What a Weekend

And I mean that in a "What the heck?" kinda way, not in an "Awww, I don't want this fun family time to end" kinda way. We started off with the Dr. confirming that Mycah did have croup...again. She was hospitalized with croup while we were vacationing in Indianapolis last month. Not the vacation we had in mind, but if you are ever in need of a hospital or ER in the Indy area, we highly recommend the Peyton Manning Children's Hospital of St. Vincent's. Seriously, we had the best care and attention there. Still, we didn't want to go that route again so we got to the Peds office as soon as we recognized that seal bark. The good news is that it was a milder case and Mycah otherwise seemed to be feeling fine. The "fun" would come after the meds kicked in. She had a 3-day dose of prednisone. The fine Drs. in Indy warned us that the side effects of this steroid could be recognized as PMS. Let me just say for the record that PMS in a 3-year old is no picnic.

She was amped up most of the evening Friday. Whether that was due to a visit and dinner with Nana and Grandad or the first dose of Orapred is unknown. Regardless, there was a late bedtime Friday and an early rising Saturday morning, the combination of which makes for a grumpy start to a fine August Saturday. In bribing Mycah to take her second dose, we told her she could help us wash the car. Relatively harmless right? Well yes. Until she steps in a huge ant hill in the yard and has ants crawling all over her legs and arms. When I say she freaks out, think 3-year old on steroid freak out. Tim was able to quickly spray her down with the water hose, but the damage was done to her little Psyche. Then brave little brother came around the car wondering what all that racket was about and stepped right in the same ant hill. Really? He did not seem quite as bothered by it all though. Hmmm. So Mycah's crying for a bath which seems like a good option until I agree to give her a bath and she suddenly doesn't want it anymore. That's when I notice the bites on their feet and ankles. I just carried them both upstairs and put them in an oatmeal bath kicking and screaming. Normally Caleb would love this, but he had a terrible diaper rash and wouldn't sit down. Mycah still thought the bugs were on her and was inconsolable without Daddy. Together Daddy and I managed to keep them in the bath long enough for the Aveeno to do some good and by the time they got out and dressed they had both long forgotten about the bugs and the bites. Thank goodness.

Tim did finish washing my car and it looks fabulous! I wish I could say the rest of the day was uneventful but it was full of unbelievable mood swings, fits of crying, screaming on the floor in front of the time out chair, and a fair amount of sibling shoving. This is not typical of our children. This was a special day. One of the redeeming things however was that Mycah cried herself into a nap. She hasn't taken an afternoon nap in ages. So for a blissful 30 minutes the house was dead quiet. I rewarded myself with a Twix bar and a short nap on the couch.

Sunday did not see drama until the afternoon. And it looked a bit like Saturday afternoon minus the sibling shoving. Caleb had had enough and took a 3 1/2 hour nap. Mycah was wired. She jumped from one activity to another faster than we could keep up all the while asking for more snacks. The good part of her short attention span was her not noticing the PGA Championship on TV all afternoon.

Thankfully there was no steroid today and the croup is long gone. The day was much closer to a "normal" day. There is hope for the week.

Oh, and the ant bites are gone. They were not fire ants and neither touched the bites after that bath. Maybe that oatmeal bath really is magic. Maybe I need an oatmeal bath.