We're Making TMC Rich

Yes, another hospital episode. But fortunately, this time it was only an ER visit. And we were in & out in only 90 minutes!

We went in because Jack's ear & head looked like this:Ears aren't supposed to point at the floor, are they?

It was determined that it was some sort of allergic reaction. We spent the day on Mt. Lemmon, so it could've been anything. I'll post those fun pics later, because swollen ears & heads are more interesting, right?

Andy said that he looked like the dude from the Goonies. What do you think?

I think that it takes talent to look this cute with such lopsided ears!

My Dr. teased us after James' hospital stay that we only come in for extraordinary stuff, & that we always can challenge him. I'm starting to think he wasn't joking!

Is It The Golden Egg?

Chicken Coop: $300

Feed: $50

Water: $10

Chickens: (2 different sets) $25

1 Single Egg: PRICELESS!

He's Fwee!

Yes, it's true. My #3 kiddo is finally 3!!YAY!!!!We celebrated today by playing at Pump It Up & having some awesome cake. This boy is loving, playful, adventurous, & oh, so endearing.

How can anyone resist those big brown eyes?

Happy Birthday Jack- We couldn't possibly imagine life without special little you.

My Kid Ate My Homework

This was my letter to my supervisor today-

Dear Boss,

My kid ate my homework. No, seriously. I've been keeping a record of all of the work I've done, just like I was trained to do. But my 2 year old knocked it onto the ground & my 9 month old tried to eat it. He managed to consume all of today's work records.

So don't lose any of my work data, OK? I'd like to get paid for it anyways.

Sheepishly yours,
Kris Merriman

Say What?

Frank:

Hey Mom. When I get to be a grown-up, will I have to take off my shirt to wrestle with another grown-up?

(Never fear. I managed to determine that he was talking about Sumo wrestlers.)

(Whew! I was a little scared for a minute there.)

It's Been A Rough Week....

Yeah- it's bound to be a rough week when this is where you're staying. Little Man James was admitted on Monday because of a bulging fontanelle (soft spot). Can you see it? His little head was pretty pointy for a few days.
Life in the hospital is rough- this is after fasting for 26 hours, 1 MRI, 1 MRV, 1 CAT scan, & 1 spinal tap. And he wasn't even blinking- this is how he really looked.
Can you see the bulging soft spot & the swelling under the skin on the forehead?
Yes, family. My kids do have big noggins. But when it's this bad you can definitely tell when it's swollen! Stinkers.....
Wednesday was a little better- no needles, at least. Wait, until they had to redo the IV that blew in his arm.Sigh- I just wanted to take him & run. So much pain & trauma. But we had to find out what was going on!By Thursday the noggin was more normal-shaped. Taking out the fluid for the spinal tap really made a difference!
And we were lookin' spiffy in our cute tiger gown.

So here's the scoop. James has viral meningitis. It's MUCH less severe than bacterial meningitis, and since it's a virus, they can't treat the meningitis, just the symptoms. Viral meningitis is caused by a virus- anything from roseola to West Nile Virus, to a common cold. They told us there's only a 50-50 chance that we'll find out the cause.

Basically, they can only treat the symptoms of both the virus & the meningitis. So since his only symptoms were a fever & a nasty nose (oh, and the pointy head), & those symptoms were resolving on their own, we got to go home 2 days early! Yay! So sometime Friday or Saturday they'll have some more test results in & we'll get some more answers.

For now, we're just going to hang out & snuggle our bug. What a scare!

Yes Emma, This is a Purple!

Emma has become quite interested in weather. And since it's monsoon season around here, she likes to predict what colors our various storms will show up as on the weather maps. Her favorite to try to predict is definitely the purple storm. Even though she doesn't like the severe weather itself, she feels a sense of accomplishment after living through a storm that goes past the measly greens & yellows & reaches purple status.

So, it was interesting to watch the monsoon clouds explode over our neighborhood as we drove home from town this afternoon & tried to guess what color it would be on the radar. It was interesting, then thrilling, then concerning, and finally frightening.

As we drove down the road toward our home, we drove right into the heart of a massive storm that dumped incredible amounts of rain in a very short amount of time. Typical monsoon, I know. But this time we weren't home to see it, & I'm glad we weren't.

Because this is what we found when we drove up the driveway:

the coop used to stand right over that water dish on the ground

And this is what our little survivors were doing:

And this is the view from the corner of our property:
this is the wash that's usually on the OTHER side of those trees, about 75 feet away

And this is what our neighbor's property looked like. Almost his whole 3 acres was under water.

Don't even ask how we got home- we definitely became violators of the "Stupid Motorist Law" as our big 'ol Suburban came dangerously close to getting swept down a wash.

But only that one wash was scary.

All of the other 9 we crossed were a piece of cake. (NOT.)

I'm thinking that our chicken coop & the neighbor's fence were the victims of a microburst. Because that coop didn't get blown over. No, it was picked straight up & slammed down on the roof not more than 3 feet from where it originally stood. Good thing Andy spent 2 weeks building, reinforcing, & structuralizing that thing. (Is structuralizing a word?)

I would dearly love to know what our poor chickens are thinking tonight. What did they go through? Because 2 of them were inside the upside-down coop & the other 3 got a taste of freedom that they obviously chose not to indulge. Poor things.

Welcome to an AZ monsoon, girls.