Vacation 2009

Two days after the unfortunate finger-door thing, we left to go on our first extended family vacation in Gatlinburg. This one included Grandma and my sister's family. We rented a house (they like to call them chalets, but you know it's Tennessee and I just can't go there) from my friend Donna. Fortunately it was a big house with plenty of room and even a basement rec room, but by Tuesday I was missing my girls. They were always in the basement playing with their cousins and when we went somewhere they rode with them too (necessary car seat move that just didn't get fixed until the night before we left). I would get them dressed in the morning and read to them at night, but really missed our quality time during the day. Poor Eli was suffering from an pretty severe UTI (103 fever and sometimes severe abdominal pain) but kept giving us intermittent details of the symptoms and, just so you know, medical care is spotty at best in the Garlingurg/Pigeon Forge area. I was missing the Birmingham medical community by Sunday morning! By the time we saw the doctor the unrinalysis showed what the doctor thought was the beginning of the UTI, it was actually the end. If you know Eli, you know that he is pretty darn smart and he has a drinking problem. "Mommy, I sirsty" is the first thing I hear every morning and he'd like to have a cup in hand all day. He quite quickly put together that the more he drank, the more he needed to go and that hurt. So he carried his cup around (we really wanted him to drink now) but it was always full and he started going 12 hours between bathroom visits. We had to bribe him with "Special Special Juice" that only he got. We all survived and even had some fun. We hiked, rafted, visited the national park and Cades Cove, miniature golfed and more. I was a little nervous to have the whole family vacation experience, but I'd do it again.

Poor Baby Nam

Well, Sam has had his first trip to the ER at the ripe old age of 11 months. Poor little guy's mommy closed his left ring finger tip in the laundry room door and almost amputated it! Sam is such a trooper. After the initial shock of pain, he calmed down very quickly and just went with whatever we needed to do without much fuss. He did get tired of us holding his hand for 4 hours and he was terribly hungry after not eating for 11 hours (and he only got a few syringes of nasty blue gatorade when he did get something), but all in all he was the best patient Children's ER has seen in a long time!

I was throwing something away in the laundry room because that is where we have to keep the garbage since Sam has decided that the garbage can is his toy box (yuck!!). I heard the little thuds of his crawling toward me on the hardwood. My mind said back up and close the door quickly. I did not turn around to see that he had made it to the door and put his hand on the jamb to pull up. Critical mistake!! I felt the resistence too late for that tiny little fingertip~the edge of the door just cut right through it just below the nailbed I think (it is still swollen and stitches everywhere so can't really tell too much). I got a quick look between snatching him up and wrapping a towel around it and it looked really bad to me. I screamed for James and then Mommy adrenaline took over.

Tender mercies from above~I have my ped's cell phone number (this was about 4:40pm), and I have a great friend and neighbor. The doctor said Children's ER is the only place that could handle it. I called my friend and said "can I bring you my 3 oldest children" (panicked, shaky voice). She said "I'll come get them". That's it, she did not mention that she was childless for the evening and had commitments, she just showed up, packed them up and took them with her (then brought them home and put them to bed and hung out until 11pm). What a blessing!

After a 45 minute drive to downtown Birmingham Sam was triaged before we could even sign in and was immediately taken to a room. The doctor came in within 10 minutes. Niether the triage nurse nor the ER doc were overly concerned about the severity of the laceration. It didn't look so bad after having pressure on it for an hour. We were impressed and got a little too happy too quickly. All of a sudden everything stopped. They got a trauma and apparently the whole city came in right after us. After a while he had an x-ray to confirm that the tiny little bone in his fingertip was broken. Once the trauma was taken care of, they decided to call in a plastic surgeon so as not to tie up 3 docs in one room because Little Man had to be sedated and you have to have the surgeon, the treating doc and the attending for that. Finally at 8:30 we met the surgeon, a plastic surgeon on the hand team no less!!, and they got busy.

I held Sam as they sedated him. Only one word can describe this scene~DISTURBING! The drug they used knocks you out quickly but you don't close your eyes. So the doc pushed the drug and Sam was looking around then suddenly stopped and felt kind of stiff. As I moved him off me to the bed with his eyes open and his arms still raised (the dr was moving his fingers around in front of Sam's face and he was reaching for them) the only thing I could think was that he looked like a taxidermied Baby Sam.

After the procedure, both docs that were still in the room when we cam in admitted that the injury was much more significant than they thought once they cleaned it up. We finally left about 10:00 with a club-handed, hungry, tired but patched up baby. As hungry as he was he fell asleep about a block from the hospital and did not wake up until 3:30. He has done remarkably well with all this. He has given no indication of pain, the badages don't bother him or slow him down, and he has figured out how to eat one-handed. It's all good to Sam! I have never felt so blessed to live in one place ever. I've always thought it was a good idea to live close to a Children's Hospital if you have kids, but it is a requirement for us (Eli has had us there 4 times). If this had happened on our vacation that we left for 2 days later he would surely have lost his fingertip. I'm even glad they got busy and got behind because we got a hand surgeon. I realize he did not have to reattach nerves and all that, but you have mommy guilt, every little thing helps!!

The Age of Fear

As Emily, our oldest, is pretty fearless and always has been, childhood fear is not something that we have alot of experience with. My sister warned me a few years ago that 4 is the "age of fear". As noted, we made it through a 4-yr-old no problem.

Rachel is now 4 1/2. She has definitely entered the age of fear with at least one phobia-grade fear~toilets over-flowing. Wonder what the shrink term for that one is? Anyway, she has never witnessed an overflowing toilet. She has never experienced the aftermath of a toilet overflowing. She is just suddenly terrified (and that is an understatement) that any toilet in her vicinity is going to overflow. She will not go to the bathroom by herself anywhere but at our house, even at church or anywhere else that she has always been comfortable going by herself.

I think I have finally discovered the root of the problem. At the end of softball season both toilets in the girls restroom had issues. We were forewarned and did not enter the offending restroom, but Rachel had to potty and the men's' room was occupied and, well, she experienced the tickle of the weeds for the first time. I think she is afraid of having to have the nature experience again and she is just preoccupied with the threat of it! She stayed with a friend while I went to the dentist last week and had just started whining for me when I drove up. I talked to the mom for a few minutes and Rachel was becoming more agitated by the second and was finally crying to go home. I realized that she needed to potty so I told her to go before we left. At this point she had a complete come apart. I have never heard her cry in this manner before. The problem was, she had gone into the bathroom but another child had put alot of paper in the toilet and Rachel was afraid that it would overflow if she flushed it so she did not go. Rather than tell the adult about the problem she was suffering in silence. I felt so badly for her.

Fast forward to yesterday, when James replaced the flushy-thingy (a very technical and correct term) in the toilet upstairs because it was running. Well, the chain was too long and when you pushed the handle it didn't actually flush; it just started to flush and made a noise that if you were a 4-yr-old who is deathly afraid of toilets overflowing would scare you silly! Poor Rachel! She was up in the middle of the night to potty and we had issues. So James just fixed it and we encouraged her to watch to maybe help take some of the fear out of it. She thought it was pretty cool that daddy can fix things, but she was still a little unsure even with him in the room with her.

Wonder what the boys will be afraid of...

Yay!

Thought everyone would want to know: Eli pooped in the potty today!

Admit it, you've been waiting for this post as anxiously as I have been waiting to post it! No pictures though. It's just not done. Really I'm just happy for some progress in a fairly dismal PT week. Maybe I can get this is Celebrations newsletter at church...

"It Make Me Feel Better..."

Eli: Want dat key.
Mommy/Daddy: No Eli, that is not your key. (Like today at the library with keys just hanging in the door knob)
Eli: It make me feel better.

Eli: Want cookie.
Mommy: It's supper time.
Eli: I want it. (sad puppy face)
Mommy: I'm making your plate right now.
Eli: It make me feel better.

Eli: Want dat hose. (swimming pool cleaner hose)
Daddy: No touch.
Eli: But I want it.
Daddy: No Eli!
Eli: It make me feel better!
Daddy: You'll just have to feel bad.

I remember one day recently when Eli was feeling badly or was having a hard time waking up or something and he was curled up next to me and he looked up and said, "want you Mommy". I said something like, "does it make you feel better if mommy holds you?" Now look what we've got! Any time we say no the child he says "It make me feel better." It is cute and I can't wait 'til he uses it on the folks at MDO. Watch out Kim, you're in for it now! Well, at least he is using his words...

Welcoming a new member of the family

Freaked you out a little with the title right?!

As we were trying to appeal to something within Eli to obey us yesterday he rather clearly answered the request (whatever it was...there are so many) with "No Edward want to." No what? "No Edward want to." Emily caught it first. "Edward [is] a frightful boy" from a book that is pretty new to the Cannon Library (The Boy Who Would Not Share). You would think that with as many people as are scurrying around this house no one would need an imaginary friend. This is still in the cute stage right now (the way he says it is priceless) but I'm already trying to ignore Edward since he does not seem to want to do anything, especially the important things like potty, eat, drink milk, go to time out or nap. I'm trying to figure out if this really is an imaginary friend thing or if Eli just knows Edward is a brat and would answer that way so Eli will too. I've asked him where Edward is and he has said that I am Edward or just kind of ignored the question. When asked if he is Edward, Eli says, "No! Me Eli!" Edward has served one purpose, Eli will now say his name.

The girls threw Edward into the woods at lunch today, but he apparently found his way back because he did not want to potty after nap. It may take until Kindergarten to get Eli potty trained, I really hope Edward will get with it soon and help me out! Open to suggestions on dealing with imaginary friends, 'cuz you know I don't really need another kid to take care of....feeling blessed each day to do this well with the ones I've got!

Brothers

The best thing about having to sit backwards is always seeing the brother that loves you!