I’m sick. Blech. For the past few days I have been running a low-grade fever and feeling short of breath and slightly dizzy. Today I developed an annoying, persistent, dry cough, and my nose alternates between being clogged on one side or running on both sides. Nose aside, these symptoms mirror what I had two years ago, when I had pneumonia. I really, really hope this is not the case, but you don’t want to play around with pneumonia – not to mention the medication is expensive (IIRC, the inhaler I was prescribed was $120, and there was also a liquid antibiotic).

Also, I’m scheduled for exploratory laparoscopic surgery, round two, on February 1st (I called for the date on Wednesday, and made the 45-minute drive to my surgeon’s office Thursday morning to meet with my surgeon and sign the consent forms). If I’m sick with something serious like pneumonia, and I’m not over it by then, I’ll have to reschedule surgery. Grr.

Speaking of sick, just as I finished up the second to last paragraph Ryan, who was sleeping on the sofa, suddenly threw up everywhere. He’s been coughing off and on all evening, so I don’t know if he threw up because of the excessive coughing (even though I did give him cough medicine), or because he’s sick with a stomach bug, or something else. Blah. Have I mentioned how much I hate vomit? I could be up to my knees in feces and it wouldn’t bother me too much, but vomit gets me retching in no time flat. Ryan is changed, wiped down, and tucked into his bed, and the sofa, coffee table, and carpet have all been cleaned – here’s to hoping there won’t be any repeats! But as a precaution, I have a thick comforter under and all around Ryan, so if he gets sick and misses the trash can, I can just throw the comforter in the wash and not have to deal with any other scrubbing.

Overall this was a very, very quiet Saturday – my favorite kind. ♥ The kids played nicely indoors and out, they enjoyed dinner (homemade meatloaf), Dan and I had a nice afternoon together before he went to work, and I felt slightly better after taking a two hour nap late this afternoon. I hope tomorrow is equally nice and quiet – and vomit-free!

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• de-Christmas-treeing my living room (Dan and I have a routine with the tree: he brings it home and puts on the lights, I then put on everything else; I take off everything but the lights, he takes off the lights and then gets rid of the tree).
• swapping out Alyssa’s standard twin bed frame + headboard in favor of a loft bed similar to this one. Her bedroom is really small, especially since she has a corner computer desk which makes it impossible to fit everything along one wall, which means having her bed in the middle of the room, taking away even more play space.

Last night I crashed early thanks to Nyquil, which meant I only got ten or so pages in of the current book I’m reading, The Constant Princess by Philippa Gregory. One of my 2012 goals is to read 52 books this year (aka one book a week), so I need to stay on task. Or pick books with less pages. Haha.

Today I overslept (tonight I discovered I set my alarm for 7:30PM instead of AM, oops), but threw myself into overdrive and got everything accomplished that I wanted to – and then some, whee!

For the last few hours Jason has been here, first making ham and split-pea soup, and now glomming on chocolate (Dan too) and watching House.

How’s your night going?

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

I took that photo of my sweet angels sleeping side by side before making the mistake of administering liquid ibuprofen to them. Well, to Ryan. Alyssa’s main symptom is her fever (currently 101.5°, and that’s even with taking acetaminophen three hours ago), though she also has a dry cough and is now complaining of a sore throat. Ryan’s fever is “only” 99.8°, but guess who projectile vomited all over Alyssa’s bedroom wall (and Littlest Pet Shop toys, which are now sitting in the bathtub waiting a good scrubbing and bleaching) about ten seconds after taking the liquid ibuprofen? I recognized the look in Ryan’s eyes and heard his stomach gurgle, but goddammit I was two seconds too late in getting a trash can in front of him.

God bless our physician’s evening hours. I have appointments for both kids at 7:15 and 7:30, and we only live ten minutes away. Time to roust sick, sleepy, vomiting kids and load them into the car. I hope there’s a “definitive” diagnosis (such as strep throat, which is what Alyssa had in June and Ryan had last March; both kids had fevers and vomiting as their primary symptoms) so I can get some medicine for them!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

This morning I was up before 9:00am, and before Alyssa, and when I came out of the shower I heard her in the kitchen, getting some cereal. When I came out to the living room a little bit later, she was back in her bedroom. I got busy with dishes, laundry, and some work, so a good two hours went by before I checked on her again. It’s not uncommon for her to play with her toys in her room, or go in there to read some of her school books, but when I went in there and found her huddled under the covers, looking glassy-eyed and completely out of it… blah. I knew. She was sick.

My kids have awesome immune systems. They don’t get sick very often at all, but when they do get sick, they get sick hardcore. Take, Ryan, for example: last March he was sick with strep throat, a double ear infection and a stomach bug, all at once. And Alyssa? She had a crazy evil case of strep throat in June, complete with insanely high fever out of nowhere and vomiting.

I think/hope/pray that Ryan’s vomiting last night was a fluke, since he ate and kept down breakfast, lunch and dinner just fine today, and only threw up that one time last night. But Dan took his temp this evening and remarked that it was 99°, and he asked to go to bed a little earlier than usual. Erghhh. And Alyssa? We’ve spent the day keeping her comfortable (she only left her bed at dinnertime, and went back to it after dinner and two quick games of Uno), taking her temperature (high of 102.1° and when she went to bed tonight it was down to 99.9°), alternating between pumping her full of Tylenol and pumping her full of Tylenol, and pushing fluids (cold water, Pedialyte) and soft, cold foods (applesauce, yogurt), pulling the blankets off of her and applying cold compresses to her head – basically doing everything we could to keep her comfortable and keep her fever from getting worse. My poor baby.

I doubt I’ll be sending her to school tomorrow, which means she gets to spend the day pampered in our big queen bed (she loves piling up her stuffed animals and herself in it), since it’s Monday and I have a crap ton of work to do. As for Ryan, I’ll see how he’s doing in the morning. If he’s fever-free and his normal, perky stuff, then off he goes.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

I can’t get sick. I can’t. I just can’t. With everything going on, plus OMG! WE’RE! GOING! TO! THE! BEACH! plans for next week (we’re leaving Monday morning and returning Tuesday evening — thank you to Dan’s awesome aunt and uncle for inviting us to their beach house!), I just can’t get sick. If I’m still feeling like this tomorrow morning, I’m going to Urgent Care. I swear, they’re better than a doctor’s office! I don’t know about the doctors you guys see, but the two offices available here in the boonies are such a pain with appointments. I rarely get in the same day or even the next day, and if I do it’s because I’ve been “fit in” — meaning I’ll wait twenty-thirty minutes in the waiting room and another twenty-thirty minutes in the actual exam room. And if I want to see my regular doctor, as opposed to whoever is currently rotating or interning, I have to make an appointment up to a month in advance. Urgent Care, on the other hand, is fast. Plus the center we took Alyssa to fills prescriptions right there — how much more convenient can you get? And since our insurance company covers visits (we just pay the normal doctor co-pay), I can’t think of a reason not to go. So yeah, if I feel like this in the morning, that’s where I’ll be headed for a diagnosis, and if necessary, medication.

Bwahaha. I have to interrupt this blog entry to post a funny quick text conversation between Amanda and I:

Amanda: Oh hey did u still want to do a playmate this weekend?
Amanda: Omg! Plateaus
Amanda: Playdate!
Me: Lmfao. DYAC.

Total DYAC submission right there. So yes, Amanda and I are going to get together this weekend. Alyssa and Ryan had a blast at Amanda’s daughter Sophie’s birthday party last weekend, and it was great to finally meet Amanda! Our plans this weekend are definitely laidback: day at the pool, early evening here at my house for dinner and such. Mmm, I’m thinking barbeque. Either that or a slow cooker meal so I can get my lazysauce on.

Right now I have a cat (Fritzy) on my left, Leah on my right, and Molly in my lap. Speaking of Molly — yes, I still have her. I’m not keeping her permanently, but the Good Daughter in me feels guilty for not giving my mom every opportunity to try and find a temporary home for Molly while she gets her shit together and works with this transitional living center to get an actual home to live in again. But at the same time, my original deadline of June 10th (for both her and the dog) has come and gone. I’ve been putting feelers out — mentioning to various people that I have a spayed, vaccinated, mostly housebroken and very social and friendly Yorkshire Terrier to unload, but thus far I haven’t had anyone express real interest — just the courteous, “Oh, I’ll keep that in mind” type of response. Until tonight. As I was putting the dogs out this evening, my next door neighbor remarked that she absolutely loves Molly, and if I decided to get rid of her (she knows about me throwing my mom out, and I filled her in on what’s going on with CPS and my brothers), she’d definitely take her off my hands. So. We talked for a while, and her taking Molly is ideal. She and her husband are in their late 50s, retired except for her working a part-time job a few hours a week, and they have an old retriever that wouldn’t bother or take offense to Molly — or vice versa. Plus she lives next door, so I could see Molly whenever I wanted to. While I’m not hugely attached to Molly, I do like her, and I am concerned about her going to a good home, since my mom isn’t in a position where she can take her — and even if she could, she isn’t anything close to an ideal pet owner. So I told my neighbor that as a courtesy I’d give my mom until next Friday, and then she’s all hers, along with her various accessories (harness, collar, extra tags, leash, crate, bed, food & bowl with stand, treats, etc.).

Even though I feel like total death warmed over right now, I hope I feel better tomorrow morning for two reasons:

• Workity work work work!
• Daniel and Jason got me a Bower 8mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens, and I freaking can’t WAIT to use it!!!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty