I don’t dwell on the negative stuff in the blog, else there would be tomes of rants and whines and pity parties. But I have to say today pretty much sucked. We have two sick boys AND two sick men. Patience is short, as is sleep. There was a ton of screaming, fighting, throwing, and just plain stress. We had good intentions and nothing we wanted to do seemed possible because of toddler tantrums and medical needs.
Brendan is a little better, but not great. Trevor is worse. Bill and Granddaddy have the stuffed noses and sore throats. I am exhausted. There was lots of vomit.

That aside, lets get back to the cute, funny and positive.

Granddaddy brought with him a couple of old train sets that were mine and Aunt Heather’s when we were kids. He did a lot of work to restore them and we bought some new tracks. We got it all set up on the kitchen table and made sure it all worked. Trevor immediately made it clear that he was far too young for these real train sets so we packed it all right back up to store for later.

After being disappointed with the toy stores, I thought I would try Craigslist to see if I could get them a more age appropriate train toy to use with Granddaddy. I never expected to come upon the deal of the century! We bought stuff from two different people. The first was a couple that had a Geotrax train table set like what cousin Caleb has, new in the box for a huge discount. The second was a family that had collected the Geotrax sets for years and was trying to unload their whole dusty collection from the garage. There were four giant plastic totes and three garbage bags full of buildings, tracks, cars, and more, including several Pixar Cars sets that cost more than what I paid for the whole thing. It was amazing! It all needs some TLC and cleaning, but there is easily more than $600 worth of toys for a fraction of the cost.

Brendan ponders the box

We thought we had actually succeeded in stopping the tantrums for a while. The boys were very interested in all the new stuff

I loved seeing the boys both eager to “help”!

“Where do we begin?”

I was so frustrated when I found a piece that I thought was broken plastic from the toys. Already! Turns out it was just a dessicated mac and cheese noodle. All hope was not lost.

Out of the whole day, we did have a few hours of nice play time. Trevor spent an hour or more on the front porch with Bill using the garden hose to wash some of the pieces. We had to separate the boys because Trevor was grabbing Brendan’s cheek, digging in his nails and twisting. Then he was grabbing Brendan’s head and pulling him over.
They can be so good though. Briefly. It is so hard to deal with the aggression.

I hate desperately watching the clock hoping that bedtime would come quickly. I just wanted today to be over. I haven’t even looked in most of the tubs and bags of the cool new stuff. We have enough to make a Geotrax city to cover the entire living room floor and then some.
I hope tomorrow we can enjoy it and that everyone will feel better.

We probably celebrated Brendan getting better a little too soon. He had a good night, but a pretty rough and miserable morning. We had no nurse today so it was extra tough managing a very cranky and stuffy-nosed Trevor too. The house was loud and chaotic to say the least.

Because Brendan was on his vent, he had a very short length of tube to work with. Because Trevor wanted to attack him (he has moved on from hitting and now grabs Brendan by the head and tries to do a headlock or dig his fingers in to Brendan’s arms), I kept Brendan in his crib and let him play with the ipad. I tried to keep him happy.

Keeping Trevor in baby jail requires a lot of extra energy so we decided to do a massive clean and sort “Undo” game. Trevor generally likes that. He is good at mopping.

He likes to dump the whole toybox too

We found all the pieces to everything, even all the letters. The only thing missing is an orange whiffle ball! It wasn’t enough for Trevor though, he still went crazy. We had to move outside and let him do lots of cleaning there too.

For a short time after napping, the boys were in good moods. Brendan was feeling a little better this afternoon and was able to get on his mist collar and play. They played nice!

Then Brendan got a phone call on the garbage truck

I wish it was the city calling to tell us their pickup schedule. We have been missing the truck often because it is so random now

Monster trucks!

I used everything I could find to try to make a fort with the couch. Trevor was loving playing peek-a-boo

A little silliness from today…

It looks like tons of fun, but today was very stressful and I am super tired. I am hoping Brendan sleeps well. Everyone needs to feel better in the morning.

Brendan was significantly better today, in that he was awake, alert, playful, and breathing a little better. He is still on 5L of oxygen, getting his breathing treatments every four hours, getting lots of pain meds and he is on his steroid treatment. It was so good to see his eyes open and his naughty smile though.

Trevor was as cranky as ever, so we did an outing. I didn’t know where to take him in this weather, so I thought he would like a long drive across town, and then we would stop at Cabela’s and see the fish and animals. He was crabby in the car, so I am sorry we drove so far. But he liked the store.

We originally thought we might get lunch at Cabela’s but decided to stop at the Rainforest Cafe, thinking Trevor might like it. I forgot how loud and obnoxious it was. Trevor did not know if he should be scared or impressed, but he just stared and took it all in and ate his lunch.

Brendan was feeling sassy enough to ride on his rocking horse

He’s a tough guy

Don’t mess with tough Brendan

There was a time when he would not touch the horse because the mane was too fuzzy. Now, he knows how to squeeze the ear to turn it on

Brendan was pretty wired tonight, the steroid makes it hard for him to get to sleep. He was being all goofy and crazy instead of rocking and going to bed. He finally let go and went to bed by 9:30. Here’s a few shots from spy cams to finish the post.