Bath Buddies

Nola is finally old enough that I trust her to sit up in the tub so that I can bathe both kids at the same time.  I know they will hate me for these pictures in the not-so-distant future, but I couldn't help myself.  They are just so stinking cute...

 

We decided to rock out a little too. 

(Nola looks a little more like a Kewpie doll than a rocker chick.)

 But Caleb is working that mohawk like the rock star that he is!



What About Caleb?

Nola has consumed so much of our time lately by being sick that I haven't had much to post about Caleb.  That doesn't mean that he's not still keeping us on our toes! 

Caleb is REALLY into bugs and animals right now.  He loves to watch "wild animals" on National Geographic Wild and collect any kind of living thing in the backyard.  There is a toad out there that must be traumatized by now.

The little guy has been a real trooper while Nola has been sick.  He has been patient on the nights that nobody has the energy to give him the attention that he wants and needs.  He worries about her when she's crying and he tries to comfort her.  It's really sweet.  We have noticed a little more whining than usual, but he's doing okay.

One night last week, I left my calendar at work and needed to go get it.  I took Caleb with me.  He was enthralled with the "big school."  He was so excited to go to the school where he will go to kindergarten.  He asked me if the big flag pole outside was where he would get to say the Pledge of Allegiance.  After we left my office, I showed him the library.  I told him it was time to leave and he said, "Hold on.  I'm looking around."  He was absolutely amazed.  He also liked the cafeteria and wanted to know what the stage was for.  I tried to show him a kindergarten classroom, but they were all locked up.  He came home excited about his school and now he wants to know when he can go there again.  Love it!

Caleb's new school skill is rhyming.  He doesn't really understand it, but he knows that the words sound alike.  He likes to come up with rhymes all the time.  He'll say, "jack-pack, they both say pack."  Not quite...but close!  He knows all of his letters and the sounds that they make and he's learning numbers too.  He can write letters and write his name, even though it's not always in the right order.

The boys across the street have been coming over to play a lot lately.  They know that Caleb is too young to go out by himself, so they come over and play with him in the backyard.  I love to watch him out there with the other kids - even if they are older than him.  He has no idea that he's not just as big as they are.  We even had our first doorbell moment the other day:  "Can Caleb come out to play?"  I couldn't believe we've reached that point already!

We still get some Calebisms now and then, even though they aren't as frequent as they used to be.  One of my favorites lately was, "Mama, we did something so cool at school today!  We had a potato drill!"  Come to find out, that's when the kids go into the bathroom and cover their heads in case there is bad weather...you know - a TORNADO drill. 

Big Surprise...Nola's Sick

When we went to the ENT at Children's on the 10th, he told us to follow up with our regular ENT if she wasn't better in about a week or two.  So...we made her an appointment on the 22nd.  Rudy took her to the appointment.  The doctor suctioned out her ears because they were still draining.  Otherwise, she was doing okay.  He gave her a prescription for some more ear drops and wanted to see her again a week later.

Rudy and I went to the Arkansas/Alabama game and had a great time on the 25th.  Jan called when we were on our way home and said that Nola was feeling a little warm and she thought that she might have a fever.  By the time we got home, her temperature was over 102 degrees.  She was sick all weekend - fever, ears draining, congestion, coughing, etc.  It was miserable for all of us.  Rudy stayed home with her on Monday and took her to the pediatrician.  I wrote down all of our concerns and questions and Rudy asked them all.  Dr. Scherer said that it was all related to her ears and that while he was concerned, he wasn't overly concerned.  He put her on Omnicef and said she'd be feeling better within about 3 days. 

I stayed home with her on Tuesday.  She didn't have fever, but she was still just miserable.  I called Rudy that afternoon and told him that while she COULD go back to daycare on Wednesday, I didn't think she SHOULD go back.  He agreed.  He stayed home on Wednesday morning and his mom graciously came over to keep Nola so that Rudy could go to work at lunch for the rest of the day.  I grudgingly took her to daycare on Thursday.  Since then, she's been feeling a little better every day.  She's still congested, her ears are still draining and she still gets tired very easily, but she hasn't had fever and her spirits are good.  She's babbling and smiling and scooting her little self all over the room.

Rudy took her back to the ENT on the 23rd and he suctioned her ears again.  We're supposed to go back next week.

HOGS vs. Bama

Jan came over on Saturday, 9/25, to watch the kids so that Rudy and I could go to the Arkansas vs Alabama game. 

Our friend Jamie invited us to join her tailgate group, so we got to the stadium early to take part in all of the festivities.  I have been going to Razorback games all my life but I have never seen anything like this game.  Arkansas was ranked #10 and Alabama was ranked #1 and the electricity in the air was palapable.  While we were tailgating, we got to meet the governor, have our picture taken with a human taco sauce packet, get up close and personal with Tusk and do some top-notch people watching.  And that was all before the game even started.

The game itself was amazing.  We scored on the 2nd play of the game and held onto the lead until the very end.  It all went downhill in a matter of seconds with an intercepted pass.  Alabama ended up beating us 24-20 and it felt like we had been slapped in the face.  To go from that high emotion to that low emotion in such a short time was devastating.  But - we realized that we had played the number one team in the country incredibly well and that gave a little (very little) comfort. 

Now, we're sitting at 3-1, #15 in the country and we head to Dallas next weekend to play Texas A&M.  It's a great time to be a Razorback fan!  GO HOGS!

Random Septemberness

Dinner for Eight
In June, we signed up at church for a program called Dinner for Eight.  We were looking to meet more people like us in the church and maybe connect with some other families.  Turns out, the program was designed to be "intergenerational."  I think we may have been the only people in our generation to sign up, because we were matched up with 3 other couples who are all retired.  I guess retired couples who don't have children at home have more time for hosting and attending dinners.  Well, we hosted the first gathering on the 19th.  It went well.  The kids were well-behaved, the food was excellent (thanks to Rudy) and the company was nice.  We spent the whole day cleaning the house.  My mom even came up on Friday to help with the kids and the laundry and the thousand other things that had been neglected because of the stress and busyness that I mentioned in the previous post.  With her help, we managed to get the house cleaned to company worthy status and get everything ready in time.  Now our hosting turn is over.  We go to someone else's house from now on.  We'll enjoy the remaining 3 meals, but I'm not sure we'll sign up again until we're retired and don't have kids in our house. 

Haircut
While Mom was at the house on the 15th, I went to get my hair cut.  I decided on the way there that I was ready to do something a little different with my hair.  My appointment was ridiculously long (4 hours!), but I left there with a good haircut and color.  I felt much better about the way it looked.  When I got home, Caleb laughed at me and told me I looked funny.  Later that night, he said, "I hope it's not going to look like that all the time.  I don't like it."  Nothing helps the self-esteem quite like the honesty of a child.

Weight Update
Ugh!  I hate trying to lose weight - especially when my stress level is through the roof.  But...I haven't given up.  I'm still monitoring my calorie burn every day with my BodyBugg, trying really hard to do Zumba at least 2 days a week and watching every bite I put in my mouth.  I don't always make the best food choices.  Sometimes, I give in to my stress and eat things I know I shouldn't.  But, I do feel like I've made some positive changes.  I haven't lost as much as I had hoped by now - only about 7 pounds.  I rededicate myself every day and I'm still making progress, just slow progress.

Reprioritizing

This year, the start of school has been even more difficult than usual.  I moved to a new school and took on a caseload that is made up of the usual speech-language stuff like articulation, language, fluency, even a voice kid (!) but I also have somewhere around 25 kids who are in self-contained classrooms that are primarily for kids with autism spectrum disorders.  It is a challenge, to say the least.  I have an amazing assistant, but she's only with me 2 days a week.  My caseload numbers are higher than they should be, causing me to have to put kids in bigger groups than I like and causing incredible difficulties with scheduling.  Oh...scheduling!  I have spent hours and hours on scheduling this year already due to the high number of kids and the complexity of the master schedule of the school.  These are just a couple of the things that were causing me a LOT of stress in September.  It took a few weeks of late nights at work, a few episodes of crying, several big headaches that lasted multiple days and some major rants to Rudy and my mom before I realized that I needed to reprioritize.  So, now, I have made myself a promise to leave work by 4:30 every day.  I spend the hours that my kids are awake with them.  I refuse to bring work home every night and when I have to, I'll only work on it after the kids go to bed.  I reached my maximum stress level and then backed away.  It culminated with writing this Facebook post that brought me so much peace and comfort that I can't even explain the grace that I felt when I wrote it:

I'm constantly amazed by God's answers in my times of difficulty. Though I would like for Him to reach out His hand and shelter me from the lightning and rain, I somehow feel just as comforted that He chooses to sit next to me so that we can ride out the storm together.

Since then, I've taken one day at a time at work.  I see my kids when they are scheduled, do my paperwork, get a little stressed during the day sometimes when I have to deal with a tantrum-throwing child or difficult parent and then walk out the door no later than 4:30 with very little (if any) work in my tote bag. 



I won't say that I'm as relaxed as I would like to be.  That only happens in the summer.  I can say, though, that I have a balance.  I'm taking things in stride a lot better and enjoying my family a lot more.

After Nola's Appointment

After we tortured Nola at her ENT appointment on Friday, 9/10, we made it all better by spending the night in Hot Springs with Mom and Mr. L.  It was a quick overnight stay, but it was good to be there regardless of how long we got to stay.

On Saturday morning, we drove over to Sherwood to see my grandparents.  Memmie made an awesome lunch of meatloaf, veggies and cornbread. 

The kids were very well-behaved and Memmie and Poppie couldn't believe how big they have gotten lately. 

 Nola even tried on Poppie's hat.

We drove home that afternoon to the sound of Nola screaming in the backseat again.  It was not an easy trip, to say the least, but we got good news about Nola's throat and we got to see my parents and grandparents, so it was time well spent.

Nola's Trip to ACH

I let another month go by without posting.  You know when this happens that either (a) nothing is happening at our house or (b) too much is happening at our house.  Considering that we have 2 small children, you know that you (a) is not a valid option, right?  As usual, we have been so busy and things have gotten so crazy that I haven't had the ability to organize my thoughts, much less the ability to sit down and actually write.  But, here I am:  Saturday night, both kids and Rudy are in bed, football on TV, blanket and laptop...ready to record the goings and doings of the Villines family in September. 

On Friday, September 10th, we took Nola to Little Rock to see the chief of the ENT department at Arkansas Children's Hospital.

 

The 3 1/2 hour drive to Little Rock was miserable.  Nola cried most of the way.  She was madder than a hornet about being in that carseat.  Poor Caleb just turned up the volume on his headphones and watched a movie.  We met Mom and Mr. L. so that they could take Caleb to their house.  That kept us from having to take him with us to the appointment. 

We were called into the office pretty quickly.  In fact, we were a little early for our appointment, so I expected to have to wait a long time, but we were actually in a room before our appointment time.  What a pleasant surprise!  My college friend, Emily, works in the clinic and came down to see us for a little bit while we waited for the doctor.  That helped so much because it took my mind off of what we were there for.  

The first doctor that we saw was an intern.  He asked lots of questions and took a look at Nola and told us to go across the hall where the other doctor would do the procedure.  We moved into a tiny room filled with lots of equipment. 

Eventually, the doctors came in with a sweet nurse who wrapped Nola in a blanket so that her arms were bound and then held her while Dr. Bower did the nasoendoscopy.  He put the cable up Nola's nose and down her throat so that we could see her vocal folds and then her trachea.  Suffice it to say that she was not happy about this whole event. 

Dr. Bower told Rudy and I that Nola's laryngomalacia is mild.  It is still expected to clear up by the time she's 18 months.  No surgery or treatment is needed.  He did say that she also has mild tracheomalacia - her trachea is also a little floppy, like her vocal folds.  Same story, though - she'll grow out of it.  Yay!!!  He wrote her a prescription for a reflux medicine, but it hasn't been helpful to keep her from spitting up, so we've stopped giving it to her.

While we were there, we mentioned to the doctors that Nola's ears had started draining the day before.  (Yuck!)  They looked at her and said that her tubes were still in and the fact that they are draining means that the tubes are doing their job.  Basically, the tubes are allowing the infection to drain out.  He wrote a prescription for some drops and sent us on our way.  He told us to follow up with our regular ENT if the drainage didn't get better.  I'm disappointed that they are infected at all because after Caleb's tubes were put in, the infections stopped.  Nola is a whole other story when it comes to her ears. 

After the appointment, she was ready for a trip to Hot Springs...and she only cried part of the way. 

Labor Day

We wanted to do something fun together on Labor Day since we had the day off, but we didn't really have time to do much since we were working around Nola's naps.  We decided to go spend a little time at Fast Lanes.  Caleb LOVES Fast Lanes! 

  

Nola was enthralled by the bright lights of the candy game...