strike two for Ike

I'm telling you Ike is going to kill me one of these days.

Tuesday Ike had his 18 month check up. He got shots and was tested for strep. My throat was sore and I asked if his was red to test it. It said negative. However, Thursday afternoon I got a call saying that it was indeed strep. Nice. I have been on deaths bed for 2-3 days now. I am finally getting a little better. Ike now has meds that he started tonight. He doesn't act sick but he is still on meds. Maybe a blessing in disguise.

So Tuesday evening, I get Ike ready for bed. I gave him some Tylenol since he had shots that day. He knows it's bed time so avoids his room like the plaque. He instead runs to the kitchen and is standing on our sturdy step stool we keep in there for the kids. (It's easier to kick out of the way than a chair!) He is playing with a few bowls and cups I have soaking with water. I run down stairs to tell Joe he needs to come up. I come back up and just as I was entering the kitchen Ike slips and falls. He stands up and has blood all around his mouth and dripping bright red blood on the floor and his PJ's. I pick him up, trying to see where the blood is coming from. Did he bite his tongue off? Did he stab himself with something? Are all his teeth still there? All this while I get a washcloth with cold water for him. Finally I see it. He has jabbed his tooth through his lip-- again!! seriously. This time I think it was a different angle, different tooth. I believe his top tooth poked the outside of his bottom lip and went in. Well, since being at the ER less than 2 months ago for the same thing I knew better this time. They said they only stitch if it goes up through the lip (a 'split' lip). Good thing he already had Tylenol. This time it looks like he has a slit then 2 slits on both sides. I could not get a great picture because he insisted I get a picture of his bloody washcloth and shoved that in front of the camera most times. The next day he looked pretty bad. Huge fat lip and the inside cut looked pretty gross. So now that is on antibiotics for strep, I should not have to worry about infection in his lip.
Here is Ike only a few minutes after it happened. Like I said, the picture does it no justice.

Ike's the 1st...

Out of all 4 of my kids, Ike is the first to climb out of the crib. Max, Sam nor Joe ever climbed out of the crib. Ike has been somewhat protesting going to bed the last couple of weeks. So last night I get him to bed and after 45-60 minutes of him crying I finally go in to hold him for a few minutes. He calms down fast and is happy that I'm holding him. After awhile I put him back into bed. He of course starts crying all over again. I knew he would. About 30 seconds after I leave the room I hear a "thump" and then another noise. I go to his door and open it up. Sure enough Ike is standing at his door. I could not put him back in his bed now. He would have climbed right back out. So I decide, fine, he can stay up and then go to bed with me. Pete tested his climbing abilities by placing him in his crib then peeking from around the door. Sure enough Ike was half way out of crib in about 2 seconds. He is not even 18 months old yet! Almost, but not yet!

Max and Joe both switched to a toddler bed around 27 months old and Sam was about 21 months. Ike is 17 1/2 months old. I had to switch his crib into the toddler bed today. I dreaded bed time tonight. However, since he went to bed late tonight he fell asleep in my arms. I just laid him down and he stayed asleep. We'll see how tonight goes. I dread tomorrow night though!

Last night since he went to bed with me, he didn't get to bed until around 12. That is way late for the little guy. It also took him awhile to get comfy. Then I didn't sleep that great because every time he moved I wanted to make sure he did not fall off the bed. He insisted he needed to sleep next to the edge. Anytime I would move him to the middle he cried and worked himself back over. By morning it was me, Ike, Joe and Pete all in the same bed. I got up and left the 3 guys to sleep. Ike got up around 9, crawled out of bed, went to the door, knocked then waited for me to come open it.

Yeah, I know they make crib tents. But I don't know how well they work and I am pretty sure the other kids would destroy it. Do you know how Ike figured out climbing out of his crib? Sam and Joe do it all the time. This last week they were doing it a lot. Ike thought he had to be like the big kids and try too. He never got it done until it was bed time of course!

Smartees

Max loves Smartees! He uses smartees or fruit snacks to do his math homework every week. So when Joe spotted some giant smartees at the store not too long ago we had to get a couple of them. I knew Max would either love them or not even touch them because they are different. He is very picky! Here is a picture to compare a normal smartee with the super big smartee....

Yeah, the pic is not the best but you get the idea!
I showed them to him and his face lite up and he said "wow!" It was looking good. I opened them up and then he would not even touch them. Drives me crazy. They taste the same but he never figured that out since he would not even try it. That same day I had bought some Smartee valentines candy. They were medium in size and had conversation words on them (like conversation hearts). At that point I figured he wasn't going to eat them either. He still got them for V-day though. To my surprise he ate them!

The gaint smartees were huge and I had never seem them before. Oh well, everyone else got to eat them!

Sam's 1st sleepover

Tonight Sam is having another girl stay the night. So this is her first sleepover- or at least having someone else sleep over. It is the girl from up the street. I have wrote about her before. She is the bossy one! She has gotten better. Sam also stands up to her more. I'm sure being in school all day with other kids this girl has realized the world does not only revolve around her. She has been inviting Sam to stay the night with her for a few months now. Usually there is a reason it doesn't work out. Today she asked her mom on the phone if Sam could stay the night with her. The mom said she didn't care. However, Pete decided he wasn't comfortable with it. And Sam stills wears a pull-up/diaper at night so I was pretty sure Sam would be somewhat embarrassed about that. We decided the girl could stay here instead IF that was OK with her mom. It was. So now we have 2 tents set up in the living room for a "camp out." Sam always thinks that is cool.

I asked the mom what time the girl usually goes to bed. She said 9 or 9:30 up to 10 on the weekends. I also asked if she needed to be home by a certain time in the morning. No. Good! Then as we were walking out the door the dad told her she needed to be ready for church in the morning and that it starts at 9. WOW! Do you remember my post about Sam still being asleep at 10? I have a feeling the parents maybe waking us up in the morning!
My kids are night owls. Last night Sam and Joe (they are the latest of night owls) went to bed around 1. That should explain the sleeping in-huh?!

Right now all the kids, but Ike, are running around like crazy. Jumping down the stairs, chasing each other, yelling, screaming, you name it. Poor Ike is in bed crying. I put him to bed a little bit ago and he obviously thinks he should still be up as well.
Tonight should be interesting!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!! Hope everyone has a great day. Right now it is 10 am. Joe and Max JUST got out of bed. Ike has been up for an hour. Sam and Pete are still in bed. It won't be long till at least Sam is up since these boys are loud! I love sleeping in!

I've been MIA!

Well, not really. Feels like it though. Last week most of us had a cold or something that was going around anyway. Ike started it then shared with Sam, Joe and Me. Wednesday evening I was starting to feel tired and had a pretty sore throat. Thursday I felt like crap and didn't do much all day but the bare minimum.

Friday was a busy day and I still felt like crap. So I made a doctor's appointment for that afternoon. The kids were out of school that day. All 4 kids had a dental cleaning that morning. It went pretty smooth. Max did awesome considering it has always been pure torture to everyone involved. Trying to do sealants was still too much to ask! Maybe soon. He did get 2 x rays. His first ever. I could see his adult teeth. His bottom 2 teeth look like a "V" shape. Poor Max. I sure hope they straighten out somewhat before they pop out. I still think it will be awhile though before he has any loose teeth. Ike did great. It was his first appointment. He even got his teeth cleaned as well. After that we got my oil changed and had about an hour to kill before my appointment so we went to a park. It was swamped!! The kids had fun running off some energy though.

Then my appointment came. The kids were crazy by this time. The doctor said I got the worse throat for the day award. By the time I go to the doctor it is usually pretty bad! He said I would need a strong antibiotic and some steroids for the swelling to go down. I could either do this orally or by a couple of shots. Shots would make me feel better by the next morning OR orally could be up to a couple of days. I voted shots. So I got 2 shots in my hips. Fun! Not really. Then I had to wait around for awhile to make sure there was no reaction while the kids tear apart the little room we are in. Thankfully the nurse brought in about 50 stickers so the kids kept busy with those most the time. I was good to go. I still have to take oral meds but I felt better Sunday. I felt much better Saturday even but I still didn't feel great.

This weekend we went out of town to visit grandparents so it was a busy weekend. We got home late last night. Hopefully Max is not too tired at school today.

Today is my birthday! Yay me- another year older!

Sam's club-am I the only one they piss off?

I have a Sam's membership. I have had this for several years. I go there pretty often. I spend lots of money there. However, they always seem to piss off. Their customer service sucks there. We have a costco right across the street from Sam's. I have looked online about switching to them but they just seem so much high in price. For example the membership fee at Costco is $50, Sam's is $40. I checked the price of diapers on line at both places since I but plenty of diapers. Costco is $52 for a box of huggies. Sam's is $38 (although this varies every time I am in there between $32-$39) for the same thing. That is a huge difference.

Sam's has pissed me off so many times. Once, about 2-3 years ago, I had Sam and Joe in the cart plus everything I had planned on buying. The cart was full, but I had it all crammed in there pretty good. I had enough time to check out, load the car and then go get Max from school. I check out and the lady starts putting my stuff in a different cart. She loads up the seats where the kids sit. I told her I would prefer just one cart and for that space to be open. After-all, Joe was a baby at the time and I was not going to be carrying him, pushing a cart and making Sam walk. If you have ever pushed a cart full of stuff along with 2 kids in it, you know how hard it is - now make that 2 carts and it gets crazy. There parking lot is somewhat up hill , by the way! Well she told me I could have someone help me out. I asked her to go ahead and call someone up for that. She told me to ask at the door. OK, the door was about 7 feet away. Really, would it not be better to call ahead so they are ready? Guess not. So I spend $400. I go to the door and ask for someone to push my 2nd cart out. I was told nobody was available to help me. Umm, yeah, there will be! So, she ask this other guy about it. He says he can help me in about 15 minutes. NO! I ask for a manager. She was just as worthless! She was saying nobody could help me right then. What was she doing??!! SO an older couple saw what was going on. They asked me if they could help push the other cart. I said yes. So off we went, the manager standing there staring at us. She follows us out and tries to back pedal. We are pretty much at the car and then asks, if there was anything she could do to help. I told her something along the lines "no, these people were nice enough to offer help and and I don't want help from someone that was as rude as her." I look at her name tag and say, "Shelley" -- Just so she knows, I know her name. I tired to take this high up but got nowhere.

The store has not gotten better. In fact, the same door people still work there. They do things all the time that make me so mad.

I went to Sam's on Monday of this week. It's cold here. It is best to park by the exit so when I come out I don't have as far to go, pushing a full cart plus 2 kids, going up hill and hoping the cashiers put my stuff in the cart good enough so it doesn't start falling out. The cashiers suck at this by the way. I generally help load the cart just so things don't fall out in the parking lot. I park by the exit then generally walk over to the entrance. Like I said though, it's cold. So I was going in the exit that day. I would rather get the kids inside the building as fast as I could. I have gone in the exit once or twice before. (I was leaving the exit once when someone was coming in it and the door lady said- they can wait on you, cause they are coming in the wrong way- as she gave them a dirty look and tired to ignore them). So I know the door people are not big fans of this. OK, so I go to the exit, an older guy is going that way as well. The door lady says (pretty much directed to the guy) "You can't come in this way." He asked "since when?" and she said "this is the exit, the entrance is over there." "well, I know that," he said. The entrance is at the other end of the building. He stands there not sure what to do next. By the way, this man is old and barely walks. I watched him limp up to the store. I told him I was going that way anyway. I was loading a cart up and waiting for some people to get out of the doorway that were coming out. The man is standing there when someone inside saw this and called his name to come in. This person knew him and saw what pain in the butts Sam's was being so she helped him out. I later saw this guy in the store in a wheel chair (the ones Sam's offer). I was all geared up to ask for a manager if they tired that crap with me. I walked in and kinda waited. I asked Joe if he wanted in the cart to stall. They never said anything but gave me some dirty looks instead. I was really ready to take it out on that manager if they said a word to me.

I get done shopping and go to the exit door to get my receipt checked. The door guy was up there when this was going on earlier, he clearly remembers me. (BTW, this is the same guy who said he could help me in 15 minutes- years ago- his name is Ernie). He usually draws a smiley face plus a 'halo' over it on the receipt and gives to the kids. It drives me crazy. It takes time, people start lining up and really, my kids could give a rats butt about it. SO this time, he looks at my receipt, looks at the cart, puts a line on the receipt and hands it to me. That was it. No words, no smiley face. SO I guess, to make him stop with the annoying smiling faces, I just have to piss him off.


Does anyone go to Costco? What do you like best about it?

Also, I am going to throw this in the post so when people search "Sam's club review" they know that the Sam's club in Lenexa, Kansas sucks on customer service!!

updates

Ike had his eye appointment yesterday and the doctor said everything looked great. I can stop using the antibiotic ointment as well. I have talked with the store manager about the whole thing and gave him a copy of my one receipt that i had at the time. I have another one for him then I will be getting the ER bill in the mail soon. He is talking to the regional or corporate manager about reimbursement. Really, $300 or so is nothing to a big company so hopefully that will work in my favor.

Max has had his new communication device for almost a week now. He played with it for the first 2 days but hasn't touched it much since then. I send it to school every morning then once he gets home it stays in the bag all evening. I charge it up every night. I'm sure he uses it at school though. I do know that he doesn't use it in class yet. This morning I turned it on so I could check a few things but he said "NO," pointed to himself and promptly turned it off! At least he has taken ownership of it! There is a meeting with the teachers and the tech lady tomorrow so it will be modified a little. Then next week there will be more changes. There is SO much on it that it can be confusing- to me!

I need to pick up the kiddos from school now.

Ike will be the death of me..

And if not- I will blame him for gray hair when I'm old!

Remember just 3 weeks ago he had to go to the ER for busting a hole in his lip with his tooth??

Every Friday after Sam is at school, Ike, Joe and myself pick up Pete from work and go eat lunch. Last Friday we got done, I dropped hubby back off and had about 1 1/2 hours till Max and Sam got out of school. There is a clothing store near Pete's work that I rarely go to but they always have great deals so I thought I would check it out. We are almost done in the store. I was checking out gloves and that sort of stuff. Joe was behind me playing with something and in his own little world. Ike was in front of me and the cart. He was carrying a little stuffed star. I have no idea what it really is for. Anyway, the aisle we were in had shelves. Ike dropped the thing he was carrying and bent over to pick it up. He stands back up and is screaming. I wasn't looking right at him when he did this but I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I look at him and he has a hanger sticking out of his eye. I rush over to him and think that this hanger really can't be in his eye. The hanger was on the shelve, sticking out before Ike bent over. When he bent over, he caught it-- or it caught him!

So I try to pull the hanger out straight. It would not move. Trust me, about a million thoughts are going through my mind at this point (I know you shouldn't pull a toothbrush out a throat, but what about a hanger in the eye? ;Is it in his eye of just by his eye? ; Will he be able to see? ; I even picture the freak accident pictures- like this one that has a boy with a fork stick in his nose!). Since it wouldn't budge straight out, I needed to pull it up. I was holding the hanger and it turned. It was a plastic hanger with the the metal hook that swivels. The metal hook was what was stuck in his eye. When it turned I could see the hook under his skin, below his eye. It was not sticking out of the skin but the skin was sticking out with it. It was all sorts of gross! I finally got the hanger out by hanking REALLY hard. It was not bleeding and the eye looked OK. I held him and he calmed down some. I tell Joe we needed to go NOW. He ignored me. That's Joe! Ike's eye was starting to swell already. I ask the cashier if they fill out accident reports. She barely spoke or understood English. She told me no and asked what happened. I told her and she just said "Sorry." I didn't have time to mess around asking for a manager. I needed to figure out if Ike needed to go to the doctor or the ER and also needed to get Max and Sam before I did any of this. Ike calmed down pretty fast. So I called the doctors office and got an appointment there. I would much rather pay a $25 co pay than a $200 ER co pay. This happened at 2:45. The kids get out of school at 3:30ish and the appointment was at 4:15. The timing was all good. Ike went right to sleep when we got in the car. He was tired!

I get to the school and debate about pulling Max and Sam out early or just waiting. I decided to wait. It was only about 10 minutes early and by the time I unload Joe and Ike (along with waking him up), drag them in the school, tell the office to get Max and Sam, etc... It would be no earlier than the normal time they get out. So we waited. After they get loaded up we head to the pediatricians office.

The doctor seemed somewhat concerned that I had to hank pretty hard on it. She talks with a pediatric ophthalmologist from Children's Mercy Hospital (CMH). Our doctor takes Ike (and me) into a dark room to look into his eye with her light so she can see the back of his eye. She says it looks OK but she will ask the ophthalmologist 'what next.' A few minutes later she comes back and this time puts numbing drops in his eye, waits then rubs a strip of dye on his eye. She takes a black light and looks all over his eye. That procedure was pretty weird! His eye was florescent green. Again, she see nothing. She gets back with the other doctor. Everything seems fine, she says come back Monday morning and writes a script for antibiotics.

As we were checking out, CMH ophthalmologist calls back. They talk with the doctor again and decides that yeah, maybe they should see him as well. But this can't be the closer CMH to us. The one with the ophthalmologist is at CMH downtown Kansas City. Fun! We go home (after a melt down from Joe b/c the office didn't have the right sticker), I grab some food for the kids, change Ike. He was dirty from lunch and had a nice diaper for me! I left the other kiddos with Pete while Ike and I drove to downtown KC to go wait hours in the ER room. I was not too excited. We got there about 6:30. They check him out, call in the pediatric ophthalmologist, we wait, and wait some more. That doc did the same stuff but also dilated his eyes. He also poked around with a cotton swab. We wait some more. Finally at 10 pm we are free to go! His eye looks fine. YAY! He prescribed antibiotic ointment for the eye and told us to follow up in a week with a pediatric ophthalmologist.

The follow up doctor happens to be Max's ophthalmologist. They called this morning to make that appointment (yeah, they called me!). That will be Wednesday as the doc is out on Friday.

Ike's eye was puffy and a little red but really it looked great the day afterwards. Today, however it is getting bruised. He is getting a black eye. He did awesome with all the doctors, nurses, drops, poking and lights - he never cried or even struggled!

I called the store Saturday morning and talked to someone. They DO take accident reports and the store manager only works Monday thru Friday. I spoke to a manger later that day and she took the report. I should hear from the store manager today. I will also be asking about reimbursement. I ended up paying the $25 co pay, will be billed the $200 ER copay, the meds (they were cheap- but still!), and will be following up with the specialist with a $50 copay.

But the best thing is that Ike is just fine!! He is in the running for beating Sam's ER visits.

Here he is right before he headed to the ER. Not too bad for having a hanger stuck in his eye only a few hours before! Can you see the little dot under/beside his eye? Right by that, there is a bump- that is where the hanger was sticking out at. The other has a scratch under it as well- but I'm not sure what from.

The mom song

I'm sure most of you have seen this but it is so funny and true I thought I would share it here as well. Enjoy...