Sarah's Up!!

Sarah has now mastered crawling and has moved on to "cruising"- she pulls up on everything and even likes to let go and just stand there for a second or two. She has a bruise or two on her head to show for her new braveness :)

The Second Opinion

We brought Alex to another rheumatologist yesterday to get a second opinion. I think it just kind of confused us more. The answer was essentially the same but his perspective was more of- well, why is 10 years long enough for the penicillin? What about if he lives in a dorm in college, won't he get strep then? What if he becomes a teacher, won't he be exposed to strep then as well? Kind of made us feel like we better just buy the poor kid a lifetime supply of penicillin. The arthritis has been gone for a while now and has not shown any signs of coming back, which is great. Alex has adjusted to taking his medicine twice a day and we have adjusted as well. We will have some more labs done in a few weeks but they won't really give us any definite answers, probably just more possibilities as there is still a chance that this never was rheumatic fever and we'll be making him take penicillin for nothing. But, we still have to treat it as if it is since it could be- if that makes sense. So, as he told us, the hard decision will come in a year and I think it likely we'll just make him take it as long as he will tolerate it. So far the only side effect is that he gets an upset stomach more often now but other than that seems to be pretty unaffected.

Sarah Finally Learns How to Crawl

Although easily distracted by her brother, she really does crawl well now......I'll try to get a better video soon.

The Sarah Test

So- we have noticed that it doesn't matter how many toys you have available for Sarah, she always finds the one thing she isn't supposed to have. She loves to pick scraps out of the carpet and play with electrical cords, remotes, phones, etc. Here's a cute video of her crawling to get the one "toy" (my cell phone) she shouldn't have!

Ummm....baby "safe" my butt...

Or Sarah's butt to be exact :) Yes- she has figured out how to climb out of the bath ring. Bath time just got a whole lot harder. She is such a little monkey!

This box used to be a lot more fun :(

Anna Making Sarah Laugh

She is SOOOOOO Close

Almost, but not quite all out crawling. If the motivation is good enough, she tries really hard. She mostly goes after things she isn't supposed to have.

You know you've had a bad day (or week or month) when you step in a puddle in the basement and are actually HAPPY to find out it is pee!!!!

Ok....don't be offended by the title of this post. I am trying to hang in there but each day we seem to be tested a little more. Last night Sarah started having some mucousy, bloody looking diarrhea (yes, gross I know!). Anyways, I figured it was from the antibiotic she is on for her ear infections. When I called this morning, the nurse at the clinic said I needed to bring her in right away. Which, of course, I did. When we got there, the doctor just said- "Oh, they should have told you this can happen with this antibiotic- it's not blood, just discoloration"....blah blah blah. Another $20 wasted. However, I brought Alex with me as well because his "cold" he's had this week has left him with the nastiest hacking cough. It brought back memories of the Christmas a couple years ago when he had pneumonia. Turns out he has a raging ear infection. Possibly the start of pneumonia, but no x-rays were taken because the antibiotic he's on for his ear infection will also cover pneumonia. He still has to take his penicillin as well because the strep bug would not be killed by the new antibiotic. Anna has started with the same hacking cough this evening and stated her ears really hurt. I just couldn't bring myself to visit the pediatrician again tonight. Chris can take her tomorrow- I'm done!

Onto the title of this post. It has truly been the month from hell and today I think we just kind of hit the wall with patience. We are both just so worn out and frustrated and sick sick sick of sick kids. So, this afternoon I went down to the basement to do the laundry and stepped in a puddle of water in the middle of the carpet. We have had water issues in our basement a few years back but had drain tile installed and it has been fine since. I yelled up to Chris to get down to the basement because there is water coming in from somewhere. He comes down, we are trying to figure it out and then both of us get down on the floor to smell it- yes, I know, very gross. Needless to say, it smelled like pee. Chris was starting to panic that maybe the sewer was backing up and leaking into the house. With our luck lately, it wouldn't have surprised us that much. Well, in the middle of our panic attack, Alex comes down the stairs and says, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, I didn't make it to the bathroom in time earlier." I don't think I've ever been so relieved to have stepped in pee. I don't even really care that he peed on the family room floor, which normally he would have had some kind of privilege or toy taken away (At least I think that's what we would have normally done- he hasn't peed his pants in a couple years). I only care that there isn't water in the basement and I don't need to have the sewer serviced. Funny how we have gained an entirely new perspective on things. That truly was just about the highlight of the day :)

Can we just have a standing appointment at the pediatrician????

Ok...so I'm tired, sick and tired of everyone around me being sick. I will never ever again take for granted a day of everyone feeling well at the same time. I feel like that will never happen at this point, but I look forward to the day that it might. Alex was sick again this weekend, high temp and sore throat.....(not strep thank God), but we did need to visit urgent care on Sunday just to be sure. He also has laryngitis which has actually been kind of nice- a lot less fighting amongst the eldest two the last couple of days. He was still running a temp today when we brought him in for a follow up visit with our regular rheumatologist. She said it's just the common cold, which is good, but of course, nontreatable. Sarah has a double ear infection- her and I spent some quality time in the urgent care last night. She has not slept well in 2 nights which means we have also not slept.....Anna has a runny nose today so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before this lovely bug invades her illness prone body as well. We had to cancel her birthday party, poor thing. I didn't even bother rescheduling it because at this point it will probably be summer by the time everyone is well again. Aunt Jackie did make her an awesome cake though (see pictures) so that really made her day. We ordered pizza and a couple family members stopped by to drop off Anna's presents so she was happy. We're going to do birthday cupcakes on Easter as well (if we're well by then that is). I know this post is a bit pessimistic and whiney but we are just completely drained and exhausted and so so tired of taking sick kids to the doctor's office. The blessing here is that if Chris and I had both had jobs (Chris does have a job, don't get me wrong) during these last 2 months, one of us would have been fired by now. The amount of ill child days would have heavily outweighed the amount of days we could have gone to work.
Love from the infirmary :)

Trying to Move

Here's a cute video of Sarah trying to learn how to crawl. She is so close, I'm sure by this weekend I'll have a video of her full out crawling- just in time for Anna's birthday party (I better baby proof quickly).