LABOR day

I found this over at Shannon's blog, Rocks in My Dryer, and it made me laugh. Any time you get a bunch of moms together for any length of time the conversation invariably turns to the topic How I Gave Birth. So now we can share it with all of the blogosphere.

How long were your labors?

Kid #1, 26 hours. He still takes forever to get ready to go somewhere.

Kid #2, about six hours, I think. Honestly, it was all a blur of pain and my then three year old singing the theme song from Zoboomafoo at the top of his lungs from his car seat while Dan drove through a rainy construction zone at midnight to get me to the hospital.

How did you know you were in labor?

Kid #1, I was induced because I was suffering from HELLP syndrome. Then my water broke in the hospital bed in the middle of the night.

Kid #2, Horrible pain which started while shopping for groceries at Kroger. No one told me it would feel like I was extremely constipated. I didn't know I was in labor--I just thought I needed more fiber.

Where did you deliver?

Kid #1, Centennial Women's Hospital. Where I didn't have an epidural correctly inserted into my spinal cavity until the very last minute. Then I slept through the delivery. Then I threw up on the operating table. Good times.

Kid #2, Baptist Hospital. They have really good painkillers in post-op. Unfortunately I found out that I was allergic to most of them. Is it any wonder I stopped at two children?

Drugs?

Yes, please. Oh, you mean did I take them then? Heck yeah, sister. They kinda frown on doing a C-section without them. Although I came close with Kid #1.

C-section?

Um, yeah. I'm 5'2" and both my kids were eight and a half pounds. You do the math. Kid #1 refused to come out. He always has been stubborn.

Kid #2 has his father's sense of direction. He was trying to come out sideways. The triage nurse checked me and felt his ribs.

Who delivered?

Doctors. No underwater births with midwives and New Age music for me. I thought that's what I wanted when I was pregnant with Kid #1, but after the first 20 hours of labor I said, "I don't care what you have to do, just get this thing out of me."

The doctor for the first kid was awful. Just awful. She had very rough hands during every examination for the entire pregnancy. When she pulled the screaming little monster out of me she held him aloft over my head, dripping blood on my face. Then she didn't notice when I couldn't get the oxygen mask off my face to throw up because my arms were weighted down with 80 pounds of warm blankets in a failed attempt to keep me from violently shivering during the operation.

The second one was the on-call doctor because it was 1:18 in the morning. I liked her so much I made her my regular doctor after that night. She fixed the horrible scar that the other doctor left behind after the first C-section.

Wow. Is this blog great birth control for women who haven't had kids yet, or what?

Share your Labor Day story if you want. Check out some others at Shannon's blog if you dare. (Insert maniacal laughter here.)

Not an Infomercial, much

Update on the sick kid:

Ten took a TWO HOUR NAP today and woke up with a fever. He didn't want to eat lunch, he just wanted to sit around curled up in a blanket and shiver and moan about his headache, earache, stuffy and sniffly nose .

You guessed it. We piled in the old Camry and headed back to CVS. I still heart Minute Clinic.

We waited for less than five minutes. Total. You know how when you go to your regular doctor's office you wait in the waiting room for the length of, oh, say the Democratic National Convention (and, dear Lord, that was LONG--not that I watched it or anything, EUW), and then you're finally shown back to the smaller room, the exam room, where you tell all your symptoms and problems and list the meds you're taking to the nurse. Then you wait another short eternity until the doctor finally graces you with his presence and you have to completely repeat everything you already told the nurse. What's the point of that, anyway? Then he goes away to write the prescription and a nurse brings it back to you, as if the All Mighty Doc is far too important to hand you the little piece of paper he scribbled his illegible signature on. Am I bitter? Maybe a little.

Because, at the Minute Clinic, there's none of that hoopla. For the same co-pay that I pay at my doctor's office, I waited less than five minutes before I was shown into the little room by the actual person who would be giving my kid the drugs to make him better. I didn't have to repeat anything. She didn't have to go away to write the scrip, but looked it up on the computer right there in front of me. Then I walked ten feet to the pharmacy counter and picked up his meds. Could that possibly be easier?

I realize that there's a time and place for seeing your regular doctor. In fact, my doctor used to be the Main Head Honcho Guy over that location of Minute Clinic. (In fact, I'm pretty sure that was the title printed on his ID card. MHHG for short.) If illnesses keep occurring then the patient's condition needs to be addressed more agressively. If there's a more serious illness then you need to see your regular doc. But a sinus/ear infection on a holiday weekend? Um, yeah. I'm loving the Minute Clinic so much right now.

Now, I do not own stock in CVS or Minute Clinic. But I kinda wish I did.

Seven is doing much better today. Now Ten has antibiotics, ear drops, tussin CF, and gallons of Gatorade so he should be on the mend soon too. Oh, and chocolate chip cookies. He's my kid after all and chocolate always makes me feel better.

I Heart Minute Clinic

I survived my first experience with being a Mommy with a full-time job and having a sick kid this week. Thank God for Grama and Minute Clinic!

I was on my way to drop off my class at Art, knowing I had my principal and a parent waiting in the office for a conference, when Seven walked past me down the hall carrying a clinic pass.

"What's wrong," I asked him in a panic, immediately trying to figure out how in the world I was going to handle this situation when Daddy is at work and Grama is busy.

"My head hurts and I have a fever and my nose is stopped up and my throat hurts and I can't stop sneezing," he said. Then he sneezed, as if to prove his point.

I told him to go on to the office and I'd be there in a minute. Then I dropped my class with their art teacher, raced to the office, told the parent who sat waiting for me that I'd be right with her, and dashed into the clinic where my son was now crying. The nurse confirmed that he had a fever so I ran to the secretary's phone to call my mom. I didn't think she'd be able to pick him up because she and Dad were supposed to be setting up for a huge vintage car show the next day. Luckily she was in the car (the regular one, not the vintage truck) about two minutes away when I called so she swooped in to pick up the little guy like an avenging grandma angel. By then he was crying harder and telling the nurse that he was going to have to change schools and he didn't want to because he really liked his new school.

???

Maybe it was the fever talking. Anway, I convinced him that he was not going to change schools, kissed his warm little forehead good-bye knowing that Grama would be arriving soon, and left him in the competent hands of the school nurse. So that I could go talk to another parent about HER child. That was weird.

After school Ten and I went to my mom's house to pack up our stuff to head for our "weekend home." Seven was looking pretty puny (complete with that red mark on his cheek that kids get when they've spent the day wiping their nose) but his fever was down since Grama gave him Tylenol. He was supposed to go to a birthday party, but I told him no since he'd left school sick.

By the time we got back to our own home, his fever was up again. To 100.2, to be exact. I piled the kids in the car to head over to CVS to get some medicine and find out what time their Minute Clinic would be opening the next day. To my joyous surprise they were open until 8:00 pm. We got there at 7:40. YAY! The nurse practitioner agreed that he had a sinus infection and gave us a prescription. His brother asked if he was contagious and she said no. Then she told me to give him Sudafed.

Remember a few months ago when I was sick and the doctor at the doc-in-a-box told me NOT to take my beloved Sudafed, but to take Mucinex instead? Well, this lady looked at me like I was crazy when I told her about that. She rolled her eyes and said, "No, give him Sudafed." Well, oooo-kay then.

So I bought tons of Gatorade and the tissues with lotion and aloe, brought him home and drugged him up with both Mucinex and Sudafed (and his antibiotic and saline spray and Vick's vaporub on his chest--hey, I'm not taking any chances) and put him to bed Friday night. Saturday, mid-morning, Ten came stumbling downstairs with his thunderous big-boy gait and said, nasally, "I need allergy medicine. I can't breathe and my nose is stopped up and my head hurts and I can't stop sneezing." Then he sneezed on me. Nice.

This morning his ear hurts and he's doing that asthma cough so we may be planning another trip to CVS before too much longer. After Ten wakes up from his nap. That's right, nap. Which he took all on his own without me even suggesting it. My hyper child chose to sleep, which should give you an idea of how badly he feels right now.

Did I mention that my new insurance kicks in on Monday? Not now, MONDAY! As in, the day after today? We still have Dan's insurance, thank goodness.

Oh, and just to make things interesting, the dog is sick too. She's thrown up four times this weekend, doesn't want to eat, and won't go potty when I walk her on her leash. And did I mention WHY I have to walk her on a leash in the front yard, even though we have a fenced back yard? Well let me tell you. FLEAS!! We've had a pest control company come out and spray the yard twice in the last month but apparently the fleas think the spray is some kind of growth hormone. At least the kids aren't trying to get out there and play since they don't feel well. You know me--always looking for that silver lining.

Oh, and our real estate contract ends tomorrow. More on that later...

Well that explains a lot

People often ask me where my name came from. Is it a family name? Am I named after anyone? Is it short for anything? Is it a nickname? Does it mean something in a foreign language? Are my parents musical? (That one always means that they think my name has an R in it--Treble instead of Teble). Are my parents artists? (That's a nice way of asking if my parents are weird, tripped out druggies.)

I usually tell them that my name was derived from the fact that my parents dropped WAY too much acid in the sixties. Now I have clinical proof.

This was the number one song on the Billboard chart the day I was born:

"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In" by The Fifth Dimension

Enough said.

I guess I should be glad they didn't name me Aquarius. Or Sunshine. Or Harmony Granola Moonflower.

Go here to find out what the number one song was when you were born and tell me all about it in the comments.

Not Spoiled

I'm a thirty-nine year old woman whose Mommy packed her lunch today.

And I am okay with that.

Not only did she pack my lunch today, but guess what else she did. Last night when she saw the brown and pink polka-dot pants I'd laid out to wear to work today she asked me if I had jewelry to match. I said, "Well, I'll just wear my pink gemstone earrings," and she said, "No, I'll make you something else."

Yes. You read that right. She made me some jewelry right there on the spot. She plopped right down with pink and brown beads and totally made me some dangly earrings and a bracelet to match my cute pants and pink tank top.

No, I'm not too spoiled. Not at all.

:-)

Happy Birthday, Dan

I survived my first full week of school. YAY! I have 25 kids in my class and they're very cute. I'm completely buried under all the planning and paper-grading and IEP following and agenda checking and computer problems and on and on and on, but it's going as well as can be expected. And in exactly one month I will FINALLY get paid for all this. Double YAY! It kind of stinks working for six weeks without a paycheck, but that just means the check will be really big when I finally get it.

We are home for the weekend and, as wonderful as Mom and Dad have been about us invading their house, it was SO nice to sleep in my own bed last night. At least it would've been if my husband hadn't consumed a gallon of sweet tea with dinner last night and got his caffeine buzz on and went all insomniac on me. But it's okay because it was his birthday dinner. I am married to an old man! We went to Logan's for dinner so Dan could get his favorite salmon. Seven told the waitress that it was Dan's birthday, but luckily she took pity on him and didn't stand on a chair and make the whole dining room yell Yeehaw! for him.

Since I'm going to be making "big girl money" again soon, we can almost afford to pay for movie tickets. Tomorrow we're going to take the boys to see Star Wars: The Clone Wars because there's nothing Dan wants to do more on his birthday weekend than pay to see a cartoon in the theater. Heh, heh.

Happy birthday, Love of my Life! Every day I'm glad that you asked me to be your wife and that I was smart enough to say yes. In the immortal words of Matthew Sweet, "We've got a good thing going, baby!" Best of all, no matter how old I get, you'll always be three and a half years older.

Is it possible to expire from exhaustion?

Sorry for the absence from bloggy-land. I tried to post some pictures the other day from Mom's computer, but it didn't work and I gave up. I'm so TIRED!

Mom and Dad are wonderful about having us here. Since Dad goes to bed and gets up so early, he moved a bed out to his garage (The Man Cave) and gave us their bedroom. Mom is in my brother's old room and my kids are in my old room. Mom had done all of the cooking, laundry, shopping and everything this week. I don't know what I would have done without her. She has been taking the kids to school so I can go in early without making them hang out in my room all morning. She's picked them up so I can work late.

I worked ten hours today and I'm still so far behind. I could work twenty hours a day and not get everything done. There's just so much to do and learn and plan.

My dog is adjusting to being an outdoor puppy. She has a brick patio with a wrought iron fence and a grama who spoils her rotten. In just a few days my dog has fallen completely in love with Mom. She gets treats and walks several times a day and has almost learned to play with Izzy without crushing her. The only thing she doesn't like is the deer family that comes up out of the woods into Grama's yard each night. There's a mommy and daddy deer with a cute little fawn that Lily barks at like she's possessed.

On a sad note, our cat Rocky died. Dan gave her a bath yesterday and she didn't struggle at all. She was wheezing and seemed really weak. When Dan went to check on her this morning she was gone. Our antique cat has finally moved on to that great litter box in the sky. For the first time in sixteen and a half years we are catless. And we're going to stay that way. I'm allergic to cats and it's not fair to keep them outside with the crazy dog.

Hope all my friends at CLC are off to a good start with the school year. I'm sure that Ruth will be a wonderful director. I miss you guys.

School Update

Let me just warn you now, this is going to ramble and wander.

So, school started yesterday. I was at school at least twelve hours every day this week, sorting through stuff the previous teachers left in the room, sorting through my own stuff from teaching eleven years ago, buying stuff for the room, decorating, attending meetings, cleaning, etc. I am so tired. I barely saw my family this week and my poor dog goes nuts every time I come home. Which doesn't happen often. Mom has been great. She was there every day helping me or watching my kids (sometimes both in the same day). She went shopping with me, cleaned all my student desks and chairs, did my bulletin boards, fed me, and lots more.

I still haven't hooked up my computers, planned lessons for next week (beyond a skeleton framework), haven't written out my discipline plan or parent letters, and I have two more bulletin boards to finish. I have a Smart Board in my class but I don't know how to use it. It'll be awesome when I get the training--those things are so cool. Everything is done by computer at this school, so I have to get them up and running this weekend. Oh, I also have a phone in my room so parents can leave me messages directly when they need something. And I can call them in the middle of the day whenever I need them without walking all the way upstairs to the office.

Right now I have 26 kids in my class, but that's subject to change any time--especially within the first week of school. Due to numbers, we might qualify for an extra teacher in fourth grade so my numbers might go down. If not, they'll probably continue to go up because the kids keep crawling out of the woodwork. I got to meet most of my students and their parents on Friday and they're so stinkin' cute.

Ten and Seven have great teachers--both of them are the New Teacher Mentors for my school. Ten came home yesterday so excited about the school year. That's a HUGE attitude adjustment from last year so I'm thrilled beyond words. He's already made a few friends in his class. Seven did too, but he can't remember their names. He wrote a story for his teacher yesterday while he was hanging out in her room.

We're still waiting for someone, anyone, to make an appointment to see our house. We had a realtor open house Tuesday and 38 realtors came through it. Hopefully one of them has a client who will think this place is their dream home. I looked at a really cool one in Hendersonville yesterday--right across the street from the high school and backs up to the big park--and I'd love to be in a position to make an offer on it. My realtor's best friend's daughter is in my class, so I told her family to pray that he'll get my house sold quickly so her poor teacher won't be stressed out all year.

Living with my parents is going to be a gigantic adjustment. Mom's great and is trying to make things as smooth as possible, but it's still going to be hard to live in someone else's house. We're used to our place, our own routines and space. Everything is different when you're not at home. Then factor in my big dog, their tiny dog, and the fact that their yard isn't fenced. At home I can just let Lily out in the yard while I get ready. At Mom's I have to leash her and walk her all the time and keep her from crushing Izzy. Kinda hard to do while you're drying your hair, know what I mean? I'm going to be working late a lot (especially at the beginning of the year) so that's going to be hard to arrange. And I miss my friends in Smyrna.

So, if you've read this far, please pray for me, my kids, my husband, my parents, my dog, Mom's dog, my class, and that my house will sell and I'll be able to move into another one quickly.

Before I have a nervous breakdown.

Bowling part two

Seven and his girlfriend have been together since they were two years old. For those of you keeping score at home, that's almost six years. That's longer than a lot of marriages!

Her parents haven't exactly told her that we're moving yet because they don't go to the same school and only see each other at church. We're hoping maybe she just won't notice for a while. At least we won't have to break the news until our house sells and at the rate we're going that might never happen.

My future in-laws and I try to arrange "play dates" to get the kids together when we can. Plus, we just like spending time with them because they're fun people. Last Saturday we went bowling with her family and had a blast. Even though Chuck skunked everybody. I blame the shoes. I started out great but then I lost my groove when I nearly lost my shoe. My purple bowling shoes are completely falling apart and I had to use borrowed alley shoes. Blech. Germs.

And, yes, I still have this song running through my mind from the last time we went bowling. It's contagious.

Fun with Fish

My Mom's Chattanooga aquarium pass expired at the end of July. Since I couldn't get into my classroom to work last week, we decided to drive down there one more time while we still could. Mom took a lot more pictures than I did, but here's what I've got...

Not Dead Yet

Just to let you know, I've been pretty quiet on the blogfront this week but that's because I'm losing my mind at school. I finally got into my classroom late last night and tonight after an all-day in-service. I spent several hours sorting through about six years' worth of other teachers' stuff, trying to decide what I have to keep and what I can get rid of. I've looted through furniture and fixtures other teachers are getting rid of. I've made my list of things to buy, but I haven't been able to get a purchase order yet. Mostly I've been cleaning and sorting. Tomorrow night I'll move my own stuff into the room (after another all-day in-service). I'm so tired.

On a positive note, my dog survived her first night, all night, outside. She slept on the fenced patio at Grama's house. She wasn't too wild about the deer that came up into Grama's yard or being away from her people, but she did okay. She enjoyed a 5:30 am walk with me because I woke up at 4:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep. ARGH! Stress!

Mom took the kids shopping for their school supplies and is still speaking to me, so that's a good thing. She took the boys to the lake today and taught them to swim underwater. In one day. I've been trying to teach them since they were two years old. It may have had something to do with the fact that she threatened to drown them, but HEY at least it worked. Yay, Grama!

Oh, we had an open house Sunday and one couple came to see it, so that's better than none! We have a realtor's open house tomorrow. Wish us luck.

Pray for me to survive this week. Please.

Just to keep you busy while I'm tearing out my hair at school, I'll try to post some pictures I took last week. Enjoy!