The Happiest Place on Earth

So we are off in just a few short hours to Disney World.
We will be traveling with my mother in law and meeting my father in law in Orlando where we will spend 3 nights at Disney then 2 nights at "the condo".
I have not stopped moving today in preparation to travel. Tim travels about as well as a china doll by pony express, and his mom is not much better, so I am totally looking forward to our 7 am flight.
I posted some new pictures on Flickr, more to come after our trip.....
Anyone need anything from Disney World?

There's No Place Like Home

Yesterday morning I took a shower which is kind of a big deal. It is rare that I actually get one in before nap or bed time, but I had things to do, people to see, and place to go.
So I left the house armed with my girls and my to do list and a pretty tight schedule so that we could fit everything in. We hit the grocery store, the mailbox, then a friend's house to drop something off. Next was the pediatrician (to make sure Nora was really ok), then back home to clean and do laundry and get set for the week. It was there that we took a small detour.
After a quick listen to Nora's lungs the same doctor who told me a week ago that what was going on with my babe was viral, announced that she had pneumonia, and it didn't sound good. She prescribed an antibiotic and kept trying to get a decent pulse ox reading, but couldn't get one above the mid 80s. This is bad.
Now let me rewind a bit to last week...We went on Monday and her lungs were clear. I made then cancelled an appointment on Wednesday because I was worried, but then feared that I was being totally neurotic. My regular doctor (not the one I had seen) assured me that he had been seeing a lot of the same symptoms and told me to wait until about a week to ten days of symptoms. So I stayed up with her at night holding her while she coughed and hacked then went back to bed to listen to Tim tell me that she has the same thing he does. I talked about taking her in to the doctor on Friday, but Tim told me that I was crazy and that I should wait until Monday. He knows how she feels, he has the same cough, remember, "she's fine". So against my better judgement I let someone who spends a small fraction of the time that I do with her tell me how to handle this.
Bad Idea.
So yesterday, after 2 nebulizer treatments, her pulse ox didn't improve so we were told to head on over to the hospital and get checked in for a chest x-ray, IV fluids, and antibiotics. Needless to say I was not prepared for this.
Once we got in the car I drove to where I had cell service (my service sucks these days and it is killing me) and called Tim who yelled at me (more toward me) and was totally unhelpful. I then called my cousin (who is moving out of the state in a few days and had many other things to do) who dropped everything to come and get Abby so that I could head off to the hospital with Nora.
We got to the pediatric ward and while waiting to get her x-ray I made a million phone calls to get Abby taken care of for the rest of the day and today. My mother in law stepped up, which is huge, as did a lot of my friends. Not Tim, he was worried about his hockey game that he didn't want to miss and having to work late. He wasn't worried about coming down to visit his baby, or bringing his wife a change of clothes, a tooth brush, or dinner. He wasn't worried about the groceries that were still in the back of my car from earlier. He was worried about his hockey game. (You think that is ridiculous, just wait, he makes another dazzling appearance in this story shortly)
So we go get a chest x-ray, and my poor baby rode through the halls in a wheel chair looking pitiful. The chest x-ray showed that she has pretty bad pneumonia in her right lung, but it should be treatable with hardcore antibiotics. They poked and prodded her little arms and wrists trying to get an IV started, but she was just dehydrated enough to make it almost impossible so they ended up deciding to just give her shots of the antibiotics. Holding her down while this bitchy nurse jiggled a needle in her arm was one of the most awful things I have had to do as a parent. It is so hard to remember that it is going to make her better when she is in so much pain.
She was a trooper, however, and survived that ordeal (I think the visit to the treasure box helped). They ordered the antibiotics and again we waited. Once she fell a sleep for the night they finally came in so we had to wake her up and give her a giant shot in her little leg. HSe fell into fitful sleep after that, and I would be lying if I said it was a good night for either of us.
Not 10 years ago I found it acceptable to sleep with another full sized human being in a twin sized bed. Come on, we all did this in college- the boyfriend sleeps over and somehow you manage to sleep 2 in a twin bed. Why is it virtually impossible to do this with a toddler? Seriously, she should take up less room right? Wrong. Between that and the coughing and the machine beeping when her pulse ox got too low and the nurse coming in every hour to take her temperature (seriously folks, she hasn't had a fever since we got here, why wake her up to do this?) and the fact that I was still wearing jeans and the strange shirt I left the house in earlier it was a bad night.
We survived and the antibiotics are doing their thing. The doctor came in this morning and told me that we could go home after the next dose of antibiotics which she could have at 5pm. So we waited, and waited, and waited. We killed time around the hospital (as much as we could in her mask and hospital gown). It was a long day, but we entertained ourselves. My mother in law called no less that 11 times, and as we were getting discharged by the nicest doctor ever Tim called.
I answered the phone and asked if I could call him back. He said no, so I assumed that there was something more pressing than his child having pneumonia. Alas, he was calling to demand that I tell him exactly when we would be home because his dad needed a ride home from the airport. I promptly hung up on him and unplugged the phone.
So we made it home tonight and the patient is resting comfortably in her own bed . There is still some coughing, but her sparkle is returning and I think we are on the mend. I have so much complaining to do about my husband, but no energy to do it. I am horrified at how selfish he has been and how inconsiderate. The sad part is that I wish I were more surprised by his actions.
As my grandmother would say, "Lord give me strength".
Everyone has told me I should find a new pediatrician, but really I don't blame them for missing this. I should have trusted my motherly instincts and and taken her in earlier and not been so worried about being neurotic. I am neurotic, I guess I should stop trying to fight it.

Did I mention we are leaving for Disneyworld with Tim's parents on Thursday morning?

Down With Disease

Once again, Eleanor is sick. last week she started this high fever thing and it has only gone down hill. Her fever has hovered around 102 (gone up a few points and down a few here and there), and she is just pathetic. She has had little to drink and has thrown up everything she has eaten for the past three days. All she does is lay on my bed moaning and coughing, sometimes crying. It is so sad.
I am not quite sure what to do here. I called the pediatrician's office when she spiked the fever, but then felt like a fool because when they called to follow up she was fine. I have tried to keep her hydrated and comfortable, but she just lays on my bed watching TV and sleeping. I took her in to the walk in hours at the ped's office this morning, they told me it is just viral and I should just keep doing what I'm doing. Nora then whined and coughed on my bed all afternoon. I got her to eat a little which she promptly threw up. I finally put her to bed tonight with a temp of 102, and I am completely perplexed about what to do next.
I don't want to be the mom who keeps taking her kid to the doctor looking for a different answer, but I am seriously worried. She has hardly moved off my bed today, and the vomit is totally stressing me out. She has lost 2 lbs, which is kind of a big deal since she was 30 to start with. I feel like she is wasting away in front of me.
Am I being dramatic? Is my pediatrician's office going to think I am crazy if I call again tomorrow?
Why is parenting so hard?

Hot Wheels

Not to be outdone by my sister and her fleet of cars (seriously, they have 5 cars for 2 drivers, and I think they would have more if they could) Tim bought a car today. El Diablo, his Dodge SRT4 (its a Neon, but we don't talk about that), got its ass kicked by the winter storms we have been hit with lately, so Tim hopped onto Auto Trader and found himself a "beater car". We are now the proud owners of a 1987 Jeep Grand Cherokee. Hooray.
I am not mad that Tim bought a car for the purpose of getting him safely to and from work during the winter months. In fact I kind of support the idea of a more sensible car than El Diablo (I call it that because there are flames painted on the side and it has a big handle of a spoiler on the back, also it kind of irks him when I call it that because he is sensitive about the fact he drives a Neon). I just wish he would have been more sensible about buying a sensible car.
This Jeep represents a lot of my issues with Tim. Sure we talked about the purchase before he made it, but not really. To me it would have made sense to have saved the $800 he spent on it and put it away and added to it here and there so we could buy a car to replace mine without having to trade it in (this isn't just me wanting a new car, it is something we have been talking about and plan to do in the next year or so).
But TIm needed instant gratification.
So now we have a new old car and our new house fund didn't get the transfusion it needed this month. Tim and I seem to have the same financial goals, but for whatever reason he is not as focused on them as I am. I suppose we could start storing stuff in the back of the new (old) Jeep....

Primary Concerns

So tomorrow is Super Tuesday.
I was planning on not voting in the primary because the pain of choosing a candidate has been unbearable, but I feel like I have to have a voice in some of the local stuff around here so it is off to the polls I go.
Of course I have my mom in my ear complaining about me wanting to vote for a democrat on any level, let alone a Clinton. And yes, Hillary Clinton kind of scares me, but I am kind of indifferent about which democrat gets the nod. I like Obama, he is, for lack of a better word, fine. Hillary doesn't make me want to move out of the country (although she does make me nervous), and I like John Edwards (and his pretty pony hair) but he is no longer an option. I just feel like anything is better than what we've got going on now....
So I guess my dilemma is this: would I be voting for Hillary just because she is a woman? How can I tell my little girls that they can do and be whatever they want and help teach them to be supportive of other women doing and being whatever they want if I don't completely support Hillary? I know I know they are too young to understand, but I think that the act of electing a woman to the highest office in the land lays much firmer groundwork for future generations of women than just watching her run does.
I say that Hillary scares me because I don't believe that one can raise the kind of money that she has and still maintain her integrity and not owe anyone something somewhere. And the idea that Ann Coulter would support her makes me scared. I don't ever want it to be said that Ann Coulter and I have anything in common. That, and she is, after all, a Clinton.
I like Obama, I do, but as a resident of his great state I can't help but be a little annoyed that during his senatorial campaign he denied any interest in the presidency and now has kind of abandoned his post in Illinois politics. That aside, I think he is a slid candidate who provides people with a sense of hope that is much needed in this time of war and legislation in the bedroom.
Either way the election goes we are pretty much guaranteed a huge regime change, and we are all getting a front row seat to some serious history making... a woman or and African American president is huge for the history books when you look at the state of political affairs 100 years ago. The problem is if you are voting solely on which minority you support, how do you choose? Do I go with Hillary because she and I are both women, or do I go for Obama because I believe everyone should be color blind?
I was telling my new best friend, Christy, that I wonder if I am feeling what the first wave feminists felt when they had to decide to split from the Civil Rights movement.
At any rate I am ready to do my civic duty tomorrow.
The only thing I hate about voting is that someone has to lose.