Funny Comment

My friends with large families will love this...

The day we were discharged from the hospital, Anne's specialist says to me...

"You need to be sure to keep her away from large crowds".

LMAO! Maybe I didn't make it clear that she was the youngest of five....

Anne's Hospital Stay

I am sure some of you have noticed that I haven't been around much. This has been my first post in a while. We had a scare with Anne last weekend...

She caught what we thought was a simple cold about ten days ago. Last Saturday, she started coughing a lot. She didn't sleep well on Saturday night, we listened to her cough most of the night.

Sunday wasn't any better. By Sunday early evening, I knew that some type of action needed to be taken. Not thinking she was very sick, I made the HUGE mistake of taking her to an Urgent Care center right down the street from us. The Dr was a total moron. He gave her some Orapred and wrote a script for an antibiotic and told me that she would probably be better in the morning, but if she didn't sound better to me, or got worse, to take her to the Emergency Room.

Thankfully, I am good friends with our pediatrician. I called Janette when we got home and she told me to take her to the ER right away.

We got to the ER around 8:30pm. The ER physician was wonderful; I actually worked with him in the PICU at Cardinal Glennon, so I knew she was in good hands. Her RSV and FLU tests came back neg. By 12:15am, the could not get her breathing under control, so they admitted her to the Intensive Care Unit. It took three people to hold her down to put in an IV.

Anne spent 2 days in the PICU with continuous breathing treatments for the first 12 hours, then q1, q2, q3, and finally q4.

She was transferred to a normal pediatric floor on Tuesday morning. We were released from the hospital on Wednesday early afternoon.

There was no real explanation of what caused her to have breathing difficulty. She has responded well to her Xopenex and antibiotic, so we are thinking that she either caught a virus or an URI that went terribly wrong. She is now being treated as if she is an asthmatic, which doesn't surprise me as Sam is, but many Doctors won't label a child an asthmatic until around the age of five.

Learn from my mistakes....Don't EVER use an Urgent Care. I will never set foot in one ever again. I would also like to thank my local Walgreens for taking FOUR hours to fill Anne's 5 prescriptions and causing her to be over an hour late on a breathing treatment, even though they told me her scripts would be ready in an hour and a half. They've lost my business for sure.

That is what has been going on around here. It's been stressful and emotionally draining. Anne is doing well at home; eating well, playing well, and sleeping well as if nothing ever happened. Kids are amazing.

My Kids Rock Ass

I am so proud of our children. Today, I had Jack and Sam's parent/teacher conferences. I had Sam's this morning and his teacher couldn't say enough nice things about him. How he is a friend to everyone, how hard he works, how polite he is, how she wishes she had a classroom full of kids just like him. What a way to kick off the day.

This afternoon, I had Jack's. Every year, the kids have to take tests given by the state of Missouri to make sure the kids are learning at an appropriate rate (or something like that). Jack scored in the 92%. That is just 4 points shy of gifted. His teacher said Jack wasn't feeling well the day of the test, so she's sure if we retested him, he'd fall into the gifted category. I'm not willing to retest at this point. He's only 8, and we don't push.

Will and Libby had their conferences a few weeks ago that went just as well (if you all remember, Will is our kiddo with 'above average scissor skills - lol!).

See, children of large families actually do get attention, learn to get along with many different types of personalities, are actually taught two of the most important lessons in life-hard work and work ethic, are well rounded, and learn at a young age how to solve conflict.

And it shows. FOUR children with EXCELLENT reports. I told you...Dan and I are damn good at this. *Toot, toot*.

"Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy".
-Robert A Heinlein

Busy Days

It's been a busy week and a half. My new job at St. John's is already taking up a lot of time and I haven't even started yet.

For those of you who don't know, when you get hired for a job at a hospital, there is a lot of paperwork to fill out, physicals, drug testing, TB tests, and even more papers to sign and date.

So far, I've been through a two part interview. Today, I had my physical. 'No big deal', I thought to myself. When I worked at Cardinal Glennon, the physical was a snap. I walked in, the physical took all of 15 minutes, got my TB test and left (drug testing was at an off sight lab).

Today, my physical lasted an entire hour. And let me add that I was used as a pin cushion. I had to receive a Hep B vax, a DpT vax, a Flu shot, a TB test, and blood drawn. I also had a drug test. I came home with three very pretty band aids and the kids were very impressed that I didn't cry when I got my shots!

On Thursday, I have to go back to Human Resources and bring documentation to prove that I am a legal citizen, and to sign the rest of my paperwork.

I mean, good god. I guess this is their way of really making sure you want to work.

Meg Rocks Ass

I was offered the job late this morning. Which is a good thing because after two interviews and four hours worth of shadowing, I was about to have a stroke.

This totally rocks.

Another Big Day

I have the second part of my job interview today from 1 to 5. It's the shadowing part at the hospital.

Do some serious praying.

Dirty Little Secrets

A few years ago, my sister bought me a little book for Mother's Day. After reading it, I put it away in a memory box of mine. I found it the other day and some of the quotes really made me laugh, probably because I'm as guilty as the mother's who shared their, "Dirty Little Secrets from Otherwise Perfect Moms" (By Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile)

"My rule is beer at lunch and wine at 5. Wine at lunch feels like I have a 'problem' but beer just seems ok."


"We forgot to buckle our two-year-old up in the car...when we went around the corner, he flew over to the next seat and screamed 'f*$#ers'."


"I let my two toddlers eat Milk Bones right out of the box. I figure since they're not barking, they're fine".


I think I'll post one of these a week. Reading these quotes makes me feel super normal. And to think the mom's the wrote in their Dirty Little Secrets only had (no more than) 3 kids. See, I'm way more normal than they are and I have more chaos.

Happy Birthday, Jack-Jack Attack

It's hard for me to believe that he is eight years old today. It really doesn't seem all that long ago that he was born. It was a cold day with light rain. We were scared and nervous first time parents. We didn't know what to expect. I was in labor for 16 hours. We thought for sure our baby would would have a little blond hair and blue eyes. To our surprise, Jack was born with olive tone skin and almost black hair. That was right at 8:07pm.

To this day, every once in a while, I will catch a glimpse of the clock reading 8:07pm. A mother never forgets.

And despite us not having a clue on how to raise a child, he continues to survive us. And he takes it all in stride.

Jack has always had a zest for life that is contagious. He is this very intelligent, funny, sensitive, sweet little boy that everyone wants to be around. He is a natural first born leader with a strong personality. He's naturally good at every sport he's tried (I'm not even upset over his love for baseball instead of soccer - lol!). He is destined for greatness on so many levels.

This is not a sad day for me that he is a year older. I feel as if the fun is just beginning.

Where Do They Find These Things?

There is one thing that amazes me about kids.

They have an amazing ability to find things around the house that we thought were in really great hiding spots. Such great hiding spots that neither Dan or myself can find even after we have hidden them ourselves.

For example, scissors. Every year, we have to buy little kid scissors for the school year. We have to hide them when the left-over school supplies come home at the end of May.

And let me add that even though the package says "won't cut hair or clothing", they do. That is a total lie. Trust me.

Will and Libby found a pair of scissors on Monday. We hide these things because they will give anything in sight a haircut (the dogs included. Lucky doggies).

Just like they did to each other.

Okay, let me remind you all that with 5 kids in the house, there is always noise. When there is silence, there are 'problems'. Silence=trouble. I should have known they were up to no good.

I combed a few clumps of Libby's long blonde hair out from her head and Will had a few bald spots.

So you can imagine how proud I felt when I took Will to his preschool developmental testing and his teachers told me that his scissor skills were 'well above average'. I laughed and said, "Yes, I am aware".

Who needs Great Clips when you have a four and a half year old with amazing scissor skills?

Good God, I am one proud mom.

Throwing Up In My Mouth

That what Obama makes me do.

Everyone who thinks he is going to turn our country around has another thing coming.

Wasn't it Biden himself that said, "The world will test Obama"? Yes, it was, and I firmly believe that.

Another thing for all that voted for him....

Do you really believe in "FREE" health care?

A lesson that my parents taught me when I was very young was that NOTHING in life is free. Where do all of you think the money for "free" health care is going to come from? That's right....by raising our taxes. Or, at least, raising taxes for those of us who actually work.

Good job, Democrats. You just screwed all of us royally.

At least I can't be blamed when when everything goes to hell. I voted correctly.

Bad Ass Day

Yes, Meg had a great day. Which is unusual for me when it comes to Mondays. Any of you that know me well knows that I am very superstitious when it comes to certain days of the week, numbers and, I'll be honest, Karma scares the crap out of me.

Today I had my job interview at 2pm. It went super well. It was an entire hour filled with a lot of questions. There are a few steps to being hired for this job, and I have been invited to 'stage 2'. That is exciting.

Only one thing makes me nervous about this job. Patient care of adults. I don't do adult care. It's not my thing. Yuck.

The Thing About Halloween

First off, the kids had a blast! Jack and Sam's school is totally awesome and 'old school' where all of the kids still dress up in the afternoon and they have a huge school parade and then class parties afterwards. The parents are invited, so Dan and I always go. It's so much fun to see all of the teachers and kids having so much fun. We wouldn't miss it for anything.

By the time the kids came home from school, they we already high on sugar. Will also had a halloween party at school, so 4 kids hopped up on sugar is a sight to see around here.

We fed them dinner early. My parents came over, all dressed up which was awesome and histerical at the same time. My mother dressed as a hippy and my dad wore is 'old' army gear. Jack thought that was the coolest thing since sliced bread. He enjoyed telling all of his friends that his Papa's army gear was 'real'.

So the thing about Halloween is this; it's too much candy. And if you're like Dan and myself who have lost quite a bit of weight and proud of it, Halloween stinks.

What parent can keep their hands out of their children's goodie bags?! Not us!

The combo between one-too-many beers and a handful of candy isn't the best. We, or should I say I, am paying for it today.

Jack had his first sleep over last night at his good friend's house. The live right across the street, but I was still a little nervous. I slept with the phone right next to my head. Joe Cool came home this morning like it was no big deal. I should have known better not to worry so much. He'll understand one day...

The best part of the night was when the kids went to bed and all of my scary movies are on. It's just the best time of the year.