April 4: Life Lately

A few random updates...

1. The kids and I all had colds last week. Nothing too bad really, until Porter woke up from his afternoon nap on Thursday with a red, disgusting, goopy eye. Uh-oh. None of our children have ever had pink eye before, and after consulting Dr. Google I wasn't totally convinced this is what Porter had because the images online were frightening. Porter's eye seemed only slightly offensive compared to the big dogs on le internet, but I still put a call into our doctor's office and Lori said she'd prefer if P stayed home on Friday.

Post-bath, which is the best it looked that night.


Tony is a saint and even when he's sick Porter isn't too difficult these days, so Tony agreed to watch P for me on Friday while I worked. But when Porter woke up that morning, both of his eyes were just totally not right. At all. I won't even discuss the amount of gunk coming out of his eyes and nose but it was horrifying and I knew I had to take him to the doctor.

This was after a solid 5 minutes cleaning up his nastiness. He was not a fan. My poor baby!


The walk in clinic didn't open until 12:30 but luckily my Pediatrician's office finally called back and agreed to squeeze us in at 11:45, even though they had said they were booked when I called the day before. PERFECT. Just had to move patients around to make this appointment happen, but was relieved to see our actual doc. Oh, juggling my job while having a sick kid still ranks as one of my least favorite parts of the gig.



Verdict: probably pink eye. And probably viral. But just in case, we got antibiotic eye drops to treat it. Ears looked great, chest was fine, and Porter was smiling through his crusty eyes, turning on the charm and giving the doctor his best grins.

Not for the camera though, obvi. Way to amp up the 'pathetic baby' face, Port!


Within twelve hours of starting the eye drops, he seemed good as new. Both he and I have continued to have congestion and I personally feel some crazy sinus pain and am sort of losing my voice but overall we're fine. And I'm not so sure he even had pink eye since it got better insanely quick and nobody else in daycare or our friends or our family had it. Whatever! Putting the ointment in his eyes four times per day for a week was pretty awful but at least he seems to have always felt like his normal, happy self. My little trooper.



Note the pulling on the ear which had me freaked about pink eye turning into an ear infection. (also: blueberries)


Seems too happy for an ear infection! His gummy grin is killer, yes? Don't grow teeth and get all big on me, Porter, okay?



2. The in laws had us over for dinner last Sunday night because our power was randomly out for a few hours due to wind or something. Can't complain and I love that they welcome our chaos into their house with open arms. Our kids go nuts for playing with grandparent toys (i.e. Nate's old toys from the 80s). Seeing how much fun our kids have with Nate's old things makes me soften my reserve for donating EVERY toy in this house someday.



But seriously though, how does one tackle the enormity of donating/consigning/passing off all of the baby paraphernalia? I'm not quite ready to start this process but wonder what most people do. How do you even decide what to keep for sentimental reasons, stuff to keep for your kids' kids someday, and what do to with the rest?

3. What is your favorite go-to gift for a new mom? Our neighbor had her baby (their first!) and I made them two of my favorite freezer meals (chicken enchiladas and cheesy quinoa casserole), with two six packs of beer and some biscuits. I'm a big fan of making meals for new moms and usually just make the same two over and over again. I also like the idea of giving the mom a fun little package of treats just for her (maybe like this). But I also can't help but get the new baby a little something, too. It's hard to resist little newborn baby clothes since it will never ever get old to marvel at how TINY they can be. For my neighbor's baby, I had a discount code from Pear Tree Greetings. I went through their gifts and home decor section and selected this adorable personalized book:









These are only a few of the pages, others have the baby's birth weight, birthday, mom and dad's name in there. I love the colorful pages, sweet words, and personalization of this book---something about a 'hello world!' book makes me a little teary and I can't wait to hold this sweet baby soon!

4. Spring is FINALLY starting to make an appearance and we have been loving the crap out of sunny weather in the 50-60 degree range. Do not speak to me about the tease of Wisconsin Spring---a few nice days, then a week of gloomy 30-40 degree weather is our normal. But those warmer days feel like a slice of heaven. It's like everyone is emerging from some deep hibernation, remembering that life can be full of fresh air and sunshine, and EVERYONE seems to be extraordinarily friendly and happy all of a sudden. Like, 'Hi! Isn't it nice to breathe air that won't penetrate your loins with daggers of ice? Let's be friends. Life is good.' This newfound warm air means lots of playgrounds and oh, how we've missed outside physical activity!

All three kids on the swings! (Yes, a baby swing for gigantic Truman, too. He demanded to be next to Porter and I nearly broke my back hoisting his gangly body into this thing, but whatever. Life is good when not hibernating during winter!)


This guy LOVED his first swing experience. I couldn't stop taking videos and pictures because his cuteness was overwhelming. Gahhhhhh, that grin!


One evening after C and P's nap, we went to a different playground (no swings) with Truman riding his bike ahead of the double BOB. I wanted to play around with this concept of transporting three children with one bike + double stroller, instead of the tried and true Bjorn + double stroller. Truman did awesome with his bike for this little adventure but the shortest way to the playground includes a road without sidewalks. And drivers on the road staring at their cell phones. And therefore, a mom having a panic attack while stuck behind a double stroller, visualizing her biggest boy getting hit by a car speeding toward them. If we do this method of transport again, we will be taking the longer way with sidewalks and a nice little trail. Because I am NOT cut out for this type of road trip just yet.


But the playground was worth it;)


And the clouds were ridiculously pretty this evening, almost fake!


SPRING! NO COATS! NO SNOW! YESSSSSSSSSSSS.


That's all for now. This daily blogging thing is super time consuming, huh?