Yesterday and Today

I am glad that all took place before midnight yesterday, but I had 4 pukers and 2 down with stomach aches. So today, I have one fussy baby that is mad that I will not give him milk, one toddler that spread the germ and is well and energetic, one teenager who is praying that she will not be sick, and five inbetween kids that are laying in front of the TV sipping sprite. What am I going to do today?

1. Refill lots of sippy cups of sprite-- carefully stirring out the bubbles.
2. Hold said grumpy baby while surfing the internet.
3. vacuum the stairs, fireplace and under the stove.
4. catch up on the laundry.
5. wash the cupboards in the kitchen and even reorganize some.

Why? Because there will be no homeschool, no driving to Salt Lake for classes, no getting dressed or combing hair, no company or friends, no making of meals, and not very many dishes. So it is project day.

The 10 Commandments By Adam

John asked Adam what the 10 commandments were, and this is how he answered:


Honor your father and mother
Love your enemies
Go to church
And when you don't feel like it, go to church

United Families International Writer

Today, I am a writer over at the United Families International. I have more to say about  gay marriage and religious freedom. I have to add here, that this is actually very scary. Yes, some people added an amendment at the last to protect churches, but individuals are becoming exempt from religious freedom at an alarming rate.

When I was half way through the pregnancy with Joshua, I was really struggling. I wanted it to be my last pregnancy. 8 children with 4 boys and 4 girls seemed perfect. I wanted to be done. So I kept praying over and over and asking if this baby was the last. Could we be done having children? I never received an answer to that prayer. Later, when I calmed down and quit asking to be done, I got an answer. My answer was that there is one more boy that is suppose to come to my family.

Okay, I thought, just one more pregnancy. I was going to wait a while this time, though. I wanted to get into better physical shape so that a pregnancy at an older age would be easier. With just one more pregnancy, I thought it would be okay to wait until I was 37 to get pregnant.

But, I got pregnant as if we had used no birth control. So I thought, well, I guess that boy is coming sooner. No biggy. I will get into shape after this one, because then I will be done having children. My family is going to finally be complete.

Friday, I found out that I am having a girl. Funny, but the room got silent when the doctor said that. I smiled and said, "well, the pattern is not broken."  I was wondering what had I gotten wrong.

John was the last in our household to find out about the baby, and he was ecstatic! John wanted a girl and was sad that we weren't going to have another daughter. I casually mentioned the boy thing. John shrugged it off.

Saturday night, we went to the Temple. While in the temple, I prayed earnestly to know what the Lord would want me to do. Occasionally, I do this. I wasn't even thinking about having more children. But, that was the answer I received. I knew I was not wrong about there being another boy.

John and I went to dinner afterwards. When I felt brave enough, I told him that I knew I was not wrong about the boy. I know there is another boy that is suppose to come to our family, and as much as I hate it, I know that means another pregnancy after this one. John mentioned excitedly, that he had received the same revelation, but was afraid to tell me.

So like Nephi, "I will go and do the things which the Lord has commanded..." This little girl is not my last child. This pregnancy is not my last pregnancy. I may be unhappy at the thought of another pregnancy, and I am sure there are lots of people out there that already disapprove of how many children I already have. But none of that matters. Heavenly Father knows better than  I do. So that is who I will follow.

Wow!!!

So today when I got home from church, Adam was complaining of an earache. I immediately called the kids urgent care clinic located the floor below our pediatrician. Usually, I can get an appointment within a half hour. The first appointment was 2 1/2 hours later. I took it. I was pretty hungry and wanted to get lunch before I rushed out to the doctors anyway, but I knew that meant they were busy.

In the meantime, Joseph came down and laid down in front of the fire. I looked at his glassed over eye look and knew he had a fever again and for the 7th day. 7 days with a fever over 102 seems suspicious, even though I couldn't pin down anything particularly wrong. So I thought, "I think I will need to take him to the doctors anyway. I might as well bring him now."

When I got to the doctors, they were not too happy about me bringing Joseph along too. They already had had 20 kids in the 2 1/2 hours since they opened. So I said, no biggy. I did not want to wait another hour plus for Joseph as a walk in. I said I could take him to his own doctor another day. The receptionist was more concerned over the 7 day high fever than I was, and checked with the doctor. Because the doctor was so behind already, he said, my wait would be long either way, so they took Joseph too.

We waited about an hour and a quarter with Joseph running around and gabbing up a storm the whole time. Really, minus the fever, he has not seemed very ill.

So Adam got checked first and has an ear infection, just like we thought. Then I told the doctor why we were there with Joseph. He immediately checked his lungs, and said, "I thought so. It sounds all bubbley." Joseph has pneumonia! Then he mentioned how Joseph wasn't acting very sick, though. (I'm sure glad I brought him!!!!)

With 8 children, this is our first case of pneumonia. Really, I am not used to having sick kids. Occasionally, we have a kid with a sinus infection. Johnny went through a period where he got strep about every six months for two years, but that is about all. I never even considered pneumonia as a possibility. It didn't even cross my mind.

Update: at about 8:30 Joshua had a fever of 101, and was tugging on his ear. John took him to kidscare and Josh has an ear infection too. 

"Daddy Dressed Me"

Don't laugh! Daddy dressed me.

 

John is always putting Joshua's clothes on Joseph. I think it may be because Joseph wore these same clothes sometime in the last year and a half. But really, can't a man tell the difference between sizes 12 months and 2T?

Mayhem After Midnight

Monday night, Joseph had croup and a high fever. Tuesday night, Joseph had a little croup and a much higher fever. We were losing sleep. Wednesday night, Adam had a bad case of croup. John stayed up most of the night with him making sure he could breath, and keeping him in cool air. Thursday night was nightmare night.

I went to bed at 12:30pm. Adam had already begun coughing, but not terribly. By 2:30am, Adam's croup was really bad. John got him out into the cold night air to help him breath. That seemed to panic Adam. By 3am, we were facing the worst croup case we have ever experienced. Adam was not breaking between coughs, and barely said, "I can't breath." The cool night air was not helping.

By this time, I was wide awake and helping John. We put Adam into a steaming shower. The hot shower helped him relax and the steamy air helped him to breath better. Since, we knew we would run out of hot water, we made a cup of bowling water for Adam to sip and breathe in the steam.

We put Adam on the couch with a pile of blankets on him, and gave him the mug of hot water, while we started trying to get the internet working so he could watch a movie ( to help him relax more). We couldn't get the internet working. John called comcast, and the system was down  for maintenance. So we looked through our videos.

Thinking, I would get back to bed soon, I refilled Adam's mug, and put a little lemon juice and sugar in it while John fussed around with getting a movie on. I sat down next to Adam, and the boiling water in his mug sloshed out. Adam freaked out and dumped most of the entire cup down his front.

Adam jumped up and ripped his clothes off. His left side down to his hip and all around his left arm was very burnt. We tried to get him into a cool bath. He hopped in and out screaming with pain, or freezing cold and feverish.  With so much of his body burned, we knew we needed to take him to the emergency room. By this time, it was 4am. We actually do not know what hospital is best for our insurance and even where most of the hospitals are around us.

I needed to call emergency rooms, but our internet was down and I had no way to get the emergency rooms phone numbers. John mentioned that while it was only 6am in Maine, my parents might be awake. They were not.

My mom got me the phone number to the hospital where I had Joshua. (The only one we knew the location of.) They actually let us talk to a nurse. They mentioned that they might have to transfer Adam to Primary Children's hospital. We thought we should just go there instead. I recalled my mom, and it took a while to get the correct phone number for Primary Children's. I needed to call them for directions.

Primary Children's Hospital doesn't answer their phone. We were really pretty frustrated. Adam was still jumping in and out of the tub and crying. We thought we better just get him to a doctor, so we woke up Ruth and Kate to tell them what was happening, and took Adam to the only hospital we knew the location of.

Adam's burns were all first and second degree, so they were able to treat him there. I also requested that he get treated for croup. It was all unpleasant. We definitely felt like the nurse seemed to think we burned our son at 4 am on purpose. But Adam was okay. And I was firm about getting him treated for croup for the next few days.

We got home just before 7am, and all went to bed. The whole night was one awful event after another. If I could go back in time, I would have taken Adam to the doctors the day before. As it is, I am grateful that Adam's burns are not serious and will not scar, Adam has been treated for croup for the next 48 hours, and because we had to go to the smaller hospital, he was seen right away and we were able to get home in time to sleep 1.5 hours before anyone else woke up.