It certainly has been quite the while. Sorry. Some is a blur...ok, most. We have been trying to get down to Long Island to visit family since Christmas and it seems we are due/have gotten snow every weekend, Sundays--the days we have time to go down or the girls have been sick. Now this weekend Roger has a writer's retreat and I have grades due Tuesday, so it won't happen again this weekend. Ugh.
We are in a bitter cold spell right now. It was 5 degrees when I woke up today and it only got to about 12 degrees during the day. Yesterday we had a strange snow squall come through and within 20-30 minutes we got 2-3 inches of snow and more cold and incredible wind.
Kath has been sick this week. She was pretty scary. I took her to the doctor's on Tuesday because she had a couple of nights of this harsh sounding cough that made it so she couldn't catch her breath...it was a long sucking in sound as she tried to fill her lungs. Very unsettling. Took her into the bathroom and made it sauna-like...that didn't seem to help. Wrapped a blanket around her, and took her outside, that didn't seem to help. It turned out it was croup. Again.
The doctor (not her regular pediatrician)said she wasn't worried since Kath was eating okay. Of course that egg sandwich she was chomping on in the doctor's office was the last thing she ate until today. That night she ran a fever and continued to cough. Then on Wednesday night she not only was running a fever, having trouble catching her breath, coughing, runny nose and not eating, but her hands began to have tremors. Alex was also home Wednesday and then Thursday because she was coughing with a runny nose...and glassy eyes. I was afraid that whatever Kath had, Alex would get and pass along.
Back to the doctor's we went on Thursday. On Tuesday Kath had been a pretty peepy chickie, Thursday she made me hold her, didn't even want to get dressed -she went in her pjs. She sat listlessly on the couch, at a slant and not even tried to help herself. This time, it was a nurse practitioner, and she said it was an ear infection.
Today Kath finally got up and played some. She also ate. And seems to be on an upswing. Whew. Alex went to school today, but her eyes still look glassy. Hoping she doesn't get it. They said it could have been strep too...but that they were giving Kath the same meds they would give her for the ear infection....
Kath is back to doing hippotherapy. We are on Saturdays. So, after Alex's ballet class, we head out and have a yoga/healing touch session...then riding time. It is amazing how different Kath is with just the time switch. We used to have it on Monday's at 4PM, now we have it Saturdays at 2. Kath says goodbye at the door, gets on the horse 'by herself' and has a great time...much different from the girl I hadd to stay with for the whole therapy session, holding her leg. Alex takes sibling lessons and loves it too! As always.
Kath is in a ballet class at our local arts center. I was going to sign her up at Alex's dance studio but her teacher made a big deal about Kath not being potty trained...despite one other mother telling me that her daughter wasn't trained. I think I ran into my first unprovable case of discrimination, I don't think she wanted to deal with Kath's disabilities. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise--as that usually happens--and we found the local place's teacher used to work as a special education teacher and she loves Kath. Kath will be in her first show in April or May-"A Cinderella Story" and she will a castle mouse. She is tickled. Kath giggles the whole class, the movement and the ability to move and dance brings her so much joy.
I have continued to work on my writing and I am really enjoying it and I think it's halfway decent, but unfortunately, by the time I take care of every body else for the day...I don't even have energy to take care of dishes, I go onto Facebook and see how my hemimoms are doing and try to have some time with other people/moms, sharing stories. I also find myself so drained I sometimes just sit and watch NCIS stories...crazy.
We lost power for several hours this week--Monday. No one else on our block did and when it came on it was in a brown out type situation...the pump wouldn't work--so no water or flushing for about 10 hours. When it finally came back on after 10PM one casualty was the phone. It seems something was fried in the surges, so the answering machine in inoperable, so call my cell if you need to reach us.
We are at yet another crossroads though since we found out this week that our sitter will be totally unavailable for next year. So we went from toying with the idea again of homeschooling~~~(Alex has gone from loving school to telling me she is 'lonely' in school and wants to be homeschooled, her teacher says she's great and wonderful, has friends and all...)and keeping Kath in a spot where she gets more out of one on one...her special ed teacher told me this week that she's worried because she doesn't see that Kath has the stamina for a full time program yet,~~~ to looking at full time programs/day care for Kath and putting Alex in before school care before her full day of school. She doesn't even want to take the bus anymore...she keeps seeing the kids being mean to other kids. But as we have noticed before...something will happen. Something will pick up and a solution will be had...would be nice if it was in the form of a lotto ticket...doesn't even have to be billions...or millions, just enough to catch up on bills so I could take a year or so off...it's good to dream! :)
Well, Alex came down looking for me and I set her up on the couch. Going to bring her back up and snuggle. Time is too fleeting....Enjoy!
PS I'm going to send this out after only a light editing, so please excuse, since I'm sure there will errors and although I go back often to fix the errors, I think you would only see that if you looked at the blog itself afterward. :)
Enjoy!
Hopefully tomorrow I will get to writing about some of the funny stuff....
