Shoo Flu

Well, we're almost through with Day 4 of Aidan having the flu. I know we just found out he had it yesterday afternoon, but he has been really sick since Monday afternoon. I can't say how much I'm ready for things to get back to normal around here. My kids being sick totally stresses me out - beyond words actually - and I'm ready to have my life back. I just hope Liam manages to escape it.

Aidan and I have been sleeping on the couch since Sunday. Thank God we bought a huge sectional a few months back. There's room for both of us to be comfortable. But honestly I miss my bed.

Hanging On

This has been one of those weeks that I'd rather forget. If it's not one thing, it's definitely another.

Aidan came home from school Monday not feeling great. He sat on the couch when he got home and didn't get up until 8:30. He was was definitely not himself. He started running fever, he didn't want to eat and he was tired. I finally took him in today and they tested him for strep and the flu. Flu it is. Great. He hasn't had the flu in about 5 years. And yes, he's had a flu shot. My kids being sick stresses me out and I can't wait for him to start feeling better.

We've been in the process of buying a house. We haven't really talked about it with anyone because we didn't want to jinx it. But, there have been so many things happening in this process that jinxing it at this point is far beyond our concern. All we need is some luck and we'll have the house that all 4 of us really really want. I guess a few prayers wouldn't hurt either.

Because we are in the middle of trying to buy a house, we decided we wouldn't decorate for Christmas this year. All we've done is put up the Christmas tree - the ghetto Christmas tree that I hate. I guess I never realized how much my over the top Christmas decorations get us all in the Christmas spirit. Lesson learned.

I've been out of my workout routine for one reason or another for the past 2 weeks. Now that I'm feeling fine and my feet seem to be doing better, it's too dang cold to hit the streets in the morning after I take the kids to school. I know I could probably just do my workout some time in the afternoon or evenings, but I'm a morning workout person and if I don't get it done first thing, I won't get it done at all. So, I broke down and pulled out the treadmill this week and started my "winter workout routine". Blech. I'd honestly rather poke my eyeballs out, but that's just not necessary. Dreadmill it is.

And don't even get me started on my tan. It's fading and I hate it.

So, to sum up this blog, I'm in a funk and need to find a way out of it and fast. It's December after all and I should be enjoying it. Oh and just in case anyone was wondering, I haven't figured out the new direction I want to take with my blog just yet, so I'm sticking with what I know for now. Enjoy.

Changing It Up

I haven't been blogging much lately. Mostly because the things I usually talk about on here - kids, family, life, etc., sometimes get me in trouble for one reason or another. So, I think I'm going to change it up a bit. Take my blogging in a new direction. I'm not sure what direction to go, but we'll see how it goes.

That's it. That's all I've got for now. Wish me luck and inspiration. Have a great day!

Peek-A-Boo!!!

Look who's back!!!

I took a break. I haven't blogged in over 2 months. I guess you could say I was feeling "uninspired". I didn't want to just blog because I felt like I had to. So...I took a hiatus. I'm not going to promise that I'm all of the sudden inspired either. I'm just feeling it right now. So, I'm going with it.

Lots has been going on. Let's see. Liam's a soccer stud - but we already knew that. Aidan's 10. I turned 37 - yikes. Elliot ran his first 100-mile race and didn't die. I'm just busy being me, which as we all know is pretty hard work. The Rangers went to the World Series. The Cowboys season is dying a slow death. The Aggies are in the top 25 in college football - gasp. TCU is teetering on a BCS championship. I've been regularly working out (until last week when I got busy helping Elliot with his race prep and this week since I'm sick). Liam got contact lenses. Aidan was sick for almost a month. That's the short version.

I'm not really doing anything more than I've ever done, but it doesn't seem like I have time for anything anymore. I haven't even had time for my beloved DVR, which is filling up with nonsense that I love. Sigh.

Don't take any of this as griping about my life. I'm totally not. I'm just trying to fill you all in on what's been happening. Maybe the hiatus wasn't such a good idea. It seems I'm more stressed about this blog than I thought I would be. Oh well. Life is good. Life is busy. And, I'm sure it will just get busier...

Until next time. And, next time won't be 2 months from now. Toodles!

Looking Back...

October 4, 2002 was a day that changed our lives forever.

Aidan was born with several congenital problems. One of the most serious being a narrow airway. 2002 was by far the hardest year we've ever had with Aidan. It was the beginning of new discoveries with Aidan and his health and it was a long year. Aidan had always been a "quiet" baby. You could barely hear him cry and he could never eat, drink or cry at the same time. It was frustrating to say the least to KNOW there was something wrong with him and to have to piece together all of his problems, but we encountered them as they came up. In April of 2002, during a routine surgery to place tubes in Aidan's ears, his doctor discovered that Aidan's trachea was abnormally small - the size of a premature infant and he was 18 months old. So, the next step was to evaluate his trachea and try and make it more suitable for him. At this point in his life, he was 18 months old and he was still eating baby food, not walking and not really able to hold himself up for long periods of time in a sitting position. So, we figured his airway issues were contributing to all of these problems - in addition to him being so quiet. In May of 2002, we opted to have a surgery done that would laser away some of the webbing on his vocal cords. The surgery itself had a pretty good success rate and we hoped that it would help solve alot of his problems. A few days after the surgery, Aidan got very very sick. He contracted an infection in the hospital that almost killed him. The only way we could get him better was to sedate him and put him on a ventilator so he could recover. An outpatient surgery ended up being 10 days in the hospital with our son in a medicinal coma. It was definitely one of the hardest things to see.

Towards the end of May, we started noticing alot of improvements with Aidan. One of the first things we noticed was that he was finally able to eat some table foods. Almost immediately after he started eating more food, he started gaining strength and was able to sit independently for however long he wanted. We felt like we had a whole new little boy and were so excited that we went through with the surgery. The plan was to follow up with another laser surgery in October to improve on the last one.

October 4, 2002...the day that changed my son's life forever. The surgeon had prepared us for several different surgical procedures that might end up happening once they got Aidan put to sleep, but he was confident that the laser surgery would be the best option once again and he told us that we didn't have anything to worry about.

About 10 minutes after Aidan went back for surgery, the surgeon came into the waiting room. He had a look on his face that I will never forget. He told us that they were going to have to go in and reconstruct Aidan's trachea. It was going to be a longer surgery than what they had anticipated, but he assured us it would be the best way to go considering the condition of his airway. So, we consented. And waited for what seemed like an eternity.

Aidan came out of the surgery and went straight to PICU where he was once again sedated and put on a ventilator. He would stay that way for the longest 14 days of my life. There is nothing harder than sitting at your child's beside and listening to a machine do all the breathing. There is nothing harder than having to explain to your 4 year old son why his brother was "living" at the hospital and why I couldn't be around as much as he wanted me to. Once Aidan was taken off the vent, we were moved to a "regular" room for a few days. The difference in our son was remarkable. The day we brought him home from the hospital, I was on the phone with my friend and she heard Aidan crying in the background and she said "Omigosh! Is that Aidan? He's so loud!" I almost started crying right then. I hadn't realized until that point how little air that poor boy was getting into his lungs. About a week after being home from the hospital, Aidan started walking - just a few days shy of his second birthday.

I guess the reason I'm sharing this story is because it shows how far my little fighter has come. There have been several times over the years that Aidan could've left us, but he didn't. He's a fighter and he's had to fight for his life since he was in my belly. It's hard to look back and think about how fragile he was back then. He runs and plays just like every other almost 10-year old boy. Granted he's a little smaller than alot of them, but he's still doing it and that's what makes me so proud of him. Here are a few of my favorite pictures of him. Mommy loves you "bug"...











And my Aidan 8 years to the day later...

Grrrrr...

I know. I've been blog lazy. I have no excuse. I just haven't been in the mood.

Liam will get his blue belt in karate this week. He's super excited of course. He's also playing soccer again this fall and doing awesome. He's the captain of the team and wears the title well if I do say so myself. He loves being a leader and more importantly, he's good at it. He's got a great team this season and hopefully this is a group that can stay together for a while.

Aidan's doing well too. He's also playing soccer, but his team isn't fairing quite as well as Liam's, but he's having fun and that's all that matters. He had to miss his first game because he was sick with a cold, but he made it to his second game. He had to sit out the second half because the heat got to him, but he tried and his coach was very sympathetic.

Elliot's been running like crazy. We're about a month and a half away from his big 100 mile race in Oklahoma. I'll be ready for him to get this under his belt so he can quit training for it. All his spare time is spent running and it makes it difficult to get other stuff done around here. But, it's what he loves, so I have to love it too...He's doing a 50 mile race in Amarillo in 2 weeks, so hopefully that will get him amped up for the 100 miler.

Here's a quick health update. Ugh.

We're about to start the 6th week of school and Aidan has successfully made it through an entire 6 weeks without being absent. First time EVER! I told him Friday that he's going to school all week even if his arms are falling off. He's never had perfect attendance, so I'll be damned if we're gonna miss it by 5 days! He has been sick though. I think it just started out as allergies and turned into a little cold. He managed to get over it pretty well and ended up not having to miss any school for it. I had to take him to his doctor Friday for an asthma check, since we're getting into cold and flu season. Turns out I found out some not-so-good news. When the doctor did his "routine" check up on Aidan, he looked in his ear and saw that the hole in his eardrum was back. No bueno. We've had it repaired twice. Once when he was about 2 1/2 and once about 3 years ago. The second surgery was way more in depth and was supposed to have a 90% success rate. Go figure. Nothing with Aidan ever goes according to plan, so I don't know why I'm surprised that this one didn't work. Oh well. So, I've got to make a phone call to his ENT this week and get in to see him so we can decide what to do now. I'm sure another surgery is in our future, which does not make me happy. With Aidan's airway issues, no surgery is easy, so I'm always a basket case. It's been a few years since we've had to deal with a surgery, so I'm not looking forward to it. I'll make sure and keep everyone posted when I know more.

I've taken a big step in my health. I'm finally going to go get my foot checked out. It's gotten to the point where it hurts to do anything, so I figured if I'm going to keep up my running regimen that I need to fix my foot. I hate going to the doctor, so this is a huge step for me and I'm not really looking forward to it, but I know it has to be done. And who knows, if this goes well, I may make an appointment to have my hip looked at sometime soon too...

Well, I guess that's about it. It's Sunday night and I've had a very productive weekend, so I really need to get in bed so I can be up on time in the morning. I hope everyone has a great week.

Stuff

Let's play catch up...

Friday afternoon, I was talking to my best friend Keri, who lives near Tulsa, and we were joking about how awesome it would be if I could come up to visit her for the weekend. She came to visit me in July and I told her then I would come see her in September. BUT, my September weekends are filling up and I realized going up to see her was not going to be as easy as I had thought. Elliot's work schedule is about to go into overdrive and this past weekend was really the only weekend until the middle of December that wasn't booked. So...I checked airfare and got myself a roundtrip ticket from DFW to Tulsa. I was so excited, but I had to hurry. I bought my ticket at 6:30 and I was standing in line at the airport by 8:00. I've never done anything so spontaneous in my entire life. It was kind of fun. The best part, Keri didn't know I was coming. I had told her that I wasn't going to be able to do it. So, I called her husband and made arrangements with him to pick me up at the airport in Tulsa so we could suprise Keri. Needless to say, she was stunned when I came walking through her door at 11:30 at night.

We spent the weekend hanging out. They had a BBQ on Saturday. I learned to play Bocci ball, Hillbilly golf and my team totally dominated at beer pong. Sunday they had friends over again and we played cards, dominoes and told stories all night long. We went to visit her Dad who lives about 30 minutes away and who I haven't seen in probably 18 years. We went to visit her Mom and stepdad who I had never met. I got to hang out with her awesome kiddos who I had never met. And, I got to meet the man she's been married to for 17 years Andy. It was so much fun. We ate awesome food and drank lots of beer. I am so happy that I got to go. Needless to say, by the time I got home Monday afternoon, I was happy to see my family. The house had been neglected since Friday night, but that was ok.

We spent the day Monday painting Liam's bare bedroom, putting together his new bed and refinishing some old furniture. So, now his room is done and he's a happy young man to have his own space.

The rain has been crazy this week. We've been getting bombarded with what was leftover of a tropical storm and we've had tons of rain. I think we're up to about 10 inches today. Our roof was leaking over the garage this morning when Elliot left for work. I called the roofing company that put on our new roof a year ago and the owner was nice enough to come out and see what the problem was. Hopefully he got it figured out and we're good to go now. We haven't had anymore rain yet to see if the leak has been stopped, but I was happy that he made such an effort to come help me out.

I think that's about it for this week so far. I'll end my post with some pictures of my trip to visit Keri. Have a great week!

ON THE ROAD TO VISIT KERI'S DAD & MOM



BEING IN OKLAHOMA, I HAD TO BUY A SOONERS HAT...ESPECIALLY SINCE KERI & HER FAMILY LOVE UT...



TAKING A BREAK FROM THE FUN TO POSE FOR A PICTURE...