I took a couple of pictures. I found I actually had to delete one that showed his boy parts because it just looked so, so wrong somehow -- naked except for yellow rain boots and posing. So I made him put Jeff on his lap to at least cover the money shot. I still think this will be properly humiliating when he gets older. I see rehearsal dinner slide show written all over this one.