I have been feeling a bit under the weather for the past few days. I felt a little more tired than normal, and at times I felt feverish. I just kind of ignored it and kept doing my normal things Last night I woke up with a terrible sore throat. I just kept thinking that it was no big deal. We went to the NC Zoo, and it was a real struggle for me. When we got home, I just had to go to the doctor. I found a walk in clinic and sure enough, I had a postive strep screen. Ugh. My throat is killing and my head is pounding. I am going to bed!

I posted about Emma starting Kindergarten, but I never mentioned Ian. I wanted to give them each their own posts Ian started his first day of preschool on Monday too. He did great. I wasn’t really worried about the goodbyes, but he did even better than I expected. He went to Little Miners Summer camp for 2 weeks this summer, and I think that really helped. I walked him to the door with Emma and he just went right into his classroom. He hardly even said goodbye It was cute. He went right in and hung up his lunch box and started playing with something in his classroom. I kissed him goodbye and that was that.

I came back at 12:30pm to pick him up. He was playing on the playground and he didn’t want to leave! I saw Emma too and she she looked at me and said “Moooom, what are you dooing here?” She was afraid that I was going to make her come home too I didn’t get much of a report on how his day went, but he seemed to be doing well. He talked about his day and told me about playing “bad guy” on the playground. I asked him what he learned and he said he learned about peacemakers and Mahatma Ghandi!! I guess he was paying attention

Saturday night we had some excitement at our house! Scott and I put the kids to bed and then went in the hot tub, like usual. Then I went to bed and watched some TV, while Scott went up to his office to do some work on the computer. I woke up about 1:30am to an alarm going off. Scott was still up, and we both started looking around the house, trying to figure out what was going on. I figured it was some kind of a false alarm–a few weeks ago our ADT alarm started going off in the night because of a low battery, so I figured it was something like that.

We saw that it was our smoke/carbon monoxide alarm that was going off. I got up on a chair and pushed the reset button so the sound would stop. When I did that, I saw that it was the carbon monoxide alarm going off. The detector said to call 911. I started to get a little worried. Scott got on the internet to look up our smoke detectors and try to determine what the beeping pattern meant. I started to get worried, and wanted to just call 911. I walked around the house and checked on the kids, they all seemed to be fine. We finally determined that it was time to call 911–even if it was a false alarm, I thought that seemed like the best thing to do.

They told us to get out of the house. We woke up the kids and got everyone into the car, so we could stay warm. The firetruck and ambulance came, and the kids thought it was great Scott went in with them, and the carbon monoxide monitor and they checked the place out. They found that the carbon monoxide levels were high (60 ppm) in the furnace room, and in Emma’s room since it is right next door. They said that the levels were high enough that if Emma slept in there for 8 hours she could have died!! I am so thankful that we had those carbon monoxide monitors!

So, we had to evacuate the house until we could figure out what was causing the high levels of carbon monoxide. My mom and dad were out of town, so we packed up and went there. By the time we got there it was 3:30am, and I was exhausted. But, I was so thankful that we were all safe. I was calm at the time, but the more I thought about it later, the scarier it was.

It turns out, that the problem was coming from our boiler that heats our radiant heat floors and our hot water. Something had happened to the vent outside and it was sucking the exhaust back in through the clean air intake. It was easy to fix, and the problem shouldn’t happen again. I was just glad that they found something, so they knew what to fix so that it wouldn’t happen again.

Thank god for the detectors!!

It seems that the first winter cold has hit our household. Emma and Ian both have runny noses and a slight cough. I have had a sore throat for 2 days. I am downing water and orange juice. I have been drinking Airborne like it is going out of style. I am really crossing my fingers that Nora doesn’t catch it. I should buy stock in the companies that make Purell and Lysol! So far she seems OK–she has been a bit fussier and today she did her projectile vomiting thing twice. Hopefully she will be spared!

I had another appointment with Becky on Wednesday, I was 23 1/2 weeks. Everything went well, except for the scale part. I was 153!!! That was a 10lb gain over last appointment 6 weeks ago. I wish it was better, but I wasn’t too upset about it. Up until that appointment I had only gained 6 pounds total–which was a lot less than I expected, and less that either of my previous 2 pregnancies. Plus, I really started showing since my last appointment. My belly REALLY grew. But all the eating on our trip to Disney and Forest Creek didn’t help! This month I am going to really try to eat healthier. I have been doing great with the exercise the last few weeks. I am trying to ride the elliptical trainer 5 times per week, and I have been doing pretty well. Anyway, my belly measured right at 24 weeks, so just about perfect. We listened to the hb with the Doppler, and we heard a hiccup, a kick and lots of squirming. I scheduled another u/s to check to see if my placenta has moved. I am not really worried about it, but it will be fun to get another look at the baby!

My other not so fun appointment was with the dermatologist, Dr. Kern. I went in to have the basal cell carcinoma removed from my forehead yesterday. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was A LOT worse than I thought it would be. First off, he didn’t numb it well enough and it was really painful. I told him I was feeling it, and he gave me more lidocaine, but he didn’t wait for it to work! When he was done, I asked to look at it before they bandaged it up. I was so shocked I had to really fight back the tears. It was so much bigger than I expected. I expected about a punch biopsy size, and the cut is about 1/2 inch long! I had to stare at the light so that I wouldn’t cry. I left as soon as I could and broke down crying in the car. I didn’t want to have cancer, and I didn’t want to have such a big scar on my face. It didn’t help that they put a huge golf ball size bandage on it, and told me to leave it on for 24 hours! I was really emotional about the whole thing. And, it was really painful all day. Today it feels better, but it is still really sore. I am just hoping I don’t get a big scar.

I had a tough week this week! I had a major Ankylosing Spondylitis flare up. I had book group on Monday night. I was in so much pain, I could hardly walk. I couldn’t wait for everyone to leave because I was just hurting so much. When they left, I almost went to the clinic. But I decided to call first to see if there was anything they could do. There wasn’t……So I just called Scott and cried and told him what agony I was in. It was terrible. The next day I went to the clinic and saw Dr. Evers. He didn’t have much advice for me, but did give me a list of things to discuss with Becky. Then on Wednesday, I felt like I was getting Iritis again. Geez!! I went to see Dr. Fassio, and sure enough I have an early case. So now, I am using the Pred Forte eye drops, and hoping it will clear up quickly. Strangely enough, the SI joint pain seems to have gone away as quickly as it came. I can still feel it a tiny bit, but I am 99% better. I am just hoping it stays that way!!

It is a really nice morning. I am thinking about taking the kids to the zoo. But, I think Scott wants to go skiing. So, we will see…..