Because he missed Thanksgiving because he was traveling, I made him a complete turkey dinner with all the fixings. We also had a great Christmas and got our very first live tree, and went to a tree farm to get it. Then, for new years, my sisters and I all went to my moms house and had an incredible weekend together. The kids did an ornament exchange and my mom made a huge, wonderful, dinner for the 22 of us. Today, the fun was all over. The kids went back to school. Bobby boarded a plane back to Afghanistan (via Paris and Dubai). Thankfully I was so busy with driving to Seattle, and first of the month errands that reality has not yet set in. I am sure as we transition back into our old routine, that will change and we will all struggle in our own ways, until once again we get back into routine and it will get easy again. Until then, I will continue to hug my kids extra close, and remind them how special and loved they are.

Meet my “grandbaby” Lucifer. Isn’t he a peach? Austin says his back story is that he was born a stillborn and he had to make a deal with the devil to bring him back. His teacher asked if he watched horror movies. He’s such a goober. Tonight at dinner, Austin was holding Liam and had Lucy, I will call him, on the counter. Austin goes “Look Liam, it is your new nephew!” and Liam says “NOOO! UH-UH!!” which had us all immediately cracking up. He has never said either of those words, and I will often say “uh-uh” when someone is touching something they are not supposed to. For the rest of the night, we all kept repeating “Noooo! Uh-uh!” This kid is a riot. Not even 9 months old and already he knows the punchline.

I was also feeling sentimental, so I sent Austin’s birth mom a text message thanking her for allowing me to be his mommy. She called me right back and we talked for about 30 minutes. It was nice to hear that she had no regrets, I have always worried she consented to the adoption out of desperation, and not because she truly wanted the best for him.

On Sunday, Austin turned 15. This is why I did Mother’s Day early. I knew he would make a fuss about it, and I didn’t want anything to distract him from his birthday. The little stinker still did, he made me breakfast in bed, and made eggs and bacon for the little ones. For his birthday dinner, he wanted me to make him BBQ Ribs on the grill. I also made corn bread and green beans. It was delicious. He played with his friends most of the day, he literally came home when the street lights came on. It was glorious. Our gift was delivered on Monday, a trampoline! The “t” was partially obscured on the package, so now the kids call it “the rampoline”.

For three days Austin and I built the rampoline together. Christopher helped keep the little three busy. I may or may not have taught Austin some new words as we stretched springs, and pulled safety nets tight. On the first day, I took a break for dinner, and just when I was about to put the last 5 of 8 safety net poles up, I asked Austin “do you smell something chemically??” He looked downstairs, and I looked in my bathroom, and I do believe my head exploded. That is a full bottle of deep purple nail polish, and some bare minerals face powder. I scrubbed on that thing for probably 6 hours (I was up until 3am) and I managed to lighten it to a lilac color, but it didn’t come out. I will need to replace the carpet in my bathroom. Right now it is half vinyl, half carpet, and I am hoping our landlord will let us rip out all the flooring in the bathroom and replace it with coordinating vinyl.
Liam is growing so fast, too fast. His new name is Mr. Grabbyhands. He has learned how to play with the toys on his bouncer to activate music. He has also learned how to make mama yelp in pain by grabbing onto a huge handful of hair and yanking really hard. He also can roll from his belly to his back, and most recently his back to his belly.

Oh wait, I need to back this up…. WAY up.

Back in February I learned my grandma was ill, in and out of the hospital. I won’t go into details, but I will say we all had faith she would pull through this. When I say my grandma was someone we expected to live forever, I mean it. She was still driving a motor home at age 79. She had no limitations. She took amazing care of my grandpa who has had a lot of health issues since he broke his back 20 years ago, to include rods slipping from his back surgery, major heart attacks, and Parkinson’s. My grandma cooked him 3 hot meals a day, kept the house spotless, the laundry immaculate, gave him all his medications, and still found time to do the daily crossword. Her mother lived to be 88 and died peacefully at home, in her sleep. I expected another 10 years out of my grandma, at least. Unfortunately, the treatment that was supposed to make her better, made her worse before it could make her better, and she just was too sick to handle the backslide. She passed away Monday. She was a little over 6 weeks away from her 80th birthday.

With Bobby in Afghanistan, and the funeral on the other side of the country, there was just no way I could make it. So I have been in a pretty bad mood. I am mourning the loss of my grandma, missing my husband, not getting much sleep at night, and my patience is completely shot. Just normal kid behavior is driving me up the walls. Now, add to that errands at Lowes, Costco, and K-Mart. Now sprinkle in 2 hours, two trips back into the store with a fussy baby, a major headache, and a Facebook friend invite from my dead grandma. Wait, what? Yes. I got a friend request from the afterlife.

My grandmother was a pretty hip woman, and had been on Facebook for over a year in order to keep updated on pictures and goings on with her friends and family. My mom isn’t even on Facebook (but my dad is), so I thought it was maybe a memorial page added by one of her two daughters because they didn’t know her password or something. So I added it, and sent a little note asking who was managing the page, and I get this back “it is me lois how r u”. So now I am pissed, what kind of sick joke is this? I don’t recognize the email, the birthday is wrong (’56, by 1956 my gma had already had my dad and his sister, and they were in school), but the name is right, and the profile picture is directly stolen from her profile.

About this time I get an IM from my cousin, who also could not get to the funeral. She says the person added her, and like me she assumed it was a memorial page. But then gets an IM from the person claiming they have “exciting news”. K wishes she had played along with it, but obviously was so shocked by it all she told the person off and they unfriended her. She tried to report the page to Facebook, but the request has to come from my grandma’s profile. My aunt reactivated the profile just to report it, but as of 19 hours after creation, the profile is still there. I have contacted all the people that received a friend invite, but cannot find any other way to get this profile removed. I am going to give this person the benefit of the doubt and say they didn’t know that the profile belonged to someone who had passed away 48 hours earlier, and they did not set out to freak out the only two granddaughters who could not attend her services, but still, what kind of jerk makes a fake email (the email was created using the name of my gm’s niece, also a FB friend), then a fake profile, and then tries to pass themselves off as someone else? Whoever you are FB-impersonator, I hope you are ready for a big old heaping spoonful of some negative karma.

To all of our surprise, she kept running and then flung herself into his arms, holding onto him tightly. He picked her up and hugged her and started walking towards us with Sophie still in his arms. He told me he was pretty surprised how social she is, he expected her to be somewhat shy. I explained that she was really missing her daddy right now, so she’s a bit more affable right now. I think this statement made the doctor a little heartbroken, he has three little girls himself and could not imagine having to be away from them. To all the daddies (and mommies) out there, missing their sons and daughters, you have my complete sympathy. Especially to our troops, who not only risk their safety for our freedom, but miss out on time with their loved ones.

Oh, and Liam got a clean bill of health. She told me to take him off the albuterol, but to finish the antibiotics. His lungs sound fantastic, and she didn’t think a follow up with neurology or pulmonology is necessary. She did say he is at a slighter risk of developing asthma when he’s older, but given his family history, that comes to no surprise. We will just watch and wait and when another round of illness comes rolling through, you can guarantee I will be watching him like a hawk.

Tonight he came out of his bedroom holding his toy turtle, who had his legs in handcuffs. One side held his front legs, the other shackle held his two back legs together. He says to me “my turtle was arrested. He shot his pet. He’s being charged with hunting without a license“. Where does he learn this stuff??

This weekend, my fried, who was staying with the kids, texted me that she had three little Matthewisms, as I call them, for me. One was when she was reading him the back of the Lego Batman video game case to him, including the rating, he said “I LOVE cartoon violence”. He later told her “You have an awsomer house than us. We only have one ghosts, and you have lots of ‘em”. Later that same day, he explained to her that Toasted Oats (generic Cheerios) are healthier than Cheerios, because they have more fiber. Much like how he tried to explain to me that the cheese on the nachos I was making was the healthiest part, and when I told him it wasn’t he said “I meant the beans, the BEANS are the healthiest part”. He did the same with his snack I picked him up for school. His week to bring snack is “Vv” week, so for fun I got Vegetable Thins. The little goober grabs the box, looking at the pictures of vegetables and says “I am reading the label, yup, these look healthy and delicious.” Then he pauses and says “What?!? No broccoli? But broccoli is the healthiest!! We need to take these back and get some that say ‘Now, with broccoli!’ because I would like those the best.”

I could go on and on, like when he cried because his brother said he may need braces when he is 13 (he was 5 at the time) and cried because he would need braces soon, 8 years was just not that long at all. Or when the last tooth he was lost started wiggling and he cried because he didn’t want to lose that tooth, it was his favorite tooth, and he tastes with that particular tooth. These are not the first two times we have had Matthewisms related to teeth, case and point see: “The butterfly will bite me!” and “Here fishy, fishy”

While we were being discharged, Liam’s final labwork came back confirming that it was not RSV, not Pertussis and most likely pneumonia. They also told me pneumonia is normally caught at the second x-ray, so not to be confused or upset that his first one was clear. My nurses were wonderful those 2 1/2 days, they were very attentive to Liam and I, making sure I took care of myself and reminded me to eat and drink and get sleep when I could. On that last day, little man was so feisty, he removed half of his nasal cannula (it was turned off, but there just in case he needed it) so they went ahead and unhooked it instead of re-taping it. He ripped out his breathing monitor, so they removed it too. He got the hint and started working on pulling off his IV sock, but unfortunately that stayed in place until discharge, along with the O2 sensor on his toe that he kept trying to wiggle off.

He came home with antibiotics, and a cream to treat a rash from those antibiotics, as well as instructions to use his breathing treatments every 6 hours as needed. I learned the “blow by”, where I point the spray near his mouth, is a LOT less stressful than the mask, which delivers more medicine, but causes him to panic and cry. The RTs (Respiratory Therapists), and Pediatricians agreed the extra dose of medicine is just not worth the cost of panic and confusion.

Last night was amazing, I missed my bed. A fold down chair in a hospital with nurses and RT’s coming and going, monitors beeping, and lights shining through the curtain is just no match to a Sleep Number bed in a dark room with no noises. Liam’s soft snores were comforting last night, I could hear the constant reminder that he was breathing rhythmically and easily. Liam went from waking every 3 hours to nurse at the hospital, to sleeping 9 long glorious hours at once. It was the little things that I enjoyed the most when we got home. Being able to hold my baby without cords and tubes. Of course having all 5 of my babies together. Being able to nurse my baby any where I wanted, and not be tied to a chair next to his bed. Coffee prepared the way I like it, when I want it, and as much as I want. And most of all knowing how having us home helps ease the worry and stress my kids and husband were going through, not being able to see Liam’s progress, like I was.

Well, today Liam just seemed *off*, he also looked flushed and felt warm to the touch. I took his temperature (100 by tympanic or ear, 101 rectally). I decided to call his ped after they opened back up from lunch to see if they could maybe squeeze him in with the nurse practitioner before the weekend, as my ped is normally slammed on Fridays because Thursday is her day off. I was in luck and they had an opening at 2:30. The nurse weighed him, 15lbs fully clothed in a cloth diaper, and then his ped came in and checked his breath sounds. She was perplexed because you could hear him wheezing, but his lungs sounded fine. His ears were a little watery, but she wasn’t worried about that. She just didn’t like his lungs though. He started coughing and getting worked up from her checking his ears and was breathing heavier so she listened again, and this time could hear crackling. She said if this was Sophie (I LOVE her, she remembered his siblings names either from checking in his chart before she came in the room, or just from knowing us), she would be fine with just pushing fluids and treating the fever, but because Liam is so young she wanted chest x-rays to rule out pneumonia.

We drove down to the block to the imaging place, and they put him in this mid-evil baby eating contraption called a pigg-o-stat. Basically it is a bicycle seat inside a lazy susan, and then these two clear petals swallow the baby, like a venus fly trap while the baby’s hands are forced above his head. Let me tell you what, if you want to take your baby from sleeping, to screaming bloody murder in 2.3 seconds flat, the pigg-o-stat is the way to go. They like them crying though, it gives them a better picture if the lungs are expanded, however the poor sweet boy was so pooped, he had actually fallen asleep.

(Image courtesy of http://www.pnwx.com/Accessories/PatAsst/Restraints/)

After radiology we headed back to the pediatrician to find out the results of his imaging and she said it wasn’t pneumonia, however she said his lungs looked like those of an asthmatic. His oxygen saturation was 90 and she likes it to be 94 or above so she gave him an albuteral breathing treatment. His ox sat only raised to 92, so she gave him another half a treatment and talked to me about admitting him to the hospital overnight for observation. After the second treatment it went up to 93, he coughed and it went up to 94. She gave me the option of sticking around a bit longer and if he was still doing okay she would send us home with the understanding that if anything changes, I call them… even if it is just my mommy senses tingling.

After she left the room he started doing this fast labored breathing, followed by him holding his breath, and grunting, and then rapid breathing again. This went on for a couple minutes, I almost thought maybe he was just tying to pass gas, but nothing changed so I poked my head out and called for the nurse, who called the doctor in again. She checked his ox-sat and it was still at 94, so she asked me to nurse him and watch him a bit longer. Nursing calmed him, so she called in a scirpt for albuteral and dispatched the home healthcare company to deliver him a nebulizer. Tomorrow morning he will be seen at 8:30am to see how he’s doing.

I did see a funny sign at the coffee shop at the radiology building:

Yes please, can you make mine a double??

Through his tears he created fantastic stories of what could have happened. “Maybe she forgot her cat away, and the cat scared her?” “Maybe she is sick?” I offered. That was rejected. Then as if he was not sufficiently traumatized, wailing part two ensues. I guess he was playing with the tooth on the floor and it fell down the vent. Now he was facing another possibility.. not only did the tooth fairy forget him, but now she was never going to come! He decided that maybe if he wrote a not and put it under his pillow, he could get back into her good graces. The note read “I m srrye, I lost my tooth”. Thankfully his brother helped him dig it out. However I still had to figure out what to do. To buy some time to think up a convincing lie decent plan, I sent him off to the shower. Since he has a bunk bed, I put a dollar under a pillow in his top bunk. Silly mama, how dare I assume he didn’t overturn every pillow. He saw through my deception immediately.

We settled on a story that maybe the tooth fairy was just running late, his brother convinced him that maybe a lot of children in china has lost their teeth. After all that, the little turkey wanted me to put his crisp new dollar I picked out just for him, into his checking account. Love that boy!

Next time he loses a tooth, I am insisting he hangs his sister’s “Welcome Tooth Fairy” pillow on his door knob, as a reminder for her not to fly on by.

She can be contacted by email of phone.
crystalross2010@yahoo.com
(309) 531-6834

For the drive home we caravanned home. While hitting a Starbucks Drive-Thru I asked if I could pay for my drink, and that of the hot guy behind me and then told her he was my husband of 14 years. She said “keeping the romance alive by traveling in separate cars huh?” Yup, Mr. & Mrs. Romance! We have never bought into the VD hype, one year we just happened to stop into a new store which ended up being a gun store. I tease him the most romantic Valentines Day ever was the year he took me to the gun store.

Half way into the trip I had lost my mind with one of the little ones repetitively pushing the button on a talking fast food toy my mom gave them. It was Barney from the Simpson’s movie saying either “call me” or “Homer” or “homicide” or something. While the kids were stopped for a potty break, the toy was quietly slipped into the trash, and no one has missed it. Thank goodness. I have never figured out how kids have an innate ability to gravitate towards the most annoying toys at my moms house, and then use it in the most annoying manner possible.

I was so happy to be home, in my own bed, but I loved having the long weekend with my family. I don’t get over as often as I want to, so it was nice to have an excuse to make the trek.