Fun times...really fun times

I kid....sorta.

Poor Jaemin got about a week break in his nasty reactive airway cough and nasty nose.  It's back.  Poor boy coughs and coughs in the middle of the night and constantly swears his nose is running.  The feeling that his nose is running just drives him nuts so he cries until I wipe it.  Jaemin's back on the nebulizer, but he's just like Chase was when he was little....more accepting of it everyday.  He's so cute and I just buzzed his hair, so here's the picture.  By the way, I wouldn't normally buzz it, but I was losing daylight and had to hurry.

The girls were sent home this note tonight.  Basically the school is trying to do more household projects so more parents get involved and they work on character.  So, this month's was about chores.  They wanted the kids to pick a job they're responsible for daily and see if they can do it 3 days in a row without being reminded.  Then, we get to fill out the questions regarding the experience.  Chelsi doesn't really have a daily job that she needs reminded to do because her ONLY daily job is making her bed.  So I decided she should vacuum the two small rugs in the living room every night.  You guessed, she already forgot.  But, she was fine and happy doing it.  :)

Boy talk

Boys are....well....boys are so weird compared to girls.  They don't dance around and try to be kind they make fun of each other and that IS being kind.  Since Chase got his braces on Cole's been calling him braceface every day.  Chase doesn't really care, which is good, but it's gets old.  And, a couple of weeks ago we found out Cole had ringworm he contracted during wrestling.  It's not a worm for those of you that don't know.  It's basically a fungus and his was barely noticeable, but luckily his coach is so versed in these fungi, that he sent him to the doctor right away.  From that point, Chase was calling Cole worm boy.

So last night I was doing dishes and for some unknown reason they both ended up in there, to aggravate me I'm sure.  It was the good 'ole cough/sneeze name call.  So all I heard for 15 minutes was acchhhhwormboy.  Then, I'd hear giggling from both boys, like little girls and Cole would pipe in hhhccchhhbraceface.  So mature I know.  Glad they find humor in each other at least sometimes.  Such a proud mom I am.  :)

Vacation? Let the planning begin

So, we had planned to use my mom's timeshare for a little localish vacation.  Just something to get away.  With the crazy schedule of 2 full time working parents and 5 crazy kids ages 3-14 I thought we'd need it.  But, then mom said I could look into an exchange.  Hmmm....sounds interesting.  Well, we have a limit.  Brian can only take being in a car for so long.  He was kinda always that way, but even moreso after his injury.  His muscles get bound up, so-to-speak, and it can cause his neuropathy and spasms to get worse just sitting in a tight, confined area for so long...even with short breaks.  So, I looked to get over the first hurdle of distance since we can't afford to fly all 7 of us anywhere.  Then, after I narrowed it down to a day drive (long day, but only 1) I needed to narrow it down to places with a room big enough to hold all 7 of us.  There aren't as many as you'd like to think.  Not all 2 bedrooms are made equally according to their rules.  I thought San Antonio TX sounded interesting.  I've never been there and my last stay in TX was very short and I was only 17.  Looked like there was lots of free things we could do.  Mom didn't think she'd get this place, but she got an email the very next day that we could go.  So, YAY!  We get to vacation again this year and it looks awesome!  Without mom, I'm not sure we would have ever had a family vacation.  Even when there were only 3 or 4 of us, we had no money to take any cool, fun vacations and taking the whole night stay cost out of it makes an enormous difference.  We're still hoping she can get a suite for her and Joe, 'cause it's kinda fun all vacationing together.  But, we're still thankful for the chance for anything.

And, I know some people are thinking if you're trying to save for Korea so bad, etc. why are you going?  Well, here's my answer, in case anyone thinks it's there business.  We don't know if we'll ever really get to go to Korea.  It's getting to be more of a dream than a goal.  The plane tickets are getting out of range for a family of 7 on our income.  I mean, you have to admit that almost $2,000 a ticket x 7 is a lot.  Do I still want to try to go?  Absolutely.  But my point is that I also know how short life is after Brian's accident.  In case we don't get to go anyways, and the little we'll have to spend without hotel costs is minimal, we want to make as many memories as we can with the kids.  Soon enough Cole will be grown and gone.  There's a decent possibility Brian will continue to lose muscle function.  I know I am not the only one that notices his walking is getting harder for him and way more noticable that he is having trouble.  There is a reality that a lot of spinal cord injury patients that recover their function after their accident will actually end up losing it again.  Some people manage to make it 20 years before stenosis, etc. and some don't.  We're enjoying life and doing everything we can before what life did to him 4 years ago decides our borrowed time is up.  We do NOT want to regret a second and just wishing and dreaming our lives and our memories away and having no time left.  It's not like we have to take a loan out to do this, and we wouldn't if we did.  That would be irresponsible.  We're going to grab every chance we have to have fun together and are fortunate mom is giving us yet another chance to do something as a family on a limited budget.

So, I'm cautiously excited to plan our sight-seeing vacation and just chillaxin' by a beautiful pool for a week!

Hello 2012

Welcome.  I have great plans for you.  I have plans for me to be a better, more patient mother.  I have plans to get a little more exercise and am hopefully on my way to being more natural with my allergies.  I'm excited for a new start and am thinking there are good things in store for us.

We did a little New Years Eve, but it wasn't totally intentional, just circumstantial.  'Cole, Tommy, Alex and Will came over to give Chelsi her Christmas presents.  They weren't doing anything, so Nicole suggested a taco bar for dinner.  So we invited Jay, Shannon and Sawyer, but only Jay and Sawyer could come.  Of course, all were in bed before midnight, but we still had a nice time to catch up and it was so nice to see Jaemin and Sawyer playing with tattling or fighting.  Apparently, Sawyer just told her dad that Jaemin is her best friend.  Where do 3 year olds get this stuff?

Jaemin shared his Thomas with Sawyer.

Today, Chase started off the year with his braces.  He only got 4 of his top brackets on and, of course, chose green and grey for his school colors.  He will get the bottom 4 next week and then 4 more on top after a couple more permanent teeth come in.  Very luckily, he lost a tooth on New Year's Eve and it turned out to be the one all of the orthodontists we saw and our dentist thought was fused to his jaw bone.  So, that was one less tooth to pull later and best of all I could quit worrying about how much it was going to hurt Chase getting pulled!  3 more baby teeth need to come out, but he said they might come out in the next couple of months so we're giving them time.  He also got spacers put in and bumps.  Next week he'll get the rings put on his back teeth to hold them back.  Chase said this afternoon he can already feel the pull on the one tooth on top that has crossed his bottom teeth.  The bumps are put on his back teeth so that he cannot close his mouth all the way.  That way when his cross-bite begins to fix they will clear each other as one goes back and the other one gets pulled forward.  He said he's pretty sure this will completely fix him with no future treatment needed and in about 12 months.  He will definitely be out of braces by 8th grade.  I'm so glad we held off long enough to get in with this new guy.  He found a different plan of treatment for us that was about 1/3 the cost of the original guy I went to (there have been 4!).  He's fresh out of school and graduated pretty high in his class and Chase feels really comfortable with him.

Here's one of my baby boys in his green and grey!

And, knock on wood, using local bee honey has been really helping me.  I'm off all allergy meds including my nose spray.  It was the last I was willing to give up, but needed to try.  1 week of honey and cinnamon and I haven't had an asthma attack since I started.  I don't know how or why, but I had actually been having them more frequently after getting off Advair (after it caused pneumonia and dysphonia) and I've been doing really well.  Now the place that sells the honey is leaving me some beeswax to try.  She said the pollen's more potent in it, so I'm going to take it easy at first because I get itchy after eating the honey, like all over my body.  But it goes away and I'm hoping to build up immunity to it all and hopefully by the time the season really sets in I'll be ready to go and drug free!  YAY!

I don't say too much about my reactive airway or asthma....whatever you care to call it.  For almost 20 years I've been trying to manage.  For 8-10 years I did allergy shots with one doc and then quit when it wasn't doing anything.  I gave it a long try, don't you think?  Then, I woke up holding my breath at night...scared the bejezious out of me.  He said I didn't fit the profile for sleep apnea, so he swore (this new allergy doc) that he could help me.  So, for 3 years I did them with him.  I'm just not seeing a big change.  As much as I want to, I can't say I did.  I was still on daily meds.  At one point I was doing flonase, allegra and singulair daily.  Didn't really notice a difference.  I still had to use my albuterol several times a week because of the panicky feeling I'd get when I couldn't catch a deep breath...or sometimes just a breath.  Talk about being a big grouch.  It's hard NOT to be really edgy when you can't breath all day long!

So when the Advair was working I thought I had it made.  Nope...dang Advair made me have more problems...giving me lovely pneumonia and losing my voice.  Not to mention all the weight gain corticosteroids cause.  I went to our health foods store a couple of weeks ago to get some local honey as a last ditch effort and he recommended trying an MD he knows that now specializes in alternative therapy for allergies and asthma.  He went to training in eastern medicine.  So, I'm going there in 2 weeks.  I guess I'm just hoping he can give me some advice on some natural remedies I can take to come close to the Advair without the other side effects.  I did try the honey with cinnamon tonight and I'll keep trying that to see if it helps.  I've been researching and found vitamin C, quercetin and bromelain are supposed to help some with asthma as natural anti-histamines and anti inflammatories.  Apparently, you're not supposed to take NSAIDS when you have asthma, so I wonder if my naproxen is what really set it off worse today?  I was kind of having a 2 puff (inhalder) day anyways, but then I had to take one of those for something else.  I rarely take them, so I'll have to pay attention to what kind of affect it has next time.  All I know is that just walking into the house I was puffing so hard and could not catch my breath tonight.  It scares me and agitates me all at the same time. 

I think I just needed to vent and I'm so hoping this new guy can do something for me.  I'm losing hope in so many doctors after the last guy wanted me to do all these expensive tests as to why I was losing my voice without even realizing it was the Advair he put me on the whole time.  2 weeks off and poof, my voice is fine.  I'm just sitting here, slowly breathing as much air as I can get in, trying to get over a very light cold that is totally adding to the problem and praying that tomorrow is better and that, honestly, 2012 is better.  As much as I'm happy most of the time, when I'm having these severe attacks, I can just sit here and cry because it feels like it will never get better and I wonder what it's like to breath normal.  I want to breath and not think about breathing.  I want it to be an automatic response instead of one I have to concentrate so hard to do.  Please, 2012, bring me an answer to my asthma.

Such a nice day for a quiet Christmas

We had our quiet Christmas for the first time and it was different, but nice.  We had breakfast at Brian's mom and dads and then came home.  Jae finally took his nap and while he did that Cole, Chase, Kaelin and I played Monopoly that they got for Christmas.  Then we started snacking on our unhealthy holiday snackfeast.  We had so much junk food, but the kids enjoyed it.  Then, since grandma went to New York to see B, grandpa came and spent the evening with us, snacking some more and playing Catch Phrase.  Kaelin is HILARIOUS playing this game.  I wish I would have video taped that, but dang she was also pretty good at it even if she didn't know what something was.

Jaemin got a battery powered 4 wheeler as his gift for Christmas.  I almost forgot about it....how could I it was pretty much the only thing he got and the big thing was blocking us from getting in our closet for a week.  We let him try it out, in the dark, at 8 pm last night.  He and I had to stay home from Brian's grandparents because Jaemin has had a cold for about a week and started running a fever last night.  We didn't want to get anyone sick, so he and I got him a Happy Meal with Alvin (the Chipmunks) in it.  He LOVED Alvin and the lady at McDonalds was nice to enough to hunt it down for me so he could be happy on Christmas Eve.  We actually just watched Pollyanna together and then started the Sound of Music.  So, back to the 4 wheeler.  Because Jaemin didn't get to go bye-bye with the other kids we decided to let him go outside to ride his 4 wheeler (motorcycle he calls it) before he went to bed.  Oh my.  I've never seen any kid SO happy let alone my little sweet pea Jaemin.  He never stopped smiling in the 20 minutes we were outside.  He would stand as he rode and yell "WWWEEEEEEE".  He was dangerous on that thing and we have to keep a super close eye on him until he learns to steer better, but wow was he a happy boy!

All of the kids got so many things between us, Santa and some of the grandparents so far.  They all had a great Christmas and it was nice to have it be a little different and less rushed, once.  I will never get Jaemin's face out of my mind from last night.  Oh, if I could have video taped him sweet face in the dark I would have; pure happiness!

The picture from today's 4 wheeler ride aren't near the same smile we got last night, but it's still so cute to see him getting around on that thing.  Oh yeah, those cute little animal sleeps masks were Kaelin's favorite gift....go figure.  And Chelsi and Kaelin are now convinced Santa exists because who else would know Chelsi's Korean name was JiYoung and put it on her doll's dress?

And dad snuck in a Christmas kiss on Jaemin's cheek.

What a blast that 4 wheelers was. 

Inspiring

We sat down to tonight for family night. We kind of let these nights fall by the way side when the days are longer and nicer, but in the Winter we tend to have them more often. So, since I got a McDonald's gift card for Christmas, at work, I picked some up for everyone tonight and we sat on the floor in the living room for a picnic and watched a movie. Jaemin actually sat still with me the whole time. Of course, during part of it I did his brushing therapy and that always keeps him calm, but it counts the same.

Anyways, I had DVR'd Soul Surfer a couple of weeks ago and we hadn't had a chance to watch it yet. It was so amazing. I had tears through most of it. As a mother and just as a human this girl, Bethany Hamilton, is just amazing, mature, inspiring and beautiful. I don't mean beautiful as in pretty (which she's that too), but a beautiful personality.

I would be so blessed and proud if any of my kids carried the same pride, modesty, faith, strength and belief that this girl did in the face of adversity. I'm sure they didn't show just how hard her worst days really were, but everyone's entitled to their worst days....it's how you react and I can honestly say I wouldn't be proud of myself most times...more than likely. Everyone could learn from a person like her.

It was such a nice calming way to spend the eve of Christmas Eve. And as we plan for tomorrow I feel happy. Seeing movies like that put your life in perspective which is another lesson she learned and taught in the movie. So, tomorrow morning I will go for my eye visit, finish up a few groceries and come back and get all the kids ready to go to Brian's grandparents for Christmas. We will eat and talk and then go to church. I LOVE Christmas Eve mass. It's so relaxing, beautiful and just calming. It's always my favorite. Brian talked about going on Christmas Day, but I grew up on Christmas Eve mass and there's just nothing that compares to the beautifulness of the night with Christmas music and the kids dressed up so pretty and handsome.

To my family, missing this weekend in NY, I hope the 4 of you have a wonderful Christmas too and I will call you this weekend or Skype so I can see my sweet nephew on Christmas. To my dad in FL, I will call you tonight. You can finally open the Christmas present the 3 of us kids sent to you.

Goodnight all and blessings to everyone or at least the ability to count your blessings afforded to you all year long.