The Last Days of Summer

Technically, summer still lasts for another month, but things are winding down around here. School starts tomorrow. We made the most of our last days of summer:

Saturday (7/30) – Rudy and I spent the day shopping in Branson and then came home (without the kids) for a date night.  We had dinner at Café Rue Orleans in Fayetteville and then went to see Horrible Bosses.  It was so much fun to have adult conversation and see a grown-up movie in the theater!

Sunday (7/31) – I drove to Hot Springs to spend a few days there with the kids while Rudy started summer band. The kids and I stayed with Mom and MrL.  It was unbelievably hot (over 100* every day).  We stayed inside as much as possible!

Wednesday (8/3) – The kids and I said our goodbyes to Lala and Pops and drove over to Sherwood to spend the day with Memmie and Poppie.  They rode over to Little Rock with us so I could get Nola a napmat for her new daycare. We enjoyed visiting with them! 

Thursday (8/4) – I took Nola to her 18-month checkup with Dr. Schaefer. (more in a separate post)  After that, we met the boys for lunch and then took both kids to the new daycare.  Caleb went there for a week while I was in meetings.  Nola cried when we dropped her off, but apparently calmed down pretty quickly.  Caleb wasn’t too keen on going to new place where he didn’t know anyone, but he handled it pretty well.  While they were at daycare on Thursday, I got my hair cut and colored. Rudy had band that night, so the kids and I were on our own.  We met Caleb’s friend Isabel and her mom and brother at JumpZone.  The kids had a great time playing and Kristie and I enjoyed getting to know each other a little better.  Afterwards, we had dinner at Bariola’s.  By the time we got home, the kids were worn out! 

Friday (8/5) – Rudy took Nola to her last day of Gymboree.  The kids would’ve gone to daycare, but it was closed for promotion preparation.  We had a lazy day at home for the most part, but ran some errands and played as well. 

Saturday (8/6) – We wanted to do something fun to celebrate our last weekend of freedom, but it was SO HOT (106*!!!), so we needed to do something indoors.  We decided to go to Fast Lanes to bowl. It was a lot of fun. Caleb used the ramp and the bumpers, so he did pretty well.  After bowling, the boys rode the go karts.  Nola and I wandered around until it was their turn. 

Nola pulled my wristlet and phone out of my purse and strolled through the place like this:

Oh. My.

Sunday (8/7) – AAAGGGHHH!  The last day of freedom!!!  We spent the morning at church, had lunch at the new Five Guys burgers and then had a usual Sunday afternoon.  Rudy took the kids to Tanyard Creek in the evening while I met my old friend Leslie for dinner at Las Fajitas.

This past week, Rudy and I have had meetings every day.  The kids have gone to daycare.  Nola still fusses at me when I drop her off, but she’s settling in well.  She has one teacher that she has really taken to.  That makes me happy.  I know she’s doing well when I’m not with her.  Every day when we pick her up, we hear what a great day she’s had and how much fun she is.  Caleb did well there too, but he’s ready to get the show on the road and go to his real school. 

On a not-so-happy note, after 3 days of daycare, Nola got her first cold. She has coughed and had a runny nose like crazy.  On Thursday night at 11:30, I sent Rudy to WalMart to buy some Vicks Vaporub.  I read the craziest thing online about putting it on her feet and covering them with socks.  I was very doubtful, but gave it a try and was shocked that she was asleep – not coughing – in a matter of minutes. I don’t know why it works, I just know it works.  She smells like I remember my Papa smelling, which makes me smile and laugh, but she’s not coughing, so I’m happy.

Branson (yes, really)

Last spring, Mom called and asked if we would like to book a trip to Branson with them at the end of the summer.  I’m not a big Branson person.  I’m not interested in the shows and the town is a little, well, um -- conservative for me.  The only restaurant that we ever really liked there has closed down.  But – I do love the outlet malls and I do love to take the kids to Silver Dollar City, so I decided that it sounded like a great way to wrap up the summer.  It seemed so far away at the time.  Well, the time went by quickly as always and sure enough, before we knew it, the trip had arrived.  We stayed at a fabulous resort complex called Marriott Vacation Resorts.  It was absolutely wonderful. (Thanks, Jenn!!!) It had 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.  Caleb slept in the king bed with Lala and Pops.  The other bedroom had 2 queen beds, so Nola slept in one of them bolstered by pillows and Rudy and I got the other one.  It worked out perfectly.

Our trip started last Tuesday (7/26).  Our condo was right by the amazing pool.  Caleb wasted no time getting in the pool and Nola followed right along behind him.  They both love the water.  Because I’m still recovering from my Novasure procedure, I wasn’t able to get in the pool with them, which was a bummer.  It was so HOT and all I wanted to do was get in the water!  Rudy graciously offered to plan and cook our meals for us. The first night, he grilled whole chickens and stuffed peppers that he had prepared before we left home. We had the peach delight dessert that I brought.

On Wednesday, we braved the soaring temperatures and went to Silver Dollar City.  With our season passes and some coupons that we had, it only cost us an additional $30 for Mom and Mr. L to go with us.  Because they were with us, we got to do some things that we don’t usually do.  Rudy and I actually got to ride the Wildfire and the Powderkeg…twice…while they took the kids on the train ride and to the new Half Dollar Holler.  It was a fun day and we were TIRED when it was over.  (Scroll over pictures for descriptions.)

Here’s a (sideways) video of Caleb dancing in the creek to the cajun band.  That child is a mess.

 

Wednesday night, the kids swam and we had burgers for dinner.  Then, we took advantage of the resort activities menu and joined in the fun of making s’mores at the firepit.  It was really cool that they had all of these things you could choose from to do.  That was the only one we were able to participate in and it was so much fun.

Thursday was our shopping day.  The boys went to Springfield to the big Bass Pro Shop and out for a BBQ lunch.  Mom, Nola and I hit the outlet malls looking for deals!  Nola’s ready to move up to 24 month clothes and we were hoping to find some things for her to carry her over until the weather gets cooler.  We didn’t have much luck.  They already had winter sweaters in the stores!  It was 102 degrees outside!!!  We did find a few things for Caleb’s back-to-school clothes and a couple of things for each of us.  We had lunch at Panera and then took Nola back to the condo to nap with the boys while Mom and I finished making our rounds.  We really enjoyed our day.  When we got back, the boys and Nola were in the pool.  We joined them poolside for a while and then came in for dinner.  Rudy grilled steaks for us that night.  He was quite the chef!  We spent the rest of the night getting our stuff together for our trip home on Friday.

 

Friday morning, we loaded up the cars.  The kids went to Hot Springs with Lala and Pops.  Rudy and I did a little kid-free shopping and then drove home in a very quiet car.  I didn’t have to fish anything out of the backseat floorboard, figure out why the DVD wasn’t working, clean up any spills or calm any crying and nobody once had to pull over on the side of the road to go to the bathroom.

Easing Back Into Reality

When we got back to Hot Springs on Friday evening, Caleb came running out to greet us with the biggest hugs ever.  He nearly suffocated me by squeezing so hard.  That lasted about 2 minutes and he was off and running again – chasing lizards, following in Pops’ shadow and peeing off the porch (one of his favorite things to do at the lake).  Nola was glad to see us, but held a little bit of a grudge before she finally warmed up to me.  She made sure I knew that she was officially LaLa & Pops’ girl after spending so much time with them. 

We eased ourselves back into parenthood with an extra day in Hot Springs.  Mr. L. bought a tube for Caleb this summer since he’s finally big enough to ride one and he’s now had 2 years of swimming lessons.  (That’s something he did while we were in Florida.)  We decided to spend Saturday on the lake.  A few pictures from our fun in the sun…

Captain Caleb:

 

Nola and LaLa and Pops

Caleb tubing with Daddy and Mama (Yep – I got in the tube.)

Nola loved to stand at the front of the boat and watch the water

Swimming Practice (he eventually got brave enough to take off the life jacket)

After we boated, we had a good old Southern shrimp boil and then sat around and watched the kids play while we visited.  These two silly monkeys put on LaLa’s old glasses. 

By the time we got ready to come home on Sunday morning, Mom had washed all of our laundry.  (Hallelujah for her laundry addiction!)  We loaded up the car to the gills and hit the road.  Nola (as usual) fell asleep 30 minutes before we pulled in the driveway.  Caleb watched movies all the way home.  Summer was definitely off to a good start.

Sweet Summertime!

Cue the Jimmy Buffett tunes, pour me a glass of lemonade and pass the SPF 30 – it’s finally summer!  After a ridiculous 10 snow days this year put my last day of work at June 8th, summer couldn’t get here fast enough. 
I left the kids in daycare until Friday, the 10th, because I had some things that needed to be done.  Rudy was still working until noon on Saturday (he had a crazy band thing!).  I took the kids in on Thursday and rushed to the hospital only to find out that the mammogram that I thought was scheduled for Thursday was actually scheduled for Friday.  I was also supposed to have had a hair appointment on Thursday, but the stylist cancelled it because she was sick.  Hmmm…things were not off to a rousing start.  I took advantage of the free time and went shopping for our trip to Florida.  I bought myself some clothes and stocked us up for a few days away from home.  Friday was much more productive.  I had my first mammogram (not as bad as I expected, but still…) and went for a scheduled visit with my doctor.  After that, I had a wonderful outdoor lunch all by myself and then moseyed over to the spa for a mani/pedi & brow wax.  I had a gift certificate from Christmas for $100.  My bill?  $100.  That’s a beautiful thing.  After that, I started to panic about the state of my hair right before vacation.  I did some asking around and found a great person to color my hair at the last minute.  Whew – maintenance is difficult at 34! 

On Saturday, Rudy worked in the morning, then met us for Caleb’s last T-ball game.  Caleb got to play first base and did a great job!  I spent Saturday evening doing some heavy duty packing.  I managed to get pretty much everything packed so that we could load up and go on Sunday.

Sunday morning I had to meet someone at church at 9:45 to get some information, then we were on the road!  The car was loaded to the gills, but we were headed down the mountain.  We stopped in Alma to eat lunch and then cruised on down the highway to Hot Springs.  LaLa and Pops were waiting for us when we got there.  Caleb jumped out of the car literally squealing with excitement!  We spent the afternoon on the lake trying out the new tube that Pops bought for Caleb.  Jimmy and Kim came over by boat to watch Caleb’s first try on the tube.  He LOVED it.  First, he rode with Rudy and then it was my turn.  I wasn’t so sure about it, but I’ll do things for my kids that I wouldn’t do otherwise.  Caleb and I rode the tube all the way to Aunt Harolyn’s house!  When we got there, we swam for a while in her pool.  Nola loved the pool.  She may be my waterbaby after all.  She’s definitely going to be the more adventurous of the two kids!  We boated back home, had dinner and went to bed pretty early. 
It was the beginning of a wonderfully sweet summertime…

Hand, Foot & Mouth

As I mentioned in a previous post, I drove down to Hot Springs on Thursday, 5/26 for an interview.  It was a quick overnight trip and I drove back home on Friday.  We were planning a trip to Tulsa to see Jan & Bill for Memorial Day weekend.  I was on the phone talking to my mom – almost to Fayetteville – when I got an incoming call from a number I didn’t recognize.  I let it go to voicemail.  When I got off the phone with Mom, I checked the message.  It was the kids’ daycare.  Nola was running a fever of 101.9 and they needed someone to come get her.  Ugh…

By this time I was in Fayetteville, so I called Rudy and told him that I would pick the kids up up & meet him at home.  My plan was to bring Caleb home and then take Nola to convenient care.  The boys packed and left for Tulsa while I took Nola to Wellquest.  There was a 2 1/2 hour wait, so I decided to try out the new walk-in clinic in town.  Lo and behold – we were the only people there.  (Seriously, the doctor was playing solitaire when we walked past him on our way to the exam room.)  I figured that was either because they were brand new and people didn’t know about them yet or they were awful.  Either way, I needed someone to take a look at Nola and find out why she had spiked a fever.  I suspected hand, foot & mouth virus because we had some friends over for dinner the week before and their daughter started showing symptoms 2 days later.  I mentioned it to the doctor, but he didn’t see anything to base the diagnosis on.  He looked in her mouth and her throat was a mess.  Strep swab was negative, but there was no way her throat felt good.  He called it a bacterial infection, prescribed good ol’ amoxicillin and sent us on our way. 

I started her on the amoxicillin that night.  She obviously didn’t feel well.  The fever hung on through the night, but was much lower the next morning.  We spent Saturday snuggled up in the big chair in the living room.  She napped on my chest while I watched more TV than I’ve watched in months.
She still felt pretty miserable, but the fever gradually went away.  By mid-afternoon, red spots were starting to show up on her body.  By 5:30, they were turning into blisters.  Yep, she definitely had it.  Full-blown hand, foot & mouth. 

The worst blisters were on her left thumb – the one that she sucks.  Our pediatrician had told me previously that our best bet for her to stop thumb-sucking was to contract HFM.  Secretly, I was kind of giddy about the idea of that working.   Not that I wanted her to have to suffer the awfulness of HFM, but I was really hoping there would be a good payoff in the end.

By bedtime, she was miserable.   By 12:30, I gave up and put her in bed with me.  Neither of us got much sleep.  The worst part of HFM is that there is absolutely no medicine for it.  It’s viral & just has to run its course.  I gave her tylenol for the pain, but it didn’t seem to help. 

On Sunday, we went back to convenient care.  This time, I went to Mercy.  We waited and waited and waited to see a doctor.  Nola wore her sunglasses in the waiting room so she could be incognito.  She would’ve been mortified if any of the kids from her class had seen her with those blisters on her hands and face! 

 

Once we finally got back to the room, we waited a while longer for the doctor.  Nola was tired.  It was naptime.  She really didn’t want anything to do with that room or me for that matter.  She screamed and screamed and threw a tantrum like I haven’t ever seen her throw.  I’m pretty sure it all started because I told her she couldn’t put her diaper bag in the medical waste trash can.  Eventually, the doctor came in.  She took a look at Nola’s blisters, listened to the information that I shared and said, “Yeah, she has a really bad case of HFM. Really bad.”  She took her off the amoxicillin & said to just ride it out.  I asked about returning to daycare and she wrote a note saying she could go back when she was 24 hours fever-free and eating/drinking normally.  Well, we were already at both of those milestones, so technically she was in the clear. 

We went home & both of us took a much-needed nap.  After nap, we played and watched some more TV.  She was obviously feeling better as long as the tylenol was controlling her pain.  She even discovered her bellybutton.  (She’s now obsessed with bellybuttons.  If you’re around her, I highly recommend tucking in your shirt.)

This is what Nola’s thumb looked like by Sunday night.  Heartbreaking.  It was about 50% larger than the other one and the blisters were so large that you couldn’t really tell where one stopped and the next one started.  They were beginning to break and become open sores.  It was not fun.

The boys came home on Monday and we made the decision that Nola could not go back to daycare on Tuesday after the Memorial Day break.  My mom offered to come up and keep her.  We were concerned about sending her out with open sores that couldn’t be bandaged.  She could get any kind of infection in those sores and we couldn’t stomach the thought.  So, Mom kept her home Tuesday and Wednesday. 

On Wednesday night, I did something I never thought I’d do.  I gave Nola a pacifier.  She was having such a hard time sleeping because she wanted to suck her thumb, but it hurt.  I remembered that I happened to have 2 pacifiers in the cabinet, so I gave her one.  After a few seconds, she calmed herself right down and went to sleep.  A lightbulb went off in my mind!  Maybe…just maybe, she would take to the pacifier and stop sucking her thumb after all.  Then, once I knew she didn’t miss that thumb anymore, I could instate paci rehab and we’d be done with it all!  My evil plan was foiled.  The paci served its purpose for one night.  As I type this, Nola is in her bed, sound asleep, thumb firmly planted in her mouth.    Can’t say I didn’t try!

She still had her boo-boo on Thursday (and was quite happy to show it to everyone who would look at it).  She really liked for people to blow on it and then she would try to do the same, but usually ended up blowing a raspberry at it.  Mom offered to take her home with her for the weekend.  As much as I hated to be away from her for that long, I decided it was for the best.  So, they packed up and headed for Hot Springs on Thursday morning.  Mom reported frequently on her improvement and Nola had a blast being the center of attention at LaLa’s house. 

We met Mom and Mr L in Ft. Smith on Sunday for lunch and brought Nola home with us.  We were so glad to have her home, but most of all we were glad to see HFM go away!

Grand Slam Birthday Party!

Before we went to Caleb’s birthday party, Mom, Mr. L., Jan and Bill came to the house to give him their gifts.  (We asked for no gifts at the party.)  Caleb was thrilled to get a new “big boy” bike from LaLa and Pops.  He also loved the bow/arrow set, water gun and bug vacuum that he got from Grandma and Bill.  (Yes, he usually has to wear a helmet on the bike!)

We hosted Caleb’s 5th birthday party at the NWA Naturals Game on Friday, May 6th.  We invited 3 friends and his cousin, Gabe to join us.  We let Caleb choose his guests and he chose 2 boys from his class and his t-ball team (Michael and Conner) as well as his daycare teacher and her son (Kaleb).  We weren’t about to try to take all of those boys without an adult, so we paid for a parent to come with them.  The kids got a ticket to the game, a wristband for the kids’ zone, a hot dog/chips combo and an ice cream.  We were even able to use the ice cream as the birthday dessert and didn’t have to mess with a cake or cupcakes.  At the end of the night, the boys got to be on the scoreboard screen, which they loved.  The kids had a fabulous time and the adults were completely worn out when it was over.  I’m not sure any of us actually saw any of the game, but the entertainment was the 5 little boys running like banshees all over the place, having the times of their lives!  Here are a few pictures from the party.  (The rest are on Shutterfly…)

Kaleb, Conner, Michael, Caleb & Gabe

Playing in the kids’ zone:

Hanging out with Strike!

On the big screen:

My birthday boy and me!