We've had a busy month leading up to Christmas this year - Gavin had his fifth (and hopefully final!) febrile seizure, Grandma and Grandpa V came to visit for a week, we went to see Sesame Street Live with said grandparents for the boys first "theater" experience, the boys took a toddler art class at the Museum of Islamic Art, we baked our first cookies together, attempted to go to the National Day Parade, we hosted Christmas Eve dinner and had a potluck lunch for Christmas Day, set out cookies for Santa and all in all have been looking forward to a little break for some family time!
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| Gavin wears the "Star glasses" Grandma V brought! and yes, those are mittens he is wearing :) |
Regarding Gavin's febrile seizure, he and his brothers had had the snots for several days, but no one had had any (noticeable) fever. We were playing outside in the back yard after dinner one evening and Gavin threw the soccer ball toward curt and then fell down on his back. Since he sometimes likes to throw himself on the ground and then say "i'm ok!" curt just said, "Gavin, what are you doing?!" thinking it was nothing. He then realizes that Gavin doesn't respond and his little body is shaking a bit. As he runs to him, I run inside to call the ambulance, get a wet towel and start the cooling process for him. While the ambulance got there somewhat quickly (certainly faster than the first time he had one), the next things that happened were ridiculous. This was by far his longest seizure - nearly 2 minutes long. It felt like an eternity, and now Brady and Aidan are old enough to "get" that something bad is happening. They were very good and tried to help/stay out of the way, but they had lots of questions as you can imagine. I guess it didn't scar them too much, as they were playing "seizure" at the park today (not kidding) where they would flop on the ground, kick their legs a little bit and say "I had a seizure, I need the ambulance". Their brother would then come and pull them up and they would run to the gazebo where they would lay down in the "ambulance" for a few minutes until they told us they had "healed". It's funny now, but when Gavin is having his seizure, it is just so awful. It also took him nearly an hour to be able to speak intelligibly this time. I'm not sure if it has always been like this since he wasn't talking as much or as clearly the last time he had one nearly a year ago. I was hoping he had outgrown them, but to have a full year between them is a blessing in and of itself.
When the EMTs got there, they were going to try to give him an IV while he was sitting on our floor, after his seizure had stopped. Curt basically says, "well, I don't think it's necessary, but if you do it, you are going to need to strap him down on the gurney, he will rip that thing out of his arm faster than you can tape it!" They basically wanted to do it in case he seized again so they could give him anti-seizure meds. I think they had had a slow week and were hoping to refresh their skills a bit. We didn't have an IV put in. Then while I'm riding in the ambulance with him, the EMT tells me "When you put the wet towel on the baby, you should put it under his arms and between his legs, not on his chest" I say, "Oh right, because of the pulse points, thanks." He says, "No, because you will give him bronchitis." FAIL. Fail #2 came when the ambulance is sitting at a stop light (they didn't run their lights or sirens, and people don't get out of the way when they see that here anyway) and I ask where we are since we had been sitting there for so long. I realize they took the LONG way, and we had to drive through a gas station, to a back road under construction in order to get to the hospital. This added a good 10 minutes to our trip, as there is an easier and MUCH faster way that we take every time. I share this with them and they say "well, the driver is new, he has only been driving a couple of weeks." It took everything in my body for me to not say "THEN GIVE HIM A MAP." idiots. Gavin's fever was 39.7C/103.5F at the hospital after having been cooled by us and in a diaper for nearly an hour by the time we got there. Within a half hour (and 2 suppositories and a cold water bath later) he is down to 38C/100.4F and they say we can go home and just treat his fever for at least 48 hours. WHEW! Lots of thanks to the White's who came over to hang out at our house with the sleeping Aidan and Brady so that Curt could come and get us. Let's hope there is NOT a next time, but next time we are just going to drive him ourselves.
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| at the Sesame Street Live show (Top to bottom, left to right: Mom and G; GmaV and B, A and Gpa V) |
Grandma and Grandpa V arrived the next night and the boys had lots of fun with both of them. Several times grandparents would take one or more boys outside to play and by the time i would make it out they all would have vanished on a walk. It was great! I love that the boys enjoyed their grandparents so much and that they are of an age where it is pretty easy (meaning, they usually listen) to take them for a walk or to the park even if you are on your own. Pretty much every morning they would wake up and be like "Where's grandpa? Where's grandma?" and be heading downstairs before we could get them dressed for the day.
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| Sesame Street Characters getting jiggy with it . . . |
We had tickets to see Sesame Street Live here in Doha and all 7 of us went! It was quite fun, even if the boys weren't QUITE sure about it. It was a loud performance, and it seems all 3 of ours are pretty sensitive to loud noises they aren't making themselves. For instance, Aidan will now just turn off the wall switch for the iPod dock, if he feels like the music is too loud and he doesn't want to listen to it anymore. Brady has started saying things to his brothers like, "Be quiet honey, I'm trying to talk to mom."Gavin still gets pretty scared by really loud nosies (the fighter jets at National Day, the dudes cutting tile when we left a scary farm today) and just needs to cuddle when he feels like its too loud. They did talk a lot about their favorite characters, and considering it started nearly a half hour late, they were pretty darn good.
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| BAG with Grandma and Grandpa V - it took forever to get all 5 of them in the same shot. |
I also got to see the boys perform for their classmates at school. On the last day of the semester, as I arrived, Aidan was beginning to sing the ABCs for his classmates (they were standing at the front of the class and everything). The teacher saw me come in and gave me a nod to try to stay out of sight and be quiet. Aidan did SUCH a great job singing the whole song nice and clear and was so earnest in his performance. It was adorable. Then, she had Brady stand up to sing. He began with the ABCs and then she asked him to sing Twinkle Twinkle, which he did perfectly. Just to see him smiling ear to ear while he performed was so touching for me. She then had Gavin stand up and he RACED through the ABCs (but was still clear as a bell!). I think he was interested in getting the stamp they all got for singing in front of the class. It was so cute as after each singer, the classmates clapped and then they would get a stamp for this performance. I can totally see how this will help them become comfortable speaking in front of others and performing for others in the future.
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| AGB at National Day on Corniche - check out Dhow boats behind them |
National Day was quite fun - leading up to it there have been tons of flags on cars and buildings and every time Brady would see them, he would say "that car/building/family is celebrating its National Day!" While we got down to the corniche in time to have watched at least part of the parade, the police officer must not have understood that I was asking if the parade would come down as far as we were, b/c he said yes, when in fact the parade was 1) going the OPPOSITE direction on the Corniche and 2) started about a quarter mile from where we were. We did get to see some cool speed boat and fighter jet maneuvers, but I know curt was really hoping to see what all of the hype was about since it's our last year here. We did see some stuff on a big screen, and we did get to see the Emir within spitting distance as he was driven away from the parade route, but it wasn't quite the same.
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| ABG having a snack after the "parade" was over |
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| Gavin just looked so muscular in this outfit - I made Curt take a picture of him :) |
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| Watching stuff at the parade (GBA) |
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| Crazy Qatari guy riding the front of an FJ Cruiser - hope they don't make any sudden stops . . . |
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| Sweet Gavin and his glasses - who does he look like to you? :) |
Gavin has begun wearing glasses for about 2 weeks now. It appears he has an astigmatism in both eyes, however he 1) only has to wear his glasses "for computer work, watching TV, etc" - and more kid appropriate stuff like reading and coloring (I couldn't believe the Dr. gave those examples first!) and 2) he may outgrow the astigmatism. The Dr. says as he grows, the shape of his cornea will likely change as well, possibly rendering his need for glasses nonexistent. We have still been doing his eye exercises diligently to help with his right eye that wanders a little bit, but the Dr. thinks this will help that as well. He looks pretty darn cute in his glasses, and Aidan and Brady were quite upset they don't get a pair of "reading sunglasses" as they call them.
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| breathing treatment and glasses - he is ready to read! |
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| Brady helps decorate |
And finally, Christmas. This was the first year the boys really "got" Christmas - note to self, no need to go all out much before the age of 3 for holidays . . . It's been really great seeing them learn Christmas carols, and introducing them to the different holiday traditions of leaving Santa his snack, Rudolph and Frosty, etc. One thing that was a little strange for me was that a couple of people kept referring to Christmas day as "Jesus' birthday party". So a few times the boys and I would be asked by their kid if we were going to "Jesus' birthday party". It was a hard thing to answer because I know what my kids expect from birthday parties and we wouldn't all be at the same one, if you know what I mean. Luckily we did have some nice older books about Christmas we could use to talk with the boys about what Christmas was about and why we celebrated it, but it is a little hard to do it in a "faith vacuum" like I feel we have here. (In that, we don't have a church we attend here, and so it's not something that's been talked about as regularly as if we were attending one we liked in the US).
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| Aidan takes time to make careful placement of the ornament |
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| Gavin was our most focused decorater |
Like most three year olds, they would basically open one gift and if they really liked it, were not in the mood to open anything else. It was fun seeing them really jazzed about things we had thought they would like (whether from us or other people).
At one point, our previous vocabulary fail reared its ugly head again. Aidan and Brady were playing on the car mat they got from Grandma and Grandpa K and I hear Brady say to Aidan, "You can't say f*$@ing idiot'. You have to say 'crazy bad driver'." Curt made it clear to Aidan that Brady was correct and that we didn't say those words (anymore) while I had to turn my back because I was in such shock and had to control my embarrassed laughter. It was pretty funny. To Aidan's credit, he did seem to be "angry" with the other drivers when he was saying it, so at least he gets the context. The boys have started saying to me when they hear someone honk a horn when we are in the car "Who's being a jerk, mom?" because they want to know why the horn was being honked (i may or may not use the horn more here than i EVER had in my 15+ years of driving combined) . .. And like all Christmas mornings, it wouldn't be complete without the threat of new toys being taken away when the boys were bickering over them. Luckily, it only happened once, and I'm pretty sure they took dad VERY seriously. :)
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| "You said these were stockings, right?" (A) |
We had some fun at a Clay Babies Class the week before Christmas At the Museum of Islamic Art (MIA). We went with a friend and while all of the other kids got their own piece of cardboard to work on, my three got to share ONE piece of cardboard for all three balls of clay. hmmmm . . . ever tried to do that? doesn't really work. so the painting was more fun for them than the clay work was. thank goodness it was free, right?!
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| Brady rolls clay carefully |
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| Aidan's bird he made (Johanna in the background) |
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| Gavin preferred the painting |
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| Oranges rock! (A) |
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| Brady struggled to smile AND keep the orange in his mouth |
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| GAvin struggled a little bit too . . . |
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| Christmas Eve with the Carr/Lechner kids (Johanna, BAG and Alexandra) |
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| Christmas Morning - Dinosaur Train characters! (B) |
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| A and G focus on their new toys |
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| Gavin can't believe his luck - TRAINS! . . |
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| . . .And cars he can race! AWESOME! |
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| Dad helps Brady with a new toy |
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| Aidan's crazy smile as he figures out the Yahtzee game |
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| Apples from our stockings are YUMMY! (GBA) |
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| At Christmas lunch that day - Aidan went right for this toy at Sofie's house |
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| Johanna was sharing her new lip gloss (G) |
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| And the boys were loving it . . . (B) |
All three boys really like to sing Christmas carols and will burst into song randomly. Gavin is probably the most creative and prolific with his knowledge of songs. Not only does he know ALL of the words to pretty much every Christmas song, he knows them well enough to sing parodies of them to himself. Certainly not long and involved ones, but he likes to change up the words and make new songs to the melodies. It's pretty cool.
I have to say this is the first year in awhile i'm really sad Christmas is over. It has really felt magical seeing it through the boys' eyes, even if we don't have all of the things that go along with it in the US (you know, family, various close friends, snow, cold weather, etc). We are incredibly thankful for Skype, and with the 9 hour time difference, we were able to talk with one set of grandparents when we first got up on christmas and the other set after our nap later that day. Just lovely. This is certainly a holiday that makes me feel like their childhood is slipping through my hands like grains of sand. Each one precious and perfect (even if sometimes annoying), and moving far too fast for me to be able to hold on to it. We got a new Christmas book from the Slabas' (Thank you again!) with a line in it that says "the real gift is YOU beneath my Christmas tree." - every time i read the thing, i get a huge lump in my throat and pretty much burst into tears (like I am now). It's just so true and makes me so thankful for how blessed we have been in our marriage and in our family with health and bounty and love. Words barely scratch the surface for me.
