By the numbers

Days in Disney World: 10
Pictures taken: 1987
Total hours of sleep: 54
Stuffed animals bought: 4
T-shirts bought: 9
Times Joseph rode Expedition Everest: 10
Frozen lemonades eaten: 12
Blisters: 5
Characters met: 27
Minutes Joseph screamed on the plane home: 60
Emails to go through: 115
Items in Google reader: 996
Days till we move: 2
Boxes left to pack: 8465
Free time I have to sit around and use the internet: .3 seconds
Good times had and memories made: countless
Days until I'm going to want to go back again: 4

How to have an awesome Disney vacation

1. Spend months planning your Disney vacation. Write up a detailed itinerary with all your plans and needed information on it. Type it up in spreadsheet form. Put it in a very special place so that you don't forget it. Leave it at home when you go on vacation. Feel like a dumbass.

2. The day night before your vacation starts have your children jump around on a bed. Yell at the to stop. Have their jumping get even more frantic, to the point where they resemble rabid monkeys. Go over to the bed to stop them. Have one of them kick you in the eye with their razor sharp toenail of death.

3. Read your child the same bedtime story every night for months. Get her to depend on it to help her fall asleep. Put it in a special place so that you don't forget to take it when you go. Forget it and leave it at home.

4. Decide to buy and home and sell your current one. Pack up most of what you own before you leave for vacation. Plan on closing on the house two days after you get back. 30 minutes before you leave for the airport have your realtor call you and say "Now don't let the ruin you vacation but......" Then have him explain to you how everything might fall through on the whole house buying/selling deal.

5. Make plans to attend the Halloween party at Disney Wold. Buy a costume. Put it in a special place so that you don't forget to bring it with you. Forget it at home.

We're actually having a really good time. The kids are having a blast. Elle is afraid of the characters and Joseph had a melt-down when we told him we had to leave Tom Sawyers Island but otherwise everything has been really good. Tomorrow my parents get here and I think that will be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to letting someone else watch the kids spending some quality time with my family.

Sarah on Sarah

Sarah Haskins. The rockingest Sarah ever. Why can't she be our next VP?

At last, a practical use for blogging

Said to Joseph this morning during a big dramatic tantrum over being denied usage of a video game - "If you don't knock it off I'm going to blog about this."

He was instantly quiet as a mouse.

This blogging gig has finally paid off.

Home again, home again

Joseph is home again. Thank you to everyone who sent good wishes and kind words his way. The really meant a lot to him and to me. Other than a little bit of a cough Joseph seems to be feeling great. In fact, he was even able to go to school for half a day today. He'll do another half day on Monday then two full days and then we're leaving for Disney World.

Yeah, Disney is coming up fast. I still have all the vacation packing to do PLUS all the moving packing to do. While I was staying at the hospital all I could think was that I wanted to get home and start working on all that. Now that I'm home and looking that huge pile of work in the eyes all I can think is that I want to go back to the hospital and hide out for a few days more.

How did all of this come up so fast? And why didn't I try to get more of it done sooner? Oh yeah, because I am a complete slacker.

Jiggity jig.

I feel ya kid

Now tell me that doesn't break your heart just a teeny bit.

This just in - Things suck!

This hospital stay is getting frustrating. When I asked the doctor this morning if we were looking at "a couple" more days she said "A few actually". Yippee.

To add to the mess is that there is some sort of bacteria in the blood that was drawn from Joseph in the ER. Right now it's unclear if the bacteria was on his skin and contaminated the blood or if the bacteria was in his blood to begin with. They had to draw more blood this morning and that will have to be cultured for 24 hours before we really know what's going on there.

Joseph is getting homesick and squirrely. As am I. I feel like I haven't seen Elle or Jesse in so long. My house remains largely unpacked. We're totally unready for both the vacation and the move. Everything just sucks right now and I don't feel like being cheerful about it.

Yes, I said in my mouth

Small update to the Joseph situation. I guess I was wrong about what's going on with him. He does NOT have pneumonia. He had what the doctor is referring to as "breathing incident". If something like this happens time after time it's called asthma but if it only happens once it's called a breathing incident.

The doctor I spoke to today said it was probably brought on by a combination of Joseph's seasonal allergies being bad and him having a little bit of a cold. We're chalking it up to sort of a freak thing for now.

The good news is that once he gets out of here he'll probably be able to start school right away. He's not contagious so we won't have to keep him home.

The bad news is that last night I was struggling to get a very sleep and combative Joseph to pee into the little bedside pee thingy and there was ....... a bit of an incident. During the struggle Joseph was kicking and peeing at the same time. The pee went everywhere. My shirt was all wet. Some got in mouth.

Don't every let anyone tell you that motherhood isn't glamorous.

Beat

I am exhausted and writing this on very little sleep so you'll have to excuse me if it's a lacking in my usual coherence and wit. Or whatever.

Last night Joseph was breathing kind of funny. He was just laying on the couch and panting. He told us he couldn't take a deep breath. He's had a little bit of a cold so I figured it had something to do with that but I asked Jesse to run him in to the ER just to be on the safe side. I thought maybe they would give him a nebulizer treatment and then send him home.

Yeah, not so much. Turns out the poor little guy has pneumonia and his left lung wasn't really functioning at all. My parents came over to watch Elle and I drove to the hospital while Joseph was getting admitted to the pediatric ICU.

You know, I know that he was ok and in good hands but when I walked into that room and saw him laying on that big bed looking so sick and so fragile my heart just about stopped.

The good news is that Joseph is doing a ton better right now. He's been moved to the regular pediatric unit and is feeling really good. He has spent all day saying things like "I love this place!" and "They treat me like a king here!" and "This place is like heaven to me!" and "Why don't you have a tv and x-box on a cart at home so that you can wheel into my room for me?"

The bad news is that he'll have to stay for at least one more night. He can't go home until he's been off oxygen for 24 hours and right now he's still on it. That means he'll miss the first day of school (tomorrow) and then some. And that works out perfectly! You know, what with us pulling him out of school next week anyway so that we can go on vacation.

Oh well. The important thing is that my boy is ok. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gets to come home tomorrow. For now though my mom and Jesse are each going to spend a couple of hours with Joseph so that I can get a little sleep before heading back for the night.

Last night I twittered that Joseph was going to the ER and I got so many kind and thoughtful responses. Thank you to each and everyone of you who twittered back. Your kind words meant the world to me. Twitter, healing the world in 140 characters or less.