Zoo, Flu and a New Stroller!

On Friday we went to the Cancer Patient Holiday Party at the MN Zoo. I brought my Grandma along also for some company. Was nice spending some time with her. They had a small meal and the indoor trail and dolphin tank open for us. The boys really enjoyed the fish and dolphins. They didn't care too much for the other animals, they were very hard to see amongst all the plants and trees.

Before the Zoo on Saturday I picked up my new stroller. It's a double jogger, I've been wanting one since last summer. My current double stroller is great for stores and other flat ground, but grass is very hard to roll over, making it hard to go to parks and many other places. My single stroller was a jogger also, and I really missed those big wheels! I found it on Craigslist for a really good deal. The lady had only used it a few times. Dawson thought it was neat, he immediately hopped in and chose to sit in the seat on the opposite side of where he usually sits. Didn't know he had a preference!

Dan was gone on Saturday, we went to fix his truck and bring it back for the snowstorm with hopes to sell it. Unfortunately his parents parked it behind their house and the fuel lines froze. So he won't be able to work on it at all until it gets above freezing. He was pretty disappointed, as we could've been doing other things that day.

Tyler got labs on Monday, they were great! Higher than expected, so we planned on going in for chemo on Tuesday. Unfortunately I got the flu Monday night and was sick into Tuesday, so I called and canceled his appointment. I still don't feel well, but I'm over the worst part it seems. We have chemo scheduled on Friday. I think Dawson's teacher may be coming the same day, it somehow didn't get on the calendar! Way too many things going on these days. So now I get to call and figure all that out.

Poor Tyler scraped his head on the bottom of a chair this weekend, he crawled under it and apparently there was something sharp under there. :(

Here's a cute shirt I found for Tyler at Once Upon A Child that I just couldn't pass up. He's quickly earning the title! I usually don't put him in anything white or really dark, for obvious reasons. Look how pale he is!

Playdate at Erin's House

Today was a lot of fun. We've been cooped up lately, not being able to go many places because of germs. We went to my cousin Erin's house for a playdate. Her 2 kids are the same ages as mine, so it was fun watching them interact. Micah chased Dawson for a while, Dawson loved that. He sure was tired when he got home! Tyler and Leah were so mellow and were happy playing. The extra kids didn't seem to faze Tyler much. Dawson wasn't sure what to think sometimes, but he did pretty good too. It was so cute that Leah seemed to like me, Erin says she's shy around strangers, but she came right over and plopped into my lap.

We stayed for supper, they had spaghetti which is one of Dawson's favorite meals. 4 small children can sure make a big mess! Tyler discovered a riding toy. He really liked it! I have a small riding toy at home, so I put him on it when we got home and he was really excited. He started hopping a bit and throwing his weight backwards and pushing a tiny bit with his feet. He slowly goes backwards across the whole living room! Of course I'm still nervous about him falling, so his toy preference today could've been a bit safer, lower to the ground..... but he did great, he has really good balance so I was happy about that. He never looked unstable and wasn't sliding around. He stopped and cried for me when he was done so I could take him off. He's such a cautious baby, he will crawl to the edge of the couch or the bed but will just stop and look down a bit.

He's getting so big! I can't believe he'll be a year old this month! 21 more days!

Went to Children's ER

I was grocery shopping, had been carrying Tyler through the store. Got to the checkout lane and put him back into his infant carrier that was on the cart seat. I stepped to the side of the cart to grab my wallet out of the diaper bag. Only took a couple seconds. I heard a horrible smack and looked back to see Tyler laying on his back on the floor. I will never forget that horrible sound! He cried, his eyes were rolled back in his head and he wouldn't look at me or focus on anything. He promptly fell asleep and I couldn't get him to wake up for several minutes. Even then he just kinda grunted, let out a couple small cries and fell right back asleep.

I called the on call Oncologist and he had me bring him to Childrens. Not our town's ER, because they have his records at Children's and they wanted to do a CT scan and have him there just incase. So I went home (on the way anyway) to grab his meds and a few things for a possible overnight. Had Dan follow me to the hospital, he was on the way also. It seemed like such a long drive, took just over an hour (which is making pretty good time). We got there and Tyler woke up. He was as perky and active as normal! Whew!

They took an hour to get a Dr to us (after the nurse decided he seemed ok). They were about ready to let us go, but I insisted on a CT scan, like the Oncologist had said we should do. His CT scan was fine.

Then we decided to do counts, as I was worried about where they were since he hasn't had counts in a while and the Dr agreed. They came in and were gonna poke his finger. I told them he gets labs drawn from his line. She left and another nurse came in and told me they'd rather do a finger poke than access a port. I told he doesn't have a port, as I held up his lines that I'd taken out. She about jumped! She looked surprised and then decided that they'd just do it that way (um...duh?). Then they didn't even have the right amount of heparin and they weren't about to use saline, so after correcting her on that, we finally got labs drawn. These are the people we trust with our kids, what if I didn't know all this stuff?! Sheesh! Anyway, his counts are up, WAY up! We were very surprised. His ANC (immunity) is over 1,000 which is very rare for him!! I had them print out counts for me. He last had counts Jan 28th.
WBC - 2,800
Hemoglobin - 10.1
Platelets - 201
ANC - 1,802
According to these counts, he's more than ready for his next chemo. I'm gonna call his primary nurse after I get some sleep and update her on how he's doing and talk about those counts. Maybe he won't even need labs on Monday and we can just start chemo instead.

We were let go with some warning signs to watch for. He seems to be doing great. Nursing fine, playing and giggling. He got upset when Dawson was screaming, no doubt the poor baby has a heck of a headache. I feel horrible. I realize it was only a couple seconds, but of course I had to repeat the story like 5 times in the ER and they were all like "oh, he was unbuckled?". :( I explained that I had been holding him and just put him down for a tiny bit. I usually grab my wallet, which my diaper bag requires 2 hands, then I pick him back up again. I just feel awful, thinking about what could've resulted and how much it must've hurt him. :(

No wonder I don't get much done....

It's been a long, busy week! Seems like we're always doing something, people coming over or we're going somewhere. When we are home, I just want to relax and either be online or play with the kids!

On Sunday I bought a toybox off Craigslist. It's a lot bigger than the old one and fits the bigger toys. We did get a few things done that day. Dawson's teacher came over on Monday. That went well. Dawson recognized her right away and grinned. He then ran over and sat down where they sat last week. He sorted shapes perfectly, matched colors and did some puzzles pretty easily too. He really enjoyed the hour. I went through his toys a bit. I'm trying to get the sets of things together and in separate containers so I can bring them out when he wants them and get them put away again, instead of them just laying all over the place.

Here's the new toybox compared to the old one!

Tyler had an appointment at the Children's Clinic on Tuesday. My mom came and picked up Dawson at 8am. He happily ran outside and stood by the sliding door of her van, patiently waiting to be let in. He sure loves Grandma's house. Then Tyler and I headed to the cities. It was an uneventful drive there. Funny how driving to the cities used to be a big deal, now it seems as common as finding my way to the grocery store. It had been a few weeks since we'd been there, since Tyler's counts were low. The security person looked sheepish and apologized for forgetting my name. They often have my sheet half filled out by the time I get to the desk when they see me coming! Tyler loved seeing his nurses. He showed off his new crawling and supported walking skills to them, as they cooed at him and told him how cute and big he is and how much they missed him in these 3 long weeks!

His chemo didn't take long at all, they also checked under his dressing at my request. I thought it looked funny. Sure enough, he has a yeast infection at the site. After chemo we went up to the 8th floor and saw his old nurses, who apparently were just talking about Tyler, wondering how "their baby" doing. Afterward we dropped some cloth diapers off with Jen in Princeton and then headed to my parent's house for the evening.

Tyler's infected site. I'd taken a pic to maybe email the Dr but it wasn't clear enough to really see all the yeasty spots. But wanted to post it since the tube will be taken out soon and it'll be interesting to look back on. I only have pics of the dressing, not of it uncovered. The black stitch used to be almost level with the skin, it's pulled out that much and the cuff that's underneath the skin is pushing up on the skin, which is what's causing the biggest red spot right above the hole. Hope it doesn't gross anyone out!

Wednesday I had some shopping to do. I got a cart/highchair cover for Tyler at Once Upon a Child. Now once he outgrows his infant carrier, he can sit in the shopping cart seat without worry of germs. I bought a mini trampoline for Dawson. He loves bouncing and uses the couch. I've tried keeping him off it and it's just not happening. I can be sitting right on the couch and he'll still go back up and bounce after I've told him no! The boys were good in the stores, Dawson slept while Tyler played with a toy I brought. I was thinking about going through the Taco Bell drive through, so I checked my window to make sure it wasn't froze shut. It went down a bit, but wouldn't go back up! So it was stuck down about 2 inches, that got cold in no time, even with the heater on full blast.

Wednesday's meds. The horizontal stuff is oral, vertical is all for his 1 IV chemo. 3 are flushes and the red capped syringe is the chemo. His meds top to bottom are liquid vitamins in the bottle, Bactrum to help keep his organs safe, antibiotic for his yeast infection, 6-MP chemo and Zofran for nausea.

Before we went shopping, they were playing with the slide. Tyler would push the truck down the slide, bursting into a fit of giggles. Dawson would giggle too and chase the truck.

Thursday I had to go back out because I missed the customer service desk being open and I needed stamps. So I we went and got stamps and hurried home again. Brr! I set up the trampoline after I got home. Dawson loved it and I haven't seen him bounce on the couch since! Yay! I spent most of the day playing with the boys.

Dawson loves his new trampoline!

 So does Tyler, he thought it was cool to sit on!

 Then he discovered that bouncing a heavy ball toy on it was way funner!

 There's no springs, it's just these fabric stretchy straps. So you really can't get fingers pinched. I was very happy to see that! I touched it while Dawson was bouncing and the fabric doesn't even have big enough grooves to feel a pinch either. :)

Dan is home on Fridays and wanted to eat out for a change. We also wanted to get my remote start key fob that's been broken over a year now. Would've come in handy for the winter, but we've been too busy and they close at 5:30. So we got that finally, now we just have to get Charlie, a mechanic friend of ours, to program it for us. He's trained in that and does them all day long, so it shouldn't take long at all. We went to Arby's and ate in for a change. This reminded us why we don't eat out much! Dawson was making loud noises, Tyler wanted to throw napkins and things on the floor constantly. Dawson escaped over the back of the booth 3 times. We were watching him too, he's just that quick! This is why we make sure not to sit right by people! They only had 1 highchair, which Tyler got. This makes it more tricky. Usually if Dawson can't sit still in a booster, he goes into a highchair and then he's usually better. There really wasn't many people there, thankfully. Maybe 2 or 3 tables. 1 had a toddler, so they were just looking sympathetic! After we got home, Dan took my car to get gas. He also figured out the window problem. The window switch has some bad contacts. He got the window to go up, so that's a relief. He'll be taking that apart and fixing it soon. Hopefully the weather will warm up for him!

Dan's sister visited us that evening also. Dan had a good time visiting with her while playing with the kids. I actually got some dishes done without being bothered (shocking) and a couple other small things. Unfortunately, having late company had Dawson riled up and he wasn't able to settle down for bedtime. He's big on routine. We drink chocolate milk and he watches a short cartoon movie before bed. He usually runs right into his bed after I get his pajamas on. Instead he wasn't settled enough, I even waited until 2am, an hour past his bedtime, hoping he'd settle down. He banged on the door and threw a big tantrum. I tried talking to him a bit, he did settle down and gave a big tired sigh, but as soon as I left the room he was back banging at the door again. She left at 2:40 and he took until 4:30am to settle down and go to sleep. Tyler was up until 7am.

This morning Dawson woke up around 9am, so I'd gotten barely 2 hours of sleep. He ate his breakfast and I put his morning Blues Clues on for him. I fell asleep and he decided to make a huge mess. All the papers from my computer desk (I have 3 cubbyholes in my hutch) and the entire diaper box of CD's and papers next to the computer desk were all over the floor. A lot of the CD cases were cracked, batteries were out of the remotes, etc. Half the living room floor was covered with stuff. He's always tougher to deal with when his sleep routine is off, so hopefully everything will be back on schedule soon. Tonight I put him to bed at 2am, since it was 4am last night. He fought it until about 2:30 that I heard, though sometimes he just wanders around in his room for a while before going to sleep. Tyler is still up though, we're thinking of doing some Wii Sports to kill the time. Should be fun!

Me? Make a mess? Never!

The boys like sharing my lap sometimes when I'm at the computer. I don't get much computer stuff done while holding them both though!

Dawson was suddenly very interested in poking at Tyler. It wasn't very amusing to Tyler though!

When I plugged in my camera to upload pics, I was expecting to have about 10 new ones. Instead there were 56! I said yes to upload anyway and saw many interesting things. Apparently Dawson got at the camera again. I saw lots of floor, some of my computer desk and many unknown colorful blurs. These few were really cute though, so I had to share.

He learned how to back up and take pics! I thought this one was pretty darn good!! He had a few of these.

You gotta wonder what he's thinking sometimes, is he taunting me?

My Destructive Toddler and Curious Baby

Dawson sure is working hard for the spotlight these days! Though I've told him he'll get attention for being cute too, that just isn't as fun! So just in the last few days, he's broken the metal walk-through gate that blocks off the kitchen. This morning he got a pencil from the kitchen and drew all over the hallway walls. Unfortunately we have that bumpy stucco paint on the walls and it's hard to erase over bumps and dips!

He also got ahold of the mail key. This was separated from my key ring when Tyler got admitted and Dan needed access to the mail. We just kept it in the same place as a lone key, since I sometimes came home too. I noticed the other day he climbed up there and was getting at my things, but I moved the thing he was standing on. He got the key anyway and we looked high, low and under everything we could think of and after a good hour of searching we haven't been able to find it!! Hopefully we'll find it before Tyler does. Before Monday would be great! We have to pay to get a new one. I'm sure if we get a new one, we'll find the old one a couple days later. Never fails!

He's been all over my computer desk, he hid my Window's XP disk, but during our key search, Dan found that. He got the camera a few times today. It seems to be his main goal lately. Gonna have to figure out a new hiding place for it!

Tyler has been really active lately too. He's been getting into small things if he finds them, stuff that Dawson threw onto the floor, but most everything is up out of the way. It's Dawson being able to climb on everything that's causing us the most trouble! Tyler has been exploring new places. He crawls in and under things. He pulls up on everything he's able to. Tyler fell and hit his head on a wooden end table and since then he's been scared to go from standing to sitting. So he'll pull up on something and then cry to get down. I hope this new fear doesn't last too long. He wants to eat what we're eating, but he still doesn't eat a lot as far as volume. He just tastes a bit of what I'm eating.

The boys each got a "new" toy the other day. I don't usually buy them toys, but these were things I'd wanted to get them a while back and never did. I sold a couple things at Once Upon A Child and then bought a couple things there. They are both a big hit and have kept them busy over the past few days.

Tyler got a driving toy that makes car/driving noises. They both love this toy!

Dawson got a racing track that's a hill. He really likes it.

It's still neat seeing Tyler standing

Yes, Dawson is IN the toybox. Tyler seems to think it's pretty funny! Tyler sure idolizes his brother and tries to copy everything he does! Should be interesting once he's able to keep up with Dawson!

Dawson the Photographer

 Apparently Dawson had my camera today. I didn't see it missing, but I heard a beeping noise. Upon finding the source of the noise, there was Dawson, looking at pictures on the camera! He's taken interest to the camera in the past week, and has been watching me do things. He's a fast learner! Thought I'd post his work.

This is the first one I saw. I thought he broke something! So I wasn't too pleased at first, but was laughing by the time I finished looking at his pics!

He started at my computer desk, where the camera was. He needs to work on keeping the fingers away!

 

 

 I originally thought this was his tongue, but after a closer look, it's definitely my computer desk. The crumbs were the deciding factor!

So I guess he got tired of objects and decided to tune his portrait skills

Hmm, still off center!

There we go! Aren't I cute?!

Hehe, this flash up in my face is cool!

Ok, maybe this flash is a bit much!

 

 Moving on to some abstract

Look, an entire empty spot of carpet! I must've not been thorough enough with spreading my toys out

He doesn't have a studio yet, but he's got some skills, don't you think?

Mom's Night Out!

I got to go skating tonight with Jenny. It was so good to get out, I was getting really stressed and sick of being cooped up. The boys went to Amy's house. Dawson had a hard time at first, but eventually settled down. He freaks out and is upset everytime we go to anyone's house, but especially Amy's since she took Dawson for days at a time while Tyler was in the hospital. When it came time to pick him up, I had a hard time getting him out the door because he was having so much fun. Nice to know he loves it there. :)

Skating was fun, haven't seen all those people in a couple years! Jenny brought her 5 month old baby, it was nice to see him. She also brought back some baby stuff. I'd borrowed her. It'll be interesting finding space for all that stuff. Today's stuff was just smaller things, but pretty soon I have a swing coming. She's storing the 6 totes of baby clothes in her basement for us. Thank goodness, or we wouldn't be able to save the clothes!

We went shopping at Walmart afterward. Takes longer each time it seems. After checkout, at least 1 cashier usually comes over and wants an update on Tyler. Then a couple other people usually come over to see what the fuss is about, or to see the baby. So then those new people recognize us the next time we go in and it just keeps snowballing. Today I had 5 ladies cooing at him and asking questions! He's getting to be quite a town celebrity. Most places I go there's usually 1 or 2 people who want to see how he is. It's kinda nice to have some adults to talk to, even for a little bit.

Dawson is suddenly interested in getting his picture taken! I got out the camera to get a pic of something Tyler was doing, and Dawson came over, made me point the camera at him, then stood and smiled. He'd look at the result of each one, grin/giggle and then stand back and smile for another one. Could he get any cuter?!

We started getting goofy and he was copying some of my faces

He wanted to show off one of his favorite things. He thinks it's funny to put this on his finger. Makes a cool popping noise when you pull it off fast.

Here's Tyler, with his "new" improved toy. I had the legs off, but since he's standing steadier now, I put them back on and it's suddenly his new favorite toy again. :) 

(the blur on the left is Dawson, still trying to get me to keep the focus on him!!)