pity party please

So I've been laid up with poison ivy & impetigo. It's horrible!!

All we can think of is that I got it Thursday night after doing about two minutes of work in the backyard. And being night, I washed my hands, but didn't shower until the next morning. So I'm assuming it was on my shirt or arms and it spread as I slept on it and took my clothes on and off. Saturday morning I woke up with what I thought was a pimple on my chin, but it hurt more than a normal pimple. By Saturday night it was starting to ooze. Sunday it was just nasty looking and I had another spot on my left eye and more "pimples" just forming on my chin. The only thing I could compare it to was poison ivy, but I never really thought it was - I mean who gets poison ivy on their face?! So I went to the urgent care doc on Sunday afternoon who confirmed poison ivy, but also added impetigo to it (some sort of staff infection which is why the spots were oozing uncontrollably). He wanted to give me a steroids shot, but when he realized I was nursing said we couldn't do that. I certainly didn't want to risk passing anything to Abby, so we decided I'd just wait it out. Poison ivy peaks at between days 10 and 14 and takes about three weeks to work it's course. I knew it would only get worse before it got better, but I didn't know how much worse.

By Monday it was getting pretty bad and I was starting to worry about the spot on my eye. I was also getting pretty good at finding the little red dots that warned of spots to come. Tuesday morning I woke up and literally could not open my left eye. It was swollen completely shut. My mouth was all fat and swollen and felt like it does when the dentist numbs it and pulls a tooth. I could barely swallow (who gets poison ivy in their mouth?! That's just wrong.). It was also all over my chest, neck, and face. I could no longer tell the individual spots on my cheek - my face was just one big red swollen mess. And their were more little red bumps on my right arm, stomach, and back. Now if you've never tried to function with just one eye, let me tell you it's hard! I was so disoriented (add to that feeling like crap and fairly nauseous), I could barely function. I had no sense of depth for one thing - I'd reach for something and miss it. I broke down and called Mom for help - I'm pretty bad about asking for help. I figured if she could help me get Ryan to preschool, than I could focus on Abby, put her down for a nap, and then take care of myself. Somehow going to the doctor again never even crossed my mind. I can be kinda tough in a bad way. But Mom gets here, takes a look at me and starts calling doctors. After dropping Ryan off, us girls head to the walk-in clinic. I guess having a shut eye and swollen face has one advantage - I think we waited all of five seconds before they took me straight back.

The doctor (well nurse practitioner) was great. He says we have to do something and we have to do it now. He basically said if I had waited even a few hours longer, he'd been sending me to the hospital. I explained the nursing aspect and he was really helpful and talked to Abby's pediatrician on the phone and Mom talked to the urologist's nurse. Doc finds a combo of drugs that Abby's doctors all okay too and sends me off for immediate iv's. I got probably three hours worth of drugs. Coleson came up while the iv's were going (what a wonderful surprise!) and we left about 2:00. Shortly after leaving my eye slowly started to open. It was so weird though. At first I could literally only open it maybe a 1/16th of an inch - Coleson couldn't even tell it was open. But I could only see black and white, the world looked just like an old movie. It never scared me though - I could see two things in color - Mom's bright yellow Moe's cup and the bright yellow bar on Abby's playmat. So I figured color would come back, but it was just so weird! Kinda interesting. Got my eye completely open around 5 or 6 and the color came back, although it was almost easier having it shut. It got tired really fast, but I can't keep it closed on its own. The swelling in my face went down quite a bit and I was told my color looked better. About 9:00 I started feeling like a whole new person - took a shower and washed with disposable washclothes (actually these travel washcloth things for the kids, but they were awesome). And then covered in different cremes and caladryl.

This morning I woke up and I can open my eye, but it really doesn't want to. It's very sore and hard to hold open. A little hard to focus on this since my left eye is really just a slit. And my stomach was so itchy, I feel like I'm on fire. Took another shower and cremed up again. Several new spots on my right arm including this rash looking thing in my elbow pit. Overall, better than yesterday morning but not nearly as good as I had gotten last night. Eagerly awaiting round two of the iv's today at 3:00. I also go tomorrow afternoon. After that Doc will reevaluate. He's hoping I can switch to orals and not have to continue spending three hrs a day hooked to iv's at the office. I think the biggest factor will be my eye - he seemed to be worried about long term damage. Although now that it can open, even if it doesn't want to or doesn't always stay open, I'm assuming that I'm doing better.

So anyways, I know this is probably the longest post i've ever written and much more info than anyone really wanted to know. I wrote it 99% just for me - to get it off my chest and to help me keep straight all that's happened so far.

bye bye

We sold my Explorer this weekend! I'm happy of course, but also very sad. I've loved that car for the past eight years! It was a great car, but you could tell the couple that bought it already love it too, so that makes me feel a little better. Still sad to see her go though. We are quite happy with how easy the whole process was, how quickly it sold, and how much we got for it (gotta love craigslist). Coleson has a company car right now for his United Way project, so I'm able to drive the Corolla while we look for a new car. It'll be nice to not feel rushed and to make sure we love our next car just as much. That said though, we are going to test drive one tonight!

5k

This morning we all ran, er mostly walked, a 5k down at the Marietta Square. It was actually quite enjoyable, although the big hill about 1.5 miles in almost got the best of me :) But it was beautiful weather and we enjoyed running as a family - at least most of the time, Abby cried for about 10 minutes or so at the beginning. Overall it was great and I'm happy to say we made it! And fairly respectably at that, we finished in 43-something minutes. Not too bad for not having trained at all and considering I birthed a baby & all that only 4 months ago! :) The best part of the race was that $50,000 was donated to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, which for better or worse means a lot more to us these days than it used to.

After the race we enjoyed hanging around the square and taking in the local farmer's market. We even splurged and bought some yummy stuff - tomatoes, green beans, bell peppers, two different olive oils, and of course a dessert (apple bread from Elijay, but realistically just an oversized and delicious cinnamon roll!). Even Ryan seemed to enjoy it, despite having heard farmer and asking where the animals were!

Fun start to our weekend; looking forward to more to come!

the park

Today I took the kids to the park for a playdate with their buddies, Asher & Andrew. Ryan had a great time running all around and hanging with Asher. He and Asher are so cute together, Asher is one of just a handful of kids that I feel like Ryan actually plays with. At his age, he still follows other kids or is content to do his own thing next to them. But he and Asher always seem to have a good time together. And they are on a very similar level developmentally, so that's really fun. They push each other just enough to try new things, but not so much so that one gets left behind.

While we there, Abby sat in a swing for the first time! I didn't actually swing her or anything too crazy, just let her get used to the idea. She did really well and seemed to like sitting in it. Hard to believe she's getting so big!

Boring

I feel like I should write a blog, since it's been a week since my last post. I really want to be better about updating, but I'm simply not sure what to post about this week. We've just been hanging out, doing our thing.

Ryan had me cracking up the other day. While driving he got going on all the things he is going to do when he grows up. A few highlights:

* "I get bigger, I go shopping, buy stuff" (one of the longest sentences he's put together).
* "I cut grass, I get bigger" (Daddy's favorite!).
* "I get bigger, I play tennis ball" (Mommy & Mom-Mom played in a tennis tournament last weekend, thus he's been talking a lot about tennis).

Well there ya go, found something semi-fun to write about. :)

"Oh Cool!" of the Day

Check out Coleson's new website "Oh Cool!" of the Day. Be sure to visit daily for bite-sized chunks of fun and useful information. And hey, you never know who he might let guest post ... hehe ... hint: yours truly writes about monkeys tomorrow!

(2nd) 1st day

Ryan started preschool again today. He went in the spring, but then had all summer off. Today he starts his 2's class (yes, b/c of the way his birthday falls, he'll always be the oldest one). He did really well at open house last week, but I think that had something to do with the fact that Mommy & Abby were there too. He wasn't so sure about going today. I know he cried a minute or two when I left, and his teacher was holding him. But the cries seemed to quiet pretty quick (I hung out in the hallway out of sight), so hopefully he will have a good time and make lots of little friends. I love you Buddy!

Alabama?!?

Yup, embarrased to say it, but we vacationed to Alabama this weekend :) Coleson doesn't have the time-off for a real trip and we're saving our vacation money for a big roadtrip in the fall ... so Alabama it was! We've never truly been to Birmingham, and we were looking for somewhere close that was different.

We started the day south of Birmingham with a train ride in Calera. We had a good time, although I think Ryan enjoyed playing with the Thomas train set in the gift shop more than anything else we did! Oh well! In addition to the train ride, we walked around & saw some old trains, ate a picnic lunch, and hung out in the gift shop (playing with Thomas!).

After the train, we drove north and spent the afternoon at Rickwood Caverns State Park. The park was pretty awesome. We had a good time walking around all the cool rocks and then we took a cavern tour. We weren't sure what to expect from the kids in the cave, esp Ryan. But he did great! He had a wonderful time and was very independent. He walked the whole tour and barely even let me hold his hand.

After getting a little lost in Birmingham we had a yummy dinner at Newks and spent Saturday night in a hotel (Thanks Mom for the reward points!). Sunday morning we went to Vulcan Park. While it had pretty cool views of the city, we had hoped for a little more out of the park. And poor Ryan was very disappointed seeing as he thinks parks and playgrounds are the same thing. All he wanted was a swing! So being the awesome parents we are, we suffered through McDonald's for lunch so that Ryan could play in the playplace.

It was a nice quick trip, a great little getaway. And now we can say we've spent time in Birmingham, check that off the list, we're good. :)

Four months

Abby is four months old today! She weighs a little under 13 lbs (30%) and is 23.5 inches (25%). But don't worry, just like her big brother, she has plenty of brains! Her head circumference is in the 70%! Petite but smart, nothing wrong with that :) She is doing great! She loves to roll, lay on her belly, stick out her tongue, smile, coo, watch her big brother, and just take it all in. I really think she wishes she could run around and chase Ryan. She's so observant and will throw her body in the direction of the action. She also has very strong legs and likes to push up, I just have to hold her for balance of course.

Fail, my bad

Alright, so much for being better about updating my blog! Sorry for the recent lapse, but apparently they are going to be the norm. :) We are all doing well here. Abby will be 4 months old on Friday. In some ways it's hard to believe, but most of the time it feels like much longer than that; I suppose that's just because we went through so much at the beginning. But she's doing great, healthy now and such a happy baby. She loves to lay on the floor - okay, that's a lie, she really just wants to be held all the time! But when she's not being held, she loves to roll around. She can go tummy to back and now back to tummy too. She also kinda shifts around and will scoot her way off the playmat. While Ryan's a big fan of the rolling ("Abby turn over, Abby on back!"), he was pretty upset about her getting off the mat ("Abby on mat, Abby on mat" - in the same scolding tone he uses to tell the dog no bark or to go out).

Ryan is hanging in there. The unsuccessful potty training is about to be the end of Mommy, but Ryan's doing just fine with it (not making this up: "I like poo-poo in underwear" AARGH!!!). My advice to those of you that haven't started potty training yet: don't do it! Wait til they are, say I don't know, 8 years old! But anyways ... Ryan's doing great. His speech is really taking off. He talks in sentences and uses some pronouns now (I, my, mine). He asks unprompted questions (what is it, where's Daddy, etc). His speech therapy ends on his third birthday, so we're in the process of being evaluated by the county, talk about a lot of paperwork, it's absurd. However, I'm really thinking that the bigger problem is that he is insanely shy, so thus people think he doesn't talk. I guess we'll see what the county evaluator has to say next week!

Ryan, Mommy, and Abby recently took a trip to Greenville - it was Abby's first time leaving Georgia (by this age Ryan had been to probably ten states already!). It was a little overwhelming at times being the only parent (see earlier paragraph about potty training, nothing like hearing "mommy, pee-pee" in the middle of nowhere when you are going 70 mph and just past the only exit for miles). But we had a wonderful time visiting Auntie Sarah, cousin Maxim, and Uncle Christian. We spent some time in downtown Greenville playing in the fountains and feeding the ducks. We also went to a pretty cool playground and walked the "choo choo train tracks." And we enjoyed a nice evening with Uncle Tyler & Aunt Jennifer, great to see them too.
""Goodness!!""