upon logging in, wii fit will tell you how many days it has been since your last weigh in. wordpress could add this function- a guilt message that tells you upon entering that you are a bad, bad blogger who never updates.

i’ve been busy with the trippos who are on spring break for the first time. preschool spring break! they wanted to hit padre island but i convinced them to go on a guided tour of local playgrounds. they are playground maniacs and i spend hours pushing them on swings, chasing them up and down slides, picking them up and “helping” them across the monkey bars.

the oldest is in florida on his spring break. he’s the oldest so he got lucky (or perhaps it is a reward for putting up with three three year olds who are always! in! his! stuff!). he and my brother are visiting my sister and her family. since he’s been there, he has been to a cardinal’s spring training game, the beach and caught a 22 inch red fish. he’s happy and will hopefully be happy when he gets back tonight to hear he’s joining us in our tour de playgrounds. i’ve spent so much time on playgrounds recently that i’ve written a list in my mind of worst playground folks.

worst playground people

• the bored multitasking parent. this mom or dad brings a book, a blackberry or even a laptop to the park. he or she sits on a bench or picnic table and pays no attention to the offspring who are running like maniacs, knocking other kids over or wandering away unchecked.

• the passive parent of a bullying little shit. this is the mom or dad who half-heartedly murmurs, “no, stop, wait” like willy wonka to the bad kids in the chocolate factory. while their kid hogs the slides or swings, wimpy parent stares off into space and tries to look blameless for the demon spawn trying to give your kid stitches.

• the duo of ambivalent students who are supposed to be watching 30 elementary aged kids on break that over took the park like a plague of locusts. i understand your job is horrid but you just ruined the playground for every other person that was here before you.

• the guy by himself. why are you at the playground? you are making every parent nervous and need to go away, pedobear.

• the man or woman who chain smokes on the playground. my kid! she has a breathing problem! her trach even makes it visible! can’t you walk over there? grrrr.

i’m sure there are more folks that need to be added to the list(got any of your own?) but my kids are screaming, “NO! I PUSH YOU!” so I have to go. XOXO

and we’re back in 3…2….1

sorry about that, apparently when godaddy tells you to renew your domain registration by march 10th, they mean march 5th. godaddy exisits in a world five days ahead of mine with scantily clad women and outrageously expensive superbowl commercials. i paid, i’m back. yippee. i still don’t quite understand why i pay them for the right to use my domain. i don’t use their servers, they are just my registrar. i’m sure i should understand but after years of being here on the intarwebs, i still don’t understand most of the behind the scenes stuff. thankfully, wordpress is easy to use and my blah blah blahging consists of me typing and hitting publish.

anyway. lily and i are also back from the hospital. it was a long few days in a small hospital room where i slept on a pull out chair and woke up to take care of her when the nurses were doing other things. she needed a lot of suctioning (it is kind of like blowing a kid’s nose except all her snot comes out of her trach and has to be sucked out with a little tube. it is gross but i have gotten used to it) and i did much of her care. she is too young/old to stay in the hospital by herself and i rarely leave her side. i say too young because she is a young child and parents would be wise to always stay with their children when they are in the hospital to observe and be there if a nurse or doctor misses something. i say too old because when she was a baby, on a ventilator and sedated, i could slip out for lunch and she didn’t register much concern. now, she cries when i go to the cafeteria.

she got used to days of being coddled and got a bit demanding- oh hell, she was already demanding- she got a bit tyrannical. since we came home two days ago, she has been super bossy ruler of the household (in her mind) and smacker of her brothers. the boys were off kilter because i was gone and their schedules were disrupted so they too have been wound up. these factors combined and our house has been full of tantrums and massive irritation. my exhaustion from the hospital stay is partly to blame because i’ve been extra sensitive to all the damned whining and FREAKING OUT. three year olds are so loud and screechy sometimes. i may invest in noise cancelling headphones just to get through the day.

here is the adorable little tyrant in the hospital gift shop hugging a $60 stuffed german short hair (toy. not real stuffed dead dog because that would be an awfully morbid item to sell in a children’s hospital gift shop.) don’t let her cuteness fool you. she may grow up to be the dictator of a small country.

on top of the constant freaking out, i seem to have lost all semblance of grace (ha) and balance. yesterday, i slipped as i was lifting jack out of the bath but managed to not injure him by falling in the most awkward position where i ended up on the bathroom floor straddling the toilet with my calves. i may have pulled something. today, the weather was warm and i took the boys outside to play on their big wheels. they are a bit too short to reach the pedals so i was standing behind them and pushing them down the court. at one point, i stood with one foot on ethan’s big wheel and kicked the pavement with other foot while my hands rested on his seat. for a moment, it was just like riding a shopping cart through a parking lot and i was picking up significant speed. one second, the wind flowed through my hair, the kid giggled joyfully and all was right with the world. the next second, i found myself launched through the air over the big wheel. my legs pulled ethan out of his seat and knocked the bike over as my palms slammed into the concrete in front of his front wheel right before the rest of my body crumpled onto the pavement chin first. my entire body weight was distributed between two hands and my freaking CHIN. i wanted to cry but ethan was crying then jack and lily were crying because he was crying. the oldest ran over to help me pull the crying kid and big wheel out of the street and gave me some sympathy. i sat in the grass comforting ethan who was crying, “we tripped! we fell! we got boo-boos! mommy fell!” and remembered how much it sucks to fall off a thing with wheels onto concrete. stupid wheeled things and gravity.

the oldest who is now way too big for a big wheel (sigh, sunrise! sunset!) prior to my little incident.

 mike came home, gave me adequate sympathy for my injuries and let me go to target after realizing i may be a little frazzled. these last few weeks of winter have left me feeling drained and short tempered. when i’m at the hospital, i am almost too calm and don’t let myself feel the emotional toll until i’m at home. i am looking forward to spring and hoping the emergencies decrease. we need a break.

So Lily is in the hospital again with pneumonia. This is only the second time she has been admitted this winter which is a big improvement over previous years but it is still frustrating and frightening. We came in Saturday night after much debate on if she needed to be here. The previous time we were here (in January), she didn’t seem much different than she was this time and they sent her home from the emergency room. With this is mind, I kept thinking she would get over this illness at home with our care and her extensive at home set up. We have an oxygen concentrator, nebulizer treatments, a feeding pump and night time home health nurses so we can do almost everything at home that they can do at the hospital. Her brothers had been sick but were getting over it and I was hoping she could pull through on her on. Our main home nurse wanted me to bring her in sooner than I did but I thought she was just being overly cautious. Finally, Saturday night, I asked Lily if she wanted to go to the hospital and she emphatically told me yes. After hours of continous albuterol treatments, she began to breathe a little easier and the doctors told me she would be admitted as soon as they determined if she was going to intensive care or the step down unit. I was shocked they thought she was bad enough for ICU and it just goes to show how difficult it is to figure out how sick she is. I felt terrible but Mike pointed out we don’t have x-ray vision and can’t see inside her lungs to determine how they look. I feel like after three years of taking care of her, I know her like the back of my hand but this time my diagnosis was off. She was admitted and is one IV antibiotics. Her fever finally broke and she is getting cranky so she must be feeling better. When she is really sick, she isn’t cranky or happy but just lays there with a blank stare.

The nurse just called from her room and I have to get back to meet with a doctor. Until then…