Yes, he's four, but he's still my baby! My last baby. And he has already been in preschool almost a month. It's still taking me a little bit of time to adjust. But, for the first time in 9 years and 4 months I am not 100% responsible for another human being for a few hours a week. 9 years and 4 months!!!! It's been a while!
But, two days a week, I have 2 1/2 hours to myself. All four of my kids are in school for those 5 hours each week. All of them! Now, Thursdays I am at work at church during that time, but on some of those Tuesdays, I'm totally and completely free to do what I want. I have big plans. Exercising. Shopping. Vegging out. Yesterday, I did a little work at church and went to Wal-mart. Not too exciting, but it doesn't matter, because I could have done anything during that time! It's a good thing Sam has 2 years of preschool because I think it will take me that long to adjust to all of my kids being in school all day.
Here's what he looked like on his first day of school! Did I cry when I dropped him off? Surprisingly, my eyes only watered a bit. I just knew he'd be fine. He'd be happy and he'd do his best to listen and follow directions. He's grown up in church and our Parent's Day Out program, so going to class isn't a new thing. And man does he love it! As soon as his sisters get on the school bus he's asking me every two minutes if it's time to leave for preschool. For 50 minutes he does this! Some days I just put him in the car early just to get him to stop asking. But, it's a good thing. He loves going to school and is super excited to get there. I'm hoping that continues for a long time!
On August 1st we had our first of two well-child appointments. Two, because my not-so-family-friendly pediatrician won't see all four kids in consecutive appointments. It is apparently too difficult for her to make sure she does her job right. (I'm paraphrasing of course!) But, being that I'm a stay-at-home mom, all four kids came with me to the appointments anyways. Go figure.
The very next day Sophia was sick with a high fever. Coincidence? On a totally unrelated note, I think I'm done with well-child appointments unless the kiddos need immunizations. Totally unrelated, of course! The high fever lasted an entire week. She was officially fever-free for the first day of school. Then Chris got it for several days. He has this amazing ability to sleep through his illnesses. I dream of being able to just sleep the days/nights away when I'm sick. Never happens.
As soon as Chris was better Anna and I got sick. But, oh, this virus took a turn for the worse! Let me describe a few of the symptoms. High fever, aches/pains, dizziness, exhaustion, terrible cough, sore throat, nauseousness, throwing up, headaches. Well, you get the picture. But it started with just the fever and sore throat. I took her in right away to be tested for strep since that was already going around the school. Awesome. She didn't have strep, luckily. A few days later her nurse called to give us the strep results and I asked again about the high fever. According to Tylenol/IBP, you shouldn't stay continually on meds for that long. But the nurse said to keep trying to manage the fever and continue on. Then the cough came for both of us. And all the other symptoms!
Finally, after a week of this I knew we needed to get to the doctor, but I couldn't even drive at that point, so we waited until Chris could take us to Immediate Care. Anna was tested for Whooping Cough and diagnosed with Pneumonia. They diagnosed me with dehydration and said they'd have to get me on an IV, but since they were closing soon, I should just start drinking 5 bottles of Gatorade a day. Not so easy on a nauseous tummy! Anna got a quick shot of drugs, but our regular doctor (lover her) wanted us to come in the next day so she could determine what antibiotics she wanted Anna on rather than let the other doctor just prescribe us something. Nice of her really. Uggh. Of course, I still couldn't drive, so my mom came over to help! We went in the next day so she could write a script and so she could chastise me in front of an intern for not coming to her sooner. Yes, I did take her in once, and talk to the nurse about it a few days later. I'm pretty sure that counts for something.
Then she told me I needed to get in to see my doctor asap. So, I got an appointment for the next day. Of course I still couldn't drive so mom came back again. And I was loaded up with drugs. Two different antibiotics, a prescription cough syrup and prescription pain killer. Lovely. It took Anna and I a full two weeks of being sick to see the light of day. Then it took over a week to regain our energy to where we could actually stay awake all day long without a nap. It then took Anna an extra week to get her body rested up so that she could stop being incredibly grouchy.
But, I am here to say that after about 6 weeks, we all seem to be doing okay. Sam and Isabella seemed to escape most of it except for a mild cough. And for that day or two that my mom visited, my house was clean, laundry done, and the rest of the family had yummy home-cooked meals. Thanks mom!
But I feel like I missed August and part of September. Our lives didn't stop. We started our first year of school with all three girls going all day. Sam started preschool. I helped organize our elementary school's fun run fundraiser. (I would not recommend trying to count thousands of dollars while you are deliriously sick. Doesn't work well!!) We had church, started year-round swimming, and life just kept going. But it was a blur. Here's hoping we all developed some strong resistance for the coming cold/flu season at least! Because I might not survive another month like August!! Here's hoping that your August went a little better than ours!
