Oh I see...

Link spam - Wikipedia

Now I'm off to delete my blogspam...

This entry seems to have opened the floodgates of spam HELL. Thanks for the offers, but I am by NO means interested in Vacuum parts, on line poker, handwriting analysis, tramadol prescriptions, discount cialis, marketing my blog or anything remotely to do with pubic hair removal. But really, thanks for the offers.

Puck's Excellent Adventure

Puck was an excellent traveller (both ways). He was quiet, polite and didn't even smell bad, the whole way there.

He made many doggy friends in Wawa. I thought he did very well, he tried to play with every dog that he met, but he respected their body language and always came to me when he was called.




Puck enjoyed running on the rocky shore


And playing on the beach









He got to meet Aunt Sharon, he was pretty good with her considering that he is supposed to be a big goofy puppy.

Matt was blown away by how good this dog is. It was a bonding experience for man and dog.

Aside from some bad smells, Puck was very good on the trip home. Well, his presence did cause some problems. Let me explain. I had wisely bought the boys each a tennis ball sized jawbreaker to have on the trip home. I thought that it would mean hours of quiet driving. I thought wrong. Damon and Campbell couldn't even get them into their mouths, and Patrick's kept falling out of his mouth. First it landed on Puck's back, getting white sugary goop all over him. We had many tears, but I washed off the short brown hairs with bottled water and a napkin and he tried again. About 5 minutes later I hear, "Awwwww, I dropped it again." "It's okay, I can wash it off again." In a very grumpy voice, Patrick says, "No you can't, it landed on Puck's dink." The boys all made jokes about that for the rest of the drive home.

He is very loved and he knows it. So, what do you think, does this dog need his own blog? Maybe a blog day.

You know you are keeping your fridge too cold when

you have to use a chisel to get your pickles out.

HOW?

Well we couldn't get an appointment on Monday, so instead of waiting, we went to a walk-in clinic. The doctor said that Patrick had swimmer's ear and that fluid was also building up on the other side of the ear. Damon's was almost as bad. So he gave us a prescription for oral antibiotics (zithromax) and antibiotic/steriod ear drops. It took about 3 days for them to start to feel better. They have pink discharge coming out of their ears now, which is apparently within normal. Yesterday they were still relying heavily on Advil to quiet the wailing.

How did both Patrick and Damon end up with swimmer's ear? And stranger still, Patrick's friend S. and his brother both have the same thing! They have spent many days together this summer, some of those in the friend's swimming pool. But it is a brand new pool that is crystal clear, and S.'s brother's friends have spent even more time in the pool and they don't have an ear infection. S's mom was worried that it might be her pool and was going to ask an expert, but I told her I wasn't worried that it was her pool. My theory is that they are swimming a lot and it has been a hot summer, which means that their ears are very warm moist environments for bacteria to get into. Or it could be that all 4 of those kids were swimming in the Great Lakes (Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Superior). Oh well, my brain hurts, so I'm not going to think about this one too hard.

I'm getting things under control here, so I thought I should update on the phones. I have found all 3 cordless phones! One was in Patrick's room on his bookshelf. One was underneath my bed and the last one was between the couch cushions. Typical places, but things were so busy here, I didn't have a chance to look.

Trying my patience, and trying their patients

After another night of WAILING children, I started calling the doctor's office at 9:30, which is when they supposedly start to answer the phones. Busy. I wait 5 minutes, busy. I've been calling every 5 or 10 minutes for the past hour and 40 minutes and it has been flipping busy every time.

I like our doctor, I've been going to her for 12 years and she has been the only doctor my kids have known. But here I am with two kids in pain and I can't even get a freaking appointment. This is unnacceptable. I'm going to try for another 15 minutes and then I'm packing up my 4 kids and going there anyway. UGH. If they can't see me then I'll have to look for another family doctor.

Look in the pool at the 2020 Olympics

You just might see Kira. JussPress | New The girl has no fear of the water. When she was swimming in the big pool on Friday, she wanted to take her water wings off. I let her and she swam, desperately trying to keep her head up, but she kept sinking (my arms were waiting). I'm going to look into private lessons, because the only classes available at her age is to get them familiar with the water and this girl wants to get going.

A Pain in the Ear

Dr. Mom has diagnosed both Patrick and Damon with Swimmer's Ear (Otitis Externa). It is strange because I hadn't heard much about swimmer's ear until about 10 days ago when Patrick's buddy had it. His mom figured he got it from swimming in gross lake water when they were campting. A few days ago, Patrick started complaining that his ear ached from time to time. Then yesterday, Patrick and now Damon started WAILING about their ears. Only having had experience with inner ear infections, I was figuring they would both end up with fevers, but so far nothing. They have pain when you touch them anywhere near the affected ear and they do swim every single day. Either in our little pool or at friends' pools. I think it is strange that even though it isn't contagious, both of them got it at the same time and shortly after Patrick's friend. So I guess we are headed to the doctor's office tomorrow to get some antibiotic drops. That will not be fun, but I'll just be thankful that only 1/2 of the kids were affected.

Kissing cousins

Aren't they adorable together?