A Week with G&G M

This last week we have had a visit from G&G M. All of us especially the kids have enjoyed having them here to visit. We got lots of help from them this week from babysitting for when we took Josh to the neurologist to help with installing a toilet which we really appreciate! Our toilet downstairs would clog on anything and everything you ever flushed down it so we decided to change it out. Aaron and Grandpa made the initial trip to Lowes and got everything they thought they would need to switch it out. However, you know no home improvement project is complete without 5+ more trips to Lowes for more parts, etc. and unfortunately this project turned out to be the same thing. They installed the toilet and couldn't get it to stop leaking. They uninstalled it ran to Lowes for more supplies, reinstalled it to find it leaking AGAIN. They uninstalled made another trip to Lowes for more supplies and reinstalled it. This time they thought everything was ok until the next morning they found it leaking AGAIN. They finally uninstalled it and took it completely apart to find the tank had a huge crack in the tank from the factory. They had to return the whole toilet and exchanged it for a different one. Thankfully the second toilet worked perfectly and without leaks after the first installation--sigh of relief. That was a fun improvement project especially with all the extra help from the little gloved hands (Daniel and Josh). As soon as Josh and Daniel saw Grandpa and Dad don gloves they ran over to the glove box and got some to put on too just to help out. It was pretty funny. The kids made us save the huge toilet box so they could play in it. Josh and Daniel climbed inside and wanted to decorate it with markers. Sarah saw how much fun they were having and stood at the side of the box and screamed until we put her there with them. Unfortunately, she also got hold of the markers and colored as much on herself as she did on the box. I guess I will really put the washable markers to the test to see if they are washable off of clothes--grrrr.I think she had a little help from her brothers too because when I pulled her out of the box she had marker "lipstick" and marker "eyeliner" on as well as marker all over the rest of her hands and up her nose. Again the pictures don't even do the damage justice. The kids also got some treasure boxes in which they have filled them with all sorts of treasures--fun toys, rocks, money, etc. They have all found some good hiding spots for their treasures and have pulled them out to play with them again this morning. They just to make sure their treasures were still in place and they were.We also were able to check the Utah State Parks pass out from the library and spent the morning out at Antelope Island yesterday. We saw buffalo, antelope as well as walked around the Fielding Garr ranch which was interesting. We have lived here for almost 7 years and I am embarrassed to say this is the first time we have made it out to Antelope Island. It was a fun trip. We all had a good visit and were sad to see G&G M leave for home this morning.

Seizures

We had an appointment with the neurologist this morning. We were hoping to find out what was going on with Josh since he had a grand mal seizure Friday night and a partial complex seizure yesterday morning and this morning, too. I had never seen him have a partial complex seizure until yesterday and let me tell you it is pretty disturbing to see. Josh will be mid sentence or mid step and just freeze, his head will fall to one side, his hands will clench in fists and he will just stare blankly while smacking his lips for about 30 seconds. Then he snaps right out of it and not know anything had happened. That is the disturbing part--he will snap out of it and wonder why I am staring at him like that with a terrified look on my face. The worst is the postictal (post seizure) phase after a grand mal seizure--he is totally unresponsive and limp. You cannot get any kind of reaction AT ALL for almost an hour afterward--it's as if he is dead, but he is still breathing with a pulse, and that is really scary. The doctor decided to increase his medication since he had been on the same dose since he was 18 months old. We have also had a couple of other factors as well as him being sleep deprived and having a cold. The last few days all three boys have been staying in the same room together and it's not always conducive to good, restful sleep. The combination of the sleep deprivation, sickness and low dose of medication lowers your seizure threshold and makes them happen more easily. Which it looks like that is what happened. Also the only way to know he needs his medication upped is if he starts having break through seizures which is an awful way to base everything on, but the only way for now. We started the higher dosage this morning, but it will take about a week to become therapeutic. That meant I had to go and talk to his teachers and anyone else who may come in close contact with him and explain, "Oh, by the way he may have a seizure." That is always a fun conversation. The person gets the terrified look and I know how they feel because I am just as terrified. Hopefully, we can get things under control with the increase in medication strength. He has responded fantastically in the past with medication so I am hoping the same thing will happen. Keep your fingers crossed for us. In the mean time we have to take seizure precautions such as no swimming, bathing in bathtub, no heights and have non plush bedding as well as make his bed low to the ground. Oh my poor Joshy--it is hard to see him go through this.

A Weekend of Ups and Downs

This week we were visited by G&G M as well as Aunt Jill and Uncle Jeff (Aaron's sister and bro-in-law). Everyone was in town for my niece Kate's baptism down at Aunt Susan's house (Aaron's other sister) so we all migrated down to Aunt Susan's house for the weekend. We did drop Matthew off at G&G T's house for the weekend so he could thrive on some one-on-one attention rather than having to deal with a house full of people which gives him very high anxiety. Thanks G&G T! All of us had a good visit. Sarah absolutely thrived with all the attention from Susan's three older girls who loved taking care of Sarah. Sarah was in princess heaven for the weekend. She got to play dress ups with high heeled sandals and had limitless attention. She loved it. Kate was baptized Saturday morning and the kids loved being there and seeing the whole baptism and confirmation. I got to see the beginning part of the program and what I saw was nice. About half way through Sarah decided she had had enough and turned into a big stinker. I had to wander the halls with her where she has discovered the fine art of tantrum throwing. She has the throw herself to the ground while kicking and screaming part down very well, unfortunately. She is only 18 months old for crying out loud--it's the terrible teens as in eighteen months old, right?!? She finally threw so many tantrums she wore herself (and me) out and finally fell asleep on my shoulder which I was very grateful for. Anyway seeing the baptism is getting Josh really excited for his baptism next year--crazy to think he will be baptized next year!! Josh and Sarah also loved playing with their little Chihuahua dog until Josh broke out in hives all over his face. That was even after washing his hands after playing with it so I guess Josh is allergic to dogs. Good to know. Daniel never got close enough to really play with the dog because he is so afraid of them for some reason--who knows why? We had a fun weekend of visiting, watching movies and playing games when we could fit them in. We did have a scary moment about 4 am Friday night/Saturday morning. Aaron and I were woken up by Josh in the throws of a seizure. I must say even though I know he has epilepsy it never prepares you when you when you see/hear the seizure or when you see the aftermath. He finally recovered and was just fine the next day, but still I am on edge. We will be making an appointment with the neurologist to see what the problem is and hopefully we can get in soon. As for now Josh is sleeping upstairs where we will keep an ear out for anything out of the ordinary. Other than that we had a good weekend of seeing family. We appreciate the hospitality of everyone--we all had a good time.

Too Close For Comfort...

I just am realizing how close this baby is to making his entrance into this world. If he comes as early as Daniel did I only have a very short 6 weeks left.....AHHHHHHH! If he comes when scheduled I only have eight weeks left. So much for staying in denial. I need to get the boy clothes out, find the blue blankets and find the boy crib bedding. So much to do that I have put off because I still am in a little bit of denial about this next upcoming arrival. It got me thinking about how soon it really is after Grandma T made his baby quilt and got a few boy outfits. I need to get myself ready, but how do you do that--Sarah's birth is still a little too fresh in my memory for comfort...Any ideas of how to mentally prepare please share!

Eating My Words...

About a week and a half ago Daniel broke out with a fine rash all over his body. I hadn't seen anything like it so to make sure it wasn't some weird and funky disease I wanted to take him to the doctor. Only when I called for an appointment with his regular doctor they couldn't get me in for a few days. I didn't want to wait that long so I called a different office in which they could get me in that day, but only to see a nurse practitioner. Now with our kids and the various sorts of ailments they have had, my experience with physician's assistants and nurse practitioners have not been very positive. I have had a few doozy false diagnosis from them and I try to avoid them if at all possible, but in this instance I thought a rash is pretty harmless and I would take a chance. I took Daniel in to see the nurse practitioner, but with a very skeptical attitude. Looking at the rash she didn't quite know what it was until she got Daniel's allergen history then all of a sudden she just knew it was an allergic rash. I didn't quite believe it because Daniel has never reacted that way to anything ever. If he gets exposed to something he's allergic to he breaks out in hives along with an asthmatic reaction never a rash related to allergies. I had also been with him for the 3 previous days straight so I have seen everything he had eaten and come in contact with and there was nothing questionable, but you just never know. The nurse practitioner gave me a prescription for a steroid lotion to apply twice a day to help clear it up. She also told me to change all of my laundry detergent, his shampoo and his soap to the dye free scent free kind. She also wanted me to give him Clariten allergy medication in the morning and follow it up with a dose of Benadryl at night. Seeing as I was already skeptical of what the rash was (I thought it was some follow up to a virus he just got over and that it would clear up on its own within a few days) this seemed like a lot to do just to have it get better on its own within a few days. Well now I am eating my words. A few days have come and gone--I am ashamed to say it has been over a week and the rash is still persistent as ever so I am now really eating my words. I had to dig out the prescription and went to fill it a few days ago along with buying the special lotion and soap she recommended. This allergic rash HAS to clear up within a few days because Daniel has an appointment with the allergist in about 10 days to do the skin prick test for all his allergies. This allergic rash makes his skin super reactive to anything and everything so to get accurate skin prick test results the rash has to be gone. Also to get an appointment with his allergist she is booking about 6 weeks out (and that was before allergy season has started) so we have had this appointment for a while. The bad thing is with the skin prick test Daniel cannot receive any Benadryl, cold or allergy medicine (such as Zyrtec, Clariten, etc.) or steroid in any form 7 days before the test so she can get accurate results. Well I have approximately 3 more days to get this rash cleared up before the 7 days moratorium of steroids, allergy/cold medication or Benadryl starts. I don't want to cancel the appointment because if I reschedule in another 6 or more weeks I will have had a baby or will be so close to having a baby I don't want to take the chance. Oh--if I would have only followed the advice initially this would have all been better and I wouldn't have had to worry about it. Funny how hind site is always 20/20. I wish kids came with parenting manuals! In the mean time I am following the nurse practitioner's advice, but I am hoping it's not too little, too late. It's a good thing I love him!

Some Bruises, But Mostly Just Some Pride Damage

Lately Josh has been having a hard time listening AND obeying. He will hear us ask him to stop doing something, but choose to ignore what we have said until we have repeated ourselves a few times. It is getting aggravating, but what can you do? Yesterday was the same thing. Since it was such a nice day we all decided for Family Home Evening we would walk to the park. To make it funner for Josh and Matthew we let Matthew wear his Heelys (shoe with the skate in it) and Josh ride his scooter. We wanted everyone to stay together because to get to the park you have to cross a somewhat busy street and the kids don't always look. That is one big reason why we really wanted Josh to stay with us so we could all cross at the same time. Of course Josh pretended not to hear and did not stay with us at all. For a consequence we didn't let him ride his scooter back home. He was not very happy about that. I had the bright idea of instead of just carrying all the scooter home why not ride it. Yes a big fat 7 months along pregnant lady riding a scooter--it sounded like a good idea at the time. If that weren't spectacle enough I decided to race Matthew on his Heelys the rest of the way home. Let's just say Matthew can get going pretty fast between running and skating. To sum things up I lost the race by A LOT. In the middle of our race I ended up hitting a curb going pretty fast trying to keep up with Matthew. The scooter stopped immediately, but I didn't and went over the top of the scooter handle bars--yes a big fat 7 months along pregnant lady. I landed and skidded to a stop on my left side on the asphalt. OUCH!! I have some bruises and and road rash up and down my left side, but mostly it has just been some pride damage. Aaron was laughing too hard to show much sympathy and I don't blame him I am sure it was quite humorous to watch. He had warned me not to ride the scooter, but I didn't listen...hmmmmm, I wonder where Josh gets the not listening from? I guess when you turn 30 something you lose your invincibility shield. I think I will try again when I am NOT pregnant--that sounds like a better plan. As for now I will have to nurse my pride (and road rash) back to health.

Chairs Can Breath a Sigh of Relief

I finally got my dining benches last week. After Sarah has broken three of my dining chairs by climbing up and them and tipping them over breaking the spindles I wanted to save the remaining chairs so we ordered two benches. We finally got around to putting them together Saturday with lots of help from little hands. We had our first dinner on them last night and the kids seemed to love it. All three boys wanted to sit together on one side so we let them. Daniel liked being boy trapped or so he said. We thought we would try Sarah out on the other bench with me instead of the high chair and she loved it too. She stayed put during all of dinner which is amazing because we were sure with her new found freedom she would be wandering around all through dinner. Since she sat/stood next to me, she dubbed me her own personal napkin and I have the food stains on my shirt to prove it. Whenever her hands or face got dirty (which was a lot) she would just lean over and wipe herself off on my shirt before I knew what she was doing. I thought she was giving me loves, but no she was only wiping off her hands or face. The benches don't quite match my dining table, but at least my chairs will be safe from The Destroyer aka Sarah--or maybe not. I caught her climbing on the two remaining chairs this morning...I guess we will see how long those chairs will remain intact.