October Round-Up

This month might have passed by more quickly than any month I can remember. In many ways, that is a good thing because it was not a stellar month:

• Grandma Ertl died (Oct 7). Uncle Andy died just five days later.
• Sick, sick and sick - Erica and Luke ran fevers off and on for days (each missed a few days of school, may or may not have been a mild case of H1N1), I had a sinus infection (finally got antibiotics after weeks of trying to tough it out), Alex got H1N1 (missed the three days of school during the 3-day teacher convention week), Julia got probable H1N1 (treated with Tamiflu) followed by pneumonia (treated with Zithromax). The ironic part is we did everything we could think of to protect Julia from the swine flu. We kept her home as soon as we heard rumor of an outbreak at her school, we got her immunized at the first opportunity (along with Luke, Erica, me and Matt), we kept her home after the immunization to give it time to fully protect her. The upside - maybe the immunization provided some protection so she didn't get even sicker. The other upside - we don't have to worry about getting it anymore because now we've had it.
• Julia's impact reaches further than we sometimes realize. My co-worker's daughter (Brianna) started a prayer chain with her friends as soon as she heard Julia had H1N1. That's one cool 8th grader. Jill brought us brownies and banana bread. Many others prayed and sent get well wishes.
• Julia has a team of three nurses (soon to be four). Maggie is here three days a week (T, W, R), Christa is here Mondays, Christine is here Fridays. We have been so grateful for their help with getting Julia well again. She is a full-time job!
• Furlough week - Matt was on furlough the week the kids were all sick - not so lucky for him. And, I didn't make a lot of progress on my work projects because I was so tired and worried, I could not function all that well.
• Halloween - Alex (Spider-Man), Luke (dinosaur) and Erica (princess) were well enough to trick or treat at my work on Friday. And, in spite of cold, windy weather, we did trick-or-treat around our neighborhood on Saturday. The boys wore winter coats under their costumes and Erica was a pink poodle instead of a princess. True to form, Erica started complaining about five houses from home. She wanted to trick or treat at my work instead of outside - not an option. Luke soon was asking for water - also not an option. We were with the McLaughlins, so Erica rode in the stroller with Ally and Luke was busy running with Ryan, so he mostly forgot how thirsty he was. We made it for 1 1/4 hours of trick-or-treating, and we now have LOTS of candy.
• Had Julia's IEP meeting - Let's just say it didn't go all that well, and I now have a newfound dislike for plastic apples. I'm not sure when Julia's team gave up on her, but they seem to have lost faith in her ability to do anything. So discouraging, but we're going to keep exploring our alternatives because Julia deserves a team that believes in her as much as we do! We did have an evaluation for private physical therapy, and that should be getting started soon.
• Luke started swimming lessons. We both had a great time. Luke loved the shower after swimming almost as much as the lesson itself. It was a great chance to have some one-on-one time with my little guy who seems to be growing up way too quickly lately.
• Alex was extremely busy with Cub Scouts. He earned a couple of badges and belt loops this month. Scout outings included a trip to Horicon Marsh (Matt also liked that one) and a trip to Pike Lake to learn from one of the rangers. Alex left a really good impression with his intelligent answers, and the ranger tracked him down after the session to compliment him and tell him about a ranger shadowing program for high school kids in case Alex develops an interest in being a ranger.