BigMan has been sick again.  This time he had a fever just after having a tooth extraction.  The dentist and pediatrician thought it was the deep infection under the tooth brought to the surface and prescribed Amoxicillin.  The fever continued to climb.  We went to see the pediatrician because I was concerned about an underlying something that has made him sick nearly constantly through the winter.  She took a chest x-ray (it was clear), changed his antibiotic to a stronger Augmentin, and then advised me to keep a fever diary for several weeks checking his fever each night and documenting it.  I’m to bring him back in 3 or 4 weeks to see my pediatrician (I was seeing a stand-in) and to have labwork done when we come back.  I went home, gave him one dose of the Augmentin and thought we were on the upswing.  By morning he had a rash that started on his chest, spread to his back, and then moved quickly to his face.  It spread quickly and I got worried when the severe itching got to his face.  I gave him Benadryl, called the nurse back, and stopped the Augmentin.  Sure enough, he’s allergic to Penicillin.  So he began his 3rd antibiotic in a matter of days (Cefzil).  He’s feeling all better now and we have knowledge that will help and an action plan, but I still worry.

We celebrated Easter a day early with my parents – traditional lunch, Easter egg hunt, Resurrection eggs, reading the story in the gospels, and baskets.  I was sad this year though, we didn’t color eggs or make our traditional Resurrection rolls and we certainly didn’t celebrate the week like we did last year.  I loved last year’s celebration, but I’ve been so off my game since the move.  And then we didn’t go to church Sunday (not our favorite day to be there) nor we did we have anything that resembled a traditional anything.  We ate Burger King, picked up friends, and headed to the skate park.  We enjoyed our quiet celebration after all.

We also had an awesome chance to upgrade our blue minivan to a larger one.  If you remember we bought the blue Grand Caravan on the day we came home from the hospital with our fourth child (completely outgrowing the Corolla we had at the time).  Well, we maxed out the Grand Caravan with the next baby and we were fine being packed in, but with the newest baby in my belly making it’s arrival soon we knew we had to do something.  We bought a bench seat to replace the captain’s seats in the minivan and that increased the seating to 6, but with 3 of them in carseats it was going to be too tight fitting for us all.  After talking with a friend who wanted to downsize their 12 passenger van for a minivan (they have 6 as well, but theirs are older and can fit easier into that arrangement and they were dying to have a smaller gas bill).  So.. we sold ours to them and they sold theirs to us – oh, y’all – win/win!!

I call her the Old Grey Mare, the new van, not my friend!

In the midst of all the other insanity of the last couple of weeks we are getting ready for our annual homeschool testing (TheOldest has it again this year and TheMiddlest will be taking it for the first time).  Plus, testing day is TheMiddlest’s 9th birthday!  He of course chose a new skate board since that is his passion right now.  We went to Academy Sports and since Nana and Papa like to buy the other kids “unbirthday presents” we were on the lookout for the correct size Healies that were on sale.  We didn’t have a ladder.  But we’re never short on improvisation.

And oh, I got a haircut a week or so ago and had Matt take some pictures of me for my profile pictures.

Here I am giggling at him and the kids.  You can see my belly, it doesn’t look as large in this picture as it sometimes feels.  Maybe the way I was standing, maybe what I was wearing, maybe the way I’m carrying this baby.  Which for the record I’m now 17 weeks along – woo hoo!

And here’s the headshot I chose for my new profile picture.  You know, when I actually get around to updating my blog.