::cough cough::

If you've never heard me raspy and asthmatic sounding, now's your chance. :-P After a very disappointing visit to a nurse practitioner at what we believe to be a government medical facility, things are inconclusive. I don't have strep. "It's just a cold," she said. Ok, fine. Autumn, I know you'll be a much better, more personal/compassionate nurse than that. She gave me some cough syrup and new albuterol. However, I think the cough syrup trashes me a little much to be taking it during the weekdays when Matt has to go to work. I could not function this morning for one or both of two reasons: 1) Cough med hang over, 2) Bad asthma attack means less oxygen and more coughing. Both sap the body of strength and energy. So my loving hubby went into work late and acquired help in the form of Tara. She came over with Hannah from 9:30 until 1:00 to take care of the boys so I could sleep and rest. The more I am up and about, the worse my asthma gets. I'm thinking if things aren't much improved by Friday, I'll be seeing a different doctor. I can't go on with troubled breathing for too long. Not to mention, the Ladies' Retreat is this weekend.

Judah is cuh-razee! He must be feeling alot better because he is just too cute and FULL of personality these days. He is learning how to converse quite well, though it is still mostly one word questions or statements. Cute situations are starting to pop up more and more with the two boys together. Elijah LOVES to look at Judah and try to touch his head which Judah gets a kick out of. So Judah laughs which makes Lijah laugh... Too cute. Two fond memories of today: Judah spent 5 or 10 minutes sitting on his toy car blowing bubbles with his spit. He was quite proud of himself and thought it was funny when he drooled -- and even tried to drool on me! He also spent 5 minutes solid meticulously picking sock toe jam out of Elijah's toes. That boy is a clean freak when it comes to specks that don't belong. Toys are a different story.

We saw something exciting yesterday -- our very first Maryland snow! It flurried and was so beautiful. There was still a touch of snow underneat our bushes. We're expecting to get quite a bit of snow-turned-sleet tomorrow. And the high on Sunday is TWENTY-THREE. Brrr! I've been waiting for true winter to set in, so here we go!

I had coffee tonight since I'll be finished nursing in the next couple days. It's only a little bittersweet (the weaning, I mean). It took me a while to come to the final decision, but I really believe this was the right time for many reasons. I will miss the "bond," but Elijah is so crazy cute and cuddly that I get enough goodness from bottle-feeding him. AND since I will be finished nursing on my birthday (Saturday!), I get to have whatever I want for dessert. That means chocolate, of course. And I can start digging into the 4 boxes of chocolate (varying sizes, of course) on top of our pantry! Don't worry, I got weighed yesterday and I'm doing fine in that area.

Ok, I need to get to bed. Here's hoping God will continue to restore my family's health even just a little bit with each new day. His mercies are new every morning, are they not?