ok, ok!!

The commenting natives are getting restless! :) (see the last 2 comments on my previous entry by clicking here)

Not much news lately. Kai was puking all morning, every half hour. He was finally able to keep a little juice down and then a cracker and then toast, etc. I asked him this evening if his belly still hurt and he told me that his hurt belly went down through his body, out through his leg and down the drain. I guess that means he's feeling better!

Fever

Dance Fever, that is!

Labor Day Weekend At Nan & Grandpa Chet's

This is a montage of the kids riding on a train for the first time. We go by this little train every time we go up to see Nan and Grandpa, but this was the first time that Kai was willing and able to ride it. Zeze and Kai were SO excited to ride this train! The rest of us were kind of along for the ride. :)

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

This is Kai and Chet walking down to see the green tractor. Big excitement as Kai was willing to first sit on the tractor by himself and then take a ride with Grandpa. In May (not gluten/dairy free) he wouldn't even go near it b/c it was too scary. This time he rode around for about 20 mins!!!! Yay, Kai!!!!

Look at the smile on his face! I'm so proud of him!

CatFishing

Potty Talk

More Catch-Up Pictures

Kai's first day of Pre-School 2009! It was a much easier transition for everyone this year. Click HERE to see last year's experience!

Wolves around the kill (ie bowl of blueberries). They were shoving fistfulls of blueberries into their mouths. At the end they all had blueberry juice and seeds running down their chins and bellies. It was a feeding frenzy! :)

Zeze will climb on almost anything. He's got great balance and can stand straight up on this toy!

My silly little Zeez. He is totally into this orange hat or any hat for that matter. He wants to wear hats all the time! He is also extremely happy here b/c he has scored 3 off-limits items: Kai's toothbrush, baby Tylenol and Kai's Nuk. Zeze is in heaven!

Kai and Zeze being monkeys.

Noah doing his Peek-a-boo routine...he's such a funny little kid! Oh, he also signed "music", "water", "Stop", "No" (along with the head shake) and "yes" all for the first time this weekend! Such a smart boy, too! Even pneumonia can't slow this kid down!

pNOAHmonia

Case Study:

20 month old male presents

Father pushed to have son seen today. Parents say that the only thing identifiably wrong with him is that he slept until 10am this morning and went back to sleep right after eating breakfast. Mother said, "He seemed fine yesterday, but seems "off" today."

Parents report No fever

No vomiting/diarrhea

Eating/drinking well

Bright Alert Responsive

Coughed 2 or 3 times last week.

Sounds a little bit stuffy, but no nasal discharge and no cough presently.

Child has Trisomy 21 and a repaired AV Canal.

Physical Exam:

Axillary Temp=97.9

ENT all look normal.

Lungs sound clear.

Heart sounds normal

Slight petechia (red spots) on abdomen.

Pulse/O2 Sat = 148bpm and 99% (normal)

Doctor says child could just have a bug which would cause the discomfort and upper respiratory noise and the rash. Parents seem very concerned and anxious though nothing significant is presenting except that child seems "off" to them. Doctor suggests bloodwork and if that looks abnormal to proceed to an xray. Parents agree to bloodwork and mother requests an immediate xray. Doctor asks mother what she hopes to see/find with an xray. She doesn't know as it doesn't appear to be pneumonia, but she still requests an immediate xray.

Bloodwork: Normal

Platelets normal (Petechia can be caused by low platelets and other scary things).

WBC normal indicating no infection.

Radiographs/Xray:

Right sided Perihilar Infiltration (ie crappy fluffy looking lungs on xray...ie pneumonia).

Results:

Doctor says it's possibly viral pneumonia (as opposed to bacterial) but will start on antibiotics regardless. He says that a mother's instincts really do count for something and looks amazed that we caught pneumonia before any concrete signs presented (cough, fever, crackly lungs, etc.)

All I have to say is, "Thank you, God!!" We had NOTHING to go by except a feeling that Noah wasn't doing well and that he slept late. Kind of hard to go to the doctors with nothing to show and to basically ask for bloodwork and radiographs. When we got in the car Chad and I got the breathless shaky feeling when you realize you almost got hit by a car, but didn't. Then you get that nervous hysterical kind of laughter when there is really nothing funny going on. As some of you know, we were in the hospital 2x this past winter for pretty bad pneumonia that cropped up after merely 1 or 2 days of Noah having a simple cold or slight fever. We are so thankful to God for making Chad so in tune to Noah's behavior this morning and that he didn't pass it off as Noah just being overly tired or just coming down with something (which is what I was thinking). Chad urged me to get a doctor's appointment. Also, once I was on board I insisted on a radiograph when all my medical training, Chad and the doctor all said this was an unnecessary diagnostic due to lack of signs. If we hadn't gotten the chest radiograph we wouldn't have found the pneumonia for a couple more days. God let Chad and I be aware that something was wrong when, in any other child, nothing appeared to be wrong. If we had waited 2 days for the fever and bad cough to crop up, I am convinced that we would be facing a week-long hospital stay for pnuemonia....during a week when Chad will be starting work for 12+hrs a day. God also gave us a doctor that was sensitive and responsive to our intuitions and didn't berate us for being hypochondriachs or whatever, and God gave us an actual Radiologist to read the films a few minutes after they were developed...that has never happened for us. We always have to wait days to hear the official report while the Pede waffles with uncertainty.

So, again, we say, "Thank you, God!" instead of "God, why does Noah get so sick? Why do our lives suck so much?" That's a big change for us!

As I've said before, I've been realizing that our lives are probably not going to get easier as far as the health of our children and the ease of raising them. However, Chad and I are learning to see and understand that, instead of removing troubles from our path, God might choose to help us through them. I used to be pretty pissed at this concept, but now I am starting to take comfort in it. I'm not fully sure yet why that comforts me, b/c I still think that if God would remove our struggles things would be so much better. But I have an inkling that He's doing His crazy 'God thing' and trying to draw us closer to Him. Even that opens a whole new can of worms about suffering and God's plan, but I won't let myself go there. Right now, I am comforted and it's been a long time since I've felt that way.

Noah has pneumonia.

We caught it before anyone would ever detect it as pneumonia.

We are not (and hopefully won't be) in the hospital.

We have affected the things we could change and are not mourning the loss of the thing (pneumonia) we can't change.

That's huge for us! We are very thankful!!

First Fish

Kai and I went fishing with our neighbors 2 weeks ago at the little river behind our houses. It's a perfect spot for little kids to learn to fish b/c there are tons of small very eager fish that bite at the worms as soon as they hit the water. Kai caught 2 fish!!!! It was very rewarding fishing for the 5 little boys that were there. Kai was so excited and really loved fishing. He was so cute too; If he reeled in his line and there was still the worm on the hook, he'd shout, "Look! I caught a worm!!" Never a sad moment with that outlook, unless the fish eat the worm off the hook and there's only a hook left! It was really fun and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Here is a cell phone picture of Kai's first fish. I tried to circle it since it's pretty small and hard to pick out from the background.

Catch Up!

Early August: Zeze and I went blueberry picking. That 22lb boy probably ate 10lbs of blueberries!


Our first trip to the amusement park! It went great! The kids loved the rides and had a great time. I am sure it would have been a disaster if Kai were still on gluten/dairy. Kai wouldn't go on the rides until he saw Noah and Zeze go on one first. Then he did it and was hooked!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Kai's first time ever on any sort of amusement ride!!! This is the twins' second ride!!

Hit play to watch the video.