Surviving Our First Cold

Well, we have survived our first cold of the season. I of course ran straight to the doctor's office with Ryan, even though his congestion was mild and his fever barely cracked 100. The medical student this time asked if he had any "medical history". I said that yes, he had open heart surgery and pointed to his chart and said "that would be a very thick chart for a normal 7 month old". I will kind of miss the over eager medical students when we switch to the new practice. I was hoping that would be this month (my insurance only lets you switch at the first of the calendar month), but Ryan did have the start of an ear infection and Dr. M started him on an antibiotic and needs to check him in 2 weeks, which is Feb 2. I don't want to switch in the middle of this, so I will wait until next month, I guess. Ugh. By mid week, we all felt better except for a lingering sinus headache for me. I vowed to stay in and away from germs so we didn't get into a cycle of never ending sickness, but got a little stir crazy today and took the older boys to church and to lunch at our favorite restaurant (Target). I was glad we went to church because a new batch of confirmation kids were going through some type of blessing and I realized that they were the kids I had taught as second graders when I made my first and last attempt at teaching CFP. This made me feel beyond old, I remember these kids as kids, not much bigger then Kyle, yet here they were, teenage boys with long hair and girls with makeup and these ridiculous looking boots. Kyle asked what they were doing and I told him that they were choosing for themselves to be a part of our church and that when he was as old as they were, that he would be able to do the same, that Mom and Dad would no longer force him to go to the church we had chosen, he would be free to choose his own or none at all. To my surprise, he said that he thought he would choose to still go to church. I was shocked. I am writing this down because I am sure I won't believe it later. Grant I am sure would not say the same thing at thing point, he repeats incessantly that he is not going to church (nope way, I am not going to church, just drop me off at Target). I asked him if he wanted to do peace with Kyle and he shouted "I don't like peace". You're telling me. Tomorrow, I am looking forward to attending a meeting of CHD Families, a support group for families touched by congenital heart defects. The speaker is a doctor doing CHD research at Children's Mercy and I think it will be really interesting. I have read that he is doing work in tissue engineering to develop a procedure that would enable the use of a patient's own cells to fashion a new, bioengineered heart valve. Because the valve would be comprised of living tissue derived from the child's own cells, it would grow and repair itself, and the child's immune system would accept the material as its own. This is exciting. I worry about Ryan's valve function long term, so any progress is great news. CHD Families is the group that gave us a care package while we were in the hospital with Ryan. It included a blanket that turned out to have been made by a family from our church. I volunteered to make blankets as well and even bought the material, but with Jason working so much, I just haven't gotten downstairs to sew, maybe this week.

The picture is just a cute one of Kyle an Ryan. I am still amazed by Kyle's interest in and love for Ryan. I worry that I don't have enough to give all 3, but seeing them makes me realize that while I may not have as much to give to 3 as I would for 2, they also have each other.

A couple of things that didn't happen in my family this week: No one referred to the breakfast we ate this morning as "dog poop" sausage, especially not my 3 year old. We also did not forget to give the baby his antibiotic dose on the 2nd of 10 days. That would we really irresponsible.

Little Man on the Move

Ryan has master the inch work crawl. As you can see, he gets up onto all 4's, then lunges forward. He will patiently repeat until he reaches the desired destination, especially when that destination is as appealing as the remote control or a piece of paper. Yesterday, I think he was just crawling to crawl, so proud of himself! He is also eating a little better. I was feeding him bananas the other day and he actually threw a little fit when I stopped shoveling for a second to get his brother a drink. Now if I could just get him sleeping through the night again. He used to be so good but along the way he figured out if he wakes up and cries, Mom will come and get me and rock me and if I can just wait her out long enough, I can snuggle up with her and dad in their big bed and have a little snack. We let the older boys cry a little, but with Ryan, I just can't. I still think about all of the time I couldn't hold him and I just fold. I met with a new pediatrician on Monday and I really liked her. She asked me more questions about Ryan and gave me more reassurance in the 5 minute conversation I had with her then our previous doctor has in the past 7 months. After she sees his 3 inch thick chart, she may not be so anxious to have us as new patients. I requested a copy of his medical records (just the pertinent info that you can get for free) and it filled a 1.5 inch 3 ring binder. It is really interesting, I learned that he was on bypass for 2 hours 25 minutes and that his aorta was cross clamped for 51 minutes. I had read that they like to keep bypass time under 3 hours, but I am not sure where I read that, probably another blog. There are a couple of things on his last echo report that I would like to talk to someone about. It noted "trace aortic valve insufficiency" and "physiological pulmonary valve insuffiency" and some turbulent flow in his right PA. They are probably the type of things that are normal post repair of TGA and that no one can tell if they will remain stable or cause problems, but I would just like to know a little more, it is probably no worse then I am imagining, given the optimist that I am. I think we have finally settled up with CMH, 7 months later. They were very patient about waiting for the insurance to pay, I called a couple of time, nervous about getting 180K+ bills that show no sign of payment and they always just said it will take time to go through insurance. I am just thankful it all happened with a minimum of trouble, we are very lucky. I will never forget getting the first bill that was semi-itemized. 12 days in ICN = 80K, 5 days in PICU=40K, total pharmacy=19K, operating room=52K. The scary thing is that these are just hospital charges, physician service are billed separatly. Yikes! Some kiddos are down there much longer.

The other boys are fine, Kyle just got his 2Q report card and it was perfect. His teacher wrote in the notes section that "Kyle is becoming a great leader and is a role model to his peers. He is always eager to get to work and puts forth great effort". She is not know it sugar coat things, so I was of course quite proud. When I told him that, he said "your welcomed". I just left it at that. Grant is still Grant, responding "Oh, no, no, no" to every request or idea and dropping the occasional "dammit" when frustrated. We went to a music class on Wednesday and he said "I don't know about all this stuff, Mom", but he eventually warmed up and had a great time with cousin Lilly.

Grant Matthew in the Middle

When I read this in 30 years I probably won't remember that there was a TV show called Malcom in the Middle that I was trying to be funny with my post title. I wish I could post about something funny Grant has said our done, but the truth is I am a little worried about him. He has always done a great job entertaining himself and I wonder if I have taken advantage of that. Lately, it is like he is in his own little world and I have started trying to make sure I connect with him every day, which sounds so terrible, like what was I doing before, just acting as if I had a little roommate? Actually, I do remember one funny thing, at Christmas, my brother (who the boys don't often see) was wrestling with Kyle and Grant runs in, puts both hands on his face and says "Oh, No, what are we going to do about that guy?"

The other pic is from our annual (except last year when I was too busy laying on the couch being pregnant to host) New Year's party. My how things have changed since our first party 5 years ago. We had 9 kids under 9 in the basement and the baby upstairs. The kids did great playing downstairs and I think the adults enjoyed just hanging out upstairs. In years past, there was always a lot of running up and downstairs and "Ok, it's your turn to deal with the madness in the basement". Thinking back to last year, it is so weird to think all that time, Ryan's little haywired heart was beating away inside of me. During my first sono, the tech actually had a little trouble imaging the heart and asked the doctor to come in and take a look, during the time Ryan moved and she said, "Oh, there they are, everything is perfect", so a heart defect was the last thing I was worried about. At least I got to enjoy all of my last pregnancy (because it was so the last pregnancy) and we were fortunate to deliver in a great hospital where Ryan had all of the things he needed before being transferred.

I have seen other people do this on blogs and I thought it was a funny way to capture some more mommy moments:

Things I Didn't Do -

• I didn't force my husband to take a peanut butter sandwich and Dora yogurt in his lunch to work because of the insane amount of time that has past since I last went to the store.
• I didn't play a Baby Einstein dvd 2x in a row for Ryan. If I had done that, it would have only been to make cookies with the aforementioned middle child

Things I Am Grateful For -

• Random 60 degree days in January and friends that call and see if you want to meet up at the park. We went 2x yesterday, once in the morning with some of Grant's friends and once in the afternoon with a bunch of Kyle's. It was perfect, Ryan seemed to love it and we were there for 2 hours in the afternoon.
• The new stand mixer I bought for $25 at Target the day after Thanksgiving. Making cookies with the boys was much less stressful when I didn't need to worry about holding the mixer and making sure flour didn't wind up in the living room.
• Whole grain pop tarts

The Tooth Fairy Gets Busted

As is obvious by the title and picture, Kyle has lost his first tooth! This actually happened in November and he lost another earlier this evening. When the first one fell, I dug out the special tooth fairy pillow that I bought probably before he even had teeth and we did the pictures and the putting it by his pillow. The pillow came with special fairy dust (i.e. gold glitter) that you sprinkle around to provide evidence of the fairy's visit. He was very excited to wake up the next morning and find the dust, he actually came into my room and told me about that before he told me about the dollar. The fun didn't last. I put the dust back in the box and put it on my dresser and he found it, reportedly while trying to put the pillow away. I wasn't here, but apparently he was pretty miffed that "mom was the one that put out that fairly dust". The experience didn't stop him from asking for the pillow again tonight.

Other then going through the motions of the tooth fairy, we have been enjoying our time at home after the holidays. I have to say, my husband amazes me. Today he got up early with baby and fed him breakfast, installed piping for the radon mitigation system he designed (I guess I should see if it works before being to amazed, but I really have complete confidence), played baseball with Kyle, cooked dinner and cut Grant's hair. This almost makes up for the fact that he thinks Bass Pro is an acceptable place to shop for my Christmas present. I feel like such a slacker sometimes, after I stop making milk for Ryan, he probably won't have any use for me at all. Fortunately, I don't think that will be anytime soon, the boy still loves to nurse, although he is getting a little better about solid foods. We have thrown the strict "only introduce a new food every three days " rule out the window and have thrown peas, applesauce, garden vegetables, pears at him along with his favorite sweet potatoes and oatmeal and bananas which he could for sure live without. He isn't overly excited about any one thing, but he doesn't spit it out either. As Jason said, I will now need to search for something new to worry about.