Is It Just Bad Luck?

I don't know quite how we manage it but again we have plunked our kids into a...dare I say SHITTY!! dayhome. It has been months of searching, tirals and again heartache and added stress that I really don't need right now.

We thought that when we hired our nanny in January that we had succeeded in finding someone long term that had the same ideals Neil and I have. Nope, she quit by text message 2 weeks after staring and timed it so we had to fork over the full amount. Then we scrambled (I say we but it was Neil) and found the one we are in now and she is terrible. She has 8 kids in her care including mine and is swamped. She has thus far put all 8 kids into a mini van and drove them over town without car seats, and most of them are under the age of 4. And this has happened at least 5 times in a month and a bit. Then the other day Natahneil bit one of the smaller boys through his pants in his genitals. Now if it had been Ryan we owuldn't have been too surprised at the reaction (biting that is), Nathaniel not so much. It raised red flags for me ( I was there when he did it). It took me 4 hours to get the full reason out of him and it was really me having Neil do it.

Turns out he hates the day home, has no one to play with and the kids are "mean" to him. I'm not sure about the mean part, from a 5 year old "mean" can mean anything.  So the story went that he was playing in one of those pop tents and was told to get out. My sissy boy didn't take that well and frumped a bit. that's fine. Then he asked one of the little boys to play with him and they said no, he bit him. Not normal.

So now I have this huge issue of finding someone that we can trust with our kids. This gal is already non compliant with Leigha, doesn't feed her meals at all. Isn't giving Leigha and Ryan breakfast which is part of the agreement, is going through diapers let and right, and way over using the Pediasure and thickener, I really don't think she gets how freeking expensive it is. We aren't covered for it. 

So what do I do? continue to interview people and have the same thing happen? We were offered a spot (three really) back at the place we had the boys in a few years ago, I really like her but don't know if she's changed in the past few years. and the other one we have is very inflexible.

I now get why mom's stay home for the first 5 years.

Some Small Successes

After months of mishaps and Blunders. More steps backwards than forwards and so many bumps in the road we feared that we many have to call in a search party to help us navigate the road ahead of us for fear of losing ourselves, we can finally say that a light has been seen in the Pollard household. Lets start at the top of the family...Neil...well honestly nothing has happened with him other than he has managed to master diaper changes with Leigha without having to cover his face;) I know her diapers are enough to clear a room but he honestly must have lost his sense of smell at some point in the last month;) He is a self nominated master chef and has become a very good meal planner on his feet and is a demon when we grocery shop in Sundays. Most of our meal plans come from his on Thursdays when we sit down to plan the next weeks meals and I can honestly say suppers have become less of a challenge in the past few weeks. He even does the laundry and takes out the garbage:o Nathaniel has mastered his alphabet and numbers on sight and spelling. He now just has to learn to write his name and learn how to recognise his phone number and of course to write it. We came upon the 1 year mark on potty training and are really proud of him for that. Now if we can get him tying his shoes and doing up his pants we will be set:) He is still the quiet one and doesn't realise that he outweighs Ryan by a good 20 punds:o Ryan these past weeks has been our most challenging. He has taken it upon himself to start screaming when he doesn't get his way. "NO" screamed at the top of his lungs and repeatedly is often heard despite our interventions, ignoring, time outs or anything has no effect. Quite the annoying thing. And I cannot wait to have it gone for good. But I cannot see it leaving any time soon as he is a very aggressive child with a volatile temper. A good combination of both Neil and Myself as I can see aspects of both our families in our middle son. Tho with research I can see where he will flourish with the correct outlets and we are striving to get him into extra cirricular activities. I only wish they weren't geared to over 3 years of age:( Ryan's new success this week has been potty training:) I know it may be too soon to jump up and down but he has gone three days now with only 1 accident:o Wow! He works on a bribe system quite well so far it works and he will do anything for a cookie or gummie snacks:) Yeah Transformers:) If I can only get him to stop coloring on my walls:o Now for Leigha...we are now one week post-op and so far......no puking. It may be too soon to tell but so far she is able to tolerate small amounts of thin fluids with no complaints and no coughing. Last time in November she was unable to do this so we may be looking at success. The real test will be in two weeks after the swelling is gone and the steroids are absorbed as well. But I am remaining optimistic and hoping that this time we are lucky and it stuck, literally. Her scan last Friday went well but we will have no results from that until next Friday February 6th when we visit with our Pediatrician. Tonight at supper I gave her some milk in a regular cup and she literally jumped at the cup, not a cough at all and she loved it. So next week I should be able to start lowering her thickener and see how she does. If we can get her to regular fluids and drinking normally I will be so happy. Finally having her drinking normally:0 The next step will be getting her into the Glenrose for her swallowing therapy to get her gag reflex under control and not have it so touchy. Right now her reflex is right behind her front teeth and is set off really easily, by touching her lips will cause her to wommit:p So if they can get her over that a bit and move it back further in her mouth, more like a normal person. Then we can introduce regular foods into her diet ones that have a more solid consistency and no more of the pureed stuff :p. Yeah for Leigha:) So the kids are astounding me all over this week:) That and tonight we got final approval to move our accounts out of the ATB!!! So as of next week we will be gone for good. Tomorrow we have an appointment with the new bank to sign all the paperwork and move all the accounts and the good part they do all the work for me! Even moving all the pre-authorised things:0 I love it. I think that if it all goes well I may die of shock:0 I had an awesome visit with my sister Laura today who came over to help me out this morning while I had an appointment in the city. I got a parking ticket and got lost in the downtown core trying to find the darn place. Tomorrow is another day and I hope that this weekend will be awesome as well. My Grandfather Michael is back at home and recovering well from his battle with pneumonia and Neil's Baba is also battling the same bug in Calgary's Hospital. Some thoughts to help them continue with their healing. I miss them both and feel terrible that I am unable to stretch myself in multiple directions to see them all and help out a bit. On a crummy note my Dad got an unexpectedly early retirement last Wednesday and worked his last day last Friday. So some good thoughts for my parents right now would be welcome. I am sure there are many out there at this time who are feeling quite lost in this world of uncertainty.

About that....

Well needless to say I am SICK of the Stollery Children's Hospital and hope to not see it for a few weeks anyway. I went out last night and returned to a very stressed out Neil and the news that the boys went into bed without any pain stuff:( Apparently his mom abandoned him with all three and he had a night of it. Poor guy:( I had a nice evening out tho and had the chance to see the ESO preform Handel's Messiah..wonderful performance even if the Soprano soloist sucked a bit:P So updates..here we go: Lets begin with Nathaniel....Today he's not doing so hot. We can't get the boys to take Advil or Tylenol at night when they wale up so by the time morning comes they are in poor shape. Luckily for my eldest he loves to shower with Neil so that promptly inserted a bribe as he wasn't allowed into said shower until after he took the Advil and had a good bite to eat and something to drink. I was able to get him to take about 1tsp of Tylenol last night about 12ooam but he spit the rest of it out so who knows how much went down. He then crawled into bed with us at 300am and proceeded to turn on the bedside lamp and talk to us for 45mins:o We got him back into be just 15mins before Ryan did the same thing only he never left all night and I received bruises from all the kicking that went on....Note to self...buy bigger bed ASAP. Ryan had a rough start yesterday and I ended up taking him with me into the Stollery for Leigha's appointment as we were seeing the same ENT for her as well...convenient hey:) He had a quick peek at Ryan and said to him very sternly..."take your medicine" at which point Ryan stated "NO, I don't like medicine". It got laughs out of the doc and his resident and I could tell finally when the Advil kicked in. We ended up leaving the Stollery 30mins after arrival with all kids checked and a request for "McDonald's". Only my son would think to eat fries and a cheeseburger after surgery:P He was downing Popsicles as well so it must have helped. The plan with Ryan is still to wait 6 weeks after surgery before we begin testing his lung function. I just hope they are in good enough shape to attend a Christmas party with my parents tomorrow. Once we get the regular meds into them they perk right up again so I am optimistic. They should have fun as I believe Santa will be there as well. Leigha well not many changes with her. The plan of action is to repeat the Restalyn injection in January and see if adding a longer acting collagen will help her retain it and not puke:P It seemed the least invasive of the options and little to no recovery time as well. Same procedure as November. If that doesn't work then we have to prepare for an actual surgery where they will attempt to "build" her a flap that functions properly as she is again having a build-up of fluid into her lungs. We aren't sure of the actual process of the built one but are hoping not to have to get there. Leigha is still relatively happy except now when she is gagging she has no control over the "stop" mechanism of it and will puke until it all comes up. She has managed to lose 3lbs in about a week and a half. So we follow the same course of action in that we have to continually feed her and what comes up gets put back in as soon as we are able to. The bonus is she can afford to lose a bit of weight being 20lbs prior to the relapse. We will still follow with the Cardiologist appointments and the Gastric Scan booked for January 7th and 23rd consecutively. Neil and I??? Well I am still fighting this nasty cold/sore throat thing and am running on pure adrenalin now. I will eventually crash but until then am holding my own. Once Christmas is done I can rest a bit. Neil is on call until Boxing Day this year so that will limit his movements this coming week. He is off work until January 5th unless something comes up requiring his help. He is there for only 4 days before we embark on our cruise....I can't wait.. Neil is reffing today and has games already scheduled for next weekend so it should keep him busy and out of trouble for a bit. If not I can always find jobs for him to do around home:) Until tomorrow, stay warm and don't drive unless you have to. The roads are horrendous.

Decorating Our Christmas Tree...Kinda

The "ninja's" were helping with the tree decorating on Saturday as we finally decided it was time and I was really tired of tripping over the Rubbermaids in the Dining room. Anyone want an organ? I had to move my Nana's out of the living room to make room for the tree. It is now in the Dining room and I have no idea where I will put it on Boxing Day when I actually need the Dining room for supper:0 And of course Abby is in on the party as well. I mean she is part of our gang too:) Leigha is somewhere off behind Ryan, or is supposed to be as that's where we left her....

Here she is:) While we struggled with our Christmas tree Miss Leigha managed to wedge herself here. She started out in the middle of the room playing with some toys and miraculously ended up in a corner by the chair in our living room by scooching her bum across the carpet. Probably trying to avoid the whole flying "NINJA" of her brothers. This of course before she figured out the whole knee thing. I happened to notice her trying her hand at crawling and grabbed at the camera in time to catch her figuring it out:)

Almost a "look at me" pose like "I didn't do it":) It was too funny as shortly after she headed right for the tree and tried to pull the branches off to chew on. We abandoned the tree shortly after as it got to be too hectic with the boys "helping" and Leigha trying to get in there as well. I mean why shouldn't she be in the fray as well right? She was so proud of herself later on that night. I can only see things getting worse now as Ryan is in the "mine" stage still and Leigha is into everything. Will be very interesting to be sure.