What we've been up to.

Hi. Yes, it's been a month. Where has the time gone? I can't believe that in a few days it'll be June. The winter felt so long it seemed spring would never come, and here we are almost into summer.

A multitude of issues have kept me occupied...getting our house ready to sell, going through Elder training at church, P5's surgery last week, and having my laptop die have all contributed to my lack of blogging. P5 also started his in home tutoring set up by his ABA program manager. I cannot say enough good things about the ABA therapy - it has made a massive improvement in P5's communication, behavior, and play. His vocabulary has gone from 10 words to about 75 words in less than 6 months. I don't think this is a coincidence, I honestly feel like the therapy has made the difference and I am so excited to see how his development progresses over the next few years.

In regards to getting the house ready to sell - deep cleaning takes work! I'm one of those people who once I start looking up close and wiping up the grime I am not satisfied until it's perfect. I went through two boxes of Mr. Clean magic erasers, and a pack of latex gloves (I'm not sure what the "magic" in the eraser is, but I definitely don't want it on my skin). Cleaning with toddlers...well, it's like this:

So most of my cleaning projects have been in the evening time or during nap time, or during preschool/tutoring time. We haven't officially listed our house yet, but we plan to in the coming weeks. So far we've done some private showings to people who have contacted us from our "make me move" posting on Zillow. We are excited about moving, but realize how stressful it will be - especially with two toddlers. We like our house and neighborhood, but it just doesn't make sense for us to live here anymore. First of all, our house is tiny. We bought it as a "starter" home before we had kids never really intending to live here with a family; we bought it in 2007 towards the peak of the market and have been staying to ride out the real estate meltdown. For the neighborhood we live in prices have come back up to about where they were when we bought, so we should be able to sell with a minimal loss.

It will be nice to be closer to our friends, closer to our church, closer to Mr.P's work, and closer to the center where P5 receives his therapy. Also, there is a special developmental preschool program that we would like P5 to be in next year, but to be in that program we need to live within that school district. Now that we've got the house organized (including all the cupboards and closets and the basement) we are ready to list the house and see what happens. Hopefully it will sell quickly so that I will not go insane trying to keep the house spotless for showings.

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P5 had his surgery last week to remove his tonsils and adenoids. It went ok....but as usual with our family, there were some complications. I took him in early Thursday morning to the hospital. While talking to the anesthesiologist about how to put him under, I realized that he was not going to go under calmly. As predicted, it took many medical staff holding him down while the anesthesiologist held the gas mask over his face. Once he was out of surgery and on the pain meds, he looked like a stoner. The whole way home from the hospital he sat with his mouth hanging open, drool spilling down his chin, and his eyes glazed over. It was kind of funny. I took a few photos with my phone, but should have captured it on video to fully show the effect.

At home he did well for a few hours, then all hell broke lose. He refused to drink or eat, and cried off and on despite being on heavy pain meds. He laid on top of me on the couch watching movies and drooling all over me (note: don't wear a white shirt on the day your kid has surgery in their mouth). The next day, he still refused to drink anything and was going on 20 hours in a completely dry diaper. I called the nurse at the doctor's office and she recommended that we take him to the ER for IV fluids - the risk of dehydration is bad anyway, but especially for this kind of recovery since the throat will swell more when dehydrated and it would put him at risk for bleeding.

My little guy is a fighter - it took 4 nurses, two doses of versed (a sedative), and 4 vein pokes to get his IV in. After 5 hours at the ER, they decided to admit him since he still wouldn't drink on his own. Unfortunately, the hospital we were at did not have a Peds unit, so he had to transfer to the main hospital campus downtown (thankfully they wrapped up his IV and let me drive him to save on the cost of an ambulance transfer). We stayed at the hospital until the next evening. My poor little guy, he clung onto me the whole time and would freak out any time a doctor or nurse came in the room. By Saturday afternoon he was eating and drinking on his own, and we had his pain under control. We've had to give him a dose of medicine every four hours (which means setting an alarm to get up and give him doses of medicine in the middle of the night). He had a couple rough days where he was really cranky, but I think he's turning a corner and seems to be doing much better today. By this next weekend he should hopefully be feeling great.