Boots

On a much more pleasant note than my last post, I wanted to share a picture of Aidan when he put his shoes on to accompany me to the grocery store yesterday evening. He chose a lovely pair of navy blue rain boots to accompany his black sweats. And to top it off, he tucked the sweats into the boots! He would not let me change his shoes to leave, so we went this way. Ah, the joy of letting your toddler dress himself. This was a little more entertaining than when he puts his shoes on the wrong feet. I usually let him do his shoes by himself, so more often than not, he gets them switched and I leave them, since he did it by himself. I have to explain that one a lot. Total strangers come up to me to ask me if I know that I've put my child's shoes on the wrong feet. Yes, I know. I let him do it himself. He's becoming independent!

Boys will be boys

Well...we have now successfully lived through our first emergency room visit...wait, that's not right. We have now successfully lived through our second emergency room visit with Aidan. Or I should say I have. John was midair somewhere between here and Kansas at the time, of course. Here's the story.



At about 10:00am on Friday, I decided it was high time the kids and I get out of the house. I had Neely all ready in her carrier, the diaper bag was packed, I had my shoes on, and as I went to put Aidan's shoes on him, I realized we needed to do one more diaper change before leaving home. I took him up to our bedroom and changed him in the middle of the floor. As I was bundling up the dirty diaper and he was exiting the room, he tripped over his own two feet and whacked his head on the floor. This kind of thing happens all the time. Aidan has just hit a little growth spurt, and he's usually clumsier until he gets used to his new, bigger self. When he turned around, he was screaming and clutching his head. It took me a minute to pry his hand away from his forehead, and that should've been my sign that this was not the usual bump on the head.



The poor kiddo's head was split open pretty deep, deep enough that I was seeing things in there that you're really not supposed to, and it was bleeding like crazy. That's when hysteria set in. A million things are running through my mind...what to hold it together with, who to call for help, what to do with Neely, what emergency room to take him to, etc. I get hold of a friend down the street to come over and help me, and as I'm waiting for her, my adrenaline kicks in. I don't know how it affects you, but me? Adrenaline just makes me nauseous. I honestly thought I was going to pass out in the floor. It is at this point that I realize that I will not be able to drive him to the hospital and, for the first time in my life, dial 911. I had to repeat my address several times before the dispatcher could even understand me, Aidan was yelling so loud. I'm sure the recording of my call is hilarious. I am shouting at the top of my lungs, "1-0-7 F-O-U-L..." You get the idea.



A few minutes later, I have two EMT's and three MP's (that's military police for those who're unfamiliar with the acronym) in my living room firing questions and trying to take care of Aidan. What's Neely doing? Sleeping. No, I'm not kidding. No amount of hysterical shrieking could wake her.



Now, it's time for the ambulance ride. Aidan was so excited to be riding in it, that he actually forgot about his head for a little while, and he was compliant enough to actually let me hold an ice pack on his head. The EMT's got word that there were trains coming (and we had to cross two tracks before reaching the hospital), so they actually turned the lights on and did the whole crazy driving, weaving all over the road thing. Whenever we'd take a sharp turn or hit a bump in the road, Aidan would go, "Whoa! Whoa!" It was funny.



The benefit of taking the ambulance to the emergency room is that they have a room waiting for you when you get there. You get to skip all of that waiting room stuff. It still doesn't make them treat you any more quickly. I think we were there for an hour and a half before they tried to stitch him up the first time. Yes, I said the first time.



I'd asked the nurse preparing all the things in the room for the doctor if Aidan could be sedated for the procedure. She looked at me as though I were nuts for wanting to drug my child and assured me that they'd be able to hold him still. They wrapped him in a bed sheet and strapped him to this board thing with Velcro. I think they called it a papoose. It was, essentially, a straight jacket of sorts. Actually, come to think of it, a straight jacket might have worked better. My friend Ashley and I (she's the one who followed the ambulance in the car with Neely and was a total Godsend all day) were trying to keep Aidan's body still, while two nurses were supposed to be holding his head. Cue hysterical screaming again. It was along the lines of, "Mommy! Mommy! I don't want to lie down! I want to get up! Mommy!" It was awful. The nurses could not hold him still enough for the doctor to stitch him, and the doctor stormed out of the room telling them to go ahead and sedate him. I mean, I hate to say, "I told you so." But seriously. He's two years old. What did they expect?



An hour later, he's being given a shot for conscious sedation and getting his little head fixed up with six stitches. Next, we had to wait for the drugs to wear off again. He was so funny while he was sedated. It was like he was in slow motion. Everything he said took twice as long to come out. At one point, I was hanging over him, playing with his hair and talking to him, and he points at me and says, "Mommmmmy.......four.....eyes." I can only assume he was seeing double. I laughed for a while over that one. He said a lot of other funny stuff, I just can't remember all of it.

At 3:15pm, he was released to go home. The child still wasn't back to normal until closer to 6:00pm, and luckily, he really hasn't noticed that he's got stitches in his head since. I guess he'll be reminded on Wednesday when we go and have them removed.

I'd attach a photo, but I have no clue how to get them from my phone onto the computer. It's probably just as well. It was pretty gruesome.

God's Clues

I repeated this story to a friend on the telephone yesterday evening, and she assured me it was blog-worthy. While Aidan ate his breakfast yesterday, I was reading my Bible and copying down some notes into a journal that I'd taken during church a couple of weeks ago. The night before, we had worked on his letter to Santa Claus (I'll have to scan that and share it at some point). He looks at what I'm writing and asks, "Is that your Christmas list, Mommy?" I told him, "No, Mommy is writing in her journal." He looked at me like I'd just grown a third eye. As in, "Does not compute. I do not know this 'journal' you speak of." I tried again, "It's my notebook." I could tell a little light was dawning, as if he was trying to figure out how he knew what a notebook was. I got there before he did. I told him, "You know how on Blue's Clues, Joe writes down the clues in his notebook? Well, Mommy is writing down the clues God gives her from the Bible in this notebook." To which he says, "Yeah!" Who knew you could compare your daily quiet time to Blue's Clues? Only the parent of a preschooler.

This one's gonna give you deja vu.

I got Aidan's turkey t-shirt done this afternoon. I couldn't find a solid white shirt for him, so I had to go with green. I think it turned out nice, and this way, he and Neely won't be too matchy-matchy. I love making turkeys. They're so much fun! I wonder what John would do if I made him one...

Lil' Turkey

I got a little crafty today, and I'm very proud of my handiwork. On Sunday, Christina and I painted t-shirts with our teenage gals, and I was inspired to make Thanksgiving shirts for the kids. I went to Joann's and chose a few festive colors last night. I cut out feathers, circles for the turkey's body, and a little beak from the fabric. I used Stitch Witchery to attach the pieces to a little onesie for Neely. (I have oodles of these white ones, so I figured if this turned out as a disaster, it wasn't a huge loss.) I glued on some googly eyes and traced all the pieces in coordinating colors of shiny fabric paint. Then, I did the lettering on the bottom by hand. I think that's the only thing that I would change. Next time, I'll probably buy some of those printable iron-ons and do the lettering on the computer so it looks more uniform. Now, I need to do one for Aidan. Should it say "lil' turkey" too, or should I write "big turkey" on his?

Two-month-old girl

My tiny little girl is turning into quite a chubby little baby. I love it! Chubby babies are the BEST anyway. I'm posting the best/most recent picture that I have of her...taken yesterday wearing an outfit her Granny bought her while she was still in preemie clothes. We thought sure it'd take her six months to fit into it. Ha! Two months, it only took two. She had her check-up today. Neely now weighs 9 pounds 15.8 ounces, so in another hour or two, she'll be exactly 10 pounds. She's a little over 22 inches long now, too. I think the last time I shared her height/weight, she was in the 5th percentile. Now, she's in the 50th. She has definitely made up for lost time. She's grown so much! And having to watch her get shots for the first time was awful. She really is not a crier, so when the nurse stuck her with the first one, she did that whole silent scream deal and held her breath for about 10 seconds. She turned purple. When she finally caught her breath again, she was screaming. I've never heard or seen her get that upset. She had the biggest crocodile tears, too. And Aidan's standing in the corner saying, "Poor Neely." I'm also adding a photo of the little man today, so his grandmas and grandpas and aunties and uncles can see him, too.

One last thing

Sorry! I keep forgetting things that I meant to post as they happened. Joe and Maggie sent Aidan this adorable card this week asking him to be a ring bearer in their wedding. I showed it to him and read it to him and then asked, "Do you want to be in Joe and Maggie's wedding?" He answered, "Yeah!" Emphatically, I might add. I showed him the picture on the front again. "Do you want to wear a little suit like this one?" Again, he says, "Yeah!" I hope he's that excited come June.