Curt and Belle enjoy the Brazil-England Football match - a night out without the kids!
Aidan is COOL!
Life has been relatively good these last few weeks. About 2 weeks ago, everyone came down with the snots - no fever (thankfully), just snots. Then it began to turn into a cough for brady and gavin. then it was labored breathing for gavin and no one was getting better, so we took them to the dr. THe treatment was at home breathing treatments. and then 3 nights later the poor kid did not stop coughing for more than a half hour at a time. after a 2:45 AM breathing treatment, we decided that we couldn't wait until the dr that morning, so I took him in.
His oxygen saturation was fine, but basically he had 1) so much snot that was irritating his airway that 2) he had to cough a lot which in turn 3) irritated his airway. VICIOUS cycle. so we were admitted around 5 AM , but they spent nearly 45 mins trying to take blood from the kid but couldn't find straight veins. he was poked 3 times and they then called nurses from the NICU (who remembered us from when they were born) to do the IV (since they deal with difficult IV insertions more often). They stuck him 2 more times and i finally asked if he really NEEDED the IV, or if we could just get blood work from a heel prick. so he was stuck a 6th time on the heel and they sent us to get a chest x-ray and to our room.
His oxygen saturation was fine, but basically he had 1) so much snot that was irritating his airway that 2) he had to cough a lot which in turn 3) irritated his airway. VICIOUS cycle. so we were admitted around 5 AM , but they spent nearly 45 mins trying to take blood from the kid but couldn't find straight veins. he was poked 3 times and they then called nurses from the NICU (who remembered us from when they were born) to do the IV (since they deal with difficult IV insertions more often). They stuck him 2 more times and i finally asked if he really NEEDED the IV, or if we could just get blood work from a heel prick. so he was stuck a 6th time on the heel and they sent us to get a chest x-ray and to our room.
Gavin is a pacifier salesman - he knows his merchandise!When we got to our room there was ONLY a crib - no bed for the parent. there was the long couch on the wall of the room - but no pillows, blanket, etc for me. i asked for them to bring in a bed for me since a month prior when we had been there (same room if you can believe that) i had been given a bed. they said it was a 2 week old policy that they no longer gave beds to parents and that i could talk with the head (Qatari) nurse if I wanted to. They said it was a "safety" reason - they didn't want people to put their infants/toddlers on the adult beds. I told them I would be HAPPY to talk with the head nurse, and they needed to go ahead and send one of the guest relations people to talk with me as well - they would hear about how ridiculous this new policy was. And another thing - if this was about safety, i wanted to talk with them about their crib. In the first two minutes I put Gavin in it, he had slipped one leg between the mattress and the side of the crib, which was about a 4 inch GAP. We had had this same situation when he was admitted with the seizure, and we had used all of the blankets and sheets they had given us to fill the gaps. I said that I had done my best with the blankets and sheets they had in the room, but this crib was unsafe by design. It also did not seem to have a mattress that could be lowered. as the crib was about chest height on him (maybe lower now) all he had to do was drop something over the edge and then look down to see where it went (you know, like 14 month olds do) to then topple over with his giant head. so if they were concerned about safety - they needed to get a new crib for toddlers. they didn't know quite what to say. i got a bed a couple of hours later after i had gotten in the crib with him to calm him and try to get him to sleep (and try for shut eye myself).
he ended up staying overnight with curt and came home after lunch the next day. he and brady are still having breathing treatments with their at home nebulizer and aidan treated us with getting a fever thursday afternoon. and passing it on to brady friday night and gavin woke up with one this morning (sigh). Gavin was also diagnosed with our first ear infection. like my friend tracy said, "i'm actually kind of glad there was a medical reason for his behavior", otherwise i would go hide in a closet until he was 8 years old . ..
Happy Birthday Daddy! otherwise, aidan's light turned on last weekend with walking. we were at the Education City (EC) soccer league games and our friend's daughter Leila is 2 days younger than the boys and has been walking for over a month now. I think Aidan saw her being able to be so independent (and wanting to follow her around?) that he decided to get with it. Being sick he has slowed his efforts a little bit, but he is definitely making it happen for himself - it's very cute!
Halloween 2009 - we dressed as a Hawkeye Family! OR each of the boys dressed up as each other . . .there is a little girl in the park named Johanna whose family is from the chicago area. mom was a former german HS teacher and speaks german to her kids. it's AWESOME to see. Anyway, brady and aidan have a CRUSH on this little 10 month old. Brady leaned over and kissed her forehead the other day (a big open mouthed slobbery kiss) and she leaned her head into his stomach really gently. Then Aidan toddled over and leaned down and gave her a big open mouthed kiss on the cheek and stood up again. She GRABBED his t-shirt and pulled him down to her and she gae him a big kiss on the cheek. it was SOOOOOOO adorable! Gavin has made a friend with an older boy who he just thinks is the bomb. The boy will try to hug him and talk with him and Gavin just shrieks with delight and falls on him. so funny. i'm sure he will have lots of fun with cousins when we are back in the states!
THe boys are also really beginning to give us some animal sounds. Gavin's favorite is a bear sound - he does it over and over again with a book grandma and grandpa V sent about how these three bears are "all my favorites" - it's so sweet. Brady likes to quack like a duck - only it sounds more like "Caa! Caa!". And Aidan likes to roar like a lion. it takes a few tries to get him going, but then he will just keep doing it. too funny. :) Aidan also likes to talk on the cell phone. He will be blathering away with the cell phone held . . . about 4 inches behind his head. he gets the general area it is supposed to go, but not quite . .. :) Aidan has also begun picking up on the basic signs we have been using for everything from "more" to "food" to "thank you". that last one was a shocker because we have only been using it for a couple of weeks and I know Tess and Marie aren't using it at all. guess he is ready to communicate!
Today curt and i decided we ALL deserved some time watching a Baby Einstein video. I have no qualms about this. I also have no ill-conceived notions it will make me or my kids smarter. though curt and I think they are magic. there are certain parts of the DVDs we both SWEAR we have never seen before. i mean, this is a 22 minute video and there were at least three 30 second scenes today that both of us were like "have you seen that monkey before? me neither" so anyway, the happy family was cuddled up on the couch coughing and breathing heavily through our snotty noses (yes, curt and I are sick too) while we watched Vicent Van Goat do some Van Gogh paintings, and some orangutang stuffed animals play the drums, etc. i think it was my best 22 minutes all day . . . :)
THe boys are also really beginning to give us some animal sounds. Gavin's favorite is a bear sound - he does it over and over again with a book grandma and grandpa V sent about how these three bears are "all my favorites" - it's so sweet. Brady likes to quack like a duck - only it sounds more like "Caa! Caa!". And Aidan likes to roar like a lion. it takes a few tries to get him going, but then he will just keep doing it. too funny. :) Aidan also likes to talk on the cell phone. He will be blathering away with the cell phone held . . . about 4 inches behind his head. he gets the general area it is supposed to go, but not quite . .. :) Aidan has also begun picking up on the basic signs we have been using for everything from "more" to "food" to "thank you". that last one was a shocker because we have only been using it for a couple of weeks and I know Tess and Marie aren't using it at all. guess he is ready to communicate!
Today curt and i decided we ALL deserved some time watching a Baby Einstein video. I have no qualms about this. I also have no ill-conceived notions it will make me or my kids smarter. though curt and I think they are magic. there are certain parts of the DVDs we both SWEAR we have never seen before. i mean, this is a 22 minute video and there were at least three 30 second scenes today that both of us were like "have you seen that monkey before? me neither" so anyway, the happy family was cuddled up on the couch coughing and breathing heavily through our snotty noses (yes, curt and I are sick too) while we watched Vicent Van Goat do some Van Gogh paintings, and some orangutang stuffed animals play the drums, etc. i think it was my best 22 minutes all day . . . :)
