Noah wins again!

Back to the pediatricians. Zeze's fever of 103 wasn't gone after 3 full days. Turns out he also has an ear infection! Now he get's antibiotics too! Kai is passing the Zithromax torch onto Zeze as it's Kai's last day on it and Zeze's first day. However, just when Zeze thinks he can top Noah with illnesses and number of medications, Noah pulls ahead and wins the race! Not only does he win his Omnicef antibiotic, but also steroids AND albuterol from a nebulizer. Guess he had pnumonia after all and the added steroids and albuterol will help open up his lungs and clean out all the junk. PLUS Noah get to start on a GI drug to help with his reflux! Congrats, Noah! It was a close race and we thought you might actually be the healthiest kid here!!

Actually, everyone is starting to feel better (except me, I caught the cold) and Noah is full of vim and vigor. Zeze is feeling better now that he's on ab's and Kai is back to normalish now that he's off the abs.

I pulled out Noah's nebulizer from last year and found his old Albuterol. It was filled last year during this same week in March! It's when we were leaving the hospital for his 2nd round of pneumonia and got the script for the Albuterol (it's good for a year). Ah, memory lane via medical records! I'm so glad this winter hasn't been filled with hospital stays! I'm so glad it's almost Spring! yay!

Not To Be Outdone

Well, Zeze got to join in the sick parade! He was up puking all last night. I finally got him to where he could keep down 3ml of water...that took a few tries with subsequent puking. I'd give a little squirt of water and then wait 1/2 hour while watching Curious George (at 1am), meanwhile he's begging for all the drinks he's ever had. 1/2 hour later another 3ml of water...repeat. After 1.5 hrs of not vomiting the little bits of water, then I increased him up to 3mls every 10 minutes. He tolerated that and I finally got his 5ml (1tsp) of Tylenol into him (oh yeah, he was burning up this whole time). After 1/2 hour when that kicked in he finally fell asleep for 4 hours, and no vomiting. We've slowly progressed this morning with an ounce or two of dilute juice every 1/h hour, another dose of tylenol and finally he kept down some jello. It's a long arduous process, but I learned it as a vet and it's the most successful way to calm their pukey stomaches down enough to keep a few drops of water in it.

Anyway, he is now the sickest one here and if the other boys are 'lucky' they'll have fevers and vomiting tomorrow too...then more medicine for everyone! Woo Hoo!! (note the sarcasm) :)

Medicine

Zeze and Kai love to get Tylenol and Motrin. They've both had a good share of fevers and sore throats the past few months so they've gotten plenty. However, now they are asking for medicine all the time. First I'd say, "You only get medicine when you're sick." So now they wake up and say they feel sick and need medicine. I started asking them what felt sick or what hurt that would make them need medicine....Kai will say, "My belly hurts." and I tell him you don't get medicine for a belly ache. Zeze will try, "My cough hurts" and I tell him you don't get medicine for coughs. He'll counter with asking for 'honey medicine' because when they have the dry painful coughs we give them honey to soothe their throats.

Today, Kai woke up from his nap (he never naps anymore, so that's the first mommy clue that something is up) crying and saying his ear hurt. This sounded legit, so I gave him some Motrin and made an appt for him to see the pediatrician tonight. Zeze woke up from his nap and was happy as can be and dancing and running around. When he heard that Kai was getting medicine he stared up with the "I feel sick, too" barrage, complete with his cough and belly hurting (meanwhile laughing and still running around). However, he came up with a new one that made me laugh. He got serious and said, "Momma, my mouth hurts. I need medicine in it." I like his creativity, but as this progresses I think I will really have to put my doctor skills to good use to determine the real illnesses! :)

P.S. Kai does have an ear infection and is on antibiotics. We brought Noah along for a visit of his own since he's had green boogers for 2 weeks along with a cough and is now as crabby as can be. The doctor gave him antibiotics too, either for a sinus infection, the start of pneumonia (his O2 sat was 93%- which isn't horrible, but not the 99-100% he usually is) or both sinus infection and pneumonia together. Poor Zeze will be very sad for the next 2 weeks as his brothers get medicine every day and he doesn't. He also felt very left out at the doctor's tonight b/c the doctor didn't examine him too. Zeze got a complimentary ear check so he wouldn't be completely left out. It's hard to be the healthy kid sometimes. :)

Dennis found a family!

Here is the blog of the family that intends to adopt him!

http://r7thheaven.blogspot.com/2010/02/dennis-has-family.html

Dennis needs a home! Click the link below to see this cutie! http://reecesrainbow.blogspot.com/2010/01/11th-hour-crisis.html

Kid updates

Noah is pretty much walking!!! He's taken 7 steps together once and often does 3 or 4 to get somewhere before plopping down. It's so cute to see him upright like a big boy!

Zeze is speaking in full sentences and takes it upon himself to correct Noah. Yesterday he said, "Noah, don't throw your food! Time out! Good boy!" He amazes us with he dexterity and cleverness and has such a great sense of humor. He is almost able to put his pants on all by himself and easily puts on his own hat, mittens and boots each day. This is something I was working on with Kai at the beginning of the winter.

As for Kai........

***The following has an extreme amount of potty talk, so skip it if you don't like to hear about poop. :) :)*****

Kai is officially potty-trained!!! Woo Hoo!!! We started the week between Christmas and New Years. He got the pee under control at the end of the first week. It took another greuling week for the poop. He refused to even try to go in the potty and would purposefully poop in his underwear every day. I finally started making him do the messy clean up including floor, undies, tub and himself. He would cry, "This is gross! My hands are going to get dirty!" and I'd say, "You're right. It is gross and I'm not doing it any more. I don't want that on my hands either." (Thanks, Heather, for the advice!) The first time it took 45 minutes of crying hysteria before he took his messy underwear off. After 3 times of self-maintenance he stopped going in his underwear! Today he jumped up from playing and said, "I have to poop!" and ran and did it in the potty like a pro! Phew! Thank you, God! I haven't prayed about poop this much since this summer when we were having the Noah Poop Wars! I guess I pray about poop a lot, but come on, when you have 3 in diapers, poop is a big and stressful part of the day! :)

That's it for kid updates!

You and I can (and did) make a difference!!!

Reece's Rainbow is an organization that specializes in the international adoption of children with Down Syndrome and other developmental disabilities. They have it set up where you can donate money to a child's fund. If someone chooses to adopt the child, then some of the adoption costs can be payed for by the donated money in that child's fund. To me, that seems like a great way to help these kiddos! In other countries, when children with Down Syndrome turn 4 years old (Noah is 2 right now and perfectly aware of mom and dad) they are sent to an institution where they are tied to their cribs and scantily fed until they die. No speech therapy, no pre-school, no hugs or bedtime stories just because they have 1 extra chromosome. It breaks my heart!!! As I've said before, we are not able to adopt right now, but we can surely put money into some of these kids funds so that when God moves the hearts of another couple to adopt, they will have some money to start with to waylay the $20,000 needed.
Here is some evidence that my money (and yours) does make a difference! Thank you to those who donated money to help these wonderful kids with their adoptions funds!


Grab This Button

A Ministry that has touched our hearts

Don't worry, we aren't planning to adopt any time soon. We aren't even 'allowed' (per an agreement between Chad and I) to talk about more kids until the twins are 2 and even then it'll have to wait b/c Chad will still be working nights! Ha! I love this ministry, though, and while we can't handle another kid right now we can help families that can! Thanks for watching this video and feel free to pass it on!

UPDATE: I can't figure out how to shrink this embedded video so you can see the whole frame. Sorry, Click this link instead if you want. http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=9b08ab7214bb71b4b33e33&skin_id=1602

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Noah took his first step tonight!!!! He did it 3 seperate times, just moving one foot forward while he stood all by himself!!!!!

Not The Same

Word to the wise (or to the exhausted parents just trying to get the dishes done and go to bed)...If you run out of Dishwasher soap, DO NOT use dish soap instead. They are not the same. Even if you think, "I'll just use a tiny amount b/c it'll probably get sudsy", DON'T DO IT! Not only will sudsy water be covering your floor in the morning, but your dishes still won't be clean! *Sigh*

Heaven or Hell?

(This is Zeze looking out our front window at all the action. He's brought his drink, his snack and a toy and put them on the window sill so that he doesn't have to miss a thing!)

They have been digging up my front yard/parking lot for the past two weeks in order to install a new septic system and leach field (or whatever it's called). There is an enormous excavator and dump truck, a medium-sized excavator, a mini excavator, sometimes a crane, a jack hammer, a couple of skid-steers, the poop truck (this is what Kai calls the septic truck) and a very large DEEP hole 20 feet from our front door. Every day I have to usher all 3 boys past all these "BIG TRACTOR, MAMA!!!" (Zeze exclaims this at least 10 times every waking minute of the day...it's like having 100 boys screaming, "BIG TRACTOR, MAMA", at me all day every day, but it's really just Zeze and Kai....I hate these big tractors!)...anyway, I have to usher the boys past all this to get Kai to school and then walk back again with the twins, then load the twins up, yet again, 2 hrs later, to go get Kai from school, only to walk past these "BIG TRACTOR, MAMA!!!" for the 4th time in three hours with 3/4ths of us still in our pajamas. While this is a huge pain in the, ah...bum, for me, these are heavenly things for boys to see ALL THE @#%@##& LIVE LONG DAY!!

It is driving me, and my mommy neighbors, CRAZY trying to get to our cars with all of our boys in tow. You can hear, "Don't go near the edge. Get off the rock pile. No, you can't take rocks with us in the car. Fine! one rock. No, that's not poop it's a tree root. Yes, you can kick it. Don't touch the excavator! Don't go near the edge! Yes, it's a big hole and it's for naughty boys who don't listen!(my neighbor said this to her boys...hahaha). Yes, it's a big tractor. Please, keep walking. Please, keep walking! Noah is dead weight in my arms and you've seriously GOT to KEEP WALKING! Leave the workers alone! You can't wait for the tractor to drop the dirt. The man is not going to move the digger while we're standing right up along side it. Keep walking! No rocks in the house. "....FOUR TIMES A DAY, PEOPLE! The only thing that would make this project more exciting for all our boys is if they were filling this monster hole with candy or puppies or something!!! As it is, rocks and dirt and cement slabs are pretty exciting, or maddening depending on who you talk to!

10 seconds

I could hear Kai and Zeze playing downstairs today and I heard the most amazing and rewarding thing! Here is their interchange...

Kai: "OWWW, ZEZE, THAT HURT ME!!!"
(I'm holding my breath at this point waiting for the hitting and screaming to start)
Zeze: "I'm sorry, Kai."
Kai: "That's OK."
followed by happy playing sounds.

1st - We've been working with Kai a lot about telling people when he doesn't like what they are doing to him instead of screeching unintelligibly. He did it!!!

2nd - Zeze apologized without ANY prompting or time-outing from me! AMAZING! And, he spoke a whole sentence SO clearly!

3rd - Kai, yet again, verbalized and said it was OK!

4th - Kai let it go and didn't carry on screaming and crying and yelling for me to come down and give Zeze a time out...which often is the other scenario to this interaction.

What transpired peacefully in 10 seconds could easily (and often does) become 1/2 an hour filled with time-outs and mean mommy voice. Thank you, God, that my boys are learning to interact like actual people and less like rabid squirrels! It was so nice to be "thanked" through a moment of manners and good behavior...all my efforts ARE sinking in!!

Dance Lessons

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A Little Fun

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October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month, so I'm including this link to let you meet a woman with DS that lives on her own and has her drivers licence! Thanks for learning with me, friends! :)

Down Syndrome Awareness!!

October is National Down Syndrome Awareness Month!!! Help spread the word to end the use of "R" word (ie retarded) in everyday language. 'Retarded' is such an outdated and hurtful word that is completely inappropriate to use as an insult or just in terms of someone/something being stupid, lame, ridiculous etc. You guys can help me change the future for my sweet Noah by learning more about DS and spreading the word. Visit http://www.ndss.org/ or ask me questions...I love talking about my amazing little boy!! Thanks, friends!!!

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. :)

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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