Home Sweet Home

We're home, thank goodness, and Will is MUCH better. We were released around 7:00 Monday evening. Will had had a pretty good day, and his sats were staying in the mid-high 90s even when he was sleeping. He was still feeling pretty crappy and laid around most of the day, but he didn't have any fever and wasn't requiring any oxygen. I spent the whole day praying that we would all be sleeping in our own beds that night!!!

Admittedly, it wasn't a very restful night. I was coughing my brains out, Hays was waking up over and over (the pediatrician thinks Hays and I both had walking pneumonia as well) and we had to give Will nebulizer treatments every four hours. But I'd rather have a sleepless night at home than a sleepless night in the hospital!

Both boys were pretty puny yesterday and spent most of the day lying on the couch watching tv. Will had a bad, bad coughing fit in the morning. It lasted about a half hour and had him turning purple from time to time. I was scared to death that we would be heading right back to St. Mary's, but the pediatrician reassured me that it was to be expected, and that a bigger dose of cough medicine would help. It did, and though he did a fair amount of coughing throughout the day, he stopped turning bluish-purple!

And today, they both seem just about back to their normal, rambunctious selves. They have a little less energy than they usually do, but not much less. They have more than enough to fight, play, and attempt to take the house apart, so I think they're on the mend!

The Funk

The plague has descended upon our house. Hays started getting a cold last weekend, I followed suite a couple of days later, and now Will is in its clutches. It has made for a long, miserable, snotty, whiny week.

It's been fairly impossible to make Hays happy all week. He's normally a pretty laid back, compliant little dude, but not when he's sick. If he's not feeling good, he's a grumpy little bear, and that's certainly been the case this week.
"Hays, do you want to watch a Baby Einstein movie?"
"No!"
"Do you want a snack?"
"No snack!!!"
"Do you want to play outside?"
"No play outside!!!"
It was particularly fun when I had to take them to Publix. I made the dreadful mistake of getting Hays a chocolate chip cookie, instead of the sprinkle cookie he apparently wanted, so he promptly threw it on the floor and screamed "Cooooooooookie" through the rest of the shopping trip. Lovely.

Now, when Will's sick, he doesn't get mean, he gets pitiful. He's actually ten times easier to manage when he's sick because he's too listless to get up to his usual shenanigans. The downside is that Will being sick is terrifying. From the first sniffle, we start worrying if his cold is going to settle into his lungs. The more congested he gets, the more we worry. Once the coughing starts, I'm constantly wondering if it's just a matter of time before we have to head to the emergency room. He had a rough time last night. Lots of bad coughing fits, and we had to get him up twice to give him Albuterol. For now, it's working, and hopefully a strict regimen of steroid breathing treatments twice a day and Albuterol every four hours will get us through this bout of funk without a trip to St. Mary's, but only time will tell. Who knew the common cold could be so freakin' scary?

***UPDATE***
Maybe I should be careful about what I blog, because not two hours after I posted this, we were sitting in the ER. Will woke up this morning with a near-constant cough, and having been through this before, I didn't hesitate to head over to St. Mary's once an Albuterol treatment didn't make a dent in his symptoms. We spent five hours in the ER to get 3 breathing treatments, one RSV test, two chest x-rays, a dose of steroids and an antibiotic shot. I figured they'd send us home after that, because they always have in the past, but no such luck.
He fell asleep for a little while on Matt's chest, and his oxygen sats dropped way low- like 85- and they had to put him on oxygen. Oxygen= at least one night in the hospital. So they finally admitted us after we spent five hours in a tiny curtained cubicle, listening to the woman next to us moan like she was dying.
Once we got to the room, Will was all jacked up on breathing treatments and steroids and spent the next 30 minutes trying to take the room apart. Luckily, he ran out of steam pretty quickly and was relatively content to lay around and snuggle with me. I stayed with him all afternoon and Matt's spending the night with him. Matt can sleep anywhere, so while it won't be a pleasant night, he should be able to get some rest. I, on the other hand, often can't sleep at home in my own bed, so I sure wouldn't sleep at the hospital. And God knows, we both need sleep because tomorrow will be another long day. But I'm still sitting at home dealing with my mom guilt over not staying. Even though his daddy is there and he was dead to the world when I left. Doesn't matter. If I was there, I would feel mom guilt for not being home when Mason and Hays got up. And now that I'm here I feel mom guilt that I'm not at the hospital. You can't win.
But I talked to Matt about an hour ago. Will's passed out cold. He woke up briefly, got some cough medicine and refused to sleep[ without his oxygen mask. We figured he'd fight that thing tooth and nail, but I guess he realized it's a heck of a lot easier to sleep when you can breathe easily. He's surprised me a lot today. I swore up and down to the nurses that he'd yank an IV right out, but he's been perfect with it. Every time he started messing with it, I just had to tell him, "Leave your robot arm alone or you'll hurt it," and he's quit messing with it. I guess that kid knows what he needs. He's always been quite intuitive about what he needs. Don't forget, this is the child that removed his own trach and g-tube. Guess we just have to trust him!!
So now I'm heading to bed, trying to rest up for tomorrow. I know that my future holds a toddler with 'roid rage who's feeling better but is still cooped up in a little hospital room. I've got a backpack of toys ready for him. Pray that his oxygen stats stay up and we bring him home tomorrow. This is one mama hen that does not like having a chick (and her rooster) missing from her nest.

Ouch.....

This is the result of a backyard fall today. School pictures are tomorrow. I hope the photographer is good with photoshop.....

Walking Man

During the last week or so, Mason and I have started walking together in the evenings. It has obvious benefits, such as getting me and our dog off our fat asses to get some exercise, but it's had unanticipated rewards as well. I hadn't planned to make this a mom and Mason activity. He used to start complaining thirty feet into a walk about his feet being tired, being bored etc., so the last thing I expected to hear when I told him I was taking the dog for a walk was, "I think I'll come with you." At first I was wary and gave him lots of warnings like, "we're going all around the neighborhood, even the big hills, and I don't want to hear any complaining!" I was pleasantly surprised when not only did he not complain, he wanted to walk much farther than I had planned!

And that long walk turned out to be an amazing thing. I got 30 minutes to just be with my son. We got to talk with no interruptions. He told me things about school and his friends. I got to take a break from telling him what to do and just enjoy him, and it was awesome. I had this time to appreciate how smart and funny he is, to look at him and truly see him, instead of casting a harried glance as I rush to get everything done. It was really a precious time, and I told him when we got home how much I'd enjoyed his company. I figured it would be a one, maybe two time thing before he tired of it, but so far he's asked every night if we can walk together. And every night has been just as special as the first.

I realize that I am really lucky to have these moments with him. I know that all too soon the day will come that walking with his mom will be the last thing on earth Mason wants to do. But I'm going to relish every bit of it while I can.

Mmmmm, butter......

If you ever come to my house for dinner, you might want to avoid the butter.....

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

It's sort of embarrassing to admit, but Matt and I, until yesterday, had never taken our kids to the zoo. That's such a staple of childhood, and yet, somehow, we'd just never quite made it there. Maybe it was the fear of driving an hour with three kids who potentially might scream the entire way. Maybe it was concern over becoming one of those stories you read about where a parent looks away for two seconds, and next thing you know, a toddler's in the lion cage. (That actually isn't too far-fetched- y'all know how Will is.) Most likely it was the astronomical costs of taking a family of five to the zoo that's kept us away. $65 bucks for tickets alone- keeping in mind that the twins don't even need tickets yet- is enough to make anyone think, "do they really need to see lions and panda bears?" But since my mom was kind enough to buy us tickets, and we have, after all, made it driving 5 hours to the beach every summer without killing anyone, it was time to man up and take the kids to the zoo.
Saturday was perhaps the most perfect weather on earth, and my sister and her husband kindly agreed to meet us to help wrangle the children. And I think everyone actually had a good time. Hays LOVES animals, so he was in hog heaven. He greeted all the creatures enthusiastically, "Hi, famingos! Hi, zebra! Hi, gidaff!" And he really wanted to get close to them. He told the elephant, "I hold you? High five?" Unfortunately the elephant didn't seem too interested in letting Hays hold him. Neither did the meerkats. Luckily, the goats and sheep at the petting zoo were happy enough to have Hays love on them. Good thing since he insisted on kissing each one. Will, on the other hand, was way more interested in the hand washing station. Why pet a goat when you can play in water?
I thought that they would all love the panda bears, and I was sort of right. Hays did indeed love the pandas- the stuffed pandas in the gift shop that is. We passed the store on the way to the panda exhibit and he practically had a conniption fit trying to go in. I promised we'd come back after we saw the real pandas. Well, he took one look at those adorable bears being all cute with their bamboo, and was ready to head back to the gift shop. Sigh. At least I managed to talk him out of the $75 life size panda and convince him that the $8 version was even better.
Mason liked the zoo but he told me it wasn't like he'd dreamed. When I asked what was different, he told me "Well, I thought it would be one big building with lots of animals in different cages." I explained to him how animals are much happier and healthier when they're outdoors in areas that resemble their natural habitat, but he didn't seem too impressed. I'm pretty sure he would have preferred his version. Sure the animals are miserable, but you can see them really well!
All in all, it was a great day. We were whipped by the end of it, but it was worth it. We fulfilled our parental obligations to take our kids to the zoo, and nobody screamed the hour there or back- not even me!

The dreaded meeting with the teacher....

I had a meeting with Mason's teacher yesterday. It didn't come as a big surprise. I had the same meeting in kindergarten, and preschool, and I'm sure I'll have it next year. So what was it about? The same thing it's always about: "Mason is so smart, but he's not focused/doesn't pay attention/doesn't listen/doesn't follow directions. He is so capable but he rushes through his work/makes careless mistakes/ doesn't work to his full potential. Mason is a good kid and a natural leader, but he talks too much/ wants to do things his way/ wants to call the shots."

I've heard it over and over since he was three years old (and I've known most of it since he was about three days old!) We've talked to him, lectured him, punished him, rewarded him, bribed him, begged him...... And we do see improvement, but so much of that is just who Mason is. And I get it, I so get it, because you see, Mason and I are exactly alike. My mother sat through that very same teacher meeting every year of my academic career. She talked, implored, bribed, threatened me every school year of my life, all to no avail. (So you know that while she's sympathetic to my plight, she's also laughing her ass off just a little bit!!)

And because Mason and I are basically two peas in a pod, I know that he's compelled to rush through his work and finish it as quickly as possible, attention to detail be damned! I understand that unless it's something he finds interesting, he's going to do as little as he possibly can to get by so he can move on to other things. And am very familiar with the daydreaming that leads to missed instructions and a confused, "Now, what are we supposed to do????" I've been there. For 32 years now, I've been there. And I'm still a disorganized daydreamer. I still rush headlong into something without paying attention to directions or details. It makes my life harder than it has to be, and it will likely do the same for him.

Even though I completely empathize with Mason, I'll still stay on his butt to pay attention, follow directions, do his best work, etc. That's just what moms do. And no doubt I'll punish him for getting in trouble at school, or getting grades that don't reflect his full potential. But while I'm fussing at him, the schoolgirl inside of me will be saying, "Dude, I totally understand." Hopefully, he'll have an easier time of it than I did. But until he does, I might as well go in on the first day and schedule that conference for right about the second month of school.