count down

to Thanksgiving. I think we're all looking forward to the holiday for various reasons. Clearly, I will be glad for a few days off work. I will also be glad for a break from the chaos of 4 children and thankful for the time to focus on Leah & Kaden. I think it will be good for Mike to have some more time with Hannah & Cody as well. We continue to wait to hear from Carol - so the status for H&C's visit with her remains up in the air. If nothing else, H&C will enjoy a visit with Nunny and their cousins.

I feel as if I ought to mention the nice day that we had as a family ... yes, that's right, all 6 of us ... on Sunday. Scott delivered Leah's new bedroom set (which she is THRILLED about) and then we spent the late afternoon/evening with Scott at his soon to be in-laws house so that Mike could watch the Steelers game. Unfortunately for Mike & Scott, the Steelers did not perform very well, but we had a nice time anyway. The children were all well behaved (miracle of miracles!) ... when we got home and got ready for bed I realized it was the first time we'd had a nice day as a family since early August. If we could just have more of those ....

little man

so our little man gave us quite a scare last week. He started coughing on Thursday morning (the 1st), so I gave him some of his D'Allergy and sent him to school. When we picked him up, they said he had coughed a bit at nap time and was otherwise ok. He woke up in the middle of the night, which is not unusual for him, and seemed fine. By 7:00 Friday morning, he seemed to be breathing a little hard and followed me around while I was getting ready for work, just throwing himself to the floor & crying when I couldn't pick him up. We kept him home from day-care, and Mike kept an eye on him. By noon, he had called the doctor's office and had an appointment for 3:30. I met them at the office, and he was sent down for a chest x-ray. The Doc called, said he had pneumonia, and called in an antibiotic. I told her I was concerned with how hard he was breathing, but the hope was that since it had all started so recently, he'd be able to stay at home. Mike assured me they would be ok, so I set off for my night out (see post below) ....

And, of course, got the call just before the show started that Kaden was being admitted to the hospital. I got there as soon as I could after the show ... poor little thing! He just looked so pitiful, with his oxygen mask and the pulse-ox secured to his foot. On Saturday, the doc had an IV started for antibiotics, and we ended up starting fluids on Sunday. Breathing treatments every 3 - 4 hours .... My personal breaking point came on Sunday, when his IV site started leaking and they had to restart ... it was AWFUL. The really bad part was that Little Man had started to perk up on Sunday morning after the fluids started. But the IV team really sent him crashing again. Fortunately, this IV site held (thanks to some creative thinking of the nurse on that evening) and Kaden was well enough to go home on Monday evening. We were all very thankful to have him home, and he was definitely glad to be back!

Leah visited on Sunday afternoon (before the second IV) and it was so cute to see them together. She sat next to him and read him a book, and he just kept hugging her and putting his head on her shoulder. You should have seen Leah's face light up when she came home Monday night to see Kaden there!

Happy to say that Little Man is doing very well now. He's back to day-care this week and is as happy as ever. We're going to start Singulair once a day to see if that gets a handle on some of his allergy/sinus issues ... and hope we don't have to go down the road of testing for possible asthma.

change

So I had the opportunity to attend the Tori concert at the Murat on the 2nd. I can remember the day that I lived & breathed everything Tori. I would have been able to tell you what songs she was performing, where she had been the last several nights ... would have been jotting down the set list to share on-line as soon as the show was over ...

my, how things have changed.

I have Tori's newest album, and I'm pleased to say that I knew all of the songs she performed. We had EXCELLENT seats, and I'm thrilled to have a copy of the show (thanks, Jennie!), but it's just not the same. My evening was clouded by thoughts of Kaden (I'll post the details of that later tonight) and, as much as I enjoyed myself, it was on a different level. I'm often resistant to change, but it's brought some of the best things into my life ... It's important to take a few moments now and then to reflect on where you've been in life and where you're headed, and to count your blessings. Guess that's what the whole personal growth stuff means, eh? So, I won't bore anyone by listing the set list here, but just know that if you'd like to hear the show, I'll be more than happy to share my CD.

trick or treat

Well, here a few pictures of our group of guys and ghouls. Papaw stayed at our house to scare away all the trick-or-treaters so the kids would have some of our candy left, while Dolly & I escorted the kids. Kaden did well getting into his pumpkin costume, but refused to leave the hood up. The poor little man's basket got really heavy, but he refused to give it up for someone else to carry! Hannah was royally ticked by the end of the evening because everyone kept telling her she was a beautiful witch ... "I don't want to be beautiful, I'm supposed to be scary!" Our little ghostie had trouble keeping her eyes in the right place and finally abandoned the costume all together. Cody was his usual happy self and was thrilled that he got to spend part of his evening with his best bud Isaiah.