The Countdown Continues

Hey There!

Yesterday and today Brayton stayed home from school. Yesterday I was ready to send him to school because he obviously missed his friends! He wanted me to make up creatures/animals with special powers so he could pit them against each other in imaginary battles. He talked, talked, talked and talked some more! I went to exercise and he followed me ~ I told him he had to be quiet so I could hear my show, but he kept talking! After I told him for the 3rd time (kind of rudely) to be quiet, he left the room. This morning he gets up again and sounds terrible. . . Our routine has been to neb him in the morning and then later in the day if needed, so I was kind of concerned that he was getting worse and his cough was turning into pneumonia or bronchitis. So I thought I would have him checked out this morning as long as we were already at the clinic. They told me his hearing test would take an hour, so while Bray was in the room, I went to Pediatrics to see if a Dr. could just listen to his lungs to make sure they sounded okay. They told me they could squeeze him in and it would only be a slight wait. I double checked to see if I could go to the Fast Clinic at Shopko and she said "oh, it's up to you, but it would only be a short wait" DON'T EVER BELIEVE THEM WHEN THEY TELL YOU THIS!!!! Remember, all I needed was a quick listen to his lungs which I could do myself if I had a damn stethoscope and knew what the hell to listen for! We waited an hour and 1/2 to see the Dr!!! I could've driven to the Shopko in Winona to see if they have a Fast Clinic there in that amount of time!!! To top it off, we are trying to keep him away from any more germs than we have at home and 90 minutes in the Pediatric waiting area is not the place to do that! When the nurse comes to get us, she knew I was pissed because she has to re-take all the vitals they just took upstairs at his hearing test. Then she has these stack of papers she's looking at and figures out they printed all this "stuff" off from when Brayton had been in to see the allergist when he was 4! By the time she took us to the room to wait Brayton's like "why are you crying mom?" I was so mad and frustrated, I couldn't help it!!! At least we didn't have to wait for the Dr. long and he was in there about 4 minutes and said his lungs sounded great! Yippee for small miracles! Just another $1000 down the drain!

Tonight was Brayton's music program for the school year. :-( I look forward to this each year because their teacher does SUCH a good job! We didn't remind him that he missed it, even though his picture he drew for the program cover came home with Taite. I asked if his was chosen (they choose about 5 different student's drawings for the programs at the concert) and he said no. The shows name was NUTS! and here is what Brayton drew:

Above the squirrel (the animal looking thing on the ground below the tree) are all the types of nuts that Brayton could think of. We have a dish with mixed nuts in it and the boys like to crack their own nuts, so if you look closely you might be able to recognize the types of nuts. I'll give you a hint that not all of the nuts shown need a nut cracker :-)

One of Brayton's favorite things to do when he is home alone is to be creative (that reminds me, I haven't taken a picture of his latest one) and this is one he did earlier this week:

We still have the easel out from our family meeting last weekend so Brayton decided to draw a picture of each of his new characters that were in those bathtub balls that Hondoh sent with Chris on the last business trip. He's very good at getting all the small details.

Yesterday we practiced a little with real coins since he is missing school and playing "Store" sounded fun to me too :-) I was very impressed with his ability to count money so I mixed it up and when he told me how much an item cost, I'd give him too much money, so he'd have to make change. He was great at that too. Amid all of the attention Brayton is getting, Taite is feeling a little left out since Bray is getting a lot of "sympathy" stuff (new - to them - Gameboy games, no school, etc.) so I decided that it's not fair for Taite to have to miss out on Family Fun Night tomorrow night at school. Brayton is excited to have his surgery so he will feel better, so we won't have a difficult time reminding him of staying germ free and Chris will stay home with him. Of course, when it comes down to it, Taite feels bad because Brayton won't be able to go, so he is already planning on how to make it up to him: buy MarioKart for the Wii for Bray. We were in Best Buy a week or so ago and they had MarioKart on the Wii there to play. The boys really liked it and Brayton wanted to buy it. I told him he could put it on his birthday list, but at Taite's rate, he'll have it next week LOL

I figured out tonight how we'll become millionaires: I will get training in listening to lungs and looking in ears and will have in-home shows (like Pampered Chef) so parents like me can save time, money and crying (both the kids and parents) by determining if our children really need to see a Dr. or not! Of course my husband said I'd have to have a lot of insurance for something :-)