July 8, 2013

Well, so much for meal planning.  It really becomes  a total loss when you don’t realized that you aren't going to be home all day.  I thought that I was going to have time after work to pick up the kids and drive home to put dinner in the crock pot before I had to teach.  When I went to pick the kids up we had a little incident with Remington.  He was playing outside with the babysitter while Madalynn was drawing with sidewalk chalk.  I looked down and saw that he was chewing on something.  So, I lifted him up, fished in his mouth but I couldn't find anything.  We had both been watching him and had not seen him put anything in his mouth.  After ten minutes of watching him still chew on something and not seeing it I tried to put the bottle in his mouth to see if he would open wider.  He sure did, but still nothing.  That is when he inhaled the leaf and it got stuck in his airway.  He started turning blue as I am reaching for my phone to call 911.  Then suddenly he threw up and his airway opened up.  It was terrifying.  However, the leaf still didn't come out.  However, in the process of throwing up and chewing with his tongue the leaf came to the side of his mouth and I glimpsed it.  I immediately started fishing and about a minute later finally got it out.

Two weeks ago I watched Russ aunt and uncle calmly deal with a split eyebrow of their son.  After it happened and the blood was flowing the son told them something was wrong and they calmly took him inside to clean it up and take him to get stitches.  Since then I have wondered how I would act when I am under serious stress over something happening to my kids.  All through the ordeal with the leaf I have to say that I kept looking at the babysitter talking in normal and out loud going  through all the questions that I had about what was going on.  What is he chewing on?  When did he put something in his mouth?  Is there actually something in there or is this just a new behavior?  As he threw up…well, maybe that will help.  It made me remember being wheeled down the hall in the hospital when I had the emergency c-section with my son.  I was super super calm when the nurse looked at me and asked if I knew what was going on.  I told her calmly, “yes, I just need to you to get my baby out quickly.”  Of course there was no question where I was going when they couldn’t get his heart rate to come back up and it was stopping, starting and beating far far too slow. 

So that whole incident left me with too little time to drive home, get the crockpot started and then get back to teaching students.  It was a bummer.  Not only was I going to get dinner ready, but I was going to change out of my sweatpants, get activities for the kids to do, grab the playpen for Remington and get dinner started.  Luckily I had an activity packet in the car for madalynn and barely enough formula to feed Remington for the whole afternoon.  Teaching piano with my kids is intense and I am grateful that I don’t have to do it too often anymore. 

So, for lunch I got pizza and we took it to where Russ was working and found a tree to sit under and have a picnic.  We don’t do that often enough.  Thankfully it was close to Utah lake so the breeze was in the air and it was nice in the shade. 

When I got home I don’t know why but beef stroganoff popped into my head.  That is what we made for dinner.  I tried this recipe…yep didn't like it too much.  After tasting it I realized that the mayo was just wrong so I added a can of cream of mushroom soup and added some Worcestershire sauce.  It made it edible.  I made extra noodles so I could us them with the extra spaghetti sauce in the fridge.  I used fresh mushrooms to use them up.  Yep, that is really the only way to eat mushrooms.  Russ and Madalynn both liked it.  Madalynn end up eating hers after we left the house.  She had napped right before dinner and wasn't ready to eat when we needed to leave to head up to see Uncle Tom and Aunt Sandra to get a garage heater that they were selling.

Ya, the heater didn't come out, we came home late empty handed and the day was over.

The best part of the day….my dehydrator ARRIVED!!!!  I can’t wait to use it.  It was fun to open it and get it out.  I knew that it was big, but I have to say that I was surprised with how deep it fits on the counter.  I will have to find a good place for it to go while it working.  Maybe I will get to dehydrating the kiwi before we leave town on sat.