I've been looking forward to this stretch of three days for a week. Really, I've been looking forward to it ever since I realized how much juggling is required with Brett recovering at home and unable to drive. Aaaahhh...one less schedule to coordinate during what is possibly the busiest week I've had in a long time. How relaxing! Wrong.
At approximately 4:30am during my first night of sleeping diagonally across the bed, Reese starts crying for me "Mommy! I throwed up in my bed!". Oh goody! After a little midnight laundry and a decision to let her "sleep" with me, we were all back to bed.
This morning she waffled between "I feel fine, I want to go to school" (she was pretty convincing) and "my tummy hurts". I had to finish getting Makena and me ready for the day so I instructed Reese to lay on the floor in the bathroom just in case. Five minutes later she bounds into my bathroom with joyful news "Mommy! I throwed up in the potty!" "Good job! You're not going to school."
I promise not to bore you with the details, just know that we were a mere half a mile from home (after a significant amount of running around that had to be done) when she lost the only thing she had eaten that day. A marshmallow. Not a little one. A big one. Please don't ask me why I let her eat a marshmallow. Sometimes my judgement is questionable.
Jacket, carseat, upholstered car floor. Yea again! Did I mention that a) we don't have a garage and b) it's 40 and raining here today? Oh and c) I have, until this point, managed not to have to install/uninstall carseats? Life lessons are best not learned while hunched half-over into a car during a cold rain.
Here's a good life lesson for all the parents out there (courtesy of my very clever friend, Courtney L.). Keep a ziploc bag (a big one!) in the seat pocket in front of each kid's car seat. Voila! Instant barf bag! You just have to remember either to hand it to a might-be-pukey kid early just in case or be really quick on the draw to get it out of the seat pocket, open and into said kid's hands. I, unfortunately, was neither.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Brett, Interrupted
Brett had shoulder surgery last week. Major shoulder surgery. Did I mention he didn't mention just how major it was going to be? Did I mention I don't think he realized exactly how major it was going to be?
He's been having a good deal of pain for over a year. It got to the point that he hurt if he slept on his left side, the cortizone shots did no good and the sports medicine pt-type guy he went to couldn't "work out" the pain. So he went under the knife. The previous MRI showed "some type of damage...could be cartilage, could be tendon-related, could be rotator cuff". So the surgeon dug around enough to discover that he had fraying of his labram (cartilage) and serious inflammation of his biceps tendon. He repaired the cartilage and cut off the inflamed part of the tendon, pulled the remaning section of the tendon up and screwed it back into the bone at his shoulder. Holy pain, Batman.
I'll spare you the details, just know that the first few days (which involved cold, rainy and snowy weather, no school (President's Day), and two kids whose favorite passtime is wrestling) were ugly. Everybody had a short fuse, Brett hurt really badly and....I'll just leave it at that.
A week later, we're back to school, Brett is back to work (although one-armed and from home) and sanity is beginning to return as some semblance of routine comes back. Brett still can't use his left arm- he's in a sling 24/7 for another three weeks- so I'm doing everything. Driving, trash duty, kids' betime/bathtime every night, being his personal chauffeur, sponge-bather, taking him to PT 2x/week, layman's pyhsical therapy...all on top of the regular stuff I have to get done every day. If I manage to neglect you or fail to follow up on something I've promised to do with/for you, please don't hang me up by my toenails- I haven't had time to paint them and you just don't want to see that.
For those who are curious, here's a picture of the LOVELY addition to our bedroom furniture. It's a PT chair- Brett has to strap himself into it for an hour at a time at least three times a day. It moves his arm around for him. Don't you love it? Don't you wish you had one of these in your house?
He really has made leaps and bounds improvements in the last few days. He weaned off the pain meds a few days after the surgery and he's learning to accept what he can and can't do for a while. Being dependent isn't his strong suit, but he's learning to do it more gracefully (and I'm learning not to be the uber-wench I can be sometimes). We go to his post-op with his surgeon tomorrow. He'll get his stitches out (which means he can take a shower without having saran-wrap taped all over his shoulder) and, hopefully, get a positive report. Thanks to everyone who has called to check on him, offered to take our kids for a few hours, offered meals...we're grateful for it all!
He's been having a good deal of pain for over a year. It got to the point that he hurt if he slept on his left side, the cortizone shots did no good and the sports medicine pt-type guy he went to couldn't "work out" the pain. So he went under the knife. The previous MRI showed "some type of damage...could be cartilage, could be tendon-related, could be rotator cuff". So the surgeon dug around enough to discover that he had fraying of his labram (cartilage) and serious inflammation of his biceps tendon. He repaired the cartilage and cut off the inflamed part of the tendon, pulled the remaning section of the tendon up and screwed it back into the bone at his shoulder. Holy pain, Batman.
I'll spare you the details, just know that the first few days (which involved cold, rainy and snowy weather, no school (President's Day), and two kids whose favorite passtime is wrestling) were ugly. Everybody had a short fuse, Brett hurt really badly and....I'll just leave it at that.
A week later, we're back to school, Brett is back to work (although one-armed and from home) and sanity is beginning to return as some semblance of routine comes back. Brett still can't use his left arm- he's in a sling 24/7 for another three weeks- so I'm doing everything. Driving, trash duty, kids' betime/bathtime every night, being his personal chauffeur, sponge-bather, taking him to PT 2x/week, layman's pyhsical therapy...all on top of the regular stuff I have to get done every day. If I manage to neglect you or fail to follow up on something I've promised to do with/for you, please don't hang me up by my toenails- I haven't had time to paint them and you just don't want to see that.
For those who are curious, here's a picture of the LOVELY addition to our bedroom furniture. It's a PT chair- Brett has to strap himself into it for an hour at a time at least three times a day. It moves his arm around for him. Don't you love it? Don't you wish you had one of these in your house?
He really has made leaps and bounds improvements in the last few days. He weaned off the pain meds a few days after the surgery and he's learning to accept what he can and can't do for a while. Being dependent isn't his strong suit, but he's learning to do it more gracefully (and I'm learning not to be the uber-wench I can be sometimes). We go to his post-op with his surgeon tomorrow. He'll get his stitches out (which means he can take a shower without having saran-wrap taped all over his shoulder) and, hopefully, get a positive report. Thanks to everyone who has called to check on him, offered to take our kids for a few hours, offered meals...we're grateful for it all!
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Snow 2010, part 2
OK, so Friday night's this:
turned into Saturday's this:
We wound up with 3 1/4" in our back yard. Not too shabby (although considering Dallas got 12.5" I still think we got shim-shawed). The girls and I spent yesterday running inside and out- tracking muddy snow all over the floor. Brett was strapped to his chair in a post-surgery drug-induced state of "bummer- the only real snow we'll get this year and it's not worth the risk of me going outside and slipping, falling, and landing on this shoulder". Poor guy. He'll get his own post soon. Until then, here are some pictures from yesterday.
Maggie loves the snow- she has grand delusions of some snow-wolf ancestor 800 years ago.
We built a snow-mini. It was good snowman building snow but, let's be honest, that's Brett's department and my hands kept getting cold. I'm from Texas, I don't have gloves!
The sledding actually wasn't as good as the last time it snowed (more ice and less sun then). Our front yard was the gathering point for a good chunk of neighbors. Alison and Clay pushed, Phil caught (ie- kept them from tumbling into the already snow-less street) and I tried to take pictures. It doesn't matter that the "run" was maybe 20 feet long, they had fun.
All right- so now Christmas is over, New Year's is past and it has snowed twice. I'm done with winter. Bring on the heat!
turned into Saturday's this:
We wound up with 3 1/4" in our back yard. Not too shabby (although considering Dallas got 12.5" I still think we got shim-shawed). The girls and I spent yesterday running inside and out- tracking muddy snow all over the floor. Brett was strapped to his chair in a post-surgery drug-induced state of "bummer- the only real snow we'll get this year and it's not worth the risk of me going outside and slipping, falling, and landing on this shoulder". Poor guy. He'll get his own post soon. Until then, here are some pictures from yesterday.Maggie loves the snow- she has grand delusions of some snow-wolf ancestor 800 years ago.
We built a snow-mini. It was good snowman building snow but, let's be honest, that's Brett's department and my hands kept getting cold. I'm from Texas, I don't have gloves!
The sledding actually wasn't as good as the last time it snowed (more ice and less sun then). Our front yard was the gathering point for a good chunk of neighbors. Alison and Clay pushed, Phil caught (ie- kept them from tumbling into the already snow-less street) and I tried to take pictures. It doesn't matter that the "run" was maybe 20 feet long, they had fun.
All right- so now Christmas is over, New Year's is past and it has snowed twice. I'm done with winter. Bring on the heat!
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Our trip to Peter Pan's Flight
Considering we rode the Peter Pan ride more times than should be legal, I think that's a fair name for our trip. We just got back from three days at Disney's Magic Kingdom...a trip many of you know I have been dreading. Truthfully (and as honestly expected) we all had a great time!Admittedly, I am not a Disney person- there is a very narrow demographic that makes sense in the Magic Kingdom and, frighteningly, there is a disturbingly wide demographic that actually visits. I actually began to take pictures of people I planned to snark about later (like the 50+ year-old newlyweds with no children who we stood next to on the raft out to Tom Sawyer's Island- please ask me about her "ruby" Mickey Mouse shaped earrings later; or the 60 year-old man wearing the fishing vest covered in at least 200 Disney pins- again, no kids in sight; or the plethora of perfectly normal looking yet childless 40-somethings who were dancing along with the princesses at every.single.castle performance; or the people who tell everyone within earshot "I've been here every year for the past 37 years!!"), but Brett told me I was not sly enough with my snarky-picture-taking and was likely to get busted so I quit.
Now- back to the great time had by all :) I planned NOTHING about this trip. Brett did everything. Lodging, dinners out, which rides to hit when...the only thing I did was pack our breakfast and lunch food. Our first day was rainy. I'm talking Florida-monsoon, windless-hurricane rainy (please feel free to use my new meteorological terms anytime "lots of rain" just won't cut it). We had ponchos so we stayed tolerably dry. The trick about Disney in the rain, though, is that it keeps people away. We didn't have a single wait on Tuesday. None! We were able to ride almost all the rides we had planned to ride over the course of our three days there on Tuesday alone!
Wednesday started out overcast and much chillier than we would have liked, but it warmed up by the afternoon. Thursday was beautiful and sunny and, yes, I did spend the morning of my 35th birthday having breakfast with various princesses. Luckily, amongst the 100 people at the breakfast, there were at least 5 of us with birthdays. I out-aged the other four by an average of 30 years so the princesses didn't pay me any extra attention. Beauty before age, after all!
One thing that made both me and Brett happy was the kids' reaction to even the "big" rides. They didn't bat an eyelid at Pirates of the Caribbean or Haunted Mansion and they loved Big Thunder Road roller coaster (the biggest one there except for Space Mountain, which they weren't tall enough for) so much that we did that one four times!
I'll quit narrating and post some pictures. I'll put a link to all the pictures on the left margin so, in all your copious free time, you can feel free to peruse all the little details.
The Dumbo ride- providing hours of eager anticipation in a line for a 37-second ride.
Teacups- I don't do spinny rides. I mean, I could, but the end result wouldn't be pretty
Reese's reaction to the beginning of the 5th time she rode her favorite ride- Peter Pan. She declared "I'm Peter Pan" at least eighty-hundred times.
Reese as Pooh Bear when we had all of Winnie the Pooh's Playground to ourselves
Reese during quiet time on Day 1- I couldn't wake her up she was so exhausted!
Magic Carpet Ride
On the way into our first time on Pirates of the Caribbean
Meeting Cinderella- I won't bore you with all of these- just some highlights
Belle- by FAR the coolest of the princesses. Much less sissy than the other two in this set (and this one actually had a little Sandra Bullock thing going on).
Look! My yellow necklace is the same color as your dress!
meeting Aurora (this girl got the short end of the princess stick when it came to dresses)
This was the hallway in our hotel (Wilderness Lodge Villas- FABULOUS place, by the way- we highly recommend it). It is quite possibly the longest hallway ever built. Great raceway...as proven by the two tiny Briggs children 75 yards ahead of me in this picture.
the ferry ride from the hotel to the park was even exciting
Minnie marshmallow pops- can there be any better way to eat a mouse face and ears?
Reese did her own little dance on the way to have breakfast in Cinderella's castle
Cinderella at breakfast
Snow White at breakfast
Aurora at breakfast
Jasmine at breakfast
Belle at breakfast
(thank you, Lord, that I don't have to be a princess character at Disney)Here we are eagerly anticipating the "big" roller coaster's start
Reese got to go up on stage with Captain Jack Sparrow. Be ye careful, for she be in his service forever more. (which apparently means she can "shoot" unsuspecting passersby with the little rolled up scroll he gave her)
I do love Captain Jack- with all the hair and makeup, this guy does a good Johnny Depp.
And here is my big birthday surprise...as our final ferry from the park pulled up to the dock at the hotel, we spotted one of my best friends from college and her family! No, none of us knew the others would be there- I literally looked over my shoulder at the dock and noticed people screaming "LOBERG!!" at me. Unfortunately, it was our only overlapping night and they already had dinner plans. We did get to meet each others' kids (briefly) and hang out for about an hour that evening. It was definitely too short a visit, but it was such a fun surprise! I hope the rest of your trip was great, Amy & Brad!
I put a link to the rest of the pictures on the left. Be sure to click INFO once you start the slideshow to read comments and descriptions.
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