Todnem.com (beta)

Yep. That's what we've been up to the past couple of days.

Sunday, Kadie was acting cranky but I put that down to her not sleeping well the night before and my schedule being off (she's amazingly perceptive of our moods). Monday was a holiday for everyone so I took Kadie out with me on errands. As a treat, I took her to the Chick-fil-A (a treat for me as well since it's an opportunity for Kadie to run out some energy in the play room while I eat a leisurely, albeit not entirely healthy, lunch). Instead of running straight for the play area as she normally does, however, Kadie went directly to an open booth and laid down on the bench. I knew she'd been acting a little out of sorts, but this was just plain weird. I asked her several times if she wanted to go home, but she was firmly against that idea. While she felt a little warm, I put that off because it was, afterall, 90 degrees and humid outside.

When I got the food, she finally decided to go into the play area but I watched as she walked in and went straight to the benches where parents sit and laid down on one of those. I gave her a few minutes, then went in after her. Again, she was adamant for staying versus going home, so I held her on the bench for a good 15 or 20 minutes so she could watch the other kids play. She wasn't acting particularly listless (a surefire indicator that she's sick) so I was still thinking it had more to do with a full week at a new school with a new sleep schedule and being overly tired.

We got in the car and headed home. On the way, Kadie started complaining that the bones in her head hurt. By the time we got home, she was most definitely feverish so I gave her a dose of Tylenol, turned on Noggin (a kid's channel) and curled up on the couch with her. About 5 minutes later, she turned over and I got a horrible feeling that something was about to happen. I was quick enough to sit up so as to not become the receptacle of her outpouring, but not so quick as to save the couch from the inevitable sour bath. Yelling for some help from upstairs, I grabbed a blanket to catch whatever came next but that's all she had (which was, I guarantee you, enough). Jeff hauled out the wet vac and I set to work trying to suck out the vomit from a cloth couch that does not have removable cushions.

About 15 minutes later, we tried another dose of the Tylenol and stuck to ice chips until later that evening when she ate a piece of toast. She was still pretty hot when she went to bed and she woke up around 1 that morning, still burning, so I decided to take Tuesday off. Of course, at 7:30 that morning (which just goes to show you that she needed the rest because 7:30 is like noon to Kadie), she came running into the bedroom, exclaiming that she felt all better and that the bowl was still clean (we had placed an emergency bowl beside her bed).

We spent the day inside, trying to stay fairly calm (yeah, right) and drinking lots of water. I was able to catch up on some housework that needed to be done. Yea! Thankfully, for the most part, when Kadie does get sick, she sticks to the 12 to 24-hour bugs. Unfortunately, today, my stomach has been rather unsettled. I'm chalking that up to a mild case of whatever Kadie got because it has yet to develop into much. The deployment ran me down again - I'm achy, my kidneys hurt and I'm fighting off migraines again - but I'm working at hydrating myself and relaxing.

We had our teeth cleaned this afternoon. It meant that Kadie missed more school (I made the appointments long before we had enrolled her) but she was very good about having the disturbance in the middle of her day. She came with me cheerfully and just as nicely went back to school when we were done. While there are days when I feel like yanking the apron strings a little tighter, I constantly count my blessings that I have such an independent child. Her attitude makes things so much easier and certainly a lot more pleasant than I've seen them for other parents. You can put that up in the top 5 of my Gratitude list, Lisa.

Now, it's time for me to go to bed. I'm running behind tonight but, since I haven't posted for so long, I figured a quick update was in order. I hope everyone has had a good day. My thoughts and prayers are still with Mom and Grandma (especially). This may seem inappropriate to ask but, since you're going to be flying out soon, have you checked into the security policies of taking the urns on board a plane?

I go in for my dentist appointment today to get my cavities filled. I'm stressing over this so much that not one, but five canker sores popped up in my mouth yesterday morning. I've never had a cavity filled, so I don't know what to expect and I don't think that's what's bothering me. It's because the first time I ever had to have Novocain was when I had my wisdom teeth pulled and the dentist that did that was so horribly awful that just the thought of another shot puts me on edge. I haven't slept well the past few nights and am noticeably more crabby but the good news is it'll be done and over with by 2 pm today. My appointment is for 1:30 and I plan on taking a couple of Excedrin PM tablets around 1 to help me relax and start kicking in the pain relief before it's needed so I don't have to wait. Jeff has been kind enough to take off time from work to drive me over so that I can take the pills and he was joking that he'd stop and get me some ice cream on the way home. That would go over well with a completely numb face. I'm probably going to pass out and end up drooling all over myself...looking forward to this more and more.

On a lighter, and warmer, note, we've been having some real spring weather lately. Actually, there were a couple of days that it was closer to summer weather. Kadie and I went grocery shopping after church on Sunday and I started to sweat a little putting the bags into the car. We've decided on a basic plan for the landscaping, relying on some hardy lilac bushes for color and a pretty green groundcover (Purple Wintercreeper - it turns purple in the winter) to cover up the flowerbed and to create "moats" around the existing trees to aid in making mowing easier. We're definitely the low maintenance type of landscapers, so I'm hoping the Wintercreeper will take root quickly and spread just as fast.

Unfortunately, allergies are still raging. We tried to go one day without the Benadryl for Kadie and she ended up throwing up in the car. Though I don't think the Benadryl would have helped that day. It was on the way home that she threw up (Ms. Tracy had them outside playing for the majority of the day that day), and we give her the medicine at night (it only lasts 4-6 hours); but it was a sign to keep her on it for a little while longer at least.

I painted the downstairs half bath on Saturday night. It only took about 4 hours, but I was hurting afterwards. Being a half bath, it wasn't really big enough to allow for our ladder, but we have 10-foot ceilings, so the little stepladder wasn't cutting it. I was able to fit the bigger ladder in there, one way, making it easy to reach about 1/3 of the room, but forcing me into some very interesting and, at times, dangerous positions for the rest of it. An extension pole wouldn't have helped because I still needed to get into the corners and rollers just don't allow for that. I still have some touchups to do on the trim work and to figure out what design I want to stencil for the accent color (the main walls are a light green, the accent will be dark green), but it's a start. Kadie is impatient to get her room started. We picked up her paint (light pink) at the same time and she has no concept of the work involved so she keeps asking when hers will be done. She'll make a great taskmaster when she grows up.

Time to get to work. Hope all are doing well. Kjetil and Mari - we're still sending our prayers and positive energy to you (and the children as I know they pick up on the energies of their parents). I'm still praying that you receive good news from the amnio.

Sounds like a horror movie title, now that I think about it.

Today, we all three get to go in for our semi-annual teeth cleaning. Kadie's excited but I'm sure Jeff's less than thrilled. I don't care either way since I know it can't be worse than having someone attach a string to your tooth and pull on it (which I deal with on a monthly basis now).

Yesterday I went in to get our taxes done at H&R Block and, while they came back with a refund amount from both State and Federal, with the amount of taxes we paid last year and all the things we should be able to deduct (especially the home interest), Jeff wasn't thrilled with the amount. Tracy recommended her tax guy and we're going to try to get his opinion on our taxes before we pay for H&R Block to file. Since they just go by what the computer prompts them to put it, we're probably missing deductions that could result in a bigger refund - something we could definitely use. Tracy said that her tax guy was really good in working with you to get you your full amount back and he also charges about 1/2 as much as H&R. It's worth a try.

Our beautiful weather has deserted us. It's rainy and cold today and it's supposed to be colder tomorrow. It figures that Monday and Tuesday are both sunny and 80 and the weekend's gonna be cold and wet. And while I do miss Alaska, Dave, western Washington winters are nothing like Alaskan ones. The winters there are nice (especially with the northern lights), and we're more prepared for them...and at least with the colder weather we actually get the benefit of real snow, not that crap we got here this year...but it's also a dryer cold, not the wet, windy kind you're probably dealing with. Sorry - apples for apples only. I'd be more than happy to bend that rule for the summer time though.

To all that have been having problems (I know mom posted something about the timing out issue when trying to post), our DSL connection has been having issues. Verizon (our carrier) is being the typical large-company @$$ and not being all that helpful. I haven't posted in so long because every time I try to login, our connection is down. Today is the first day in about a week that I've been able to get on long enough to just read everyone's posts. Please bear with us while we fight to be provided with the service we're paying good money to get.

With that in mind, if you are online, typing up a post, it would be a good idea to highlight that post and save it into a Word document BEFORE you hit the submit button. That way, if our connection is lost between you entering the site and trying to post to it, you'll have a copy of your blog that you can post later (once our connection is back up). It will save a lot of time and heartache, as I know how painful it is to sit typing for a half hour only to have my work blown away by a time-out error. Actually, I think Jeff would prefer you save your work in Notepad (go to the Start menu on your computer's screen, then to Programs, then to Accessories, then find Notepad). Apparently, copying text from Word into the blog area creates a lot of coding in the background that's either messy or takes longer for the computer to read - whatever it is, copying text from Notepad into the blog section doesn't do that and Jeff says it's the preferred method.

I got my last baby tooth pulled on Wednesday. They did it with just the Novocain (though they applied a topical gel to my gums to numb them a little before they gave me the shots, so I didn't feel those as much) so I was awake and able to hear all the wonderful crunching and grinding and tearing. The baby tooth's roots hadn't dissolved at all, so it was interesting to see it out - it's a good 1/2-inch long (I got to keep it). My permanent tooth is apparently really far up there and at an angle, so the dentist had to really cut up in there and even had to scrape away a good chunk of jawbone around it so that he could attach the bracket to it. The bracket has a gold chain attached to it and next week I go in to the orthodontist so they can attach the chain to the braces and start pulling the tooth down. Anyway, an hour, 3 or 4 stitches and a lot of putty later (the putty is to fill the gap so that the gums don't heal down around the tooth), Jeff drove me home to spend an excruciating evening wishing I hadn't just paid good money to have that done to me. The dentist just prescribed regular Motrin for the pain but I guess I'm just a wimp cause I want some Percocet. It's still really painful and, because there's a gap there now, there's room for the other teeth to really move and they're taking advantage of it, causing me even more pain. Who's idea was this anyway...?

Kadie had her first dental appointment Wednesday too. She was scheduled for a half hour before my procedure so I thought I'd be there for her, but her room wasn't ready and they started injecting me before they even got her sat down. Jeff got to experience that "first" on his own and I feel like I've missed out on something. She apparently did really well and was very excited about the pizza certificate they gave her. Of course, because of mommy's bloody gums, she had to wait until the next day to use it. (Which, by the way, went well. She's doing so much better in restaurants. )

Jeff is doing well. You've probably already read his last posting about more computer stuff. We just got him three 200-pound computer books on another programming language that's he's excited about learning and we need to search for a couple more because he needs to take a certification test on a language he uses at work. To each his own, right?

Kadie also got her first real bloody nose Wednesday night. Jeff and I were downstairs, watching Scrubs, and it was a little less than an hour after we had put Kadie to bed. We heard her calling and it sounded serious. Jeff ran up and found Kadie upset, pointing to "red spots" on her pillow and sheet. We got her in the bathroom and I pinched her nose with a tissue. It was really going - I went through several tissues. Have you ever tried to handle a 3-year-old with a bloody nose? We had to keep telling her not to sniff it, to keep her head down (she kept trying to see it by tilting her head back and looking down), to let mommy keep pinching her nose and to stop rubbing it all while trying to reassure her that it was okay. It was frustrating, a little scary and even a little funny all at the same time. We finally got it stopped and took her down with us to watch a little TV while we waited to see if she would spring a leak again. Thankfully, she didn't, and we got her back to bed around 8:30.

Now, I'm hoping and planning on taking her to the zoo tomorrow. It's supposed to be 70 and partly sunny, so it'll be perfect zoo weather and she's been asking to go see the giraffes and monkeys a lot lately.

Hope everyone's doing well on the west coast. Love and hugs to all!

Today and tomorrow are gonna be soggy ones for the east coast Todnems. It rained all night and it isn't expected to really let up much at least through tomorrow. I don't mind too terribly much though. I find it refreshing and expect our lawn will enjoy it. Our temperatures have been in the upper 60s / lower 70s for several days now and I think we're officially into the fall weather. I love this time of year - it's my favorite season and I'm excited about the approaching holidays.

I went in yesterday to get the top braces put on, so I've been in some pain since mid-day. They readjusted my bottom ones as well to put more force on the two canines which are more turned than any of the others (my other bottom teeth are already fairly straight now) so I'm sticking to soup today. I have an appointment on the 27th of this month to get my last baby tooth pulled. I was told an optimistic estimate for the permanent tooth to drop in would be about 6 months, so I have a feeling I'm not gonna be smiling much until springtime. The procedure is only done with local anesthetic, so send me lots of positive energy as my only other experience at the dentist (besides the regular teeth cleaning) was having all 4 wisdom teeth pulled under a local and my memories are not too fond. It really is better this way though. I'd rather deal with it now than have my permanent tooth abscess up there and loose it altogether.

Kadie is also scheduled to go in on the 27th (1/2 hour before me) to get her first dental check-up. She's a lot better with strangers now and actually looks forward to going to the doctor, so I have good hopes for her dental visit.

I guess I should get back to work. <sigh> Here's to everyone having a great day!

"Where thought goes...energy flows."