Nathanielism

"When I turn 5, I'm going to play hockey. But it's in OLD Hampshire and that's a long drive from here"

YUM

We had a great party night. Started off with delicious sloppy joes enjoyed by all topped off with huge portions of birthday cake - sorry Weight Watchers, some things are just meant to be enjoyed regardless of points.



YIKES, he really DOES need a haircut













I think she liked it.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Hard to believe it's been a year

The House of the Mouse

While incarcerated at the hospital, we saw the commercial for Chuck E Cheese probably 57 1/2 times. No joke. Each time, Nathaniel would say "i want to go there". And each time, we would say "Ok, If you get ALL better, we'll go very soon". After all, how can you resist someone who looks like this



So he got better, was back in school by Friday. But I'm really not sure how the words "lets go to Chuck E Cheese" lead to this:






So we finally headed off for a night full of food, fun, noise, games, laughing, dirty kids, yelling parents, and more germs. What more could a kid want in life?




"ppssst, mom, Don't look now, but there's a BIG.CREEPY.PLASTIC.MOUSE sitting right behind me!"



Ride 'Em Cowboy




He's certainly looks better don't you think?




Audrey had her first slice of pizza. My favorite part is her little pinky sticking up - she's so proper.






And away they go

Welcome Home to us

We got home tonight around 7pm, instantly hit the showers to get all the germs off and we all went to bed. I feel like we were on some marathon over the past 5 days and now it's all hit home.

The final diagnosis was c-diff so he'll be treated with an antibiotic and a probiotic. He can probably go back to school on Thursday or Friday by the way it looks right now.

More later - I need to go to sleep.

He's very brave.

We debated all afternoon Sunday about if Nathaniel should go to school or not on Monday. By Sunday night, his bowel issues seemed to have cleared up so the answer seemed easy. He had a great night sleep, no accidents, no sickly wake ups other than a few bad dreams about his teacher not giving him his plant (they're each growing a plant in the window to watch the process).

When he got up this morning, he had lots more blood so the answer was clear - we needed more answers! So we headed to the Dr's at 9:30 to see his official pediatrician. Her opinion was to admit him to the hospital for fluids to clear up the dehydration while we wait for test results to return and run a few more tests while there.

Ever since we had Audrey, Nathaniel believe's there's a baby in his belly & that baby's name is Carter. So he was certain we were heading to the hospital to get his baby out. He was so convinced, that he told everyone on the way in that that's why we were there. They'd listen to him, then size me up & down and turn their head like a confused puppy as I CLEARLY don't look 9 months pregnant. RIGHT? I don't. Looking back, I should've played it up to really confuse the heck out all of them ~ breathing heavily, let out a few moans all while holding my back.



After getting hooked up to some yummy IV drugs, they sent us to ultrasound to rule out Intussusception - this came back negative, big relief. The highlight of that was setting off the baby low jack alarm while being trasported which causes the hospital to go into shut down mode for a possible pedi-abduction. We're always up for a good adventure around here.

He's named his IV sock puppet Zachary. Go figure.

We hung out in the room few more hours and I got a call from our Dr's office telling me that he did test positive for C-Diff. This was most likely caused from him being on so many antibiotics for his ears & sinuses over the past few months. Very simple cure and easiest diagnosis considering......

BUT it might not be just that. The dr thinks if it were just c-diff that he'd have more discomfort, fever and vomitting. So we're here overnight and will have a nuc scan in the morning to take a look at his stomach - I can't remember the name of what they're looking for. That'll be tomorrow's learning lesson.

We're in a great room with a view of the City buildings.
There's a bed and a crib in here, Just don't feed the animals:



Yes, she is chewing a plastic bag. No, I'm not sure how she got her hands on it. Apparently, it was more important to me to take a picture than to remove the plastic bag. But if she's gonna choke, now would be the time to do it. We could just set off the pedi alarm again and have the entire Elliot staff come running to save her from choking.

He's training to be a cage fighter in the octagon
(that won't be funny to you unless you've seen Napoleon Dynamite)


I'll leave you with this shot as I'm now gonna get in bed and snuggle with a crabby boy that just got woken up to drink a very gross medicine.

So Big and So Little

How many times can you say poop in one weekend

It started Friday morning. Nathaniel had many accidents at home within the one hour he was awake and ready to leave for school. Then I got a phone call at work around 10am asking me to drop off more underwear as he was clearly having problems. I cancelled a conference call, decided to turn in payroll late, ran to Kmart & bought 12 more pair of underwear and a package of 33 pullups. I figure that would last them for the day.

By Friday night, he was wiped and begging to go to sleep by 6pm. We thought maybe the worst was behind us but Nathaniel woke up at 10pm and had a pull up full of you-know-what, topped off with a nice coating of blood - always extremely heartwarming to see. Dan got him cleaned up while I made the all familiar call to the after hours nurse. We decided to see how he was in the morning and maybe it was just irritation from all the activity during the day.

Saturday morning, the poop storm contined. More blood, more frequency, less bowel control. Despite it all, he was in a GREAT mood. Very excited to go and do this:


Gymnastics 4-24-09 from dcm923 on Vimeo.


He showed improvement since last week. I'm so glad he went and was able to make it through the hour accident free. He's psyched that he can do the somersault all by himself.



Fast forward a little, things in the rear are still ominous. We take him in at 1:30 for an exam, where they confirmed, Yes, he's pooping blood. No, we don't know why. Off to the lab for a beautiful experience with a needle and we're sent home with a hat and 2 little culture containers.
So our first 80 degree day of 2009 was spent mostly inside - catching poop, talking about poop, cleaning up poop.

The good news is his blood work showed that his white cell count is just fine. As I write this, he's still dealing with bleeding. We'll drop off those two containers tomorrow and wait for our next batch of instructions.

Gymnastics & Band Practice

Nathaniel started gymnastics last weekend. He had a great time - they did an obstacle course full of rings, balance beams, push ups, somersaults, rope swing, climbing, hand stands and more. It's an hour long and he was SO worn out afterward. It's a 4-5 year old class and clearly the other kids have been going for a while but he got the gist of it. It was definitely a challenge for him to do it all.

I videoed a TON of stuff but managed to screw up the camera - so i got a lot of great shots of my sweater & jeans & the floor. I did manage to salvage .58 seconds below.

Ignore the pageant mom talking next to me.


1st Time at Gymnastics 4-20-09 from dcm923 on Vimeo.




Dan & Nathaniel continue to have band practice in the basement. This weekend, Nathaniel introduced his new hit "the robot song". He cracks me up.


The Robot Song 4-19-09 from dcm923 on Vimeo.

Name That Rash

Nathaniel's had this rash since Thursday night. It's on his arms & legs. He has a sinus infection and had a fever on Friday. The rash was there BEFORE we started antibiotics. It's not raised.

I'm clueless on this one. If he still has it Monday, I'll call the Dr. But was hoping you internets could maybe take a stab at what it might be.