Eating yogurt

He went to the fridge, got out a cup of yogurt, went to his chair and climbed in. Good sign!






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School and work

Porter has asked to go to school everyday at some point since he's been out. Usually right after we get him dressed. He's at home again today, but hopefully for the last day. He's been without fever for about 24 hours, but still has diarrhea. It is much improved, but not good enough to go to school.
Yesterday was my first day of work!!! It was pretty uneventful. I helped on a couple of short cases. Today is my clinic, so hopefully I will have some of my own procedures scheduled after today.


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Weird...

First of all, unless you've lived it, it's probably difficult to understand the magnitude of this simple sign's impact.


I took Tara to "their" office this morning so that she could ride with Dr. Day to Opp for a surgery they had to do. When we pulled up, we saw the sign that her name was added to. It's a very surreal feeling. I'm very proud of her. I think the best part will be the fact that Porter will be saying "Mama?" less.


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The coffee chef

I don't think there was much teaching to be done. Jared said he had to show him which button to push.
In illness news, we had fever at 11:00pm and 4:00am. And diapers at 4:00 am and 6:30 so far.

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Sleeping with Da-ya

Porter ate a little at supper tonight. Then threw it up. We started over with a new plate. He has some mashed potatoes, one pear, and chewed up a couple pieces of steak and spit them out. We went to the tub and ran water and bubbles. He pooped in the water so we started over with that too. I got him out of the tub, wrapped him up in a towel and picked him up. He fell asleep. I woke him up briefly to put on a diaper and pj's and took him to da-ya (daddy) and he went right back to sleep. Very unlike my child.
*sigh* Hope tonight is a little better and I'm really hoping we are nearing the end of whatever this is. It's harder to be patient when you can't see the end and he certainly doesn't understand what is going on.


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Diarrhea update

Ha! I know this is a bit TMI for everyone, but this is as much a scrapbook for us as it is a blog for friends and family.
We had a good time at the hospital and got blood drawn. His labs aren't too bad, but he is a bit dehydrated and his sodium is a little low. We went to walmart and got more diapers, Gatorade, and potato chips, because they have sodium and he ate one this morning. He fell asleep while we were on our way to walmart, so now we are just driving around to let him sleep.


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Headed to the hospital for labwork

He saw a spider right before we got in the car and was fascinated. He feels ok when we're not washing off his hinney and he doesn't have fever...



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Don't know what to think

We woke up at midnight to porter crying (which is no different from any other night) and when I went to go lead him back to his bed he was burning up with fever. Really really hot. We got some motrin and Tylenol since it seems to take both at the same time to get the fever down. I went ahead and put him in bed with us because he wasn't going to rest well in his bed and because I wanted him close by. We did ok until 4 am when he woke me up again needing a new diaper. I was headed to his room when I felt something warm on my arm, so we headed back to our room and the tub to clean off. Back in bed. 5:30--awakened to more fever. Motrin and Tylenol. I am not convinced we are treating strep throat, but I'm not sure what else it would be. I guess I'll be calling Dr E again this morning. I hate bothering him, but I don't feel comfortable waiting until tomorrow to get an appointment when we are on day 6 of high fever and day 5 of diarrhea.
Will update after call.


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Good news Bad news

Which do you want first???
Ok, I'll start with the good news. We only had 13 diarrhea diapers today!!! That means we haven't had any since around 3:00-3:30 this afternoon. The booty is hanging in there.
The bad news is that we were going to go down to mobile this evening for the beer festival and stay with friends tonight and we decided we shouldn't go out of town and leave poop boy with my parents. I know they've taken care of a child with diarrhea before, but that's not the point. It just doesn't seem like the thing to do. If it was a cold, we'd have sent him with an extra box of Kleenex (maybe) and wished him well, but he's had a rough week and his hinney has had an even rougher week. I just didn't feel comfortable leaving him.
Oh well, it won't be the first time our plans change because of him. I really really hope that we have turned the corner with this thing. I'll let you know. ;)


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13

Since 7:00am.


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Cooking pancakes

Feeling pretty good this morning. Hope it continues.








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8

That's how many times we stripped Porter down, put him in the tub, sprayed off his hinney, dried him off, applied half a tube o boudreaux's and put on a diaper yesterday. That means the diarrhea medicine is working because that's less than half than the day before, which is why we are having to use the "no rub" technique. His raw skin just couldn't take it anymore. Last night we had no poops, which was like a restful vacation. This morning we have just made our first trip to the tub and right after we put pj's back on there was more noise below. But (or butt) his hinney looked much better this morning, so we are going back to wipes. Maybe today will be a good day. Our hair indicates we got good sleep between the hourly wake ups.


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Our crazy life

Once again, we've had a wild week. In no certain order, here is what we have been doing.
1. The bathroom is almost done. Yeah, I know you've heard that before. Really, we are almost done. All that is left is having the glass door for the shower installed (it has been measured) and completion of the mirrors (also measured). That's really it.
2. I finished my last ER shift, but more importantly, got paid for the work I have already done. That paycheck was an odd moment.
3. I get to start my real job Monday. Yea!!!!! Long time coming.
4. Porter has strep throat. Fever started Tuesday and has been pretty hard to treat. Motrin and Tylenol every 4 hours didn't even cut it last night. Diarrhea started late yesterday afternoon. Red sore hinney. We saw Dr Eldridge today and got him fixed up, so hopefully we are on the road to recovery.
5. Nannie and I have been sewing and have been experimenting with her new software and have some exciting stuff to show off soon. Here are some pictures of porter at nannie's this afternoon. He felt a little better after a good nap, but still has a ways to go.
Popsicles were a staple in our diet today.





Watching nannie do her thing.


Eating with papsie.





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Meat sticks

Taddy and Chris (my aunt and new uncle that live in Atlanta) gave us some elk meat and meat sticks while we were there this weekend. We thawed some out this afternoon and Jared and I eat got one. Porter took mine and just started eating it. I took a couple pictures and sent one to taddy since she's not a blog stalker.



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Quick trip to Atlanta

We bought tickets to the Jack Johnson concert in Atlanta months ago. We realized the beginning of last week that he concert was Friday night. We have had such a rough week with the lightning strike problems an trying to get this bathroom project finished we almost didn't go. Plus my parents are in Alaska on vacation and they are our regular babysitters. My nannie is so good to us though and kept porter last night so we could come. We really needed a break to do this and I'm glad we did, even if it was a quick trip and we got stormed on at the concert. Yes. It was at Lakewood amphitheater and we had uncovered seats. It rained as we got there and we got pretty wet, but stopped before jack j started playing. It started agin probably 45 minutes into his set and was a serious thunderstorm. We gave up and headed to the car, and were soaked all the way through. Porter got a t-shirt out of it though. Today we swung by the mall to pick up a couple of things we have been needing/wanting, and now we are headed home.
What we saw of the concert was great.





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St Agnes Resort and Spa

Some of you may have heard that Jared's sister, Dana, has recently been diagnosed with a rare cancer and I have been getting lots of questions about her progress and treatment. She has had one surgery, and is about to leave for Baltimore for further treatment. She has started a blog for updates, comments, and encouragement. It's always good to know you are cared for and loved, so I'm sure she would love to know about all the people I have talked to that are praying for her. The address is www.stagnesresortandspa.blogspot.com
I will post a link as soon as we get our Internet back up and running at home.

Porter and Aunt Moth Ball, as she is affectionately known, at disneyworld last September.



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Somebody's gonna be jealous!!

I'm talkin' to you, Brookie. Look what we made today!!!






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Porter's shirt

This is the other shirt we did at nannie's yesterday.



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Innnnnnteresting occurrence

This morning porter asked to go "tee tee" so Jared took him to the hall bathroom and sat him on the potty. Nothing happened, so he took him to his bathroom to sit on his potty, and he tee teed. A lot. We haven't really been pushing the potty, so I don't know where it came from, but we will certainly be talking about it more now. Veeeeeerrrry innnnnnteresting.


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Sewing at nannie's

To stay out of the heat today (at our house) I went up to nannie's to "play" in her sewing room. We did some towels for our bathroom and stole this idea from etsy for porter. His new formal wear....






The cutest one is still at nannie's. I had to leave in a hurry to run some errands--one of which was to let the A/C man in (hallelujah!!!!) and another was to be picked up by the rental car people to hitch a ride to enterprise. I'll post a pic of the other shirt tomorrow.
I am now the proud driver of a gmc terrain, and I must say that this is the nicest rental I've ever driven. I'm very much a crossover fan at this point. I would even consider the swagger wagon. I just said consider.
We also have the correct shower part installed and we can finally use the shower. Eeeeeee!!! Can't wait to use it. I've never been this excited to take a shower. Can't get too excited yet because it's not officially finished. They are coming tomorrow to tile the doorway and finish the trim around the outside of it and do a couple of other minor things. Nannie is coming to help me clean the whole house really good and get rid of the construction dust. By Friday it might actually be done (on the inside). I will be unpacking our remaining two boxes and have eveything in the bathroom tomorrow too. I finally wont have to dig through 2 boxes of junk to find the advil or a bobby pin.
Ok, porter is in his toddler bed, so I better try to get some sleep before he starts getting up for the night. Boy things would really be looking up if he would only get up 4 or 5 times tonight. I don't know if I could handle myself if he did any better than that.
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Voo Doo, Omens, and the Devil

Well, I was going to post one piece of good news/progress, but I see Jared has beat me to it by posting pictures of our "lawn feature."
So here is the latest. I feel like I should start my posts with "once upon a time" these days. Monday afternoon it was looking like rain, but big deal, it rains all the time this time of year. I was at Marvin's getting grout sealer for the shower when a little ligtning storm came through. Jared called to inform me that lightning had struck the house and got the computer and all things plugged into that power strip. Great--what can I do about it at Marvin's??? So I get home and I'm sealing the grout when I realized I was going to need more. I sent Jared to run back to Marvin's, but he came back in the house and said that the truck wouldn't start and all of the lights inside and out were on--including all of the lights on the dash. And the big pine tree beside the truck looked as if someone had stripped off a bunch of the bark all the way down. Apparently lightning had also struck our truck after it came down the tree. Great. We called State farm and got that ball rolling. A little later in the afternoon we noticed that it was a little warm in the house, so Jared went to "bump" the A/C down. No A/C. The ligtning got it too. The only good news so far is that it didn't get the computer, but all of the other stuff that was plugged in with it--cable modem, and the apple airport (our wireless network). I worked Monday night, so about the time we were trying to deal with that and feed Porter, I had to go to work. Jared got the A/C man to come out and look at it, and said that he could order parts early Tuesday morning and have them installed Tuesday afternoon. Jared and Porter stayed at my parent's house while they are in Alaska on vacation. I would rather be in Alaska too than in our house without A/C. Tuesday morning I turned all the fans on high and it was at least tolerable for me to take a nap, but by Tuesday afternoon it was miserable. Porter and I went to Catherine's soccer practice for some cool air--ha! We went home briefly to get clothes and went back to Mama's. No A/C man ever showed up. This morning I called and the part is supposed to be here by lunch today and it will be installed this afternoon. The truck was picked up by Enterprise Toyota yesterday afternoon and I hope they are busy at work on it. Enterprise Rent-A-Car is going to come pick me up this afternoon and drive me back to Enterprise to pick out a rental. So much for a relaxing week to recoup from my shift work hell of last week. Oh, and when we went to put all the shower fixtures on after the grout was sealed we found out that one of the parts didn't fit and we have had to order the right part, which is supposed to also be in by lunch today.

Almost done with one side

I've been working on the largest flower bed in front of the house. Tara is providing direction, of course. I'm almost done!





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Location:Thweat St,Andalusia,United States

The toddler bed challenge and last week's news

Pardon me if I fall asleep during this post....
1. The toddler bed: Oh yes. We are there. I didn't expect to be here for a while still, but our precocious climber has brought us to this point. Last Sunday night was my first shift in the ER, and when I got home Monday morning, Jared informed me of the good news. He said he heard Porter stirring at his normal hour (6:00am) and he got up and completed his normal get up routine before heading down the hall, but no worries, Porter was headed to meet him--bits in tow (bits=blanket). He didn't hurt himself, but who knows what would happen next time, so we decided to not take any chances. Our toddler bed rail was in the attic in the Daphne house, but I was headed to Daphne on Tuesday anyway, and I got it while I was there. So the crib rail disappeared, and we found out that it must have been THE Sandman, because insomnia has set in for the whole family. Not the kind of "yippee I'm free to play all night" insomnia, though, so I'm a little confused. What about a new bed rail makes a little boy wake up nearly once an hour? Seriously, last night we were up every hour, and he would go back to sleep if you told him to lay down and just hovered in the room for a minute. So, needless to say, after one night of no sleep from working the ER, and last night at home, I am exhausted. Really.
2. The bathroom: Remember the beginning of last week when I said SURELY the bathroom would be finished by the end of the week? Ha--they showed me. We have still yet to see a cabinet door or drawer be installed, and while the shower tile is finished except for the doorway, and the shower is usable, the holdup is with the fixtures now, and it has just become a tiled room with a bench in it. The cabinet man is supposed to be at the house bright and early Monday morning, which will be more than double the time he said it would take him to have the cabinets built and installed. The tile for the doorway of the shower is supposed to be here Tuesday. Do they really think I believe them anymore??? The award for the best product and service goes to Ricky Daniels in Andalusia--he is responsible for the beautiful granite countertops that we called about one day, and were installed the next.
3. My real job: I have not started. I do not know when it will be. I am still waiting on Medicare (imagine that, Nancy) for my provider number. Whenever I get that number I will start the next week. The encouraging part of it is that I have had several people around town say they wanted to be my first patient. Bless their hearts, brave souls.
4. Landscaping project: We tackled a spot in our front yard last weekend that we thought we would fix up Saturday morning, and whatever our tile and cabinet man has must be contagious, because we are still not finished. It kinda mushroomed from getting something to go in the flower boxes under the windows to stacking a lot of field stone for the large cement birdbath, laying landscape fabric, planting, and mulching. We are to the mulching part now. We went to Crestview Nurseries yesterday morning and got a truckload, literally. It was sold by the scoop, and 3 scoops filled the back of the truck and it was heaped halfway up the back window. It covered about half of the area in front of our carport, so we will be returning to Crestview several times before this project is completed.
5. The virus: I have finally shaken the grips of a nasty GI bug that Porter brought home from school. It was a full 6 days worth of GI "symptoms" and I am very happy to be eating again.

I am currently in the ER for my 12 hour day shift today, and I hope to get a nap, but the nurses just laughed at me. I hope to be posting pictures of our completed bathroom sometime before we sell this house, and will show you our landscaping masterpiece in progress tomorrow.

Porter and dauwg

That's how they roll....






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No wonder his feet stink

He had both feet in, but he picked one foot up as I was snapping the picture. He has been trying to put on jareds shoes when he sees them laying around, but has never gotten both of them on.






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Salt and vinegar potato chips

He won't eat corn, strawberries, watermelon, macaroni and cheese, and the list goes on, but he likes salt and vinegar potato chips.



The new "cheeeese" routine.




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Cheezin' with daddy

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Shower tile

Top half of the shower is tiled. Not including the ceiling.



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Got cabinet doors?

Our granite countertops were installed a couple of days ago. Now if we only had cabinet doors and tile in the shower. The tile drama is hopefully at an end though. Our shower tile was delivered today, and they are supposed to start laying it tomorrow. As for the cabinet doors though, who knows??? The cabinet man brought the vanities and linen cabinet Monday, and I've heard nothing since then. I thought we would certainly be done by the end of thus week, but I guess we're looking at maybe the end if next week. Hopefully. Surely.



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Afternoon with Jack

Nancy and Jack came to Andalusia today and we had a great afternoon! I hope we get to play again soon!

Found a new place to blog

I am trying it out for the first time as I type!!!


And did you notice that piece of a vanity there? Part of the cabinets are done and the "cabinet man" brought them today so that the rest of the baseboards could be placed and we could paint. (I'm kinda busy soaking right now, though.)






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4 of a kind

Porter, Caroline, Sylvie, and Catherine