Adventures at Home

The theme for this week seems to be experiences: some good, some bad.

Our biggest adventure for the week was an early Friday morning (2:30 a.m.) emergency trip to the ER. (We're glad we don't have to report these very often!) We'd noticed that Andrew was a little raspy before bed--we thought he might be getting sick, but it didn't seem very serious, so we let it pass. Just after 2 we were both awakened by the tell-tale barking cough of croup (we've done this before), only this time Andrew was clearly struggling to breathe. Dan took him outside, and the cold air helped some, but not much. What made things worse was that Andrew was clearly upset and frightened because he was struggling to breathe, and his crying only intensified his struggle. So I took him to the ER. It was pretty apparent that he was struggling; as soon as we walked in the nurses got us settled and the doctors appeared only a few minutes later (it helped that the ER was quite that night). They gave him some steroids (breathing treatments), which, although he resisted ferociously, seemed to help. Within half an hour or so he was breathing more normally. Of course, since they'd given him steroids, they had to keep him under observation for a while, so it was 5:30 before we got home (by which time Evelyn and Dan were both awake). I went back to sleep (for an all-too brief hour), but Andrew never did. Let's just say that Friday is a day better left unremembered, between a tired mom and a tired, whiny, sickish boy. (Although you'd never know from his behavior quite how sick he'd been).

The funny thing about the ER visit--I'd been into the hospital earlier on Thursday, for a doctor's appointment and some blood work (no, not pregnancy--I'd been having some chest pains, which the doctor finally determined were caused by a pulled muscle, not, thankfully, anything worse). But because I'd just been there (for the first time) and submitted all of my insurance information, we didn't have to mess with paperwork when I went in later with Andrew. A small mercy, I suppose, but one I'm grateful for!

Aside from that dramatic down, the week has actually been pretty good. We had some unseasonably warm weather for the first of November, which we thoroughly enjoyed (as you can see below). We raked leaves several days this week--ironically enough, the only big tree near our property didn't dump its leaves until yesterday afternoon, after we'd already finished with our outside chores.


My camera doesn't really *do* action shots, but these pictures (even if blurry) can give you a good sense of the kids' enjoyment.


Incidentally, our car was parked outside of our carport most of the week because we finally got the cement replaced in our old, crumbling sidewalk (and under part of the carport). We're thrilled to have it--but we have to wait a few more days until the cement is completely dried before parking our car back in its usual spot.

On Saturday, I tried something I've never done before: canning. Oh, sure, I helped my mom growing up a few times, but I don't think I ever really paid attention to what she was doing (sorry mom!). We made pomegranate jelly--five batches of it! Dan's mom kindly came over and helped after I called with some clearly novice questions about what I was doing (we also borrowed her pressure canner and a juicer to juice the pomegranates--they're much easier to juice than to actually peel and de-seed.) They do look lovely, don't they? (However, I'm not sure if they're setting right, so don't be surprised if you later get gifted some pomegranate syrup. :))