I am up at this ungodly hour because Kira has woken up with croup again.

Last night the evil cat peed on the coat which Damon had left on the front hall floor. Of course I am thoroughly disgusted, but at the same time I am feeling righteous! "Damon, I TOLD you not to leave anything on the floor." Last week he peed on Campbell's school bag that he had left in the middle of front hall and since then all of the kids have been hanging their bags up. *evil cackle* 'Tis a mixed blessing. I'm sure that the puppy is going to teach them to clean up their toys! I know all the tricks to get cat pee out of anything. Ok, well ALMOST anything. Hockey gloves have proven to be a challenge and all I have managed to do with those is dilute the smell.


bad cat 

The boys got to school late again today. It is so hard to get them to school on time because every single one of us is feeling sick and every day it is a judgement call as to who is well enough to go. I just wish we had a week to stay home and get better.

Kira is feeling worse today. When she woke up her eyelids were crusted together, ewwww. There is an itchy rash on her cheeks and all over her torso. Her nose is running like crazy with that thick yellow snot, ewwww. She has diarrhea, ewwww. And she is teething. She is actually in a decent mood though.

She hasn't been nursing well. She has been biting me a lot, probably because she is congested and can't breathe when she is sucking, so she panics and clamps down.

I took her back to the doctor to recheck her ears and they are fine. Her throat and her breathing are okay too. We got eyedrops for her and the pharmacist suggested that I should give her Claritin to try to treat the allergic rash and the runny nose at the same time. I am only going to give her the Advil if her fever gets really high or if she is not able to sleep because of teething pain. She agreed with me that the rash is probably a result of all of the food dye that is in the medications she has taken recently (advil, dimetapp, antibiotic suspension).

I went to the visitation for my neighbour. It was sad. He was such a good family man and his family adored him right to the end. I learned that they had another daughter who died when she was 11 months old. The mother was at the end of her pregnancy with their third child (the oldest wasn't even 2 yet) and needed to rest, so her sister offered to take care of the kids. The baby fell out of her crib and broke her neck and died instantly. I went home and hugged Kira tighter and when she kicked and squirmed in my bed all night, I didn't for a moment wish that she was in her crib. I've never been comfortable leaving her in her crib to cry. She is a climber now, so I'm wondering if I will ever feel comfortable putting her in there again.

Kira's rash

I'm just trying this thing out again. For me to really be able to stick with this blog, I'm going to have to figure out a way to get pictures on here. So bear with me. The kids are still trying to get better. Kira goes back to the doctor's tomorrow to get her ear checked. My next-door neighbour died on Sunday afternoon after a courageous battle with cancer. Last night we tried to go out for dinner with my inlaws. That has never been a problem before. The 3 boys are usually pretty good at restaurants. But Kira has helped us to understand why other couples don't take their kids out to nice restaurants!