Category: Groftzoo Updates

February: The Month of Illness

Bah!!! When will all this stuff be over? Max and Tessa and I started the month with a rip-roaring severe cold. After a week of misery, I took the two littles to the doctor to find out that Max had a double ear infection and pneumonia and Tessa had an ear infection. (Thankfully though, this is the first ear infection for both of them!) Antiobiotics for both of them, along with lots of cold meds and other goop. Mine turned into a sinus infection and I had to go to the doctor. More drugs.

Then Jay came down with it. High fevers for over a week, plus coughing and other nastiness. This is a man who doesn’t mis work unless he is at death’s very door. He missed a full week!!! Off to the doctor for him; more drugs.

Meanwhile Max broke out in a rash head to toe. The doctor confirmed it was a penicilin allergy and also mentioned that one of his ears was more than not-healed, it was much worse. So we have been in for antibiotic shots for the poor guy twice and hav to go at least one more time. The poor baby; the shots hurt so bad he can’t walk for over an hour after he gets one.

I think we have spent as much this month on doctor bills and medicine as we did all last year!!

In better news: James gets his braces off!!!!

January: The Month of Change

One year has passed since our fire, and what a year it has been. The last claim has been submitted and with the last check (Oh, when will it come?) we hope to put this chapter in our lives behind us. We lift up our eyes and look towards the future finally and not on what has happened in the past. We can take stock of where we are now and not where we were before the fire.

James is still dealing with some pretty severe depression. He is being treated for that. I have also had to reevaluate who I am and what direction I am going, and so have been in therapy myself.

We decided at the beginning of this month that Posy and Ben really did belong at their school. They started attending again in the fifth and second grades. They are very happy there and we think that our time of homeschooling is coming to a close. They are so happy to see their friends every day, and I am very relieved to have the complete burden of their education off my shoulders. Homeschooling has been a blessing for our family. But we always said we would do it only as long as it was the right choice for our family. It no longer is. So we move on.

Paisley is doing great! She has one of the leads in the school play, Bye Bye Birdie, this Spring. She is sharing the role of Kim with another girl. She has moved into another honors class and is getting fabulous grades.

Tessa and Max miss Posy and Ben during the day. But we have had some fun on our own. Tessa’s favorite pasttime is to play dress up. Max’s is to climb and dismantle anything in his path. He has learned a couple of baby signs now: More, please, eat, nurse… we are trying to teach him more, but he is pretty stubborn!

Max Bumped His Head

Last night I got home from Max’s first trip to the ER at one AM. Yawn… I’m tired. While I was at a play with James (that he was supposed to attend weeks ago to write a report that was due YESTERDAY) Max fell off his step stool. Okay,, nobody kick me, please. My butt is already bruised from kicking myself. He is a climber and we just let him climb the step stool because he was so steady.

He fell right through it and onto his forhead. (On the tile, no less!) I will post a picture of the poor baby when he gets up. He has a lovely knot on his forehead, but the thing that alarmed us was that around his eye and one side of his face also swelled up! He never had symptoms of a head injury, but it looked really traumatic.

So I called the doctor – they said take him to urgent care.
Took him to urgent care – they took one look and said off to the children’s hospital.
Went to the children’s hosp – they assessed him and sent us home with instructions, encouraging words, and a warning that the swelling would be much worse by morning but that if he could move his eye and was acting okay then he was fine.

So anyway, I am thinking that it is time to ditch the step stool and get something like the learning tower.

Did I mention that Jay is out of town from early this morning until late Sunday night and the other kids are sick?

I am thinking that the most strenuous thing I will do today is make brownies. School is canceled and it is now officially “Be a Blob on the Couch Day” here.

I don’t ALWAYS complain

It just seems like I can hardly get a break around here!

Anyway, things are looking up. Kathi brought over her carpet cleaner today, and I cleaned the carpets already. It still stinks to high heaven in here but it is noteably better.

Today is my Jay’s birthday so we get to go out to dinner SANS KIDS!!!

Generally, can I just say that my kids are so awesome? I had to take them to a dermatologist appt with me last week. Only four of them came with me but the derm is in Sun City (a whole city of over 55 year old people) so I knew that it had the potential for disaster. But they were as good as GOLD. They walked into the waiting room, sat in their chairs, and when we went into the teeny little exam room, they lined up on the floor out of the way and didn’t make a peep. (And then they got candy bars on the way home!)

I know that I can always count on them to really behave themselves when I need them to.

Like at a wedding this past weekend. Jay’s cousin was getting married and his family was coming from far and wide for the festivities. Turns out that at the reception they sat my family and Jay’s brother’s family (both with 6 kids) WAAAAAYYY over in the back away from the whole rest of the family. I was a wee bit offended to say the least. But I didn’t have to tell my kids to behave at all! It was the other family members who have two or so kids who’s kids were running amuck and spoiling things. (Not that all families with fewer kids are like that – it’s just ironic that they thought mine would do that and the ones who were seated in the thick of things were the ones getting into the bride’s pictures, tearing down decorations and getting up on the stage and pulling cords.)

And this morning, I saw Paisley walking down the stairs to go to school and was overcome with how blessed I am. She has such style and poise. And not only was she THERE, but she was walking down the stairs in our OWN HOUSE, which we missed so badly for so long. It was one of those moments when everything was accounted for, KWIM?

Up, up and Away!

Max has moved to the next step beyond mobile – he is upwardly mobile. Each day I find him on something a little higher an more interesting. So far he has gotten up to (but not ON yet) the kitchen counter and into his sister’s high chair. His next project is trying to get over the banister so he can bypass the gate at the bottom of the stairs. He has seen the other kids doing it, so he knows HOW, his legs just aren’t long enough to do it yet. This doesn’t stop him from trying.

Here he is on the kitchen step stool. (The very one he used to ALMOST get a steak knife.) Yikes!

And here he is trying to climb up and OVER the rocking chair. Apparently ON it wasn’t high enough.

(And just so you know these shots were fully spotted and supervised. Risk was as minimal as it gets when you are ten months old and can climb.)

Happy Birthday to ME!

I am now officially out of my “Early Thirties” and in my “Mid-Thirties”. When did that happen? Sometimes I think I am *only* thirty-x and still a young whippersnapper. Then other times I think, ugh… I am *already* thirty-x, practically an old lady.

Okay, so not an old lady yet, but not what I once was. Every now and then I have a day where I have “The old gray mare” running through my head all day.

Anyway, for my birthday, I got to jet out to San Diego with Jay and Max. We stayed the nght in a hotel and then in the morning Jay went to take a certification test for some work equippment and Max and I went shopping with Heidi. she helped me give my wardrobe a little waking up (so I don’t dress like I am thirty-x!) and we had a lvely breakfast together too!

After shopping we hung out at her house for a while, then Jay and Max and I went out to dinner with Jay’s parents (who were also there for the ceritfication) and flew home. it was a lovely, short getaway. very refreshing!