Stitches

The first full week out of school we had our first ER visit for Kaitlyn.  One afternoon after swim team practice, we had stayed behind to swim with friends.  It was getting close to noon and I was going to get the kids ready to go to get Alec home but they were having so much fun I decided to stay a little longer.  If only I could see what was going to come.  

The kids were playing a game called "Platypus" (someone tells a story and if the word platypus is said everyone jumps into the pool).  There were about 10 kids playing and I was halfway across the pool playing with Alec.  Next thing I know my friends are hollering at me and I see Kaitlyn hobbling over with another adult.  At first I thought she fell and hurt her leg and then I saw it.  A huge gaping hole in her chin.  I knew immediately it was going to require stitches and we needed to get her taken care of.  While playing the game Kaitlyn jumped into the pool but turned towards the wall as she jumped.  She didn't jump out far enough and came down on the edge of the pool pretty hard.

My wonderful friends took care of my other kids while I walked home with Kaitlyn, threw our coverups on and headed to a free standing ER.  I had called the Dr. office on our walk home and our regular doctor wasn't in and they were going to have us wait an hour and a half until we could come in.  I decided to pass on that. 

At the ER Kaitlyn did really well until they had to give her the shot to numb her chin.  The Dr. hid the very LARGE needle from her but the medicine burned and she screamed bloody murder.  It took 3 of us to hold her down.  I was holding her arms and laying across her chest and I had to turn and look at her feet because I was getting sick looking into her chin and I didn't want her to see me crying.  She kept screaming that she wanted her daddy.

We left with 5 blue stitches sticking out of her chin.  She couldn't swim for a week and she was very disappointed about that however we survived and at least the scar is under her chin.

after stitches shot- iodine all over her coverup and swimsuit

 A week later when the stitches were taken out, she put up a fight that took another 2 of us to hold her back.  When they swabbed her chin with alcohol she stuck out her tongue and went "bleh, bleh, bleh!" It was funny.

We thought all was done with that injury but over the course of the next few weeks Kaitlyn would complain of a pain in her cheek or tooth.  I thought it could be related to her chin but thought it would go away. While in Idaho she screamed out many times in pain so we took her to a dentist there.  She put up quite the fight about going and the dentist was unable to see anything.  A week later we had the girls normal dental checkup and I told the dentist what had happened.  Sure enough one of her back molars was fractured in two places.  This was causing the pain.

We were told we could do a mini root canal to see how deep the fracture was and best case scenario put a crown over the tooth.  Worst case, extract the tooth.  We ended up having to extract the tooth :(.  Luckily we choose to have Kaitlyn sedated prior to knowing we were going to loose the tooth.  The fracture went down in two spots and then another break ran parallel to her gum line.  The dentist was surprised it didn't hurt her more.  We were at the office for 4 hours and I felt so bad for her. She had screamed out when the dentist had to apply tons of pressure to get the tooth out.  We took the tooth home with all it's nastiness and left it for the tooth fairy.  The tooth fairy left her quite a bit but let this be a lesson to everyone - jump OUT from the pool wall when jumping into a pool!

Kaitlyn Bluebeard!

Swimming with the Sharks

My cute sharks!

Another season has quickly come and gone with our neighborhood swim team.  We only made it to half of the meets due to a family trip.  It was fun having all 3 girls swimming.  Olivia and Kaitlyn were in the same age group. Abby knew lots of girls in her group plus they are old enough to keep themselves entertained longer.  I love swim team in the first part of summer because it gets us in a good routine in the morning, the kids get great exercise, hang out with friends, by the time we get home after playing after practice, our day is half done and no one complains about being bored.

*Abby's best event:  Breaststroke and I have to add that she did great at the IM.

Strokes this year: freestyle, medley relay (breaststroke), butterfly, breaststroke and IM (all 4 stokes for a total of 100 yards).

*Kaitlyn's best event:  Butterfly - she tried it for the first time at our last meet and loved it. 

 Strokes this year:  freestyle, freestyle relay, backstroke (favorite last year but hated it this year) breaststroke and butterfly

*Olivia's best and only event this year:  Freestyle.  She also swam a few freestyle medleys.

Abby in the foreground ready to dive in!  Look at those muscles!  The kid is a rock.

 Kaitlyn always likes to look to see who's watching.

 First meet, Olivia got too nervous and wouldn't swim.  Cute coaches tried to convince her but she wouldn't go in.  Next week a bribe of a ring pop worked!

 Abby doing the butterfly

 Winner of a heat ribbon!  All she cared about were ribbons.

 Another heat winner - Abby ended up getting several of these

 Ready to dive in!

 Game faces!

Times at the end of the season:

Abby:

Freestyle - 23.60

Breaststroke - 29.26

Fly - 30.41

IM 2:24.36

Kaitlyn-

Freestyle - 42.04

Breast - 1:06.03

Fly - 55.03

Olivia-

free 1:22.20 improved from her first time of 1:34.21

Spring Soccer Season

I've already signed the kids up for soccer in the Fall so I guess I should post about this past Spring soccer season.

We had all 3 girls playing and Todd was suckered in by me to coach Olivia's team.  I felt it was our time to pay our dues since the older two had been playing for so long with other Dads coaching.  With the 3 girls playing and Todd coaching, it made for very busy Saturdays and three different practices during the week.  There were only a couple of conflicts with games, but Kaitlyn and Olivia played on the same fields so that helped.  The season was unusually cold too.  We wore jackets up until the end of April and some of us froze in the stands earlier in the season.

Mom and Aunt Monica

OLIVIA and TODD- The Pixies

It was an interesting first season for Olivia and Todd.  I think there were 3 solid players on the team, Olivia being one of them but I think she went downhill the further the season progressed.  How is that possible?  I don't know, we thought you were supposed to improve.   Todd was very patient and very fun with the girls - they love Coach Todd. There was one girl on the team during the middle of a game sat down and ate grass.  Coaching 6 four year olds if probably like herding cats.

Olivia did learn a lot of new skills and scored several goals.  If she didn't score, she cried.  The soccer organization tried something new with her age group, before every game they had professionals teaching them skills 30 minutes prior to playing.  I think all the parents agreed that it was too much at this age.  By the time halftime was reached the girls were done playing.  It was fun to see Olivia play and Todd coach and both are game to try it again!

 Abby helping Olivia and Alec get to the car.

 Coach Todd

 KAITLYN - The Dragonflies
This was Kaitlyn's second season with this new team (we switched back in the Fall).  Things clicked better as a team. Kaitlyn was still the high scorer and MVP due to the couple extra seasons she had played prior to switching to this team.  Every time she did a strong kick you could hear her say "Hee-yaw!" or "Yaw!" like she was karate chopping the ball.  Kaitlyn has a lot of fun at her games and they are a cute group of girls on the team.

 Coach Scott and Kaitlyn

 ABBY - Hot Shots
This was Abby's season.  She played SO well and we were all very impressed.  Abby started playing a new position and boy did she play it!  She became aggressive and was a great defender.  Any time she had to rotate out she couldn't wait to get back in.  It was nice to see this side of her.  She has been playing with most of these girls since they were four years old.  We have loved seeing them all grow up together.

End of School

We are so proud of both our girls and how hard they worked at school this year.  Both made the A honor roll and were excellent students all the way around.

Kaitlyn had a wonderful year with such a kind and loving teacher that really helped her blossom. 

Kaitlyn's class gave her the "Hard Worker" award.  Kaitlyn's writing and reading sky rocketed this year and she did work so hard on both.  It's a good thing she loves to read.

Abby had such a fun teacher this year and made some good friends.  Abby's writing really took off and her teacher gave her many opportunities to excel in it.  Candy awards were also given out in her class and she got the "whopper" award for the stories that she writes.  She really is a great story teller and I have saved so many of her writings.  Abby loves to read and write!

May highlights

Besides Disney we had a few things that happened in May that I need to write down so I don't forget in my old age:

Olivia finished swim lessons and tried out for the neighborhood swim team.  She had to swim across a 25 yard pool to make it and we were thrilled that she did!  Lessons paid off and she was excited to be on the team with her sisters.

 Abby had her third grade performance the night before we left for Disney.  After sitting through a long PTA meeting the kids only sang 2 short songs about summer and that was it.   Wish they would make the programs a little longer if I'm doing my best to be there.

Abby also tried out for the school's drama club - Upstage.  Since she will be moving into 4th grade next year there were several things she could try out for and Upstage was the only thing she was interested in.  I was worried if she didn't make it then she'd be crushed but she made it!  She's thrilled and hopefully she'll stay thrilled when it starts in the Fall with after school practices.

Drama fits Abby perfectly and I hope she learns from it.  

Here she is playing a storm trooper for her sisters- I don't know how this started.

Kaitlyn lost her top two teeth within days of each other and she's still missing her bottom two.  I love her gap tooth smile.  I accidentally put an apple in her lunch not thinking she'd have a difficult time biting into it - oops.

Brittany - our nanny/babysitter got married at the end of the month and she was so sweet to make the girls honorary flower girls.  They felt so special carrying around their flowers at the reception.

A Small Fortune

Over the past 2 months we have spent a small fortune on doctor visits and medicine:

~6 cases of strep throat - I had 2 of them
~1 double ear infection
~1 case of pink eye
~1 bladder infection
~1 thought to be a sinus infection ended up just being a cold
~split open chin that received 5 stitches
~an extracted tooth because the fall that caused the chin to split fractured a tooth and started causing lots of pain
~1 case of some parasite from Mexico - maybe Montezuma's revenge.

I'm done visiting doctors and wish that sicknesses and accidents will stop happening.  I would like to spend my money elsewhere but at least we have insurance and modern day medicine to make my family well.