On the mend

Well, last week was long and rough for all of us:) I ended up taking Benny to the doctor on Sunday. Unfortunately, it wasn't our regular doctor and this doctor...well words alone cannot describe him. He had no objective opinion at all. I think as parents many times we are ignorant when it comes to the health care of our little ones. We put such a blind trust in medical professionals. They're idea of preventative care is a multivitamin and vaccination. I can see how this has worked out well so far.

This doctor seemed to think that Ben had pertussis. I was shocked and scared and that's probably what he wanted me to feel. In my heart, I didn't believe that but us mothers have a hard time following our intuition. He put him on a ten day round of Biaxin (today is the last day thankfully) and offered to do some lab work for the pertussis. I declined. Not being fully versed on the symptoms of pertussis I was clearly disadvantaged here.

So I brought Ben home and we watched him. By mid-Tuesday he was having some trouble breathing. Poor baby! So, I called and took him in. Our regular doctor actually had her baby that day so she definitely wasn't available. We were scheduled to see Dr. Know-It-All, but he was running behind so we got to see Dr. Scott (who I like). He rolled his eyes at the previous diagnosis and after listening to Ben's lungs decided a course of breathing treatments would do the trick. He was right. A week later Benny couldn't be better. He looks great. I'm almost sad to stop using the nebulizer. It put him right to sleep, lol.

Poor AJ had a rather sickly spell last week too. He's doing better, but still quite sniffly. Here he is:





He kept trying to convince me he didn't have a fever....as if those red cheeks aren't a dead give away, lol.

Kayla managed to just get a minor cough through it all and is 100% better now. She had her first cookie booth sale this weekend. They sold 160 boxes. Woohoo!!! I felt bad that I couldn't be there, but both of these boys needed to stay in and recuperate. I wish I could say she finally got her room cleaned and sorted through her clothes, but....you know how that goes.

We had lunch with James at the school yesterday in the library. There was a skeleton, an upper torso, and some dead baby pigs (you just don't want to know) on display. Kayla has such a morbid curiousity sometimes. She impressed the biology teacher with all of her knowledge. The teacher suggested we try to get her into St. Mary's school down here. I checked it out online. It looks like a great school. It's an all girls school with a 7:1 student/teacher ration. Amazing! The graduating senior class of sixty last year got eight million dollars in scholarships. Wow! On the downside, it's almost $14,000 a year. Let me hurry up and plant that money tree, lol. It does say they offer financial aid, but I highly doubt we'd get a full scholarship since it's based on income rather than merit. I'm going to check it out though. I'm so tired of hearing how bored Kayla is and not seeing her challenged.

This was so cute that I just had to share it.



Benny is hugging AJ's webkinz Leo. He has turned into such a cuddly baby. He has a little blue puppy of his own, but he prefers Leo, lol. It's just too cute.

My Poor Sick Baby

I don't remember Kayla or AJ getting a cold so young. Poor Benny is just miserable. The night before last he coughed so hard he choked and threw up all over our bed at two in the morning. Then he preceded to serenade us for an hour from his crib, lol. He spent the better part of yesterday sleeping and crying:( Here he is yesterday:



Despite feeling so yucky he still found the energy to sing to me:)



He was up every two hours or so last night. In addition to his cough he now has a runny nose. Babies don't seem to know how to sniff, lol. I think he definitely looks worse today. I'm hoping for a good nap to make him feel a little better.
Here he is this morning:



AJ had a stinky day yesterday, lol. When I picked him up from school the teacher said he was good all day but that he stunk them out the room. She said they had to bust out the air freshener. At least he was polite and excused himself. I can't imagine being trapped in a small classroom like that, hehe. It's a Wiggles kind of day today. AJ's watching the Wiggles and jumping around the living room. I guess that's one way to stay warm with our wacky weather.

I made Chicken Lazone last night (a new recipe we tried) and AJ begged me not to put any on his plate. Guess who asked for seconds??? What a goober!

Kayla has somehow managed to lose her baton leotard. She claims she put it on her dresser and it magically disappeared. How come I can never magically disappear like that? Hmmm.... In any case I told her it's time to go through her clothing this weekend. Her closet is stuffed and she can't shut her drawers on her dresser anymore. There has to be something in there she doesn't need anymore. I'm just hoping none of it is the new stuff we got her this fall, lol. She's definitely growing. She liked dinner too last night:)

Shcary the Bear

We had some severe weather last night including some tornadoes in the area. Both Kayla and AJ gathered their stuffed animals and hung out under AJ's bed. Kayla had about ten stuffed animals (and her DS of course) and AJ had his one and only build-a-bear formerly known as Lil' Dude and now known as Shcary the bear....because AJ was shcared:)





Little Ben slept through most of it. Kayla was absolutely certain we were going to get hit. We were lucky though.

Ben had his four month check-up yesterday. He's a whopping 16# 14oz and 27" long. He also has a big head, lol. Everything looks great. The doctor said no rush on solids if he isn't ready and we're going to discuss a vaccination schedule at his six month appointment. I'm afraid he may have caught something while we were there. He's been super cranky today and slightly warm and really sleepy. Though he hasn't napped well today he did sleep decently last night. He got in a six hour stretch followed by a three and a half hour stretch. We haven't slept in till the alarm went off in ages. Despite all of his sadness today we did get a happy baby picture.



Well, he's not so happy now so we'll have to update with more a little later:(

It's been a cranky week!!!

I don't know if it's the weather or something going around, but every child in the Haywood house has been so, so, so cranky this week.

AJ had a not so great day on Tuesday at school. The teachers said he was a little rambunctious. I guess that's a nice way to put it, lol. Honestly, I was glad for the reprieve....well from AJ anyway. Ben was also not a happy camper and refused to be put down all day Tuesday as well. The teachers did say AJ had a great day (he got two stickers) on Thursday and admittedly Ben was a little better as well. Friday yielded a super monster. I took both boys shopping and AJ was just awful. He was jumping on the furniture and climbing in the coolers and doing his own shopping. Even Ben was wide awake and not so happy the whole time. Then we went and picked up AJ's little friend JM and he and AJ pretty much trashed his room in less than two hours. Two days later and it's still a mess. On a brighter note though AJ did take a nap three days in a row (no luck today) and wore his underwear all three days and woke up dry. Now we just need to get him dry overnight. We've been giving him lots of praise. I hope it's working. He also learned how to pee standing up, lol. Lots of splashing...not so fun:) It should definitely make using public restrooms a little easier though. AJ and Daddy went and got haircuts yesterday as well. They both look better, lol. AJ looks like a little boy again. He hates it when his hair stands up and it was doing a lot of that. Very annoying!!!

Kayla had a great, but rather moody week. She did great on all of her tests and took five AR tests this week. Only two more tests and she gets to have lunch with her teacher. She's very excited. If she has time to read all of those books at school, it makes me wonder what else they're actually doing. She's a little slow on the math front. She knows here facts, she's just not a speedy math person. Otherwise, she breezes through everything else. Most days she gets her homework done before she even comes home.

Little Ben turned four months old yesterday. As I mentioned, it's been quite a cranky week. He's teething:( I feel so bad for him. We broke down and gave him some motrin and he's been sleeping a little better. I don't know why babies have to suffer like that. We tried introducing cereal last night. He was really unimpressed. I think perhaps some applesauce or bananas may be in order. He just seems to have an oral issue. He really doesn't like anything rubbery so he really didn't care for the coated spoon. He has been knawing on just about everything else though. Poor baby:( He has his four month check-up this Tuesday so we'll get to see how big he really is these days. He's a chunker, lol.





I'm currently working on organizing all of the pictures so hopefully within the next week or two I'll be ready to put up the link to all of the pics of the kids.