Avoidance & Indulgence

Okay, so we hadn't done much of anything fun this summer yet. And we got a special pass to a pool for the week. Therefore, I was determined to go everyday this week with the kids and hope Abram could come at least once or twice. Well, so far so good! But the house is being neglected and we have a lot of things to do, but tomorrow is the last day! Then I promise I'll be good. :)

Happy Birthday, Brenna!

"I'm four now, but I'm still gonna have little hair." -Brenna Eve
Today is our number 2 girl's birthday! Hooray!
Brenna is our little darling Brown haired girl. She is very good at sharing and is the peace maker.
She can spell her name and count to 20. She is the brave girl too. She likes to hang out with Aisling and her friends and has a wild imagination. Brenna loves to tell us about all of her friends with crazy made-up names that always do things they aren't supposed to do, or her teachers who teach her to do naughty things. She is incredibly loving and will kiss and hug you enough to drive you crazy. I think sometimes she borders on manic! :) She enjoys playing with Lachlan, too much, if you know what I mean. She and Rowan are starting to get along better and play together. She loves to wear dresses and skirts and can't wait for her hair to be long enough to put in braids and pig tails.
She is our night owl, but she is great at staying bed and twisting her hair. :)
We love you, Brenna!

On the way to One

Lachlan is starting to move towards the road out of babyhood. He is starting to sit up alone and getting ready to learn to crawl. You can set him down in one part of the room and minutes later he'll be somewhere else. He is ready to start eating food too.
We got the bill from the E.R. They want $530. woopee!

Running for your Mind

Tonight I went running.
It has been a long time since I've gone running. ( More like a slow jog :)) More than a year. but it has been even longer than that since I've done my old route that I used to run in my pre-married days when I lived here with my parents. Every way you go from our house there is a hill of substantial size, so when you're out of shape it's quite a daunting prospect to consider. But just down a tiny bit of hill is the large canal that runs parallel to the main road, in a meandering sort of way. This is the way I used to run, down along the canal for about 1/2 mile or so, then up a steep hill and backtrack a bit to follow a branch of the canal through some farmer's fields for another 1/2 mile or more out onto a main road and then back about a mile or more. It is such a beautiful jog, along a lush canal lined with trees and shrubs and ducks and sometimes snakes. The sun was just about to go down, so the sky was beautiful, the air had cooled a bit from the 100F it had been earlier. It was so refreshing to be out alone, to let my mind free. I wanted to keep running forever.

E.R.Visit

I guess I spoke too soon. Or maybe I jinxed myself. I should have knocked on wood! I took Lachlan to the E.R. last night. He is just fine, so don't be alarmed. He had a high fever for 2 days and his fontanel (soft spot) was bulging. I thought that was a bit strange, so I googled it online and everything I read said meningitis or encephalitis. There was no other reason (besides shaken baby syndrome) for a swollen fontanel. So I got a little concerned and still thought, I'm sure he's fine. He doesn't have any other symptoms. But I called a nice man in our ward who is a GP and he advised me to take him to the E.R. right away. That got me a little alarmed. but he was behaving so normal, smiling and playing and eating great. I thought there can't possibly be anything wrong with him. I called a few nurses and my mom and they all said take him in! So I did. The ER doc came in and said, this guy looks like a million bucks! Why is he in here? So we did a CBC and they said he looked great, everything was normal and just to keep an eye on him. I was quite relieved that they didnt' do a lumbar puncture ( spinal tap) because I've heard those are very unpleasant and risky too. The blood draw was bad enough on the poor little guy. I'm thankful he is ok, and that I only had to pay $100 for the ER visit and then whatever the lab work costs, but as much as I would like to think, sheesh, I didnt' need to go do that, you really don't want to take any chances with meningitis. All the staff were very wonderful at the Meridian St. Lukes E.R. night shift. We got home about 12:30 am and Lachlan's fever seems to have diminished and you hardly notice his "bump" at all. Thanks for all the prayers!

Kids say...

Aisling:
" look at Lachlan's face, he's white as a sheep!"
Brenna:
"good Night! Sweet Germs, mom"
"that boy isn't nice. He's a bad word."

Welcome to ChildHood

As a person who has made it through 30 years of life with no stitches or broken bones or visits to the ER for any reason, I am quite ignorant when it comes to what we may label "emergencies". My fear has been that something bad will happen and I won't recognize it as serious and then Abram will come home and I'll be in major trouble for not taking our child to the ER as they are bleeding to death on the couch. (that's a little sarcasm) Just this week I've had two of the typical childhood scares that could have ( but didn't ) end up in the ER.
First Rowan fell of her bar stool somehow and I think she must've hit her chin on it, because she split her chin open. It was a small gash, only about 1/2 inch long, but it was kind of split pretty good. So I wasn't sure what I should do. My tendency is to downplay everything, so I thought maybe I should up-play it. I did end up taking her into our Pediatrician because we have a copay. I let them assess and they said if she was older they would probably stitch it but at this age it would be more traumatizing and the location on her chin enabled them to just pull it back together as best as they could and bandage it without worrying so much about the scarring.
Tonight Brenna was sticking her fingers up her nose and told me she had really big boogers. Then suddenly she burst into hysterical crying and screaming saying it hurt and she couldn't get them out. They hysterical crying and screaming is normal occurrence for her, so I annoyedly told her to calm down and just go get a kleenex. I certainly didn't want her wiping big boogers on the carpet or couch. She walked around the kitchen still screaming, with her fingers up her nose saying she couldn't find the kleenex. I told her they were on the counter. She countinued bawling and wandering around the kitchen saying she couldn't find the counter. At this point I was less annoyed and more amused. She came in and said she wanted me to stick my fingers up there and get them out because they really hurt. I tried not to laugh as I explained my finger would not fit up her nose. I got up and helped her find the counter and the kleenex and showed her how to blow really hard to blow those big boogers out. She tried once or twice and went on crying that she couldn't get them out and they hurt! Finally she got me to understand that she had put two beads up her nose, one up each nostril and they were stuck up there. ARGH! I kinda started feeling freaked out, thinking how on earth will I get them out? Will I have to take her to the ER? What will they do there? Can I use some tweezer-type tools? I asked her to stop pushing her fingers up her nose because I was certain she was just shoving them in farther and farther and I called Abram. When he was a little boy he put a roley poley up his nose. So I wanted to find out how he got it out. As I was on the phone with him telling him I needed him to help me, Brenna came in much relieved because she had blown really hard and the beads came out. Thank Goodness! She did carry those beads around in her hand for the rest of the night. And hopefully the girls learned a valuable lesson. Unfortunately It all went over Lachlan's head so he may have to repeat the fiasco when he gets a little older.