Long Overdue Post

What's up?  I've been negligent in my blogging and I apologize.  Let's get caught up a bit....

 

First of all, C is growing and developing well and her mom (MY baby) is doing a great job at being a mom.  It shouldn't surprise me because she does well with everything she does (and obviously she makes gorgeous babies) but still, she's MY baby.  And now SHE has a baby. 

 

 

I'm a proud Nanny!

This picture below is when Cali was here and A decided she didn't like how much attention C was getting so she climbed up on Cali's lap and made sure Cali didn't forget she was still there.

 

This video is when C was only 4 days old. Yup! She's a genius like all my other babies!

The weather here has been typical Utah spring; 3 foot long icicles one day...

 

...then outside swinging with no jacket on a few days later! 

Grace is loving being a part of our family and we love her!  She is so careful around the kids and loves to snuggle.  Below she is holding HER baby.  If you ask her to get her baby, she walks calmly over and picks up one of her stuffed animals then brings it to you with a huge grin on her face like she's so proud!

 

 

This was in December, and it's only a 'before' picture but Al got his braces off! Woot -woot!

 

 

We went up to Idaho for a quick trip to see one of Mike's favorite people; his Uncle Darwin (whose son got married so we went to his reception).  I say a quick trip because we went up Friday morning and were home by Saturday evening.  But in that short period of time Al created a great memory for us...

In this pic is a bunch of the Maughan men at the hotel pool.  All the baldies are brothers and all the good looking ones are their kids!  (l-r Derek, Mike holding M, E in Colin's arms and then Alex)

 

 I guess I packed Alex an old swimming suit.  As we were walking down to the pool, Mike and I were behind Alex and his butt end was almost busting out.  We didn't think anything about it, other than, "He has a great J-Lo!" (which is becoming more of a "Kardashian" as he gets older) until he had to go to the bathroom. 

 

Remember how hard it is to pull up wet swimming suits?  Well, it's hard to pull off a wet swimming suit, too, when it's already 2 sizes too small!  After he was in the restroom for 10 minutes I went to check on him and he was pulling all kinds of contortions to try to get the suit back up.  I worked on it for another 5 minutes before I had to escort him - via towel held over him - to the hot tub so Mike could shimmy Al's behind back into the suit with help from the warm water.  Thank goodness we were the only ones at the pool!!

 

When Alex got out of the hot tub to get in the pool, we realized Mike had pulled Alex's suit too high in the front!  So what did I do about it?  I took a picture!!!  (After the reception we went to Walmart and bought him a new swim suit.) 

 

Just a little side note here.  Alex is a total fish!!!  He LOVES to swim!  He doesn't do much swimming on top of the water but he dives under and swims under the water.  One impressive move he does is he will walk backwards in the pool while making backstroke movements with his hands.  I must admit, it looks like a real smooth backstroke when you see it.   He would have been in the pool the whole time if we had let him.  And the water in the pool was cold, but he didn't care!

 

While we were in Idaho, Oak (L) and Mo (R) went to Disney on Ice and saw the Disney princesses.  I'm sure the Disney princesses were put to shame with the beauty of these two!

And I'm getting my home re-decorated - for FREE!!!

OK.  Maybe re-decorated is a little misleading.  But I have an almost 2 year old (N) and an almost 1 year old (A) who have taken it upon themselves to...

 ...organize the CD's...
 

 ...clean (kiss) the mirrors....
 

 ...taking inventory of the baby wipes....

 

...and of the kitchen towel drawer.  They do a very thorough at their job!

Then one day, A found a box of tampons stuffed in the back of my bathroom cupboards....
 

 

...took a taste, and when she realized they weren't delicious...

...she showed them to N .....
 

...who tried to read the instructions.  (No!  She can't read silly!  She's not even 2 yet!)

 

Then A tried to dig deeper into the cupboard to find more fun.

 

 

And what was I doing while they were trashing the place?  I was following them and taking pictures!  I'm a cool Nanny.  So cool that I even FORCE the kids to make messes.

 

Here's a good example...

 ...here is abanana cream pie that Al dropped while bringing it in from the fridge in the garage.  What do I do with it?...

 

 

I put some on the high chair tray for N and let her go to town!  At first she looked at me like, "What am I supposed to do with this?"  But quickly....

 ...she realized it was a ton of fun!

 

 

 This past week N was put in the hospital with pneumonia.  She is a very sick little girl.  In the picture below you can see the concern on mom's face.  This was when she was still in the ER still, but they very quickly took her up to the ICU....

 

 

 

 

 ...where she has been for the last 5 days.  The picture above was from today when I got to see her this afternoon, and even though she had no idea I was there (they are keeping her pretty sedated) it was good to touch her, talk to her and even smack her.  (That's what we do at our house when someone is in trouble.  But we don't hit them, we kiss them.  Get it?  A smack?)  Oh!  She got smacked alright!!!

 

Get better N.  I miss you! And I am so worried!

Kryptonite has nothin' on my kid!!!

We went to the pulmonologist today.  She is the one doctor all the others have been saying we need to see, so we were very lucky to take someone else's cancellation!  Her verdict....

He's fine! 

Remember in the last post I mentioned that it was weird to me that one blood gas showed such elevated numbers and only 2 hours later they were normal.  Well, if you take a blood sample through the arm (like his first test) the carbon dioxide numbers will always be high.  So his second test - via fingertip - is the right place to take this blood sample, and it was totally in range.

Why did he 'pass out' at the urgent care office and on the ride home and 3 times the next morning?  Her explanation was he didn't pass out, he was just exhausted.  Take a kiddo who has a sinus infection, and possibly strep, add to the fact that he isn't sleeping good and isn't wearing his CPAP mask through the night and you get a very tired kid.  He just needed the sleep.

So I'm not such a bad mom after all.  When I thought he was just sleeping, he was!  Ha!  I do know as much if not more than the docs!!!

A bit more info on Kryptonite...

I want to thank everyone for their support - as always!  It's so nice to know that people care.

It's not that I ever thought people don't care, but sometimes, especially when no one can give you answers and you are totally confused, you feel alone.  And when you know people care, that loneliness seems to fade a bit!

Yesterday, Alex had 3 'episodes' in the morning, but seemed back to his old self by 2 in the afternoon.  Was fine all evening, and when he woke up, he seemed like nothing had happened.  I kept him home today, not knowing what to expect, and he was so 'normal' I told him I was going to ship him off to school if he didn't stop bugging the girls!

I have talked to doctor after doctor about this - can I just say Alex has the best docs who truly care about him? They all called me! - and they are as mystified as we are.  I am SO glad he had this 'problem' in front of a doctor so I don't look like a panicked mom.  But we still don't know what's going on.

To review what we DO know:
     *Alex had episodes of altered awareness, where he is non-responsive on Saturday and Sunday.
     *His oxygen is fine during these 'spells', and he doesn't seem to be struggling to breathe, just not responsive.
     *One blood gas test (taken from the IV) showed levels of carbon dioxide in his blood 3 times what it should be, but the next one 2 hours later (taken from the fingertip) was normal.
     *All other tests (EKG, chest xray) showed nothing to be concerned about

What's interesting about these things is none of it makes sense.  ESPECIALLY the blood gas tests.  I've learned a lot about these tests over the past few days.  At first I wondered if the second one was fine because Alex was freaking out so much about the IV - he hated it and told anyone and everyone that would listen to him.  He even cried for a solid 1/2 hour.  Actually, he threw a fit!  So I thought maybe all the screaming and crying kind of 'cleansed' him.  No one has actually told me otherwise to that, so I still don't know if I'm right or not.  But I have been told that the second test - from his fingertip - should have been worse than the one from the IV. 

All the docs say - which I do appreciate because it validates a lot of how I feel - is "it's just Alex."  He's never done things the normal or right way.  Always the "I've never heard of that before" way.

So today one of the doc's assistants said that all the tests they see from PCMC shows that Alex has metabolic acidosis and metabolic alkalosis.  After reading these, I'm still confused.  It sounds just like what we've been going through the past few days, even things I didn't associate with this (never-ending hunger and appetite.  I just chalked it up to him being a teenager, but it HAS been worse the past few days), but I still haven't learned why...? or how...?

We did get an appointment with his pulmonologist tomorrow - got someones cancellation - so hopefully we will find out if he really does have those problems, or what exactly is going on and what to do about it!!!

I will write more when we find out!!  But, again.  Thanks for the support!!!

My Superman and his Kryptonite

 I should preface this by telling you he's had a cold for the past few weeks.  Nothing exciting; boogers, hoarse voice in the morning, boogers, more boogers.  But who hasn't had that with the crap we've been breathing here in the Salt Lake valley the past few months? 

 

So on Saturday Mike and I had a funeral to go to and Alex spent the morning with my parents.  When we went to pick him up, we all sat down and ate a little lunch.  Alex literally fell asleep in his food!  We all laughed and commented he must be tired, so we took him home and I laid down with him.

 

This picture is literally 20 seconds after he laid on my shoulder.  He was out!!!  Stayed asleep for an hour, then woke up and did his own thing.  Not a lot of energy, but again, he's had a cold and we are all cooped up in the house.  How much energy can you have when you play with 'guys' sitting on the couch?

 

Sunday morning:  Alex woke up and was a bit extra cuddly, but that's not alarming.  For a big boy, he loves to cuddle!  He did say he "didn't feel good" but that's a hard thing to judge on a Sunday morning.  He doesn't like going to church - wait.  Let me re-phrase that.  He doesn't like leaving the house to go to church.  Once he's there he's fine.  He's just my homebody!!  So, him and I got ready to go to a baby blessing in Bluffdale.  After he told me a few hundred times that he "didn't feel good", and he fell asleep on the way to the blessing, I figured after the meeting we would go to the urgent care facility that his docs belong to. 

 

He slept through the 20 minutes we stayed at the meeting (I didn't dare stay any longer and risk getting everyone "sick"), slept all the way home (we changed and ate lunch) then he slept all the way to the doctor's office.  We had a 30 minute wait before going back into the patients room, and he sat against me and watched their TV.  When we got into the room he talked to the nurse, answered all her questions and when she left he cuddled up to me and fell asleep on my shoulder.  When the doctor came in and we couldn't get ANY response out of him, she got concerned.  She was in the room for 15 minutes, and Alex wouldn't wake up for anything!  So...

 

 the called an ambulance for him.  While waiting for the ambulance, the nurse put an IV in his arm.  That's what finally woke him up!  (I took this picture from our car because the urgent care facility isn't in the nicest of areas, AND, as Alex reminded me, he "is 16 mom!"  And I figured, what the heck!  If he's not safe in an ambulance, where is he safe at?!  So I followed them to Primary Children's)  So he stayed awake through the whole ride there, and was awake when I finally made it into his room after checking in.

 

Let's shorten this a bit;  after a nasal swab, chest x-ray, blood work times 2, and an EKG the only thing they could surmise is his carbon dioxide was 3 times the amount it should be in his system.  (We breathe in oxygen, we breathe out carbon dioxide)  Obviously, he's not breathing right.  The second time they checked it - this time from his finger instead of his arm - the levels were where they were supposed to be so they sent us home.

 

Within 5 minutes of us being in the car he was 'passed out' again.  So much so that I went through the McD's drive through, and still got no response from Alex.  I had to pull off to a parking spot to shake him awake!  If you know Alex at all, you know that if anything will perk him up it's McDonald's!

 

The only reason I can come up with that he stayed awake through the 5 hour hospital stay is he was SO upset about the IV he couldn't sleep if he wanted to!

 I took this picture to show Mike how mad he was.  He wouldn't relax his arm, he wouldn't let us put the sleeve down, he just cried and complained about that stupid IV!

This is him right now.  He woke up early, ate breakfast and is now sitting in the living room in a rocking chair, trying to get any little bit of sunlight that is filtering through the smog.  And he's zonked!  Moose jumped up on him - nothin!  I went out front to take out the garbage - nothin!  The phone has rang a few times, and I can hear A talking through the baby monitor, and he's in there snoozin.

 

My frustration is this...which doctor do I call?  And I just say, what? He's sleepy?  You know they will just say, "Then let him sleep."  I am so glad he did this passing out routine in front of the doctor yesterday, because otherwise I would look like a mom trying to get attention.

 

So.  I will call the docs I think I should call and see what they have to say. 

 

My superhero is tired.  Carbon dioxide must be his Kryptonite.  Let's hope we can get rid of the extra in his body so he can be back to his old self, again!