Day 6

Half. Way. There.

I wish I could say I feel like I'm getting good at this single mom thing. But I'm not. I can't do it all! Tonight after supper I was looking around at the mess and the 100 things I wanted to have done and not knowing where to start and I thought, "It's times like these that I don't like being the mom (aka the one who has to do it all!)."

Cora had a bad night again. At 11 pm she woke up and needed more medicine and was pulling her ear. At that time I decided I needed to bring her back to the doctor. She should be better by now. So I did. And I'm glad because they think she has croup or whatever and gave her a steroid shot. She also got a new antibiotic because her ears were still not good. I really hope this finally helps. Poor little girl! I am going to stay home with the kids tomorrow and try to get everyone some rest.

Even though balancing two kids is tough sometimes, I really like having Jude here. It is less lonely than if it were just a fussy baby and me alone. He is becoming a little person and it is sooooo nice that he can talk to me!

Day 5

Once again it is getting late and I really just want to go to bed. But unfortunately I spent too much time looking at the clearance at oldnavy.com and still have to make egg salad for MOPs tomorrow night:( I decided on egg salad because I'm hoping to go to Alissa's JV game which just happens to be in Wayne at 4 and then MOPs at 6:30. Hopefully it works out and the kiddos cooperate. On that note, today was the first day in like a year that Jude came running to me and said mommy when I got to daycare today. That was enough to make my day! Then we played outside for like an hour in sweatshirts when we got home. It was probably close to 60 degrees today. I don't know what's up with it, but I like it! Much better then being snowed in! Cora took a good nap this afternoon, but then was sort of grumpy again. She went down at 7:45 and I haven't heard a peep since. Jude went to bed rather early too again. I got the humidifier working after they were in bed. I hope I did the filter right...I did let the fire go out. It is supposed to be warm again tomorrow and I won't be home much. Maybe I'll get it going again on Wednesday. I called the Omnaris people today and it looks like Hy-Vee just didn't know what they were doing. I'll have to call them back. And I tried to look into the speaker situation, but I couldn't get hold of or contact the company...kind of strange. I will have to get your ebay info to look into it more. School went well today and this morning went really well getting the kids up and all. Hoping I can get a little more sleep tonight (hope keeps me going!). At least I'm feeling good and not sick at all. I think Cora is about over her cold so that should help her sleep. Jude had a coughing fit again last night, but so far so good tonight. Ok, off to pack a lunch and then make egg salad (doesn't that sound good....mmmmm....mayonaise!).

LOVE,

Shannon

Day 4

Really bad night with Cora again last night. When will it end?! Got up at 8 to get ready for church. Got chores and all done before hand. Went to Journey with mom and dad and Alissa and Tyler. Got a few groceries and dog food. Came home and Cora took a good nap while Jude just played in his room. He took another bath in the big tub. We made a video for you yesterday and he really wanted to do that again. Oh, he peed in the tub today! And on the floor in the living room...I shouldn't have gone with the undies (don't worry, I cleaned it all up!). Right now it is almost 10 and I just finished my lesson plans and am going to bed. Cora has already been up once and Jude is coughing again (he fell asleep on the couch with me at 7:30!!!). Darn cough! Fire has been going good all weekend, but I might let it go out tomorrow. It is work to keep it going, but I just love being warm! Oh, I think I should get the humidifier going, but I have to get a new filter figured out. I should work on that tomorrow. Well, I gotta gear up for morning....awwwww! Good to talk to you again tonight. Hope you enjoyed your cold shower!

Day 3

Oh man. Three seems so small when I have to get all the way up to twelve...

Anyway, today was Saturday and it was awesome! Cora slept like crap, but what's new. She's sick so I guess I'll give her a break. Jude woke up at 8 so I did too, but Cora did stay sleeping til almost 9 which allowed me to: eat breakfast, feed and water the pets, unload the dishwasher, start some laundry, and start a fire before she woke up. She really wasn't into nursing today, but was loving on her baby food....I don't know what is up with that. I even gave her some of her medicine in her food and she ate it right up. She seems to be doing a little better, but not a lot better. Hmmmm...

Jude took a bath in the big tub this morning for like an hour probably! He loved it! He also took almost all the pillows and cushions off of the couch and drug them to his toy corner where he made a fort because, "A monster is coming!" Cora and I had to get in the fort too. He took a short nap this afternoon and really didn't want to go to bed tonight. He just couldn't fall asleep. I gave him some cough medicine again.

I made a homemade pizza for lunch and mac and cheese and peas for supper. We watched a marathon of Veggie Tales Christmas videos during/after supper. We also read, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" a few times, played the fishing game, and painted a picture. Jude recognized a W on Sesame Street this morning and went to the fridge and grabbed it and said, "Two Double U's!"

After I put the kids to bed I folded the mountain of laundry on the couch and watched a Gilmore Girl's episode. I also talked to your mom a bit.

Ok, time to call it a night!

Day 2

It's late (aka 10 pm). I am tired (even though we all took a family nap this afternoon for 2 hours). But here I am. Dedicated to the cause!

The kiddos stayed with mom today because of the whole ear infection thing. They woke up early, so I got them loaded into her car and then went to school, almost on time! School was good, but all I could think about was SLEEP. When I picked the kids up Cora was on her second nap. It didn't look good. Luckily Jude went down no problem. I gave Cora a bath and got things put away and decided to try laying her down again. It worked! We all slept a good two hours and Jude got three. When we woke up we headed into the gym for the Allen vs. Ponca boys bb game. We saw Jacob and Trenton play, visited with aunts, cousins, parents, and grandparents, played tractors with Blake, played with some of my sixth grade students, drank from the water fountain, ran in the halls and on the court, and had a lot of fun. At the end of the night Jude was in tears not wanting it to end. But I decided to skip the birthday cake and ice cream at mom and dad's for grandma's birthday because despite the naps we all needed sleep! The minute we got home Jude said he was ready to take a nap. I knew it! Minutes after arriving home both kids were zonked in their beds and I am now heading to mine. Hope it is a LONG LONG time before I have to get up again (like 5 hours or something!).

It was so good to hear from you this afternoon! I knew as soon as I heard the rooster crowing in the background that it was you from Honduras. If you hear a rooster crowing you know it's either the Ridenour Ranch or Honduras!

Tomorrow's plan is to sleep, play, clean a little, do a little laundry, and relax. I might even make a pot of coffee...and maybe a meal or something!

GOODNIGHT:)

The Twelve Days of Honduras--Day 1

Gil is in Honduras starting today. For twelve days. This is the third year he has made the trip. But this is the first time I have had to hold down the fort with TWO kids (plus all the animals). And this is the first time it has been twelve days.

Last year I made Gil a photo album of things Jude and I did while he was away. This year I have decided to write a blog post EVERY DAY for TWELVE days...aka "The Twelve Days of Honduras." This is a HUGE (I'm enjoying caps tonight!) undertaking for me right now seeing as how I am averaging one post a month these days AND that I am a single mom for the time being. But I am going to do my best!

Ok, so day 1. Well, the first night was a little rocky. While Cora did sleep until nearly 4 am (a record as of late), I discovered she needed changing (poopy!) and that she had a fever. So after a feeding, changing, temp taking, and medicine giving (which she hates), she peacefully drifted off to sleep...until 5 am...and then 5:45 am...

Did I mention I am totally and utterly exhausted today? It's like just this one day of being "on" all by myself has completely worn me out. I had to exert extra brain power just to remember if the period went inside or outside of the quotes just now...you cannot criticize my grammar in this post!

The day got off to a slow start. I arrived at school after chores, loading kids, and unloading kids about twenty minutes late (luckily I still beat the students!). I got Cora an appointment at 2:15 because I was pretty sure she had an ear infection and she probably shouldn't have gone to daycare...(side note, it was 65 degrees out today!). Mom picked up Jude early from daycare and I got Cora to the doctor only about 5 minutes late (I'm afraid you might see a trend in my lack of punctuality). She had a double ear infection--goodie--but still was able to get her second flu vaccination. After the poking and prodding she was in a mood, but luckily she fell asleep immediately once in the car and stayed that way throughout the entire Target trip. I did get to spend an incredible amount of time in Target tonight with a sleeping baby which is the next best thing to being there alone. That was fun. I got some new mascara and foundation I'm excited to try (I know you're going to be thrilled!).

So after Target and my frustrating time at the SS HyVee pharmacy (they only gave me $40 back instead of $50 for the wrong charge...grrr). I arrived home with a much happier infant and Jude just behind me, also in good spirits. We ate supper, played, cleaned up, and the kids both went to bed around 8! After that I got caught up on the budget and guess what?! We had extra money last month!!! That was good to see after the Target trip...

Now I'm off to bed to read the devo Melanie sent me (that is another thing I'm trying to do each night).

Goodnight from Nebraska. I love you all the way to Honduras!

Shannon

Christmas 2011

Well, it has almost happened again! I have nearly gone an entire month without a blog post. Shame on me. What is my excuse this time you might ask? Well, let's see, it could be Christmas concerts and shopping and MOPs events and classes and grading and dr. appointments and even laundry...but lately it has been the emergency room.

We had a rough start to the holiday season you could say. Gil, while at work December 15, suddenly got a bad pain in his stomach. Thinking it could be an appendicitis he went and saw a nurse at Briar Cliff. She said it probably was not an appendicitis, but rather a virus that had been going around. Gil called me to come get him because he was so sick and vomiting that he couldn't drive. He spent the rest of the evening in terrible pain, but still thinking it was just the flu because of the nausea. After the kids were in bed he finally decided we ought to head to the emergency room to get it checked out. I was thinking kidney stones by this time, but his pain was in his stomach rather than the back. Well, sure enough the doctor confirmed a kidney stone diagnosis. They admitted him to the hospital (we were in Wayne) and got him on some morphine and fluids and anti-nausea meds. I stayed with him that night. He was completely depleted from vomiting so much and the intense pain. The next day we had hope that the stone would pass. From the scan it wasn't too large and he was on all that fluid. But the afternoon it still had not passed, but he was feeling pain-free. We decided to go home and wait it out there with pain meds. But by the middle of the night the pain and nausea were back despite the medicine. All day Saturday he laid on the couch and couldn't do a thing. By Sunday morning we decided he needed to go back to the hospital. He could not properly hydrate himself to get the stone moving because of the nausea. So, we went back to the ER and Gil was readmitted. He stayed that night again...and the next night....still no stone had passed. We wanted to go home, but were afraid he would just be too sick again. On Tuesday we decided we needed to leave the Wayne hospital (small and unable to do the procedure to remove the stone). He got an appointment with a urologist at UNMC in Omaha the next day, the day we were planning to leave for his parent's house to celebrate Christmas. We were hopeful! The appointment went well, but they said since it was an elective surgery he would have to schedule it and the soonest they could get him in was in a week. We took it, but hoped it would pass on it's own before then and that he would stay feeling well. Unfortunately the nausea and vomiting was back that evening. I called back to the urologist in the morning to see about nausea meds, but they told us to come into the ER....SO third trip to the ER that day. That was quite a process, but we really hoped he would finally get surgery. The doctors told us the operating rooms were quite busy and he was on a list, but they thought it might happen that day (Thursday) or for sure the next. We sat there all day, Gil hooked up to his faithful IV and not eating, me reading magazines and watching reruns of "Everybody Loved Raymond." Finally by six o'clock that night I needed to get home to the kiddos and it didn't look like surgery would happen until the following day. Gil's dad came in to relieve me and I headed home, bummed that we would have to wait another day. Just when I arrived back at his parent's house, John called. They had taken Gil to pre-op!!! Yay!!! He would be home that night after all, I figured. Surgery is quick and recovery too. But John called back about two hours later to say that he was bumped and back in his room. No surgery. He was told noon the next day (Friday). That was the day of the Buhman Christmas in Missouri, so Gil's mom and sisters took Jude down with them while John kept Cora at home and spent some time at the hospital with us. The doctor came in at 11am (yes, before noon!) and took him to pre-op again. This time I got to go along. We hadn't been there for more than five minutes before they came to tell us the doctor would not be available for another couple hours...back to the hospital room we went. We were beginning to feel quite defeated at this point. But we hadn't been up in the room more than five minutes before another doctor came to say a different urologist was available if we were willing to go with him. By that point we were willing to go with a stranger off the street (almost!). So back to pre-op we went. And it was for real this time!!! There was a lot to surgery and waiting and pre-op and recovery, but basically he was done in an hour and back in his room in two. Unfortunately, the doctor thought there might be some infection and wanted him to stay ANOTHER night. We hung out again all day in the hospital, but at least Gil was feeling better, could eat, and the stone was GONE! He came home Christmas Eve morning and has been feeling better and better ever since. What an ordeal! We are just so glad it is finally over. And all the time I was talking about "daddy" being in the hospital to the kids, I was just glad I knew he would be getting better soon.

So after all that we still had one day left to celebrate with the Ridenour's! We then came home Christmas morning to celebrate with the Koester's. Here are some pictures to document (they are all out of order...sorry!). I'm feeling bad that I didn't get any of Gil in the hospital, but I'm sure he doesn't feel too bad about it!

Merry Christmas From the Ridenour Family!

Cora playing at our home Christmas celebration.
Jude opening his presents at home.
Mommy and Cora opening presents at the Ridenour's
Jude standing by Papa John's new wise man.
Aunt Alissa with Cora Clare.
Ashtyn and Jude with their recordable books of the first Christmas (from Nana and Papa)
Our tree. Sorry, not a very good pic. It is VERY VERY tall!
Jude by grandma and grandpa's tree. He could say, "Happy Birthay, Jesus" to turn the lights on (remote control!)
Jude and Aunt Brittany.
Mitch with little Sarai.
Gil and I the day we came home!
The Herrick's
Cora at six months
Another six month pic
The two baby girls checking each other out.
Kids with Papa John
Sarai Ann