Tuesday, March 10, 2009

more irony

I'm usually the first person to hop on the soap box and rail against the over-prescription of antibiotics. 'Johnny has a runny nose, doctor, I need a prescription!' 'Suzy has had a fever for 2 hours - I need some antibiotics!

Thankfully the bacteria out there haven't grown completely resistant and antibiotics still work when necessary. Alex decided to revisit the location of his birth and spend the weekend in the hospital. He had croup (virus) along with a secondary infection (bacterial) in his trachea. It was so scary to hear that little man try to breath, and see how hard he had to work to get air into his lungs. Hooray for insurance and nurses and doctors. After a fair amount of poking around they figured out what was up, gave him the antibiotics, and he started to improve immediately. He still has a nasty cough, but his breathing and heart rate are back to normal. It was so nice to have him fight back when he didn't want to do something.

Katie got to spend the weekend with Oma and Opa. When they came up to visit Sunday night, after she said 'Hi mom,' the next words out of Katie's mouth were 'I want to go back to Oma and Opa's house.' Too bad she doesn't have any fun over there. She got to go to work with Oma, and from what I hear had a grand time making pictures for everyone that works in the Registrar's office and 'helping' Oma do her job. When Oma dropped her off yesterday and told her that she was going to go visit Aunt Lizard and Uncle Mark for a week, Katie just about lost it completely. The promise of treats ('I LOVE treats!) saved the day. Somehow she has adjusted back to the boring life of hanging out with her parents and brothers. Another trooper in the family.

Max is thankfully small enough that he could hang out with us in the hospital without too much trouble, which is good because we didn't have enough time to clone mom to meet the different needs of both of her boys. So far all the hand washing and dried-out hands seem to be paying off, and he's still healthy.

Friday, March 6, 2009

daredevil

Alex is secretly a very daring guy. This past month now he's been running an experiment we call 'Does Oma REALLY love me?' In the Reese house, when it came to the flu Dad was in charge of clean up. Mom would run for the hills. Alex has been putting her resolve to the test.

Katie's birthday sleepover turned into 'Alex has the flu at Oma's house.' When I talked to mom first thing in the morning she said 'Alex seems to have a touch of the flu. He probably won't be making it to the Children's Museum.' She assured me that they were OK, and that I could take my time getting up there to pick the kids up. Five minutes later 'Mt. Vesuvius has erupted. GET UP HERE QUICK!' You can ask Roger for the translation of 'I'll be there in a second.'

Last Saturday was even better, however. Oma and Opa joined us for an adventure checking out 'houses on wheels.' Although this past year was a banner year as far as losing astronomical amounts of money goes, we would still like to get an RV sooner than later for family trips. We think we'd actually see our relatives more if we had a place out of their hair we could stay. And since Roger can work remotely, we figure we can just cruise around and park it somewhere for a week or so and have a grand time while he 'works.' But I digress.

Approximately 1 minute before the waitress brought our food at lunch, Alex launched another phase of his experiment all over Oma. If I had had more presence of mind I would have taken a picture. She was - rightly so - absolutely horrified. We're pinning the blame on Alex chugging Oma's raspberry lemonade. Too much acid too quickly. Regardless the cause, I'm really hoping that Alex is done testing the depth of Oma's affection.

Keep in mind that Alex is but one of three participants in the bodily fluid Olympics going on around here. We skipped the lighting of the torch and opening ceremony pageantry, but the games are still going on strong. I only bring this up because I keep thinking the following: To you folks out there who thought that my (former) job requirement of dissecting various types of rodents on occasion was completely disgusting, I shake my head in complete disbelief. I would GLADLY remove the spinal cords of another couple thousand fetal mice than continue this festival of magic that is ongoing at our house.

Luckily everyone is still mostly smiley.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

spring anyone?



We had our first trip out to the reservoir on Monday night. A little too nippy for swimming - at least for the humans - but the kids had fun digging in the sand and 'throwing' the ball for Seven. She turned bright red, but still had to keep swimming.

My tulips are starting to poke through the ground, so maybe we'll get another bit of snow after all. Perhaps if we plan on going to the zoo tomorrow . . .



And just to prove that Max gets to come on adventures with us, here is a reenactment of his first trip to the swimming pool. The trunks have a little room for growth in them. Poor guy is going to get hand-me-downs his whole life, he might as well get used to it now.