Pixiemom

Wow… it was quite a whirlwind of people for us.

We drove down on Thursday after Little A’s mom picked him up and got down to my sister’s house a little after bedtime. We walked into the house and there was my baby nephew sitting in his bouncy seat to greet us. I love the smiles that little guy gave me. Then the rest of the family except my toddler nephew came and attacked us with hugs and talking and laughing. The little girls all got so very excited. It was hard to get them all to settle down and go to bed that night.

In the morning, we talked about going to the zoo. I couldn’t really walk around the zoo much, but she had some free tickets for the train which would have worked nicely… if the weather had cooperated. It decided to rain… and not just little drops, big pouring drops. We went with our alternate plan… St Louis Mills Mall. I LOVE THAT PLACE! The play area is like an indoor playground. All of the kids can play on it. They played Spy and danced on a little stage on one side of the play area and all kinds of things. It was so great. Then the mall itself is built so that you don’t have all these hallways to walk down. There is only one hallway that goes around in a big circle… well, I guess there’s two hallways since there’s one that goes down the middle so that you don’t have to walk the whole way around to get to a store that’s on the opposite side of the mall if you don’t want to. Amie and James wanted me to walk around the mall with them after a bit of playing. They wanted to see what was there.

That was a long walk. We walked a quarter way and stopped to rest and let me catch my breath, then another quarter…. and so on until we got back to the play area. I think I needed exercise like that, but it wore me out. We were there until around 3 or so.

The rest of Friday afternoon/evening was spent at Jill’s house. The rain had stopped, so the kids were outside playing. I mostly rested. Rob and Jeremy grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for us to eat. Mmmm… The adults settled down with a movie after the kids went to bed. We watched “The Blind Side”… a very good movie. It was my first time seeing it and I enjoyed it. I slept pretty well that night.

On Saturday, most of the day was spent letting the kids run around outside. I helped Jill clean up some of the house while there were no kids inside to distract or walk through the piles of dirt/cereal/crumbs we were sweeping up. Nine kids (well, eight… we won’t count the five month old baby) make quite a lot of mess.

Saturday late afternoon, we met with Jeremy’s brother Andrew Read at our favorite Mexican restaurant. He introduced us to his fiance, Betsy. It was really nice meeting her and getting to know her a little. After we left and were on the way home, the kids discussed what they thought of her thoroughly and by the time we got back to Jill’s house, they had decided they really like Uncle Andrew’s choice and can’t wait to be able to call her Aunt Betsy.

After getting the kids into bed, I took off to have a girls’ night out with my best friend, Michelle! Woohoo! Brownies, M&Ms, Dr. Pepper and Christian Bale in “Newsies”… oh yeah… good times. Lots of talking, lots of laughing and giggling, a bit of crying and serious talking, and hugs. It was what a good girls’ night out should be.

I didn’t get much sleep that night because we had to get up early for church on Sunday morning. We were going to see some friends from college. Aaron is pastoring a church in O’Fallon. I got a text that morning that Melody was sick, so we’d miss seeing her, but we’d see Aaron and the girls. It was so good to see him and hear him preaching again. Afterwards, the kids all went out to the church playground while we sat and talked a bit.

We drove around O’Fallon a little just to see how much it’s changed since we lived around there and stopped at Bandanna’s BBQ for lunch. That is Jeremy’s favorite BBQ place, so it was good to stop and have a yummy lunch before our drive home.

All in all, it was a really good trip.

I have a lot of friends down around St Louis that I haven’t seen in such a long time. I really hope that in trips to come, I will be able to meet up with them.

For a while there, I wasn’t sure whether or not I was getting better. I felt better initially as the antibiotic took care of some of the things that were making me feel bad, but then I went for a while just feeling tired and very out of breath. I kept needing a lot of sleep, was unable to talk for long, and couldn’t eat much. I wasn’t feeling like I was making any progress in feeling better and I was starting to think I ought to go back to the dr.

Today, I woke up feeling so much better. It was wonderful. I could talk for a while without needing to stop and catch my breath. I was able to stand on my feet and walk around more today. It is so nice to feel like I’m finally starting to be free of this ailment that has had me down for the last two and a half weeks.

For this, I am very thankful because we already had a plan to go to St Louis, starting tomorrow afternoon. I am looking forward to seeing my sister and her family, meeting up with Jeremy’s brother and his fiance (I like saying that…), and seeing friends. We’ll be coming home on Sunday afternoon/evening. I am glad I will feel better for this trip and not so worn out and out of breath.

Now, I know I’ve said the ways of how I’ve enjoyed being offline more since I pulled myself away from chat and Facebook. I’ve found so many other things to do… but I’ve also found a bit of a downside to it as well.

While Jeremy was gone to Pycon (whatever that is… I don’t understand when he tries to tell me) I found that I was really lonely. I used to get onto chat and talk to people when he was out of town. Now, I wasn’t sure what to do. I read some and watched a movie, but I was so much more lonely. It was really, really hard.

Another thing I’ve found… people tend to put things on Facebook and expect that you’ll see it there. I used to be like that. “I put it on Facebook, didn’t you see it?” Now I make sure that the people that I think need to know things get e-mailed, texted, or if it’s really important I will call. It also makes me feel like family means nothing… when I feel like I’m the last to know things because I’m not online anymore and so I don’t get some big news and then later I find out through another source and not the person who should have told me. Does that make sense?

Anyway, it’s been a little weird to be offline more often, but I think in the long run, it is good for me.

I’m not doing too bad, but still having some trouble breathing. I guess I’m getting a little more oxygen in than I was before since I’ve finally got a bit more energy than I did. I still have a bit of resting and recuperating to do before I’m completely better, but I can see progress made now.

I haven’t written in a while because I haven’t been up to it. Last Tuesday, I started feeling a bit out of breath around 4, but I didn’t seem too bad otherwise. I couldn’t catch my breath no matter what. By 6, it concerned me because I could tell I wasn’t getting enough oxygen when my fingertips started tingling. Jeremy took me to the hospital. I told them that my kids had been sick and that I thought that was the reason I was having trouble. They put me on extra oxygen which helped with the tingling. Since I had no other symptoms though, they didn’t think so and after doing a ton of blood work, chest x-rays, and a chest ct scan, they decided it was my gallbladder and sent me home with instructions to see a dr and get an ultrasound on my gallbladder.

On Thursday, I went to the Dr. By that time, I had more symtoms. A headache and sore throat, but still no fever. He actually listened to me and after looking at the results from the tests at the hospital, he wondered why they came up with the diagnosis they did. He said they didn’t do all the bloodwork they should have or they would have known it wasn’t the gallbladder. He ordered a few more bloodtests to re-check his results and diagnosed me with severe viral bronchitis. He said if I didn’t get a phone call from him on Friday that it meant the tests he ordered just confirmed his diagnosis. He didn’t call, so that’s what it is. He said he was a bit worried about me because of how bad it was. He gave me an antibiotic. He said he knew it wouldn’t help against the virus, but because my body’s immune system was so drained, he was thinking that there was probably some bacteria taking advantage and attacking me as well, making me worse. The antibiotics would take care of those and let my immune system focus more on the virus. He also told me to stay at home and rest until Monday. If I wasn’t feeling at least a bit better by then to come back on that day.

Since then, my head and throat are no longer hurting, but I’m still having trouble breathing and getting a deep breath in. We’ll see how I am in two more days.

That’s what it was like around here last week. I mentioned that Noelle was sick on Sunday and I stayed home with her. She was still sick on Monday and Amie was too by then. Tuesday they seemed fine. Wednesday evening came and James didn’t feel too good. By Thursday evening, AnnaBeth and Chris had it too. It had gone through all the kids. I was surprised that I didn’t get it. I heard Little A had it over the weekend too. Jeremy woke up on Sunday morning feeling all blah. He stayed home with AnnaBeth and Chris while I took the other three to church. So… yeah, it kind of went through the house.

I’m not sure why I blogged this… LoL

Well, at least this time it didn’t hit all of them at the same time. That is not fun.

Little A is a talker. He can’t say much yet, but he sure tries. I love it. Those little syllables all strung together that mean something to him as he looks at the doggy and kitty pictures on my computer and points to them. The way he oohs and aahs with pitch changes as the music plays as his way of singing. It is all so adorable.

I do miss this with my little ones. Of course, there’s always the frustration part too. He wants something, but can’t tell me what it is, so he gets frustrated while I try to figure it out. Food? No… Drink? No… Tired? No… OH! He wants me pick him up and dance!

I hear actual words from him sometimes too. When we drop Jeremy off at the train station, he yells, “See ya!” and he says “Kitty” and “Doggy” when he sees pictures of them. He says “Train” and “choo-choo” when the kids pull out our Thomas track and he always yells for “Jayz” (James) if he can’t find his big buddy. Hearing him say new things is always exciting.

I love having a baby… er, toddler around.