The boys are 2!

Yes, they've been 2 for a few weeks now, but I'm obviously not blogging very regularly. We celebrated on June 18th with a family party. Here are a couple pictures from their birthday party:

I ordered the big cookie from a lady here and she did a great job! I loved it - she even used the same colors in my "theme". I wanted to do an airplane birthday party, but had trouble finding an airplane cake. I tried to order an airplane cake from a lady that my sister knows, but she didn't do airplane cakes. Anyway, the big cookie was wonderful! And the boys could eat it by themselves and didn't make a huge mess.


In the past few weeks, I've noticed that E has become Mr. "I do it." He wants to do everything himself. E cracks me up all the time. He says the funniest things or imitates things. I love how he says "glasses" or "playset" because he has a little bit of a lisp.

I has become more of a mama's boy. I is also talking more. He is pointing out more things and saying what they are. E has been talking quite a bit, too, but I wasn't talking as much. I also loves to throw things. Anything. He especially loves to play catch. And swing. He spends a lot of time swinging outside.

N still has a very short attention span (unless she is playing on the xoom or watching TV). Not the best things for a 4 year old to do. She loves to read books. She also loves to help in the kitchen with baking. She also will play for short periods by herself in her room! In other news, N started waking up in the morning with a dry diaper, so she is now sleeping in her underwear. I know, so exciting!

Easter

Happy belated Easter! We had a fun Easter weekend with K's parents here visiting. We spent lots of time with them and with the cousins. So fun! Friday night we went to friends' house and made resurrection rolls. They were a great illustration of Jesus' resurrection! And they were really yummy and fun for the kids. They will be a new tradition for our family! We also dyed eggs and frosted cookies (the kids did mostly) with the cousins and Grandpa and Grandma on Saturday morning.

Dyeing eggs with Daddy at the cousins' house
Samuel getting in on the frosting of cookies

We went to church Saturday night for the Easter service. It was great! Lots of loud music! On Easter morning we did an Easter egg hunt at our house and had lunch at the cousins' house. We had another egg hunt that afternoon. The kids loved it!
E-man finding eggs

Emma striking a pose for the camera

I did one last round of the resurrection eggs with Emma yesterday and then packed up the plastic Easter eggs and decorations. May we be reminded all year of the joy of Easter and Jesus' resurrection!

(Big thanks to Aunt M for taking the pictures!)

Update on the kids

Samuel has been scooting quite quickly and lots of different places lately. He loves to scoot to the kitchen and pick stuff up off the floor to eat. Yesterday I found a nasty hard piece of cheese in his mouth. He also loves to go to the laundry area and play with the shoes. Emma loved to play with shoes, too.

Michael is still quite content to sit and play or lay on his tummy and try to sleep. He loves to stand by the couch and will stand for a long time. He also loves to play peek-a-boo.

Both boys love, love, love to eat. Especially Samuel. He eats anything. Obviously. He eats off the kitchen floor. Michael is more picky, but still loves to eat.

Emma is in swimming lessons right now and is, well, improving. She wants to be held a lot by the teachers. And she gets very cold. But she's gone 3 times so far and has 2 left. She still gets excited to go. I think it's mostly because she gets to wear a swimming suit.

Emma also loves to go to the library and check out books. She picks the most random books and we read them over and over. Our (small) town library has a check out limit of 20 books. I think that's crazy. What happens when I have 3 kids that want to check out lots of books? Emma checked out 11 this last time.

Emma also loves to watch music videos on our tv and dance to them. K ordered a doo-hickey off Wo.ot that lets us connect to You-Tube. Her latest favorite? Shine by the Newsboys. While watching the Newsboys on You-Tube, I found this gem. I'll leave you with the Love, Liberty Disco. Love it!

Not so quick update

Here's a summary of our past few weeks: After I signed off of the last post, the doctors and nurses tried to take Michael's ventilator out. His throat was too swollen so they ended up putting the ventilator back in. Only they couldn't fit the same size tube in and had to put a smaller tube in. So that was on Sunday. I watched him crash...he stopped breathing on his own and they had to "bag" him (breathe for him with the mask with the blue squeeze balloon). I can't even describe how scary it was to watch him go through that. The doctor didn't get the tube back in the first try because his throat was so swollen. That's when I left the room. K said they got the tube in the second try.

Anyway, so he was on the ventilator again for 5 days. The first night (Sunday night) after the whole situation he kind of crashed again. He had to go back on some meds that he had previously gotten off of. The nurse called us at 2:30 am to tell us this. The rest of the week they weaned him off these meds and slowly turned down his oxygen help on the ventilator. He was also given steroids to help his throat swelling. Amongst other drugs. I don't remember everything he was on. Some antibiotics, stomach meds, a feeding tube, monitors, ventilator, etc.

Friday at 12:30 pm they took the ventilator out for the second time. They wanted to wait for an ENT to be there, so they scheduled it. The ENT said his throat was irritated, but it looked fine. No swelling again. He did really well breathing after it was out. However, his tummy started getting bigger and bigger. At first, they thought it was because he had been "bagged" again the night before because he wasn't keeping his oxygen levels up. (That was because the ventilator tube was too small). So they were draining his tummy to try to get the air out and getting a lot of old, brown blood. His tummy just kept growing and was very hard. So they did some x-rays and found out that he had "free air" in his abdomen. Not supposed to be there. It meant that there was a leak from his intestines into his abdomen. There is supposed to be air in the intestines. The pediatric surgeon was called back to the hospital. By this time it was maybe 5:00 and the surgeon was on his way home from work.

Michael ended up going into surgery at 6:30 pm and they found a perforated ulcer in his small intestine (meaning it had broken through the intestinal wall). The surgeon said it was easy to fix, but they had to clean the intestines off since there was formula everywhere. Michael was in surgery for 2 hours. He had to be back on a ventilator since they didn't want to stress his body any more. The doctors and nurses said it was very, very rare to have this happen. It happened because of all the stress on his body from being sick and on a ventilator...and the steroids didn't help, either. I felt so bad for him. He was awake from 12:30 until 6:30 and he just looked like he felt miserable. I was super scared, too, not knowing what was going on...just knowing something was terribly wrong.

That was Friday...Sunday they took the ventilator out again and he did well. I was not in the room for either of the last two times they took the ventilator out. I went somewhere else and came back later. I didn't want to see him crash again if it happened. Monday he spiked a fever. The surgeon thought it could have been because of his central line since he'd had it in for almost 2 weeks. So they put a new central line in on Tuesday. Wednesday they took him off his drugs and started the withdrawal meds. Wednesday late afternoon he also got moved to a regular room. They needed the PICU room for a new patient who was on a ventilator. He ended up having to share a room with another RSV baby. We asked the nurses very nicely a few times if we could please move to a different room because while I knew that he is immune to RSV for this season now, I didn't want to take any chances. Plus the roommates were strange. The mom and daughter of the baby boy both stayed overnight (K did, too) and both snored. And both babies woke up off and on so nobody got a good night's sleep.

I should mention that K spent 15 of the 19 nights in the hospital with Michael. (And 1 night with Samuel.) The other 4 nights Michael was on his own. I am a chicken and couldn't handle sleeping there with all the monitors and stuff going off. It stressed me out enough during the day. But I felt guilty not being there. And felt guilty being there and not being home with the other two kids. Ah, the joy of motherly guilt.

Michael got to come home on Saturday which was great, but he was also going through drug withdrawal. It was pretty rough. He cried a lot (it was a high pitched cry - sounded like a cat) and screamed at the top of his lungs. I literally wore earplugs when I changed his diaper sometimes because he was so loud it hurt my ears. He didn't sleep very well and during the day we had to walk around with him or he would scream. I don't know what the poor boy was going through but it seemed awful. Don't do drugs!

By Wednesday he was pretty much back to his normal, happy self. I'd say Friday he was 100% back. He regained muscle strength really well and was sitting up on his own and rolling over already. It took a little while to get him back to eating well. He's still not eating as much as he was before the hospital stay and he did lose about a pound. Both boys had their 9 month check up on Tuesday and Samuel was 2 pounds heavier than Michael.

Michael is still waking up once a night to eat. And he is a mommy's boy at night. So I guess I should get to bed. Thank you so much for praying for him! I'm so so so so glad to have my sweet bubba back home.

Here he is last Saturday. I love this boy!

What a week

I'm typing this from Michael's room in the PICU. It's Valentine's day and he's still on the ventilator. On Monday, I really expected him to be home by today. He was one sick little guy.

So, Monday night K took him to the pediatrician. Then to the hospital. They put him on oxygen Monday night and then on vapo-therm (a step up from oxygen). He still wasn't doing well so on Tuesday afternoon they sent him up to the PICU and put him on a ventilator. He's also on a bunch of different drugs which K could tell you about since he spent most of his week here. He's sedated, but not all the way. He got off his blood pressure medicine today! Yay! Yesterday he got off the nitrous oxide which helps with oxygen flow through the blood by dilating the blood vessels. I think...it's something to do with blood vessels. Now they can start weaning him off the ventilator. He probably won't be off it today but at least he's going in the right direction.

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday are all a blur of going to the hospital, going home, worrying about all the kids, praying, etc. Not necessarily in that order. My mom came on Wednesday which has been a lifesaver. She's been cleaning and cooking and taking care of kids. I'm sure she'll be exhausted when she gets home!

Friday was a big day. We took Samuel and Emma in to the pediatrician and Samuel ended up spending the night in a regular room because his oxygen levels were a little low. He did fine and got to go home on Saturday. And Friday, Michael got a roommate. She's a little peanut. She's about 6 weeks old. She has RSV also and is on a ventilator. She could use prayers, too. She seems to be doing well from what I've seen on her monitors.

We've had so many people praying for Michael and if you are one of them, THANK YOU! We can tell you are praying! I've always heard people say that, but after this week, I know what they mean. Prayer is the only thing we can do for him now, but it's the best thing!

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day! I love these people:

I'm excited for spring

Michael is spending the night at the hospital with Daddy. I had K go because it's snowy and I'm a chicken about that. And he wanted to go. But I think I'd rather be there. I don't like not knowing what's going on. What if Michael needs me?!

He has bronchiolitis. However you spell that. He is coughing and wheezing. K took him to the pediatrician on Saturday and he prescribed steroids and gave K some stuff for our nebulizer. We've been giving him all that. But he still wasn't getting better and this afternoon was worse. He got a fever and was too tired to eat. He just was sleeping and sleeping. Scary! So I called and made another appointment with the pediatrician for tonight and they sent him over to the hospital. Which is what we thought would happen so K took all the stuff he needs to stay overnight.

K called a little while ago and said they were sucking a lot of gunk out of him. I wish I had one of those vacuum suckers they have at the hospital. It's hooked up to the wall and they turn it on and it has vacuum suction to suck out their noses. Both boys love it. Ha! Michael will also have oxygen and probably an IV. Poor kid. He looked so miserable this afternoon.

And Samuel has started coughing and wheezing a bit too. So I started him on the steroids and nebulizer treatments. Hopefully it won't get as bad as Michael's. Please pray for the boys. Emma is coughing too but she isn't wheezing.

So...on a happier note. (I feel like this blog is depressing lately, sorry.) My sister and her husband came last weekend. (I hope they don't get sick.) But my sister and I spent Saturday afternoon going all over town. It was nice to get out of the house. We went to Babies-R-Us, the mall, chick.fil.a, Once.Upon.a.Child and I picked up an Easter dress for Emma that I found on c.raigslist. I actually didn't spend a lot of money, except probably in gas. Because you don't see T.arget on the list, do you?!