Christmas “Break”

It’s sad when all the Christmas festivities come to an end, but by that point we are so tired it’s nice to just be home and not have anywhere to go and nothing to do! I was off from the 24th-6th, which was so generous of them to let us all off that long! It saved us from having to find somewhere for Stratton to go everyday since they were out of school. Arden’s daycare didn’t close, but I kept her home as well. I had planned to take a day for just Stratton and I to do something, but he was still wired up from being on steroids I wasn’t too keen on going anywhere for very long!

We did a whole lot of playing and movie watching, and not much of anything constructive! I would do laundry and dishes here and there but it’s hard to get anything done with a leach attached to my leg! That Arden has to be wherever I am. She has some major teething issues going on so she was uncharacteristically cranky (and wanted me to hold her all day) and Stratton was on steroids from a virus of some sort (I failed to mention that Jarrod took him to the doc first thing Christmas Eve morning) so they were a handful. Of course they only took a nap at the same time a couple of days, the other days Arden would nap early and I would have to make Stratton take a nap and it was usually around 1 pm before I wore him down! We stayed in our jammies all day a couple of days and were overall pretty lazy! Or lazy as you can be with two kids- it’s not the same kind of lazy that I had before kids!

 

Arden likes her new baby, especially the baby’s feet. . yummy.

Take my picture in my new favorite jammies!

Why, yes they are Duck Dynasty and camouflage!

Painted toes

Making kissy faces

Monday, December 30th. Arden had a doctor’s appointment with the ENT as a follow-up from her 15 month appointment where the doctor noticed that both sets of tubes were out and she had yet another ear infection! Stratton got to spend the morning with Dillon (and Abe) while Arden and I went to the doctor. Our appointment was one of the first of the day so we didn’t have to wait too long. Stratton had a good time playing with the puppy. I’m pretty sure the puppy was glad to see Stratton go! I think he was wore out!

She went up and down on this chair a hundred times I think!

And she also busied herself by making funny faces in the mirror.

Sure enough. The tubes were out, sitting in her ear canal. And her right ear had a lot of fluid on it. She failed her hearing test so that meant more tubes asap! They also decided that since her eardrum was actually bulging somewhat her adenoids were probably also causing some issues and it would be good to get them out while they were there. So surgery needed to be scheduled for that, too. There was no use putting it off, especially since there was fluid in one ear that inevitably would be another ear infection, and we were still on antibiotics!! The soonest they could get her in would be the 6th. If we couldn’t do it then though, then it would be the 16th, since the hospital is moving the 12th-15th.

We didn’t do anything for New Year’s Eve. I HAD to get out of the house and we needed a few things from the store so we got out to get a bite and then ran by Target! Whoo Hoo! Wild night!!

Trying celery. . .not too bad!

Honking Stratton’s nose

Target is so much Fun!

Crazy kiddos!

Jarrod was off on New Year’s day. Again, we didn’t do anything. I actually ran to Wal-Mart- ALONE!! (ahh the luxury!) and did laundry and packed the kids bags and got everything ready for them to spend a couple of days in Searcy with Nan and Pa!

Thursday Margie came to get them around 3pm. After they left I ran some errands, taking a few things back we got for Christmas, then I met Jarrod for dinner. It was weird to be eating out without kids for the first time in a long time!

Friday was the day I had be looking forward to . . .I got to sleep in! And then it gets better. . .I spent 3 glorious hours at the spa!! I got a massage and a mani-pedi! I used the gift certificate Jarrod got me for our anniversary (waaaay back in October!) it was great! Then I ran some more errands before getting home to get our stuff ready to head to Little Rock! My day just kept getting better and better! We got to eat at Copelands, and spent the night in a hotel and got to sleep in again! This time we both slept till 10am. Unheard of! Jarrod has never slept that late as long as I have know him (well, unless he was out working all night, but that doesn’t really count) I think we were tired!! Saturday we did a little shopping and had lunch before heading back. We stopped in Searcy and had dinner with Jarrod’s family and got the kiddos. I think it was around 8:00 when we got home. Sunday we went to church. It was so cold! They were calling for 2-4 inches of snow but we missed it! Just some really cold rain! The GoDaddy.Com bowl game was Sunday night at 8pm. We were bummed that we didn’t get to go this year. Jarrod just didn’t think he needed to take off from work. He doesn’t have any real vacation days till the end of May (his 6 month mark) and so he thought it best to save the days he does have in case he really needs them! He stayed up and watched the game on TV, I went to bed! Ha!

Monday we got up bright and early. Arden had to be at the surgical center at 7:30 and Stratton had to be at school at 7:30. Jarrod dropped Stratton off and I took Arden. We had just gotten to the prep room when Jarrod got there. Arden did so good. She had the nurses and everyone walking her around and playing with her. She was the OR superstar!

They took her back around 9am and it only took a few minutes. It’s a good thing we got more tubes and had the adenoids removed as well. The doc said the ear was infected again and her adenoids were huge. Hopefully, with those out she will feel better! She woke up pretty cranky, but once we got her settled down she was ok. When we got home she slept for about 2 hours and then she was her normal self for most of the day! I did give her a little pain medicine they prescribed around 4pm, she seemed to be pulling at her ear and getting irritable.  But for the most part she was just fine. She went back to school today and if anything looked happy to be there this morning!!