Saturday, May 05, 2012
Hurricane Bubbles, part 2
Corinna is at that stage: the one where nothing really holds her attention like destruction. And that, only briefly.
Cub scouts
I was called to be assistant den leader. Perhaps not coincidentally, Matthew is one of the louder, more wiggly scouts. Here he is setting a good example to the younger kids.
Isaac wraps a present
Matthew and Melissa were invited to birthday parties so they had presents to wrap. Not to be left out, Isaac decided to wrap his miniature Rock Band guitar... VERY securely. When he was done it was more tape than paper, but Isaac was pleased.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Hurricane Bubbles
Matthew thought Corinna's nickname should really be Hurricane.
Isaac "helped" Corinna to some Cheerios from the pantry and gleefully fed her in the living room.
When I got there and exclaimed "Oh no!" Isaac pointed to Corinna and said, "Baby make mess!" That's right Isaac, blame it on the nonverbal kid.
One of Corinna's simple joys in life is emptying the bookcase. Typically we keep the books so tightly wedged in there that she can't pull them out. Not until the big kids pull some books out to read thus rendering our clever defense useless...
Isaac "helped" Corinna to some Cheerios from the pantry and gleefully fed her in the living room.
When I got there and exclaimed "Oh no!" Isaac pointed to Corinna and said, "Baby make mess!" That's right Isaac, blame it on the nonverbal kid.
One of Corinna's simple joys in life is emptying the bookcase. Typically we keep the books so tightly wedged in there that she can't pull them out. Not until the big kids pull some books out to read thus rendering our clever defense useless...
Hurricane Bubbles indeed.
Melissa's game
Melissa had a school assignment to make a game consisting entirely out of recyclable materials. It was her idea to make a bowling game, so we raided our recycling bin for cans to use and cut an old poster cylinder down to size to use as a "ball."
To the ER!
This happened a few weeks ago and Jonathan insisted it deserved a post.
The day after Easter I kept finding bits of wrappers, scotch tape, assorted flotsam on the floor- just perfect for Corinna to practice her finger grasp and eat. Even though I swept the floor several times she still found things to shove into her mouth and so I fished bits of this 'n that out from between her clenched teeth (and was bitten for my efforts too!).
That afternoon, I was on the couch when I heard Corinna making a gagging sound by the toy basket. Here it goes again! I scooped her up, tilted her head down and forward and swept her mouth with my finger expecting to make contact with a forgotten wrapper. Nothing. Thinking perhaps Corinna was just making noise I set her loose. Perhaps a minute past and she started gagging and coughing again. My investigations still yielded nothing. I turned her loose again and then she gagged and threw up. Hmm. She didn't expel anything obvious. I got a flashlight and peered into her mouth and still couldn't see anything.
After throwing up she wanted to nurse and so I obliged her thinking perhaps that if there was anything in her throat that perhaps it would be dislodged down to her stomach by swallowing. She suckled briefly and then vomited some more. At this point I started to get alarmed. While she didn't seem to have any difficulty breathing, she did start drooling and it seemed likely that she had something caught in her throat. She continued to gag off and on.
I called Andrea and asked her to come by to watch the big kids while I took Corinna to the emergency department. Andrea arrived and Corinna and I left. When we got there, they hooked her up to check her oxygen levels. Fortunately her oxygen saturation was perfectly normal. The doctor still wanted to do an x-ray since it was still very possible to have something lodged in her throat with normal oxygen levels. He did caution that if it was plastic it might not show up on x-ray, but that there might be swelling in one of her lungs and that would be apparent on film. So we waited for a tech to free up and do an x-ray.
Throughout our wait in the little room Corinna was much more subdued than average. She just wanted to snuggle on my lap. She didn't want to crawl around and cause mayhem which is highly unusual for her. However the oxygen monitor wrapped on her big toe really annoyed her and whenever she could, she ripped it off and tossed.
The techs stripped Corinna down to her diaper and did a chest x-ray. To do this they set her in a clever contraption. She was placed in a bicycle like seat and two long clear plastic shields tied together held her in place with her arms above her head. Corinna howled in protest to the indignity, but the whole process took less than a minute.
Then we waited some more.
The x-ray results didn't show anything, so the doctor wanted her to do a swallow test. If she drank and kept things down then we could go home. If not than the next step was exploratory surgery with a surgeon. Eek!
They brought 6 oz of baby gatorade. I coaxed an ounce down her before she refused any more. She was hungry and wanted milk! She hadn't eaten since her abortive attempt 4 hours ago and hadn't really had a meal since much earlier than that. When we arrived she was to have nothing by mouth, so she was very eager to nurse. So she did.
It stayed down! Hooray! We were discharged with instructions to call if anything changed and admonished to keep small things picked up.
It seems whatever was stuck in her throat resolved itself, and so we left for home. Poorer and wiser. When we got home, the big kids were still awake in their beds and very concerned about Corinna. In fact they got very vigilant about picking up small things. For a few days anyway.
The day after Easter I kept finding bits of wrappers, scotch tape, assorted flotsam on the floor- just perfect for Corinna to practice her finger grasp and eat. Even though I swept the floor several times she still found things to shove into her mouth and so I fished bits of this 'n that out from between her clenched teeth (and was bitten for my efforts too!).
That afternoon, I was on the couch when I heard Corinna making a gagging sound by the toy basket. Here it goes again! I scooped her up, tilted her head down and forward and swept her mouth with my finger expecting to make contact with a forgotten wrapper. Nothing. Thinking perhaps Corinna was just making noise I set her loose. Perhaps a minute past and she started gagging and coughing again. My investigations still yielded nothing. I turned her loose again and then she gagged and threw up. Hmm. She didn't expel anything obvious. I got a flashlight and peered into her mouth and still couldn't see anything.
After throwing up she wanted to nurse and so I obliged her thinking perhaps that if there was anything in her throat that perhaps it would be dislodged down to her stomach by swallowing. She suckled briefly and then vomited some more. At this point I started to get alarmed. While she didn't seem to have any difficulty breathing, she did start drooling and it seemed likely that she had something caught in her throat. She continued to gag off and on.
I called Andrea and asked her to come by to watch the big kids while I took Corinna to the emergency department. Andrea arrived and Corinna and I left. When we got there, they hooked her up to check her oxygen levels. Fortunately her oxygen saturation was perfectly normal. The doctor still wanted to do an x-ray since it was still very possible to have something lodged in her throat with normal oxygen levels. He did caution that if it was plastic it might not show up on x-ray, but that there might be swelling in one of her lungs and that would be apparent on film. So we waited for a tech to free up and do an x-ray.
Throughout our wait in the little room Corinna was much more subdued than average. She just wanted to snuggle on my lap. She didn't want to crawl around and cause mayhem which is highly unusual for her. However the oxygen monitor wrapped on her big toe really annoyed her and whenever she could, she ripped it off and tossed.
The techs stripped Corinna down to her diaper and did a chest x-ray. To do this they set her in a clever contraption. She was placed in a bicycle like seat and two long clear plastic shields tied together held her in place with her arms above her head. Corinna howled in protest to the indignity, but the whole process took less than a minute.
Then we waited some more.
The x-ray results didn't show anything, so the doctor wanted her to do a swallow test. If she drank and kept things down then we could go home. If not than the next step was exploratory surgery with a surgeon. Eek!
They brought 6 oz of baby gatorade. I coaxed an ounce down her before she refused any more. She was hungry and wanted milk! She hadn't eaten since her abortive attempt 4 hours ago and hadn't really had a meal since much earlier than that. When we arrived she was to have nothing by mouth, so she was very eager to nurse. So she did.
It stayed down! Hooray! We were discharged with instructions to call if anything changed and admonished to keep small things picked up.
It seems whatever was stuck in her throat resolved itself, and so we left for home. Poorer and wiser. When we got home, the big kids were still awake in their beds and very concerned about Corinna. In fact they got very vigilant about picking up small things. For a few days anyway.
A conversation with Isaac
"Isaac, did you have a good time at school?"
"Yes!"
"What did you have for lunch?"
"Cookies!"
"I like cookies, too."
"Chocolate! Happy!"
"Mmm, chocolate cookies."
"Dada chocolate! Om nom nom nom nom!" [He pretends to eat my arm]
The funny thing is he did not actually have cookies in his lunch today. Perhaps he was thinking back to yesterday's lunch. Or maybe he thought I was asking what he liked in his lunch. It's hard to say...
"Yes!"
"What did you have for lunch?"
"Cookies!"
"I like cookies, too."
"Chocolate! Happy!"
"Mmm, chocolate cookies."
"Dada chocolate! Om nom nom nom nom!" [He pretends to eat my arm]
The funny thing is he did not actually have cookies in his lunch today. Perhaps he was thinking back to yesterday's lunch. Or maybe he thought I was asking what he liked in his lunch. It's hard to say...
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Easter 2012
Matthew, Melissa, and Isaac made paper mache eggs this year.
Here they are dying eggs. Isaac thought this was the Best Idea Ever!
Later that evening we had our traditional Easter story egg hunt with Uncle Brian's fiancee (Aunt) Kirsti. Mom gave that to us years ago and we love tell the story of Jesus Christ's atonement as we open each egg with the children. Each egg has a small item representing a part of the story. The last egg is empty, because He is not here, He is risen! It helps to bring the focus of Easter back to Christ.
Easter afternoon.
Church starts at 8:30 am, so the Easter bunny visited while we were at church. Corinna was fascinated by the eggs and quickly figured out that there was goody inside. She helped herself to her first taste of chocolate by pilfering foil wrapped eggs carelessly left out. Corinna whole-heartedly approved. She went through three chocolate-covered outfits and I had to fish foil out of her mouth. The big kids were threatened with losing their loot if they didn't keep it up out of the hands of babyzilla!
I think Isaac had chocolate in his mouth for all of the pictures taken that afternoon.
Melissa searching for eggs.
We did not get any pictures of Matthew hunting eggs. He was too fast.
Later that evening we celebrated Easter together as family with Aunt Andrea, Uncle Jeremy, and Gwendolyn. The Thomases and their two children joined us for dinner as well. This year I tried a Texas Easter dinner with beef brisket and potatoes. We did have the traditional hollow Easter rolls, however.
The kids cracked confetti eggs after dinner. Aunt Andrea was a very good sport.
Happy Easter!
Oatmeal
Isaac breakfast of choice is oatmeal. Typically we don't dress him before breakfast and this is why:
Bluebonnets + Springtime in Texas
The bluebonnet is the state flower and is near and dear to the heart of Texans.
Every spring families traditionally gather in the bluebonnet patches in the parks and fields. They plop their kids down in a patch and take pictures of them.
Conference Weekend
I built a tent a la the people of King Benjamin (Mosiah 2:5) for the kids to watch General Conference.
It was an uplifting conference, and I especially appreciated Elder Uchtdorf's talk on forgiveness and mercy. You can listen here: lds.org
It was an uplifting conference, and I especially appreciated Elder Uchtdorf's talk on forgiveness and mercy. You can listen here: lds.org
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The sink from hell
Moving sucks. But some things suck more than moving. Like living with the sink in this house.
Every month or so it falls apart, literally: the pipes were put together in such a poorly thought-out way that they won't stay together for longer than that. So then we have water (if we're lucky, that's all it is) spewed all over the floor and anything we had in the cabinet underneath.
This weekend was especially awesome, since it broke on Saturday, and then again on Monday, when we were still digging our way out from the mountain of dishes caused by the first explosion. (Of COURSE we can't use the dishwasher while the sink is broken. I think this is standard design but it shouldn't be.)
So here is a picture of where Rachel did a load of dishes in the bathtub.
We will not miss this house.
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