Polars

This past week we had a super scary moment at the park. I had just taken D to the potty in the clubhouse and we were walking back out. B2 was playing with a friend on the slides, and D was insisting on me pushing him in the swing. Well, with me being 30 weeks pregnant, I'm not really enjoying pushing him, which requires me to stand for long periods of time and usually results in at least one accidental kick to my stomach (not hard--I'm sure our baby is doing just fine). So, I told him I wasn't going to push him on the swings and he should go play on the slides with his brother. D started throwing a massive tantrum, which I tried to ignore by walking away. Well, he follows me, and as we're sitting down I've noticed that I haven't heard any sound from his "screaming" tantrum for a little longer than usual. Once again, D has thrown one of his fits where he stopped breathing. So, I waited...and waited...and waited...longer than usual this time. D's lips started turning blue, then his face... His eyes looked panic and then rolled back in his head... My immediate thought was to do the Heimlich --after all, what else would be causing him not to breathe? Maybe he put something in his mouth while I wasn't looking and started choking? Heimlich Maneuver did nothing. D wasn't breathing, and I didn't know what to do. I was just about to run to a neighbor's house and ask for help while I called 911 when he suddenly took a big gasp and resumed breathing, sobbing gently.

This isn't the first time this has happened. Two or three times previously D had been in the middle of a tantrum when he would stop breathing, but this was the longest it had gone on and the worst I had seen. I sat, close to tears, and cuddled him, feeling hopeless that this would happen again and there would be nothing I could do to save my little boy. So, with no other options, I started searching the internet to see if anyone else experienced something similar. My first few results talked about children voluntarily holding their breath to get what they wanted, but I knew D wasn't doing this--his panicked look indicated that he clearly had no control over what was happening. Finally, I saw this website, and I became somewhat relieved. This seemed to be exactly what was happening--these spells occurred during tantrums and were not the conscious will of the child. After reading about the possible family history link, I called my mom, and sure enough one of my siblings also suffered from the same thing as a child (I'm sure my siblings can guess which one, but it's not my place to post it here), which would also confirm a family history (though not directly from me or my husband). Probably the most disconcerting part of the article is to ignore these spells as much as possible. Really--someone wants me to ignore the fact that my child can't breathe?? My mom made a good recommendation that I take a CPR class, which I will be doing next month, so that I can help D resume breathing should he pass out and not immediately start on his own. But seriously, this is awful! I thought night terrors were hard to handle, but these are way, way worse. At least with the night terrors I knew that B2 would eventually wake up or go back to sleep and be fine--I don't yet have the same reassurance with D.

So, after learning that D has horrific temper tantrums, the next day we had the polar opposite. Yesterday morning while I was blow-drying and flat-ironing my hair, D came in the bathroom and said he wanted to watch. He watched for a second, then whispered, almost in awe, "Wow... You so pretty!" He really can be a sweet boy, which I just have to remind myself of for all those other times that he seems like a demon child. I sure do love this little boy of mine though.

Corneal Abrasian

Last week I had an unfortunate, and rather inconvenient, trip to the ER, and surprisingly I was the patient. I think in my whole life I've been the patient in an ER once, and it was when I fell off my bike and fractured my jaw. At least, I'm pretty sure I went to the ER; I don't really remember the details, just the blood pouring from my jaw and the thought of "OW OW OW OW OW" (I was too young to swear back then...).

So, back to last week's story. It was Monday night, and I was preparing for my company's quarterly retreat. My plan was to put the boys to bed, do some laundry, clean my house, and pack for me and the kids (the kiddos were staying at my in-laws' house). I got D to bed and started picking up his room, when my eye had an unfortunate and sudden interaction with a cardboard box--and not just any cardboard box, but a Costco sized Huggies box, which means it was a heavy duty cardboard box. And not just any part of the box, but the corner of the lid, so it was nice and sharp. The next thing I knew, I was on my knees in absolute pain. My eye was watering so badly that I swore it was bleeding. I couldn't open my eyelid, and felt like I was storing part of the box under my eyelid as a memento. After a minute, the pain hadn't subsided, so I went to my bathroom to see if I could find a piece of cardboard or something in my eye. My eyelid was practically glued shut, and when I tried to force it open the pain was so intense (not to mention my eye was super sensitive to the light) that I gave up trying and just sat on the toilet and cried. Poor B2 -- he came in and tried to help me, but I was trying so hard not to scare him (I was already imaging the phone calls he would make to random people in my phone directory -- "Hi someone-Mommy-hasn't-talked-to-in-weeks-or-years, my mommy is crying on the toilet and can't see anything. Wanna come play?") that I tried not to cry in his presence and asked him to go play in another room. After a few more minutes--or seconds, as this pain was making time seem non-existent--I finally called my mother-in-law to come look at it. She brought over my father-in-law, just in case, and were at my house in a short time. Meanwhile, the OCD part of me figured that if I'm going to go the ER, at least I should change B2's sheets so he can sleep in clean sheets. So, I changed his bed, one eye tightly closed and the pain making me weak.

My mother-in-law came over, and I was finally able to pry open my eye enough for her to see it. When I did that, I realized that my vision was completely blurred--I could barely see straight ahead. It was almost as bad as looking through frosted glass (the stuff in your shower, not the kind when it snows). I finally resolved that I should go to the ER, because I was terrified that I was going to go blind in that eye. And, the worst part about that? I couldn't play sports anymore. Yes, honest to goodness, that was my fear. :) So, my father-in-law and neighbor give me a blessing, my father-in-law stays back to watch the kids, and my mother-in-law drives me to the hospital.

We get to the ER and get admitted almost immediately. Why, you ask? Because we missed the urgent care closings by about 10 minutes. Go figure--this can't be a CHEAP stupid mistake, it has to be an EXPENSIVE stupid mistake. Anyway, at the ER, they give me some numbing drops (joy of joys), I finally start to relax (my pulse at the intake was 117 beats per minute, nearly double my resting rate. My mother-in-law made sure to point out that at least I was burning some extra calories), and after what seems like forever the doctor (and his med student shadow) come in. He puts the magnifying machine up to my eye and starts to tell me that he'll add these drops that will make my injury able to be seen when he said, "Well, actually, I can see it right here--I don't even need the drops!" He adds them anyway to show the full extent of the damage, and here's approximately what it looked like:

(The bright green is the injury; and yes, I wish I had gotten a picture of my actual injury--it was probably slightly smaller than this, and more circular)

He confidently announces that I have a corneal abrasion, meaning that I scratched off part of my cornea against that stupid box. For those who don't remember 9th grade biology:

The cornea is the outer part of the area that protects the pupil, which is actually a hole. So, basically, it keeps stuff out of your eye hole, and I had scratched off a good chunk of mine--approximately the diameter of a small pea. So, they give me some antibiotics and generic LorTab (thank goodness!), tell me I'll be good in 36-48 hours, and send me on my way, a few hundred dollars poorer and still in absolutely misery (the numbing drops wore off much faster than the LorTab kicked in).

To make an already-too-long story just a bit shorter, I was in terrible pain the next day. It felt like I had a piece of glass under my eyelid, and every time my eyelid twitched or my eyeball moved (which happens WAY more than you think...), it sent a sharp pain to my eye. By Wednesday morning, the sharp pains were gone, and was replaced with a dull pain like I had been poked in the eye really hard. Oh, wait, I had... On Wednesday, I was also able to keep my eye open for brief (but lengthening) amounts of time. By Thursday, the pain was completely gone and I could keep my eye open all the time; however, the vision in that eye was still blurry. I went to a check up with an eye doctor on Friday, and he said that it will take about 2-3 weeks for my vision to completely return. But, every day I notice improvements, and only really have difficulty with reading small print.

That's the story of my expensive stupidity. So, lesson learned: look before you bend down to pick up wipes off the floor, because you just might rip out half of your eye.

Some random stories

Although it hasn't been that long since my last post, it seems like forever because so much as happened that I wanted to blog about. So, let's go chronologically.

A few weeks ago, B1 and I went to Chilis for dinner with the boys. My boss gave us a gift card there for Christmas, so we figured it was a good time to use it. Well, it wasn't really, since we went on a Friday night at 6:15 and the placed was PACKED and it was freaking cold. I won't go into why it took us nearly an hour to be seated when they quoted me 10-15 minutes, but that's mainly because I have no idea why that happened. Anyway, we had an amazing server who was friendly, fast, and most likely gay. B1 had him running with how fast he was downing his lemonades, so finally the server brought B1 two glasses with the comment, "You're a heavy drinker." Oh, if only he knew... I started laughing and have been giving him crap ever since. That was pretty much the highlight of the evening, since my once-delicious food turned into stomach cramps and--um, use your imagination--when I discovered a huge nasty hair only millimeters from where I stopped eating. My stomach is churning just thinking about it. We'll probably go back to Chilis again, because our waiter was awesome and because we have another gift card, but I'm definitely not ordering that dish next time. And we're not going on a Friday night again.

Last Sunday, February 7th, was even grosser than my experience at Chilis, but also funnier. In the morning as we were getting ready for church, I was playing with D. One of his favorite games is when we lift him into the air like we are going to toss him, but without letting go, and then bringing him back down. He always get a huge grin on his face. We may have another aviator on our hands... Anyway, so I was playing with D by lifting him into the air, but I was sitting on the bed so D was directly above my head. I was giving D a big grin when suddenly...*BARF*.... D spits up and it lands directly in my mouth!!! Luckily, we had a burp cloth close and I quickly wiped out my mouth, but B1 started gagging a bit (he, of course, saw the whole thing). I guess I was lucky that B2never barfed in my mouth as a baby. In fact, most of the gross stuff seems to happen to other people (like Beez getting B2's diarrhea all over her pants and newly-replaced carpet). There goes my streak.

That same day, B2 gave his first talk in Primary! I was so proud of him. I managed not to be a total dork and cry at how my little baby is growing up, but I did boast about what a great job he did and how he talked loudly (but not too loudly) in the microphone and only twice went off subject telling stories that inevitable would have ended with something Mommy and Daddy don't want the ward to know. :) B2's topic was "I know Heavenly Father loves me" and consisted of blessings we have been given that show that Heavenly Father loves us -- temples, families, the earth, and Jesus's sacrifice, to name a few.

Last week we had two unfortunate milestones -- first, it seems that D also has night terrors (it's going to be a fun couple of years...), and second, it appears that B2 is now sleepwalking in addition to having night terrors. Why can't I have children who have normal sleep patterns? Last week B1 was gone on a trip. I was up finishing a book; at about 11:00 p.m., I heard B2 calling my name. He wasn't screaming like he does when he has night terrors, but he was whimpering a bit, so I got out of bed to check on him. I found him in the corner of his room, sitting on his rocking horse, whimpering my name. I led him back to bed, and he was out cold before his head hit the pillow. It was really weird. I can't image that it was anything other than sleep walking, because he was not awake when I found him. I don't think it's related to the night terrors, or at least he wasn't have a night terror at the time, because he wasn't screaming his ever-loving head off. It was very bizarre. It hasn't happened since, so let's hope it isn't a common occurrence.

On the bright side, I think B2 is coming out of the terrible threes. He's still having some problems with pooping in his pants, but mainly the tantrums seem to be going away and the sweet boy I barely remembered is coming back. The tantrums/disobedience are the worst at night and in the morning, but he seems to be doing a lot better during the day. Though, I suspect that's easy for me to say, since I only see him a few hours a day most of the time.

My life is a pendulum

I have decided that my life is a pendulum. Sometimes, the pendulum is swinging slowly, so we don't really have any ups and downs. Life is pretty consistent. Then, other days (like right now) it swings in big swoops, so we have some awesome days followed by horrible days.

Last night was an awesome day. B2 was in the best mood I've seen him in for a long time. He exclaimed as soon as my key hit the lock, "Yay, mommy's home!" It pretty much got better from there. He ate his dinner without too much prodding, he helped me make bread (and only spilled the flour a little), he was happy and (somewhat) obedient...It was nice. It was like having my two-year-old back again. I almost didn't want him to go to bed because it was such a good night.

And then, along comes today. Every Tuesday at my company I have a meeting from 8:00 - 10:00 a.m. At 9:00, a coworker interrupts the meeting with my cell phone, saying that it's an emergency and my husband is trying to reach me. I immediately panic as I call B1 back. He sounds close to tears, saying that B2 decided to put push pins in D's crib (while D is still in it, of course), then runs to his dad and said, "Daddy, D is dead!" B1 freaked out, ran to D and discovered (thankfully) that D was not dead, but was surrounded by push pins. He still hadn't gotten over the shock of what B2 said when he called, which is why his emotions were so close to the surface. Well, B1 took D to the doctor for an X-ray to make sure D hadn't swallowed one of those push pins. They are on their way back from the hospital to the pediatrician's office to have the X-ray read, but it looks okay.

I guess we need to re-baby-proof the house. I don't even know where B2 got push pins...

So, does this mean we're due for another good night, or will this downward swing last longer?