Life!

I know it has been a while since I have blogged about our family happenings. Life has been busy. Since my last blog, we've had a birthday party with 6 other girls, Ryan has lost his first two teeth, we visited the Pumpkin Patch, Courtney and I have been busy with Peter Pan the Musical, and an interesting Halloween.

Warning: This will be a LONG post as there is lots to catch up on!

Oct 12th:
The birthday party for Courtney went well. We all went to Safari Sam's and played, golfed and ate. All of the girls had a good time. They came to our house afterwards and enjoyed pizza, dancing, partying, cake, games, etc. Then the sleepover.... most didn't go to sleep until 1:30 or so, but they were at the other end of the house, so no problem for us! I would be fibbing if I said no girl drama happened while we had the party. We had a couple of little incidences, but thanks to having a strong willed girl who knows how to get to the bottom of things (can we say black and white, cut and dried?), she handled those all on her own. Basically bottomline...no drama was going to hinder her party. Ryan had an important milestone that night as well. He lost his 1st bottom tooth. He was pretty proud of himself and all the girls let out a big cheer for him.

October 16th:
I went with Ry to his first Kinder field trip. They went to Heiser Farms and a fun time was had by all. He was partnered with a nice boy (who unfortunately wanted to find the biggest and apparently muddiest pumpkin he could find!) but they were good kids and stayed right with me. We did a little hay ride over to the patch, a maze and learned about animals and different kinds of pumpkins. I have been volunteering in his class since September, so by Pumpkin Patch time I know a lot of the kids, but it was fun to get to see them experience their first field trip and how exciting the ride on the bus was to them. When I asked Ryan what his favorite part was, I really thought he would talk about something to do with the patch itself. No, instead "I really, really liked riding the bus!" Alrighty then...

October 18th:
Our family met my parents and my brother's family at Plumper Pumpkin Patch. We went here last year too, and had a lot of fun. This year they added a barrel train, so the kids (and my 6'3" brother!) enjoyed a ride around part of the patch. They went through corn mazes, played on slides, raced rubber duckies with a water pump (this is always a favorite for all), and launched mini pumpkins at old beater cars. Afterwards, we enjoyed dinner at Spaghetti Factory. Yuuummmmmy!

October 29th:
Back in September, Courtney had auditioned for Peter Pan the Musical at Gallery. She was given the part of an indian. Since I have to still drive her to all of the practices anyway, I have started making myself useful during the various shows she has been in. I usually work stage left and communicate with the tech crew and get the people on that side of the stage in their places when they need to be there. It is a very fun job, but we don't really get started practicing that part until a week or two before the play opens. I agreed to help out during the rehearsals in various ways and tonight, I was helping by taking some measurements of the kids for their costumes. All was going well until one time I bent over and my lower back spasmed. I have had little ones of these before and they usually pass as quickly as they come. Well, not this time! I could barely stand up all the way through the rest of rehearsal. I came home, still not registering that this was going to be a lengthy process, and put a heating pad on and took an Advil and rested.

October 30th:
This was the morning after I hurt my back, I literally could not get up out of bed without it hurting so bad that I had tears running down my face. I tried reaching Tom who was already on his way to work and of course when I need him, the cell phone is off. GRRRR....(I'll let you all imagine how friendly I was once I did get ahold of him. Poor Tom!) I did finally reach him when he was in King City and he turned around and came home and got the kids ready for school. Ryan was late, which I was not happy with, but what else could we do? I could not sit or stand or lay or anything comfortably that entire morning. It was very frustrating and very painful. I got ahold of a good friend of mine who is a massage therapist and she got me in that afternoon. I tell you, she worked wonders. By the time I got out of there, I felt the best I'd felt all day. Still, it was slow going and this on and off discomfort I now know since I am posting this so late would last for weeks.

So, onto the rest of the fun for that day.

Did I ever mention my favorite thing about middle schoolers is their opinions and their indecisiveness? Courtney had been saying for weeks she was not going to dress up for Halloween this year. She was convinced that no one dressed up at school because they hadn't in elementary school either. Most of her friends were not either, or so they thought until about zero hour. Since at 7:30 the night before Halloween, we didn't have any time to go hunt all over town for the perfect costume that met all of the criteria that had been given to me (nor was my back feeling up to that challenge), I agreed to ride along as Tom took her out to find a festive orange shirt and some festive socks to put with the black skirt she already had. This way at least, she would look like she had at least given Halloween some thought before, well, 7:30 the night before. :) She looked cute and has decided that maybe next year she will find a costume earlier (that of course meets the middle school criteria).

October 31st Halloween:
This morning, I was well enough that Tom went to work after he dropped the kids off at school. I still wasn't doing much, as every bend hurt, sitting and standing were both uncomfortable, and was on anti-inflammatories which were making me very tired, but there was no point in having him miss another day of work just to watch me sleep. Ryan is a good napper after school and I had my parents in place to drive the kids home from school. It would be a fairly quiet afternoon. I was bummed today as I couldn't help out at Ry's school Halloween party as I had planned. He had a great time. He did report he wouldn't try to pumpkin pudding they had made, and when I gave him sort of a weird motherly look, he said "I know, I know, if you had been there I would have had to at least try it." Apparently the boy is smart enough to know what he can get by with when I'm not there. :) My parents had invited us over to dinner, and this was great as I wouldn't need to figure out any dinner plans for our busy evening. Halloween is always busy seeing family and making a few trick or treat stops in the neighborhood. Tom is never home very early, so because of our late start we usually don't get much if any "normal" trick or treating in. This year with Halloween being on a Friday, it allowed us time to go to some neighborhoods and take the kids out for real door to door trick or treats. Things were going fine until at dinner time Courtney kept complaining of her back and arms itching. She had commented earlier in the day that she had a nasty bite on her arm, but not much more was said. Well, as dinner progressed, more and more of her body was itching. My mom started suspecting chicken pox as when they looked at her body her whole back and part of her stomach was covered in red spots with blistery tops. Selfishly, like the great mother I am, I thought "this is just great. I need one more thing right now." We put a phone call into the doctor, but it was taking a long time to hear anything back. By this time, Courtney was miserable with itching and was on my parent's couch resting. She had no interest in going trick or treating and I wasn't wild about her spreading whatever this might be to everyone around. Since my parents had already been exposed, we decided to go ahead and take Ry out trick or treating. He had been looking forward to it for several days, except of course when we went to put his costume on. He wasn't as excited to go all of the sudden, but we did convince him to put his costume on and practice trick or treating at G & G's house. He was soon totally into it and off we went. We went to neighborhoods, and all of usual family places too. Finally about 9:30, the doctor called back and when I described what Courtney's spots looked like, they said that they were not chicken pox, but a case of hives that were an allergic reaction to an insect bite. We would likely never know what insect it was, but we could expect to see the spots continue to spread over the course of the next couple of weeks. She was not contagious they said, it would just be itchy. Courtney was less than thrilled that whatever this was would last for longer than a few hours. She was already sick of it.

November 1:
(Allison, you will appreciate this next part.) This next morning, we went ahead and decided to take Courtney to the doctor so they could see the spots, just in case they really were contagious. They really looked bad, red and blistery, and it was hard to fathom they weren't contagious looking like that. They had spread during the night too. She now had more on her stomach and now a few on her face. (Which for a pre-teen girl is the LAST place she wanted them to be!) There were more on her back too, in fact her back was pretty covered. So, off to the doctor we went, and they took one look and agreed with the original diagnosis of hives. She was NOT contagious and could do normal stuff and they recommended some cream or Benadryl to relieve the itching. Over the course of the next few days, Courtney's spots got much better. She was really worried that first day back at school that if kids saw her arms and neck they would think she was freaky. So, she made sure she wore clothes that covered up all of this. The only people that really knew were those close to her and those that had PE and dance with her since they were all over her back. Finally, about 3 weeks later, the spots are almost completely gone. I think she only got one scar from itching out of the deal and it is on her back so no worries. What a crazy Halloween!

Fast forward to current: Things are getting more and more normal. When I get a chance, I will post pictures to go along with this post, assuming any of you were patient enough to read until the end! We are enjoying a few days off of school, the play at Gallery opened last weekend and had near sold out crowds every day with good feedback, her spots are almost gone and my back is getting better...although still not perfect. We have survived the 1st quarter of school and conferences went well for both kids. Life could be worse and for some close to us, it is...you'll see in my next post.