Pass the Disinfectant PLEASE!!!

So several weeks ago we all passed around this nasty eye goober thing. Peyton quickly referred to it as "...the boogers coming out of my eyes..." It started with me, then Peyton, then Parker. My lucky duck husband was exempt from this illness, as always. Grrr. Parker's eye boogers, however, were much worse, and wouldn't go away. A quick trip to the MD revealed that he had a cold, turned sinus infection, turned blocked sinuses, turned boogers out the eyes. GROSS! More frustrating, they ordered a 10 day dose of an antibiotic to help him out. Well......all that did was produce a child who will no longer take ANY type of medication via mouth..and I mean ANYTHING, that yummy tasting Bubblegum, Grape or Cherry tylenol...yeah, not taking it. Matt and I would have to literally pin him down, and pray to God that he wouldn't aspirate. It also gave a nice round of diarhea that left a very unpleasant diaper rash that left me washing his bum in the sink for diaper changes. Ugh! After 7 days of that, we all washed our hands of the med and tossed it out!

Parker and the beginning of his GOOBER eye.

Thursday that week, Peyton and Parker were throwing up all night. Peyton, strange little kid that he is :), actually enjoyed it! He was the first one to tell EVERYONE "I threw up in my bed!" very proudly! Saturday night I started throwing up and by Sunday Matt was joining me! The one and only time that he's sick! Welcome to the club, Matthew!

The following week Parker had his 18 month check up and aside from some drainage the doc approved my stopping the med early and gave Parker a clean bill of health, after verifying that I didn't feel that my child was autistic, because I guess on a questionaire I filled out I checked two boxes that are only checked for autistic children. I'm blaming my answers on lack of sleep, from booger eye!

Peyton making his own doughnut at Krispy Kreme!

So, the doc appt was Monday, and Wednesday after babysitting at church we decided to visit the zoo. We hadn't been there in a long time, and the weather was great! I packed a little lunch and we hit all our favorite spots at the zoo...Peyton was even brave enough to do the dark Kingdom of The Nights. We watched the gorillas play. We sat by the flamingos and ate our lunch, fed the ducks, and looked at the bears!

Against my better judgement we went to the petting zoo. Peyton has an obsession with goats, so when I saw some mom's whimp out and tell their kiddos it was "too muddy" I knew I had to find a way. After all, I am supermom! So, I found a back gate that wasn't so muddy, lifted Peyton over a huge mud puddle and pushed the stroller into the petting zoo. The goats started swarming us like a puppy does after you've just gotten home from a long days work. Gesh...no petting all winter had left these goats missing some lovin! Parker started screaming, and I figured it was from the mass amounts of goats swarming around the front of the stroller! There were a lot of "kids" (baby goats for you non-goat lovers out there, which I have joined you now since this incident!) that were born late last summer that were becoming quite rambunctious. I walked around the front of the stroller to find bright red blood dripping all down his finger. FLIPPING GOATS!!!!! I quickly picked him up, grabbed Peyton and the stroller and walked through the disgusting piles of goat poo to the mud puddle exit. There were two zoo ladies outside the pens that offered to go get something to clean him up. They brought back a wet paper towel, a bandaid, and a peacock feather, "Better then a bandaid" she said. Geeez, thanks! She left me with the very calming reassurance that "The just had their shots last week!" Well, that's a relief!

                                  

I quickly went to the front desk and they had an EMT look at it. She said it was pretty bad...it broke the skin on both sides of the finger. It, actually looked like the goat bit down and grinded it's teeth into Parker's finger. She said we should see our doctor and that Parker would most likely get put on antibiotics. What?!?!? He was just on antibiotics a week ago for the first time ever, and it was...well, there's really no other word....hell! No way! It's just a goat bite, he'll be fine. WRONG-O! Our doc informed us that goats carry a hard strain of Ecoli, that shuts down the kidneys and liver. Pleasant! So, again, for such a senseless incident, Parker was put on a hard antibiotic, that we AGAIN had to pray he wouldn't aspirate as we held him down, he had to take a healthy bacteria to balance out his stomach and eat lots of yogurt. The greatest thing is that no one from the zoo bothered to call, because the guy who handles medical issues like this was "out of town." Really, you don't have anyone else to cover for this sort of thing? Needless to say, I again stopped the antibiotics at 7 days because of exhaustion with fighting him to take it all and the pooping!

This past Wednesday, Parker started running a fever. It just came out of nowhere and was over 103 for much of the evening. Friday I was running an errand and the little rash that I noticed on his tummy in the morning was spreading to his face. By the time I could stop the car, I swore his head was swelling, and the rash had covered 100% of his body (even inside his ears). I called Matt in a panic, because I was close to the ER, but about 30 minutes away from our doc, and I didn't know where to go. (I was also supposed to pick my mom up from the hospital from her surgery!) I ended up at the doctors and he diagnosed Parker with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease. I quickly learned that that was not, in fact, what Parker had. I kept doing research on it and it just didn't fit. I am now diagnosing it myself as Roseola. Either way though, it's a virus that you can't do anything for, but wait it out. The fever finally went away yesterday, 6 days!! The rash is still vaguely there, but has faded quite a bit. Now aside from a "junky" cough that Peyton, Parker and I have...I'm hoping we are on the mend!

               Poor Baby Cakes. :(

I should have stock in Lysol now!

Standing in God's Rain

1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

I looked up the word "lavish", because it's just such an amazing word! Lavish: expending or bestowing PROFUSELY! It doesn't stop...it just keeps on a coming! The word lavish comes from a Middle French word for "downpour of rain". Ahhhhhh! I want to stand in God's downpour of rain!

Oooo..and I'm not using an umbrella, cause I want to soak up all the love He is lavishing on me!

AMAZING!

Missing Heart

The other day I was putting some salt on my scrambled eggs for breakfast, and Peyton asked for some on his as well. Not being too much of a salt fan, and not usually doing it myself I started to tell him no. He asked why and I proceeded to tell him that it was bad for his heart.
He told me that he didn't have a heart anymore and that it was missing, all while pointing to his stomach. I redirected his finger to the acurate location of his heart and reassured him that it was there!

"My heart is missing, Mommy."
"Where is your heart Peyton?"
"Jesus took it and I'm NOT getting it back!"

He was so matter of fact that Jesus really had taken his heart. I am so impressed by the way that his child mind has taken the concept of asking Jesus into your heart and having Him live in your heart, that he just figured God took it out.

This whole conversation has me wanting to be more like Peyton. I want to give my whole heart to Jesus! Take it Jesus! It's yours...all yours!

It makes me think of the passage in Matthew 18:1-6:

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.