Why I Grow Mint

If you clicked on over here looking for an herb gardening post, I should tell you now that you are barking up the wrong tree.  This post is more along the lines of this one, from about 4 months ago. It deals with the trials and mayhem of hands on parenting, but not so much in a typical day to day way.  This is a glimpse into what it can be like when it just hits the fan, and all you can do is keep everyone's head above water until the storm blows over.  Sound a bit dramatic?  I wish it was!  The bottom line is that we had a RIDICULOUS week or two, but it seems we all survived. In fact, we pretty well made up for it with a super couple of weeks after mayhem descended upon us for what seems to have become it's routine quarterly visit.  But I'll get to that in my next post, which I'll probably start writing tomorrow afternoon while I wait for the results from Chloe's most recent set of  biopsies.

At this point, as before, I'll tell you that if you just dropped by from Pinterest or a Google search to get the drink recipes, scroll down until you come to the pictures of drinks.  If you are interested in why I'm making good use of my favorite cocktail shaker, read on!

So it all started the weekend before Memorial Day weekend.  The weather has been great so far this spring, and the garden is thriving.  The kids love to be outside, so we have been spending most of our time in the fresh air and sunshine.  You may be wondering how a post can start out "mayhem descended upon us", then move on to gardening with kids.  Seems bizarre, right?  This is where we get to the string of stuff I couldn't make up if I tried.  Let me set the stage.  It's Thursday afternoon.  Mark has been at work all day, and River, the twins and I made the most of the beautiful weather, and after school Cassidy joined us in the yard.  I was weeding the butterfly garden, and the kids were sitting around a patch of dirt, digging a garden of their own.  The dog was stretched out enjoying the shade. Birds were singing, the breeze was gentle.  Ah, zen.  Suddenly the peaceful atmosphere was pierced by crying.  Frankly, with 4 kids, ages of 3, 5, 5 and 7, that's not unusual, but you still have to investigate.  Quinn's shovel got caught on a tree root, and accidentally flipped some dirt up and out when it popped free.  That would normally be no biggie, except that the dirt flew up into Chloe's face, and her eyes.  Also not really unusual, her eyes were watering and she wasn't especially happy, but she really just seemed to want a popsicle and a hug, so we moved on with the day.

 An hour later, here left eye was still watering and she complained of blurred vision. Yikes!  In the tub, I rinsed it well with water, but it didn't help.  I'll skip ahead a bit.
The point is that this particular dirt-in-the-face incident resulted in this ------------>

That's what your kid looks like at the emergency room with a corneal abrasion.  Usually a little dirt in the eye just gets washed out by the eye watering or a clear water eye wash.  But sometimes that dirt actually scratches the cornea.  In Chloe's case, she also had a tiny piece of dirt stuck to her eye, which had to be swabbed out (very fast, but still a cotton swab across the eyeball.  Not fun!) The debris was causing the blurred vision, so she came home seeing clearly and is fine now.  Late night, but what can you do other than shrug it off and offer the kid a nap the next day.




Friday, Cassidy went to school and the twins headed off to preschool happily,  Chloe's eyes was still feeling irritated, but she begged to go and it's only a couple of hours.  Smooth sailing. River and I picked up some ferns for the fairy garden we created for the munchkins while the twins were at preschool, then we all had lunch and eventually picked Cassidy up after school.  Chloe fell asleep in the car on the way home from getting Cassidy, no big surprise since we were at the E.R. until 11:30 the night before.  While she slept on the couch, the rest of the kids (and the dog) joined me out back to finish gardening.  Seems we would have learned our lesson the day before, but apparently not.  I was getting the new fern planted, easy peasy.  3 or 4 yards away, Cassidy, Quinn and River grabbed shovels and headed back to their own little garden patch that they had started digging in the day before. River and Quinn sat on the ground with trowels, and Cassidy grabbed her kid sized metal ditch digging shovel from the shed.  River and Quinn were discussing what seeds they needed, and Cassidy alternated between digging a hole and tossing a ball for the dog.  Again with the birds and the breeze.  I should have known from the peaceful feeling that trouble was looming.  With Cassidy and Quinn sitting on either side of her, Cassidy turned and threw the ball for Billie Dog.  Shovel still in hand, she spun back around to rejoin the conversation and smacked Quinn, hard, in the head with the metal shovel.


It was completely an accident, but it knocked him back none the less, and after a stunned pause, he cried with a specific pitch that I haven't heard since he broke his arm when he was 3.  Cassidy was horrified, but she called me over (I was already on the way) and ran inside to grab an ice pack and a towel.  Despite the accident, I have to say I was proud of her 7 year old crisis management skills.

After 10-15 minutes, Quinn was wobbly on his feet, nauseous, and his head looked like this
<---------

Nasty, huh?

A big ol' goose egg doesn't ruffle my feathers, but nausea and dizziness do, so we went to the ER.  Again.  Little Hippie had a concussion, but after 4 hours of being observed by the doctors and nurses, he was finally able to keep graham crackers down so we got to come home.



Fast forward to the next morning.  Cassidy was sort of moping around, I thought she felt guilty about the shovel incident.  Quinn woke up a little later than usual, no big surprise.  He headed into the kitchen for his milk cup (in the fridge), and (yikes!) couldn't open the refrigerator door because it hurt his little neck too much! Crap. The discharge papers from the night before specifically listed, among the list of symptoms that should send you back to the E.R., pronounced neck pain or stiffness.  Upon further inspection, Quinn has limited range of motion and can't turn his head certain ways.  I call, and the triage nurse told me to bring him back in (it's Saturday, so the doctor's office was closed).  That's when this  --------->
picture was taken. Major suckage.  The neck brace was on for a few hours while xrays were taken and read to confirm no fracture or anything serious.  Bottom line at the end of the day was that he also had a sprained neck from the shovel incident.  He was stiff and sore for several days, but is fine now.


By the time we got home from the Emergency Room Saturday afternoon, Cassidy was running a 102 degree fever, and complaining of a very sore throat. Deep breath, continue through the day.  3 Emergency Room visits in 3 days plus a kid with a high fever, Mommy is tired.  Motrin for Cassidy's fever, Quinn's neck/headache and Mommy's headache.  Popsicles for everyone. No more gardening this weekend, that's for sure!  Everyone, including me, went to bed early Saturday night.  Which was good since, as many parents know, fevers seem to go up at night.  2am brought Cassidy 104 degrees, Motrin brought her down to about 101.  For her, this went on through the day Sunday, and her sore throat worsened.  Sometimes it can be tricky to consider that as a symptom for her given the disease process in her esophagus, but with the high fever, I kept her on the motrin and on Monday took her to the doctor.  She had a raging case of strep throat, so after an xray to rule out pneumonia (she had decreased air flow in one lung, but the xrays were clear and by the next day it was fine), we went home with 10 days worth of amoxacillin.

By Wednesday she was starting to feel better, so I thought I'd give her one more day so we were a full 24 hours fever free, and then let her go back to school on Friday.  I mean, at this point, things actually seemed to be on the verge of slowing down.  Chloe's eye felt much better and Quinn could turn his head.  The bruise on his forehead was by now a greenish blue, ghoulish, but healing nicely. Thursday, Cassidy started to complain that her mouth felt itchy, but between the EoE and strep, i just made a casual mental note of it and moved on.  With her evening dose of amoxacillin, the itching got worse.  In fact, within 30 minutes of taking the medication, her mouth and tongue were not the only itchy spots, her feet started to itch next, and then she was scratching all over.  She also complained that she felt like she had been holding her breath.  Thankfully she did not have visible trouble breathing, but she had tightness in her chest and was clammy and dizzy.  It's not uncommon to have an amoxacillin or penicillin allergy pop up a few days into the treatment, which was exactly what had happened to Cassidy.  Quinn is also allergic to amoxacillin and penicillin, and it popped up on day 4 with him the 2nd time he had it for an ear infection.  He had head to toe hives as well.  So Cassidy can now add this to her list of allergies.  Fortunately there are plenty of other antibiotics available, so she was switched to a different one and headed back to school the following Tuesday (Monday school was closed for Memorial Day.

During the holiday weekend, Billie Dog started limping slightly, especially after resting, but it was mild enough that at first we couldn't even figure out which leg she was favoring.  She seemed to walk it off pretty fast once she was up and moving around for a few minutes and still ran in the yard easily, so we just kept and eye on it.  Then a lump developed on the top of one of her front paws.  As the week prgressed, it got worse, not better.  After a good romp in the yard on Thursday, she napped and then got up and hobbled around on 3 legs, and the lump on her paw was bigger.




Friday at the vet ended like this
<-----------------------

Xrays showed some old, fractures, in various states of healing, to her seisamoid bones that we never even knew about, but  according to the radiology reports that followed the swelling had to be a soft tissue injury, such as a sprain, because it was not at the same location as the old fractures.  Maybe because she has some rottweiler in her, but we don't really know why for sure, the sweet girl just doesn't react much to pain. She tends to just keep going.  Which on one hand I suppose is good if it means it doesn't bother her too much.  On the other hand, she must have something pretty nasty going on in there to leave her limping like that.







What does all of this have to do with growing mint?  Oh, that's easy!  You can't make a mojito without it.  And in the sunny weather, few things float my boat at the end of the day (or at the end of a few weeks like these) like the combination of mint, lime and rum.  I prefer mine without the pesky addition of lemon lime soda or sparkling water.  Here is my recipe for a Mojito Martini, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!  Please try to do so in moderation, these suckers can really sneak up on you!


Mojito Martini

In a cocktail shaker half full of ice, combine the following:

2 ounces lime rum (I use Parrot Bay key lime rum)
2 ounces fresh lime juice (don't bother with bottled, trust me on this)
a slight dash of dry vermouth
a half dozen or so fresh mint leaves
1 tsp. sugar (super fine if you have it)

Shake hard, to make sure you dissolve the sugar and bruise those mint leaves.  Strain into a glass, over ice if desired.



Mmmmm...delicious.  Now isn't that a great reason to grow mint?  Too bad I don't have my own lime tree!  As always, I'd love to hear your comments if you try this one out!

Enjoy!

I Need a Drink...Seriously...

Where to begin.  The end of last week Cassidy missed 2 days of school to have some testing done, which was quite a process.  We ended the weekend a bit drained, but this week started well enough.  As you may know from my Valentine's Day post, last year's "V-Day is as much fun as VD" nightmare, which you can read about here, did not repeat itself, plus I got to make some cute clothes for the kids.  On Monday, the 3 younger kids delivered their valentines to preschool, and I didn't even forget the cupcakes I signed up to bring for River's class.  The afternoon went well despite Mark and I having stomach aches, I got my V-Day blog posted and when I took Cassidy and Chloe to ballet I got to chat with my friends at the dance studio. Their daughter is in Chloe's ballet class, and they share my sarcasm and lack of subtlety, so that is always a treat. Probably more so for us than for those sitting around us, but whatever. Chloe is having some significant health issues and has some appointments coming up, so it was nice to unload some of that stress on someone as well...thanks, Tricia!

At this point, I should add that if you are really only here for the martini recipe ,more power to you, just scroll down to the bottom of this post.  If you want to know why I needed it in particular this evening, read on.

Then it started.  Exactly 30 minutes after I packed up the girls and left the dance studio, River and Chloe stood on opposite corners of the living room rug (the only area rug in our hardwood floored house with the exception of a little heart shaped throw rug in the girls' room) and literally took turns puking towards each other for a full minute.  That might not sound like long, but for 2 vomiting kids, it's plenty long enough.  They were like a matched pair of fountains. Fountains of nastiness. So we dealt with that and got their hair washed and everyone into pajamas.  Both of them wanted something to drink, so we filled up their cups and put all 4 kids to bed.  Chloe was in our bed, and Quinn was snuggled up in there with her.  River and Cassidy were in their room, and since River wasn't feeling well, Cassidy offered to stay down (she sleeps in the top bunk of the bunk bed, Chloe is usually in the bottom, River has the trundle bed) and read to her.  As soon as Mark and I finished steam cleaning the rug, putting the nastiness from the clean-up effort in the washing machine and sat down on the couch, River threw up again.  This time all over the only other (tiny) rug in the house and all over Cassidy, poor kid.  I helped Cass get cleaned up, Mark put River in the tub (again) and as he was dressing her in clean pjs and I was cleaning up the rest of the mess and getting ready to set up the Stomach Virus System (seriously, we have it down to a science.  It's a post in and of itself, but one for another day..."How to Survive a Stomach Bug with Small Children"...), Chloe hurls all over our bed.  Luckily, Quinn dashed out of the way in time and into the dry safety of his own room.  This time, Mark cleaned the room while I bathed the kid.  Then he dressed her and cuddled with her while I tucked River back in and set up our room to survive the night.  None of the 4 of us got much sleep, as it continued through the night, but at least Cass and Quinn did, and they never got sick.

The next day, Tuesday, Cass went to school and by 10am, the sick girls were perking up some.  Then Quinn was standing on River's bed (which is not allowed) and he fell, landing with his chest right on the corner of the trundle drawer.  We seriously thought he may have cracked a rib, but after examining him and keeping an eye on him for a couple of hours decided it was just badly bruised. An hour later, when he finally started moving around again and came running down the hall, he slammed into the corner of a table with his hip, laying himself out flat on the floor.  Another ice pack and rest, and we moved on. Before Cassidy even got home from school, he had tripped in the living room and busted the whole side of his lip open.  More blood, note to self-get RED washcloths for these accidents, like my mom always told me to, so he doesn't see the blood on it, more ice in the form of a popsicle, then Cassidy got home. Mark had to work late, so I was solo for dinner and bedtime again.  Chloe fell asleep on the couch, so I just moved her into bed.   By the time I was getting the other kids' teeth brushed, she had woken up with a nightmare about medical testing that she will be having in the next month or so.  She ended up waiting for Daddy to come home from a late job before she could sleep again, and even then it had to be in our room with me.  At least this time there was no vomit involved.

She woke up 4 more times that night crying and shaking. It sucked for her the most, and both of us started Wednesday off with very little sleep.  Despite this, all 4 kids went to school/preschool, and I managed to get my oil changed, ship out some packages to customers of mine from my Etsy shop, stop at the grocery store and finalize the details of the donations that I have planned for the preschool fundraiser next month, all in the 2 hours that the little ones are at preschool.  Things seemed to be looking up. When I picked the kids up from preschool, the twins' teacher noted that they had a special treat, cupcakes, at snack time, and Chloe had refused to eat.  She was withdrawn all the way home, and didn't start to come around until she got to snuggle in her Daddy's lap for almost an hour. What it boiled down to was that the pain in her throat, chest and stomach (part of the reason for the doctor's appointments coming up) is now so bad that she didn't want to swallow.  I coaxed her into a snack, and Mark dropped Cassidy off from school then went to work for the night.

In the 4 hours between Mark leaving and bedtime, Quinn took a header off the couch while playing tug of war with the dog and landed squarely on the back of his head on the hardwood floor, Cassidy threw an uncharacteristic and huge tantrum which included screaming at her currently emotionally fragile sister for trying to comfort her (seriously, what the hell?) River fell off the kitchen stool and limped for almost an hour, Quinn stood on one of River's new birthday gifts, breaking it and hurting his leg (not the one he slammed into the table on Tuesday, the other leg), I tripped and fell on the basement stairs (I freaking HATE those stairs), and Chloe, poor, sweet Chloe, calmly and sadly explained to me that until her nightmares stop, she just isn't going to sleep anymore.  I swear, I couldn't make this stuff up. It was like a parody of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. But when you have kids, shit happens and you have days like this, hopefully not often, and sometimes you just have to suck it up.  Everyone goes to bed.  Tomorrow is another day, plus I'm working, so Grammie (that's my mom) is taking the 3 little minions while Cassidy is at school.  Thanks, Mom! Again with Chloe's nightmares all night, but the world doesn't stop for this stuff. On to Thursday.

The day starts with another freak out from Cassidy.  It turns out a kid at school is giving her a hard time. We offer coping strategies, but she still has to go to school.  She has already missed so much this year, including last week, with her own health issues, procedures and trips to the O.R. for scopes. Mark manages to have her laughing by the time he drops her off, scoring major daddy (and husband) points. Mom picks up the other kids, early even, and the rest of the day starts. It goes pretty well, I got some work done despite a migraine creeping in (is it any wonder at this point in the week?), and Cassidy had a great day after all.  Then I talk to my mom when I pick the kids up.  She is aware of Chloe's physical concerns, which include pain, fatigue and not having gained any weight for 17 months (she's 4 1/2, so that is a major concern.  It even won us an expedited appointment with the gastroenterology specialist at AI DuPont).  Mom was ready today with some of Chloe's favorite foods.  The problem, however, is that Chloe is now experiencing distinct episodes of dysphagia, or food getting stuck in her esophagus.  She had complained of the sensation recently, but now it is happening to the point that she is gagging and coughing and the food isn't moving. It hasn't blocked her airway yet, and it has eventually moved down on it's own, but it still isn't good. My mom is a nurse practitioner and has worked in women's health as well as pediatrics (the 2 sort of go together), and she is alarmed and concerned by this development, as am I.  The 3rd time it happened with bacon, she took it away and gave Chloe macaroni and cheese.  That got stuck for a while, too,  the only thing that Chloe swallowed easily all day was applesauce. The experience was understandably frightening to Chloe.  Remember that she is afraid to sleep right now because of nightmares about testing procedures that are related to her pain and physical issues.  Now, she is also afraid to eat.  She refused all food until 9pm, at which point she ate a little applesauce.  I made some chocolate pudding, but after a few bites she was afraid that it was too thick, and she said that she was too tired anyway and went to bed.  But since she was afraid to sleep, she just laid there, exhausted and hungry, until Mark came home at 10:30.  He brought more applesauce, yogurt and pudding for the next few days, and she finally felt secure enough to fall asleep in my arms.  A few nightmares later, and it was morning again.

I woke up to the Billie Dog limping badly on one hind leg, but it seemed to get better as she moved around and has resolved now, thank goodness. Mark worked all day again, from 9am-10:30pm, only coming home for lunch.  Chloe ate no solid food all day, only yogurt and applesauce in small amounts.  Quinn managed to avoid hurting himself, but River somehow slid face first off the couch and had a whopping bloody nose.  Cassidy didn't have much appetite and by bedtime needed her medication to control the muscle spams in her lower abdomen.  Now everyone, including the dog, is asleep, and Mama needs a drink in a serious way.  I've earned it today, and the whole week.  I'm not sure when we will have some concrete answers for Chloe, or when Cassidy's pain will be better controlled, or when Quinn and River will learn a little more caution.  But I am sure that I will enjoy a couple of my delicious Blueberry-Pomegranate Martinis.  I also feel better having dumped all of that out in the open, so if you read through all of it, you deserve a martini, too!  Even if you just scrolled down, I hope you enjoy the drink :)

Blueberry-Pomegranate Martini

In a cocktail shaker with ice, combine:

1/2 cup vodka
1/2 cup blueberry-pom juice (I use Pom brand, usually in the produce section)
the juice of 1 lime
a splash of vermouth

Shake it up and pour into a chilled glass.  Feeling fancy?  Rim the glass with pomegranate sugar and add some fresh blueberries for garnish.  You deserve it.  As for me, tonight, I'm considering drinking it straight out of the shaker...