Confessions of a Starbucks addict

So I decided that since the kids have this week off of school (weird mid-winter break), I went and stole Tani away from the house and we road tripped it (Greyhound, leave the driving to them!) down to Portland, OR, yesterday. It was a great ride down, and getting around on Portland's transit system is really easy.

Today we're going to Oregon's biggest mall, Lloyd's Center Mall. It's supposed to be huge and have a ton of stores for anyone's tastes. I'm sure we'll have fun spending all of Troy's hard-earned money! :P We had Olive Garden for dinner last night...can you say, "Not on WW program!"?!? Oy, it was difficult to figure out what to eat, but I had a lot of the salad and mostly protein for dinner. The "Mixed Grill" they call it. It was skewers of steak and chicken. Half of the plate was steamed veggies. Yum! I ate half of the meat, none of the potatoes, a lot of the veggies too. I was stuffed!

A surprising coincidence, Tani's BFF is here in Portland this week, visiting her grandma. We're going to meet them at the mall today. It's just so funny. Tani didn't know we were coming here, and I had no idea that her BFF was here... It should be fun seeing how Ash acts when we're not around her "normal" life. :) I thought I'd take the girls to a movie too, so we'll see what her grandma says. It'll take us about 30 mins. to get to the mall from our hotel, the public transit here is great!

Tomorrow we're going to the Portland Diabetes Expo. Troy and I went to it last year and got a ton of freebie pens and a couple of pedometers. I'm hoping that Tani will grab a bunch of freebies for me too. :D

My son, my first-born baby, turned 18 today. I'm so proud of the man he's become. He's really pulled himself together in the last year, and he seems to be happy. He's got a nice girlfriend, he's in college (getting credit for high school and college through Running Start), he's got his head on straight.

Happy Birthday, Chris. I'm sad that you're 18 already. I miss cuddling you in my arms. Give your mom a hug occasionally, okay? <3

Now it's PJ's turn. She's got a fever, though not as high as Shay's was. She's also got aching ears. I'm sure I'll be taking her in to see her doctor tomorrow. I'm sure she'll be put on amoxicillin too. Poor thing is just miserable. :(

Troy and I have been trying to make her as comfortable as possible, but it seems she's fine for awhile and then gets upset when she remembers that her ears hurt. As long as a TV show is on that she likes, she's fine. She especially hates the early morning, she came into our room just bawling this morning. She quickly went back to sleep after snuggling in with me, but she didn't sleep too well. She napped a little on my lap this afternoon, didn't like it when I moved her, so I made sure to cuddle with her when I got back from the bathroom. :)

I'm hoping that after a day of abx she'll be fine. I'm going to try and get her an early appointment, after my physical therapy appointment preferably, since I already had to reschedule that appointment.

I can't wait for summer to begin! All this sickness in my house is really getting me angry.

Shayna's appointment was at 2:40 today. She saw a nurse practitioner instead of her doctor because the office was completely overwhelmed with kids.

After giving the history of her illness, I told the nurse that I was quite sure it was an ear infection, but it couldn't be a big one since she wasn't really playing with her ears, nor were they red. Boy was I wrong! The verdict, a double ear infection...and not just a mild, run-of-the-mill infection, no. This one is oozing fluid and very angry red in both ears. My poor baby. No wonder her temps never stayed down.

So, she's on twice a day amoxicillin for the next 10 days. I feel awful. :(

The nurse told me not to feel guilty. At least I wasn't her, she said. Once, her 15 year-old had double pneumonia for two weeks before she figured out that it wasn't just her daughter complaining about her asthma meds not working. I guess letting an ear infection go for a few days is okay... I did tell her that I really don't like giving antibiotics for ear infections since most of them go away on their own. She told me that the reason Shayna's fever hasn't gotten any better is probably because the infection is so bad. I asked if I let it go so long that her hearing could be compromised and she said no, that's a relief!

As for school, Shayna will be out tomorrow too. That's a total of 6 days out sick. Shayna's teacher sent her homework packets home with Kaycee today, so I'll get Shayna to do them over the weekend. She's been itching for something to do, so hopefully that will make her happy. (The kid loves homework, what can I say?)

As for everyone else in the family, we're all good. I still have a bit of sinus congestion from my bout of the cold and PJ is sniffling a little too. Hopefully this is the end of the rounds, yes I said *rounds* of illnesses that keep going around our little family.

My little Shayna is sick. She stayed home from school on Friday because of a severe cold. Her teacher told her to tell me (on Thursday) that she should probably stay home because of all the sneezing. I kept her home and she seemed fine. She played all weekend, I just kept dosing her with children's Robitussin for the awful coughing and runny nose she had. When Monday morning came, she really wasn't looking any better, so I kept her home again. That day she stayed on the couch all day and didn't really have an appetite. I figured she'd be fine the next day.

Boy was I wrong. I was awaken by Kaycee looking for the thermometer. Kaycee came back in and told me that Shayna's temp was 106 degrees. I quickly wake out of my twilight sleep and freak out. A few minutes later Troy checked her temp again and it was 103.9. Not 106 but almost 104. Not too much to worry about, but I knew that a fever meant she'd have to stay home.

I called in to the attendance office at her school and asked the attendance secretary to call me back. When we were in the Federal Way school district, if your child was out of school three or more days you had to take them to the doctor for a note. Apparently the attendance secretary wasn't up on the rules for the Kent district, so she said she thought it was five days. She and I worked it out that I wouldn't need to take Shayna to the doctor's unless she was going to be out another two days. She told me to keep Shayna home on Wednesday too, since the policy is that the child must be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school.

Today Shayna seemed fine all day. She got up and drew a little bit, she watched TV, ate a smidgen of food, and tried to force herself to drink water. We gave her unlimited sugar-free popsicle privileges. For most of the day her fever was gone. All of a sudden, it came back with a vengeance around 4 PM. Ugh...

I've decided to go ahead and take Shayna in to her doctor tomorrow. No amount of children's Tylenol or children's Motrin is keeping her fever at bay for more than a few hours at a time. I feel so badly for her. She looks miserable. She sleeps constantly. Poor thing. I worry about dehydration in her, so I've been trying to get her to sip some water at least once every half-hour, unless she's asleep. I'm hoping that this is just an ear infection or something equally simple. Unfortunately if it is an ear infection and she keeps her high fever, they still won't let her back into school...

Ah, kids...