World Record...

I think I just made the world record of doctor visits in one week. I think it all started with our trip to Monkey Joe’s (translation: the disgusting Petri dish infested with breeding germs www.monkeyjoes.com) a week and a half ago. Child #1 came down with a headache then cough followed by a sore throat then congestion. By the forth day (Thursday), I finally take her to the doctor. They check all the usual and send us home with "it’s a virus." My sister-in-law (who works at our pediatrician’s office) calls me on Saturday to inform me that Child #1 has strep throat (oh goody). She calls in the prescription for me (thanks sis).

In the meantime, Child #3 has come down with similar symptoms so I call the doctor back to make an appointment to get her in to get checked. Back to the doctor we go. They take the throat culture and will let us know in 48 hours.

Monday rolls around, you guessed it, Child #3 tested positive for strep throat. Wouldn’t you know it; Child #2 came down with the same symptoms as well. Back to the doctor we go for the third time. The great culture test is performed again and the 48 hour wait begins except the Doctor gives us a prescription for the antibiotics anyway (thank God). If she is positive then we’re covered, if she is not positive then we stop the drugs.

Of course, I get the call and Child #2 is positive. At this time, you think we’re all good, right? No. I get a call from the daycare telling me Child #3 has a 102 fever so I call the doctor back to take her back in. Child #3 is most likely immune to the antibiotics because she has had so many when she had multiple ear infections when she was an infant. The doctor comes to the same conclusion and we get a new prescription for a different antibiotic. Yippy!

That makes 4 doctor visits in a matter of one week. Granted when Child #3 was born, I did spend every day for two weeks going to the doctor to get her blood tested because her bilirubin count wouldn’t come down. She was jaundice. Considering I didn’t see the doctor every time, I won’t count this as actual doctor visits.

Anyway, the Hansen household is all drugged up and I actually got a full night of sleep last night. I’m still a little cranky, but recovering nicely. On the brighter side, James or I didn’t get sick. Knock on wood.

Handy Man

Over the years, I have learned to adapt in many different ways. I’m not even talking about relationship dynamics here that is a whole other blog series. This all has to do with mechanical operations around the house. You all know that my husband is a very resourceful handy man when it comes to fixing things. If he can’t fix it, he usually knows a guy.

One prime example that I love to give in order to fully understand how my husband operates is when my oldest was six months old (oh the glory days of only having one child). The water softener broke. If you live in a city that has heavy iron in the water, you completely understand my issue. To illustrate, without a water softener all your white clothes develop a nice rusty orange glow (same thing happens to blond hair). On top of this, my oldest was a chronic spit upper after eating (which was hell to get out before the water softener broke). As a wife, I rarely nag my husband, let me repeat “I AM NOT A NAG.” Letting this go on for another nine months, you can see that my previous statement holds true.

In my younger days, I probably would have said something after about three months. I have mellowed out since I have had kids and I have become much more passive aggressive (most likely because I’m a responsible adult now and kids are present and fighting like a bunch of 2 year olds is not a good example for children to watch).

Any way I feel I am not being heard when I have asked a few times is there a way we can fix the water softener over the specified nine month period (I really want my white clothes back). I take it upon myself to call a few companies to come in and give me estimates on fixing it or replacing the system. A guy comes in to take a look, he writes up an estimate to replace the unit. He won’t be able to fix it. I smile, say thank you and say I will give him a call when I discuss this with my husband.

My loving husband comes home from work. I hand him the estimate. He looks at it, crumples it up and heads down stairs mumbling some kind of impolite profanity. He comes back up after about an hour and says that the softener is fixed. I keep my mouth shut, but can’t hide my huge grin. I am adaptable, but there are limits.

I have been operating with a stove that only has two small working burners for the last three years (not the big burners). To turn on the washing machine, I have to use a utensil to turn the dial. The dryer needs to run twice to dry one load of clothes. The main bathroom still doesn’t have a center light installed. Casper the friendly ghost visits once in awhile because the lights tend to flicker occasionally (something to do with the breakers on the panel, oh did I mention my husband is an electrician). There is more, but I think you get the idea.

I’m not writing this because I want to complain about all things that are broken or half working in my house, I’m writing this because I’m frustrated with the way he gets mad at me when I tell him about another issue. Well maybe I am writing this to complain.

What tripped my trigger was our new-used car we bought. Something was wrong with the front end because every time I would go over a bump (Wisconsin winters aren’t friendly to the roads) the car would vibrate. I let him know about the issue, but he gets mad at me because he is sick of fixing cars (considering we just bought this vehicle, I understand how he feels). He left for a trip over the weekend and said he would look at it when he got back. I think great, it will be fixed then. Over the weekend, I was with my brother and sister-in-law and my brother-in-law says your right tire on the passenger side seems to be really low. I ask him if he can fill the tire up for me. Sure. He comes back and says the valve stem on the tire is leaking. After about a minute, he comes back in and says the tire is fixed. Obviously, I thanked him profusely.

Thank God, I have family to help me.

Worst Mom Award Goes to...

It's official I am the worst mom ever. The morning started okay. My routine was good until the mid morning when some unforeseen circumstances came up at work and threw me for a loop. I had dove into the issues at hand and was coming just coming out of them when the phone rang. I work from home on Fridays so it was my home phone that I was checking the caller ID on. It was child number one's school calling. Now at this point I am saying to myself that is weird they are calling me at 4:00 pm she would have already been on the bus. I pick up the phone. It is the secretary at school. She proceeds to inform me that my daughter said she was supposed to be picked up at school, but they had put her on the bus because no one was there to pick her up.

Let me explain that I rely on my sister-in-law for before and after school care. So I drop her off in the morning and she takes the bus with my nephew to and from school everyday. My sister-in-law had informed me earlier in the week and confirmed yesterday that she was taking my nephew to the doctors for a check up after school and wouldn't be home for my daughter. I had agreed to pick her up from school. No problem.

My exact words were "Oh my God! I have to go get her." The secretary proceeds to tell me what bus she is on and I hang up on her. I literally had a heart attack. She was going to freak out if I didn't get there before she got off the bus. I think I might have driven 55 in a 35 mph zone. It is also possible I might have pissed off a few people on the way too and I definitely experienced a little case of road rage that involved a few F-boms as well. I was completely panicking thinking she was going to have to go to therapy for this one. She's a very sensitive kid and little things can effect her dramatically. I wasn't completely sure how this experience would play out. In my head, I was already figuring out where we could fit in a therapy session during the week.

But I got there just in time to pick her up as the bus pulled up to the stop. She was teary eyed, but holding up well. I apologized continually and then we went over a plan just in case I wasn't there in the future to pick her up not that this would ever happen again.

I think she forgave me for now. To be continued...whether that holds true for the future.

Still reading too much!

I just read an article that listed the top ten mysterious diseases that doctors have no cure for. The article goes on to give a definition for each disease. To my surprise, Schizophrenia is one of them. If I’m not mistaken, this disease has been around for sometime now. I found this far too fascinating to let this go. I think in a past life I was a psychologist or sociologist since I just love observing and analyzing people’s behaviors. Well, 95% of the analyzing is actually my own behavior, which leads to a tiny bit of obsessive issues. Anyway the article gives this description of Schizophrenia.

Experts consider this the most puzzling of mental disorders, one which robs the sufferer of the ability to logically distinguish between reality and fantasy (I don’t know if I could get through a single day without visiting my fantasy world, especially when I am on my yacht in the Mediterranean). Symptoms range wildly between patients and include delusions (Sometimes when I buy a pair of shoes and read the receipt after the purchase, I swore the sale tag read $30), hallucinations (When I go down the basement stairs, I envision myself falling down the stairs breaking something and wondering how I am going to get back up the upstairs to take care of my kids and get help for myself), disorganized speech (Hell, disorganized is the understatement of the year, my head is so inflated with disorganization there is no room for organization in here. My husband would definitely vouch for this one), and lack of motivation or emotion (Oh my God, every morning I thoroughly lack the motivation to get up. My responsible personality has to yell at my tired personality to get up. Or maybe it is just the sound of my kids fighting over the space in my bed that motivates me to get up everyday.), but the disease has no defining medical tests (so in other words you can diagnosis yourself, lucky me).

If I would have gone to medical school, I would have ended up in a mental institution. I would have diagnosis myself with everything I would have studied or at least I would have related something about myself to every disease, illness and/or sickness out there. Oh, the joys of being me. At least they haven’t taken me away yet.

Spring is here!

Yay, Spring is here! The plan for this summer is to start a vegetable garden so the girls can experience the value of taking care of a living being. Baby steps towards getting a dog. Right?

Thus we head out last weekend to Home Depot to purchase seeds, soil and trays to start the growing process inside. The girls get to pick out their choice of vegetables, which they are all excited about. This completely baffles me since they don’t even like eating vegetables. Round one, the girls ended up fighting over which vegetable seed package they were getting. We quickly move on. Daddy grabs some dirt and trays and we head to check out. $50 later, the happy Hansen family is ready to plant some seeds.

When we get home, Daddy takes the initiative and starts filling the trays with potting soil and hands one off to me. It was great we were a family working together. I made little holes in each section and the girls dropped the seeds in and lightly covered them up. I labeled each section. And we handed the trays back to Daddy to put the final touches on, watering the seeds.

At this point you think what a boring little story. This is where the “Awww what a perfect little family” ends. Somehow the seeds have taken life a little too quickly and the soil starts to rise. In a moment of panic, Daddy starts to push the soil back down. Now most people would stop watering. Go ahead shake your head, I did. No not this Daddy, he continues to put water over the soil and the soil continues to expand. He continues to press the soil back down.

Finally, he grabs the packaging the trays were wrapped in. If he would have read the directions before, he would have figured out we didn’t need soil. The pellets that he thought were fertilizer were actually compressed soil that expands with water. Step One: place seeds in each section, Step Two: Add water, Step Three: You’re done. No extra soil was needed. At this point, we have used most of the seeds and starting over would require a trip back to Home Depot. Oh well, the strong will survive.

The next morning, we set the trays outside and then forgot to bring them in at night. Okay now, the strong will only survive. Strike two. Apparently, a green thumb doesn’t run on this side of the family.

How are the girls going to learn the value of taking care of a dog when their parents can’t even teach them how to plant seeds correctly?