lawmummy

Everyone is fine today - save some coughs and runny noses. But that I can live with.

Last week, we started Charlie on a course of antiprotozoal agents - mostly for parasites but it can also attack other nasty things. It was a mere three day dosage. His response was immediate. No diarrhea. No vomiting. And he ate like a horse - quite the relief since he lost 10% of his body weight last month.

Sunday was the first day of no meds. Predictably, Monday morning, he had a bit of diarrhea. He was also up during the night for a bit. Nothing traumatic. But not as wonderful as the previous few days.

Three days seemed awfully short to me so today I called the pediatrician. Nope, three days was the right amount of time. The doctor was pleased to hear that it was working. We are now in a holding pattern to see what happens.

The results were back from the tests. They were all negative - odd, of course. However, the lab noted that there was a lack of “good flora” for both girls - in other words, their good bacteria was missing. This can happen with repeated courses of antibiotic. Katie did receive two doses since December, for ear infections of all things - previously, she hadn’t had those since she was two years old. But Amy? Amy hadn’t been prescribed antibiotics recently - in fact, for Amy, she had been remarkably healthy (thanks to having her adenoids out).

The pediatrician asked how the girls were feeling - much better, I said. Their lack of flora, then, is perplexing. But we’ve decided not to dwell on what could be wrong - for now - and focus on getting back to normal. We are all so tired and worn out from months of illness.

So, with any luck, the mystery illness seems to have gone as quickly as it came.

I am, however, playing around a little to see what I can find as to causes for lack of “good flora.” Here’s what comes up:

1, Too many antibiotics;
2, Toxins such as mercury and lead;
3, Unhealthy eating and poor lifestyle (lack of sleep, excess stress);
4, Medical disorders that affect your immunity system

I’m ruling out #1 for now - again, Amy hasn’t had but maybe one course of antibiotics in six months.

I’m ruling out #2, too. There are no significant levels of lead in our water (we test regularly) and we’re not at risk for mercury.

So it’s #3 or #4, I guess.

The kids do eat fairly healthy - especially for kids. I sneak in veggies into everything and they eat grape tomatoes and fruit like candy.

But our lifestyle has not been great lately in terms of sleep totals and stress. It’s actually a vicious cycle. The sicker the kids, the more they don’t sleep, the more stressed out we are.

Sigh.

I’m not really sure what any of this means.

But the scorecard reads no vomit today, little in the way of GI issues.

Fingers crossed, ok?

I am about to launch a series on taxgirl.com about how we spend tax dollars.

If any of you who have kids would like to participate, I would love it. I’m asking kids, “If you were the President, how would you spend our tax dollars?” For small kids, you might have to explain the whole tax dollars thing. There is no age restriction though 21 is kind of my upper limit.

If you ask, can you send your kid’s first name and hometown with your answer? You can just email me - and you can also send pictures if you’re so inclined.

Thanks so much.

My friend, Jim, over at BossHatch is running a contest asking, “Is Education Worth It?”

Check it out - psst, the prize is cash.

Today was a busy day. It was the first day that both girls were to be back at school at the same time in quite awhile.

Katie was very excited to be going back to school. She got dressed, I packed lunch and she and I discussed revising her paid lunch order (she has requested two pieces of pizza on Thursdays instead of one - down to one paid lunch day since she no longer wants hot dogs on Friday). She got breakfast and was out the door with Chris.

I went upstairs to get dressed and get Amy and Charlie together so that we might walk Amy to school. I heard the sound of email arriving in my inbox… from Chris:

Check website re spring break. Looks closed.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.

I checked. It was, in fact, closed. Chris had checked last week but had somehow missed it because the calendar is a bit misleading. It says:

Friday, March 21 - Friday March 28
Spring Break
Offices and EDP Closed

Monday, March 31
Spring Break
School Closed/EDP and Offices Open

I am not quite sure why they didn’t just break it into school closed and offices open/closed. But nonetheless, we missed it.

And it would have been funny if that had been all. Only this was not our first Spring Break faux pas.

When we were planning our UK trip, we had contemplated taking the girls along with us. Chris’ Spring Break (he teaches at Temple Law as an adjunct) was the week that we traveled - he and I had a conversation that since the girls’ Spring Break was the following week, it didn’t make sense to pull them out again. So we didn’t. And the girls enjoyed a school free week at home when we returned.

On Easter Sunday, as we were packing bags to head to the Erbs for dinner (we always pack pjs so the kids can sleep in the car on the way home), I asked Chris to double check whether Katie had Easter Monday off. I wanted to confirm dinner plans with his parents and adjust it earlier if Katie had school on Monday. I knew that Amy would have Easter Monday off since she attended a Presbysterian Preschool - but you can never tell with the Quakers.

Chris checked and Katie did, in fact, have Easter Monday off. She also had the rest of the week off. Why? Because the prior week had not, in fact, been her Spring Break. It, however, had been Amy’s (thank Elvis for small wonders).

So Katie missed an extra week of school. Sigh.

The weird thing is that her school never called, etc., to see what was going on. I guess that they expected folks to be traveling during that week…

So, Katie is sitting her third Monday out of school. She was so excited to be going back - had planned her outfit nicely and everything.

She is coping well, making crafts and reading to Katie.

But me… I wonder, when will our lives get back to normal?

On Friday, we settled in at the house to watch The Wizard of Oz and eat some popcorn. It was part of a deal that I worked out with the girls, assuming that they got ready for bed on time.

So there we were, all snuggled in and I realized that I couldn’t find my earphones for my iPod. Of course, my iPod had been missing for weeks - the victim of the particularly crazy week that landed a sick Katie in the ER waiting room at CHOP. Just prior to that, I had ordered new earphones since Amy had eaten my old ones (don’t ask). They were on back order and arrived after I had lost my iPod.

At first, we were pretty certain that the iPod was hidden in the house somewhere. It is an iPod Nano and is roughly the size of a bank card. I loved it - it had all of my music (which I live by, my life is a soundtrack), photos, calendar, etc. Since we found the damaged earphones, I assumed that the iPod had been picked up by one of the kiddos and relocated. Weeks later, no iPod.

The iPod-less existence was driving me crazy. When I went to the Y for the first time, iPod-less, I noted that my workout was less effective… who can exercise without good music? Drives in the car were not the same. Overall, I was missing my iPod. Chris kept saying that it must be in the house and I agreed. I just couldn’t find it.

Back to the earphones. I was more than annoyed that I managed to lose the iPod and the new earphones. I asked Chris if he had seen my earphones. He looked up at the TV, where we had been watching The Wizard of Oz. There, on top, was a box with a hot pink Post-It that said “Don’t Lose Me.” Ahh, my earphones.

Only not.

It was a brand new iTouch. And oooooh, so pretty. I am in love. With the iTouch, for sure, and also with Lawdaddy. Believe it or not, the iTouch has put me in a much-o better mood for the week. Who can live without music??? And don’t get me started on the wi-fi…

Stonyfield Farm is recalling Organic Fat Free Blueberry Yogurt in six-ounce cups. News outlets are reporting that there are glass fragments inside the cups but the company says they are small seeds. There have been no injuries reported.

The product codes contain the dates: April 13, 14, 25 and 26, 2008.

You can return it for a full refund - just take it back to your grocery store. Consumers with questions should contact Stonyfield Farm Consumer Relations at 1-800-PRO-COWS or click here.

I mention the recall because we are HUGE fans of Stonyfield yogurts and yogurt drinks… Maybe you are, too?

Upon the recommendations of many of my blogging peers, I decided to upgrade to WordPress 2.5. It is supposedly a very easy upgrade but things went awry for me (totally user error, though, not a criticism of WP 2.5). And suddenly, I was getting Parse Errors that I had never seen before. I went into full panic mode.

Fortunately for me, I happen to know a wonderful guy at b5media where I blog on taxgirl.com, among others. Tris Hussey, who writes at Maple Leaf 2.0, sorted out my troubles. A huge thank you to Tris.

So things are back to normal on the site, more or less. I’ll be sorting through the upgrade later to see what’s new and exciting.

(And yes, speaking of updates, I know I owe you all some - it’s been a crazy week. I’ll get to it, I promise.)

After yesterday’s “Elvis” comment, I can’t stop laughing.

And again today, my children proved their skewed knowledge of important people.

Today, at dinner, Chris asked Amy if she could identify a singer (Frank Sinatra) on the radio. Amy is kind of our dancing monkey in that regard - she has a weird ear for music. She guessed Elvis.

“No, Amy! It’s David Ham Lincoln!” yells Katie.

“Who?” I ask.

“David Ham Lincoln.”

Amy says, “You know, he dresses all in black.”

“Ah,” I said. “You mean Abraham Lincoln. He’s not a singer.”

Katie says, “It’s Dav-id Ham Lincoln.”

Gotcha.

The conversation went on from there with Chris and I unable to stop laughing…

Amy says today, “Mom, um, what day were we made?”

And I say, “What do you mean?”

And Amy says, “On what day did Elvis make us?”

I am silent.

And Katie yells, “GOD! Amy! God made us.”

Sigh.

Amy’s religious upbringing needs some help. I blame her godparents.

Which means I am in super big trouble!

Between all of the manic hand washing (to ward off the spread of more germs) and the start of gardening season, my hands are ridiculously chapped.

Any suggestions for super fabulous hand creams?