May

Must wear protective gear when Sierra is driving!

Sierra was so happy that her Daddy was able to make it to her spring music program!

This was what several weeks of this month looked like.  The sickest I've been since I was a kiddo.

Some honey tea before bed.  She was trying to be like mommy :)

Our very own lettuce!

Picnic at school!

Enjoying wild strawberries.  Sugar likes them too.

Bucket heads :)

Batman and Robin!

Holy cow we were sick this month.  I can't wait for school to be over.  This was the evilest virus we've dealt with in a long time.  Sierra got sick first of course and then Jaxon and I followed suit.  Sierra had a mild fever (although it did stick around on and off for 2 weeks!) and stuffy nose which turned into a horrid cough.  She also had trouble with her eyes but since it's Spring I just assumed it was her allergies on top of her cold.  Then Jaxon and I got sick and we got pink eye too.  Sierra and Jaxon's pink eye was pretty mild but mine was horrid.  I finally ended up going to immediate care and we all ended up on prescription eye medication.  I also ended up with a temp of 104 and a horrid sore throat.  I went from 99 to 104 in about 30 minutes and I thought I was dying.  It was terrible.  I had the chills so bad that it felt like I was having convulsions.  Finally after a dose of Tylenol and ib profin both it went down to 102 for the remainder of the night.  Jaxon never got a fever or sore throat and his cough was more mild as well.  Praise the Lord.  It took us all a good 3 weeks to stop coughing and Sierra missed 6 days of school.  Once we all got better Jesse ended up with the cough too.  Luckily he didn't get the fever or pink eye.

When we weren't coughing our brains out we enjoyed our time outdoors and have loved our time in the garden.  Jaxon can spend a good 30 minutes throwing dirt clods around while I pull weeds and plant things.  It's really helpful because it cultivates the soil nicely and it keeps him busy.  One of Sierra's favorite things to do is catch bugs/snakes/lizards and keep them in an old aquarium my parents gave her.  We keep it outside and once she catches something she puts it in there and watches it for a while before she lets it go.  This keeps her busy for a whole day sometimes.  She's always sad to let them go, but handles it well because she knows that it's best for them.  We've watched praying mantis' eat all kinds of things, snakes hide, and lizards crawl up the side of the glass.  It's pretty fun stuff.  We also research what each creature likes to eat and she likes to try to feed them as well.  Science class right in our own backyard. 

Sierra's reading skills have improved dramatically over the last couple of months.  She can read so much more quickly and is sounding out much larger words.  It's so fun to see!  She loves to make books too.  She'll fold several pieces of paper together and staple them and then write her own stories.  They usually involve kitties or mommies.  The girl is still obsessed with cats.  She tells me all the time that she is not sure that she wants to have babies, maybe she'll just buy one some day.  But she does want at least 20 cats when she grows up.  She remembers the early days of me nursing Jaxon so well and I'm worried it has scarred her for life.  Nursing was hard for me with both kids and the pain I went through is sure implanted in her memory.  So I've explained not all mommies feed their babies the way I did and that there are babies out there that need mommies who didn't give birth to them.  So she's convinced that she will adopt someday.  I told her she has many years to decide.  She's also convinced that her daddy is going to build her a house in our field.  It's going to be rainbow colors, have a big tree house next to it, and she reminds me she is probably going to need help cleaning up after her cats.  Ha!

April

Sprinkler day in April!?

 

 

Play time with cousin Florence

Sierra got her hair and makeup done at a friends princess themed birthday party

We've sure had some glorious Spring weather!  We've been enjoying every bit of it!  We've taken some hikes up on Starker Forest land near our house.  The kids and dog love it, we all get some exercise, and I have fun bringing my camera.  We actually had a few weeks of health and were able to enjoy Easter without any cooties.  Sierra has been sleeping better but I swear it is going to take the rest of my life to catch up on sleep.

April was busy!  Sierra had a birthday party every single Saturday this month.  She missed one because of a cold, but was able to enjoy a lot of fun times with her friends.  Jess took a Friday off when Sierra had a day off of school and we headed to the coast.  The sun was out but it ended up being so windy we weren't able to enjoy any beach time.  It's a good thing that the Marine Science Center is there, because we were still able to have some fun!

I have continued to keep Sierra in half day Kindergarten and it has been working very well for us.  She's reading and learned so much math.  She really enjoys school but is always ready to come home at lunch.  We typically spend the afternoon reading and playing outside while Jaxon naps.  If it's rainy I encourage her to spend some time playing by herself in her room.  She's used to this routine now and is generally in a good mood when I pick her up and able to make it home without the scary meltdowns.  She's sensitive and such a rule follower that she is a teacher's dream, but does carry stuff home with her.  She worries about her friends if they have a bad day, or if they get in trouble.  She worries if several kids want to play with her at recess, but don't all want to play together.  She's a first born.  And I see myself in her worried brown eyes.  Luckily she talks about all of these things with me before bed, and we are usually able to find some solutions and she moves on. I hate to see her childhood carefree spirit change, but my baby girl is growing up and I can't stop time.

Jaxon is out of the funk he was in for several months.  Phew.  He's more rational, throws less fits, and I'm not afraid to take him in public anymore :)  We are going through a really difficult time with the potty though.  He's been potty trained for so long but he has been going through a spell of not wanting to poop unless we are home.  If we aren't home he holds it and then can't go.  It's horrible.  Some days I spend the whole day trying to get him to go because we were gone the day before.  It's exhausting and frustrating and sad to see him struggle.  It's not something I expected over a year after him being potty trained.  He still isn't dry in the morning either, so he wears a pull up at night.

 I hope this beautiful weather keeps up because we are going to have a bountiful garden this year if it does!  The kids love spending time helping me and they really are big enough to actually be helpful most of the time.  It's a beautiful thing!

March

Sierra was silly and in great spirits while waiting for her surgery!

Since she was already being a goof they recommended that we didn't give her the "happy juice" prior to her surgery. 

She did not like the provided outfit!

 

Silly but still nervous.  Both of us.

So hard to watch your baby be wheeled away.

The recovery room was ROUGH.  When they got the pain under control she slept.

 

Flowers and a giant balloon from Grandma and PopPop

Just a few days after surgery... ready to play!

Garden season is here.  These guys are so helpful :)

It's March!  Surgery month.  I've been trying everything to keep Sierra healthy but 10 days before surgery she ended up on an antibiotic for bronchitis.  Only the second time on an antibiotic in her life and luckily it was just once a day for 5 days.  I decided to keep her home the three days before surgery because I wanted her healthy.  Her cough went away and she ended up re-cooperating in time.  Saying that I was a nervous wreck is putting it mildly.  I somehow managed to put on a brave face for her though.  I didn't want my fear to add to her own.  She did great until a couple days before surgery when she realized it was getting close.   She had a lot of questions that I tried to answer simply, but in reality I wasn't sure of all of the answers myself.  

The younger kiddos get to have their surgeries first so we had to be at the Albany hospital early and there was only one surgery before her.  She was calm and sweet the whole ride to the hospital.  I sat in the back seat and held her hand which she thought was great.  We got checked in and waited and she charmed all of the staff.  She's just that kind of girl.  They all recommended we didn't give her the calming sedative before they took her back because she was calm, happy, and her sweet self.  They let her color and let her know what to expect, and after checking her out thoroughly, wheeled her away.  She didn't cry, but she looked scared.  I managed to hold it together.  I cannot imagine what parents go through that have children that have to go through many procedures.  It must just kill them.  

Surgery lasted about 25 minutes and they brought her to the recovery room.  I could hear her crying for me but they didn't bring her in to where we were for a while.  The first thing she said was, "You said it would be short but it wasn't.  I needed you and you weren't there."  It just about killed me.  She also cried, "I want my tonsils back!"  She was in a lot of pain and was angry about her IV, and was mad at me.  She didn't want me to talk or touch her.  I smiled.  Because that's just not her.  And I know that.  It took quite a while to get the pain under control and once it was, she slept for a little bit.  They told me she would probably puke and that she would sleep a lot.  Neither of those things happened.  After she woke up and wasn't hurting so bad we headed home.  She sang to the songs on the radio and stayed awake the whole way.  I just stared at her because it was not at all what I expected.

The told us the most important thing was to keep up on pain meds and keep her hydrated.  The poor girl didn't want to swallow her own spit and went through a box of Kleenex instead.  So getting her to drink took effort but she is old enough to know that it's important.  She stayed awake the whole day and even managed to play for a bit several times when her meds would first kick in.  She was sweet and grateful but when she would really start hurting, she'd get mad.  Everything I did during those moments made her mad.  She reminded me so much of her daddy.  I took care of him after his surgery and hospital stays and sure do remember!

She ate a bunch of boiled egg whites and some sherbet and she passed out around 7 the first night.  She woke around 11 angry and hurting and it was such a fight to get her to take her medicine at that point.  She was screaming and crying which makes a raw throat hurt worse.  Once the medicine kicked back in she slept and I woke her up at 4 to take more medicine.  Which again made her mad.  But then she slept again until around 7. 

The first two days were pretty rough.  She wasn't a fan of  the taste of the medicine and didn't like swallowing anything.  But after the 2nd day things improved dramatically.  She wanted to eat everything, wanted to play, and when I'd go to give her meds, she'd say she didn't need them.  The first time she said that I was really weary, because I wondered if she'd all of a sudden get too far past the meds and it would be horrible.  But she did fine and only needed medicine before bed and first thing in the morning.  She was a champ.  We were prepared for a good 7 days of pain and sleeping.  That's what the Dr's, hospital staff, and people that had kiddos who'd had the surgery told us to expect.  But she handled everything so well and was back to eating pretty normally on the 4th day and ended up going to town with Aunt Amy and Uncle Ben because they came to visit.  I was so nervous about it but she did great.

The amazing thing is how the second those babies came out she stopped breathing loud, snoring, and the apnea disappeared.  We could tell when she fell asleep after surgery that things were going to be very different.  Even with the pain and swelling from surgery, you could hardly hear her breathing.  One of the nurses that was in during her surgery said, "Those things were huge!  I'm surprised she could breathe!"  But really, she certainly hadn't been breathing well.  She of course had the apnea at night, but also had started keeping her mouth open a lot during the day in order to breathe better.  Poor girl.   I'm so happy we went ahead with the surgery and am looking forward to better sleep for all of us!

I also kicked the dog out of the house this month.  I was sick of having her in the house.  She's big enough to handle being outside full time now, and has done great things for my sanity.  I do get nervous about her running off, but she's such a wimp I think she will stay close to home.  I check on her frequently and so far she's always super close to the house.  She's really grown and weighs more than Jaxon now.  They are such great friends and he misses having her inside, but for the most part all they did together was get into trouble, so it's nice to have them separated.  I'm hoping that we can be healthy again for a while, Sierra will start sleeping better, the dog will be a DOG and live OUTSIDE, and my sanity will continue to improve.  Whew!

February

Puppies are awesome.

Meow!  Face painting at a friends birthday party.

Seriously.

Happy 3rd birthday, Jaxon!!!

Jess made his cake.  It turned out so great!

It tasted good too :)

These two are at the same stage in life.  A 3 year old and a puppy together = insanity.

Oops she did it again....

Working on Valentines for her classmates

The best card ever!!!

The kids are sick again so this is how we spent Valentines Day.

A sick day from school = picnic in the living room.

Sierra made it through 100 days of school minus LOADS of sick days.

He's three.  That explains it all.

Holy Moly.  We are never going to be well.  Kindergarten germs are evil.  I'm tired of sore throats, coughs, and so much snot.  We want our bed back to ourselves.  We want sleep, even just a couple of FULL nights would feel like Heaven.  Good grief.  After seeing the ENT mid month it was determined that Sierra does indeed need her tonsils removed.  We scheduled her surgery for two days before Spring Break starts.  I will be honest and say that I am absolutely terrified.  It's a routine surgery and very short and she gets to come home within hours but the thought of her getting wheeled away all by herself is making me lose more sleep, if that's even possible.

Jaxon turned three this month.  All I can say is wow.  Three is scary.  Since December Jaxon has turned into a screaming, tantrum throwing, little STINKER.  If he doesn't get his way he throws a fit, when he's hungry or full, tired, cold, hot or warm, you get the picture.  He was really sick in December and things kind of went downhill after that.  I hope it's a short phase because it is exhausting and I'm having such a hard time knowing how to handle it.  I've worked so hard for the past 5 years on not being a yeller, but there are some days when I lose that battle.  Yelling at him to quit yelling seems so ridiculous, and I know it, but my voice gets raised anyway.  Part of the time I'm yelling at the dog to stay down, don't bite, don't eat the cat poop, don't try to eat off of the table after you've eaten the cat poop, and then pretty soon I'm just yelling at everyone.  I hate it.  I don't like looking back on the day and cringing, and that's what I've been doing a lot.  But one of the things I've worked on since becoming a mommy is saying I'm sorry.  It's never been an easy thing for me.  But I want my kids to do so when they've hurt someone or done someone wrong.  And the best way to teach them how to do that is to do it myself.  So at the end of the day, when I'm cringing, and feeling exhausted and lost, I wrap them up in my arms and say I'm sorry.  I'm sorry that I raised my voice over something silly, that I hurt their feelings, that I acted before finding out the whole story, that I didn't take the time to laugh and play.  And you know what, kids are so amazing at forgiving.  Now I just need to follow THEIR example on that one.