2024 hasn’t been very kind to us thus far. In a matter of four weeks, we’ve checked off the following from the sickness list:
Strep ✅
Pink eye ✅
Ear infections ✅
Mono ✅
Stomach bug ✅
I feel like we’ve hit our quota for the year, but I guess we’ll see.
Quinn had been having trouble hearing for a few weeks. I was trying to avoid a, 3rd? 4th? I can’t even remember, trip to EZCare, so I called his PCP office on Thursday, Jan. 11th to make an appointment. They couldn’t get him in until the following Tuesday. I made that appointment, but by Friday, I was so annoyed with his inability to hear anything I said, and also worried that he had an infection that needed treated, that we went back to EZCare. The doctor there, who introduced himself as Rick (and is super nice. He has a great bedside manner), said Quinn’s left ear was red and possibly infected, so he prescribed another antibiotic. By Tuesday, it didn’t seem to be helping because Quinn’s hearing wasn’t the least bit better, so I followed up with Dr. Gary. He said his left ear was still red, so he switched the antibiotic, recommended giving him Clairitin daily, and made a referral to an ENT.
Earlier that Tuesday morning, I went to see my PCP for a follow up after switching my antidepressant. The roads were terrible that day, so they offered to let me do a video call, but I said I was going to still come because the lymph nodes in my neck were swollen and painful, so I wanted her to take a look at me. Because of my recent bout of strep, she ordered bloodwork for me to check my white blood cell count and to test for mono. When I took Quinn for his appointment later that day, I got my bloodwork done afterward since Dr. Gary’s office is at the hospital. My white blood cell count was high, and red was low, but the rapid mono test came back negative. They also did a send away test, and on Thursday, Meredith, Alisha’s nurse, called to tell me what I had already seen in my chart, which was that I had had a recent infection of the Epstein Barr virus, one of the many that causes mono. That explains why I (and everyone else in the house because I’m sure we all had it) spent weeks feeling exhausted. It also explains why I had a sore throat again after having strep. I must’ve had mono when I got checked at EZCare when I took Ash to get his pink eye treated. She told me to rest (Ha!) and not lift anything heavy (Ha Ha!) for 4-6 weeks so as not to rupture my spleen. I had literally just finished working out about 30 minutes before she called me 🥴. It didn’t involve lifting weights, though my 37 and 26 pound children probably fit that description 😬. I was on week two of a new workout program and often didn’t feel like doing it but pushed through anyway 🙃. I haven’t had the motivation to workout in soooooo long. This couldn’t have happened at a more inconvenient time. Well, that’s not true. It feels like things can always be worse. I’d rather not test this theory.
Helping me get some extra steps in 🙃.
I had been feeling better, but the end of last week brought another round of fatigue. After several days at home, we decided to drive up to Kroger Saturday before last to get out of the house for a bit. On the way home, Quinn puked all over himself and his car seat. He doesn’t usually get car sick anymore, but he had eaten a ton before we left, so we weren’t certain what was going on. He confirmed later that he did indeed have a stomach bug. Philip brought Quinn’s car seat inside to the bathtub to clean, at my request, because it was 16° outside and I wasn’t doing it out there. You have no idea how many crevices a car seat has until someone pukes on it. Pretty much as soon as I got it and the bathtub cleaned and sanitized, Quinn said he had to “spit up”, as he calls it. I told him to go to the bathroom, and he made it to the hallway in front of the bathroom door before he puked all over the floor. I pulled him forward toward the tub, where he puked some more. So I got to clean the tub again 🙃. Then he puked on the couch 😅😭. He slept well that night and woke up feeling nauseous but better.
Just when I thought we were in the clear, Ash puked in his car seat a few days later. I can’t tell you how much I hate cleaning car seats at this point 😅.
🥺
I’ve been feeling rough, but Quinn has had it worse for sure. Every sickness we’ve had in the last 4 years has started with him. According to google, 95% of adults contract Epstein Barr virus at some point in their lives. Mono is called the kissing disease because it’s spread through body fluids. I think monogamy from a young age saved Philip and me, but nothing can save you from kid germs 😂.
Quinn’s inability to hear was frustrating as hell, so I’m glad it seems to have gotten better. I hate repeating myself and I’ve done enough of that lately. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if he can’t hear what we’re telling him to/not to do, or if he’s choosing not to. I desperately needed a break from him 2 weekends ago, so I left the boys home with Philip while I went to Lori’s baby shower. I felt bad about it because there were lots of kids there and mine would’ve liked going, but it was also nice to just be an adult talking to other adults without someone whining or asking me to do something for them.
I recently saw where someone said, “People often warn you about the Terrible Twos, but no one warns you about the F@&$ing Fours.” It’s true. Four has been the most frustrating by far. There are good times, of course, but it feels like much of our time spent together is filled with irritation and anger, and to be completely honest, there are times where I don’t like him very much. I love him. I always love him. But I don’t always like him. Lots of times it feels like the obnoxious things he’s doing is him trying to get attention, however, the more he irritates me, the less I want to play with him. Or he gets physically clingy, like grabbing my legs, wanting me to pick him up, or climbing on me 🤬. Obviously, this isn’t a good strategy and everyone ends up mad or sad. Sigh. We’re halfway through year four, that’s a good thing, right? Five is going to be better, right? Right?? I’ll be counting down the days until July with my fingers crossed.
Luckily for him, he has some really good redeeming qualities. Like, he can be sweet when he’s not whining about everything I say. Or arguing. He’s truly a great big brother. He has recently become less egocentric, and thinks of Ash while getting snacks. Twice while the three of us were chilling on the couch, Quinn has gone into the kitchen to get a snack and came back with one for Ash, saying he figured Ash would want one, too 🥺🥰. He also volunteers to get things for Ash if he asks for something that is within Quinn’s ability to get. For example, if Quinn brings a toy into the room where Ash is, and then Ash wants it, I’ll suggest he go get a duplicate one if we have it, or something similar, and Quinn will volunteer to get it for him. He offers Ash things, including things I don’t want him to 🙄. I know I complained before about everyone following me to the basement to do laundry. Well, Quinn will ask where I’m going , and then ask if he can come. If I begrudgingly say yes, he’ll yell for Ash and ask if he wants to come, too 🙄🤦🏻♀️.
The other day they were in the bathtub together and Quinn wanted me to make the water hotter. I told him, no, that it was warm enough. He agreed and said, “Yeah, that’s okay, I wouldn’t want it to burn Ash.”
Be careful what you *wish* for. I put bath paint sticks on the boys’ Amazon wish list, and Philip’s mom bought them for them for Christmas. I fully appreciate that she bought something I picked out because I knew they would like them, but I now have to clean the bathtub almost everyday 🤦🏻♀️. They love scribbling all over themselves and the walls of the tub. My new caulking is now stained blue and brown from their shenanigans 😭.
There are twelve different colors, but he almost always chooses brown 🙄.
Dad thinks they’re fun, too 🤦🏻♀️. This is what happens when I go to Walmart and leave those three home alone 😂.
🤦🏻♀️.
Quinn is Ash’s biggest cheerleader. We were giving potty training a shot, but he isn’t quite ready yet. However, every time Ash peed in the toilet, Quinn was awesome at telling him what a good job he did. I’ve recently tasked Ash with putting his own laundry away (with guidance, of course), and when he finished doing it the first time, Quinn said, “First he was using the potty, and now he’s putting his laundry away! Give me a high five, big boy!” 🥺🥺🥺. He has no other situational awareness whatsoever, but I’m proud of him for being proud of his brother. Ash appreciates Quinn’s praise, too, and seeks it out by telling him when he comes out of the bathroom that he peed in the potty.
🥺🥺🥺♥️.
Quinn’s drawers used to be on the bottom, but now that Ash is helping putting his clothes away, I had to move them to the lower drawers so he could reach. I took pics of the drawer contents and then printed them out as labels, to help Quinn keep his straight.
Ash is great at peeing on the potty. In fact, if you sit him on his potty seat, he will pee every single time. Several times he even said he was going to poop, and you could tell that he was trying. I say he’s not ready because he doesn’t know before he pees that he needs to pee. He tells me often after the fact that he did, so that’s something. I had some old Pull-Ups that Quinn outgrew so I was putting them on Ash for about a week, just to see how things would go. It was more like training a dog by taking it outside every hour than him learning to listen to his body 😅. It’s fine, we’ll get there, and most likely much sooner than Quinn did. He wasn’t fully trained until 3.5, so younger than that would be great 😉.
I learned an important lesson after making a rookie mistake during Ash’s potty practice, which was to check the Pull-Up for poop before pulling it down 🤦🏻♀️. Failing to do so will result in a mess—on the floor, on the toilet, and on the child 💩 💩 💩 . Take my word for it.
All of that running around in a Pull-Up just reinforced his want for nakedness 😂. He still occasionally asks to be Hulk when he wants you to help him take off his shirt, but whenever he wants his pants off, he comes over to you and says, “Naked boy!,” until you comply 🤦🏻♀️. He uses two other adjectives to describe himself in order to get what he wants, and those are hungry and thirsty. He’ll ask for something to eat, like cereal, and then say, “Hungry boy!” He knows what cereal bowl he wants, too. He told me, “Paw Patrol! Paw Patrol! Paw Patrol bowl!,” the other day, as I was already filling the Paw Patrol bowl with cereal 😂🤦🏻♀️. He’s always very proud of himself whenever he finishes all of his food. He makes sure to find me and say, “Ate it all!,” when he’s done.
😂😂😂
I can never eat alone, and when Ash took a break to go watch tv while I was eating breakfast one morning, I finished my eggs. He came back after I was done and asked me, “Where go? Ate it all!,” in an accusing voice 😆. I had to make him his own scrambled egg to satisfy him.
The Paw Patrol bowl isn’t his only dish preference. One day he brought me a straw and said, “Milk. Mummy cup.” He likes a certain Halloween cup we have. It doesn’t have a lid and has caused more messes than it hasn’t, so I just give him a very small amount and make him keep it at the table.
His favorite, the mummy cup.
He’s pronouncing words better and improving in his ability to communicate his tv watching preferences. We had this conversation the other night:
A: “Hulk.”
Me: “Hulk?
A: “Uh huh.”
M: “Where?”
A: “On tv.”
M: *turns on YouTube on Apple TV*
A: “Ninja Kids Hulk!” *as he sees them in the recommended shows*
He’s learning so many things from Quinn, it’s crazy. They both like to pretend to be werewolves, but Ash has started asking for help with the werewolf mask by saying, “Mom, werewolf. Scare Dad,” when he brings it to me 😂. They like to hide or scare Philip when he comes up from work.
He also tries to scare people with his play doh snake 😆. He follows you around saying, “Ssssssssss!,” and shoving the roll of play doh at you.
Compared to Quinn, Ash is a breeze most days. Sometimes I think I’m gonna get some pushback from him when I tell him not to do something and he’s being a shit (which usually involves pestering Quinn somehow), but then he just says, “Okay!,” and complies 😂. I hope he’s always this easygoing. The Terrible Twos are right around the corner though, so I should probably just enjoy the peace with him while I can.
One thing that is becoming less and less peaceful is sleeping beside him. The other night, while sleeping with my arm up under my pillow, and unknowingly leaving an open target, I awoke from a kick to my armpit 😑. We’ve talked about relocating him to Quinn’s bed, and I decided to give it a shot one night. Almost immediately after making that decision, Ash woke up out of his sleep, crying. I got him back to sleep, but then he did it again before I went to bed, so I figured it wasn’t the best night for it. Soon, though. Soon.
They’re both growing so fast. I’m already planning Asher’s second birthday party, he’s going to be two on March 1st! Two! The older they get, the easier life gets for me. Well, not mentally, obviously 😅. Ash has become Quinn’s primary playmate and he rarely asks me to play with him anymore. I wasn’t really prepared for that to happen, but it did, slowly. I started being able to get more done around the house, even big tasks, like painting our bedroom, and that got me thinking about it. They’re good at occupying themselves, even though lots of times that means they’re doing something that irritates me, like wrestling 🙄. It’s pretty much impossible for them to do that without Ash eventually getting hurt. Sometimes, it’s just the consequences of them pushing each other around, but sometimes, it is because Quinn gets far too worked up and forgets to control his body. I don’t think he intentionally hurts Ash, but kicking someone is never okay, and he gets too invested in his ninja identity 🙄.
That kid is also enthralled with seeing what he can get away with, usually at least once a week, for the entire fourteen hours that he’s awake. It’s exhausting. Sometimes he does things when he thinks I can’t see him, and when I call him out on it, he’ll ask, “How did you know I did that?” Now I see why my mom used to say that she had eyes in the back of her head.
When school canceled on Wednesday the week before last, Quinn’s class was canceled, too. So, in order to make up for it, rather than go another day, they did a combined day for morning and afternoon classes, which meant he went from 9:30-3:00, instead of his usual 12:30-3:30. The day before had been one of those fourteen hour ventures, so I was looking forward to having a 5.5 hour break from him. It was so peaceful 😅. I’m sure once he starts full-time school in the fall that I will miss him some, but that one day was a welcome reprieve. That was on a Thursday, but he had a regular school day the day before, so his teachers told him about the plans for the following day when he was there on Wednesday. When I picked him up that day, he told him that he didn’t want to go to school the next day because he didn’t want to make new friends 🙄. We talked about that and then I told him he had to go. He still disagreed and suggested we settle it with a thumb wrestle when we got home 😆. I agreed we could, confident in my ability to beat a four year old at that game. He forgot about it within minutes, so I ended up not having to prove my thumb strength.
Philip took a staycation two weeks ago and we got sucked into bidding on auctions on m@cbids. If you don’t know, it’s an app for auctions on returned items from Amazon and a few other retail stores. We got some great deals. The only downside is you have to pick up the items within three days of the auction’s end, they’re not open on weekends, and the closest warehouses to us are Bridgeport, OH and Washington, PA. Philip bought a brand new rowing machine, still in the box, for $70, which retails for like $300 I think. They have so many household items! I got two duvet covers for $2 and $6 each, a huge mirror for $18, new electronic toothbrushes for $11, a saucer swing for the swing set for $15, several costumes for $1 each, and lots more! We probably spent too much money on things we didn’t really need, but it was fun while it lasted. They get you when you find one thing you really want, so you bid it on it, but then you’re like, “I’m committed to driving up there now, might as well make it worth my while,” and then you find five other things you like and $57 later… 🙄🤦🏻♀️
The puke covered car seat situation made me have to drive Philip’s Jeep on one trip to Bridgeport (I got commited to it from bidding on a ninja costume for Quinn for $1 😂🤦🏻♀️), because I hadn’t put Ash’s seat from my car back together yet after washing it. I could’ve just taken the seat from his and put it in mine, but who wants to do that? Anyway, the whole way up there, I kept wondering why random people were waving at me until I remembered I was driving the Attention Attractor™️. I think the Jeep wave exclusive to Wranglers is dumb. Is there a way to opt out? Like, can I put a red X on the back of the driver side mirror when I’m driving to signal that I won’t reciprocate niceties? 😂 First world problems, I know.
$1 apiece!
This one isn’t actually a costume, and it was free 😅. Chris gave me this sweater, it just happens to fit Ash exactly right to transform him into Ashy Wan Kenobi.
Thanks to being sick and the nasty weather, we haven’t logged many hours outside yet this year 😕.
Quinn was excited to wear his pajamas inside out and to flush ice down the toilet in an effort to make it snow the next morning 😅. Don’t ask me, this is what he told me we had to do because his teachers said so. I guess it worked because we ended up with about 3 inches of snow on Friday Jan. 19!
We got to spend almost an hour outside with our friends, Micah, Carlowe, and Megan! This was Ash’s first time playing in the snow.
Quinn wanted to go back out after Ash napped, but it got dark too quickly. Instead, I brought the snow into him. He played for 1:10 with it in the bathtub, and then spent another hour warming up in the tub, taking a bath.
That was all of the outside fun we had because the next day was when Quinn threw up in the car 😩.
However, before that round of sickness hit, we got to see one of my favorite humans, my friend, Chris, who brought the boys Christmas gifts ❤️. Well, and me, and those socks the Naked Boy is wearing were for me 😂. He was smart to want to wear them, they’re amazingly soft!
Those pj’s are the cutest ☺️.
We spent the majority of time at home, not seeing friends, but they still managed to help us have fun! Tella let us borrow their awesome simple machines STEM kit that came with a cool pulley system. Quinn liked using it to transport bears to the top of the toy shelves, where he deposited them into a repurposed Ferro Roche candy case that he said was their caves.
It also had a fulcrum, and we used it to check the comparative weight of different Blippis.
Quinn’s good friend, Micah, passed along some puzzles he outgrew, as well as letting us borrow a beloved one 🥰. Quinn finished them all, but boy did that play session cement my belief that homeschooling is not for me 😅.
We need to work on listening and following directions 💯😳.
Just for fun, we worked on matching letters and sometimes writing those letters of simple words. I started out with 3 letter words, but then Quinn started dictating the ones I wrote. I surprised him with Hulk, not telling him what the word was until after he found the matching magnet letters.
Quinn practiced counting to 100 using his abacus 🧮.
And he’s been doing a great job coloring within the lines. He practices almost every day. I love that enjoys art so much 🥰.
Ash has been learning, too!
Since Ash has his colors down, I wanted to move onto basic shapes, and since it’s about to be February, I figured heart was one we could talk about.
He wanted pizza for dinner, so I made him a heart shaped one 😆. I made the crust and sauce from scratch. Quinn said he didn’t want a heart one, so I made his normal, however, he told me it didn’t taste good and he didn’t eat it 🙄🙄🙄. Ash liked it though. The neighbor girls were over last night and Scarlett asked if she could have some. I told her she could, but that Quinn said it didn’t taste good. She wanted some anyway, and after she took a bite, she told me it wasn’t that terrible. So I guess that was a compliment? 🤷🏻♀️😂😂.
They had a pizza eating, Candyland playing party right on the kitchen floor..for some reason 😅🤷🏻♀️.
I made the boys a white, snow themed sensory bin, although, admittedly, it wasn’t very good 😅. I felt bad for having spent most of the day on the couch with stomach pains (what I’m guessing was my turn with the stomach virus that didn’t develop completely, thank goodness), so I threw some things together.
Another easy source of entertainment was the truck ramp I made using a yoga mat and the ottoman.
Dad helped occupy them for a bit one night by building another cool fort with the huge waffle blocks they got for Christmas. Quinn insisted I take his picture with it 😅.
He made a pretty sweet tunnel that they had fun crawling through, too. In fact, it prompted Ash to say a 5 word sentence, “I made it through tunnel!,” something I’d more excited about if there weren’t already so many words being spoken in this house by *other* people 🤪.
They amused themselves by putting an entire sheet of dot stickers each on their bellies. I told them they had the sticker pox. The ones Ash used actually broke him out and left a rash, even after I bathed him to get any residue off of his skin 😳.
Dad amused himself and me by giving the boys sips of pickle juice, lime juice, lemon, and some weird vinegar concoction. The joke was on us though because the little weirdos liked them 🤣.
😅
Sophie PUPdate 🐾:
This brat is on my last nerve. She gets so worked up about getting her nightly green beans that she loses her damn mind. While I’m laying with the boys to put them to sleep, if I move even an eye muscle with the intention of getting out of bed, she jumps up on the bed and starts prancing around like a damn fool. I cuss her every night 😅. She woke Quinn up from his nap today. Like, just went into the bedroom and licked him in the face for no apparent reason, aside from maybe she missed him, but that’s hard to believe. She does like him more now than ever before, but I think it would be a stretch to say he’s one of her favorite people. She’s such a shit.
