Here’s a summary of what’s been going on lately which might help explain just why I’m so busy.  Also a bit of what I’ve been up to:

-in August Henri got some strange rash on his foot.  He’s got crazy-bad eczema, so for a few days I just put cortisone on it and waited it out.  Then I saw how far across his foot it had spread.  I brought him to the doctor and he thought it was scabies.  Gave us a cream.  Cream did nothing.  By the end of the weekend it had spread to his 2nd foot.  I called his skin doctor (not his pediatrician, but he’s actually followed by the head of dermatology at the Children’s Hospital) and brought him in.  They thought it was some virus, did a culture and gave us a different medicine.  It did nothing.  When we’d gone to the hospital Monday morning it was on both feet and one spot of his hand.  By Tues am it was across all his fingers and a few on his face.  By Wed it was on both hands and up to his forehead.  I brought him back to the hospital and they wanted to wait out their meds to see if they would “kick in”.

I happened to mention that that same morning (Wed) I’d woken up with a CRAZY sore throat and was positive I had strep, and would be seeing my own doctor that afternoon.  Since one of the sores on Henri’s hand was open and oozing, they swabbed it.  Got the call the next day- he had a Group A Strep superinfection.

From my limited medical knowledge, I would guess that I’d caught the strep somewhere, and before the symptoms manifested in me, I’d got the germs on my hand and then when I rubbed the creams on his feet 2x/day for his eczema, I must have got the bacteria into him.  His eczema really is so bad that his skin is weaker in those areas.  Luckily we both got onto antibiotics and right away there was an improvement.  It really scares me to think of what could have happened to him if I hadn’t mentioned my own illness, because I think that next the bacteria would have gotten into his blood and then who knows.  But we caught it and other than some areas where the redness from the sores hasn’t completely faded, he’s perfectly fine.  It was a scary time, though.  But my little guy smiled through it all.  No matter how itchy he is, how much his skin hurts or what bacteria is eating him alive, the kid never cried, never was grumpy, in fact they kept thinking he wasn’t as sick as he was at the hospital because one of the symptoms of something being bad is for the kid to be out of it or excessively cranky, and he wouldn’t stop  smiling ‘cus he was getting attention.

-in September Yannick and I celebrated out 3rd wedding anniversary and our birthdays. There was probably more stuff but I don’t have my camera near by to check photos and I’m not near my calendar.

-in October (I think) I participated in the West Island Knits’ First Ever Knitathon to raise money for breast cancer research.  It was organized by the Idon’tknowhowshetakesonsomuchstuffandpullsitoffsuccessfullybutshe’sawesomeatitnoreallyjustwow Robyn, and I think our little group of 8-10 knitters managed to raise just over $7000.  That totally rocked.  I knit a chemo cap to be part of our bunch to donate, then spent the rest of the time working on…

-in November I finished a big knit.  I knit something for Veronik for her Spring issue of the magazine with patterns to support her St-Denis Nordique line of yarn.  You can actually see what I knit in this photo,which I think is ok to say since Veronik posted it herself.   Squeeeee!!  Oh yeah, I should probably share that the reason I’m so excited is not just that I knit for Veronik.  I’ve test knit for her before, and while it’s fun, THIS time is even more exciting for me, ‘cus it was MY pattern.  😀  More info on that as I can share it!

Also in November I found out that what I’d thought was a strange, intermittent muscle cramp near my belly button off-and-on since Henri has been born is actually  supposedly a hernia.  Good times.

-in December I finished all my deadline knitting that was due and cast on something for ME.  (Which, of course, means it it sitting at the bottom of one of my knitting bags, thrust carelessly aside for stuff I’d forgotten about that had deadlines).

-in January Henri turned 1. ONE.  I don’t have  babies any more- I’ve got a toddler and a child.  I’d wax about time, how fast, enjoy it, etc, but you know how it goes.  They’re little, and they grow.  I’m still trying to figure out when and where, ‘cus I know I had a baby around here someplace recently.

Also in January I returned to work.  With Henri, as I did 2 years ago with Jakob.  He’ll be coming with me to work until he’s 18 months and can start at our daycare.  The biggest difference is that now I don’t only work with my dad and son.  Yannick, who had replaced me while I was on mat leave, is staying on.  Which means I am working with my father, my son and my husband.  All day.  Every day.  Foreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever.

ALSO in January Yannick and I returned to school.  Yup.  As if it wasn’t enough to work full time with a child, I’m a student again.  We are doing a 4 year correspondence program out of NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) to become opticians.  This way my dad can retire one day and not worry that the store will have to close, or be sold.  🙂  So now on top of work, and the kids, and the house, I also have the fun of nagging my husband to study, since we have 1-2 mini exams every 28 days, plus other assignments.  I’d thought it was going to be a slower, go-at-your-own-pace thing, but no.  It’s the equivalent to a full-time school program, 8 hrs/day, but shoved into our existing schedules.

Which is why I haven’t done much knitting since school started.  At first I’d thought I’d have time, so I finished a quick project for Henri for his birthday.  Then last week some upcoming school deadlines hit me in the face and now I feel like we’re behind a little.  So unless I’m somewhere where I can’t actually study (like that wait in the dr’s office I mentioned), I don’t knit.

I’m trying to get enough done in advance so that I can participate in the  Knitting Olympics.  Otherwise I’ll have to bow out, which would suck ‘cus I know what I want to work on.  Although, I guess with the way things are right now, even knitting a garter dishcloth would be a challenge!  🙂

And as if all this weren’t enough, 2 weeks ago was Henri’s birthday party.  We put the kids down for their naps in the afternoon and when Jakob woke up he had 103.5 fever.  The next morning (last Monday) he had the same fever, and a spot like a fever blister on his cheek, so we kept him home.  His fever went away and by that night it was as if it had never come, so he went to school on Tues.  By Tues afternoon the school said it was back, and he was out of it, and the spot on his cheek was now a cluster plus one on his arm and one on his tummy.  The arm and tummy ones had scabbed over.  His school asked that we bring him to the doctor before bringing him back, which was fine with me ‘cus I wanted to know what those spots were anyways.  They said it was just a virus, and as soon as he had no fever for 24 hrs he could go back to school.  Well, he’d had no fever Tues before bed, and no fever all day Wed or Wed night, so we sent him to school on Thurs.

Separately I woke up Thursday and thought “hmm…my throat hurts a bit”.  Yannick drove Jakob to school and I drove to work with Henri so we’d get there on time for his morning nap.  By the time he was asleep I couldn’t bear to swallow and was so cold that sitting at my desk I had on my sweater, jacket, mittens, scarf, the pinwheel blanket I’d knit for Henri over my shoulders and another little blanket of his over my lap, and I was still cold and wishing I’d put on a tshirt under my sweater.  And I ALWAYS overheat.  By 11 Yannick and my dad were kicking me out and my plan was to go to my mom’s with Henri so she could help me feed him, then I’d put him down for his nap there and sleep myself, ‘cus I was really sick.  I was sure I had the flu, mainly ‘cus I was so cold and my whole body ached.  (Well, my back probably ached ‘cus I’d fallen down the stairs with Henri in my arms the day before and slid down on my back, but that’s neither here nor there.  It was a rough week!)  Anyways, as I was pulling away from the store Yannick called my cell to say Jakob’s school called and wanted us to come get him, he was really lethargic and clingy and clearly all was not well.

So I went to get Jakob.  I was so sick by the time I got there that I had to borrow a plastic bag ‘cus I thought I’d throw up while driving.  Somehow we made it to my mom’s house, I gave the kids lunch with my sister’s help and got them down for naps.  I think I fell asleep with Jakob then my mom had me move to the couch when she got home.  That afternoon was Henri’s 1 year checkup so we brought Jakob with too to get him seen by the doctor.  Henri is great, although quite big (90-95% for height and weight! 31″ tall and 25lbs 11, fully dressed).  Jakob was still said to just have a virus, wait it out.  I was feeling a bit better, having slept.

We got the boys home, I put them to bed and passed out myself around 8:30 ‘cus the chills came back when my Advils wore off.  Obviously I was keeping Jakob home on Friday, and my parents were busy packing for a trip so I stayed home with both boys.  By 9:30am I knew I needed a doctor, I couldn’t wait until my already-booked appointment with my dr on Monday (consult for the hernia, which has been getting more painful).  My dr’s office was fully booked, so I had no choice but to pack up the double stroller and go to a walk-in clinic with the boys.  Thankfully they were super well behaved.  Jakob got some big awwwwwwwwwws from the ladies there for the following:

They had me wear a face mask, and he asked me to take it off.  I said I couldn’t take it off until we saw the doctor to fix “Mommy’s boo-boo throat”.  He looked at me all serious and asked, “Mommy has boo-boo throat?”

Me-“Yes.”

Jakob-“I kiss it better?”

Me-“Aww, ok.”  I tilted my head back so he could kiss my neck.

Jakob-taking my face in his hands to look into my eyes, “All better now?”

How could you say no to that?  He’s sooooooooooo sweet!

This is getting to be a long post.  Let me try to sum up.  3 hr wait at clinic.  Turns out I have strep throat again.  That’s actually good news, ‘cus that means meds.  A virus means waiting.  Got antibiotics, and now (as of this writing) am perfectly fine.

Saturday Jakob’s spots were from ear to ear (the ones on his body hadn’t spread like his face, and were still just the 2 scabs).  Also Henri had a rash on his hand that looked…familiar.  Brought both boys BACK to their doctor.  They finally found something with Jakob- turns out he had an ear infection.  Probably explains why he woke from his nap the day before just sobbing with no answer to “what hurts?”.  As for Henri, I knew from looking at it that he had another Strep A superinfection.  For some reason his dr’s office finds it hard to believe that that is what he’d had last time (even though he’d had a positive culture at the hospital) and even more doubtful that he had it again this time.  But they took me at my word, didn’t bother  swabbing him and just gave me meds for him, stating that it was safer to treat him even if it turned out to be nothing, than to not believe me and have it really be the superinfection and have it go really badly.  So in the course of 2 days all 3 of us wound up on penicillin.  Now it’s been a week and all 3 of us are MUCH better.  So it was a rough week, but we made it through!

What else before I go?  Oh yeah, so I saw the dr for my hernia, and have made an appointment to see a surgeon in 2 months.  I don’t think I’ll need surgery, but it’s the next step.  I have more to say on that, but this is getting crazy long.

Oh, and finally, Henri’s walking!  A full 2 months before Jakob did, he’s really proud of himself, and we’re really proud of him.

(And I’m really proud of you if you managed to make it through this long rambling post!)