Friday, September 17, 2010

Mercy

Yesterday I committed to becoming a monthly sponsor of The Mercy House.



Its a new non-profit and for less than the cost of sponsoring a child, individuals can become involved in something so amazing and life-changing

Kristen is a beautiful woman of God who has become an inspiration for how I live, parent and see the world.

Please click that link

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

How did you spend your weekend?


I had planned to follow the last post with a post of all that we did this summer, but my plans were thrown off when Micah's cold turned into an asthma attack.
He started school last Wednesday with a runny nose, but nothing else. That night he was tired, but I wasn't worried. Starting school each fall always makes him tired; add the obvious cold and there ya go.
Thursday, I sent him off to school noticing that he wasn't much different from the day before. That night, I had an evening class and didn't get home until after all the kids were asleep. I did notice that Micah was wheezing a bit in his sleep so I woke him and made him take his regular inhaler, then went to bed.
Friday morning I could hear the cold in his chest so I started him on his steroid inhaler and sent him to school with instructions to stay inside, not participate in gym and to call home, if needed. I picked him up and noticed how tired he was, so when we got home he went straight to the couch to lie down.
We only have one vehicle so I left to pick up Jason (my brother was home) but was gone for a lot longer than usual. Jason had a few stops to make and traffic sucked, being a Friday. I was worried about Micah the whole time. I probably had an idea of how bad he was, but didn't pay attention to it. This kills me.
After refusing supper, Micah just kind of laid around acting sick. It wasn't until later that evening when he had fallen asleep on the couch that I noticed his breathing. It was horrible. His chest would go way in with each breath but he didn't seem to be getting much air. So I woke him and wrapped him in a blanket for the drive to the hospital. We arrived around 9:45 and by 3am we were admitted and transferred upstairs. This was after recieving 5 masks. Micah fell asleep soon after but was woken by his oxygen monitor which beeped whenever his oxygen dipped below 90. He ended up needing an oxygen mask for the entire night while he slept, plus masks of medicine every two hours.
Anyway, long story short, it took from Friday night until Monday morning for his breathing to get to an acceptable level. We left the hospital around noon Monday with three appointments to various doctors, two prescriptions and instructions to follow up with our family doctor.
Micah has only been admitted once before when he was four. Since then I thought I had learned how to control his asthma, but I guess I've gotten lazy. Its been so long since he was that bad that I just didnt pay as much attention as I should have. My mom thinks that Micah should be old enough to know when he needs help and to tell me but I still feel like I should have been able to prevent this. If I had only started the steroid earlier, if I had only kept him home from school, if I had just not gone to school Thursday night. There's always so much going on that sometimes I don't pay attention to what's really important.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Back to school!




Yesterday was our first day of school, though I know most of you went back weeks ago.



The day before, I didn't get out of bed until 9am; savouring every minute of my last summer morning. Bad idea. 6am came early yesterday and wow was I out of it all day. I had to take tylenol just to keep the sleep deprived headache away.

Moving on


The kids had mixed reactions. Like their mama, they didn't want to get out of bed. By the time they were dressed and came down to find their favorite breakfast, everyone seemed to be in a better mood. The breakfast by the way, was cheese eggs (scrambled eggs with shredded cheddar on top) and strawberries topped with whipped cream. Can't get much better than that!


We dropped the littles off with my SIL and drove to the school in good spirits. It wasn't until we were in sight of Noah's kindergarten classroom (from last year) that I realised he was having trouble with the transition. He didn't want to go in, didn't want to see his friends and didn't want to even say 'bonjour' to his old teacher!



After awhile he perked up and was able to let me leave. I secretly hung around though until his class made their way to their new classroom and teacher. I wanted to see where his room would be and who would be teaching him, as the former grade one teacher retired last year.




Meanwhile, I ran upstairs to check on Micah's class just in time to catch up briefly with another mom and walk with them to their new class. We were invited in for a few minutes to take pictures, but Micah wanted none of it. I was tempted to kiss him right there, but decided against it! Ha!


Both teachers seemed to be quite nice but fairly strict. I've mentioned before that my boys are in French immersion and so talking in English is discouraged. Personally, I didn't understand much of what Micah's teacher was saying to them but he seemed to. Noah's class gets everything told to them in French and then English so at least us parents had an idea of what was going on!


That night for another treat, I picked up a few things for an ice cream sundae bar. The kids had a blast!