Swelling Ahead

Why can't it stay Spring forever? Or perhaps until around July 15?

We've been having some unseasonably cool weather around here lately. Like, 70 degrees one day and then 50 the next. There's even been snow in the higher elevations. My husband has complained quite a bit because he loves the hot weather for biking. Pretty much everyone I know wishes it would warm up more, but not me. I would rather it stay 65 for as long as possible. Not only am I lazy about turning on the A/C, but this year I have a special reason to want it to stay cool: swelling. Up until now, I've been able to wear cute skirts, sandals, and capris and feel pretty good about how my legs and feet looked. With 80+ degree days coming up this weekend, that will be a thing of the past. Gone will be the comments from family and friends that I look cute. Pretty soon, everyone will just give me sympathy sighs and say, "How much longer do you have?"

I know I'm being whiny, but hey, I'm pregnant and it's my blog, so I'll complain if I want to. :)

On a less-whiny note, the babies are doing well and getting fat in there. Both are measuring about a week and a half ahead of my due date (and have been since 10 wks) so they might move it up. I'm slightly anemic but I don't have gestational diabetes. I'll take the little iron pill over testing my blood any day.

Story Time

Last night on the way to the grocery store, S said, "Mom, did you know that sometimes twins can be born with their heads stuck together? Does that happen just when twins are a boy and a boy, or a girl and a girl? Can it happen with a boy and a girl?" I reassured her that since we've seen our babies on video a few times, we know they're not stuck together in any way. "Oh good. The librarian told us about them today and I got worried."

I thought it was so sweet that she wanted to make sure her new brother and sister weren't going to be joined at the head, but this conversation begs the question, What exactly are they talking about at the school library? I can just see the librarian sitting the first graders down for story time and saying, "Welcome children. Today we'll be talking about extremely rare birth defects in twins. Next week, we'll cover cleft palates." I certainly hope she didn't have a picture book to go along with her presentation.

And for your viewing enjoyment, here's a belly picture--not an actual one, because I don't think I'll ever post one, but a lovely interpretation drawn by S for her school journal a month or so ago. There appears to only be one baby in there (or what I think is a baby) but her journal that day was all about the twins, so who knows. I was very interested by the fact that my belly seems to be overtaking the rest of my body. I could definitely see that happening toward the end...

Soapbox speech

I will very rarely use my blog to post my soapbox views on things, I promise. But I just had to write about an article I read this morning on foxnews.com. If you'd rather not follow the link, basically it says that kids enrolled in daycare or playgroups are less likely to develop leukemia. What?! First of all, why was such a study done (most likely using my tax dollars)? Second of all, are we now supposed to put our kids in daycare to minimize their risk of leukemia? Sheesh.

The article says that when a kid's immune system isn't challenged early on in life, it increases the risk of the immune system responding inappropriately to infection. Totally on board with that theory. I'm all for not keeping kids in a bubble and having them out and about, around other family members, and not being a germaphobe mom. But there's the other side of the coin that some kids in daycare end up with compromised immune systems because their little bodies are constantly bombarded with this virus or that infection.

I promise that I am neither for or against daycare, or belittling anyone who uses some form of childcare for their kids. I just hate studies like this that present such a skewed point of view, and make moms wonder if there's "one more thing" they need to feel guilty about.

The Science Daily article itself (a link from the Fox News blurb) does go on to talk about the importance of breastfeeding and vaccinations, but the bulleted version on foxnews.com (and what most people would read) pretty much focuses on daycare and how it helps reduce the risk of leukemia by 30%. Sheesh. That's all I have to say.

I'm stepping off the box now. :)

I should have knocked on wood

I've read recent posts about my friends and their kids being sick--flu, stomach viruses, etc. And I kept thinking (and even mentioned to A), "We've really had a pretty good winter. A few sniffles and coughs, but nothing bad." Well, I definitely should have knocked on wood when I said that--or just kept my mouth shut--because of course, we got sick.

T randomly had a fever last Thursday. Not a bad one. He was just really sleepy all day and took it easy. Friday he was better, but he'd periodically lie down or want me to hug him. And I discovered that a mildly sick T is not such a bad person to be around. He was really mellow and didn't yell and complain about much of anything all day. And because I told H to leave his brother alone, there weren't any wrestling matches that ended in sobbing. Not so bad.

Late Saturday night, S came into my room and told me she had thrown up. What?! Then she immediately said, "But I don't feel sick. I feel fine." Interesting. She even told me she had a dream that she had thrown up and then woke up and realized she had really done it. So weird. She was completely fine afterward, but I kept her up for a while to make sure. She watched ESPN with her dad and got excited at a big homerun on Baseball Tonight. No more symptoms whatsoever, so we wonder if she ate something that disagreed with her.

Sunday night, I started feeling extra tired (more than my normal preggo tiredness.) An hour later, I thought I might have a fever. It was low, but going up. Sunday night was awful as my fever went up and the Tylenol did little more than bring it down a little for a few hours. Monday was pretty dang horrendous. A thankfully took the boys to work for most of the day and I laid on the couch and only moved when the fever was down for a bit. When it got above 101, I called the doc office and they told me to come in. Doc concluded it was just a flu and listened to the babies' heartbeats. They're doing just fine, so that was a relief. Fever kept going up last night, but it seems to finally have broken for good. I'm tired, oh so tired, but I think I'm on the mend. I'm glad it was relatively short-lived, because flu on top of being pregnant is never a good thing.

So, this has taught me that even though we've had a relatively healthy winter, things can always go south. :)

One Year Ago This Week

Once there was a boy named T. He was a pretty adventurous baby and toddler, way more so than his older brother and sister. Much of his exploring involved putting things in his mouth. Now, most babies like to put things in their mouth to check them out, but this kid put everything in his mouth--bits of things he found on the floor (including a small button I later found in his diaper), toilet paper (I had to take rolls off the dispenser and put them on top of the toilet so he couldn't reach them), regular paper, and even books. So many of our books have corners chewed off that it looks like we had a dog.

One day, T and his brother were eating an apple. Usually, I cut apples into slices for my kids, so I'm not sure why they were eating it whole. Maybe I was having a dumb mom day, maybe they got it out of the fridge without me knowing. Anyway, T kind of coughed up a few tiny apple leaves (because you should never waste any part of the apple), and I thought, "This kid's crazy. I'm glad we got it up, though."

Not so fast. After that happened, he sounded just a little bit wheezy when he breathed. Nothing bad, and it certainly didn't deter him from his usual running, jumping, and causing mayhem. We thought maybe he had just scratched his throat when he tried to swallow the apple leaves. So, we ignored any parental instinct that something more might be wrong, and just "kept an eye on him."

That was on Thursday. The wheezing continued over the weekend, and we started worrying about it more. Finally, we took the kid into the doctor on Monday. Doctor listened to him breathe and said he thought something might still be stuck in there. Awesome. We took him to the local hospital for x-rays (he did not enjoy that, of course) but they really couldn't see anything. Went home to wait. Doctor called us at home on Tuesday and said he wanted us to go up to the children's hospital an hour away. We dropped the other kids off at my in-laws and took off with T. The doc had supposedly called ahead for us so we thought we'd get in right away. Not really. We checked in at the ER and waited. And waited. Meanwhile, thinking they might have to do a procedure that night, we didn't let T eat or drink. We chased him around the waiting room for about two hours, and then we finally saw the triage nurse. She listened to his chest and said, "Yep, I think there's something still down there." Thank you for that expert assessment.
More waiting, and then we got into see the pediatrician. More listening and more x-rays. Then finally around 8 pm, a decision was made to do a bronchoscopy. The apple core was blocking his right lung and so the kid was pretty much only breathing from one side. For it, they'd have to put him under and send a scope down his throat to get the apple core out. There were a few kids in front of him so we waited. For having not eaten in several hours and being tired out of his mind, T was in surprisingly good spirits. We watched a cartoon or two and took him on walks.

Finally, around 10 or 10:30 pm, they prepped him for surgery, even putting the IV in his left arm, so he could still suck on his right fingers. The procedure itself only took about 20 minutes. When it was over, the surgeon told us they'd found the apple core piece (and even gave it to us in a handy container!) and quite a bit of infection (as a result of the stupid parents waiting around for days after the incident).Since it was late at night, we had to stay there. When he came out of the anesthesia, he was all groggy and started yelling. And screaming. Nothing we did could calm him down. Nothing. He screamed for probably 1 1/2 hours (mind you--it's almost 1 am by now and there are very sick children on the same floor, trying to sleep--nice.) Finally, some genius nurse found a super-cool straw, put it in a juice box, and handed it to T. He immediately stopped crying and started drinking. A and I collapsed in a heap next to him.

We took him home the next morning and he's been completely fine ever since. No ill effects from the ill-fated apple eating, or his not-so-bright parents waiting to take action. What a crazy experience. What a crazy kid.

High Five

My little boy turned five on Saturday. He starts playing t-ball in a month. In August, he'll head off to kindergarten. And, he won't let me cover his face in kisses anymore. *Sniff* I'm not sure I like this growing up thing so much.

Five Things about H
1. He loves baseball with all his heart. When he was two, he went to a BYU baseball game and was riveted the whole time. My mother-in-law says he must have played it in the pre-existence.

2. He knows he's not really a superhero, but he's pretty darn close. He's great at doing Spiderman webs and flying off the couch like Superman (not allowed, but he does it anyway).

3. He's getting pretty awesome at reading. You never know how different kids will do with different skills, but he's already surprised me with his ability to read very well for his age. He'll do great next year!

4. He adores his younger brother. This adoration sometimes comes in the form of punching and wrestling, but it's usually all in good fun. And he always tries to comfort T when he's sad, even if T's sad because of something H did.

5. He's pretty shy and sometimes nervous in new situations. I know he'll outgrow it at some point, but I secretly love when he gets shy, because that means I get to hug and comfort him. :)


He got a new bike for his birthday--a real bike that he loves with all his heart. He even wears the helmet inside the house. After all, you never can be too safe.

For his birthday, we decided to visit the zoo as a family. We've never been before (sad, I know) so we decided it was about time. The weather was beautiful the day before his birthday. Day of? Not so much. We bundled up in coats and had a good time anyway. I was just grateful it didn't rain or snow like it was supposed to. The snow came this morning instead. :)

This picture is of the snow leopard. He started pacing in front of the glass, occasionally stopping to glare at my children and jump at them a little. They loved it. When we came back two hours later, he was still doing it. Perhaps he was agitated?

T loved the snakes best, or "snask" as he calls them. He doesn't say any "x" or ks" sounds correctly, so he says "sisk" for "six", "thansk" for "thanks" and so on. He even said "esg" for "eggs" when it was Easter. It may be my most favorite kid-ism yet.

The gorillas (the real ones, not this one) were sitting in opposite corners, looking depressed and/or annoyed. A and I had this whole conversation about how they must have had a fight and weren't speaking to each other. Ten minutes later, S asked me, "Do you think the gorillas really had a fight with each other?" Oops. No more make-believe scenarios about animals.
I didn't get a picture of it, but we passed a cage that was supposed to house an owl. No owl there, but there was a small dead mouse on the ground. The kids were oohing and ahhing over it--"Why is the mouse in there?" "Oh, he's so cute!" Hours later, S said she loved all the animals we saw, even the dead mouse. H said: "I know--he was so cute!" Weird kids.

I made blonde brownies and frosted them for H. I could have made a cake, but *I* like eating cookies/browines better and the kids think all of it is great. Hooray for a great birthday!