Strep, Movies, and Feeding Tube Mishaps

So my first two "school" days off I didn't do much of anything except for a little housework and lazed around with the kids getting cuddling time. Last Wednesday Makenna, Brody, and I headed out to Chuck E Cheese, Texas Roadhouse for lunch (Makenna's choice, I have taught her well), a little shopping, and then back home. I noticed on this day my throat started feeling a little scratchy but chalked it up to allergies. Thursday was a repeat of Monday and Tuesday (hey, you can never get too much lazing around cuddling in). Friday mom watched Brody for me so Makenna and I could go see Madagascar 3. I really do believe this was the first time just the two of us have done something together since Brody was born. We had a good time and I had to buy her two orders of dippin dots. LOL! Saturday was another lazy day but I did notice that my throat was getting a little worse and I was starting to feel bad. Now I'm wondering if Makenna gave me her strep throat she had over Memorial Day weekend. Sunday I was still feeling bad but decided that we needed groceries in a bad way, so I got the three of us ready and we headed out to Walmart. Due to the fact that it was just me with the kids and I couldn't fit everything into one cart (like I said, we needed groceries bad) and Makenna was starting to act a little crazy, I bought what I had at Walmart and then dropped her off with my mom and Brody and I went to JayC to finish. I was only at the JayC for about 45 minutes but in that time Makenna learned to ride a bike without training wheels. If you knew how clumsy this girl is, you would have thought it would have taken her a lot longer to  learn to balance, but the part she has trouble with is using the pedals for brakes. I can't believe she learned to ride a bike without hardly any help!!! Sunday night after I put the groceries away I really started feeling bad and my throat felt like it was getting worse so I decided to take a look at it. O M G! There were white pus places ALL OVER THE BACK OF MY THROAT! Good grief. So Monday morning I made an appointment with Dr. Hoke (who I have never seen before and he was very nice to look at hehe). The nurse did a strep test first thing and then Dr. Hoke came back and looked at my throat...he didn't even wait for the results to come back and said, "Oh yeah, you're red and you have white pus pockets all over the place. I'm just going to treat and not ask questions." LOL! He called me in a Zpak. I am feeling MUCH much better today and my throat is only a little scratchy and not really sore anymore. Thank goodness. Now I couldn't tell you the last time I actually had strep throat. I've had sore throats plenty, but not like this...I know for sure in my adult life at least. It is awful to say the least. Poor Makenna...didn't have an actual sore throat with her's but she had a headahce that she hysterically cried with for two days and was down out and for 6 days in a row. I'm so hoping that Brody Mann doesn't get this awful thing...I don't care if Chuck does or not. LOL! Just joking, I hope he doesn't either, but with Brody, we need to stay away from antibiotics as much as possible, especially oral (well in his case feeding tube) so he won't build a tolerance up to them if he ever needs a strong one for a skin infection.

And speaking of our Brody Mann. This boy is just testing me to see how much I can handle I do believe. So, we were scheduled to have his button tube surgery on June 28^th and then other appointments as well on the 27^th and 28^th. On the Saturday morning of graduation, I noticed when he woke up his tube was pushed in farther than it should have been. They told me back in April if that were to ever happen to just slowly pull it back out to where it was supposed to have been, so I did. It did it again so I put some tape on the tube to keep it from going back in. The hospital said if I felt okay with it that way we could still wait until the scheduled surgery date so I said okay. Well, then yesterday happened and the whole darn thing came out completely! HOLY CRUD! I put the catheter in like they showed me to keep the hole from closing up, started packing, they told us to get there as soon as we could and they would go ahead and do the button surgery after we got there. From the start of surgery until we left recovery and headed back to the room I’d say it was from 9:30-1:30. And boy he was not a happy camper when he woke up from the anesthesia. It took quite a while to get him calmed down but after that he slept all night long. Poor fella! The button is so much easier to deal with and although it can still come out (a lot less common than the actual tube) the fact that he doesn’t have almost 4 inches of tubing sticking out of him which is a lot easier to be pulled out, is a relief. We still have to go back for the rest of our appointments at the end of the month but at least the surgery is out of the way and it did not require an almost 2 week stay this time.

Here are a few pics and Makenna's bike video from the last week.

This girl LOVES dippin dots!

Enjoying some popcorn while watching the "commercials".

After we checked in, waiting for the surgery team to come up and get him.

Learned to ride with hardly any help at all. She told her dad that she doesn't need to go slow because she's already that good. We'll see after her first wreck on the pavement.

BYE BYE

Just a cute little video to share.

It's over!

School is finally out for the summer! I love my kids at school, but man, my brain and body needed a break! Saturday was graduation. It turned out great! With the exception of the music volume when the kids walked in, the sound was the best it has ever been. You could actually hear and understand what the speakers were saying. I've said at the end of the year each of the last 3 years that I'm not going to do senior sponsor anymore...I swear I mean it every year too. Something always ends up pulling me back into it.  I really do enjoy it but it is so mentally demanding, especially at the end of the year. I just don't know that I want that added stress to my life at this point. We shall see.

So Saturday was graduation, Sunday was a bandage change and my cousin's graduation party. Still hard to believe that the girl that was once the apple of my eye (before my own kids) has graduated high school, will be 19 next month, and start college in August. Seriously, where does the time go? Yesterday all I did was stay at home, do a little housework, I actually cooked for like the first time in, well, let's not go there, and really just laid low. I'm not opposed to doing that again today.

I've already promised Makenna basically the moon this summer. :-) I want to try and do fun things during the week but also stay at home some and just rest and relax. I also want to spend a little time on her school work to get her ready for the 1st grade! And, I know I'm going to regret saying this, but I really am going to try and work on losing some weight. UGH! I also need to reorganize the basement some what to make room to house extra bandaging supplies and go through the kids toys. Oh basement, I will conquer you. Oh yeah, and I'll probably do some school work. There really shouldn't be all that much to change from last year, which is a good thing. And I have to mention the fact that I had between 90% and 92% (depending on which category you look at) that passed the Algebra 1 ECA! For those of you that don't know what that means, it is a test that kids have to pass at some point while they are in high school or they don't graduate. The next closest teacher to me was 50%. Not bragging or anything...  :-)

Here are a few pics from the last week or so.