A Bit Distracted Lately

I apologize to our fan club... we've been a bit distracted lately.

Two weeks ago Emily started to get a little tickle in her throat. I got an early call from her babysitter saying that she was really warm (cheeks like tomatoes) and was extra tired and had a cough. Whatever she had - she shared with me a few days later. That weekend I tried fixing her supper while she was watching TV... but,s when supper was finally ready and dished out on our plates, this is what I found...



If I'm remembering correctly, she slept here from about 6pm until 8:30pm. I fed her a little supper, let her play for a while until Tom came home from his church meeting and then she went right back to sleep around 9:30 or so and slept until morning.

Last week, Em had her 3rd set of botox injections at children's hospital. I started preparing her for them that morning and told her that she was going to be seeing the doctor and that she was going to get 2 shots. She would also need to hold really still and if she did it would go faster. My mom went with us to help hold Em down so I could talk to her and attempt to comfort her. If you remember this post you'll recall that our last visit to children's didn't go over so well. I made a point to let the nurse know our concerns and asked that Dr. B. please make sure she spend some extra time with Em before she just starts working with her and that it traumatized Em for over a month afterwards. The nurse made the note in Em's record and I figured that would be the end of that. Surprise! Within 2 hours of my chat with the nurse, I received a call from Dr. B. at home. She was very genuine and apologized for any problems our previous visit caused and that she must have been having a bad day, etc., etc. I was very surprised she called and it really felt like she understood what happened and would try to see that it doesn't happen again. Our next appointment for a follow-up is in a couple of weeks... we'll see how it goes!

On the way home from children's I set up an appointment for Em to see her pediatrician because she was still having "issues"... runny nose, cough, ear aches and a new dark circles under her eyes with goop thrown in for good measure. Once again, I prepped her for the appointment and assured her there would be no shots this time... the doctor was simply going to help her eyes, ears, nose, throat, etc. to feel better. Emily was a champ. The only struggle we had was the death grip she put on her carseat while I was trying to get her out of the car. I carried her inside to the elevator and from there something changed and she was an angel. When I signed her in, I let them know that she had a bit of "White Coat Syndrome" and they picked up the clue and let all the folks know that would be dealing with her. She ACTUALLY ALLOWED THEM to weigh her, take her temperature, listen to her heart, look in her ears, nose, eyes and throat. She was the picture of the perfect patient. I have no idea what changed, but I keep bragging about it in front of her hoping for a little positive reinforcement. (A mom can hope, right?) The final diagnosis... Emily was dealing with allergies and had a mild "smoldering ear infection" that would easily be cleared up with a little Zyrtec and Amoxycillin. So far, they've worked wonders!

Last week, Tom spent quite a few days/evenings at the house on the church property getting it ready for our new worship leader and his family to move in. I was able to chip in partway through the week to do some trimming and painting. I helped out over the weekend and again some more this week.

We were greeted by this lovely face on Saturday morning when we went to start painting the living room... I believe this is Keith's artwork. (The white parts of the eyes are actually open port holes from the living room to one of the bedrooms... with the bottoms of water bottles painted for the pupils!)


Amidst the doctor appointments, sickies, painting and work, Tom and I decided to tackle putting together Em's new playset on Wednesday. Armed with the instruction book, some chalk and a plethora of power tools, we set to task.



We started around 9:30 A.M., took a lunch break at the G&R and then kept working and I think we wrapped up around 9:30 P.M. We had a good time working on the project and are marriage is still intact. Bonus points for that, eh?

Tonight we finally had some quality time to spend on the playset and Miss Em seems to be a big fan already.

Oh yeah, and on top of all that other stuff we've been adding a new porch onto the front of our house. Well, "we" haven't but we've hired someone to do it for us. Playset construction is about as advanced as we get! This week, Emily's been thrilled with "new roof!" and "mine steps!"