Stomach bugs...

I've had some intestinal bug over the past couple of days, I woke up this morning and started throwing up. Baby T had a run with diarrhea this morning. Baby J and Little E were just determined to find trouble and I was after them all morning long. Got lunch around (chicken noodle soup) while I tried not to puke.... Baby T tried falling asleep in her chair and I went over to help her eat so I could go lay her down. The next thing I know is she's projectile vomiting everywhere. While I got her cleaned up, Baby J and Little E are spreading soap all over the bathroom, getting into the toothbrushes and the bath salts and just making a mess. So, once I got her cleaned up and put to bed I got to clean up that mess, clean them up, and put Baby J down for a nap. He kept busting out of his room and trying to bust into Baby T's room. At 2, I changed our appts around for tomorrow and pleaded with Andy to come home as I desperately needed to lay down with as miserable as I felt. He came home at 2:30 and I laid down for awhile while he answered some calls and worked from home. I just tried to eat again and my stomach feels off again. Hopefully, I won't have to take another trip to the bathroom here soon. I hate being sick....

Just a general update...

We are doing well. Andy has ordered his harpsichord that he's been wanting forever. We paid off a ton of debt, put some towards our MI trip in March, and into savings. It feels good to be accomplishing paying off our debts and to know that we just have our student loans, the van, and the house left to pay off.

We are working on Baby J's adoption stuff...CPS informed me today that there's a hold-up as Mom gave them the wrong information on the place of his birth and after they finally were able to track it down we found out that the hospital storage is in the process of moving and it's going to take 4-6 weeks to get his records as of today. And here I was thinking that they were all waiting on me and I've been trying to get all my stuff done that I need to. Guess, I can settle down a bit as this may take awhile longer yet. He is so mellow on meds now...he listens and follows directions so much better. I wish we would have been able to start meds sooner. It's totally made a difference in our household.

I had to take Baby T back for her test today and I got to talking with the fostermom that has her baby brother. She asked me if I had heard anything about whether or not they were going to do any homestudies on anybody else and I told her that I thought they were just going to leave the kids where they are and that there wasn't anyone else to check. We talked about some other stuff and then went on our way as we had to go get Deidra from school and were hoping we weren't going to be late.

Deidra has been doing well. She is a great big sister and can be a really big help with them. She's been having some issues with getting in trouble at school for excessive talking and not listening. It's the same things I'm battling with her here at home for along with her talking back and arguing about everything that Andy and I say to her. I don't know what her deal is, but she can get so hyper and rowdy at night and she bounces off the walls when we're trying to get homework done. Other times, she's completely mellow. One of her friends was just off meds for ADHD and I don't know if it rubbed off on Deidra for awhile or what, but man she can get hyper. She's been spending lots of time being grounded over the past couple of weeks. Overall, she's doing well though.

Well, that was fun...

The girls' CPS worker called at 11:30 this morning to let me know that Baby T needed to be down at the courthouse down there at 1 to do a test on her. Since I didn't want to go down there by myself (the jail and everything is in the building and it's in a sketchy part of town, Andy told me he'd go with me). The occupational therapist had just arrived and started therapy and so we had to cut that short as well. Andy got home just before noon and we got down there at 12:45 and met Mom and Baby T's dad (they have the same eyes so I think he's trying to delay the inevitable). We waited and waited and nobody showed up. Mom) said that they were told to wait out in the hall and that the testing people weren't there yet. At 1:30 I tried calling the CPS worker and was told she wasn't in the office. They called her to let her know what was going on and she thought we were in the wrong building, but I told her that we were in the Justice office where she told me to go and that all of us were there. CPS told me that we had to wait as it was ordered by the judge (at a hearing that the AG courts did with Mom and Dad this morning). So, we hung out and talked and Mom played with the kids a bit. We all took turns calling CPS and finally Baby T's Dad called his attorney to find out if they knew what was going on. He couldn't get anywhere, so I had to call my Mom to pick up Deidra from school. Mom finally called her attorney and finally her attorney was able to tell us that the papers she had faxed over to her said it was for next Monday instead. So, we get to go back and do it all over again next week. Very frustrating day, UGH!

UGH

The doctor dropped our medicaid for the foster kids. The girls have been complaining all night that their ears hurt. I'm tired and not feeling well myself...we just finished a zillion appts for today and now I have to take them into the ER as the only doctor accepting their insurance in our area doesn't have any new patient appts until the 4th of next month. Great...let me go expose them to more germs just to get them some healthcare.

Decorating the House...

We cleaned out the garage yesterday,now to just unpack the totes. I'm going to try and do one tote a day minimum. Anyway, we went to church this morning and I asked Mom to come by and help me hang pictures. She came over for most of the day and we hung the pictures that I had out (I still have a ton more in totes) and we went shopping for some other ones that I wanted. I found a couple cool ones that I'm going to save up for and I bought some cool frogs that hang on the wall for the kids bathroom. It looks really cool! Anyway, I've got the decorating bug now. Mom is making me a wreath to go with one of my pictures and I can't wait to see the finished product. It feels all homey in here now with just a little bit on the walls. I started my stairway too (all Deidra's pictures are going to be hung from birth to her senior year) and even my Mom commented on how nice it looked. Deidra came home from her sleepover and that was the first thing she noticed. I'm going to go up and get frames for our foster children's pics to go in and then have the pics from respite kids that I've done to put them into their slots too. The kids I've actually had as placements are going in their own 5x7 frames and the kids I've had for respite I'm putting in a big multi-picture frame. I can't wait until I get it all up. I'm going to try and take Baby J in to get his 2 year pictures taken at Wal-mart this week too so I have his professional picture to hang on the wall. I'm getting into this decorating stuff. It's about time since we've lived here for 8 months now and the walls were bare until this weekend. It really does make a difference. I have so much I want to do now...I've been inspired!

I need things to go uphill...

I am so ready to cry. I still don't feel 100%, but I thought I felt well enough for Andy to go back to work today. He left around 4. I woke up having horrilbe stomach pains, I got the girls up and ready for school...Deidra finger is looking worse. I go to get the boys up for school...Baby D still isn't feeling 100% and still says his tummy hurts. I change his diaper and notice a red inflamed area on his leg...look closer...there's 2 fang bites...so I start thinking spider bite. I put some triple antibiotic ointment over it and gave him some motrin. Ran the girls up to school and ran over to the agency so my caseworker could look at it...she's in training so I had the nurse look at it...yup, it's a spider bite. She asked me if I knew what kind it was...I never saw the insect. She told me if I couldn't get a hold of the doctor right away, that Ineeded to bring him up to the emergency room. I came home and Deidra's doctor called and said that the nurse could look at her finger and if the doctor needed todo anything, they'd work her in. I was calling Baby D's doctor and had to leave a message. I'm only giving her until 9 to call back or I'm heading to the emergency room as the girls only have a 1/2 day of school and I'm trying to cancel the visit for Little J and Baby D today as well as his ENT appt. I went to call Andy at work to see if he could meet me at the ER room...he's mad at me. I really don't want to have to sit in there for 3 hours to have to leave before he's seen because I have to go get the girls...I did that before and spent the whole darned day (literally) in the ER.

Update: Antibiotics for Baby D's bite in case it gets infected over the next 24-48 hours. And he's been complaining that his tummy has been hurting ever since he had the flu this week, so I had them check into that. At first she thought it was psychosomatic and the visits with his parents were bothering him and then when I said he had had a fever too and she listened to him with the stethoscope she said his abdomen sounded really full so she ordered an x-ray. He's really constipated which surprised me as he's been going and his stools have been soft. But, he's pretty backed up. She said it's probably like 2 lbs of poo stuck in there. We're increasing fluids and fiber to see if we can get things going. I also picked up some pedia-lax (they're little enemas to help them poo) and he went pretty good once I gave him one of those. He still says it hurts though. Poor baby! Andy did wind up meeting me at home to take him in and we got into a fight and both said some things we didn't mean to one another. I think my spirit was pretty broken today, but I'm just glad that we finally apologized and made everything right. My spirit is still hurt, but I can accept his apology.