Monday, September 27, 2010

Blazing Good Time

Nothing says super fun vacation like a bladder infection that wakes you up at 4 AM.

Katie: Can't you just drink some cranberry juice?

Me: No.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Vacation Again

So we are now in Denver. We're visiting my sister and then visiting family all around northern Utah for the next month while Dan does a rotation in Salt Lake. I hope it goes well. I hope it goes as well as our vacation seems to be going at Aunt Katie and Uncle Garrett's house. They are ever so gracious hosts.

The big news for me so far is that I drove from St. Louis to Denver. Half of Kansas was driving rain and we had to go 40 mph and it was scary. Also we were driving until 2:30 or 3:30 if you count from our original time zone. Considering everything we did really well.

Here's hoping that this month of living out of our bags goes as well as last month.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Must Love Books

What do you think it says about me that I can rattle off my library card number at the drop of a hat and yet, for the life of me, can not seem to manage to correctly remember my checking account number? I have to look it up every time I go to the bank.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

I Fall To Pieces

We flew home. Was it just yesterday? Yes, I think it was. And you know the most wonderful thing happened on the flight....nothing. It wasn't amazingly good, but it sure wasn't amazingly bad. And also my son has a super-power. He makes old men happy. Ridiculously happy. Happy enough that they stopped us to tell us goodbye when we passed them on our way to get the our bags. Multiple men. It was funny.

So there are the three of us. I'm the Sherpa carrying bags and stuffed dogs and a buffalo that turns into a blanket and pushing the stroller. Charlotte spies the restaurants and says we should really stop for dinner because she's "so so so so so so hungry," and Greg is wanting to get out and run his little self around and my answer to everything is, "Just wait until we get to Daddy." I keep telling myself I just need to hold it together until then. My mental outlook was much like what I had on the way to the hospital giving birth to Charlotte. Just get to the end point and then you can relax, knowing things are taken care of. (Oh how naive I was then.)

We were wandering around baggage claim and I couldn't even find where our bags were supposed to be coming out at and I looked around for familiar faces and I couldn't see the people who were on our flight and I'm tired. And then, in an instant, things changed. Daddy was standing in front of us. And I had butterflies in my stomach because I'm reminded of the times I flew to see him while we were engaged. And I ran and hugged him. Then Charlotte tore out of the stroller and ran and hugged him. Greg was a bit concerned about being left alone buckled into the stroller until he saw Daddy. He started attempting to tear the straps and buckles apart to get to Daddy.

It was like when Dan took all the pieces of luggage I was trying to carry and hold together I also let go of all the little emotional pieces that were being held together by my last energies as a mother. He makes our family whole and we're blessed to have him with us.

Daniel spent the rest of the night carrying both children who would not let go of him. It just made my heart happy to see how much they love him and how they missed him. Greg just cuddled himself right onto Dan's shoulder and stayed there as long as he could. We are sure happy to have him home.

Monday, September 06, 2010

Hard Hitting News

I desperately wanted to post a photo or two but managed to forget my all the necessary tools needed to transfer photos from my camera to the computer. So you'll have to use your imagination.

Our vacation is going well. We've had a lot of time to relax. But one point that didn't go well was my very first trip to the ER with my child. Greg fell in Nordstrom and hit his head on the tile floor. It had an amazing amount of blood that came gushing from the wound and all I could think was we need to get him to the doctor. So I started saying (my mom says I was yelling) we need to leave now. That was the only thing I could think to say. My mom told me to take him to the bathroom. I managed to carry him across the floor to the bathroom and not get any blood on my white pants or new jacket. I had him pretty calmed down while my shaking hands were holding paper towels to his head. I was just thinking wait for help which I was sure my mother would bring. To my surprise Nordstrom has a medical response unit which arrived in less than a minute. The lady came in and started to get his head to stop bleeding.

At that point, knowing someone else was helping him, I sort of lost it and started to hyperventilate maybe because the lady told me I had to go sit on the sofa in the lounge. That helped me, but freaked Greggie out. He started to kick and scream as hard as possible. Knowing we'd have to take him somewhere to be fixed I called my father in law (a surgeon) and asked him what to do. He called ahead to the urgent care and told me to take him there.

We ended up taking him from urgent care to the pediatric ER in a nearby hospital. He was amazingly good and sat very still while everyone inspected his wound. Then they gave him a topical anesthetic and conscious sedation and then he got really loopy and everything he did was hilarious. He was fine until they had to drape the wound with a sterile cloth. That he hated and also the anesthetic they injected into the site. He started to get mad. The funny part was when the male medical assistant came in to give the doctor something, Greg calmed somewhat to his voice. They made the guy stay in the room and told him to talk. He didn't know what to say so they had him sing a song. The only song the guy knew was the theme song to the Love Boat. So there we are Greg getting his wound irrigated and they guy singing the Love Boat, until that failed to work anymore and they let the guy leave.

Four hours after the initial injury Greg emerged from the pediatric ER with one stitch below the skin and six stitches across the top.

You'd think that would slow him down and make him a little more cautious.

And you'd be wrong.