Is it spring yet?

So I have been looking around and thinking to myself surely spring must be on the way. The last two days we have had temperatures in the high thirties and low forties. The snow is almost all melted and glimpses of spring are everywhere. So last night I decided that since spring is in the air, I should probably change my blog background. First,I sat down and watch the news. Big mistake!!! I just found out we are supposed to get hit with a huge snow storm today. The biggest snow fall of the season. I wanted to stand up and protest, or at least throw the remote at the TV. Fortunately, I still feel pretty crummy and it required too much effort to do either. So for now it is definitely still winter.

I need to remind myself that I do live in Minnesota and spring comes in May... I still have a little hope that the storm will fade out:) or even miss us all together.

Cold, Colds and more Colds

The past two and a half weeks at our house has been the "Land of Colds". It seemed that as soon as one of us was feeling better, a few more would come down with the same darn cold. Everyone has now had there turn with this feisty cold. I myself was very greedy and decided to take two turns with the cold. Blah... So there is not much to blog about. Between Cole's hands and all of the high fevers that came with the colds we went through 3 bottles of Motrin(:

Last week Cole got his bandages off of his right hand. The Dr. wanted us to keep the left hand wrapped for a few more days. Cord looked at the Dr and said you know he won't keep his bandages on. The Dr. smiled and told him to do the best we could.

Well, that night we re wrapped Cole's hand and put him to bed. When I got him out of crib the next morning he was chewing on his bandages he had pulled off. I re wrapped it again, but this time I actually taped the wrap to his arm thinking it would hurt if he tried to pull it off. It didn't stop him. After re wrapping his hand two more times in two hours I decided to safety pin the sock we put over his bandages to the inside of his sleeve. I figured if he couldn't get the sock off he wouldn't be able to take off the bandages. I put him down for his nap, knowing I had won the battle. When I went to check on him I found that he had pulled his arm into his sleeve and then pulled off his bandages. That little guy was determined he wanted his hand back. After wrapping his hands 4 times in less than 4 hours. I gave up the battle, and decided he could just wear a sock on his hand. Which he does for a few minutes and then he takes it off, and then I put it back on. It is a great game, or so he thinks. The sock lasted the rest of the day and after that he won the battle and his hands are both bare and free. His hands are looking great and he is happy to be back in action. He loves feeding himself again, and just rolling things between his fingers.

So much for the bon-bons and soap operas. Hollie is a Saint.

I always knew my wife's job was tough, but I had stayed home a couple days so I thought I knew what it was like. Today, I stayed home sick because I had no voice and felt completely miserable. Kinley, Ella, Reese, and Cole are also still sick just getting to the end of their colds. In addition to the kids and I, Hollie is still fighting a cold.

I heard Hollie get up with Tate, get her breakfast, fix her hair, and send her off to school. I fell back asleep, guessing that Hollie was relaxing downstairs while the twins and Ella watch some morning PBS. I woke up a couple hours later, and laid in bed waiting for Cole to come up for his nap. The door opened, but instead of Cole it was Hollie with arm fulls of laundry, shirts hung and pants folded. I guess she wasn't relaxing.

I went downstairs and the kitchen was already clean from breakfast. Kinley was up and moving, so I asked her if she wanted to go to school. She said yes, so I started to make her a sandwich. In the time it took me to make a sandwich, Hollie got Kinley dressed, fixed her hair, and packed the rest of her lunch. I took Kinley to school, came home, and did a couple emails for work. I was exhausted, so I went back to bed. I laid in bed for a couple hours resting, listening to everything downstairs.

In addition to the typical commotion, I heard Hollie cuddling with each of the sick kids and taking care of their needs. I was pretty tired of their whining after a week of sick kids, so I was amazed that she could listen to them and cuddle them. I drifted to sleep for a few minutes and woke up when Kinley got home from school.

I listened to Hollie do 3 days worth of homework with Kinley, which took more than an hour. I wish I had that kind of patience. Not wanting to face the real world, I laid in bed coughing for a few more minutes. Around 4:00, I felt up to coming downstairs. I expected to come down to a kitchen mess and kids running around.

I walked downstairs and not only was the kitchen clean, but Hollie had found the time to paint a small trainset that is shaped liked letters for Cole's room. I stared at the craft project in the clean kitchen not sure what to do. I didn't hear the kids, so I looked around. I found them all laying peacefully wrapped in blankets getting ready to watch Arthur.

Quiet Kids, A Clean House, Laundry, Craft Projects! All this on top of housefull of sick people. That was way more than 3 miracles, so Hollie is officially a Saint!

Cole's latest adventure

Thursday night while I was making dinner, the kids were all in the family room watching PBS kids. When I heard a blood curdling scream. I turned around just in time to see Cole with his hands on the glass of the gas fireplace that had been on for hours. I ran to him and picked him up just in time to see the top layer of skin peeling off his hand. I rushed him back to the kitchen and immediately put his hands under cold water. I had Kinley and Tate run down stairs to get my mom who was working on the drywall in the basement. As soon as she saw him she knew he need to go to the ER. My dad was able to watch the girls while we frantically ran out the door. Of course, Cord was in a very important meeting for which he had turned off his cell phone.

Luckily, we live less than 2 miles from the hospital,although the ride seemed like it lasted forever. The ER was busy, but thanks to my mom, she went right up to a nurse and told her we had a baby with burns (plus I think Cole's crying at the top of his lungs might have helped). They took us straight back. It was so hard to watch my poor little guy be in so much pain. Even after Advil, Vicodin, and Morphine he still wouldn't calm down. After several tries at soaking his hands in saline they were able to get a good look at his hands. He had deep 2nd degree burns on both hands and part of his one arm.

After they started the soaking and cold compresses, they had me go and get Cole checked in. While I was giving them all of my info I finally reached Cord. Fortunately, they had already left the office and he was on the ride home(he has a 30min. commute) so he came straight to the ER. In the meantime, my dad and another neighbor were able to come and give Cole a blessing. I am grateful for great neighbors who dropped everything and helped out.

After 1 1/2 hours they finally got Cole's hands wrapped up and he was able to calm down. Although his hands looked pretty bad the Dr. said that there would be no permanent damage and in a few weeks he would be good as new. Best of all we were able to bring Cole home.

We took him back to the Dr. Friday morning to have his dressings changed. Everything is looking good so far. We need to change his little paws daily then we will take him back to the Dr. on Monday so they can start removing the dead skin.

Cole is a little trooper. He is still a happy little guy. It has been hard because he just reached the independent stage, and now we have to feed him again, he isn't able to crawl, and he can't do all of the fun things he likes. At least that is what we thought, he quickly reverted to army crawling to get around. He is learning how to use his little mitts to do anything he wants. He is a smart and very resilient little guy.

Here are some pictures we took Friday morning at the Doctors office. All of the blisters had popped on his left hand so it looked A LOT better.

Left hand

Right hand

Right hand


Both hands

Cole and his bandages

Trying to eat his banana