The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The good news....about 24 hours after starting the antibiotics I was a new woman. Of course you trade the symptoms of the illness for the side effects of the antibiotics but honestly, to be able to eat and speak (two of my favorite things) without pain, ahhhh, it's amazing!! :)
The bad news....I don't really have any. Honestly, "the good and the ugly" just didn't make a very interesting title.
The ugly...this I do have. I did get that bruise. She wasn't kidding. This is almost a week since having my blood taken. Seriously, this woman was so nice but she will never get near me with a needle again!

How Did I Manage That?

So, for the past five days or so I have had this nagging little sore throat. It wasn't a big deal and it wasn't really getting any worse so I just ignored it. After all, I had no other symptoms and no one else in the house was sick so it can't be too major right?
Then yesterday evening something happened. I am 99% sure that I didn't swallow a nail, mash my tonsil with a hammer or set said tonsil on fire. That having been said, those are the only reasonable explanations I could come up with. I went from no big deal to my tonsil may or may not fall off today in a matter of hours. By bedtime it was throbbing so hard my ear was hurting. Need less to say, it was a rough night. I have never been so desirous of a hospital strength Ibuprofen (which I have in my medicine cabinet for just such occasions), especially when my two little Tylenol (the only safe thing to take while pregnant) didn't make a hill of beans of difference.
So this morning I called Mike home and he sat with the kids while I went up to Patients First. Now, let me ask you math geniuses out there, explain this little word problem to me... I am the fourth person in the door and therefor the fourth on the list. There are three doctors there (at least) and let's be generous and say they spend 10 minutes with each patient (again, we are being generous). So why is it, with three doctors, three patients ahead of me and 10 minutes per patient, it takes me an hour and a half to get out of there? I know, it didn't add up to me either but then again, I can't play Yahtzee without a calculator so I am not really a reliable gauge.
In all fairness to them, they were very nice and thorough. After my negative strep test I thought I had to be experiencing one of two things, either I just had some gnarly virus and I'm a tremendous wuss or my tonsil really was going to fall off. They decided to draw some blood to check my white count. That was fun. The lady was nice as could be but she probably would have had trouble finding a good vein on Mr. Ed. After poking and digging around a few times she finally managed to get the blood and all she could say to me was, "You're going to have a pretty nice bruise." Thank you.
So it turns out I have a bacterial infection in my tonsils. How on Earth did I do that? I mean, don't most infections stem from an earlier illness? Anyway, I am now on antibiotics and I only had to consult with the Patients First dr, my obgyn and the pharmacist before I felt comfortable that they were safe to take during pregnancy. Hey, you never can be too careful right? :)

Yes Virginia, It did Snow!

As I sit here on my computer looking out the window I cannot believe my eyes. We have not seen this much snow since we moved here. In fact, my children have not seen this much snow in their lives! It's incredible! I know you westerners are laughing at me right now but seriously, we have REAL snow...inches and inches and INCHES!
A little glimpse into our snow day. Of COURSE, my children were up at the crack of dawn, or as my dear friend Amy would say, "the crack" as dawn is not yet in the picture. They had seen the snow falling last night and were so excited to get up and see if there was enough to play in this morning. Boy, were they excited! Gavin was up before 6am and we had to restrain him from running out in his pajamas.
After breakfast we started getting ready to go play in the snow. Here is the fun part, we live in a place where it barely ever snows and when it does, it's enough to make a footprint and then it melts. So we have no snow clothes. No snow suits, no boots, no real gloves (just some fleece mittens...not waterproof). We do have coats and hats but that's about it! So what do we do? Why, we do what any good rednecks in the situation would do, we wrap our kids in trash bags!
We put them in a light layer of clothes, then used trash bags to waterproof their feet and legs (we used one bag for each leg and tucked the excess into their underpants...in case you are trying to get the full picture) and then we put a warmer layer of clothes over top. We then put smaller pieces of trash bag over their hands underneath their mittens. There you go...who needs a snow suit?!?
We had a blast! We have no hill to speak of so Mike pulled us around on our coaster. We jumped on the trampoline and basically just rolled in the snow. Yes, mom and dad had trash bags too!!
Maybe this year I should take advantage of the sale Target has at the end of the winter and buy those $3 snow boots for the kids.

Little Stinker

I must first tell you that I have had MANY pre-natal appointments in my day and I have never, ever, ever, EVER had a baby where they could not find the heartbeat (in my healthy pregnancies of course) UNTIL this baby! Every single time it takes at least two nurses trying before someone finds it. They have had to bring the ultrasound in machine several times because they cannot find the heartbeat with the doppler. Yesterday was no exception. I went in to the dr. I didn't have my usual nurse. The new nurse was obviously not familiar with my situation. She kept trying to find it and was making jokes about the baby "hiding" and all this. Of course, how was she to know that I was ready to throw myself off the top of the building? FINALLY she calls my nurse who, rather than torture me right into cardiac arrest by using the doppler herself, promptly gets the ultrasound machine. There he was, kicking, squirming and probably laughing right at me. Little stinker.
Of course after the fact I thought it was funny. My only baby to hide from the doppler (and he does EVERY time) is the one following three miscarriages. Go figure!
I just have to say though how very thankful I am to be pregnant. I was in bed this mornign feeling him kicking around and it was so amazing. I just remember feeling like this time might never happen for me again. I can't begin to express how excited our family is to finally be here. I know I still have a long way to go. :)
Our kids are so excited. Gavin was talking to me this morning about how he can't wait for Nathan to get here because he wants to see his "teeny toes. Oh I just love teeny toes!" Caeden is very glad it's a boy and Suzy...well, I am not sure she is quite sure what to think but I think she's going to love the baby once he comes.
I am so thankful for my sweet children and a healthy pregnancy. Almost half way there! I could not possibly be happier!

one of THOSE days

Ever had one of those days where you think to yourself, and possibly out loud, at least once during the course of the day; "What on Earth am I doing? What is happening here?" Yesterday....ooooohhhhhhhh, yesterday! Yesterday was definitely one of THOSE days!
In the course of only an hour or so my daughter took off her diaper (for the 18th time) and pooped on the floor. In spite of being disgusting it was actually a little hilarious. My boys came running downstairs with terror in their little faces. "MOOOOOMMMMMYYYYYYYY SUZY POOPED ON OUR FLOOR!!!!" I wish I could properly emphasize the word "poop" to match the utter horror they were obviously feeling. Thankfully the poop was of the pick-upable variety. Sorry, that was a little gross.
Anyway, we take care of that situation but do you know what? I STILL have not found that diaper. I found Suzy, found the poop...but no diaper. It has vanished from this house. I am sure I will find it somewhere fitting....like the bag of sugar in the pantry or the vegetable drawer of the fridge.
So the next lovely thing to grace our afternoon was the bag of rice krispies...yes, that's right, RICE KRISPIES, that were spilled all over the carpet. Not the laminate floors, oh no, the carpet. Of course the vacuum was upstairs and it's too heavy for me to carry down in my state of preggo-ness so, being the evil mother that I am, I did exactly what my father would have done. "You pick up every one of those rice krispies right now!" Of course, we only picked up about 10 before I caved and just left it until Mike got home...sigh.
Now on to the Master Bedroom on our tour-de-destruction....not rice krispies this time. Now it's granola! I guess they snuck some upstairs and spilled it all over the bedroom carpet. At least it's not as bad as the lick-a-stick powder that was spilled on my comforter. Just TRY to sweep that stuff up...go ahead, try it.
Last but certainly not least is Gavin's bed. My boys decided pulling the mattress off of his bed would be great fun and then jumping on the FRAME of the bed would be even more delightful. Need less to say, we now have a broken plank on the bed frame.
By the time Mike got home I was beyond ready for my scheduled Target date with my friend, Mandy. I left the house before anything else could POSSIBLY go wrong.
Target was fun but I have to vent about just one more thing. Care Bear Underwear. Since my daughter refuses to wear a diaper for more than 18 seconds I figured maybe we ought to start thinking potty (although I am typically not in a rush to potty train....I see it as a form of capital punishment on parents). And if I know Suzy, the best way to entice her is to offer her some sort of pay-off, typically in the form of a care bear. Hence my quest for care bear underwear (say that ten times fast....you're trying it aren't you?). So I search the isles of Target. We have Dora, Tinkerbell, Ariel, Minnie Mouse, Belle, flowers, hearts, butterflies and polka dots....no care bears. In fact, you can't find care bear underwear anywhere except for ebay. Oh yes, I forgot, you CAN indeed find it at WalMart...it you are a teenage girl. That's right, they have care bear underwear for teens but NOT for toddlers. Next I suppose they will be selling 3T Budweiser boxers? And the underwear on ebay (aside from the fact that I would be buying underwear on ebay...they are in package but still) are like $8 after shipping for a package of 3. I think I'll just buy her some white panties and put care bear stickers on them.
On a VERY happy note, I did find my favorite raspberry flavored hershey kisses at Target. They are only out at Valentine's Day and I have only been able to find them at Target. They are beyond amazing and guess what? 75% off!! Of course at check out the lady informed me that today they go on sale for 90% off. Oh well.

We're having a BOY!!!

We had the ultrasound. Everything looks AMAZING!! Our little man looks just perfect and plump! He is a few days ahead of schedule so my due date is now July 27th. We are so excited to meet little Nathan Edward Ramsey!

A Little Nervous

I have been such an atrocious blogger...my apologies. I don't have much time. New Beginnings is tomorrow (our annual Young Women's gathering for Church). I have about 30 little boxes to label for the girls. Gavin has his 100th day of school tomorrow (minus the 5 HE missed last week due to the icky flu we have had weaving around the family) and so I have 100 M&M's to count out. So I am short on time but everyone is alive, everyone is well (mostly) and tomorrow I have an ultrasound. YIKES!! I am very nervous about it. I have been feeling tiny little nudges and things SEEM to be progressing normally but I am always anxious about the baby. I guess that is to be expected. We might be able to see a gender tomorrow if baby behaves. At this point our family is just praying for a healthy little one. Any prayers and/or guesses on gender are welcome!! :)