updates

Well today was Bubs appointment with the asthma specialist.  First off it is at the hospital and it was under construction.  We find a lady and she says the standard go down this hall take a right then go and take a left and take those elevators to the 4th floor.  Umm okay, but my paperwork says 5th floor. She says they will guide you up there.  So I got on and got off on what I thought was the 4th floor.  (later found out it was the 3rd)  No one around.  Humm, let’s go this way.  Bubs is now saying “my legs hurt”.  So I found the stairs and we walked to the 5th floor.  Yeah, I need exercise.  I opened the door to the fifth floor and I am in someone’s office.  Hello??  Some lady came around and asked if I needed to check in.  Umm, yes please. 

We went in, they called us back and in comes this doctor with dreadlocks to his waist.  He said hello and he is someone with a thick accent.  Very nice, but boy he was hard to understand.  I said what a lot.  Basically, he said that Bubs is asthmatic and to never just stop meds.  like I have wanted to do.  He ordered him a rescue inhaler incase we can’t stop the attacks and he put him on a daily inhaler 2x’s a day and an allergy nose spray 1x a day.  I told him that this prescription was out of our budget so he took care of that and gave me 5 months worth.  Wow!  He is worried about Bubs tonsils since they are so large.  He wants us to come back in 6 months so he can see how these meds are doing.  He said sometimes these meds. will control the drainage in his throat and shrink his tonsils.  If they shrink great.  If not he wants to do an apnea sleep study to see if it affecting his sleeping and breathing.  Good luck with that!  So another wait and see situation.

As for me, I found that I don’t have a panic anxiety disorder or such.  I have a problem with my adryneline kicking in at weird times and not being able to shut off.  So I am on a new medicine that slows down my heart and pulse and allows more oxygen to my heart.  It seems to be working but I am having a few side effects so I need to go back and get that checked out.

Beans and Bubs are both doing fine.  Their 4th birthday is in 2 weeks at Chuck E. Cheese.  I am debating on making the cake or getting a walmart cake.  I think what I want is cupcakes that make the number 4.  I can totally make that.  We are also going to MGM and Disney on their birthday this year again.  That should be fun.  I know they are excited about it.  Me well, I can go either way.  I get stressed in these situations. 

Work is fine.  Nothing new there.  I am trying to take the test to teach in the regular classroom instead of being the art teacher.  I took the test once and failed.  I went in thinking that I didn’t have to study….hum, wrong thought I guess.  So now I am trying to study, but it’s taking a while. 

That’s it.  That’s what’s happening.  Nothing major.  No one is throwing up or ill other than colds.  Tomorrow is a holiday.  Yay!

stupid fears

So I have this fear that is quite embarassing.  It absolutely makes me quesey and want to cry and run away.  It paralyses me to think I may be in contact with it.  I am scared of throwing up.  Mainly the stomach bug that goes around every year.  The thought of it puts my stomach in knots.  As soon as I hear it is going around I get knots in my stomach and I get shakey and then it gets in my head that I will get it and the kids will get it and then what will we do!  Uhhhggghhh.  So my friend comes over to visit this weekend and brings her baby.  “I want him to meet your mom” she says.  So they come over and the baby is spitting up quite a bit and did a big spit up on me.  “oh, it’s okay”  thinking just baby spit, its harmless.  She leaves and I change my clothes immediately.  I lysol the toys the baby touched.  She calls later and tells me that her son was throwing up the night before and now he is doing it again.  What?  You bring him over after him throwing up all night?  Uhhhggghhh.  You know I hate to be around that.  Just the thought!  So she tells me it isn’t a bug, he’s just congested.  Fast forward to today.  I get an email from her husband that says child is fine, but she is very sick.  So I call.  My friend is home from work….why?   She is throwing up everywhere!  Not only that, she has the the other end problem too.  Great!  Congestion huh, I think not!  So beans was hugging on your child and you say nothing.  The child pucked on me, you say nothing.  I swear if I get it I am gonna be pissed off!  Sorry, language, I know, but seriously.  Now my stomach is in knots like I already am comming down with it I am nervous which is something I don’t need right now.  Man people, if your sick don’t go around other people.  Be courteous.  Think of others.  If someone didn’t go out with a sickness then you wouldn’t be sick.  Get my drift.  Do you see how upset I get over this vomiting stuff.  Oh, I can’t stand it.  Have you ever held a pucking child while trying to keep the bowl under them.  God, its horrible.  I have got to get over this.  I have had this fear seriously, forever.  I never talk about it to others, but I can’t take it anymore.  I get this thing this time of year every stinkin year.  It sucks and I don’t even have it yet!

Random thoughts

So I don’t feel like explaining so I just put what has been on my mind lately….

• My dog’s hair is falling out.  I don’t want to bring her to the doctor because, well, she hasn’t been to the doctor in over 2 years and I really don’t want to hear how I am a bad parent.  I don’t know what is wrong….allergies?
• My children are hitting eachother.  I pretend it isn’t happening.
• I am drinking a beer.  I don’t drink beer but I am today.  Why?  It is an aweful pretty day today and I want a beer.  I have a little buzz too.  Nice.
• My husband is cooking chicken.  I don’t feel like chicken, but I don’t have the heart to tell him.  I’ll eat it anyway.  It’s always good.
• Beans is getting strep.  She has white things in her throat.  Great.  Send her to school or not?  I’ll call the doc in the morning.
• I cleaned the house today.  You can’t tell.  I scrubed the floor and the dinning room table and chairs.  Why didn’t someone stop me from buying white furniture when I have 2 toddlers with constant sticky hands running around.
• I cleaned the house today.  Did I say that already?  As I said, you can’t tell.  I did 4 loads of laundry.  Which reminds me that I have the floor mats hanging outside drying.   Gotta get them before it gets dark.
• Halloween is coming.  That means crazy hyper children.  Not necessarily at home, but at work.  All the students want to do is make bats, whiches and pumpkins which is ok, I’ve done some already.  All they talk about is what they are gonna be.  When I hear a 6 year old say she is gonna be a corpse cheerleader, it’s kinda disturbing.
• I don’t like beer.
• Max and Ruby are a savior in my house to hyper children.  Only mothers will understand.
• My mom is coming this weekend, I hope.  I get excited to see family.  We get to have a reason to go to the beach….and fish!  Yes!
• I don’t have to go to that horrible school tomorrrow that I dread.  I teach two schools and Mondays stink.  People are rude there.  If you hate children so much why do you teach?  I get to go to my happy school.
• I don’t teach classes tomorrow.  The kids have it off for teacher day.  Cool.  The bonus of being an art teacher is that I don’t have to go to all the meetings all day that the regular teachers do.  HA!
• I want to go fishing.  That’s my relaxation. 
• I need a vacation.  Do you know that my husband and I have never been on a vacation by ourselves since children were born.  That’s going on 4 years people.
• I just reserved a birthday party at ChuckeCheese.  God help me.

the school picture

 

So this is this year’s school picture.  I am very proud of it.   Bubs (Mboy) looks mighty handsome and Beans(Mgirl)  is just a cutie.  I am biased.  But really, to get both of them looking cute is rare.  There is usually one looking great and the other looks angry or sad or whatever.  We couldn’t afford to order but one page of pictures.  Those packages are way over priced, seriously.  I bet any mom would agree.  They had packages up to 200 bucks!  For school pictures not like studio pictures.   Anyway, I do have a few to still mail out so don’t freak if you haven’t gotten yours yet (Mom) .  I only have 4 to give away as I want to keep one.  I would like to get family portrait pictures done soon…if I can get a husband to cooperate.  Men and pictures, what’s the deal.

Blech

Last night Mboy refused to eat his dinner which is not normal.  I look in his throat and saw the nasty.  It’s covered in white spots.  Fast forward to today, we go in to see the doctor.  It isn’t his original doctor, she has the day off.  This is some new guy that I had talked to on the phone the night before and he kinda blew me off.  He asked what the symptoms are and I said I thought Mboy had strep and ofcourse he has been coughing.  Those of you that know, Mboy has a cough all of the time.  So he asks when the cough began.  Well, he always has a cough so I can’t keep track of when it starts.  Then he sees that Mboy has asthma and he said what do you do for him, I told him.  The doctor tell me you are doing it all wrong.  What?  Well, I am doing it the way his doctor told me too and that is why we are going to a specialist next month.  I am tired of him coughing.  The doctor says well it is obvious it isn’t working.  You know, don’t get cocky with me.  I just did what the other doctor told me.  Anyway, he changed his meds. , gave him a puffer inhaler instead of using a nebulizer.  I have been asking for one of those puffers for so long because Mboy hates his nebulizer.  And the doctor put him back on nose spray for allergies.  He explained in detail why he is going this way.  Man, I am starting to like this doctor.  He said give it two weeks and he should be cough free, if not keep the appt. with the specialist just in case. 

Back to Mboy’s throat.  He looks at it and says I think it is viral but I’ll do a strep test just in case.  So the test comes back positive.  He wasn’t expecting that.  Then we look at mboys history and he sees that he has had strep before within the last 6 months.  Doctor starts asking me more questions about his sleep habits and breathing.  Looks at his throat again and said that his tonsils are really big.  I told him that they were always that way and even his doctor made a comment about it.  But that was is a comment.  This doctor said that he thinks we need to start looking at getting Mboys tonsils and maybe his adinoids taken out.  So keep the appointment with the specialist, check his allergies and have him give a second opinion about Mboy’s tonsils.  If the specialist looks and sees that his tonsils need out well then it is on to the ENT.   Well, lucky for him we already have an ENT for Mboy from when he got tubes in his ears.  And from what I remember that ENT did say that one day Mboy will probably need his tonsils out.  So I guess it is time.  Poor guy.  He has no idea what is coming.  I would like to wait until after his birthday to do all this.  That would not be cool to be in the hospital on his birthday!  I just hope that my copay for all of this isn’t another $500 like it was for the ear tubes.  I’m sure it will be though.  Great. 

I just want all these issues fixed.  It’s frustrating when you trust a doctor and get a second opinion and its totally different than the first.  I am learning to question doctors though instead of just taking their word.  That’s a good thing, I guess.

home sweet home

So I went back to Louisiana this weekend, where i grew up.  I never liked that town as much as I do now.  I don’t know if bringing my own kids back changes my perspective or I am just plain getting older, who knows.  All I know is I don’t like where I live and everytime I go back I want to move back.    Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of friends here and I like where I work most days.  I like my house and I love the beach.  I don’t like the people here and how dirty it seems here (in town, not the beach).  Don’t get me started on how this state treats education!

So this is what we talked about doing.  First, get our credit in check and pay off what we can.  Next, find jobs in LA.  Me, well I have to wait until summer.  My H however can start looking and if he finds something well, I don’t know.  I quit my job and become a sub over in LA.  Then when summer comes, apply.  Then it would be house hunting.  We are thinking we would rent a house first to see where exactly we would want to live….with a pool.  Then we can have everyone over for barbecues.  HA! 

I just want to be near family.  It kinda stinks being so far and having to drive with these two munchkins strapped in their carseats for 6 hours.  They don’t like long car rides.  I think we are mentally ready, but we have to get all our ducks lined up.  We’ll see.

lovebugs

It’s lovebug season here.  Bugs mating everywhere.  So I had my class lined up outside waiting for their teacher to come pick them up.  The class was 1st grade.  “Mrs. F., why do lovebugs stick together?”  Well, cause they love eachother very much was my reply.  “That’s why they are called lovebugs” some other student said.  “Well, why can’t they just fly next to eachother, I mean, why do they stick?”  “Cause they are making more lovebugs”, I said.  “Yeah, it would really hurt them to pull them apart”, another student said.  “What?” the original student said.  “Ask your mother.” I said.

Feeling better

So I am a teacher.  It’s a job that I love and I hate.  Last week I had a student throw up on my jeans and shoes.  Lovely.  While I work I have been having panic attacks.  It’s horrible.  I try not to let the students tell, but they know something is up when I start walking around the room in circles.  Last week I went to the doctor and he gave me anti-anxiety meds.  I think they are finally working.  They take a while to get into your system.  Yesterday I called the doc because I was panicking at school.  He has me taking a little more than before.  That worked.  Hopefully after a couple of months I will be able to wean back off, but for now, I feel almost back to myself again. 

So I have done research on these panic attacks and talked to others.  Something happens to women’s bodies in their late twenties almost 30’s.  There is a hormonal change.  Some of us handle it, some don’t.  I guess I am in the don’t category.  I would like to look into it further as I am starting to get interested in the whys of panic attacks.  I do know for a fact that panic attacks are caused by a lack of serotonin in the brain.  This causes that fear or flight feeling.  My brain is lacking the correct amount of this hormone.  It’s like when the pancreas doesn’t secreate enough insulin then you’re diabetic.  Same idea.  When I get extremely stressed I don’t produce enough saritonin, therefore, panic attack.

Anyway, I am getting better.  I focused at work today, never got nervous or scared.  It was nice.

NICU reunion

I wasn’t feeling great this morning.  I woke up jittery again.  I was nervous.  Don’t know why, it just happens lately.  I had a fat lip.  Seriously, my lip is killing me.  Then I remembered that during the night, Mboy decided to sit up and lay back down and slammed his head into my mouth.  It felt like I was punched.  So starting my morning on a “great” foot I look over at Mgirl and she is already looking at me with her big eyes. 

“Mom, is it time to go to the hospital?”  I looked at the clock and saw it was barely 6:00.  Ugghh, no, go back to sleep.  She was so excited to go to this party today.

We get up, ate, had coffee, got dressed, all the usual.  I feel myself getting a little more anxious.  Seriously, I was getting nervous about going back to the hospital.  Yes, good things came out of there, but the path we took was a difficult one.  So difficult it was one of my deciding factors in not having anymore children.

We pull up to the hospital and the place was packed.  We go in and sign in.  First thing M&M get are baseball hats that say NICU graduate on them.  They put those on, so excited to get a hat.  Then I noticed a lady with my strollers.   Really.  A while back I sold my 2 umbrella strollers online and there they were.  I knew they were mine because the sippy cup tether was still on it.  So I walked up to the lady and said “Hey, you bought those strollers from me!”  She grinned and said thanks.  Then her husband chimed in and started talking about how much he loves them and how they saved him at the airport, etc.  It turns out they have girl twins about 2 years old that were also born early.  Cool.  I’m starting to calm down a bit.

M&M later find another place where they get more stuff that say things like future doctor , future nurse. Cute.  Then we go to the face painting area.  Did I mention I was an art teacher.  I was trying to tell myself be a mom, not a teacher, a mom dangit.  Poor girls, they were sweet and young, really young and they talked to the kids, found out what they liked.  Mgirl wanted a butterfly, a pink one.  Does that mean she can’t have any other colors…really?  The girl ended up doing what looked like four blobs of paint on Mgirl’s face. I tried to get excited and say how wonderful it was.  Again, did I say I was  a good faker when necessary?  Mgirl looked in the mirror like what the hell did you put on my face, seriously.  It was a funny look.  That look would come again when Mboy sees his.  So the girl asked Mboy what do you like and showed him some pictures.  Ofcourse he picks the biggest thing to put on his face, a dog.  Not a dog body, more like make me look like a dog.  So she paints white all around his mouth, black on the nose, and lines down from the nose to his chin to look like the mouth, but it was bad, really bad.  Then she decided to give him a bushy brow.  Yup, she took paint and squiggled it from one eyebrow to the other.  It was like Bert from Sesame street.  Holy cow!  Man, I gotta do it again.  “M, look how cute you are!”  He looked in the mirror and just stared.  It was horrible.  So we left.  As we left I knew this face painting was such a mistake.  People would look around walking past and then their eyes would just go down to Mboy and stare.  I couldn’t take it.  I gotta find some wipes. Fast!

We went outside, got some popcorn and cotton candy all while Mgirl stopped people to tell them she has a butterfly on her cheek.  Oh okay let’s draw attention now.  M&M found a fireman with a fire truck and you would’ve though Mboy would freak.  He got so excited when the fireman put him in the captain’s seat.  He just smiled ear to ear with that puppy dog face!  Uggghh, wipes, please!

We go to another booth that has diploma type papers.  Wait I see wipes!  I gotta plan!!!  So we go up and they ask how many weeks were they born and I say 29, while checking out the wipes.  They pull out papers that have a handprint of a baby of 30 weeks size.  They wrote how old they are now and put paint on their hands and made a new handprint of now.  At the top it says “Look how we have grown”.  These are awesome.  Seriously, the hand at 30 weeks could fit into M&M’s palm now.  Then she hands us some wipes.  “Can I please have a few extra?”  “Sure” she said.  SCORE!!!  We  find a bench and sit and I say to Mboy “do you still want your doggy face?”  “No” he said.  “Are you sure?”  Out came the wipe.  Oh, now the nurses can see his face!  Mgirl wanted hers off too.  So wipe it away!

A nurse came up and asked what our last name was and we told her.  She remembered us!  Cool.  Then she told another nurse who we were!  She remembered. 

We played, ate lunch and decided to take the kids up to see the babies in the window and see where they were born.  First we went to the doors of the NICU and looked through the windows.  You can’t see anything but the sinks to scrub up.  A nurse came up and saw the graduate hats and said “Ya’ll come on in, you need to say hi”.  So we did.  I showed Mgirl where her crib was.  There was a mom sitting, just looking at her baby and I grinned at her.  She smiled back.  It was almost like she thanked me in a wierd way.  Then we went to show Mboy where his crib was.  It was sad.  I wanted to cry.  I saw all of those parents in there just sitting and watching.  I remember it like it just happened.  We left and showed M&M the regular nursery.  Mgirl stared at those babies.  She wanted to take one home crying as we left that she again, wants a baby.  Goodness.

I am so glad I went.  We saw so many kids with disabilities.  Kids with CP, twins where one is on oxygen.  It made me realize how really lucky I am.  I have two and they are both perfect, cute too!

issues

So I have issues with my body.  Not outside issues, I like my body, but the inside of me is not so good.  I don’t eat right, I don’t diet, I love snack food and coke.  I don’t exercise.  I was just lucky enough to not have weight issues when really I should be about 300 pounds.  Everyone always said that I was lucky to be thin, blah, blah, blah.  They have no clue the stuff going on inside.  Without getting to personnal, I do have some medical problems that I have been trying to figure out.  Doctors are so quick to just say oh its this here is a cure all drug.  I personally think all of my medical problems are related.  I do have high blood pressure and for my age that is not good at all.  Yes, I am on meds for that.  The latest though is anxiety.  I have stressed about stupid stuff all my life.  I remember being in middle/highschool and looking at the clock while laying in bed.  It would say 9:30 and I would freak all out.  I would start tossing and turning and crying cause I would not get enough sleep for the next day.  Look out if I had a test the next day!  I would go crazy trying to study the night before, crying cause I couldn’t get it.  In college, I got caught cheating.  I copied an art project of some artist out of some book because my project was due the next day and I had nothing.  Yup, my teacher pulled out a book with the print and gave a huge speech about not being a real artist, blah, blah, blah.  I had to go to him after class and beg for a redo.  Did I mention I did all this while crying.  Yeah, that is a small fault I have.  Now, grown up I am stressing about my kids and work.  It’s to the point that I had to leave school in the middle of the day, yes crying,  and go straight to the doctor’s office cause I thought I was dying.  I couldn’t breath, I wanted to vomit, I couldn’t conceintrate, my heart was going to explode.  Well folks, I had a panic attack.  I got meds that make me wacky for about 20 minutes and then pretty calm afterwards.  I had to go back to work today and explain to my boss why I am crazy.  Uhhh, that was not cool.  She was understanding though.  It just stinks that I have all these inside issues.  I think it is partly hereditary…but part just me and how I deal with life.  I guess.  At least I am feeling a little back to normal.