Halloween in the Hospital

We certainly did not anticipate spending Halloween this year in the hospital, but Ethan's unexpected scare with ketotic hypoglycemia resulted in him being hospitalized for 2 days. Thankfully his condition had stabilized by this time and he was just being observed and having his blood sugar checked regularly. He was well enough that his IV was disconnected around noon and he was allowed to wear a wrap on the IV site, dress in his clothes, and attend a Halloween party for patients in the pediatric ward. The party was really nice with crafts, pumpkins to decorate with stickers, and they even gave each child his or her own costume to wear (and keep) from the Disney store. Ethan picked Stitch from Lilo and Stitch and had fun running around their party room in costume. He passed the rest of the time that evening playing his Leapster and reading with Daddy. He was discharged pretty late in the evening (just as trick-or-treating was ending in our city).

The pumpkin Ethan decorated (not sure about the placement of the eyebrows? ;)

Ethan in his new Stitch costume

Passing time in the hospital

Ethan's Scare with Ketotic Hypoglycemia

Ethan gave us a terrible scare today. He woke up acting really oddly (slurred speech, shaking, and vomiting). I called our pediatrician, and they thought it might be severe flu. He started being less responsive and unable to focus his eyes on us, so we rushed him to our pediatrician's office. Our doctor called paramedics to take him by ambulance to the hospital because Ethan was completely unresponsive and limp when we arrived at the office. The paramedics tested his blood sugar immediately upon arriving to evaluate Ethan's status and found that it was 21 (20=comatose). I have never been so terrified in my life. I rode in the front of the ambulance and knew from looking back at the paramedics that they were unable to get an IV started en route to the hospital. They tried giving him a shot of glucagon (which is supposed to release any glucose stores in the body), but his stores were already depleted so the shot only caused his blood sugar to go up to 29. By the time we arrived at the ER, it was back down to 23. As soon as we got to the ER there were 4 nurses each working on one of his arms or legs trying to get an IV started as soon as possible. Thankfully it only took a few minutes before they were able to give him a bolus of IV dextrose via an IV in his right arm. He slowly started coming around and responding after receiving IV dextrose. He was admitted with an overnight stay and had many tests run, but the only explanation the staff could provide was a severe episode of ketotic hypoglycemia. The pediatric endocrinologist told us that toddlers with a slender build are susceptible to low blood sugar in general, especially after a fast such as overnight or during an illness. If their blood sugar becomes dangerously low, they display neurological symtoms (because the brain is deprived of its fuel source), can become comatose, and it can be fatal if prolonged. In Ethan's case, his blood sugar was so low that it was really dangerous. We have to watch very carefully what he eats and when now and must give him a complex carbohydrate snack just before bed to keep his blood sugar up overnight. It was incredibly scary and came entirely out of the blue, but we are so thankful that God was protecting him and that he bounced back to his usual active self. We are also thankful that this is a propensity that he will outgrow at least by the age of 7 according to the endocrinologist.

Making Baby Food

Purchasing baby food (especially for a little one with a growing appetite) can become really expensive really quickly. I had thought before Ethan was born that I might try making baby food for him, but when we encountered many feeding issues with him, I didn't have the drive or energy to get started making it. A friend of mine, Emily, has a daughter who is just a little bit younger than Ryan and had made her own baby food before. She generously offered to teach me how to make baby food for Ryan. We had a great time this evening working together to peel fruits, scoop veggies, and puree it all. We made pears, peaches, acorn squash, and sweet potatoes for Ryan and Mia, and I later made papaya and more pears and sweet potatoes on my own. The food was a huge hit with Ryan, and he has been gobbling it up! We've found it to be very convenient to grab however many frozen cubes of fruit or veggie Ryan is hungry for and to just need to microwave it a short time. Inexpensive and healthy! Thank you Emily!

Ryan's Blood Draw

I wasn't sure how well Ryan would do with having his blood drawn at the hospital, but he surprised me and was a real trooper! The nurse used a cooling spray on his arm first (which served as a distraction), and even though she had to dig around a bit in order to get his rolly vein, he did not seem phased or even cry at all. Thankfully she was able to get his vein fairly quickly. Ryan was happy as could be when we got home. He wore a little green arm wrap for a short time to cover where his blood was drawn.
Unfortunately we got a call from our doctor this evening confirming that Ryan's hemoglobin was low and that his CBC results indicated signs of anemia. Since he is mildly anemic, we have to start him on daily iron therapy (a higher dose than Ethan received) and have him re-checked in one month to see if the iron therapy is working to get his hemoglobin up within normal range and to resolve the anemia.

Ryan's 9 Month Dr. Appointment

Ryan had his 9 month appointment with our pediatrician today. He was 28 3/4 inches long and weighed 16 pounds 5 ounces. Even though he does not appear to be scrawny, his weight places him in about the third percentile of babies his age. Our doctor was not concerned about this though because Ryan has been on the low end of the weight distribution all along, and his growth is continuing to trend upward at an acceptable rate. He is just a tiny guy! His exam was going very well until the nurse read the result of his in-office hemoglobin screen. Ryan's hemoglobin was 9.0, and the normal range for his age is 10.5 to about 13. Our doctor ordered bloodwork to test his serum level of hemoglobin along with a CBC. Since our pediatrician's office does not offer phlebotomy services, I had to take Ryan to a hospital to have his labs drawn. I was not overly concerned at the time though because Ethan's 9 month hemoglobin screen had also been low, he'd had a serum level drawn, and we ended up just needing to give him vitamin drops containing iron as treatment for mild iron deficiency.

Visiting with Friends

We had the pleasure of visiting with our friends Leslie, Sophie, and Greta today. Paul and Leslie recently moved to a different city and had their sweet little baby, Greta, in July. This visit was the first time that we met Greta and that Leslie and her girls met Ryan. Ethan had a blast playing with Sophie!
It had been quite awhile since they had gotten to "play" together. In fact, Sophie was still in her bouncy seat at the time :) Wow, how time flies!

Our Little Puff Monger

I remember that when we introduced the first finger food to Ethan (Gerber puffs), it took him quite awhile to figure out the hand-eye coordination required to grasp the puffs and put them into his mouth. He would often get a puff in his fist and not be able to transfer it to his mouth. Ryan, on the other hand, is very adept at fine motor skills (whereas Ethan excelled at gross motor skills). Ryan has the ability to use his forefinger and thumb to create a precise pincher grip. It took Ryan a matter of seconds to figure out how to carefully pick up each puff and transfer it into his mouth. He, like Ethan, LOVES puffs and would eat an entire container at a sitting if we'd let him. We fondly refer to him as our little "puff monger" as he rapidly devours his puffs. This video was taken just a few days after we gave him puffs for the first time (his bib is a little wonky; it probably got between he and his puffs, so he threw it aside ;)

Christmas Gift Jar Class

A friend of my friend, Megan, offered some neat craft classes this month to provide some creative handmade Christmas gift options. Megan, Summer, and I signed up for the gift jar class during which we assembled three sets of gift jars with matching tags and gift bags. It was a lot of fun to spend time with Megan and Summer and to decorate the jars and bags together. As part of the class fee we also received a CD containing 100 ideas of ways to fill the jars (food recipes, bath salts, etc). I think that they turned out really well and will enjoy giving them out this Christmas!

Birthdays and High Fives

Today we visited with my parents and brother (Mike) to celebrate Dan and Mike's birthdays. Sadly (and ironically), I do not have any photos from this day of Mike or Dan! But I assure you that we all had a great time celebrating Mike and Dan's birthdays and enjoyed cake for each of them (chocolate for Dan and angel food for Mike).

Ethan cuddling with Grandpa G. and Sasha

Mom pulled out some of the toys that Mike and I played with as babies. Here's one of Ryan's favorites, the Fisher-Price ball:

We'd been needing to clean off our camera's memory card for a long time and finally did, so now we have enough room to capture some video clips on it. Sorry for the video clips galore (I was so excited to be able to record some digital video of Ryan!)

Ryan and Mom doing a high-five

Ryan rolling over

First time capturing Ryan's "Ba Ba Ba-ing" on video

Ryan playing with the "old school" toy

Daddy Date Night at Preschool

Ethan's preschool had a Daddy Date Night event tonight that was really cute (as I gather from Dan and Ethan's descriptions! :) The kids' dads got to come to school in the evening and do a craft, play, listen to songs that the kids had learned, have a snack, and be presented with special Daddy Date Night items that the kids had made earlier in the week. The teachers took photos of each child with his or her dad, and the kids worked together with their dads to make cute frames for the photos. Here Ethan is modeling what he might look like in the frame:

Ethan and Dan made some Playdoh creations

During snack time the Daddy's used special placemats that the kids had created for them. They were also given a little rock craft. Dan was cracking up because the teachers told him that they had asked Ethan what color his daddy's hair was when they were making the craft, and Ethan said "white". They hadn't met Dan yet and weren't sure whether what Ethan was telling them was accurate or not, so they went ahead and used a white pipecleaner to represent his hair. ;) They were also presented with a paragraph about themselves as dictated by their kids. The teachers kind of did a Madlib-type activity where they had the kids fill in the blanks in a paragraph. Ethan's was hilarious. He did get Dan's hair color correct this time ;) The teacher said that he was very specific about Dan eating corn in a bowl as opposed to on the cob (we eat a lot of microwaved Steamfresh veggies).
The dads were also given a construction paper bowtie when they arrived that the kids had decorated for them. It was fun to see how much prep work the kids had done for their Daddy Date night and to hear how excited Ethan was to have been able to show Daddy around his school.

Ethan-isms

The way that Ethan pronounces some words is really cute. Words that we have noticed lately:

paginning = beginning
chocolick = chocolate
He overly enunciates "basement" so it sounds like base-a-ment
eyelash = ashleye

The Boys' First Pumpkin Patch Adventure

Dan and I wanted to take the boys to a pumpkin patch this year, and we were researching nearby locations when some friends posted photos on Facebook of a great family farm that they had visited. It turned out that the farm was only a 20 minute drive away and, in addition to their pumpkin patch, it had an animal/petting zoo area, pony rides, a stroller- accesible corn maze, a playground, and a hayride all included in their admission price of just $3/person. They also had really yummy concessions available- delicious pulled pork BBQ. The weather was a bit overcast and chilly, but we had a great time, and it was fun to see how excited Ethan was to experience everything that the farm had to offer. Ethan and Dan got to pet and feed some goats (we were given an ice cream cone full of goat feed).

This goat was timid, but very friendly

Dan poured some of the feed into Ethan's hand

The "nice goat" very gently ate out of Ethan's hand

Then a second, larger, more aggressive goat came over to eat and nearly swallowed the ice cream cone whole. That intimidated Ethan, so Daddy fed the rest of the food to the goats and we moved on to check out the other animals which included sheep, pigs, a bunny, chicks, a donkey, and I think ducks too.

Ethan really enjoyed watching the tiny chicks. We envied the heat lamp in their enclosure ;)There was a 3-acre corn maze to explore, and at each T we asked Ethan whether we should go left or right. He got a kick out of deciding which way to go and finding out whether we were at a dead end or not. Unfortunately he got so caught up in the maze that...he had an accident that necessitated a change of clothes part of the way through (which is why his pants changed from jeans to red windpants). Thankfully we had a change of clothes with us and a discreet dead end where we could do a quick change.There were lots of neat activities for the kids including sand tables, a mini general store, a swing set, a tractor to climb on, a teeter totter, etc. Ethan was thrilled with the pony ride

The owners of the farm also sponsored a racecar that was on display for the kids to explore and sit inAnd last, but not least, we walked out to the pumpkin patch. Ethan loved scouring the patch for just the right pumpkin. I think that he was surprised at how heavy they were when he tried to pick them up. The patch was huge, and we easily found a large pumpkin for Ethan and a smaller one for RyanEthan worked hard to pull our pumpkin cartRyan checking out our pumpkins. He was content to ride along in his giant, cozy, toddler-sized Bundle Me.Here is a rare photo of me (gasp!) Ethan and I were getting ready to pull the cart back to our van with the 2 pumpkins that we had settled on

We had a fantastic time, and we'll definitely be making a return trip to this farm next year.

Where Do I Begin?

Hello everyone! Hopefully you haven't given up on me since it has been so long since I posted an update to our blog. We've been busy and a lot has happened over the last month, so please bear with me as I do my best to post updates on what our family has been up to. (I'm writing this on Nov. 18th, but posting it dated Oct 9th so that it will precede my slew of blog updates...)

Moses

I have mentioned before how much I enjoy seeing what arts and crafts Ethan gets to do while he is at church. I thought that the project Ethan made in childcare during my mom's group at church this week was so cute. They talked about baby Moses and how he was put adrift in a basket. Here is a photo of the puppet the kids made of baby Moses in his basket:

Just Sittin' Around

True to the ultrasound technician's prediction, Ryan has been "go go go" since he was born. The ultrasound tech told us at our 20 week scan that he was the most active baby she had scanned in her 10 years of doing ultrasounds. He is in constant motion, always rolling, army crawling, reaching, grabbing, and launching himself sideways out of his bouncy seat (we have to keep a very close eye on him if we put him in his bouncy seat). Tonight is the first time that I've seen Ryan actually sit up by himself. I think that he has been capable of it for quite awhile, but he was just so busy that he would rather reach for something and fall over than work on his balance. It's neat to see him reach this milestone! Poor little guy has been battling a nasty cold, as you can probably tell from his eyes and face in the photos, but he seemed to be pretty excited to be sitting up.

Our sickly little guy

What a ham, he was even winking while sitting up ;)

Ryan is growing up so fast!

Ba Ba Ba Bo Be Ba

Ryan has recently started "talking" with us, and it is just so cute! I need to capture one of his conversations on video (I'll try to do that soon). He is particularly enjoying making sounds that start with "B" and has taken to rattling off lots of "Ba", "Bo", and "Be"s. His face completely lights up when Dan, Ethan, or I respond back to him with similar sounds.