Mommathon

Hopefully this will be the last installment in this series. We went to the dr today and we got the results back from his foot culture. He just has a normal infection and not a super scary one and his foot is no longer red and puffy, soooo we can stop with the oral hive-producing meds and just put some Neosporin on it. Now, that said, if his foot gets red and puffy again we have to try the oral meds again. We also need to keep giving him Benadryl to keep his hives in check until all the medicine is out of his system.

The Rest of Her Life is one of those books that ends so beautifully and wraps things up so nicely. Some books leave you wanting for more. Some books end and make you wonder if the author just ran out of ideas. Again, this is not one of those books. It is well written from beginning to end and is a beautiful story of a family's love and strength while enduring a horrible tragedy. The Center of Everything (by the same author) is also very good.

Liam's teacher has been having me work with small groups of students concentrating on fine motor skills, exercising the muscles in their fingers, which will hopefully help them with their writing and pencil grip. We have done some stringing of beads, practicing their site words in sand, picking up beans with a spoon, etc. This week I taught them how to play marbles. They had SO MUCH fun. What I was in awe of while I was watching them play and laugh and have fun with this very simple game was that these kids don't know what it is like to live without a laptop, Playstation, and DVD player and yet they were having a blast with marbles. Now, I am not delusional. I know that if given the choice, they probably wouldn't choose marbles over their Playstation, but it was still fun watching them have so much non-electric fun.

Okay, so we gave Liam the second antibiotic while continuing to give him Benadryl. But how do I know if he is allergic to the second antibiotic if I continue to give him Benadryl? So, I stopped the Benadryl and he broke out in hives all over his torso and back. So, what do I know now? Nothing!!!! Did he break out again because he still has the first antibiotic coursing through his veins or is it the second one that is causing him problems? By bedtime tonight he was getting pretty bad so I called the dr. They told me for tonight to not give him any more antibiotics, start giving him Benadryl and come in tomorrow. Poor kid.

Let me start at the beginning. This all started yesterday as we were walking out the door to go to church. Liam could not get his socks on because his foot hurt so bad. He had what we thought was a blister on his foot on Tuesday which his teacher put a band-aid on. I assumed it was a blister because his shoe had broken and it was rubbing on his foot. So, the "blister" is now infected and I took Liam to the dr and Sean took Colm to Sunday School. The dr we saw said it could be a blister or maybe a recluse spider bite. Most of the signs point to a blister though since he has not had a fever and there was no blood in his urine. She gives us a scrip for an antibiotic and sends us on our way with instructions to follow up with our regular dr on Wednesday. This morning Liam wakes up with hives ALL OVER his torso and back. Liam seems to think it is a bug bite. Apparently he is allergic to the antibiotics they gave us, just like Sean is. So, we head back to the drs, but this time we go to the walk-in at our regular drs office, but don't see our regular dr. This dr is worried that Liam's "blister" could be a staph infection and now we have to watch him like a hawk. She gave us some different antibiotics, but it doesn't work on staph infections. The one he is obviously allergic to, however, does work on staph infections. So now we have to wait until Wednesday for the culture they took of his foot to come back to see what kind of infection it is. I really hope it isn't staph because if it is I don't know what we are supposed to do since he is allergic to the drugs that treat it. I have had quite a morning.


This is two hours after his first dose of Benadryl. You should have seen it before!

I am getting tired of blank walls and I am also getting tired of not having anywhere to display the boys' masterpieces. So, today I went to Hobby Lobby and bought these frames (they don't have any glass in them) that happened to be 50% off. I had the guy in the framing department put the sawtooth hanging things on the back so they can be hung either horizontally or vertically so I can change our little gallery as needed. These little pieces of art can be found in our playroom.

Colm LOVES to vacuum the stairs with the mini-vac and he does a GREAT job-SERIOUSLY!


This is how Liam feels about cleaning. To be fair he had spent the better part of the morning cleaning his room (which was a PIT) and he just couldn't peel himself off the floor.

Liam had his family birthday party last Sunday. It was fun and another excuse to eat cake. :)


He got a lot of knights stuff and of course, Star Wars.




The first time all of the cousins were under the same roof. Tatum, Finnegan, Jessika, Luke Liam, Colm


Sean putting the castle together.

Click here.

I hate dusting. I told Sean before we got married how much I hate to dust. I will clean toilets, I will do dishes, I will do laundry, but I really don't like dusting. When was the last time you dusted and/or how often do you dust? Be honest, people.

Colm and I went on a field trip today to the downtown library to a program they have right now about fairy tales. It was a great exhibit with LOTS of hands-on things for kids to do.


Outside of parking garage...pretty neat.






Climbing Jack's beanstalk


The giant from Jack and the Beanstalk


Riding in Cinderella's coach


Colm making up his own fairy tale on the computer.


Look, Mom, a secret window.

I know it is a little late for this, but I have decided I need to do something for myself, so here it is...Colm and I always go out on these fun little field trips during the week. Whether it be to storytime at the jazz museum, a play at Union Station, or just going to the park when the weather is nice. I love spending time with Colm, but we always do all of these things by ourselves. We went out yesterday and I saw all of these moms out together with their kids. I need that. I need to spend more time with people over the age of four. We can still do all of our fun stuff, but I need to make a conscious effort to start asking others to come with us. Not only will it be good for me, it will be fun for Colm, too. I know he could use a break from me every now and again, too.

Are there ever things you want to blog about but you can't?

Sean and I had dinner last night with over 3,300 other people. Sean's work had their annual company dinner. There were over 330 tables with ten people at each table. It was crazy. (When Sean first started working there almost ten years ago we used to meet at a dinner theater for the company dinner.) The food was good and they had an awesome group called the Stanford Taiko Drums perform. Everyone in the whole room stopped what they were doing to watch these people. It was really cool to watch that many people stop and pay attention.

Liam's party was a huge success and now I can relax. We had eight kindergarten boys (plus Colm) and it was great...the kids were great, the cupcakes were great and the magician was great. Phew! On a sidenote, I can't believe he is six! Six, people! He has to use both hands to show people how old he is!


Cupcakes in the shape of a magician's hat with rabbits on top.


The magician was so good and so good with the boys...totally into boy humor. They were in stitches.


Liam the assistant (yes, he's holding a Barbie...it was part of the trick).




Checking out the goody bags.

I went to go get my ashes today and as we were going back to our seats Colm wanted to know why I didn't get my "snack".

I was pulling out of the garage yesterday and I turned on the radio. An REM song was on and I had to stop the car. It is amazing how a song can bring back memories. It got me thinking about the music that was so important to me in high school and college. The music that my friends and I danced to, drove around the city to and played in the background while we were going about our lives. REM and the B-52's always bring back memories. Loveshack! I think of the parties that Phil had in his basement. We were always dancing-always! The Red Hot Chili Peppers were a favorite when things got a little crazy. New Order always makes me think of dancing at the Monolith in high school. Whenever I hear Madonna's Vogue it reminds me of a time when Dana and I were driving down the freeway with the windows down at night singing at the top of our lungs or the time I made Matt Livengood listen to it a zillion times in my car as we were driving around because I had it taped back to back the length of an entire tape. He loved it though. :) Whenever I hear Erasure it reminds me of the mornings I drove to the hospital before I went to school to see my mom when she was in a coma. That tape must have been in my car during that time. The Samples and the Indigo Girls always makes me think of the last summer I worked as a camp counselor when I was in college. On the weekends, when the kids were gone and all of the counselors were left alone to gear up for the next busload of kids coming on Monday, those two were staples of our reenergizing. What soundtracks define my life right now? The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything soundtrack, Suzuki Book One listening CD and the Backyardigans CD. My how times have changed. :)

Colm and I went swimming today (inside!) and I look over and he is praying-in the pool! I asked him why he was praying. He says he is praying to God to help him find the pool toy he can't find. I love it!

Liam informed me tonight that he has a crush (his word not mine) on Sarah. I will admit, Sarah is pretty cute. It's her freckles.

Colm has never been a big Sesame Street fan...until last night. My MIL treated Colm and I to a night at Sesame Street Live at the Sprint Center and it was great. It was a much higher quality show than when we used to take Liam. It was about what you want to be when you grow up; it was very cute. Watching Colm's face was priceless. When the show first started he had this look on his face...a little confused mixed with a little bit afraid mixed with a little bit of anticipation. Two seconds into it though and his face lit up...it would have been a gem of a picture, but I was too busy watching him to actually get the shot.

We got this game for Christmas and the boys love it and so do I. There are a few ways you can play it. We have never played by the official rules, but the gist of the game is to sort the squares by attribute in a dominoes sort of way. Different lines have different attributes and if you can't play one of your squares based on what has been played you can try and start a new line with a different characteristic until you have used up all of your squares.

This is our fifth year of preschool, so by now I have several holiday parties under my belt. I always try to sign up to help in some way, whether that be bringing the treats, bringing the drinks, coming up with a game, etc. I have never signed up to bring the take home treat before though. I think these turned out great. I got these cute cellophane bags at Hobby Lobby. In each bag I put a pink plastic Valentine cup, a container of bubbles and some Valentine stickers. I had also bought some Valentine M&M's to put in them, but I figured by the time the party is over they will probably be maxed out in the sugar department, so I saved those for a project Liam is doing at school. Anyways, I think I like these because it is a great excuse to buy something pink and I don't get a chance to do that very often.