Monday, June 28, 2010

Rebecca's Sick

For 10 days during May Rebecca was sick, we never did figure out what it was.

On Tuesday May 11 she bumped heads with Matthew. Matthew must have rocks in his head because he wasn't the least bit fizzled, but Rebecca was immediately dizzy and had an extreme headache. She spent the remainder of the afternoon on the couch with her eyes closed, complaining she still felt dizzy when they were closed. She ate supper quickly with her eyes closed otherwise she would be too dizzy and immediately went to lay down again. I gave her some tylenol and shortly before bedtime she perked up again.

The next day she arrived home from school crying that she had such a headache and was dizzy. Already by the first recess she was not feeling well and they had given her some tylenol at school. I am not sure why she did not ask to come home. She is usually quiet and reserved and doesn't like to draw attention to herself, but with Grandma as a teacher I would have thought she would just have said she wanted to go home.

So back to the couch she went. By supper time she was complaining that she had a funny feeling in her ears, they didn't feel like a normal ear infection, just funny. When she complained she felt cold I decided to get the thermometer out ... she had a low-grade fever, which later spiked.

The following day she woke okay but it was long and she was feverish, had a headache and was dizzy again. I was perplexed as this all started with her hitting her head. Was it a concussion? fevers don't come with a concussion; or was it a combination of a concussion and a virus? I called our family doctor but they said she would have to go to Emerge. So off to Emerge we went. I did not expect they would do anything but needed to ease my conscious and know that at least I had done something. Sure enough, nothing was done, they suggested a concussion mixed with a virus and if she wasn't better in a couple days to bring her in again.

Four days later we were still dealing with the same thing. She no longer had headaches but would get dizzy, this came with the fevers. Medicine would ease the fevers and she'd function for a bit before she'd tire out and sleep and the fevers would come back. She continued to be very tired, resting or sleeping a lot. So I took her in to our family doctor, who also suggested a virus, maybe mono. They did bloodwork (after which Rebecca nearly collapsed) and said if it continued after ten days to bring her back in. The blood work came back a few days later - Mono was negative but the blood did show some small changes suggesting something was going on.

Day nine arrived and I decided I wasn't waiting until after the weekend since it was a long weekend and we were hoping to go away for a day or so. I again called the doctor, who returned my call a little later and suggested we try an antibiotic. While I usually don't like to just treat the symptom without knowing what the problem was, at this point I figured a dose of antibiotics was worth the try and if that didn't work or the symptoms returned we deal with it more carefully.

So antibiotics it was ... gave her the first dose that night ... next day no more fevers, still a bit tired. Next day, all better!! And it didn't come back. So we have no idea what it was and we're still perplexed about how it started but have to assume it was a concidence. I write this down because I know I will forget the details later. When I took Rebecca to Emerge I had to wrack my brain, I knew she had had a concussion before, I remember sitting in Emerge at Mac with her on a Sunday morning last summer, but for the life of me I cannot remember how she hit her head or where she hit it. I search the blog but it didn't come up with any answers :( I search my old e-mails but no luck. So I figured I better write this one down ... hopefully I'll never have to search for it!!

Rebecca had her ups and downs, studying during the better times, resting, sleeping or watching tv during the nots so good times. Matthew wanted to be just like his sister, so we found him on the couch with her quite regularly.
















Playing together. The couch was certainly well used during those ten days :)





Crawford Lake

On May 3rd (yes, that's almost two months ago, I'm behind agaaaaiiiinnnn!!!) I went with Marietta's class to Crawford Lake for the day. I always enjoy these school trips as it gives a chance to see the kids with their classmates, know the teacher a bit more and see how the class functions as a unit. I have had the extra ability to see this as I have been helping out in the Grade 3/4 class since April doing some marking and helping with the Phys. Ed. class. This has especially been nice to get to know who the students are in their "new" school. It's nice to get a parents perspective of the school, teachers and kids so you can better understand your children when they come home and talk about their day. I have enjoyed it and usually try to make a point of going with on their trips.

The grade 3/4 was studying the Natives and the Iroquoians (the people of the longhouse) and so to compliment this study they had a day trip to Crawford Lake. Through archeology study they discovered that many years ago their was a Iroquois village at Crawford Lake. The kids had an opportunity to see an Iroquois setup, longhouse, and various artifacts that would have been used by the people, helping them to better visualize and understand what they had been learning. And as parents ... we learned lots to, oh to have the time to go back to school - I'm sure most of us would enjoy it and get more out of it the second time around :)




















The Longhouse
















Inside the longhouse the guide lite a small fire to demonstrate how the fire would rise and go up through the roof holes/vents. By this he also demonstrated how much smoke actually remained in the long house and did not go through the vents, thus explaining of the the main reasons why the life expectancy of the Iroquoian people was only around 35 years.
















The flash on the other side of the group is Marietta taking a picture :)































Below they are trying on a baby carrier (cradleboard. The baby was placed in the hide part and carried on their back by placing a strap around their forehead. And I thought I had neck and shoulder problems. Can you imagine the stress this would put on your head and neck to carry a baby all day long in one of these.




















Marietta grinding cornmeal - rock on rock




















After spending time in the longhouse viewing all the different items applicable to the Iroquois the guide taught the kids a game that the people would play. They would hold their hand out like Marietta is doing and place a stick on the top of their hand. Then they would quickly pull their hand out and catch the stick (without tossing the stick up or anything of that assort, just pull and catch).





















Well that wasn't really all that hard, and for those who cheated and would toss the stick upwards to give themselves enough time to catch the stick they quickly learned that this technique was not going to work for the rest of the game. Once you master one stick you move on to two, and then three, etc. and see how many you can do.
Here the kids are trying nine. As you can see Marietta dropped a few :)




















After lunch we were free to walk the trails around Crawford lake and view the nature/wild.


















Trillium - Ontario's provincial flower (and I just learned from a couple websites that it is not illegal to pick the trillium - although tranplanting this wildflower is very difficult and often results in death - hence the reason they rather you didn't pick or transplant I guess)
















My group: Marietta, Tejada, Hailey and Syvannah

















I think Marietta took a picture of every bush, shrub, tree, grass, leaf, etc. along the way :) Let's just say she loves photography





















A part of the class and their leaders. During our walk we "ran" into a couple other groups and decided to sit down for a group shot.

















It was a beautiful day, the weather was gorgeous - warm but not too hot, sunny but not too much. Considering the cool/wet spring we were having it turned out very nice!!

Monday, June 14, 2010

Arranged Marriage



























































Kiss the bride :)































Chillin':

















What better way to relax after a long day then with a good story :)