A Big Week!!!

Let's see.... this past week Molly added a lot of new words to her vocabulary.  Morning, Thank You, Milk to name a few.  The boys are impressed by how fast her words are coming now.  Soon she will be jabbering away at us like the other kids. 

Today Zach went back to school for the first time since his surgery.  He had a desk full of cards from the other kids when he got there and had a good day.  But tonight he is VERY tired, so I will keep him home from school tomorrow to rest.  We will have to ease him in to full time school again.

There was also a heat wave today.  Yesterday school was delayed 2 hours because wind chills made it feel like 16 below zero.  Today there was still a 2 hour delay, but it was only 6 below - much better.

And tonight, after I got home from work, Molly started standing up on her own.  After she got up a couple of times on her own and we clapped for her, she kept doing it, and clapping for herself.   We tried to coax a step out of her, but nothing doing.  It won't be long before she's walking!!

What Did You Do Today??

Zach was going stir crazy today and kept asking what he could do.  He tried to go into Molly's pop up castle, but she kept going in to play too.  That did not go over well, and Zach said "I wish I had a house to play in"  Which got me thinking about this space ship we bought on the after Christmas clearance.  45 minutes later Mike and I had it put together (much assembly required) and Zach began to color it.  He then decided it was too much work and went inside it to play.  Right after that, Molly found a pencil on the floor, knocked on the door of his space ship and wanted to help him color it.  Soon they were inside together watching a movie on his portable DVD player.

 

 

Then the rest of the family went down stairs to put up the wall to make Peter a bedroom out of the existing family room in the basement.  I had already painted the walls I could (no, I did NOT miss part of the wall, based on where the bathroom doorway is on the other wall, this is where it stops on this side.... of course Pete suggested Mike build him a diagonal wall to maximize the space, but that idea was quickly shot down).  The wall is now up, the drywall up on Pete's bedroom side, boxes in for 2 outlets, a smoke detector, and a light switch.  More work tomorrow ......

Life

So, just as Zach got home from the hospital, I was off to start working again.  Literally, we got home late Friday night and I had a meeting at 9 AM Saturday.  I am now in my second week back to work, in the land of talking to grown ups through the day, having intellectual discussions that don't involve teenagers who THINK they know what they are talking about.  Plotting a career path.... ok, maybe not that, but tax season is underway and this is my first year doing tax prep.  I have spent a week checking files that were transfered to a new system to make sure all the important stuff was there and to fix what was not.  Yesterday I thought everything I did in week one was somehow wiped off the computer system, but thank goodness for the I.T. department, it was found and restored - darned power outage over the weekend messed up lots of stuff at work, but luckily that one was not too bad.

The little kids are surviving grandma babysitting all day while we both work and the big kids are in school.  In fact they like getting a little spoiled while I am gone.  I am warring with myself on sending Zach back to school - lots of good reasons to do it, lots of good reasons not to..... tune in later to see which me wins the fight.

Sadie is back home with the family tonight, and eating blandly for the next week to get her ulcers under control.  The kids have strict rules to keep people food away from her- and we will just have to keep her away from the table when Molly is eating so our little princess does not feed the dog her meals as she likes to do.

Other than all that, things are back to our crazy, "normal" life around here, and we wouldn't have it any other way!!

The Worst

What is worse than a sick male, of any age????  A sick 120 pound St. Newfie.  Yep, got a call from Mike today when he came home at lunch time to check on Zach, telling me that the dog was throwing up and has diareah.  Great.  Throw in a couple of other maladies that I will not gross you out with, and I left work early to run the dog to the vet, where they are keeping her overnight for observation.... They think it may be the table scraps and doggie treats causing ulcers (who knew???  our dogs when I was growing up and mine as an adult have ALWAYS eaten table scraps and treats), but if she's not better tomorrow morning, more tests will be run.  Otherwise the poor doggie is on dry food only, with milk bones thrown in for her treats.  :(

Just Us

Molly's new pretty pink princess castle

Zach get's his own room soon - Pete's is being built, this is ready for Zach when he is able to move back downstairs

Zach's free cars he got while he was in the hospital.  Steve had a good time playing with them too

We wish you a Merry Chirstmas!!!

happy new year

New Years Day has brought great things for our family.  Today Zach finally passed gas - the only time I have been happy to have him farting!  He's also pooped, been up walking 3 times, and sat in a straight backed chair.  Because he made so much progress today, he gets his NG tube out of his nose tomorrow morning and starts a liquid diet. We may yet make it home by the end of the week.  The nurses have also started flushing his tubes that go into his bladder.  His morphine is being decreased daily now and we are relying more on the Tylenol  Another great sign.  He didn't even have to hit his extra shot of morphine button when he got back into bed after his walks today...... do you think I can talk them into giving ME his extra shot of morphine- I could really use the help taking a nap since I have not been sleeping well.  Love you all and thank you for your prayers.  Keep them coming!!!