Use your words not your hands

We have entered into a new stage with Baylor and it involves throwing punches. Every time I turn around or leave the boys to play by themselves, the punches start flying. Not just punches mind you, there are scratches and pile drivers and full nelsons. Our hopes and dream of raising a runner have quickly turned towards professional wrestling. We are trying to teach him that he needs to use his words first, rather than his fists. He prefers the fists. He has a temper like his dear mother, feisty and furious. Now Brody man doesn't get off that easy. He too, has developed quite the love for screaming and punching but most of the time it is out of self defense. Some of the time I let them duke it out but more often than none, it was Baylor who threw the first punch and needs to be disciplined. I can't say that I was a calm child, just ask my brother. I used him for a punching bag more often than I'm sure he'd like to remember. Sorry buddy.

A wha? Huh?

What a marvelous weekend I had! I left on Friday for the US Open brass band championships in St.Charles. A few band members and myself hopped in the Suburban pulling our trailer and followed a very brave handful of people in a 1970 Starcraft RV. The RV was older than half the people inside and we strapped a pair of horns on the font for added hilarity. The RV has been a brass band tradition for longer than I have been a member and will continue to get strange looks and laughs until it dies....which could be any day now.

Here are a few of the band members that braved riding and hanging out in the RV over the weekend.

We played our hearts out but had a disappointing finish. It only makes us want to work harder next year. I was sick, lost my voice and cashed in early that night....just call me party pooper. I did however get a little taste of the good stuff. My friend Jen from Cary, IL took me on a wine tasting, cupcake eating culture experience. She taught my redneck self about different wines and we window shopped around Geneva. It was marvelous.

Brody man is better but Baylor has a cold now. I am still recovering with a nasty cough and pubescent male sounding voice....it's excellent. I'm sure this will be the first of many bouts with crud this winter.

Surgery Smergery

We finished out our week of Dr's visits today with the urologist to confirm that Brody probably has a small hernia and will need a two hour surgery to fix the hydroceles in his little testes (there's that word again...I guess I can't avoid it, I live with three males) The surgery is scheduled for December 16th and was the earliest we could get in. It's an outpatient procedure and he said it was tougher on the parents than the child. I'm not thrilled but I hope this will fix things! We are not traveling for Christmas this year either, so that will make it a bit easier and less stressful! The Doctor also questioned why the sent us to the ER (I do too!) and why the heck they tried to put a catheter in his wee wee. That is probably the source of all the pain, rather than the ping pong ball sized testes.

The poor little dude still has some weird virus and isn't tolerating his antibiotics very well as he spewed all over me, the chair and the floor this morning. He was put on a very strong antibiotic so I'm certain is was because he didn't have any food in his stomach yet. He's still very tired and whiney but the fever has broken (as of this morning!) All of this mess comes at the most inconvenience time as well....like any time is convenient! I am leaving for the weekend for our big brass band competition in St. Charles, Illinois. We have been working so hard on this music and I hate leaving behind a sick little boy. I'm hoping he will continue to get better as the weekend goes on. It's supposed to be beautiful out so my dream is to come home to a clean house, healthy kids and lawn free of leaves (are you reading this honey? :) No, I'm just thankful to be able to get away for a while....alone, even though it makes me sad to leave!

Pizzzza party....

So we had some marvelous friends drop off a pizza a few nights ago when we were recovering from our day in the ER and Lonnie was still gone. I was trying to get these tired boys ready for bed and decided to throw them in the tub before the pizza arrived (after thinking this over, I realized that it wasn't the greatest judgement call on my part...duh!) but the pizza arrived while they were mid bath. So what do you do when you get pizza and you're in the tub? Why you have a pizza party in the tub of course. So that is what we did. Poor Brody wasn't hungry for pizza but Baylor and I destroyed a few pieces. I only found one pepperoni floating in the tub afterwards.

Owie Pee Pee

Poor Brody man. This is day four of his fever and chills and walking around the house grabbing his little boys parts crying, "Pee pee owie!" I finally got him in to his pediatrician this morning to make sure he didn't have a urinary tract infection or anything else. The Dr. put him on antibiotics just in case, to cover a UTI and a suspicious looking ear. He also said he would like a urine sample and handed me two cups. I laughed and thought this might be a fun game at home. I have also come down with something icky with a low fever and nasty sore throat, I'm sure it's a cold but I don't get the luxury of laying on the couch watching t.v and sipping hot tea. *sigh* So today our fun game is try to pee in the cup! So far it's not working....but maybe this will be a prelude to potty training. Pray for a good night of sleep for mom, Baylor and Brody....both boys were up again at 5 a.m and it's getting old quite fast. We will see the urologist tomorrow morning to see what the next step is.

Testes, testes one two...

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.

James 1:2-3

If you have been following this blog or know our family, you know that there is an unwritten rule that when my husband is gone that one or more people in the family will fall ill. Lonnie left Sunday and is gone recruiting until Tuesday and as to be expected, Brody man is ill to say the least. I don't know how single mothers do it, but I am glad we don't have to deal with this too often. Bear with me as I tell you the story of our Great Testicular Adventure.

It all started with Brody's second cold in three weeks, snot coming out of everywhere and lots of coughing. Brody has viral asthma so whenever he gets a cold or virus it goes right to his breathing apparatuses. We spent Saturday morning in the Dr's office getting a shot of steroids to help with his croup after being up all night coughing his little lungs out. Sunday he spiked a fever and had chills so I automatically freaked out thinking swine flu or pneumonia....or swine pneumonia. We spent the night at my parents house just in case I had to take him to the ER to get another steroid shot. I'm not sure if it was the daylight savings (which sucks by the way) or a new bed, but nobody got any sleep and my kids were rearing to go at 4:45am....and I was not. Still feverish and wheezing at this point I'm using my webmd license to diagnose a few things and figured I should leave this to the professionals? Call Dr's office and get an appointment. In the meantime I go to change Brody's diaper and we have been having issues with him not wanting us to wipe him (sorry TMI) and crying. I thought it was a "dude, this wipe is too cold" issue or a terrible two issue, but I was mistaken.

(I'm sure he'll thank me for this later when he's engaged and I show it to his future wife) I see that his testicles (not a big fan of that word, but for this marvelous saga's sake I'll suck it up) are swollen up like ping pong balls. Hmmmmm, ping pong balls......this can't be normal (I am also not up to date in my testicular sizing)....and he wouldn't let me come near them with a ten foot pole. Now touching my son's man parts isn't what I call fun, but I had to make sure he was okay. So in the name of medicine I did a little maneuvering of the family jewels. He writhed in pain and so after a quick phone call and finding an amazing neighbor to drop Baylor off with, we high tailed it to the ER.

We get to the ER and with one mention of the evil word, "fever" the 89 year old check in dude hands me a child size mask. I actually laughed out loud...he did not find this amusing. No way is my kid keeping that on. I tried. I tried and tried and decided that rather than fighting, we'd hide far far away where no one could see or hear us. So we stared outside at the parked helicopter. After explaining to four different people that he was wheezy, had a fever and had testicles the size of marshmallows he was then subject to crazy tests to see what was wrong. A chest x-ray (negative) ultrasound and catheter (try to get a two year old to pee on command...ha!) later, we have 1. Upper respiratory infection, hence the wheezing, coughing and sputtering and 2. Hydrocele in both testicles. I know...that's what I said at first too. Hydo wha? To get a full detailed description of this click here. I ain't no doctor, but apparently the Internet has a medical licence. Basically lots of fluid in his little testes that causes uncomfortable feelings and pain. They think it may be caused by a hernia and we have an appointment with the urologist on Thursday. He was a trooper and kept his humor by announcing loudly to the nurse that he just made a bubble with his nose and was the first child to ever laugh while being squeezed by a plastic tube for a chest x-ray. That's my Brody!

It was a long day but I am so blessed to have such amazing friends who brought me a pizza, cookies, watched Baylor and called to see how we were holding up. Keep little Brody man in your prayers.

I GOT CANDY!!

When you don't let your children have candy on a daily basis, the thought of having a bag full of sweet things could quite possibly send the over the edge. Brody was in heaven. He spent most of the night with his head in the trick or treat bag yelling, "I GOT CANDY! I GOT CANDY!!" Like he had found the spring of eternal youth. Later he realized that when you say, "trick or treat," it usually means someone will give you candy. So he kept running up to anyone and everyone yelling, "trick or treat!" and then putting out his cute little lion paws. He got a few, "oh look at the cute little lion, " and one, "dude, I don't have any candy." So if you see Brody in the next few days and you're carrying a bag, watch out or he'll ask you for candy.

Can you guess what my mom is?

She went as the H1N1 virus....hilarious. Some guy thought she was one of those carnival games that you throw a dart at and a handful of children tried to steal her balloons. You can see where I get my weirdness from.

Here they are. Little lion and Dragon. Even though we don't technically celebrate Halloween, they loved the dressing up and getting free candy....who wouldn't? Baylor is already planning for next year.