I Love Pickles: August 2013

Mike's best friend invited us to join him and his fam at the beach on Saturday and we figured it would be good practice for Labor Day weekend. I was a little nervous because I knew it would be a challenge but some of my favorite memories as a kid were from trips to Galveston. So we got up early on Saturday, packed up the car and made the quick one hour drive to the public beach. We got there and realized we were such rookies and know now what we need to bring next time :) it was kind of a scramble for the first half hour or so but once we settled in at our spot and got some snow cones, it was a fun and occasionally relaxing time. Very much looking forward to more beach time this weekend. And both of us were super relieved that Sofia didn't obsess too much over being scared of crabs or the ocean in general. She even willingly went into the water several times and picked up seaweed. Yay!

Gabe enjoyed his snow cone after eating his fill by dumping it on himself

Sofia loved playing in the sand

This poor kid was exhausted. Look at that face. He did have a blast despite what this pic might portray! He totally conked out on the way home actually before we even left our parking spot. No exaggeration. I foolishly tried to nap him in the pack n play under the umbrella. Thought the ocean was the perfect white noise! I almost had him, he was so close but at the end of the day he is his father's son. Doesn't want to miss a thing.

OK, all in all it really was a great time but it was a little overshadowed by illness :( I'll get to that later.

First things first. . . GREAT time at Sheila's wedding. Smooth travels getting there, and the kids were awesome on the plane. Whew! So, we started off the weekend in Indianapolis and it's always a good time when it's a Schnieders party!

The goal of the weekend was accomplished - to get us all in a photo!

Just a few of the cousins and their honeys

The next day we were off to vacation for our week at the lake with Mike's parents, Adam, Jes and their fam. We were so excited and the kids did pretty well in the car. We got to use the DVD player on Gabe this time. . . he usually has no interest in watching TV which is great of course but sometimes it would be nice if he would :) In the car when he has no other choice, he will apparently!

So, we settled in at the lake and all was going great until Tuesday when Sofia seemed a little "off". She didn't really want to be with anyone and she was just very mellow and wanted to stay inside and play alone. I didn't think much of it until later in the evening when I realized she was burning up and not wanting to eat anything. I took her temp and she had a 103.5 so . . .not good. A little bit of panic set in for me but, I put her to bed and hoped for the best. Figured it was just her ears. She slept terribly, not fussy or anything, but she just wasn't sleeping soundly at all. Sure enough, the dreaded happened : Woke up at 6AM to Gabe crying and Sofia puking. Gabe was fine, thank God, but Sofia - not so much. She was so scared and upset by it all and I just felt so bad for her. So, to make a long story short, we quarantined her in the basement for two days straight. Her doctor's office told me that this was likely part of her ears and to take her in to an urgent car to get another shot. Urgent care nurse just wrote her another script because they didn't have a proper dosage for a shot for a 3 year old (this would be the FOURTH antibiotic she had been on) and sent us back home with instructions on how to take care of her. That was Wednesday and she was up and down with her health the whole day. The puking slowed down but the fever didn't and every time I gave her any meds, they came back up. The next night was brutal as well - she pretty much refused to sleep and puked as soon as I tried to give her Tylenol for her fever. Pretty much all the puking after Wednesday morning was medicine related - it was an automatic trigger. Awful . . . so I started to really worry because we couldn't get meds in her to keep her comfortable and the nurse had said to take her to the ER if she still wasn't keeping anything down at this point. So, Mike and his dad took her to the ER on Thursday morning and had a great doctor who did very well with her. They gave her some anti nausea meds and said she likely had picked up a virus. (THANK YOU GOD that nobody else got sick, seriously). She came home from the ER on Thursday in better spirits but was not great again after nap. More puking up meds. I had had it at this point. I asked the doc to give us something to make her comfortable so he hooked us up with some anti nausea meds and Tylenol suppositories. So, thanks to those things, Thursday night was finally the turning point where we saw a huge improvement in little Sof's attitude. It is so sad seeing your little girl who is always so full of life and attacks life with such vigor, as just a shell of herself and not wanting to do ANYthing. Thank God she finally recovered but was never really 100% until we got back to Houston. We were able to enjoy Friday and then headed back home on Saturday. We had a little hiccup with our flight home that was just par for the course for how our week had gone! But, the rest of the trip went without incident, thank goodness. Gabe was a handful but finally slept on the second flight.

Feels very good to be back home. I'm not going to lie, for me, this ranks up there with one of my worst vacations ever. I also can say that I'm glad we were still able to make some great memories and have some fun so that it wasn't ALL bad. But, I just get so worried when my kiddos are sick for extended periods of time and not being home only makes it that much worse. I am SO thankful that our family was so great and supportive about it all. Between Adam and Jes basically adopting Gabe for two days, Mike's dad taking him and Sofia to the hospital, and Mike's Mom sitting with me or Sofia down in her little cave and providing me with so much comfort, I was able to feel a little more at ease but definitely was never myself after she got sick :( I wish my anxiety wasn't able to get such a grip on me but I truly can't control my worry for my children. I don't know how you can! However, I am working on that and really trying hard to trust things more in God's hands. It made me thankful that overall, I do have healthy children and that at least the sickness I do have to deal with is only temporary. My heart goes out to those families who have it way worse than me so whenever I started feeling sorry for myself, I had to remember that.

I finally feel back to myself today and I think Sofia does too :) We went for our follow up visit with the doctor and all ears are clear! WOOO! We're not ready to give up on vacations just yet but we are thankful we don't have any immediate travel plans.

All deez cuusins :)

Gabe loved boat rides! His only chill moments!

Tackle Uncle Mike!

Sweet girls - Sofia ADORES her cousin Addison

And Gabe chasing Drew (DOOOOO) up the hill

Sofia's first time tubing!!! I did leave out a story about a scary moment in the tube! The second time we took the girls tubing, the tube took in a lot of water and they almost came out . . . not good for my nerves, haha! But, fortunately they were OK, although Sofia was pretty traumatized. I sure hope she will try it again. I'll be cautiously optimistic - this girl doesn't forget anything.