Reid and Angie's Place: Sometimes Life Gets Hard

It's been a rough winter. I think we've all been hit to some degree or other either physically or emotionally or both. And then there's the weather. I'd never heard of a polar vortex before this year. Now we all know what that is and we've seen a couple of them. Brrr.....

Anyway, I'll let the pictures guide the storytelling to try to fill in some holes here.

Grocery shopping with three kids on a snow day! This
is hands-down everyone's favorite grocery cart. Wal-Mart only has two.
We've had melt downs over not finding this cart. We've waited our turn for this cart.
Finn cheers with joy when we get the cart!

This is my view of the cart. And man is it a monster to drive!

Polar Vortex take 3 maybe? I was proud of us being out and about in the frigid air.
School was closed again this day because it was so cold they couldn't get the buses to start.
The car actually dropped down to -9 while we were driving, but well, we were driving!

The day after that, Finn got sick. Very sick. At first I thought it was one of his typical GI episodes. And he had been seeming to be a bit backed up going into this day, so that made sense to me. But after throwing up three times in a half an hour I realized this was different. He wasn't keeping anything down and he had no energy at all. He spent the entire day on the couch. He didn't move. He didn't talk. And he couldn't eat. Because kids with CF can dehydrate much more quickly than regular kids, I was getting worried. I could only get a teaspoon of liquid in him at a time that would stay down. Anymore than that and he would lose it. So he got one teaspoon with a medical syringe ever fifteen minutes. By mid-afternoon his temperature started to creep up. And he was still not holding anything down. I finally got some Milk of Magnesia to stay down around dinner time and by bedtime he demonstrated that he wasn't obstructed (another big issue that kids with CF are prone to and that I was really worried about) and he also stopped throwing up at the same time. He spent that night sleeping on his mattress in the living room and I was on the couch next to him. He got hungry and started to keep food down around 2am. It was a long night (or a short one depending on how you look at it). Between him and Bree I'm not sure I really slept. And the next night wasn't any better either. I am pretty sure that I saw every hour on the clock both nights and both days. I can't remember being that tired in a very long time. Finn's fever continued off and on for four days and the vomiting was replaced with upper airway congestion. On day four he started antibiotics. It has been his third round of antibiotics in as many months. And if you go back to September, he's had five rounds since then. I did say it's been a rough winter didn't I?

The next week was Valentine's Day. Because Kai is into rocks and gems right now, this is what we came up with. The bags are filled with Chocorocks. They look so real, though! The class party was held the day before Valentine's as
they actually had Valentine's Day off of school. That was nice. For Valentine's Day, Reid took off of work and the boys all went to see the Lego Movie in the theatre. I got some nice quiet time at home with me and Bree (who napped for a good chunk of it).

I had been wanting to learn how to make cake pops for a while, so I started experimenting in October. Now I actually make them and feel comfortable giving some away. Not all of them are nice enough to give away, but some are. I gave some of these to Kai's teachers at school and my visiting teacher.

And as if I wasn't tired enough from the weekend, this little one decided to get up at 5am one day that week. Yeah, that was fun.

It warmed up a bit on President's Day and so we ventured to the zoo.

Outside the new lion exhibit

This picture cracks me up. There was an adult man and his older children (think much larger) that laid in this cement circle and took a picture. They filled it up and it made a nice picture. Finn saw them do it and insisted on having his picture done the same way. I think he's just a tad smaller, though!

The kids had a great time with the otter. I got a great video of the otter swimming just inches away from their faces. It was fun!

The next day while Kai was at school we headed to the park. It was in the 60's again but the wind made it a bit colder.

She insisted on being put down and allowed to play in the grass. She even crawled over to the mulch and loved playing in it. She is really into feeling new textures. She just loves to touch and feel whatever she can get her hands on.