7 Quick Takes (vol. 30)

--- 1 ---

My new mantra is "at least it's not diphtheria."  I kept telling myself this after L's last round of vaccinations, and it sort of helped.  Sort of.  And it has been an ALIND kind of week.  Allow me to explain.

--- 2 ---

My allergies have hit hard here in Lincoln.  They're pretty manageable in CO (although the dryness bothers my sinuses year round), but something here in NE (I'm assuming all the cottonwoods) drives me absolutely crazy.  As in, I feel like my head is going explode, major sinus headaches, can't breathe out of my nose, and my nose does an impressive imitation of a leaky faucet.  All. The. Time.  You're welcome for the details.

But at least it's not diphtheria.

--- 3 ---

And thanks to all of my sneezing and overly-congested-nose-blowing, I gave myself a subconjunctival hemorrhage (not as bad as the pictures on Wikipedia; but even so I'll spare you a picture of mine).  It's mostly under my lower lid, but could apparently take 1-2 weeks, or possibly even longer, to go away.  Lovely.

Michael hasn't noticed it yet, but as soon as he does he will be asking me 27 times per day: "What's dat?! What happen, Mama? Otay, Mama?  Mama owie?"  At least he is considerate...

And at least it's not diphtheria.

--- 4 ---

And to top it all off, yesterday morning M woke up running a fever and coughing a bit.  Ever since his awful bout of croup right before his 1st birthday (which landed us in the ER for a night of observation after not clearing up with 3 vapor treatments at the pediatrician's clinic) I have been super sensitive to even the slightest hint of a cough.  It was moderately barky yesterday morning, but his breathing was fine.

Then he woke up from his nap wheezing and barking like a seal with emphysema.  I called our pediatrician back home on the off chance that he would call in a prescription for a steroid to a pharmacy out here and we could nip what I was sure was croup (but in June? seriously?) in the bud before we all had a wretched night and possibly another trip to the ER.

Well, our pediatrician wasn't in the office and certainly no one else was going to prescribe anything over the phone based on a (probably hysterical) mother's diagnosis (not the nurse's words--she was very nice and understanding about it).  So we packed up some supplies (Thomas books, juice and snacks--it was dinner time, of course) and headed to an urgent care clinic.  The wait wasn't nearly as long as we feared, and in fairly short order we had a confirmed fever of 102.6, a positive strep test, and a prescription for amoxicillin.  

Strep.  Lovely.  But you guessed it--ALIND.  And we are blessed with a little boy who is pretty darn happy and perky even when he's sick.

--- 5 ---

Liam hasn't shown any signs of strep, although he seems to share my aversion to cottonwoods (or whatever it is)--he's been a little more snuffly and growly than usual.  But he's still pretty much the happiest baby ever.

God willing, we'll be able to keep the toddler from his new found love of sharing and we'll limit ourselves to a strict quota of only one case of strep in this family.

--- 6 ---

What are you doing this October?  We are hoping to be spending a weekend in Bismarck, ND for the THIRST Conference.  There will be all sorts of incredible speakers, including Cardinal Dolan, Scott Hahn,  and the Augustine Institute's own Dr. Edward Sri (my thesis advisor!) and Chris Stefanick... along with... Jennifer Fulwiler!!!

Major fangirl points for talking about this in a Quick Takes?  Yes, I think so!

One of my FOCUS disciplers/Bible study leaders from UNL is now working as the Coordinator of the Year of Faith for the Diocese of Bismarck, ND and helping to organize this conference.  It's pretty exciting.

--- 7 ---

Thank you to everyone who has been so generously praying for our house situation.  We found out this afternoon that the house is available again and we quickly (thanks to our amazing realtor) submitted a new offer (because, typical of this situation, the seller never signed the back up offer she said she would accept; if she had we would be under contract now).  A zillion things could still go wrong (like, the seller could simply not accept or refuse or counter our offer... again...).  St. Joseph, pray for us!

Go see Jen and the rest for more Quick Takes!  
Happy Friday :)