Keeping Up With the Joneses

Myles went almost a week without being sick, then last night he spiked a fever of 103-104 again. He was up until 4 crying and whimpering and generally feeling awful. About 3 I think his fever broke but he felt really cold and was sweating. I just don't know what is up with that kid. This morning he doesn't have a fever and is just a little clingy but that is it. Any ideas all you Dr. Moms out there?

Here is my boys' favorite thing to do--play with Thomas in the bathtub. Mason always gets the big Thomas and Myles gets the little Thomas and tries to do everything that Mason does. The bathwater is pink because they like these color tablets you put in. Mason always insists on blue "like Thomas" but we ran out so he said red "like James" was okay.

Myles had another follow-up with the ENT doctor today and we got good news. The ear tube is unclogged and the infection gone, so he doesn't need another surgery to take the tubes out. And, he was finally healthy enough to do a hearing test and he passed with perfect hearing. He has failed every hearing test since he was a few days old because of all the infection and fluid in his ears, so this is such great news. The last week or so since he has been feeling better has turned him into a completely happy baby. He will play by himself, walk all over the house, talk almost constantly (just like his brother), and is so happy. It is great to have him back!

Myles had another fun birthday party tonight. Here are some pics courtesy of Jessica. Myles with his Aunt Nicole. He loves her so much! Blowing out his candles. The other cake is one I made for his Aunt Jessica's (Eric's wife) birthday last week. All the cousins. This is my favorite picture. When we were in Walmart with Jessica a few days ago, we walked by these Thomas pjs and Myles went crazy and was saying "Thomas, Thomas". She bought them for his birthday and when he opened them his jaw dropped and he was so excited. When ever you say "where is Thomas" he grabs his shirt to look. It's a good thing Mason has a million Thomas shirts to hand down to this little Thomas-lover.

One year ago one of the sweetest little boys on earth was born. I can't imagine not having him in our family. This morning we had Juliet, Lincoln, Jessica, and an assortment of neighborhood friends over for cupcakes and playing. Myles loved having free reign over his very own cupcake. Tomorrow we are having a big birthday party with Myles' Utah cousins (sorry Elaine, we'll miss you). This is the cake for that party. Can you tell he loves ducks? When he saw the cupcakes this morning he kept saying "duck duck duck".

This is a picture from my front door this afternoon. Seriously? Snow on April 24th?

Almost 5 years ago when Marshall and I got engaged, we looked everywhere for engagement rings and the one I liked the best was at Costco. I has some misgivings about buying a ring at a warehouse, but the quality and warranty won us over and I've been in love with my ring ever since. When we bought it they told us it had a lifetime warranty against EVERYTHING--loss, damage, etc. But somewhere in our move from Maryland to Utah we lost the receipt, warranty, and appraisal. This morning while at work I all of a sudden noticed that one of the diamonds in my ring was missing. The ring has one large round diamond in the middle, then 4 little marquise diamonds around it and it was one of the marquise ones that was missing. I thought I would just have to take it to a jeweler and pay for a new diamond, but called Costco first. They said to come in, and when I did they looked up the purchase, took the ring, and sent it to be repaired all without even a receipt. I really doubt any other Utah j...

Over the years I've struggled with the idea of working. I've gone back and forth between wanting to work full-time and wanting to stay at home full-time, and I feel pretty happy with my decision to work just 2 days a week as long as I have capable babysitting. The kids usually have no problem going to Kira's (or having her come to my house) and are pretty well-adjusted. But a few weeks ago when I pulled up to Kira's house on a Monday morning, Mason refused to get out of the car. When I carried him in to Kira's he started whining "but I want to stay home with you, I want to play with you, I miss you!" Let me tell you, it completely broke my heart. I promised him that tomorrow we would do everything he wanted to do and he said "make blueberry muffins and play play play together all day". So I went to work feeling horribly guilty, contemplating quitting my job, and really struggling with guilt. When I picked him up that afternoon he seemed complete...

We went to Delta this weekend to help Marshall's family with some stuff and had a great time. This is how Myles woke up from every nap. His cousins were so excited to see him! Myles' cousins making sure he remembered to go down the stairs backwards. Myles coloring with his big cousins.

So now I'm thinking that all along what Myles had was Roseola . When I picked up Myles from his babysitter Kira's today, she pointed out that both her son Colin and Myles had matching rashes on their backs, stomachs, and foreheads that had just developed that day. She looked it up online while I called the doctors and it looks like it is Roseola . I don't know if that explains everything because I think the fact that he had a nasty ear infection and the antibiotics upset his stomach contributed too, but the information online totally matches his symptoms all the way through. It also explains why Colin's symptoms matched Myles' every day they were sick. So at this point it is not contagious, though it is very contagious before symptoms start. The rash is nothing to worry about unless it continues longer than a few days. It is nice to have an explanation, and is especially nice to think that it probably wasn't a kidney stone.

Myles seems to be feeling a lot better today. He is eating a little, though not up to normal, and his fever is gone. He is playing on and off and just sleeping a lot which is really good b/c he's hardly slept the last 3 days. We're thinking he is on the mend! We decided to stay home with him again today because we weren't ready to send him to the babysitters just in case he wasn't quite over it. So Marshall arranged to work from home in the morning and I rearranged things to take the afternoon off. Well, turns out a garbage truck knocked down the power lines at Marshall's work so the whole office is working from home. Lucky us!

He is STILL SICK and had the worst day yet. Yesterday Marshall stayed home with him since I had already missed so much work from being sick myself and Myles was pretty fussy all day. He still had a fever of 101-104 depending on when he had tylenol. I was concerned but since on Sunday the doctor said it was probably the stomach flu I was determined not to over-react and take him back to the doctor. Well, today when he woke up his fever was 103 and he SCREAMED for 6 hours. Normally, even when he has a horrible ear infection, he cries, whimpers, and is really cuddly. Today he screamed until he was blue and could not be distracted. I gave him a bath, took him outside, watched Thomas online, listened to music, and nothing would distract him. Occasionally he would fall asleep on my lap for 10 minutes or so and then wake up screaming again. After about 5 hours of this I decided to ignore my embarrasment at taking him to the doctor's for the third time in 5 days and made an appointment fo...

It looks like Mason is having fun in Canada. My dad sent these pictures from their trip to Waterton yesterday.

At 7:30 his fever was 102 so we took him to the after-hours clinic where his regular doctor was working. At 9 PM when he finally got seen the poor kid's fever was 103. My kids have never had fevers that high so I was pretty worried. The doctor said that since he was already on antibiotics and his ears are looking better (yay!) he thinks Myles has the stomach flu. I guess he could hear his stomach acting pretty upset. So we just need to work on keeping him hydrated and drugged up on tylenol and motrin and come back if the fever gets higher. As a side-note, I feel really dumb. I thought that last time the doctor said to give Myles 1/4 tsp of children's tylenol or motrin. Turns out I should have been giving him an entire teaspoon. So all day when he was miserable and I thought was medicating him right, he wasn't getting nearly enough. He weighs 20 lbs 5 oz now too, so time to switch to a "big boy" car seat.

Since Myles' doctors appointment on Thursday when we found out he still had a double ear infection, we thought everything was okay. Until this morning. At about 7 Myles woke up and was whimpering, not crying. I noticed Marshall wasn't in bed so I assumed he was getting him, but I had forgotten that he was at Bishopric meeting. So after a few minutes I went to get him and when I picked him up he was burning up. I took his temperature and it was 101 degrees. All day he has refused to eat, just drinking little sips of milk, and is miserable. He keeps pulling at his ears and crying. I've gotten him to take a few short naps and with the tylenol and motrin we are using his fever is down to 99 degrees. I feel at a loss for what to do. He has been on oral and ear antibiotics since Thursday so I don't think the doctor would do anything different if we went in today, but if he isn't better I think I'll take him in tomorrow. The poor little boy. . .I just really thought ...

My sister Jessica is taking a quick trip to Canada to visit my parents. She is leaving Saturday and coming back Thursday. She called today and asked if she could please take Mason with her to visit his grandparents. I asked Mason about it and he said he wanted to take Woody to go camping in Canada. I wasn't sure if he really got it, but at the pharmacy today he told the pharmacist "I'm going to Canada with Jessica to see grandma and grandpa Goates". I'm a little hesitant to send my 3 year-old on a 12 hour each way road trip though. What do you guys think? Annonymous votes on the right, and feel free to post comments.

Last night Myles went to bed happy as a clam at about 7:30. I've had a really bad cold and so I took a nyquil about then and fell asleep quickly. At about 11 PM I woke up to Myles screaming his head off. Marshall said he had been up for about an hour and he couldn't figure out what was wrong. He would get Myles back to sleep but as soon as he was in his crib he would start screaming again. So I gave Myles some tylenol and then I couldn't keep my eyes open and I went back to sleep. In my defense, I've barely slept at all for 4-5 nights because of this awful cold, so I was exhausted. Anyway, Myles fell asleep for good about an hour later. This morning Myles was happy as a clam again, and I took him to his follow-up appointment for the ear tubes. Turns out he has an infection in both ears, and the left ear tube is totally plugged. GRRRRRR!! I was so dissapointed because I thought the whole point of getting the tubes was no more infections. Everyone I know who has their kid...

People have been asking me a lot about what is happening with our search for a house and selling this one, so I thought I would just post. As far as selling our house goes, things have been about as expected in this kind of a market. The first day it was listed we had an offer but it was too low and they couldn't get a loan for any more, so we turned it down. About a week ago someone off of craigslist came and saw the house and was completely in love with it. They made an informal offer with me while looking at it and after talking it over with Marshall and Scott we decided we would take the offer. But again, they have been having trouble getting a loan for it. I heard from her again on Saturday and she is still working on getting a loan and isn't giving up hope. In the meantime, two people looked at it over the weekend while we were in California and another person is coming to look at it any minute now. So we are getting a lot of interest, probably 4-5 people looking at it p...

I hijacked these pictures from Kim's blog to show what a great time the kids had while we were in Disneyland. Here is Myles enjoying a tea-party with his cousins. And here is Mason riding a duck.

Marshall and I took a quick trip to California this weekend. We left Thursday night and got back really late last night (Sunday). We had a wonderful time and, while we missed the kids, we knew they were happy at their grandparents. However, when we saw Buzz Lightyear we felt a little bad because we knew how much Mason would have loved to see him. We took this picture with Buzz to show Mason. We called him on the phone to tell him we saw Buzz and he went crazy with questions ("did he say 'to infinity and beyond?'; did he jump off the bed"). Marshall had time to do some heavy lifting. Marshall on the tea-cups. Those things make me sick, so Marshall had to go on it alone.

You don't think it is too much do you?

This week Mason has been incredibly bossy. For example, yesterday he wanted more animal crackers right before dinner and I said no. He said in a stern voice "Mommy, when someone tells you they want animal crackers, you give them animal crackers!" He said stuff like that about a million times yesterday about a million different things. Finally by the late afternoon I said "Mason, stop being so bossy" and he said "I'm not bossy mommy, I'm just right ". I thought it was so funny. I often feel that way--I don't mean to be bossy but I know I'm right. The other thing Mason is doing is starting to wake up in the night to go potty. The problem is, somewhere along the way when we moved him to a "big boy bed" we instilled in him a little too strongly that he can't leave his room until morning. So when he needs to go potty he gets out of his bed, stands right by his door and yells and screams until we come see what he wants. He doesn...