The last week of summer :(

I can't believe that school starts in one week for Anna and preschool begins in two short weeks for Kate.  This summer was not quite what we expected it to be, but we're trying to make the most of the last week that we have, even if it's ridiculously hot.  Luckily the kids and I are all relatively healthy right now.  Matt, however, caught the cold and was pretty out of sorts on Saturday and Sunday.  He seems to be getting over it quickly, though.

Sunday evening we had our Bible Study group over for study, dinner, and fellowship; it was a good excuse to clean up the house a bit :)  Our group had a great time and the kids all got to play in the pool after dinner, too.

Monday we went to the Dave Landau show in McFarland, the same one we used to attend a lot when the girls were younger.  They seem to be outgrowing his performances a bit, but they were still all smiles while we were there.  Tomorrow we have plans to go to an indoor bounce house in the morning since it's just too hot to do much outside besides swim, which we've been doing just about every day lately.

We're also in crunch time for the garden.  A friend and I canned 14 quarts of spaghetti sauce on Thursday; Matt and I canned 14 quarts of salsa on Saturday; I canned another 7 quarts of sauce this morning; and I picked two more buckets of tomatoes today.  We also finished up freezing the sweet corn on Saturday and the girls and I dug up a row of potatoes on Monday morning.  To say that we have a lot of potatoes would be an understatement this year.  We harvested about 55 lbs. of potatoes in the first row, and there are three more rows to dig.  Yikes!  The grapes are also ripe and the pears and apples will be ripening in just a few weeks.

Here's a few kid updates.

Anna had her check-up on Monday with our doctor regarding her Lyme diagnosis.  Our doctor confirmed that she had a classic case that was caught very early; he said that she will recover completely with the course of antibiotics.  Besides that, she's kind, energetic, and helpful these days.  She loves her siblings and has told me repeatedly that she'll miss Ethan when she's at school, although I think she'll also miss her buddy, Kate, too.

Kate is doing well.  I think she's going to really miss Anna when Anna starts back at school, and that she'll enjoy preschool a lot, but may have a hard time transitioning.  I look forward to having some special time with Kate in the mornings while Ethan is napping :)  Last week she was so excited that the crabapple tree was dropping its crabapples.  She spent most of an afternoon collected them and pretending with them.

 

Ethan had his 9 month check-up on Monday.  We always thought that if he didn't spit up so much, he'd be quite the chunk.  Well, now we have proof.  He still spits up, but it's just little bits now and then.  And here are his new statistics ... weight - 21 lbs. 7 oz. (77%), height - 27.5" (19%), head circumference - 46 cm (77%).  Honestly, I don't think the height measurement is accurate; it's so hard to stretch the babies out to get it correctly.  Anyway, his thighs and cheeks and very squishable :)

He is still army crawling, although he's trying harder and harder to crawl on his knees.  I bet he'll master it in about a week or two.  Army crawling seems to be good enough for him right now.  He can get just about anywhere he wants to and will go from one end of the house to the other on that big belly, but his favorite thing right now is to open and close doors.  This video is from over the weekend and I'm pretty sure he's faster now.  That, and he doesn't need bribing with puffs anymore :)

Also, he's got blisters and calusses on his big toes.  Poor guy!  At least they don't seem to bother him much.

Another thing about his cute, pudgy legs ... he has tan lines in his fat rolls :)

Hopefully I'll take some more pictures in this next week!

Ugh ... and moving on

This summer will go down in my memory books as the summer we were sick.  Ever since we returned from our trip out to South Dakota, someone has been sick in our home.  We've had fevers, vomiting, other stomach troubles, coughs, colds, Kate's trip to Urgent Care, Anna's Lyme disease, and we're just finishing another round of colds.  I think I could probably count on one hand the times we've all been feeling mostly well in the last 6 weeks.  Matt laughs at me and my desire to quantify things like this, but at least one person in our house has be noticeably ill for six weekends in a row ... SIX WEEKENDS!  This last round Kate caught at our church's music camp last week.  She started with a runny nose on Thursday, I came down with things on Friday, Ethan and Anna were hit on Sunday.  Matt is still okay (fingers crossed!).

At least this one moves fast; at least this one doesn't have a fever; at least Anna and Kate will wipe their own noses most of the time, even if it's not with a kleenex; at least ...

Okay.  I think that's out of my system now.  I've tried not to complain to people other than Matt and my mom, but this is getting ridiculous.  Time to move on.

Last week Anna and Kate participated in music camp at church - Angel's Academy.  They had a wonderful time full of singing, dancing, crafts, Bible stories, and good memories.  The original plan had been for a friend and I to carpool since neither one of us wanted to drive across town multiple times a day all week.  Well, plans change when people are sick and I ended up driving three of the four days, and on the day I didn't drive, Anna will still at home feeling ill before her antibiotics kicked in.  The days I stayed at church were nice for me to have a chance to catch up with church friends that I haven't seen or talked to much over the summer :)  The week ended with the kids doing a bit of a presentation during worship on Sunday.  Kate and Anna loved it.

Update on Anna ... we assume she's doing fine with the Lyme.  We're fairly certain now that she was bitten by a tick locally about three weeks ago and we just never knew about the tick bite.  She's been fever free for over a week and the times that she has been tired in the past week are ones that had obvious causes ... waking up too early, playing in the pool for over an hour, having an overall eventful day, etc.  She has a check-up next Monday with our regular doctor, but we don't foresee any complications for her.

Update on Kate ... I had a parent meeting on Monday night for her preschool ... ahh!  How did this happen so fast?!  I think we're going to focus on Anna starting 1st grade first, and then I'll still have a week to prep Kate for preschool.  She doesn't do too well with long term plans anyway.  Besides, we know she'll do great with the preschool experience, she just may take a few weeks to adjust.

Update on Ethan ... The silly boy had a big week.  On Thursday he started army crawling and by Monday he was pretty fast at it.  He has no fear with army crawling, moving on hard floors, carpet, grass, or the driveway.  We're hoping that he figures out how to crawl on his knees soon because his clothes are getting really dirty by pulling his belly around all the time.  Also, over the weekend he figured out how to clap ... hooray!  Sunday and Monday he was pretty miserable with his cold, but since then he's been a really happy and energetic baby.

Update on the garden ... We had a bit of a hiatus after I pulled up most of the bean plants.  We made a bunch of freezer pickles and I froze some zucchini, too, before I pulled up most of the cucmber and zucchini plants.  Matt and I picked and froze the first round of corn over the weekend, but we'll probably have a little bit more to freeze this coming weekend, besides the corn on the cob we've been having for dinner almost every night.  The tomatoes are ripening and I have a "spaghetti sauce date" planned with a friend tomorrow.  We'll probably need to make salsa soon, too.

One of the more excited garden things for us this year has been watching our peach trees make their first fruit.  The trees would have made peaches last year, but we pulled the blossoms off so the trees would grow bigger first.  This last week we've been having fresh peaches every day, in addition to our corn-tomato-zucchini-cucmber-green beans diet.  They are delicious, well worth the wait!

Before too long I think we're going to be overwhelmed with apples, pears, plums, and grapes, too.  Yikes!

Update on Family Field Trip ... Today we did a family field trip to Cave of the Mounds (apparently "the" cave to visit in Southern Wisconsin).  We'd been hoping to all summer since the girls got passes through the summer library reading program.  Matt took the day off and we had a very nice day as a family.  We were all feeling mostly well and the girls were thrilled to be in a real cave and see all kinds of things they'd read about in books as we prepared for our trip.  Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but maybe that just means we were too busy having fun :)

A not so quiet weekend ...

As many of you already know, Anna was diagnosed with Lyme Disease on Monday.  Here's the relevant parts of her story, starting with her first tick bite back in June.

We found a few ticks on Kate and one on Anna sometime at the beginning of the summer.  All were wood ticks (the big ones), pulled out and there were no apparent problems.  In the beginning of July, we had a cold virus go through the house and Anna had the worst experience with a high recurrent fever for about a week.  Sometime in July (we can't remember exactly when), Anna complained of a bug bite on the back of her neck, especially if her hair was brushed or washed.  The last weekend in July we went up north to my parents' place and when we got home we found a deer tick (the small ones), on Anna's upper leg.  It was pulled out as well.

On Saturday afternoon Anna started getting a fever; ibuprofen brought it down and we thought we were just in for another cold virus.  Sunday afternoon Anna's fever got high again, medicine brought it down again, but as soon as the medicine wore off, it went back up.  The poor girl didn't sleep well on Sunday night, but the fever seemed to be under control with ibuprofen.  On Monday morning I took the kids into McFarland to do a few errands and as Anna was climbing into the van, I noticed the bulls-eye rash on the back of her neck.  We headed to GE (which we had planned on doing anyway), called the doctor, and they wanted to see her right away.  So Matt took Anna in to Urgent Care while I took the other two home.  The doctor took one look at it, said it was Lyme, and gave Anna a prescription for Amoxicillan (only her second time on antibiotics).  She had her first dose in her system within three hours of us seeing the rash ... not bad.

Monday night was still pretty rough for her and Tuesday she looked like a zombie for most of the day, dark circles around her eyes, no energy, etc.  Around lunch time on Tuesday she complained of an itchy rash on her buns.  I checked her over and, sure enough, she had a second rash in a few places.  I looked at the literature from the pharmacy and it said this could be a reaction to the antibiotic, so I called the nurse and they said they'd talk with a doctor and call me back.  Four hours later, they called and said they wanted Anna to come in for a blood test for Lyme and to stop the antibiotic.  Really?!  I checked Anna over again ... no second rash.  She had already started to perk up so it was obvious to me that the antibiotic was starting to work and that she wasn't having an allergic reaction to it.  The nurse (and presumably doctor) and I agreed that Anna would get a blood test, but that she could stay on Amoxicillan until we had further information.

So I hauled all three kids to the doctor's, Anna had her blood drawn without shedding any tears, and we picked up some pizza on the way home.

By yesterday afternoon (Wednesday), Anna was back to about 80%, and today she seems even better.  We haven't heard back about her blood test yet, but I may end up needing to go back to the doctor's and have a face-to-face conversation about this all with the staff before anything changes for Anna's medication.  We haven't had the chance to speak with our regular doctor throughout this ordeal and now that we're not in crises mode, I'd rather talk to him in person before we make any more or different decisions.

Whew!  So what's the outlook for Anna?  Most likely she'll recover fully and be perfectly fine.  She's normally an extremely healthy kid with a very vigorous immune system, and with the help of this course of antibiotics, there's not much worry that she'll have any lasting complications.  We thank God for a clear bulls-eye rash, good doctors, effective antibiotics, and a healthy kid.

Besides all of this, I had a nasty stomach bug last week which lasted longer than I would have liked.  No one else got it, yet, and we're hoping no one else does.  Also, we went to a friend's wedding on Saturday and played at a park between the wedding and reception (which is where Anna first started getting the fever).  Although Anna was feeling pretty cruddy, Matt and Kate (and the other kiddos there) had a great time.  The reception was also a lot of fun for those who were feeling up to it.

Kate, of course, found a whole army of dead bugs and made a collection of them at the playground.

Let's hope for some calmer days before school starts in just a few weeks.

A quiet weekend for mom and dad :)

Last Thursday my parents came to pick up Kate and Anna for a long weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's and thus Matt, Ethan, and I had a very quiet (literally) few days here at home

  

 

As much as we love our family, the daily responsibility of caring for our three children was starting to wear me down, so this trip for the girls provided a much-needed break for this mom, and dad, too.

Over the course of a few days I was able to do a bunch of little errands that seemed too daunting with all three kids along ... a big trip to Walmart, a shopping trip to get socks, underwear, and undershirts, getting Anna's school supplies, etc.  Nothing really exciting, but definitely necessary.  I also got a few outside things done and cleaned the house a bit more completely than I'd done in awhile.  Not thoroughly, but just more complete.  Matt was able to do quite a bit of maintenance on his commuting bike; after a short hiatus around our trip to South Dakota, he's been back to biking to work at least twice a week.

We didn't go out to eat at all, but simply enjoyed being able to have meals without dealing with a 4 and 6 year old, who are actually really good eaters, but just take more prep and clean-up than adults.

Matt, Ethan, and I joined the girls on Sunday after church and were able to enjoy some of the traditional experiences of the summer trip to the Colbas ... blueberry picking, kubota rides, playing in the woods, etc.

 

The girls, of course, had a good time, but both missed Mom, Dad, and Ethan towards the end of their visit.

The kids were all extremely tired out by the time we left.  Ethan and Anna slept for 2 hours (!) on the way home while Kate slept for an hour.  The overlap time of all three kids sleeping was only 10 minutes (which was actually the first time that all three kids have been asleep at the same time in the van), but at least the rest of the time was pretty quiet, too.

The honeymoon period from the weekend lasted until about 2:30 on Tuesday, then reality started to hit us again and we had some rough periods in the afternoon.  Oh, well.  At least we were able to play in the pool yesterday!

On a much different note, I give Ethan one week, maybe two, before he's crawling.  He ended up with a bit of the virus last week and was pretty crabby about life, but once he started feeling better, he became determined to move.

He pushes himself up on all fours, and then does baby push-ups, all while trying his best to move forward.  So far he can only go backwards, but not for long!

A week of fall?!

Last Wednesday/Thursday I got the virus :(  The kids and I muddled through until Saturday at which point I crashed into bed after breakfast and didn't get up for much during the day.  Sunday morning going to church wiped me out, but after a nice nap in the afternoon, I was feeling a bit better.  I've still been tired, but don't have any lingering cough or fever, so that's good.

Since last week I knew we were headed for some cool and yucky weather on Friday and into this week, we managed to go to the zoo on Thursday afternoon (since the kids let me rest for a bit after lunch).  As we were on our way, we realized that Anna hadn't been to the zoo since last fall!  It was hard to see everything that everyone wanted to see, especially since Kate and I were pretty tired to start with, but it was fun nonetheless.  Ethan, however, didn't really like the carousel ride ...

Matt took over as parent over the weekend and spent a lot of time working with the girls on their bikes without training wheels.  We've still got a long ways to go, but at least they're both excited about it.  With the cooler weather lately and lack of pool time, we've taken to doing walks/bike rides in the afternoons and evenings.  During one of the first of these, we realized that Kate has outgrown the little 12" bike so Matt's hopefully going to pick up the next size bike after work today.  We'll have to see how Kate adjusts.

Monday we were getting a bit stir crazy towards the end of the day so we planned for a field trip on Tuesday.  I took the kids to CamRock park for a hike and picnic yesterday in the middle of the day.  Matt used to mountain bike at this place and we'd taken the girls there before.  I think everyone had a good time; the girls were laughing and giggling for a lot of their play time.  They ran down the big hill a few times, went for a hike with me and Ethan (in the backpack), had lunch, played with a caterpillar they'd found, and then played at the playground for a long time.

 

You'd have thought they would have been tired, but they had plenty of energy after dinner for a run around the neighborhood.  Yes, a run.  Matt and I walked with Ethan in the stroller and the girls ran on ahead.

Here's a few snapshots of life recently.

Kate still spends large chunks of her day looking through books over and over again.

Anna received some lego sets for her birthday (ages 6-12 ones!) and spent a lot of time on Friday and Saturday putting them ALL together.  She only asked for help a handful of times.

Ethan turned 8 months on Saturday.  We figured that if he didn't spit up, he would have weighed 20 lbs. when he was about 5 months old.  Well, he still spits up, but not nearly as much, and by our estimates he's reached the 20 lb. mark.
 

Recovering

Whatever this virus was that got Anna, it really wiped her out!  The poor kid just couldn't get any rest; she was up with coughing fits several times a night for several nights.  She was so tired that she started falling asleep in the afternoons, something she hasn't done in years.  Thankfully, she's on the mend now, finally.  The fever lasted off and on until the weekend and she still has a nasty cough sometimes.

The rest of us seem to be okay, too.  Kate had a fever on Saturday afternoon and then overnight that night, but she was able to sleep a ridiculous amount, and woke up almost good as new (after having slept through church).  I've got a sore throat now, but nothing I can't handle with a little extra rest.

My mom was able to stop by and help us out a bit on her way through Madison.  She came along while I had an eye doctor's appointment on Friday morning, took the girls to a park for a little bit, and then came back for the start of Ethan's infant eye check.  Before that, she picked most of my beans for me, and then she and I snapped them all while the kids rested in the afternoon.  Saturday morning she was up bright and early weeding my garden!  My garden hasn't looked this tidy in months!  Moms are awesome :)  The whole time she was here, I kept telling the girls that when they're older, if they choose to have kids as well as a garden, and then need help weeding their garden, they can call me and I'll be there in a flash to help them out :)

By yesterday our family needed a chance to do something special, after dealing with the relative craziness of life since we got back from South Dakota.  So I took the kids on a field trip to Olbrich Gardens for the butterfly exhibit after Anna's summer school art class.  We had a great time.  The girls had lots of fun and I think Ethan enjoyed himself, too.

After dinner we did an ice cream trip to Culver's and ended up at a park to play around for awhile.  We really needed this time together.

Tonight Anna did a "show" for us out on the tower.  She never used to enjoy performing as much as she has recently.  It's hard to keep Kate focused and not giggling for these kinds of events, however.
 

Ethan makes some pretty funny faces these days.  We are really enjoying getting to know this little boy and seeing how he's going to fit into our sometimes crazy life.

Updates

It's been an interesting week or so, to say the least.  Here's a few updates on each member of the family (except the cat, she's just fine).

Kate - Last Friday night, just before bedtime (of course), she fell and hit her head.  There was blood.  After cleaning it up a bit and talking with the nurse on call for awhile, we decided it was best to take her to Urgent Care and get it looked at.  The doctor and nurse agreed that the cut was right on the border as to whether or not it needed help in healing, but Matt opted for treatment since they were already at the doctor's.  So Kate ended up with a staple in the back of her scalp.  She was a real trooper for the whole ordeal, got her staple out yesterday, and is as good as new.

Besides "the incident", she's doing well.  She loves playing with Anna, playing in the pool, looking at books, helping with garden things, and being silly.

Anna - She started having a cough last Thursday or Friday and then came down with a fever on Sunday after church.  The fever continued off and on for several days, spiking up to 102 whenever the ibuprofen wore off.  The cough got worse.  She had her check-up scheduled for Wednesday anyway so I didn't want to take her in before then if I didn't think it was too serious.  Turns out she just has a nasty virus; apparently there's a bad fever/cough one going around this summer.  So no antibiotics, she just needs to fight it off.  We're really hoping that no one else in the family get it!

Besides "the fever", she's doing well.  At her check-up she weighed 46 lbs. (about 60%) and was 46 inches tall (also about 60%), easy to remember.  She loves playing with her brother and sister, playing in the pool, drawing pictures, helping with garden things, and having a relaxing summer schedule.

Ethan - No stitches, staples, or fevers ... hooray!  He's still trying to get down to a real two nap schedule; I thought we were there over the weekend, but then he switched back to needing three shorter ones this week.  Oh, well.  He sleeps great at night these days so I'm not going to complain too much about his naps.  He's eating like a champ, too.  He loves his baby food veggies and fruits, and enjoys getting a taste of whatever it is the rest of us are eating.

He's still a silly boy who is happiest when there is lots of entertainment going on around him.  He's not crawling yet, but will stay on all fours for a few minutes now if we help him get his knees under him.

Momma - Last Saturday night, my cousin's wife passed away after a 6 year battle with melanoma.  Angela's faith and fight will be remembered by all who knew her.  After considering and deliberating about who in our little family should or should not make the trip to Bloomington for the funeral, we decided that it would be best if Ethan and I made a day of it on Wednesday and did the drive for the morning funeral as well as the luncheon and afternoon gatherings.  I'm glad we did.  Ethan was a great traveler for this (since he didn't have to sleep overnight anywhere else) and really enjoyed all of the attention he got from my extended family.  It was good to see my cousins, aunt, uncles, parents, and Adam, even if it was only for a few hours.

In the midst of all this, I've been picking raspberries every few days, picking and freezing 30 quarts of beans, another 4 quarts of broccoli, another 4 quarts of pea pods, and 5 quarts of freezer pickles.

Before the chaos started this past weekend, the kids and I did one of our field trips to a farm on Thursday morning and had a nice time with all of the animals.

Matt - I think right now Matt is both the rock that we all stand on and the glue that holds us together.  He took Kate to Urgent Care on Friday night, dealt with me calling him every few hours on Monday and Tuesday to give him updates about Anna's fever, encouraged me to go to Bloomington for the funeral while offering to stay home with Anna and Kate (which included taking them both into the doctor for Anna's check-up), and then cleaned the house and did the laundry while we were gone yesterday.  Oh, and did I mention that he finished the tower, rigged up a bucket and pulley system, and then washed and stained the whole thing this past weekend?  Yep.  He's awesome.

Is that all of us?  I think so.  I hope the next several days are much more uneventful than the past week has been ...