Simpler Life...

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever have to go back to work. I enjoy staying home with the kids, making our meals from scratch, and just being here. If I were to go to work, something would have to give. I am not ready to sacrifice anything important to make more money...

We are working to position ourselves in a place where money won't be an object. It is a long time coming, and granted we would be in a better place had the economy not taken such a drastic turn for the worse. I don't really want to get into a "Bush-Obama", it's all your fault kind of fight. I think Americans as a whole got greedy. "We" wanted more, more, more.

I noticed something fishy five and a half years ago, when Brian & I were looking to buy a home. Nearly every one we went to look at was empty. Are you serious? How can people afford to have two houses? Why are all these perfectly good houses empty? Then newly married people that we new were building nice, new homes. Really? Seriously? Is that necessary? What happened to buying a nice, older home. Doing some sweat equity and having some pride in what was yours and what you worked for?

People just borrowed for what they wanted. Got way in over their heads. Children & adults getting every toy imaginable.

I would love to go back to a simpler time. Where if you didn't make it or work for it, it wasn't yours to have. Where people slowed down. Where family dinners were the norm, not the exception. Where you could take your kids to the store and they didn't know to ask for everything. Where people got enough sleep.

How nice would contentment be in this day and age?

Illness & Children

So, a few weeks ago, I shared with you that we were going to go to a huge indoor playground for Lauren's third birthday. We did, and we were able to share her birthday with about 150 other kids, over half of which I am sure were carrying one form of virus or another.

That was a Friday. By Monday, Bree (4) was complaining of a sore throat. Great, here we go...another reason we stay home. When Bree gets sick, she gets cranky and feisty. She picks excessive fights with her sisters and parents and has frequent meltdowns. That is tough to deal with. But at least you can set her in another room, and she can melt there.

Last week, Lauren came down with this cold. She is my ultra-sensitive child. Her first response to the sniffles? Let's run a fever of 104. That is always fun. And let's not let it go down, unless mom wakes every three hours to administer different forms of fever reducing medications. We did this Wednesday through Saturday night. She stopped eating on Wednesday, and was taking only water through this time. Sunday, she decided she was done with everything, medications, water, juice. I had to beg her to eat a jelly bean Sunday afternoon when the nurse on the nurse line told me I needed to bring her in, but our insurance didn't really think ER visits are necessary. The nurse told me we could stay home if I could get Lauren to take one ounce of caloric substance every 15 min. HA! One ounce to a petite 30-pound, fever-running, completely lethargic, won't get out of my arms child is unheard of! Let alone every 15 minutes. I begged her to eat pudding, drink pop, juice, cookie dough truffle, I didn't care, as long as she would eat SOMETHING!

I was able to keep her out of the ER, and made it to urgent care first thing Monday morning. Let me explain how our insurance works. We do not have a co-pay for doctor's visits. We are each allowed three "free" visits a year. Free, however, does not include x-rays or labs. Basically, you can say hello for free. On your fourth and subsequent visits (or ER visits), you must pay for the entire cost, until the individual deductible of $1000 is met, then it is covered 80/20.

The nurse we see checks her out and finds that she has an ear infection in her right ear. Great. Can an ear infection cause my daughter to be so extremely sick? She tells me that if she doesn't eat or drink in the next 24 hours, then bring her back tomorrow and they will do labs (visit two of three) and then if her cough doesn't go away in 2-3 days, then bring her back again for x-rays. February, and our free visits for Lauren are gone. I insisted, due to the fact that my husband had to use a day of vacation to help--I just do not have enough hands--that she do the tests today. She had been sick since Wednesday. Of course, test came back clear. We administered the first of five antibiotic doses, which she fought tooth and nail, but got enough in her to give her severe diarrhea. Great again! She still isn't eating or drinking, and now diarrhea! Luckily, the small amount she had taken had been enough to also get her up and moving. She agreed to take some Tylenol, and then was able to eat some Jello and crackers and then dinner, too.

She is still coughing quite a bit today, but at least she is off of my lap. Bree seems to be kicking it. That leaves Megan...my 18-month-old trooper. She just walks around with a finger in her ear. "Owie". Yep, another visit to the doctor is in order today. "Mom? Can you help??"

I should be glad only one of my four child reacts this way to illnesses--we have probably gone through this with Lauren 6-8 times in the past 2 years. It is so difficult to deal with. But with such a sweetheart, I have no problems taking her into my arms...

Is this my banana?

This morning, the kids woke up and remembered we bought bananas yesterday. My kids love fruit. I can go through a huge bunch of bananas in less than 12 hours. I try to keep fruit in the house, but I have to kept it hidden so it lasts more than a day. This morning, visions of bananas floated through their head--and they were off. As I made my coffee, Bree came and asked if she could save the rest of hers for her cereal. What a great idea! There it sat on the counter waiting for Lauren's to join it, which of course it did within a few minutes. The best part of this was about a half hour later, Lauren asked if this was her banana. I didn't know--I forgot to pay attention to whose were who's.

How did Lauren decide if it were her's? Yep, one big ol' lick. That was her banana afterall...

Reality Sets In...

I went to grab the below mentioned laundry basket and found a flooded laundry room. I clean up the mess (it is very cold in my laundry room, not much warmer than the garage that it is connected to), and went to take care of my bare, frozen feet. Only to find Megan had sprinkled her 4 ounces of water all over my bedroom carpet...

if it isn't one thing, it is another...

Time for a Date Night

Every once in a couple of months I decide I need to get out of here. I run this house with such a schedule...up at 6, breakfast at 7, snack at 9, lunch at 10:45, nap at 11:15, snack at 2, dinner at 4:15, and bed at 6. Everyday is the same routine. Then, out of the blue, I get crabby. Like I have had enough. I think my husband is starting to understand it--that I need some US time. Time that does not include kids and does not include the basement. :)

I remember about a year ago, maybe longer. I was so very crabby...and my husband, I think, was just trying to stay away from me. I mentioned getting a sitter and going to get a bite to eat. The look on his face was amazement. He took my crabbiness as something he had done wrong. When in actuality, he hadn't...but I just needed a break from my reality.

I am approaching that time. Time to find a sitter and time to find a couple of hours where we can just enjoy each other. Until then, I guess I grab the laundry basket and start folding.

Addictions

My mom once told me her family came with very addictive tendencies. I can so see that in me, also. My computer crashed last week. It came, as always, at the most inopportune time. This time it was an hour after a very persistent Kirby dealer wouldn't leave our house without us purchasing this fabulous product he had. I could have cried when my computer turned into a 1970's television screen...a blotchy, black and white scrambled mess.

We aren't without a computer--we had two laptops. My husband and I would put the kids to bed, settle in on the couch in front of the TV, and "surf" away doing mindless activities. Sometimes we would coordinate our searches, compare our findings, and discuss different events. The only time we DIDN'T have the computers on was if we were watching a movie, maybe once every other month.

Now we have to share. And we have to take a look at our mindless activities. What one deems important, the other seems worthless. It will probably be good for us. It WILL be good for us.