Days with the Dorans

Last week Thursday, Jeff got a call when he got out of school that Joe was in the office because he had hurt his finger earlier in the day and despite icing it, it still looked really bad. When I found out, I figured I was going to have to ditch my plans to hit Costco and instead take Joe to the hospital for x-rays. Not so fast. Joe wasn't complaining about his finger much at all... in fact when he and Jeff got home, he went right for the Wii, leaving the ice behind! The next day Joe still had a pretty ugly looking finger (his pinkie on his left hand... Joe is a lefty), but again he didn't say too much about it so went off to school. I had emailed his teacher letting her know that he didn't really complain too much about it, so we opted not to take him to the ER. I got an email that said, "Either Joe is one tough cookie, or his finger looks worse than it is (I think the former is the case)." Still I phoned the pediatrician and they said unless it looks obvio...

We should have known that one day our luck would run out. We’ve been parents for almost 8 years and so far have had zero trips to the ER (not including the time I took Z for a midnight case of croup and mosquito bites ~. not one of my finer moments...). Yesterday our luck ran out and it all started at Ali Jane’s ballgame. Jeff had taken Sean down the slide (there is a small park at the fields) and then he put Sean on Joe’s lap for a turn. The only problem was Joe started going down before Sean was ready and in the process of going down the slide, Sean’s legs got trapped under Joe. He cried a lot (obviously) and was quite clingy through the rest of the game and for the remainder of the evening. He would calm at times so we thought it was a combination of sore legs and just a tired camper. When we got home and Sean refused to stand on his own and screamed any time someone even brushed his leg, we knew something was wrong. I called my mom and she came over to watch the three Bigs a...

Last night, like most nights recently, I was tired. Jonasen had a bit of a runny nose- but after baths, stories and prayers- all the kids were kissed and tucked in their beds- Poor Joey was up a few times and I would walk him back to his room... rub his tummy... pray... and tuck him back in. The last time he was up was midnight so I still had about 6 hours to get some much needed shut eye. Overall we've been lucky- Joe's had two times where he was sick throwing up- but overall our kids have been very healthy- never really had any meds , fevers, injuries (other than Z's temper tantrum last Christmas)... ( Hmmm ... I hope I'm not jinxing myself by writing this...) And then at about 12:30 I heard..." Mommmeeeeee ." It was Zach- I went in and tucked him in again and rubbed his back- then back to sleep myself. About a half hour later, I heard him again- this time he was wheezing and coughing a bit and it sounded a little croupy- so Jeff got up and brought him ...