#pissygallbladder

PLOT TWIST, continued!

Out of nowhere about 9:15 I started having extreme pain in my chest and just felt really crappy—enough so that I texted Tom to come home because I was NOT GOOD. It was time to start getting the girls ready for bed and I couldn’t even think straight so needed him to come handle it.

It wasn’t reflux or gas or anything I’d felt before—and I knew women’s heart attacks had different symptoms and that’s all I could think of. I googled and it didn’t seem like a heart attack but whatever was happening was not normal. I thought if I could just go to bed and hopefully fall asleep…maybe I could sleep through it. But the pain wasn’t going away and it was actually a little scary. And then just like that I felt better! Weird. I sat up in bed and just as I was getting excited that it was over…BAM, it came screaming back. At this point I called Tom upstairs and actually told him I was scared and it was at this point (about 10:30) that I said I needed to go to the ER.

Someone obviously had to stay with the kids—and Tom wasn’t able to drive safely (remember, he’d been at a poker night with the boys)—so he called Anna and she got here—from a dead sleep—within about 10 minutes. She drove me to the ER as I writhed in pain and tried to breathe through it. We spent the next five hours at the ER (10:30p–3:30a), most of which I was in about a level 7/10 pain.

11:15pm

I was on morphine for the pain (thank God for morphine) and it was weird how I could feel the pain ramping up (I started breathing differently) and knew to ask for more. Anna was googling trying to figure out what it could be. She was staying in touch with Tom. She was updating the sleepover moms on my phone. When I wasn’t incoherent with pain we visited like normal.

After some tests and bloodwork—my heart was fine, kidneys were fine, my liver was a bit elevated but not worrisome, and overall bloodwork was all fine. But the ultrasound. The ultrasound showed a really pissed off gallbladder. Stones and something else I forget. So then it was my first Covid test ever (which wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be) and a leisurely ambulance ride to another hospital to be observed and prepped for emergency gallbladder surgery! Anna went back to our house to stay with the kids while Tom drove to the hospital to meet me there.

3:45am — mask on and ready for transfer
3:57am — off we go to the ambulance
In the ambulance. No sirens but I think the lights were on.

Not exactly how I planned to spend Katie’s birthday…

But I cannot thank Anna enough. Seriously. She was my angel tonight—from the initial car ride to admission to keeping Tom in the loop to grabbing nurses to texting the sleepover moms…to relieving Tom at home (and watching the kids) so he could come see me. Whatever I needed, she was there.

Maggie scared the hell out of us tonight. Again.

It’s hard to get back to sleep after you’ve been awoken at 3:30am by your dog screaming (seriously, that’s the best way to describe it…and it’s seriously awful) because she’d gotten her mouth/snoot/teeth hooked between the bars of her crate and her paw was bleeding from scratching at it.

If Tom wouldn’t have been here I’m not sure what I would have done. We didn’t even have tools big enough to cut the wires—he had to bend them with brute force until they broke.

We wondered what on Earth was going on…until we realized it was raining again. She must be REALLY messed up from that lightning strike.

(Much after the fact we both said we really wish we would’ve gotten a picture of it because it was truly unbelievable. Honestly, I had thought about getting a picture but I had left my phone upstairs because we hadn’t expected to find anything insane…and we were too wrapped up in extracting her safely to worry about it.)

So we bandaged her paw and Tom stayed up (since it was almost his normal waking time) and I was up—trying to calm down—until about 6am when I finally crashed.

This is the solution Tom had come up with by the time I rolled out of bed at 9:30.

It’s not perfect but we really don’t want to let her free roam if we can help it as she tends to move around quite a lot at night and wakes us up.

She doesn’t seem too worse for the wear. Thankfully.

OMG! Poor Maggie!!

I went to bed quite late after staying up to work (normal for me lately) so I was in bed and heard some weird screeching noise downstairs and thought it was a cat or something and ignored it. Then it happened again, louder. I couldn’t place what the noise was—it was really very strange and nothing I’d heard before—so I went to investigate. I thought maybe the raccoon was in the window and both cats were squawking. I turned on the living room light and HOLY F’ING SHITBALLS!!

Maggie’s head was sideways, squeezed halfway between the metal bars on the door and side of the crate, and she was drooling and wheezing and “screaming.” She probably couldn’t breathe. I’m guessing she tried to push her way out (why?!) and got stuck.

I opened the door and pulled her out and petted her and she seemed okay but just freaked out. She eventually let me hold her on my lap and after awhile I pulled her bed out (blood splatters—not sure if it was from her claws or teeth or what), wiped up the floor, and tried to put her back in. She went but she wasn’t happy. I went back up to bed and before I even got settled she was manically pawing at her crate again.

So I’m sleeping on the couch with her at 2:30am. 😣

I’m glad she’s okay, of course, as this could have ended very differently had I not heard her or gone to check.

But still. This was just the topper on a mostly shitty day.

Momentary panic before school.

Katie came in for me to brush her hair before school and I saw some fuzz in her hair so I went to pick it out and—NOOOOOOOOOO!!! OH NO OH NO OH NO. NO NO NO NO NO.

I hate ticks. I mean, no one likes them but they really freak me out. Thankfully I haven’t had to deal with them too often.

My mind was instantly racing. I know we have a tick removal device but I couldn’t think where it was right off hand. We only had 20 minutes before we had to leave for the bus. I knew I couldn’t rip it out. Do I text Tom? (Yes.) Take a picture? (Yes.) Google how to remove a tick? (I didn’t, because I thought I remembered how to use a Q-tip to remove it and I had one handy so I did that.) It didn’t take too long, but Katie was kinda panicky because I had been kinda panicky (I typically handle these types of situations well specifically so they don’t panic but I just hate ticks so much that it got the better of me).

So then I was trying to think what the hell do I do to the house? It obviously was inside the house because she took a bath the night before and there was no tick. So it attached itself sometime overnight. Which means it was likely in her room. /shudder

I washed her bedding and all her dirty clothes and checked all the animals (clean) so am hoping it was just a bizarre one-time event.

Now excuse me while I go burn the house down.

Our first trip to the ER!

Why not have it be Christmas Day? 🙂

So last night, Owen was being Owen and dove into the big beanbag in the living room, but then…rolled off? fell off?…and somehow landed wrong on his arm. Tom missed it, I missed it, and Uncle Rob barely saw it so we’re not entire sure what happened. All we know is that he was complaining that it really hurt. Tom looked at it and moved it around and there wasn’t any screaming so we were pretty sure it wasn’t broken. So we iced it and gave him some Advil. Of course, Owen being Owen, he continued playing around and bumping it and saying it hurt, so we made him sit still in the chair. He seemed to be fine overall and making cookies for Santa took his mind off it so we didn’t think much else about it.

So this morning we opened presents and he still hadn’t mentioned it. I had honestly forgotten about it. But then he was trying to put some Legos together—and was complaining that he couldn’t because his hand hurt. Hoo boy. Tom tried to move it around some and it seemed more painful than it had last night, so we figured since he has a high threshold for pain it must REALLY hurt, so we decided to have Tom take him to the ER.

Thankfully they were the only ones there and the whole thing went very quickly. But he had taken his new Minecraft characters just in case. 🙂

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Apparently when you visit the ER on Christmas you get to pick a toy!

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He picked this for Katie! Awww!

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And??? It wasn’t broken. Just a sprain with some bruising that Motrin should help. PHEW!

Katie went bump in the night.

So the kids were in bed, David was in the bedroom, and mom, Tom, and I were just sitting in the living room visiting and whatnot…when we heard a loud CRASH BOOM BANG. Mom thought David had fallen—but then we heard crying. Oh no! Katie had fallen out of bed!! (She did just fine the first night and during her nap, but she obviously was more of a wiggle worm tonight. We hadn’t taken any precautions because, well, we forgot, and because she HAD already done just fine.)

Tom sprinted down the hall and came out carrying a whimpering Katie. He said he found her laying on the floor with her legs against the closet. We figured she must have gone over the edge head first, flipping over so her legs hit the closet (which would account for the thuds and bangs we heard). Poor Katie. While Tom was comforting her, I was putting rolled up blankets in her bed (under the sheets) as bumpers and then he stayed in there with her for a good half hour. Other than being scared, she was no worse for the wear…thankfully.

I’m two for two. Or is it three for three?

I fell down the stairs in this house and twisted both ankles (read about it here).

I slipped on the stairs in our Michigan rental while carrying Owen as a baby (I’m sure I wrote about it but I cannot find the link).

And…I just now missed a few steps and crashed down two steps into the landing hitting the wall…while carrying Katie, of course! We’re both fine (she was just scared; I skinned my knee and slightly twisted my ankle) but an hour later my back was screaming and drugs were taken. Three hours later I made the BIIIIIG mistake of trying to stretch out my ankle by rotating it—and I literally saw stars. Crap.

I’m still not sure how it happened because I am über careful on the stairs—I count each step up and down each time (whether I’m carrying a kid or not), I keep one arm on the wall to brace myself, plus I usually look at the stairs/my feet…

But I have now fallen down stairs while carrying both kids.

I HATE STAIRS.

Kids are freaky.

So a few days ago, this rash erupted on Katie.

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Freaked me out, of course. I assumed it was just some random kid thing so gave her Benedryl…and emailed my sister who knows all things dermatological. She asked if Katie had been sick recently… Why, yes, she had been. She guessed it wasn’t anything to worry about and to just keep an eye on it. Luckily it didn’t appear to be terribly itchy (I caught Katie rubbing around her neck once but that was about it.)

The next morning, the torso rash was just about gone but there were new spots on her arms and legs. Freaky. Another day (this morning) and it’s all about gone.

Phew.

Mini heart failure

We were headed to Sam’s Club and I had Owen get in first while I went back to get Katie. Buckled her in and left. On the way there I noticed in my rear view mirror that he was sleeping so at a light I pulled out my camera to get a picture…and noticed he wasn’t buckled in! I had completely forgotten. After a moment of pure panic, I realized we were almost there so by the time I could manage to pull off, I could almost be at Sam’s Club. Lesson learned…always buckle Owen in first OR leave his door open so I stop to check on him.

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Where the hell did that come from?

I thought I was brushing dirt off Owen’s neck this morning (he had just been outside for a few minutes)…but it didn’t brush off. Okay, maybe it was dried dirt…so I used my nail. And it still wasn’t coming off.

OH MY GAWD IT WAS A TICK!!! EEK!!! (I’d never actually seen one in person but I was pretty sure that’s what it was.)

I only semi-panicked. 😐

I scratched/pulled it off, took it to the kitchen where I put it on a bowl and took a picture of it (so I could make sure later), then squished it to death with a knife. Then Googling affirmed it was a tick. EWWWWW!!!

I checked out the rest of his body and didn’t find anything (and there was nothing on me or Maggie). But of course it had been on his neck right on a freckle so I was paranoid there was still tick pieces in his neck…so I got out the lighted magnifying glasses to try and see better—which didn’t really help but Owen loves them—and assured myself it was just a freckle.

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I then emailed a pic to Tom and he said the mouth was still attached so that was good.

So, where the hell did it come from? It’s not like he’s been tromping through backwoods North Carolina. He plays in the back yard! It wasn’t too attached so it couldn’t have been on him for too long…

/shudder

Locked in.

Yeah, so, I just got locked in the bathroom with Owen while Katie was roaming around ungated. (I thought she was gated in but then I heard her playing with the dog bowl and knew she was on the loose.)

Talk about trying to stay calm in a panic.

How did it happen? Well, the door knobs were off from a kid-locking-herself-in-during-play-group-incident earlier that morning and I hadn’t put them back on yet (no, we were never given the little keys to unlock the doors—and we’d tried to find some to buy but just never did). So I didn’t even think about it when I shut the door behind me to keep Katie out while I dealt with a diarrhea pull-up.

Talk about an instant all-over body sweat.

Okay. I can’t get the door open. Who do I call? Who is closest that might be home? I thought of any of the mommy group people who were just there but I knew the closest ones had kids napping…

Okay, I can get one pin out—if I can get them all I can take the door right off the hinges. Nope, the other two are stuck. Calling Tom was pointless since it would take him at least 45m to get home (and there’s not much he could do over the phone).

Who would know how to get the door off? Roger might, but he’s likely busy. Ursula—she could at least come get Katie and then—oh, duh—she could likely put the knob back on. So I called her and she wasn’t home (5m away) but was in town (15m) so as I was telling her what was going on I was still messing with the door and trying not to sound terribly panicked…when I somehow managed to move something just enough to allow me to open the door.

Ah.

Breathe.

Wipe the sweat off my forehead as I thank Ursula for answering her phone.

Then race to find Katie…who was happily playing in the playroom.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

And put “buying keys” on our shopping list. 😐

Poison Control

Well, we just survived our first Poison Control Center call (800-222-1222). And we now know that STINK FREE Urine Odor Remover is non-toxic, even though it doesn’t say it anywhere on the bottle.

It was Katie. She was upstairs with Tom and Owen while I was making dinner. Our best guess is that she knocked it over and either got splashed or she then licked the bottle or carpet.

It was my fail because I left the flip-top lid open for some unknown reason, thinking that we wouldn’t be in the upstairs living room anytime soon. It was Tom’s fail because he was roughhousing with Owen and wasn’t playing close attention to what she was doing.

We first called the 800# on the bottle and they were less than helpful. The lady that answered the phone was obviously unprepared for URGENT calls of that magnitude and pretty much said “Well, um, we’ve had it happen before and nothing bad happened. But I’d still take her to the doctor.” Then said she’d transfer me to someone who knew more about the product, but that sent me to voicemail.

So then I remembered that I had the Poison Control number in my phone (and have ever since I was pregnant with Owen) but had just never had to use it before. The woman there was helpful—even though the bottle had zero ingredient information—and was able to tell us after about a minute that the stuff was non-toxic. WHICH MIGHT HAVE BEEN NICE TO PUT ON THE BOTTLE NEXT TO “KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN.”

So, it was a touch scary for about 10 minutes—I was pretty sure she hadn’t ingested much so didn’t want to freak out, but we couldn’t just ignore it completely. This weekend we’re going on a major cleaning and picking up spree (since she can now pull herself up and reach things she couldn’t before)…

A Lego minifig head is exactly the size of Owen’s nostril.

Wonder how I know? 😐

Yes, this was the first thing he actually stuck up his nose and couldn’t get out. I had to get the tweezers and threaten to take all his Legos away if he did it again.

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>>> FACEBOOK COMMENTS

  • Karen—And that item looks pissed!
  • Sheryl—Look at Owen’s face – did he get yelled at?
  • Katherine—It happens
  • Jennifer—Sheryl, not yelled at, but definitely told to SIT STILL AND DON’T TOUCH IT while I ran to get the tweezers…and to not do it again.
  • Andrew—*laughs* Poor Owen.
  • Jean—Remember when one of your “Brownie” friends stuck a Nerd up her nose in the car on the way to Cedar Point? OMG.
  • Kristin—My brother in law didn’t stick things up his nose. He stuck red hots up his SISTER’S nose.
  • Tammy—Poor Owen looks like he belongs in one of the Bad Dog pictures.
  • Jennifer—He was actually just watching Sesame Street. He wasn’t upset.
  • Jeremy—Whatever that is that was up his nose doesn’t look happy about it.
  • Nancy—Awww! That photo is just great! I stuck a crayon in my belly button and my mom took me to the hospital because I wouldn’t tell her what happened, I was crying, and it was red. Kids, man.

Today’s parenting fail.

Katie just fell off the couch. From what I saw rushing into the room from 10′ away (I was in the office and she was on the couch), she landed face first on a blanket so wasn’t hurt and only cried for about five seconds (I think of shock more than anything) but of course now I feel horrible. She’s just getting too wiggly/mobile to leave alone—even propped up/locked in with pillows.

Dresser climbing, anyone?

While I was outside running the garage sale and Tom was busy inside with Katie…Owen tried climbing up on his dresser and knocked it over!! Thankfully he wasn’t hurt (there’s not much room for it to fall since its super close to the bed) but still. OMGWTFBBQ!!?!? He’s NEVER tried anything like that—ever—so it was a BIG surprise. Ugh. And of course it had a partially-filled humidifier on it…so everything was drenched. 😐

We missed the terrible twos but apparently are getting the terrible threes instead.

Owen and Thunderstorms

We learned last night that Owen doesn’t like thunderstorms—he never used to be bothered by them so this is new. We had a whopper roll through last night, shaking the house, super loud lightning, etc… I got up to pee at 5 and saw his light was on so I went in and he was crying. 🙁 He’s apparently very concerned as to where the sun is. 🙂

He calmed down pretty quickly and let me cuddle him (which I fully enjoyed) but neither of us fell asleep as he kept chattering off and on about the storm, the rain (the sound of rain), his new cars, the movie Cars, etc.

I finally left him at 6, just as Tom was finishing with Katie…as I was laying down, I heard Tom in Owen’s room. Huh? I got up and they were in the bathroom trying to pee. Yes, in the two minutes since I had left Owen’s room, he had turned on his light again. He didn’t have to pee so was diapered and put down again. Ten minutes later I heard him get out of bed so I went back in there. I think we both finally fell asleep around 7 and got up at 8.

It’s going to be a long day.

Phew, that was scary but I’m okay.

Nothing much scarier then losing your balance/tripping when 8.5 months pregnant and trying to avoid landing on your child who is being obstinate and laying under you. 😐

I’m fine—with no idea how I actually fell or what exactly caused me to trip or how I managed to land without hurting myself or Owen in any way—but I scared the crap out of Tom who was downstairs and came charging up to see me on the floor swearing and Owen just standing there like nothing happened. Of course Tom yelled (not at Owen but just in general) at which point Owen THEN burst into tears…

Hopefully Owen learned he needs to listen to me…I had asked him to get in the bath and he was refusing by laying down in the hallway. I had counted to three and he didn’t budge, so I was getting up to pick him up…when the drama ensued.

Blood pressure issues

So I’ve been having blood pressure issues lately. Not anything that I have symptoms for, but just measuring a little on the high side (just above normal) when I was in for appointments. They had me come in on a non-appointment day in case it was just a case of White Coat Hypertension…but it was slightly high then, too. So the doc wanted me to watch it and I had to go buy a cuff and take my blood pressure twice a day.

Well, I started to get really freaked out because the readings were really high. Like not just a tad above normal high, but up to crazy scary Stage 2 high (like one day was 190/110 first thing after waking up in the morning). :??: 88| I tried not to get TOO worried, but how could I not?!? I took it religiously for a week, and it was fairly consistently high (anywhere from pre-hypertension to Stage 2 as I said). Of course, the spiked high readings freaked me out more (since I’ve never had blood pressure issues before and these were taken when I was completely and totally relaxed) so I made an appointment with my OB. In the meantime, I went to Walgreens to get my pressure taken, to see if maybe my machine was off—and it wasn’t (so, good and bad).

Of course, the morning of my appointment, my blood pressure in the office was completely normal. Good, but…what the hell? And the doc looked at my logs and said in a blood pressure world of black and white, I’m gray. 😐

My BP at the office was completely normal…but I have the logs of high and crazy high. He definitely didn’t want to put me on BP-lowering meds in case there wasn’t really a problem because then the drugs would lower it too much and that is a problem as well. So for the time being, I’m continuing to monitor it while watching for specific warning signs and trying to drink more water/get more exercise/watch my salt intake. And I get to go back every two weeks instead of four…in addition to my every four weeks trip to the fetal specialist. 😐

He didn’t seem worried so I’ll try not to be as well.

I really liked him, too, so that was good (because on my last visit, I found out that the OB I had seen twice and liked is leaving in three months). And he told me he wants me to see doctors—not midwives, which I had been scheduled to do.

AM I HAVING FUN YET?

Owen just scared the crap out of me.

He has never really been terribly inquisitive—like pulling things out of cupboards, opening kitchen drawers, getting into stuff under the sink, etc.—so we honestly haven’t really worried too much about putting things away.

So just now, we were upstairs and I was in the bedroom and he was out and about and came into the room rubbing his eyes and his face was all wet and my first thought was he had been crying and was snotty—but he wasn’t crying. And then I got closer and smelled chemicals on him. 88|

I immediately tossed him in the tub and rinsed his face and head and tried to do my best with his eyes.

Yeah. He got into the oxyclean spray carpet cleaner. Apparently he likes to play with triggers now |-| and grabbed it off the floor and was playing with the trigger and sprayed himself in the face.

Fortunately, he seemed to be fine. I kept a watch on his eyes, and they didn’t even get pink (let alone red) so I think it mostly just got on his face.

So tonight—and from now on—we make sure everything is put away.

We lost Owen today…for a few minutes!

We got home from dinner and I was messing around in the kitchen and Owen was playing in the living room and Tom was upstairs. Then Tom came back down and asked where Owen was. I said in the living room. But, nope, no Owen. So we started calling for him—which usually brings him running—but nothing. And we didn’t hear his pitter-patter upstairs (which is where he normally is when he disappears). We checked another favorite hiding place—the closet—and nothing. And he still wasn’t showing himself.

CRAP.

We started getting a littler nervous, even though we knew he had to be in the house—but your mind still goes crazy. Tom checked the garage while I ran upstairs…and nothing. He was totally gone.

:??:

The only place left was the basement—the gate was open, but it’s almost always open and he NEVER goes down there. In fact, he’s only been down there once with us. So Tom ran down there, calling him…and guess who was sitting at my computer giggling? :>>

Hopefully this is the first and last time we lose him. 😮

My morning shocker!

So Tom left for a work trip this morning. He planned to leave at 7:30, which meant he’d be here to get Owen up. In cases where the timing works like this, I get to “sleep in” and then he always wakes me up before he leaves…so when I woke up at 7:30 I assumed he was still home/just getting ready to leave.

So as I walk by Owen’s room I see he’s not there, which fits what should be. The bottom stair gate is closed, which also fits. But as I get to the living room, I see Owen…but no Tom…and the TV isn’t on. I quick checked the garage and yep, Tom was gone.

❗ 88| ❓ 88| ❓ 88| ❗

Yeah, Owen got up on his own, forced his way out of his room (his room was too hot last night so we opened his door and propped a heavy container of change against the screen door thinking he wouldn’t be able to get out OR my mom-hearing would hear it if he was able to move it), made it downstairs, and was sitting on the couch saying “Watch! Watch!”

I had no idea how long he’d been up, so I called Tom who said he left at 6:15 and Owen wasn’t up then… But still, Owen could have been wandering/waiting for an hour!!! But from what I can tell, he didn’t get into anything bad and probably just played and waited for the TV to turn on! (I’m really surprised, too, that he didn’t come down to our room!)

So, that was my shocker. Good morning, indeed!

Oh noooooo!!!!

GUESS WHO CLIMBED OUT OF HIS PACK AND PLAY THIS MORNING?!?! 😮 :no:

I heard him making noises (through the wall—I’m in the bedroom next to his) but then it was quiet again so I thought I’d just let him lay there. He’s always been pretty good about laying quietly once he gets up, so I didn’t bother to turn the video monitor on. But then I heard him chattering again so I went in there. 

And imagine my total shock and surprise to see him standing at the end of the bed, as if he just slid off (the PnP is between the bed and the closet door with barely any space on the sides…so my guess is that he somehow got out onto the bed and didn’t just go over the end of the PnP). 

Oh. My. 

He hasn’t ever tried to escape before, so I think he was just trying to get his B (blanket) which he had chucked over the edge. At least I hope that’s all it was, because I am not prepared to deal with this right now (away from home).

Hoo boy. 

First hives!

Owen just woke up from his nap with major hives on his legs. :??:

There has been NOTHING unusual ingested (no new foods) or applied topically (same lotion as always) this morning…so it’s freaking me the hell out. Google says as long as his face isn’t swelling (cutting off the airway) to just treat with Benadryl to lessen itching (though he doesn’t seem to be itchy or uncomfortable in any way) and if they last longer than a week, then contact the pediatrician.

And of course, with all the kid meds I have in the house, I don’t have Benadryl…though I do have Benadryl spray that we had for Maggie. 🙂

Stay tuned.

Two hours later…

Well, honestly, we could have handled that batter. Geez, you’d think two college-educated adults could figure out dosage information—WITH THE USE OF THE INTERNET—in under 10 minutes. 😐 (The box says not to give it to kids under 2 and to ask the doc for dosage for ages 2-5…but the internet [and our doc] doses by weight…so I was going by that. Then we couldn’t find a quick and easy conversion from mg to ml so I found a weight dosage chart, but then Tom misunderstood and was going to give him a very small dose…we FINALLY got it figured out after much arguing and researching.)

That said, I completely forgot we had a ziploc of meds somewhere. I found the boxes (kept for dosing info) so thought that was all we had so didn’t even look. So I went to Rite Aid, got the Benedryl, came home, and then tried to find our droppers because he can’t take it from a cup. Yeah, they were in the ziploc with the other meds. Where the Benedryl (well, Waldryl) was. So we had it the whole time and I didn’t need to run to the store and Tom didn’t need to come home. (Well, he didn’t NEED to come home, though it made it easier for me to run to the store…and he wanted to come home to see the hives.)

And to top it all off, by the time we figured out the dosing and gave it to him, the hives were pretty much going away so we could have likely skipped the meds entirely. 😐

I have a headache.

First fall down the stairs

Oh. My. Gawd.

I just had complete heart failure.

I left the gate open and Owen headed upstairs, which is actually fine because he can go up with ease. But I didn’t want him up there, so I caught him about 3/4 the way up and took his hand to lead him down. He knows how to come down by himself and has done it a few times, though I usually still hold his hand (or stand in front of him to watch him and/or catch him if he should fall).

But today I decided to let the dog out (in her crate in the room at the top of the stairs, which I can reach from the stairs) and in the three seconds it took me to finish the last 1/4 of the stairs and unlatch her gate, he fell. I watched him slide down, head over heels, about three steps. It all happened in s…l…o…w motion, I swear. But it happened so fast I couldn’t even get to him to stop him. I just kept watching him slide…and tumble…

It’s a curved stairwell with a big wood platform about halfway down, and he bonked into that as well, before sliding down another few stairs.

He was in shock, I think. Mostly like “What the hell was that?” Then he started crying…but it wasn’t a horrible cry (as we heard before when a 4×4 dropped on his toe) so I didn’t think it was too bad. Within a minute (or less) of me cuddling him on the steps (making sure he wasn’t bleeding anywhere), he was off down the rest of the stairs, apparently no worse for the wear. He grabbed a burpie from the couch and was off to the living room. It was a good 10 minutes before my heart stopped racing and I calmed down.

I guess he’s not quite ready to go the stairs alone.

Midnight freak out!

So Owen freaked us the hell out last night. We were in a hotel, had put him to bed around his normal time, and that was that. We also decided to go to bed early, so we were in the room with him, and he made his usual little noises while he was sleeping. Tom and I had a hell of time trying to sleep—but that’s our fault for going to bed early in a water park hotel with a hundred kids running up and down the halls screaming. Anyway, no idea what time it was (though it turned out to be about midnight) I hear Owen start whining and whimpering. It was fairly quiet, so I thought it might just be something normal that we don’t hear because we’re not in the same room. Then it got louder and more insistent. And it scared me, because he’s NEVER EVER done that. I gave it a minute and the nurturer in me had to go get him.

By this time, Tom has heard him and woken up and we’re both kinda freaking out because he’s now CRYING and it’s the worst little cry and it’s breaking our hearts. He sounded like he was having trouble breathing, so I was really freaking out, and a hundred things were going through my mind. (In the end, I think it was just from the heavy crying.) But I was envisioning us having to go to the hospital because he was having an allergic reaction or something…and we weren’t in our hometown, and I had no idea where the hospital was (or even if there was one). Luckily Tom got up and took him for a few minutes while I tried to calm down. He seemed to be calming down so I went to the bathroom and apparently when I shut the bathroom door (and cut the light to the room) Owen freaked out again. So we were thinking bad dream or just unusual circumstances (he hadn’t gotten his best naps that day)—we didn’t know but he was certainly not himself and totally freaked out.

He calmed down again so Tom put him back in the crib and he instantly started crying again. It was horrible and we felt totally clueless. We got him out again and tried a bottle, thinking back that he hadn’t eaten much dinner. He drank that plus ate a yogurt, so he was certainly hungry. But hungry enough to wake him up and make him cry like that?

Needless to say I didn’t sleep much the rest of the night. We left the bathroom light on with the door open, and I was listening to his every move and every sound, checking the monitor every 10 seconds when he was [finally] quiet to make sure he was still breathing. And on top of that I was too hot, then too cold, too hot, too cold, ad nauseum. And Tom did fall asleep and was snoring. So I might have gotten two hours of piecemeal sleep from 9p-6a.

I posted on Facebook, and a friend said it might be night terrors. 88| I hadn’t thought of that, and Googling said it might be something similar (confusional arousal; night terrors are technically in older toddlers and are much, much worse).

Episodes of confusional arousals in children may seem bizarre and frightening to parents. The child can have a confused look on his or her face and “stare right through” you. Children may become more agitated when you try to comfort them. Most episodes last from five to fifteen minutes. But they may last as long as thirty to forty minutes in some youth.

This definitely sounds like what happened—and could have been brought on by a handful of things including unfamiliar situation, stress, and inadequate rest (which was definitely the case that day).

After talking to some other parent friends about what happened, they said it was most likely just a little nightmare, compounded by waking up hungry and in an unfamiliar place, then getting scared again when the (bathroom) light went out and not wanting to go back to the unfamiliar crib.

UPDATE: He slept fine the next night, so we’re hoping it was a one-time thing.

This is not my day.

It started at 4:30am, when Tom’s alarm went off…which in and of itself is a necessity, I know. But he didn’t get up. EVEN THOUGH I SPECIFICALLY ASKED THE NIGHT BEFORE ABOUT IT AND OH, OF COURSE HE’S GETTING UP. 😐 So then of course he falls RIGHT back to sleep and I toss and turn, finally falling asleep until his second alarm went off about 5:15. Needless to say I was NOT happy. And he STILL didn’t get up and of course I had trouble falling asleep again. So just when I’m getting some sleep…*I* get a blocked call (had my phone on silent, but it still vibrates, which is enough to wake me up) at 6am.

>:XX

Then, after I put Owen down for his nap, I decided to get a bunch of stuff done around the house since I was feeling AMAZING (after a round of stomach flu this weekend) and was carrying laundry down from upstairs when I slipped and crashed on my ass. Luckily I didn’t hit my head or go down the entire staircase (or do any serious damage), but my butt, back, and wrists hurt immediately and I predicted in a few hours I wouldn’t be able to move (so I skipped the measly Advil and went straight to the prescription painkillers).

And just to round out my morning… I discovered that Maggie peed in the house. Again. I let her out this morning like I always do and tried to keep an eye on her (since she’s been peeing inside more often lately) and damn if she didn’t do it while I was in the shower. She just hates going outside in the cold/snow so if you don’t actually watch her outside I swear she fakes it…then pees in the house because you weren’t watching her at the exact moment she needed (wanted) to go outside. I think it might be time she goes back in her crate during the day.

GRRRR.

I know things could be worse (I could still have the flu, knock on wood, or god forbid Owen could have it, KNOCK ON WOOD) but this has not been a good day.