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13 Months later – the nightmare returns

Posted on March 22, 2009 11:15 am by TheAngelForever

My body is completely numb and my mind is still racing. Just before sitting down to eat dinner last night my worst nightmare came true again. Almost thirteen months after it happened before, JSL stopped breathing and turned blue.

One minute he was chasing after his big brother, the next he slumped over on the floor next to my legs. It all happened so quickly it seems like a blur to me.

JL and I were helping NHL to try on a new bike helmet. JSL was sitting on the floor behind my legs watching Sesame Street. Suddenly we heard JSL grunting. We thought he was a little constipated and doing his business. Then I looked a little closer and his head slumped forward. I picked him up and honestly thought he was gagging on something. I tried to do back blows and other things to get something out of his mouth. When I tried to reach into his mouth I could not open it.

This should have been a light bulb moment. Of course I was not thinking. I was in a panic. My 22 month old son was rapidly turning blue. First his face and second later his hands. His life flashed before my eyes as we prayed that the emergency personel would arrive soon. O could not get his mouth open. His jaws were clenched down on my fingers as I tried with all my might to get into his mouth. Then I noticed his entire body was rigid.

By the time everyone arrived, I was pretty sure he was not choking on something. I was positive he had another serizure. When the EMT came in he seemed a little warm, but nothing too alarming. Problem was, he was unresponsive. His eyes were glazed over and he was not respnding to my voice. The lights were barely on and nobody was home. We quickly determind that he had to go via ambulance to the ER. I sat on the stretcher with him in my arms.

The ride to the hospital was awful. Nobody said anything to me. They worked on their papers as I sat there talking to JSL. He was starting to respond some. If I asked where Mama was he was able to move his hand to point in my direction. He would also point to the lights inside the ambulance when I asked. Slowly he was showing signs of my little boy.

After we arrived in the ER and were taken to a room they did a rectal temperature. It may sound horrible, but I was relieved to see that he was extremely feverish. At that point his temperatuer was 103.5. JL and my mother were there with me as we waitied to see the resident. She came in and looked in his ears and checked him out.

Two hours after we arrived we were told it was time to go home. His temperature was down to 100.8 with Motrin. The part that leaves me freaked out – we do not know what caused the sudden, freak spike in temperaure. Actually, we do not know what continues to keep his temperature up. This morning it was up to 102. So today we are staying home, keeping him cool and rotating different fever reducing mediations to the little guy. Tomorrow we will follow up with our doctor to see if anything is suddenly visible in his ears or elsewhere.

Categories:
bad news doctor jsl sick kid vent

Where is the adult-parent line?

Posted on March 19, 2009 8:12 am by TheAngelForever

As a parent, I understand what my responsibilities are for my children. I also realize that as an adult, when around other children, it is my "job" to keep safety a priority. If another child is doing something that is not safe, I feel that I can step in and ask them to stop. If the child selects not to do it, that is where my boundaries end. I would never think of threatening them with a consequence, I would get their parent and explain the situation for them to take care of.

Sunday afternoon at my nephews party we had an experience where another adult at the party over stepped the adult-parent line. TechyDad did an amazing blog post about this experience when it was very fresh in his mind. You can read that here.

To this day I am still floored with the behavior of the other person at the party. Please note that there were only four children at this family party, my two boys and our two nephews. This woman’s children are adults and she is NO relative of ours.

What would you have done in this situation? I was too busy picking my mouth up from the floor to reply properly. How would you help to prep your child IF you go back into a potential environment like this again?

As sad as it is that my boys may not be close to their two cousins, it makes me even more determined to make sure that we continue to be close to my brother and his family.

Categories:
decisions family jl looking back vent

Nephew Birthday Party times two

Posted on March 15, 2009 9:16 pm by TheAngelForever

It is so good to be home. It was an adventure of a weekend for many reasons. Saturday morning we packed the kids into the new car for our first trip with it. We had been invited to a double birthday party for our nephews today. Since my sister-in-law and her family live about 3 hours from us, we thought we would splurge and stay at a hotel over night for some fun.

We decided to stay at the same hotel as last year since it was a good deal and nice location. The only problem we had last time was uninvited ladybugs in our room. The hotel has a pool and serves a nice free breakfast. If you follow me on Twitter, last night you saw that things were not going too well there. I barely slept three hours thanks to some issues. The troubles required me to call the front desk three times and I was tempted to call again later on, but gave up.

More about the adventures and fun swimming later. I am off to decompress after the lack of sleep and stress from last night and today.

Categories:
birthday photos road trip travel vent yummy

I need to move it, move it

Posted on March 1, 2009 11:59 am by TheAngelForever

It is officially time to regroup and think about what is going on with my weight loss program of choice. Of course, I like to think of it as more of a healthy lifestyle change that will benefit the entire family. Right now I am not content with what is going on and I know I am to blame for most of it.

The Facts:

I have been using Weight Watchers online for about six weeks now.
A set amount of points is given to me each day. I also receive six extra points since I am still nursing JSL.
We have been planning out all meals at home for dinners.
The past week we were out a lot with family in town, and more coming this week.
Not eating at our house tends to make me lazy and I did not track points as well.
Thanks to not tracking points I did not see the scale move down – it remained the same.
Since starting Weight Watchers online I have lost just under ten pounds.
From the start of 2009 I have lost about 16 pounds.
The weeks that I am most successful are the ones that I record my points
I know that I need to add exercise into my daily life. There is more to it than chasing around a toddler and five year old, and doing laundry/shopping.

Back in 2004, JL and I unofficially did Weight Watchers together. We started at around the same time and by July I had lost 60 pounds. I know I can do this. This time around I am five years older, have had another child and need to realize that lack of real exercise does not work. I am also nursing less and I think the six extra points may be excessive given the amount JSL nurses these days.

We own WiiFit, so I should be using that. The trouble is I am not really a fan of it. There is one thing that really bothers me about it. When you use the program, you see all of the stats from the other people using it (not weight or anything). To motivate myself, I want to simply work against my prior records, not those of my hubby who has been using WiiFit for longer. So rather than sucking it up and just dealing with it, I have chosen not to even use it. Silly I know, but it still bothers me along with the annoying trainers.

Thanks to this, I have been looking at exercise videos. I took one out of the library that is with Bob from The Biggest Loser and Leslie Sansone’s walking workouts really intrigue me. Last night I actually sat and checked a bunch of things on Exercise on Demand while getting JSL to sleep. Eventually I would like to work back up to Tae Bo since JL and I used to really enjoy that. If we clean out the playroom upstairs there will be the perfect amount of space to do that.

If you have any suggestions of videos please let me know.

Categories:
decisions me moments vent

Is being an adult overrated?

Posted on February 27, 2009 12:00 am by TheAngelForever

There are days that I wonder, why do kids always wish they were adults? Seriously, kids do not have to think about the never ending home repairs and expenses. There are no worries about buying new cars. They do not have to work out budgets for groceries, utilities, insurance, vacation, car expenses and the other items needed for life in the so called real world. The list just gets more complex and "interesting" when you add in loans, mortgages and the cost of raising a family. Of course, not everything has to do with money. As an adult, the responsibilities are endless. You need to schedule time to do laundry, get car repairs, clean, organize and perhaps even try to relax.

The last few months have made me wonder why being an adult was something I always longed for. As a child, I do not remember my parents worrying about so much. Is it the recession that is the culprit of all of my fears, or did the adults in my life simply hide everything? Of course, the reality of so many things happening at once made me think about being an adult and taking care of all of the "things" in life.

Today hubby’s car decided it may be giving up. His car is a 1998 Corolla and has 104,000 on it. In the scheme of things, we have hardly done any major repairs on it. Clearly, the car does not owe us anything. The cost of a major repair, assuming it has anything to do with the transmission, is not worth it. We went to test drive a car and may make a final decision after getting some price quotes.

So my question for this week is inspired by all of these adult decisions being made around here lately:

What three things do you wish you did not have to worry about as an adult? If you would like to explain why feel free, if not that is fine.

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the Mr. Linky there if you are participating.