A Long Week of Doctor's Visits

This was a pretty long week for our family. Kolby wasn’t feeling well last weekend and had fevers for a few days, so I took him in to the doctor on Monday and they called us back on Tuesday to tell us that Kolby had strep throat. I was glad that we found that out early on in the week, because with strep throat you need to take antibiotics for 24 hours before you are no longer contagious, and we had a little birthday party planned for Kolby for Friday night. I really didn’t want to have to cancel the party, because not only would Kolby be disappointed, but I really thought it would be easier to have a party before the baby comes. So, I was glad that we got the medicine for Kolby so that he was no longer contagious, and that his brothers were not showing signs of being sick, so maybe there was a chance that just Kolby would get it and no one else in the family. But I was wrong. Camden woke up in the night with a low fever and I took him in to the doctor on Wednesday. Because Kolby had strep, they didn’t wait to get the culture back before starting Camden on the antibiotics, so he got the medicine so that he wouldn’t be contagious (although they never called back about the culture, which means that it was negative and he didn’t actually have strep throat). When we were in the office on Wednesday, I had the doctor look at Eli just to check him, even though he hadn’t shown any signs of being sick, and Dr. Papp said that his throat wasn’t even red at all. So then on Thursday morning Michael had a really bad sore throat and went to his doctor. They said that he wouldn’t hear back until Monday to see if his strep test was positive or not, but they started him on the medicine anyway. So he stayed home from work Thursday and Friday – so it was nice to have him around, except it would have been nicer if he had been feeling well. On Thursday (the day after the doctor said that his throat looked fine) Eli started having fevers too, and I took him into the doctor’s office that evening. His rapid strep culture came back positive immediately, showing that he did have strep. Luckily he got the antibiotics early enough that he was no longer contagious by the time of the birthday party the next night, so we didn’t have to cancel it. So, we had 4 sick boys at our house this week, and four different doctor’s visits – maybe next time one of my kids gets a contagious sickness like this I’ll insist that they write me prescriptions for each of the children so that we don’t have to go back all week long when each one catches it. At least I am doing pretty well – I have had a cough for the last few weeks that I just can’t seem to get over, but luckily I have no signs of catching what the boys have had. Kolby has acted fine all week, and the other boys haven’t been acting like they felt too bad, so that’s nice. Michael is finally starting to feel better today, the last few days were pretty rough for him.

Since Kolby had roseola when Eli was born and Kolby and Eli had strep throat when Camden was born, I kept wondering if we would stick to our pattern of the older children have a contagious illness whenever I have a new baby, but Isaac seems to be holding out to arrive after everyone at the house is healthy. I have had a few times this week when I felt contractions, once when I wondered if it might lead to labor, but even though they were strong and pretty close together, it didn’t last for too long. Michael’s sister, Mel, had her baby boy, Kyler, on Friday (her due date was supposed to be 3 days before mine), and I thought maybe Isaac would come that day too, but was kind of disappointed when the contractions stopped. But it won’t be too much longer – from today, there are 9 more days until my due date (11 days until I will be induced, if it goes that long). I can handle that – I feel like I’ve been very patient with this pregnancy, unlike my pregnancies so far when I have gotten to the last month and just couldn’t wait to have the baby right away. But I am still crossing my fingers that it will somehow work out for me to have the baby early or late enough so that I can participate in the Halloween celebrations with the kids. I was telling Michael this morning that Halloween is a big holiday. As far as rating holidays on how important/fun they are for me to experience them with our children (and not taking into account how significant I think the reasons for the holidays are or how much I enjoy spending time with Michael or other family on those holidays), I think that Halloween would be tied with the 4th of July, right after Christmas. [I don’t know if that made much sense – Michael asked me about Thanksgiving when I told him that, and I said that Thanksgiving is important and the kids enjoy certain traditions we have like decorating cookies to look like turkeys, but it is a holiday that we have always spent our married life with friends, and Halloween is all about our kids and nothing else. So, not to make any other holidays seem less important, but I really love watching our kids dress up in their costumes, carve pumpkins, and trick-or-treat, so I hope I don’t have to miss that].

Well, let’s see, what else did we do this week? On Monday, after we did a family home evening lesson with the boys, we went to the Hymas’ house for Chelsey’s birthday party. We got her a wand, tiara, and feather boa so that she could be her favorite princess – I have fun buying girly gifts for our friends’ kids, since I don’t get to pick out cute pink things that often. On Wednesday night Kolby had his swimming lessons.

After Kolby’s lesson we dropped the boys off at the Hedgecock’s house and had a fun, inexpensive date night. We went over to the Hymas’ house, and they had already put their girls down to bed, and we played Nintendo Wii games. Michael’s parents told us that they would give us some money if there was anything specific we wanted for a Christmas gift for our family, and Michael has been talking about a Wii video game system, which I was not so sure about. I thought it sounded like more fun than normal video games, because you use the remotes like sports equipment to play the games – so you are standing and swinging your arms like you are playing tennis, bowling, golfing, etc. I think that games like that are better than ones that you just sit in front of, and I would prefer sports games to any kind of violent video games, but I am still not a big fan of most video games because of the time that can be spent on them, and the cost. So the Hymases invited us to come try it out, and it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed the tennis game the most, although I wasn’t the greatest at any of the games (and my arm was quite sore from swinging that remote for 3 days afterwards – I guess that shows how out of shape I am). But after playing that night, Michael said that he thought maybe we should choose something else for Christmas, because he thought a Wii might take up too much time, especially once he has a busier schedule when he starts his residency next year, and he hasn’t mentioned it since then. It was a really fun date night, though. I really don’t mind video games (the ones that aren’t violent), but I do prefer them at someone else’s house, so we can go and enjoy them, and then come home and not have the temptation of spending too much time playing them.

On Thursday afternoon I left the kids with Michael, since he was home sick, and went to my doctor’s appointment. [Hey if any of our friends here in Milwaukee are pregnant and looking for a good doctor, I would highly recommend Luverda Martin – she is a midwife at Froedtert Hospital. She has been great – I have had a different doctor or midwife with each pregnancy, and I will stick with Luverda from now on as long as we live here. When I first considered seeing a midwife, I wondered if it would be weird, but I thought I’d try it out and then just switch doctor’s if I didn’t like it. But my midwife is not weird at all – she has given me “normal” care like any doctor I’ve had – I’m not into herbal stuff or home remedies or things like water births, which I thought a midwife might suggest, and I was definitely not interested in someone who didn’t fully support my decision to have an epidural – and she has never suggested anything to me that seemed different than a normal doctor. She is very personable and she has always made herself easy to contact if I have any questions, and she has a couple young children of her own, so it doesn’t faze her at all when I bring all of my kids into the appointment with me. Anyway, I just think she’s great, so if anyone is looking for a good doctor, you have my recommendation.] Back to the point – I went in for my appointment on Thursday and all is well with the baby. I was measuring normal and she said that the baby’s heart rate is starting to go down a little, just like they would expect since the baby is preparing to be born. And I had her strip the membranes – which is supposed to help the baby come, if your body is ready for labor – I don’t know if I really think it helps or not. With Kolby they did it, and then he was induced a week later, so it didn’t seem to do anything. I don’t remember them doing it with Eli. And with Camden they did it and then he was born 2 days later (2 days before his due date). So, I figured it couldn’t hurt, but I haven’t gone into labor yet, so I guess it didn’t do much this time around. Oh well.

On Thursday night my friends threw me a little baby shower at Sandra Simon’s house. We had desserts and everyone just had fun socializing. I told them that I felt like we didn’t really need anything for the baby this time, so I didn’t need any gifts, but they decided to throw a “pamper Stephanie” party, and most people brought things like nice lotions and body washes and stuff like that, which was fun. It was really nice to get together with friends and have a fun night out, just talking, sharing stories about being a mother and wife, and laughing together.

On Friday Kolby got to go to school again after missing it all week because of his strep throat – he was really excited to go again. And that night we had the little birthday party for Kolby. Michael and I spent the whole day cleaning the house and preparing for the party – and I was pretty worn out by the end of the day (even though I know he felt pretty lousy with being sick, I’m glad Michael still found the energy to help me clean up, because it was a lot of work to get everything done that I wanted to, and it felt really nice after we had finished). Kolby was excited about his Tigger Halloween costume, and so when I asked him what he wanted for his party theme, he said Tigger. We took orange ribbons and curled them and hung them from the ceiling like bouncy Tigger tails, blew up balloons for the kids to play with, and played pin-the-tail-on-Tigger. I used half a container of yellow food coloring and half a container of red to turn the frosting for the cake a bright orange color like Kolby asked. And I got a little set of plastic Winnie the Pooh characters that I used to decorate the cake, and then the boys got to have them as toys afterwards. Kolby was so excited about his friends coming over and the gifts that he got. The one thing we forgot was to hand out the little goodie bags that the boys helped me make at the end of the party – so we still have a big bowl of goodie bags sitting out in our living room, I guess we will have to give the candy from the bags out to any trick-or-treaters that visit.

On Saturday morning I went to the church for our Super Saturday enrichment activity, and among other things I did a project where we etched our name on the bottom of our glass dishes. I think they turned out well, although I signed up to do 4 dishes when most other people just did 1, so it took me a lot longer than I had planned.

It was fun to go and see people there and do the fun projects. The rest of the day we spent at home. Michael was supposed to be in charge of a project at the church that morning to spread mulch in the landscaping areas, but he ended up having to ask some friends to take over for him on that because he was sick. And we were also planning on going to the temple with the Hedgecocks, but had to reschedule that too – we are now planning on going next Saturday, if I haven’t had the baby by then. When I got home, Michael checked the mail and found an invitation for his first dermatology interview at Texas A&M. He is waiting until tomorrow to hear back from them, and hoping for an interview date in the end of November. It was exciting to get a derm invitation already, because we had heard that they usually don’t start arriving until November, and today at church one of our friends who is a derm resident said that he only got 3 interviews before Thanksgiving, so it will probably be a while before he gets most of his invitations. But it was really exciting to get that first one for dermatology! And then we rented the movie Transformers and watched it after the boys went to bed last night. Michael liked it, and I liked it pretty well, except we thought there were some parts that they really didn’t need in the movie.

Church went pretty well. The boys did a good job. Camden has trouble because he gets so tired while we are at church – if we were at home he would just lay down in his crib and cry to sleep for a few minutes, but there is no place for that at church, so he kind of has a rough time. But what we heard of our lessons was good and Kolby’s and Eli’s teachers said that they both did well in their classes. Camden spit up a couple times at the end of church after he had his cup of milk – I am wondering if he has some kind of lactose intolerance. I mentioned to the doctor on Monday that he had started spitting up again for about a week, (which is strange because Camden spit up a lot with the formula, and then stopped entirely when we switched him to whole milk about 3 months ago). The doctor thought it might have something to do with him having a little cold or being sick this week (because milk can cause you to have more mucous when you have a cold), and suggested not giving him any milk for a few days to see if it stopped. I got a bottle of soy milk and he didn’t spit up once with that. But I figured that now since he is over his cold, he should be fine on whole milk again. I don’t know – I guess we’ll have to talk to the doctor about it and see what we need to do to find out if it is any kind of allergy or if it might be something else.

Well, there is a roast cooking for dinner and Michael is off home teaching right now. I can hear the boys in their rooms waking up from their naps. Tonight we are having a new family in the ward, the Gittins, over for dinner. They have a little boy and a little girl, so it should be fun for the kids to get together and for us to get to know them better. Hope you are all having a nice Sunday!

Dermatology is Great

So it is my turn to write about our week, but Steph has made my job a little easier, since she has already written about going to the zoo and how we celebrated on Independence Day. :)

This week has been a wonderful week for me. I started my dermatology rotation, and I am again loving life. It is so nice to be doing something that I am enjoying, that I look forward to reading more about when I get home, and that am excited to go back to the next day. It is also nice to have nights free and the weekends off to be with the family. Just this week I have seen so many odd things that can happen to the skin – I’m so grateful that I have healthy skin. I really like the complexity of dermatology – they have to know so much in order to differentiate the different rashes, lumps, bumps, etc., and then to know how to treat them. There is a lot of dermatology that is so new, with new drugs just coming out on the market to treat/manage currently untreatable/unmanageable conditions. I like that it has the feel of primary care with the day-to-day clinic work, interspersed with quick little procedures (shave biopsies, freezing, punch biopsy) and then more involved surgeries. I have decided that I am going to apply for dermatology for residency.

I came home Tuesday afternoon with two derm books, and Steph immediately took them from me and started looking through them. I think she has already learned more about derm than I have this week. It is fun that she is also excited about dermatology and interested in what I am learning. Tuesday was also a good day because we got our loan money for this semester, so we no longer have to live off the credit cards, at least for another few months. Yeah!!

Thursday night I got to take Eli to swim lessons, and we had so much fun playing together in the water. We stayed after the class for about a half hour just playing on the steps and near the wall of the pool. Eli loves to jump in and under the water.

Friday was only a half day in the clinic, so I got the afternoon off to be home. I stayed home and played with the boys while Steph went shopping for the next two weeks. She also got a video from Blockbuster, Flyboys, that we watched. It was based on a true story from WW1 – it was good, though a little slow and predictable.

Saturday morning it was my turn to help clean the church building. I also got the chairs set up so that we wouldn’t have to go as early Sunday morning. I spent the rest of the morning starting to fill out my residency application online. I am going to use July and August to try and get all of my application materials ready to submit. We can start submitting to residency programs September 1, so I want to have everything ready before then. That afternoon we took the boys over to a neighbor’s house to swim in their little outdoor swimming pool. I got in with all three boys and had a blast. Kolby and Eli had two little watering cans that they used to “water” daddy so that I would grow. It was fun. Then last night we had some friends over for dessert. Sandra Simon came with her son, and Heather Vernon and her son Isaac came – her husband is out of town for the month doing an away-rotation. Steph had tried a new recipe for an ice cream cake and wanted to share it with others. It was really good. We also played some card games and had fun talking.

All of the boys did really well at church today. The sacrament talks were about family history work and making sacrifices to go to the temple. We have another stake temple day coming up in August, so they want people to try and get family file names ready to take and do their work. Steph is trying to get some ready for us now. Then in Sunday school we talked about John 16-17, where Jesus talks about the importance of the Holy Ghost and His mission and atonement so that we can gain eternal life. We talked about the difference between the manifestation of the Holy Ghost and the Gift of the Holy Ghost, the difference between knowing about Christ and actually knowing Christ, and then how to teach these things to your children. And then in priesthood we talked about the importance of faith and obedience, and how they lead to blessings; that faith always precedes the miracle; and that when we decide to follow God and His commandments we are not showing blind obedience, but faith obedience – we may not know everything, but we know that God knows what is best for us and we are using our faith to trust and follow Him. They were all really good lessons.

Well, I am going to enjoy the rest of this beautiful day with my family. Have a wonderful day.
Luv,
Michael, Stephanie, Kolby, Eli, and Camden

4th of July!

So, our 4th of July this year was great! Just like last year, the weathermen on the news predicted rain, but it ended up being bright, sunny, and quite warm all day. It was beautiful out. We got up early to walk with the Maases down to North Avenue to reserve a spot for the parade. The Hunters, Hansens, Simons, and Hymases all came and joined us for the parade too. Kolby remembered that last year there were people dressed up in Elmo and Mickey Mouse costumes in the parade, and he was excited to see them again. The kids all got little flags, which they enjoyed waving around. There were people walking on stilts and high school marching bands. A civic band came by playing their instruments, and Michael commented that he wants to join a community band when we get settled down sometime soon. And there was a carriage pulled by two large horses that came up near where we were sitting and Kolby and Eli both jumped up and moved away because they were a little startled. At one point the people came by dressed as the different characters and Elmo was across the street, but Kolby got to shake hands with Bob the Builder and Donald Duck, which was fun for him. And both Kolby and Eli came away from the parade with a little bag full of candy that the people in the parade threw to the kids. Camden ended up asleep on my lap by the end of the parade.



After we went home and got a few things ready, we went over to the annual ward 4th of July BBQ party at the Twelmyer’s house. It was very fun. Michael and the boys all swam (we were surprised that there were lots of people swimming, because the pool wasn’t heated and Michael has been one of the few crazy swimmers the last couple of years we had the party, but this year it was nice and warm out). We had lunch and the kids played with Daddy in the big pool and in a little baby pool that someone brought. Camden had a blast splashing in the baby pool, and then fell asleep in my arms as soon as I got him dried off and dressed. He had a short nap in the playpen while we enjoyed the rest of the party.

After going home and letting the boys have a 2-hour nap, we met and parked our cars at the Taylor’s house and walked a couple of blocks to Hart Park for the professional fireworks show. We got a nice spot on the grass in the football field, right up front. The kids ran around playing for a while before it got dark. At one point Kolby and Eli were chasing each other and they got a little too far from us, so I went to get them because there was a big crowd of people there and we didn’t want to loose sight of them at all. So, they were running and chasing each other and then they were running from me, and they thought it was a great game. I was darting in between people and around picnic blankets, and I finally caught Eli, but Kolby kept running fast. He wouldn’t stop when I called him, but I couldn’t loose him in that big crowd, so I picked up Eli under one arm and carried him like a football as I ran, literally as fast as I could, after Kolby. People were probably laughing at the sight of this pregnant lady with a big belly, carrying a two-year-old under one arm and jumping over blankets to try to catch a 3-year-old. I finally caught up to him after running around at least half the length of the football field, and then headed back to our group, where Michael was searching the crowd because he couldn’t see where the boys or I had gone. I was panting for several minutes after I got back, but fortunately the boys stayed right by us the rest of the night.

When it got dark, we all lay down on our picnic blanket and watched the fireworks show together. It was great (especially since last year someone brought a wagon and the boys played in/fought over the wagon through the entire fireworks show). This year they were so excited about the fireworks and they just lay still right next to us the whole time. Camden really wanted to watch the fireworks, but each time one made a loud noise he started to cry. After a minute or so, Michael covered him with his blanket and laid him on his stomach, and Camden quickly fell asleep for the rest of the show. Michael said that during the loudest part of the finale, Camden stayed asleep, but his legs popped up in the air each time a firework exploded. The show was very good, but there must have been a bit of a breeze blowing toward the crowd, because there was ash falling on us from the fireworks, and some got in my eye. Never had that happen before. Also, at one point, part of one of the fireworks hit the ground about 10 or 15 feet from where we were sitting, and sparked and bounced around on the grass for a few seconds before going out. Everyone around there was lucky, because there were people sitting a few feet on either side of where it landed, and it could have burned someone pretty badly. But luckily it all went well, and the fireworks were beautiful. My favorite are the gold, glittery ones that kind of make a crackling noise as they come down. We came home and put the boys right in bed, and got to sleep around 11pm. It was a long, but very fun day!

June Already

This week Michael started his trauma surgery rotation, and it has been kind of a long week for us with his call schedule. With this rotation, they have 30-hour shifts at the hospital when they are on call, and little or no sleep for that entire time. Michael was on call Wednesday through Thursday morning, and then again Saturday until around noon today. So it has been a little tiring, but luckily it seems like we can get through any rough schedule for a month, and then we get to try out something new the next month.

We had a playgroup planning session at Brittney Winkler’s house where the kids got to play with a baby pool in the back yard while we made a schedule of weekly visits to playgrounds and splash pools throughout the summer. We had the boys’ toddler art class on Thursday, which they both enjoy. This week the theme was fish, and they made a fun picture that they got to glue sand and fishes cut out of different colored and textured papers. And that afternoon I went and helped my friend Sandra cut her son, Simon’s, hair. Simon is extremely afraid of having his hair cut, and it is somewhat of a battle to get it done, but it looks nice after we get it all cut.

Kolby and Eli each had their swim lessons this week too. Kolby is looking forward to two weeks from now when he will be starting a new swim class where he will be in the water with his class and we will watch him from the side. And I am looking forward to Eli’s new swim class in a couple of weeks that will be in the evening, as opposed to his Friday morning class we have been attending, so that Michael and I can switch off swimming with him sometimes.

And on Friday evening Michael took the boys for a few hours to the Fathers and Sons Campout, which I posted photos for in a post below. They enjoyed that, and then Michael was on call the next morning and he got home just before we got home from church. He tells me about the trauma surgeries – lots of motorcycle accidents, some car accidents, some gun-shot wounds, some drunken fights, and a few other things – and it sounds a lot like the tv show, ER.

So, my friends and I were going to have a garage sale this summer, but it never happened, so I’ve started trying to sell my garage sale items on craigslist. So, I had a toy kitchen that I bought at a garage sale a year ago for $1 – and the boys have really enjoyed playing with it, but lately they continually tip it over or use it to climb up onto the top bunk or to reach the lock on their closet door – so I sold it yesterday for $20. That’s a pretty good profit.

Well, after church today we went over to Tyce and Faith Kearl’s house to celebrate the blessing of their daughter, Katie, in church today. Michael was sad that he was on call today and couldn’t be part of the blessing, but it was nice to go over and visit with them afterwards, even though Michael was exhausted from getting 0 hours of sleep on his shift, and eventually fell asleep on their couch. Now we are home and Michael is trying to recuperate and rest while the boys are all napping. And this upcoming week we have several things to look forward to: our ultrasound will be on Tuesday, this will be Kolby’s last week of preschool until next Fall, and on Wednesday I will officially be 19 weeks along with this pregnancy.

We learned several interesting things this week: 1. Sidewalk chalk makes a loud fizzing noise if you dump it into a baby pool, 2. Michael has confirmed the fact that he is not interested in a career as a surgeon, 3. Kolby decided that he doesn’t like the taste of coffee (he took a sip of someone else’s drink when we were in the McDonald’s play area), 4. Michael has seen enough bad trauma surgeries lately to make him commit to never riding a motorcycle, and 5. When you live somewhere that the winter lasts at least seven months long, the summer sure does go by quickly – I can’t believe June is already here!