Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

I hope, I seriously hope that whoever is reading this, your kids have never had and will never get this virus. Mercury had it back when he was two and I forgot how horrible it is. It is so hard as a mom to watch your child want to eat, take a bite of food and scream in pain. Then refuse to try again. Yes, this is what Neptune has. But he also had another complication from the virus that most kids don't get. He is 'bleeding under his skin'. So I can not even give him Motrin 'cuz it'll make the bleeding worse. Don't get me wrong, we can use Tylenol. I'm just a huge Motrin fan when kids are this sick.

Anyway if you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with this here are my tips. I'm an expert you know, I've now dealt with this twice. Yea, whatever Venus. Think what you like.

1. POPSICLES. Spend a mini-fortune on Popsicles and give them to the child on demand. And don't go for the sugar free. Really if they're not eating, let the kids have some sugar.

2. YOGURT. Both of my kids tolerated this well while sick. We've been doing some pudding, but for some reason, the yogurt is going over better.

3. AMERICAN CHEESE. Seriously. I learned this one last night by accident. Neptune snagged some out of Mercury's lunchable. It's soft enough he can handle it. And he can't even handle a banana right now. So that's saying something. Plus it's got some substance to it so at least I feel like he's eating a little something.

4. BENADRYL. Now I do feel a little nag of mommy guilt over this one. But omg I can not handle being up every time Neptune rolls over in bed (the pressure on his mouth from his pillow wakes him). So yes, I drugged him with some Benadryl last night and I got 5 glorious hours of sleep.

And you can take or leave this last one

5. RAIN COAT. The drooling that these kids do while they have this is insane. Please be prepared for the drooling!

Here we go again!

Why does it seem the only time I get back here is when Neptune is sick? Oh wait...Neptune is always sick. So yes, we are back off to the doctor again today. I swear I should just send my money straight to the bank to pay for his boat or whatever it is that he has. At least this doctor seems to be a good guy.

We have having a horrible time with Mercury right now. He is terrified of the dark and of ware wolves of all things. He wont even go to the bathroom unless I go and turn the light on for him first. At the first hint of the sun setting he starts flipping out 'cuz it's getting dark. I was not prepared for this part of mommyhood!

Other than that, things have been going well. Jupiter took on a new account and is doing really well at work. So that is very exciting!

Been Awhile

I've got to get better at this. I really do. Anyway, Neptune been sick twice in the last month. Go figure, huh? Not ear infections this time though. Amazing isn't it? Just high fevers and sore throats. Poor kid.

Menopause is going...o.k. for menopause I guess. I am officially off ALL my meds! Can you believe it? They were starting to upset my stomach too much and I said screw it all. I'm working very hard at staying level headed. The only thing that sucks is the hot flashes. I'm not sure I can take another three months of that! Argh. I hate hot flashes.

I got Neptune signed up for Early On and they are coming out to evaluate him on Thursday. I feel he's behind in his speech. Everyone tells me not to worry about it, but hey, if I can get my kid some kind of help so he doesn't fall behind, why wouldn't I? Plus they are going to evaluate his temper. Have I mentioned this kids temper before? We'll save that for a whole different day.

Mercury's birthday was o.k. He had a good time and that's all that matters. He got lots of cool stuff for once. No really really huge flops, so that's good.

That's about all that's going on with us lately. I will try to keep this updated much better. Right now I'm doing research on Geographical Tongue or Benign Migratory Glossitis. Neptune was diagnosed with that a month ago. So I'm learning all I can about that right now.

Does it ever end?

Well I finally got my shot today. Talk about pain! That's almost as bad as a tetanus shot! Yikes. I wonder how long it will take for the side effects to kick in?

My babysitter called this morning. One of her sons has a very bad staph infection. I've been on the phone with the dr and googling everything. I sure hope my kids don't get it. That's just one more thing I dont need! And talk about scary. The poor kid is probably gonna have to have his foot sliced open 'cuz it's so swollen from the infection. I can't even imagine.

I am taking Neptune to a chiropractor today. I can't wait to see if he thinks he can help with at least the ear infections. I'm not sure I really buy it. But hey, a lot of people swear by it, so it's worth a shot, right?

Menopause

O.k. first off this salad I'm eating...NASTY!

Alright, got that off my chest.

So the dr's office called and the insurance company finally has everything straight. I go in on Monday and get my shot. I'm officially starting menopause. Ugh. As if I don't have enough to deal with lately.

Seriously...throwing this salad away. Ick.

Neptune is on ear infection #13 right now. He also had an asthma flare this past weekend. As much as it sucks I learned two important things. Yes, I do understand his asthma now and got him in before it was bad (YAY) and no way are we ever taking him off Pulmicort. Well, maybe someday. But not anytime soon. He didn't need his rescue inhaler once while on the Pulmicort. A week after coming off of it, he's back on Prednisone twice a day and Albuterol every four hours. Not fun. But hey, at least I learned two valuable things.

Endometriosis

Well, I have a diagnosis. Now to find out what it means. I know what endometriosis is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endometriosis. But what does it mean for me exactly? I've been driving myself crazy trying to google this and read that. I guess I'll just have to wait until Friday when I see the dr again to know for sure. But you can bet I will be blogging about this whole journey.

Revelation

Well I feel like a totally new person due to the new meds I'm on, I believe. I'm supposta be on 400mg, but I've stopped at 200. I don't feel I need anymore and I don't want to try to go on more and end up in a medicine fog. That's what I believe I was in while on Lamictal. The withdrawal from that med was not nearly as bad as I had expected. The withdrawal when coming off of Zoloft was much worse for me. However I really did not like what I saw in myself while I was off the meds. But I'm so glad I can 'control' myself with only 200 mg of the Tegretol. I don't dread my kids anymore. In fact, I look forward to them. I'm trying very hard to not yell at them anymore, and I'm doing quite well with it. I also do not spank anymore. This may not sound like it's all that wonderful, but I'm very proud of myself for the progress I've made in such a short amount of time. Our house is CLEAN! This is an amazing feat. I no longer feel overwhelmed by the day to day. I just really feel like a whole new person and I love it. I was especially nervous this weekend. Mercury came down with the flu. He's never had the flu before and I was seriously dreading being stuck in the house with them all weekend. Especially since Jupiter is working horrible hours lately. But you know what? We did just fine being stuck in the house together. We actually had...are you ready for this? FUN! Here are some pictures of our 'fun'

Here is Mercury 'cooking' his soup. It's about all he ate all weekend.

We had a garage sale which I ended up ditching the whole thing on my SIL since Mercury was sick. Anyway, I brought the infant tub out to sell and you'd think the kids had found the coolest new toy in the world.

Yep, Neptune's asthma is flaring up again. Ugh. But the lady that takes care of Neptune during the day gave us this cool mask for him. He gets more medicine in and I no longer have to sit right there with him and hold him.

And the best part...the sleeping part. This is actually this morning. Neptune's slept with me the past two nights. He always does when he can't breathe. And Mercury crawled in bed with us about 10 minutes before my alarm went off.