A bodacious bag, the boys, books & a bad cut

I won a bag from Carissa at Good And Crazy People. She makes them herself, and they're so cute!! I really like mine. You can see more of her stuff at Apricot A Lot.

A few nights ago, we pulled out blankets and watched a movie in the den, National Treasure 2. Remy and Annie crashed immediately. Aren't they cute?

Yesterday, Remy bought an art kit at Michaels, the craft store, a cute dog to paint.

He managed to get paint in lots of other places as well, unfortunately.

It's now hanging on his room door.
He's so proud!

And Donny felt he had to try his experiment again, cooking egg in soft drinks.


he adds Sprite
and then Coke...
and it doesn't cook but looks gross...



I've emailed his science teacher in hopes of figuring out this experiment.
I'll let you know when I hear back from her.

We don't have a Barnes & Noble in our small town Texas, so the boys and I hopped in the car today and drove to a nearby town. We were in heaven.

As we entered the store, I told the boys they had a spending limit of $20 or two books.

Remy then said, "What's our speed limit?"

hehe....come to think of it, that boy could use a speed limit.

We spent over an hour browsing. I wish I'd had my camera to capture them sitting in an aisle surrounded by piles of books, loving every minute of it.

I was going to end the post here, but then had an unexpected event occur tonight. While doing dishes, a bowl broke and sliced the top of my thumb. Hubby was working late in Dallas, so I piled the kids in the car and drove myself to the emergency center a few blocks away.

I got in just before they closed for the night. They cleaned the laceration and then used silver nitrate to cauterize the wound and stop the bleeding. Just in case you didn't get that...

cauterized = burned.

IT FREAKIN' HURT!!
I almost started crying.

Couldn't fill the pain pills at Walgreens due to an error of info on the prescription

and the e-center had closed by this time. Lovely, huh?

So, I'm up, hurting and trying to type with one hand, keeping my other hand elevated while it throbs in time to my heart.

Donny took a picture of it in front of the computer moniter.

Who knew doing dishes could be so dangerous?!

What do you give a pig with a sprained ankle?

Answer: An Oinkment!!

Bad joke, I know. Everyone can groan now. We have to make light of the issue somewhat, because my son's in pain! Yes, he sprained his ankle yesterday at school on the playground during recess. He heard a bad crack when he fell and assumed it was broken. It was pretty painful, and he couldn't even really walk on it. I got a call from the school nurse and rushed to pick him. Then we took a trip to the emergency center (instead of the pediatrician, then the xray center, then another dr) to have it xrayed and taken care of quickly. We were in and out in an hour, and the good news was it was NOT broken! YAY!! Here is a picture of him in the e-center, ice on his ankle (see it's swollen on the right side already like a ball) and his whole leg is scratched up.


This is the room they put us in...obviously the bone room. Look at all those crutches!

My son was using his baseball bat to hobble around as a crutch, until they put him in a wheelchair. This baseball bat.
And, here he is again as we got home...this time on real crutches with an air cast on his ankle. He can't walk on it yet. Our dog Annie is checking it out, sniffing everything.
She's very interested in what's wrong with her boy.

And, here's a close up of the air cast. Poor Donny!
But, at least it's not a break, and he is only out for a week. He was worried he was out of baseball season for good! This is my third ER trip in a few weeks. If you're interested, here is some info about the ER visit with my elderly father who lives with us and another post about how I was about to break him out of the hospital...and another ER visit with Donny where we learned some interesting stuff.

More ER Escapades

So, unbelievably, I found myself back in an emergency room yesterday. My elderly father (who's in his upper 70's) lives with us, and he began having some GI bleeding. He didn't want to go to the emergency center, but we (a group of family members) talked him into it. He's a retired doctor and hates having to be a patient himself.



So, I'm the one who was nominated to take him, which was fine, no problem. However, while in the waiting room, I headed to the bathroom..and after taking care of business, find myself locked IN the bathroom and can't unlock it! It was awful. I felt like a helpless two year old unable to get out. Finally someone had to come help me. There was something wrong with that lock, I swear, it wasn't me!



The nurse/aid was a young man training to be a firefighter. He had to draw from my dad (a vein my dad calls "Old Faithful") and proceeded to drop just about everything on the floor during the process. Granted, my dad's on a blood thinner, so he tends to bleed copiously, but this guy made a mess! I was picking things up after him while he held onto the other stuff. It was hilarious, in a hazardous, non-professional sort of way but, hey, we are all students at one point and another, and he had to learn somewhere, right? lol

After five hours in the emergency center, my dad was then transferred by ambulance to a local hospital. I followed behind to meet them there, fill out lots of paperwork and then find his hospital room. He's legally blind, so he needs a little help at times. There TV was too small for him to see and mounted too high on the wall...and he can't read very well without his special device that isn't very portable, so he was pretty bored (not to mention bleeding) but not in any pain or too uncomfortable.

However, the real fun began after he took a sleeping pill for the night. My dad started looking at me real closely, examining my face with a suspicious look.

Me: What's the matter, Daddy?

Him: You don't look like Rhea.

Me: I don't? What do I look like?

Him: You look weird.

Thanks, Dad!

Him again: You have black eyes (my eyes are green) and markings on your face like monkeys. You look really weird...See that thing wriggling up there? That's weird.

Okaaaaay. Can I have some of the happy juice?

ER escapade

I'm home now, after spending four and a half hours in the local emergency room. My 11 year old, Donny, was experiencing bad abdominal pain in addition to plentiful throwing up and diarrhea (which I'm sure he's thrilled I'm sharing with the blog-world). Normally, I would just think he had a stomach bug and leave it at that, but the abdominal pain was worrying me, and he really seemed to be hurting. It doesn't take much to get me worried, so off we went to the ER.

I'm no stranger to ER visits, having scored dozens of sojourns myself as a child and adult, as well as multiple stays with my own children. This was our first time in this hospital though, since we moved here eight months ago. Most ER's are very busy and you can expect to spend a few hours depending on what's going on. I was prepared with my purse bag full of books, sudoku puzzle books, an iPod, my phone charger, etc. I wished I'd grabbed a bite to eat as well, but since I had just woken up, I pretty much threw clothes on and went.

Anyway, while in the waiting room, poor Donny had to make several visits to the bathroom for more of the above-mentioned bodily expulsions. It took a long time just to get called back to the ER. Once there though, they put him on an IV and some anti-nausea meds, took a pee sample and blood. We then sat in the room for four hours doing nothing.

However, there were some entertaining highlights I will share. Once Donny started feeling better, we turned on the TV and discovered a hilarious show called Women of Ninja Warrior, a Japanese show with English subtitles. It consisted of female Japanese atheletes who had trained for this obstacle course that had areas called the log jam, balance bridge, flying pillar, and my favorite, the hop rocket. The obstacle course was super challenging, and we laughed non-stop while constestant after contestant ended up falling into the muddy water below. The commentary was hilarious as well, due to the Japanese host trying his best to be witty and to keep talking no matter what.

At one point, we heard some loud arguing from the hallway outside our room. A female nurse yelled loudly, "It wasn't my fault!" and a huge commotion seemed to be underway. We never found out the full story, but we were pretty sure it wasn't Donny's nurse. Mostly sure. yikes.

We continued to watch TV, catching the end of Wayne's World 2 and The Incredibles (one of my favorite movies!). A very interesting commercial popped up for Kinoki foot pads, which you have to check out. Wild. I'm not sure I buy it...

Finally, after four and half hours, Donny was discharged with a diagnosis of "possible appendicitis" or "stomach bug." His white blood cell count wasn't raised, he had no fever and the pain was mostly gone, so they didn't do a CT scan. However, if he develops a fever or the pain gets worse, we'll have to go back. I'm really hoping it isn't his appendix, because his dad had a really weird appendix that wasn't in the right place, requiring big surgery and crisis. I'm hoping Donny's is in the right place (lower right side).

Just FYI, the appendix has been thought to have no function but new research suggests it might have purpose after all as a safe haven for good bacteria to hang out until you need it. Interesting.

What a way to begin Spring Break!