Insert Favorite Cliche' Here

It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
This too shall pass.
When it rains it pours.

So this has been my week.

On Tuesday Cameron started to bark. I'm serious. It was the strangest thing I've heard coming from a 2 month old. I didn't really think it was him at first but then he barked while I was holding him. Oh great, here we go. His pediatrician wasn't in the office but I saw another doctor from the same practice. He confirmed that Cameron had Croup. He had to give him a shot of steroids to keep Cameron's throat open and to help him get better. Because I've never gone through this with my other kids, I didn't think to ask the critical question: What are the side effects??

Well, from Tuesday until today, Cameron has turned into somebody other than my sweet little baby. My patience has been tested for sure. Apparently steroids make you agitated and unable to sleep. Huh, that probably would have been good for me to know don't you think? Oh don't worry, I'm going to gently explain to this doctor that he needs to prepare the mother's of children who he turns into Frankenstein about what personality makeovers he is going to perform. If we didn't hold Cameron constantly he would scream like we had pinched him. I called Sam on Friday afternoon and said "I think I've reached my breaking point, when will you be home??" Late this afternoon he finally took his first nap since Tuesday. Of course, this was after Sam held him from about 8am to 2pm.

On Thursday, Sam stayed home with Cameron while the rest of us and my parents went to our Relief Society garden at This is the Place Heritage Park. I volunteered to be in charge of maintenance at the garden this summer. So we worked our tails off and it looks beautiful and ready for the summer planting.


Here's my dad and Parker looking all cute...more on Parker later and I'll give you a hint, he's not being so cute right now...


So, Friday night was looking promising. Sam came home from work and he was helping me with Frankenstein, er, I mean Cameron. It was a beautiful day outside and I had a hankering to go work in my flower beds. We were kind of disorganized for dinner (cut me some slack, remember, I was holding #3 all day long). Carson fed himself a corndog and then we told him to go outside. Sam said "go jump on the tramp and practice doing flips." Famous last words.

Unfortunately, our trampoline is on the side of our house and we can't see it from inside the house. About 15 minutes later Carson appears at the sliding glass door whimpering "moooooooommmmmmmm!" I looked towards the door and what I saw will probably haunt me until I die. Carson had blood across half of his face, dripping down his arm, and it was even in his eye so his eyeball was bright red. I've kind of always prided myself in remaining calm when my kids get freakishly hurt, but that was promptly forgotten as I stared in horror at Carson. I ran to the door and yelled "What happened????" Sam and I rushed him to the bathroom and started cleaning him up, trying to determine the source of the blood. We were so scared he had impaled his eyeball with something. Finally, we found the source, a nice cut on his eyelid. He said he was practicing flips (such an obedient child) and he overshot the landing and smacked his eye on the bar of the trampoline frame. So, my open Friday night was suddenly full. I gave him a rag to hold onto his eye and off to the InstaCare we went.

I was so sad because Carson kept asking me "why didn't you come outside to help me? I was screaming as loud as I could for a long time." Ouch, stab to the heart.
I took these pictures with my phone while we were at the clinic.
Carson was so funny because I think he was so nervous, he was giddy. Here he is with the numbing gel on the cut:


Here is what his eye looked like after they injected the numbing medication into the cut. He wasn't as giddy, but he was such a champ. He hardly moved at all!


Here he is after they stiched him up. It took 5 stitches under the surface of the skin and 4 stiches on the surface. It was really deep and really creepy.


He was so brave, all he asked was that I hold both his hands. Gotta love Carson! As you can see, he is just fine now. This was right after we got home.


He was even a sport and went back on the tramp to show me exactly what happened. Yes, I know, it's time to get pads for the trampoline. He'll have a nice shiner to show off to the kids at school on Monday!


Then...
Friday night from 10pm to 12am Macey's grocery store was having a special sale. One of the featured items was Strawberries, $1 per pound. Fern is an adventurous soul so she braved the crowds (not a single parking spot in the parking lot!) and scored me 2 flats of beautiful strawberries. It only cost me $16!

This is only half of them, aren't they purdy?


I already have tons of strawberry jam so I decided to make Strawberry Lemonade concentrate with my bargain berries. My neighbor made some last summer and gave me a jar. I instantly fell in love with it! It's better than any strawberry lemonade I've had at any restaurant. It is so good and so flavorful! I kind of got in over my head because 2 flats of strawberries made 42 jars of lemonade! Here it is, 12:27am and the last batch is finally processing in the steam canner. Oh well, if we ever have an emergency and have to survive off our food storage, we'll sure have enough to drink! My mom used to look at her counter tops full of home canned goods and she would say "aren't they pretty?" That's how I feel right now, aren't they pretty?


So, Cameron had Croup, Carson had stitches...Parker didn't want to feel left out. About an hour ago he woke up screaming and holding his hand over his ear. Looks like we have an ear infection folks. So we gave him Motrin and put some numbing drops in his ear and we'll see what tomorrow brings. Those InstaCare employees are going to roll their eyes at me if I come strolling in tomorrow with a different child. As Parker was crying so hard he couldn't catch his breath, Sam and I just looked at each other and I think we both aged about 10 years. I seriously thought to myself, "am I getting too old for this?" As I type this Sam is sleeping on the couch next to me. Plumb Tuckered is what we are.

And because my posting has been somewhat negative, here's something funny. What happens when you leave your BBQ grill outside all Spring without the cover on it?



Stupid birds. Oops, that was negative too.

A huge thanks to Fern for watching my kids tonight so Sam and I could have a much needed break. We saw Ironman with our friends, the Strong's and Gilmore's. It was a GREAT movie with GREAT company.