Friday

I am going to post what I meant to last week, then I will add another with the results, otherwise this will be way too long!
Friday morning was Aiden's scheduled MRI to get a clear picture of his brain. The neurologist said we may see some sort of evidence of a stroke that he thinks occurred in utero to cause his cerebral palsy. The main reason to even get the MRI done is to look for possible clotting issues, because that would mean he may be prone to more strokes as he gets older. I got a phone call from one of the nurses Thursday morning with intructions for Aiden, such as no food past 8pm, and nothing but clear liquids after that. Then she told me only 2 adults are allowed at his bedside, and no other children! That would have been nice to know about before both my mom and husband already arranged to be there. Oh yeah, and did I mention that Connor absolutely refuses to take a bottle, so I couldn't just leave him at home with someone?
We got there at 7:30am, and Brandon and I went back to the pediatric outpatient area to get checked in. He was weighed and measured, then shown to a cubicle area with a recliner and a TV. We waited there for about 30 minutes, then just after Brandon and my mom switched places, they decided it was IV time. I really hate, more than anything else in the entire world, seeing my child in pain. Luckily, they got the IV on the first try. Also lucky was the fact that they did it to his left hand. He tried for the next 2 hours to remove that thing, but without much strength and no fine motor skills in his right hand, he was out of luck! I have no idea why they chose to put it in that far ahead of schedule, but I am glad that it went so smooth. He's had IVs two other times, and it always took multiple tries.
There was some sort of emergency, so our appointment got bumped back, but finally at 10am we wheeled Aiden to the MRI suite on his "race car bed". It has all the monitors hooked up, so he was convinced it was his special computer that made him super fast. The imagination of a 2 year old! I have to add, the longer we were there, the more nurses he caused to gravitate towards him. By the time we were walking to the MRI room, he had a mini entourage as an escort :) He ended up with 2 extra nurses during sedation, simply because he flirted with them!
As bad as it sounds, watching the sedative take effect was pretty funny. I was told to expect some crying and screaming, because toddlers tend to violently fight sedation, but not Aiden! He was sooo giggly, and was joking and trying to play tricks on the nurses. He really loved trying to convince the doctor that there was a bird on his shoulder! It ended up taking double the usual dose to knock him out, but he fell asleep happy and woke up the same way :) It didn't hurt that he woke up to a popsicle in his face. His recovery took about 30 minutes, then I got to take him home. That part was not so much fun. I basically had 2 babies for awhile, because he couldn't walk (he tried once, and collapsed face first on the floor!), he had to be supervised while eating, and could only have soft foods. Baths were not allowed, just in case he passed out and I wasn't holding him at that moment, so it was really fun cleaning all the pudding and jello off of him! Brandon came home just before bed time (he works in Rockford this summer, so it's a long commute), and ended up sleeping with him because I was told to monitor his breathing all night. Saturday he woke up full of energy, ate a TON, and was back to his old self :) We were told that the results would be sent to his neurologist in 3-5 business days, and figured we'd find out about them at his appointment on the 29th.
We spent the weekend as a family. Because Brandon is working in Rockford, he is spending most of the week at my parent's house in Grand Rapids, which is only 15 minutes from his job. On Saturday, we went to the Impression 5 Science Museum, which turned out to be free! They accept the Grand Rapids Children's Museum memberships there, so I think we'll be there more often! Sunday was a lazy day for me, and Brandon worked on some of the projects around the house that are falling behind in his absence. He left again early Monday morning, so we are now on week 3 of just me and the kids. It gets crazy, but I think we are settling in to a nice routine.
Oh, and by the way, Connor is out of control! The kid is quite the crawler, and he's figured out how to climb, walk along the couch, and is now working on climbing stairs! I am so not ready for this!!!

Okay, I am horrible at this, I admit it!

So, 3 weeks or so later... Let's see. Aiden is over his ear infection finally! He took almost a week to really be back to himself. I hate when he is super cranky, especially to other people, because he is not normally like that! I am so glad that his physical therapist already knows him, because she had to do a full eval on him, and he didn't cooperate at all! He just repeatedly told her to go away! He's back to being my cuddle bug though, with a few of the wonderful 2.5 year old tantrums thrown in of course :) He rarely naps anymore, which is no fun for any of us. It makes Aiden cranky and me stressed, because I really need naps these days! I've been trying to get over a cold for a few days now, and I really feel like I just need a little extra sleep to get me over the hump. It's not too bad though, because I found out that Aiden will be starting preschool for sure this fall, but it will be in a PM class, so no naps at that point anyways!
We finally saw a neurologist this morning. He said Aiden does appear to have cerebral palsy, albeit a mild case. I am waiting on the call to schedule his MRI now so we can get a clearer picture of what happened. I am beating myself up right now though, and I know that I shouldn't. The doctor thinks what happened is that Aiden actually had a stroke while I was still pregnant. That would be the reason that his birth was so hard, because he didn't have the strength to push himself into the right position. I have spent all day trying to figure out what could have gone wrong. It would have occurred after 33 weeks, since that was my last ultrasound, and everything was fine. That's only a 5 weeks window! The doctor asked me repeatedly if I was sure I didn't get some sort of infection during that time. I don't remember it, but I don't think so! I may have had a sinus infection, and I know I had a filling performed, but other than that, I was so careful! I really just have to wait for the MRI, it should help us pinpoint a time that it happened, and then maybe I can find something in my medical record that corelates. We have a follow up on June 29th, so the MRI will at least be before then. I am not nervous about the actual procedure for him, but I am worried about the sedation part. He is so stubborn, I think he's going to fight it pretty hard, especially when he starts to wake up. It is an oral sedation though, not an IV, so I feel a lot better about that! I was also told they try to schedule 2 year olds for first thing in the morning since there is no eating or drinking before the MRI, so I won't have to deal with a super hungry cranky pants!
Connor is growing up so fast! He just turned 6 months old, and suddenly this child is sitting completely independantly.... and crawling!!! Not using the hands and knees method, but pretty close. He's into everything that he shouldn't be :) You should see Aiden's reaction when he realizes that his brother is chewing on one of his toys! He is also starting solids...sort of! So far, he loves bananas, doesn't mind squash, tolerates carrots and detests peas! He won't even swallow peas, he just spits them out and blows rasberries with them, and actually said "no" clear as can be when I put more near his mouth! He also dislikes cereals, I think it is a texture thing. If I completely thin it out, he doesn't mind, but at that point it is 90% milk and 10% cereal! He has his 6 month checkup at the end of the month (1 month behind, oops), and I am hoping he at least is up to 15 lbs by now. He is so skinny, but he nurses every 2-3 hours around the clock, so he is certainly getting plenty of nutrition! He's just not at all a chunky baby. I did notice he almost has a roll on his thighs though now, so he may hit that 15 lb mark after all :)
Brandon is home for the next 2 weeks before starting his internship at Wolverine World Wide. He will be staying at my parents house Monday thru Thursday, and we will be driving up there on Wednesdays and staying for a day or two every week. Aiden is starting a tap class on Wednesday nights with another boy his age, so it works out well :) It's going to be nice having an income for a few months! I miss paychecks!!!

Sick little man :(

I guess I was pushing my luck with Aiden going so long without an ear infection! He hasn't had one since December, which was a wonderful break for him since he had 6 in 7 months before that! I do think it's funny how smart he is, he has always told me that he had problems long before a doctor can detect it! This time, he told me that he was hearing water in his ear. Previously, he had imitated the popping sounds that his eardrums were making!
Yesterday, Aiden was acting funny. He refused lunch, didn't want a snack, and then skipped his nap, which is pretty much the norm lately. For dinner, I made him rice/soy sauce and spam... one of his all time favorite meals! He didn't eat a bite, instead, he fell asleep in his highchair. I woke him up and asked him if he wanted to go to bed early since he had skipped naptime, and he said that he did. I pulled him out of his highchair and laid him down to get him changed. Brandon got him undressed, and realized he was burning up! He took his temp, and it was 103.5 :( That one came out of nowhere! Brandon slept in his room because I get nervous with high fevers, he has had febrile seizures in the past, and it is scary! After a long night of motrin and popsicles, he got down to 99 in the morning, so I figured I would wait and see if he got better on his own. Around 12, he got very lethargic and I checked his temp, back up to 103.6, so he got more motrin and I called the doctor. I finally spoke to a nurse and she had me bring him in to see if they could squeeze him in. When we finally saw the doc, she said his ear didn't look bad enough to call an ear infection yet, so no antibiotics even though she said she suspected it would become one pretty quick! I think she wasn't too worried because his temp was 98.6 using the armpit method, which has never worked for Aiden! I get him home after grabbing fast food... he hadn't eaten in 36 hours, so even fries would have made me happy! I walk in the door, lay him on the couch, and he curls up into a ball and starts violently shivering! I checked, and he was 104.8!!! We went straight to the urgent care center, where they of course got an armpit reading of 98.7. At least I think I finally realize why that never works... they always check under his right arm, and with his hemiparesis he has such high tone in his arm that it doesn't actually touch his body! He was loopy and hallucinating, so it was pretty obvious to the doc that he definately had a fever. She looked in his ear and saw right away that he has an ear infection! We now have him on antibiotics, which he would have gotten from her anyways, because she said once you pass 104, it generally means you have some sort of bacterial infection. Now I just have to figure out how to get liquids in him, he only had 2 barely wet diapers today, but won't take liquids! He has eaten 2 popsicles (more like 3/4 of each), but other than that, wants nothing anywhere near his mouth. I even got him orange sherbert, which is normally a rare special treat, but after 2 tiny bites, he said he was all done! I hope I have a good update tomorrow after those antibiotics have kicked in a little!

Rainy Tuesday

We had a fun and eventful Easter this year. It is so nice to be able to spend holidays with family! I could really get used to this :) Of course, it may not last, it all depends on Brandon's job offers next year. At this point he is leaning towards a consulting job that would have him traveling Monday - Thursday and home on weekends. We have put so much time and effort into this house that it would really suck to have to move out of it already! We will be renting it out if we do move, but it's scary to think how much damage someone may do to it! We'll see, there is plenty of time to figure out what we're going to when the time comes :)
Connor tried his first baby food on Saturday afternoon. He got a few bites of bananas, and loved it so much that he didn't even make a mess, he wanted every last drop! I am going to go slowly with him, I really wanted to wait until 6 months before solids, but he'll be getting a little bit each night. I plan on waiting at least a week before adding a new food. Aiden was on solids at 4 months (against my wishes, his daycare provider was doing it) and his poor belly was so upset at that age! Now I need to find a new highchair! Aiden refuses to give his up and feeding a squirmy little guy in a bumbo chair isn't working for me!
Aiden has an appointment for a consult set up with a neurologist for May 12th. Hopefully an MRI will be right behind so we can get our diagnosis finally! He had OT this morning and did a little better this time. He only fought Paula for the first half :) It turns out that when she ignores him, he sneaks around her and starts playing with her toys. So from now on it looks like when she comes, she is going to let him lead the way.
Somehow the little man has figured out what is supposed to happen on certain days of the week! He woke up Wednesday morning, looked right at Brandon and told him to hurry up and get him ready for playgroup! I have avoided talking about it because we have 2 weeks off while the leaders take their spring break vacations, but he apparently knows what day we normally go!
Thursday should be interesting. Brandon has invited most of his class over for a barbeque. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get the right cut of spareribs around here! He had to walk the butcher at meijers through it, but yumm... we are going to have korean spare ribs :) We had to order the sauce we used to use from Hawaii, and the shipping was a joke! I was hoping Sam's club could get it for us, since we always bought it from the one in Pearl City, but it is made by a private vendor and we had to order it ourselves. It will be worth it though! Kalbi ribs, Teri Chicken, burgers and brats... anyone in the mood to drive to Lansing on Thursday is more than welcome! There is one person I am hoping does not show up, but if she does, oh well. I'll try my best not to "accidently" spill something on her :) I've only seen her in person once, and that time she was about to say hi to Brandon, realized I was with him, glared at me and stormed away. I know I'm not the only one who would get bad vibes from that! Apparently there is not a single female in the class that likes her though, so the chances of her showing up are pretty slim.
I am going to try to get some before and after pics of our house posted on here in the next few days. Since we will be going on a crazy cleaning spree for this BBQ, it should be a good time to take some pics :)

Baby checkup :)

Today was the first time I have taken the kids to their new pediatrician. It was definately an experience! They are currently covered by the Healthy Kids program, so they have to go to a county health department well child center. It's horrible, but some of the families in that waiting room seriously made me wonder why some people even have children! You should have seen the odd stares I got from everyone in there when I pulled a blanket over my little guy and nursed him. There was absolutely nothing showing except the bottoms of his little feet (he hates being covered, so he was kicking away at that blanket!). I was shocked at how many women just shook their heads at me as they whipped out their bottles for their tiny newborns! When we finally saw the doctor, he asked me if he could shake my hand and thank me for breastfeeding my child! He said it is so rare to see in this country (he's Indian), and especially around Lansing. I just find that so sad that so many women don't even try. I knew one mom who already had formula ready before she gave birth because according to her, she had already sacrificed 9 months of her partying, there was no way she was going to wait to drink after her baby was born when formula is out there! I know there are circumstances that would keep a person from nursing, but honestly, nobody can convince me that they can't because it would be too hard. I managed 11 months with Aiden, and for that to happen I had to lug my pump to work every day. I was given a whole 15 minutes to run to the bathroom, set up a folding chair in the handicapped stall, remove my gun belt and second chance vest, pump all I could while hoping that nobody tripped over my power cord stretched across the bathroom and pack it all back up for later. Again, I was given 15 minutes TOTAL, and 90% of the time I had a dispatcher ask if I was available more than once while doing this. I did it though because breastmilk really was the best thing for Aiden. He had such a severe dairy, egg and corn allergy that the only formula he could have used was prescription only, insanely expensive, and missing a ton of the nutrients in most formulas. That meant of course that I was also dairy, egg and corn free, which was insanely hard, but I would give it all up again in a second for him! Luckily, Connor seems to only have a problem with MSG. I love, love, love chinese food, but not enough to cause him pain!

Anyways, back to the checkup now that I have gotten that off my chest! Connor is truly my little peanut! He was 25.5 inches long, and only weighs 13lbs 7oz! I think he's actually a little taller than that, because he kept bunching up on the nurse, and when she finally got a measurement, his neck wasn't straight because he was looking off to the side. He's only in the 10th percentile for weight, but he's been like that since he was 2 weeks old, so I'm not worried :)

Aiden finally has a referral to a neurologist! Now we have to wait for a call to schedule an appointment, but both his doctor and the chief resident came in and examined his arm and leg, and agreed that he needs to have an MRI so we can get him an official diagnosis and increase his therapy, which he's not going to be too happy about! Oh, and he's up to 31 pounds now, which is funny because he was "stuck" at 29 pounds for 8 months!

Oops!

I guess it's a good thing that nothing depends on whether or not I am keeping up with my blog! Between the 2 boys, I have very rare moments where I can actually type with both hands, and when I do, I have been trying to earn some money! It's on a site called ChaCha, and it's pretty slow going in the beginning. I basically answer questions that were sent via text message to the ChaCha site, and earn between .10 and .18 each answer. Not much, but on busy nights, when both the kids are actually sleeping, I can usually make around $5/hour. I figure it's better than nothing! Some of the questions I get are pretty... interesting though! Let's just say that a LOT of naughty 12 year olds ask question that seem to be aimed at getting a rise out of you. It makes it difficult to answer in a nice, informative way when what I want to do is tell them that if I were their mom, I would be washing their mouths out with soap! The questions are not all like that, in fact most of the time, I just look up phone numbers and addresses. I am slowly earning my way towards a new cloth diaper stash :)
Speaking of cloth, I have settled on my favorites. During the day, I really like the good old fashioned prefold diapers. I have some amazing covers that let you skip pins, and I have yet to have a single leak from these! I didn't realize how much I loved them until I put a disposable diaper on Connor so I could wash all his diapers at once. 10 minutes into it, he had a typical breastfed baby blowout that was nowhere near contained by the Pampers Swaddler that I used to love! I thought maybe it was a fluke, after all, he did eat a lot that morning. So a couple days later, we went to BW3, and I put another Pampers on him so I didn't have to worry about carrying dirty cloth around when I changed him there. Not 2 minutes after we got home, I had to change his entire outfit b/c the diaper couldn't hold up, and he had only been wearing it for 20 minutes at most! Now when we go out, I use a brand called Fuzzibunz. They are a pocket diaper, meaning that they have a leakproof outside and inside is a pocket made of a material that pulls wetness away. You can put whatever you want in the pocket to soak everything up. The ones I have are pretty thin, so they don't give him a bubble butt look :) We are still working on the perfect night combo. Connor still nurses 2-3 times a night, so he pees a LOT! What seems to really work is a fitted diaper (a thicker version of a prefold that has velcro fasteners and elastic at the legs) which is made of bamboo. I have a hemp diaper doubler around that, and top it off with a wool cover. Wool turns out to be virtually leak proof! It's a pain that it has to be handwashed, but unless he poos, that only has to be done once a week.
Aiden is slowly working on potty training. If he is naked, he uses his potty 100% of the time. He even poops on the thing! Any clothes whatsover though, and he has accidents. He is too independent to ask for help, and b/c he has so little strength in his right hand, he can't undress himself :( I have a project that I want to do that involves sewing rings on his pants so he can pull them down, but I am completely sewing illiterate!
We have hit a huge wall in Aiden's therapy! He has decided he is done with it! His poor therapist struggles so hard with him, but he won't even look at her without throwing a tantrum :( I hope it's just a phase, because he was doing so well. Paula said it's because he isn't "therapised", meaning he is new to OT, and the novelty has worn off. He finally realized that OT is hard! We have a new pediatrician that we will see tomorrow about a referral to a neurologist, and hopefully OT through the hospitals here since EI stops for the summer. Maybe after OT in a clinical setting, he will appreciate having someone come to our house for it! I just hate to see his progress come to a crashing halt because of his stubborness! Aiden will be starting preschool in the fall through headstart at MSU lab preschool. This will be perfect because he will be in a class that is run by OT students! I am so glad that he will qualify under headstart because that preschool is one of the most expensive around, and there is no way that my unemployed butt could afford it, no matter how much he needs it! The EI program was originally working on getting him qualified as special needs so that he could attend that way, but he's too smart! There has to be more than 1 reason for a child to qualify, and his only issue is one sided motor skill delay. The child landed in the above average/gifted category for vocabulary and understanding! Once you can get past his pronunciation of certain letters, you really can carry on whole conversations with him :)
Sick of reading yet? Ha, I guess I have traded regular blogs for entire months crammed in one summary :) I really will try to do better!

It's been a long and crazy couple of weeks!

I'm pretty behind on blogging (and cleaning my house, and getting my schoolwork done, etc)! The last 2 weeks have been beyond insane, and I can't wait until everything settles down!

Almost 2 weeks ago, I had one of those rare opportunities to do a little shopping at Babies R Us. It's about 30 minutes away from my house, but one of the only places that sell a certain baby soap I need to use on my super sensative skinned baby! I of course couldn't help myself, and ended up also finally buying a baby sling/wrap that I have wanted for awhile :) Hey, it's for me AND Connor, so that is how I justified it to myself. We stopped in the mommy room so Connor could eat, then I bundled him in his car seat and we headed home, with my little man sound asleep in the back. Out of nowhere a minivan in the lane to the right of me decided to make a left turn, and I got the pleasure of T-boning him. Connor slept through the whole thing! He was absolutely fine. I ended up with a wrist fracture, but it's healing nicely. My car will be in the shop next week to get prettied up, and the boys are now the proud new owners of Recaro carseats (their old ones are required by the manufacturers to be replaced after an accident). Those seats are so incredibly safe! They are huge though, and take up the entire backseat of my RAV4 :) I do miss the convienence of the removable carseat for Connor, but he is getting so tall so fast that I couldn't bring myself to spend so much money on something he will only use for another couple of months tops.

So Saturday night, Connor started coughing. He had a little cold, but I didn't think it was a big deal, Aiden had it too, but it only lasted a couple of days. Monday morning, it was so much worse, and when I was changing him, I noticed his chest was retracting between his ribs! As I was calling his pediatrician, his lips and chin started turning purple, so I grabbed him and Aiden and we headed to an urgent care center which was much closer than the ER. They monitored him for a couple of hours, and released us with a DX of RSV and Bronchiolitis :( We went for a checkup the next day, and his respirations were higher, he had a fever and his pulse ox was 93%, but they decided not to admit him to the hospital as long as he stayed above 92%. Wednesday, he seemed like he was getting a little better (I finally got almost 2 whole hours of sleep at a time the night before). Of course, today, he started getting worse just as I got my hopes up that we were done, so we headed in to the ER, where they watched him for a few hours. He maintained about 95% oxygen with some scary dips, but because he was able to regulate himself without any help, we managed to get sent home. The doctor said that this seasons RSV is the worst strain he's seen so far, and that it is taking about 2 weeks for babies to get over this one :( I just can't wait to 1) have my happy and healthy little man back and 2) stop staring at his chest and second guessing the color of his fingers and toes!

On a very positive note, Aiden decided yesterday that he wants to go peepee on the potty from now on!!! We have made it 2 days now without ANY accidents (and by typing this I am jinxing myself!). He is going to be in diapers for naptime and bedtime for quite awhile b/c he is always very wet when he wakes up! I bought him a few cloth diapers last week since he was jealous of his little brothers new diapers, and those work GREAT for night diapers! After we run out of the disposables we have right now, I am done buying those diapers for Aiden! He can rotate through his cloth once I pick up 2 or 3 more for him :)

I think I may be addicted to cloth diapers :) I am having so much fun trying new ones for my little guy! I am only buying them off the clearance websites while I find the one that I like the most, but it's really hard to pic and choose :) I really never saw myself as a mom who did the whole natural parenting thing, but somehow it seems to have started happening on its own :) I am all for breastfeeding until my guys are 1 (Aiden only made it 11 months though), I love cosleeping (but am so relieved we got Aiden into his own bed before the new little guy came along), I love wearing my kids, and I am getting into cloth diapers! What happened to me?! I guess parenthood really does change a person :)