Mixed Feelings

Our family has had a weird week. Brad felt horrible on Monday, and Samuel was obviously markedly more sick as well. Brad normally keeps the kids on Monday so I can go to work, but he wasn't feeling up to it and I didn't feel right doing that to him. He actually had a pretty high fever for an otherwise healthy adult (102.8) and I did what I could to help him out. Tuesday I'm normally home anyway and Brad still felt poorly, so I took Samuel to the doctor and picked up his prescription and shopped while Brad kept first just Audrey and then both of them. Samuel turned out to have bronchitis and a raging left ear infection, poor guy. He's such a tough one. Anyway, I felt almost 100% except for a slightly annoying tickle in my throat until about 10:30 last night. Then my throat started getting sore, and by the time we woke up (for real) this morning, it was pretty bad. I say "for real" because I was up about 4 times for a total of an hour and a half or so with Audrey and/or Samuel, even though they both usually sleep fine all night (for the most part). Brad had to go on his own insurance plan this year because of some cutbacks on my benefit options, and the plan he opted for (the cheapest one) is pretty restrictive. We felt comfortable with that, though, because he hasn't been in for a sick visit in the nine years we have been together! We spent a good bit of the morning trying to figure out how we could get seen, because my OB is basically my primary physician, but he doesn't see "sick" non-gyn issues as far as I know. Brad finally just had to make an appointment for tomorrow morning with his chosen primary care physician and I went to a clinic my mom recommended.

While I was pulling into the parking lot, I managed to run over a beer bottle that someone had conveniently stood straight up for someone to hit and was afraid that I had damaged a tire. Then I had to get a later appointment and come back, which drove me to tears for a few minutes. My dad checked the tires out for me while I was in the area and I'm thankful that I didn't do any actual damage. Anyway, my entire point for the post is that today I've felt probably the worst I've felt in a good four years, even compared with a botched c-section recovery and VBAC recovery, but when I got weighed at the clinic, it was a good feeling! I weighed five pounds less than what I thought! Yay! Not that I don't have a ways to go. That perked me up just a little, though. Of course, I do have strep throat and thanks to the miracle of amoxicillin, which I got for free at Publix, I already feel a bit better! Yay again! Now to keep poor Audrey from catching our family sicknesses.

Time flies...

Well, I knew it had been a while since I'd blogged, but I didn't realize it had been that long! Anyway, I've thought of tons of things I could write about on here, but haven't really had the time. I went back to work on December 8th. I tried not to focus on it while I was on maternity leave and it came all too fast. I hate having to work outside of the house and miss time with my precious ones, and it was even harder this time around because I'd done it before with Samuel. I will be leaving my current position on January 16th and will be starting a part-time job on the oncology floor, where I used to work. I am exicted about more time with the kids because I'll be doing two twelve-hour night shifts a week, but I'm not excited about being a night shifter again. The shift itself is great because it's *usually* quiet and I think night shift workers are generally good, but missing time at night with Brad when he's home and missing sleep are not terribly appealing.

Anyway, Samuel turned two on December 16th and we had a party for him on the 20th. He's much like both of us in that he doesn't enjoy being the center of attention, because he didn't enjoy the cake or presents part of his birthday party until everyone quit paying attention to him. Once he wasn't being watched, he got into it. I can relate to that - I was again very stressed at his party and think we might do an even smaller one for Audrey's first birthday. We shall see.

It's not letting me upload pictures of these things, so I'll try again another day.

Audrey got an ear infection as soon as I returned to work, just as Samuel did, but hers was worse because she already had a cold. Samuel got sick again too, and currently all four of us are feeling less than 100%. I was fine last weekend, but I caught Brad's "sexy" voice and can't get the frog out of my throat.

The most interesting thing I can remember that I was planning to blog about is my recent adventure in photo ordering. I was using samsclub.com because you can have the prints shipped to your home for only $0.08/print, and that presents significant cost savings if you order enough pictures. I had some problems with the website and to make a long story short, I ended up getting 1221 prints for FREE! We haven't received them yet - I just placed the order this week - but I am thankful because now we likely need a new dryer. I would have felt horrible about spending that much on pictures - $150! The reason I ordered so many pictures is because I hadn't really printed any pictures at all since Samuel was seven months old! I printed a handful of them shortly after Audrey was born - although I don't remember doing it - let's hear it for sleep deprivation, but I've been given so many photo albums and I wanted to have some pictures in them. The big frustration is going to be putting all of them in order, but I'm going to try to take it a few pictures at a time.

Happy New Year, everyone.