Tag: Sleepover at Nana's

Huh? Pardon Me? What?

This weekend was very odd. Saturday my mother-in-law called to see if the kids wanted to go to the circus on Sunday. They were excited and I took them over to spend the night, so they could go with Nana after they woke up.

I went home Saturday night and played on the Xbox for a bit and finished a book. When I woke up on Sunday, it was just me and the dog. When my wife got home, she went to bed after working all night. So I sat on the couch and finished listening to a book I had started, but didn’t finish because it was due back before I could finish it. I had to wait for it to come available again before I could finish it.

I wasn’t supposed to get the kids until after dinner, so I goofed around on the Xbox while doing laundry. I watched some TV and read some more. As I pulled into my in-law’s driveway, I got a text saying, “They want to stay another night.” When I walked in, they both looked at me and said, “What are YOU doing here!?” That made me laugh. I hung out for a bit and then went back home. They came home Monday night and I got them bathed and ready for bed early because they had to be back at school Tuesday morning.

Yesterday morning, I took Ella to school and then had an appointment with the hearing place. My wife has been asking me to get my hearing checked for some time. I finally made the appointment. When I arrived they doc asked me quite a few questions. I told her about the ringing/buzzing in my ears that I have had forever. I told her about the 30 years I wore headphones while working in radio. Then we got ready for the test.

They put me in the small room with a door that was like 4 inches thick. It was a soundproof room. They had me put headphones and then they started sending pulsating tones that I had to push a button when I heard them. It had to pulsate because of the ringing in my ears. It was more difficult than I thought. I felt like I couldn’t hear with my left ear, but they said that it was better than my right ear.

They had me repeat a few simple words: hat, safe, theft, feet, etc… that was the weirdest part of the whole thing. When they let me out of the room they showed me my results. I hear low tones better than high. So male voices don’t give me an issue, but high pitches I have difficulty with. Female voices can be difficult for me to hear at times. This, thankfully, proves to my wife that I am not ignoring her or the kids when they talk to me and I don’t hear them.

Bottom line, I will be getting hearing aids. My goodness, everything that screams “You’re old” just keeps catching up to me. I’m not sure what the cost will be, as they are waiting for the insurance company to get back to them. I haven’t looked at them yet, but I guess the new ones have Bluetooth on them, so when I answer my phone, it will connect to the hearing aid. Should this really excite me? I don’t know. I’m still trying to process this.

I suppose now I will have no excuse for not hearing what my wife says … unless I turn them off. LOL

Conference, Clubs, and Croup

Conference

Many readers know I work in Sleep Medicine. Every year there is a sleep conference in Detroit that we try to go to to earn our Continuing Education Units to keep our registry. That conference was last week.

Sam and I drove down to Detroit early Thursday afternoon. (The kids got a sleepover at Nana’s house.) The conference took place at one of the casinos. When we checked in, they asked if we wanted an upper or lower floor (we chose upper) and whether we wanted a city or river view (we chose river). It was a nice view!

After speakers were done on the first night, Sam and I went to a small mixer where guests could have a drink together. We hung out with a couple of my coworkers and folks who graduated from the same sleep program. They had raffles while we were there and Sam won a Tim Hortons gift card. My coworker won a $100 Amazon card.

We went up to our room and we were exhausted, but hungry. We decided to order room service ($$$$$). She ordered nachos and I got a burger. When it arrived, it was apparent that we should have just shared the nachos because it was HUGE!!

After the conference on Friday, we had hoped to go out to a nice dinner. Because room service was SO expensive, we decided to get something on the way home. After getting the kids from Nana’s, we ordered pizza and brought it home.

Just a side note: As parents, you can’t wait to get a night or two alone and away from the kids. Of course, when you do, you can’t stop thinking about them and are overjoyed when you see them again!

Clubs

My son, Dimitri, turned 16 on Sunday. I told him I wanted to take him out golfing. It’s something he and I have never done together and I knew it would be a good time for us to connect and chat. We decided to go Saturday morning, and the weather was perfect.

I haven’t been on a course in at least 3-4 years. I knew I was gonna really golf badly. He hasn’t been out in at least a year, since leaving the golf club at school. Thank goodness it was a slow day in the course.

I hate when you’ve always got someone waiting for you to tee off or shoot. I realize it’s part of the game, but I always feel rushed and often just want to hit so we can go. Dimitri and I were far from professionals out there, so it did take us a bit longer than usual. We finally let the twosome behind us play through.

He is like me in that he has his favorite clubs. He rarely uses his driver, but he can crush a ball with his 5 wood. I have a 7 wood that I used to hit well, but topped it every time Saturday. I had a few good drives, just enough to keep me coming back.

We bent the rules a little bit, and had plenty of mulligans (redos), and impost probably a dozen balls in the woods and water. Despite all of that, it was a great time together. He, naturally, beat me by two strokes. I can’t wait to do it again.

Croup

Sam called me while I was out golfing and said that both kids sounded sick. Both had low grade fevers and a cough. By the time I got home, Ella was sounding better after taking some allergy meds. Andrew’s fever was gone but still had a cough and that raspy voice.

Sam wondered if we should take him to urgent care or ER. Everyone we talked to said wait to see how he was in the morning.

That night at bedtime he cried a lot. He wound up in our bed. He woke us up with a nasty cough and wheezing about 3am. He fell right back to sleep, but it was enough to freak us out a bit.

At 6am he woke up sounding worse, so we rushed him to ER. Nana met us there and brought Ella back to her house. We planned to be there a while and Sam packed loads of snacks just in case.

They got us right back and he was seen almost immediately. We weren’t sure what to expect because we were there right at shift change. However, once we were in our room, the nurse came in, followed by the doc. Once the examination was done, she told us it was croup and she gave him a steroid and told us he should be back to normal in a couple days.

How fast were they? Well, we had finished with the nurse and the doctor AND the meds were administered all before the registration gal came to our room! We actually had to wait to get registered before we could leave! Total ER time – about 70 minutes.

Ella decided she wanted to have a sleepover again at Nana’s, so when Sam left for work last night it was just me and Andrew. He really improved throughout the day. Before bed, we stood on the porch and watched the thunderstorm together.

Andrew is still sleeping and Ella should be home later today. The house should return to it’s normal chaotic state shortly after her arrival.