down for the count

I've spent the better part (90%, give or take) of the past seven days in bed, with what is far and away the worst illness I've ever had.  It started as a typical cold about two weeks ago and then rapidly morphed into the full-blown flu as of Thursday.  Fever, chills, body aches, horrendous cough, sinus pain, earache, you name it.

I went to Urgent Care on Monday morning because I felt like I was trying (and failing) to breathe through a coffee stirrer, something that I've only ever experienced once before.  The doctor was very sympathetic, but told me there wasn't all that much she could do for me.  The infection is most likely viral so antibiotics won't help; the most she could do is treat the symptoms. So now I've got this mixture of medications that I'm rotating through, trying to overlap some of them and trying to separate others (very hard to keep it all straight with such a foggy brain, by the way).

I think I can say that today is the first day that I don't feel worse.  I wouldn't say I feel any better necessarily, but not feeling worse is welcome and I'll take it.  I managed to drop the kids off at school and pick them back up (with five hours of sleep in between), which felt like a big accomplishment.  If I can stay out of bed from now (3pm) until bedtime (7pm), that will be the longest that I've been up since last Wednesday.  Wish me luck!

calcaneal apophysitis

After 6 months of doing our best to manage his sporadic, sometimes intense heel pain, I finally took Cayden to see a real honest-to-goodness podiatrist yesterday.  I was sure he would be the youngest patient there by about 40 years and sure enough, he was.

The doctor was great.  He must either have an active son, or remember being an active child himself, because he totally "got" that sitting out for the whole basketball season in a walking boot wasn't really an option and that coming out of a game the moment his heel starts to hurt wasn't going to happen.  He checked Cayden's feet and legs out, took some x-rays, and told us that he's got something called calcaneal apophysitis, or Sever's Disease.  He also told us that Cayden's growth plate in his heel is abnormally low (most plates end at the back of the heel, whereas Cayden's curves down and under his heel), which is probably causing it to get inflamed easily.  He assured us that the pain should cease once his Achilles tendon grows a bit more and once the growth plate closes up.  He also gave us some good suggestions to try and manage the pain (very similar to what his pediatrician told us last summer).  He assured me that the chances are very slim that he will do any long-term damage by continuing his high level of activity even when he is experiencing pain.

The doctor thinks Cayden will eventually need custom orthotics to counter some pronation in his feet, very likely brought on by this consistent pain he's been having (basically, he's started walking/standing differently to ease the pain).

I asked if we should look into that now, and he said we would cross that bridge when we come to it.  I liked that answer.

united kingdom pics

I've spent much of the morning uploading Avery's photos from her trip.  And deleting at least half of them.  I have no idea why, but she takes every single picture twice, or three or four times.  I actually asked her if there was something wrong with her camera, because there are duplicates (or triplicates) of every last shot.  Her response was that she just wanted to be sure to get one that's not blurry.  Thank goodness she wasn't using film!

Here are a few pics that stood out to me, first from
St. Andrews, Scotland:

The ruins of St. Andrews Castle

St. Andrews Golf Course, one of the most famous in the world

Next from London, England:

The River Thames, Big Ben and the London Eye

My cousin's daughter, Lily, at Trafalgar Square

Buckingham Palace (no William or Kate sighting)

Platform 9 3/4, King Cross Station

And finally, back up north to Edinburgh, Scotland:

Edinburgh Castle

Greyfriar's Bobby

fake christmas

Today, on this last day of 2012...

•  we celebrated "fake Christmas" at home with all five members of the family, (tiny, itty, bitty) snowflakes and all!!

• we welcomed Avery home, and enjoyed all of her gifts (seriously, give a 12yo some spending money and the girl will SHOP) and photos.  From all accounts, it sounds as if she had a spectacular time. 

• I was reminded how thankful I am to have kids who still get excited over the smallest things, like board games and Hex bugs and sticker books.  They get excited about the big stuff too, of course.

• I concluded a year of blogging EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I knew I would do it once I set my mind to it but it was harder than I thought it was going to be.  I do not expect to continue next year.

•  we deep-cleaned two of the kids' rooms to make room for all of their new stuff, which feels like an awesome way to start a new year.

• we went to Peacock Lane after dinner, since Avery hasn't been yet this year.  For the rest of us, it was our fourth time in two weeks.  And just as magical as ever.

•  Avery is going to try and stay up until 9:00 to see the east coast celebrations.  She is still severely jet-lagged so it's going to be a fight.

• I am excited to see what 2013 has in store for all of us.  I'm hopeful that it will include more time with all the amazing friends & family that surround us.

happy new year everyone!

avery's home!

Josie's excited!  Guy stuck behind them? Not so much.

...Please excuse me now while I go prepare for our second Christmas!

tomorrow's the big day

Avery comes home tomorrow, after nearly 3 weeks in the UK.  For the most part, it was relatively painless having her gone.  She's so busy during the school week as it is, so it's not like we're all used to great quality time with her 75% of the time anyway.  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were very hard, and Josie burst into tears one day last week when she spotted Avery's photo on our Christmas cards.  She's been sleeping in her big sister's bed ever since.

Thanks to the wonders of technology, we were able to talk or Skype with her almost every day.  When she was in London it was less often, just because of the lack of available wifi.  Most days she seemed good; a couple days she seemed really homesick.  Due to the difference in time (Britain is 8 hours ahead of us), we would talk to her primarily right before she went to bed, which is always a hard time.  If she's going to start feeling stressed and emotional, it's going to be right before bed.  So I had to keep that in mind on the sadder days and rest assured that she really was having fun during the daylight hours (which are few and far between this time of year in northern Scotland!).

We just can't wait to have her home.  I'm so glad she had the opportunity to go, and she will hopefully want to go again, but it's just not the same without her here and we will all be so happy to pick her up tomorrow night.  Fingers crossed for an on-time arrival!

zoo lights

 

We braved the cold evening to see Zoo Lights tonight, our first trip back since the disastrous train ride of '08. I wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't for an invitation from a friend--thank goodness I have friends who still like to do some of this traditional holiday-Portland-kid stuff because I can't usually be bothered.  With six kids under the age of 6, it was quite a feat... and fascinating to watch, I'm sure.  Three sets of parents with two strollers, trying to walk through the pitch dark, constantly asking who's got their eye on whom, and where so-and-so has run off to.  We lasted about an hour, which was perfect.  No meltdowns, no hypothermia.  Just a quick drive to some post-lights dinner (yum--definitely recommended) and then off to bed.

 

zebras for miss avery

josie, grace and some other girl we don't know

tonight's dinner & drink & after-dinner snack menu

Tonight was a long-anticipated, yet very hastily-planned, reunion of sorts for several moms from Josie's preschool.  I am telling you, that school attracts some of the most awesome, kindest, interesting, and (totally separate from the aforementioned folks) strangest, irritating, most aggravating people I have ever met in my life.  Some of them I got to know very well with a year or two (or six) in the same class, and others I might have only seen a time or two at various meetings or events.

Luckily the stars aligned tonight and several of us were able to escape the Winter Break family time vortex (as lovely as that can be, of course) and go out on the town for some good old-fashioned girl time.  Over the course of eight hours, as a group we indulged on:

Farmhouse Veggie Burger
Crab & Mushroom Risotto
Some kind of beer
(from The Farm Cafe)

The New Vieux
Salt and Pepper
And & And
End of Days
Coming Attractions
(from Beaker & Flask)

Low End Theory
Champagne Cocktail
Rainier Beer
Chex Mix
(from Rum Club)

Water
Grilled Cheese Sandwich
Nachos
(from the Vertigo Pub)

No coincidence that the food and drink choices got progressively less exciting as the night went on...

and we wonder why the floor is always such a mess...

two-kid christmas

Christmas 2012 will go down in history as one of the strangest ever.  With just two kids in the house, it didn't feel right to be celebrating like other years.  Instead, we decided a long time ago to take a short getaway.  I certainly didn't want to give Cayden & Josie the impression that life stops when Avery is not here, and letting them have an adventure of their own (albeit on a much smaller scale that A's) seemed like a good idea.  So, we spent this Christmas at the beach, in a hotel, with just the four of us.  We spent lots of time at the pool, walked onto the sand two quick times in between showers, managed to find two restaurants for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dinner respectively, and otherwise lazed about doing a whole lot of nothing.  It was fabulous.

 

The kids each got their one Santa gift on Christmas morning (Avery somehow managed to get hers before she left), but all the other gifts will wait until New Year's Eve when we celebrate properly as a complete family unit.