our 27th annual fishing derby

Over and done with for another year. I can't believe that Pork has now competed in his first ever fishing derby. Or that Peanut and SweetPea got to enjoy another year. I would like to say that Pickle enjoyed himself but I think that he spent more time walking around with a buddy than he did fishing (and this was his last year being able to compete). Punk... well, he decided, once again, to remain at his dad's than come and join us. So it was his loss.

No big winners in our house hold this year. Didn't see anyone break Peanut's record from three years ago but they had some nice sized fish on the board. I was a little disappointed to find out AFTER the derby that any fish turned in got an angler certificate. Had I known that, I would have let the girls turn in their small fish.

SweetPea with her hand-caught fish

That's right, both my girls caught a fish! Peanut caught hers with her pole and some bait while SweetPea caught an injured fish with her bare hands lol. Pork tried fishing a bit but found it better to just beat the water with his rod and hope for the best. The best turning out to be hooking his sister (we took off his hook after that and just let him continue to attempt to beat the fish into submission).

Our little friend that came fishing with us, C, didn't managed to hook a fish either but he DID end up winning one of the door prizes. I think that that brightened his day since he was a bit bummed over his streak of luck.

We missed last year's derby due to SweetPea's soccer pictures and boy had things changed! For one, there wasn't a casting challenge anymore. For two, the pond wasn't packed to the gills the way that it normally always was. Our group caught less this year than any other year as well, even though there were less people there. Maybe it was the liverwurst we attempted to use as bait... Going to have to remember to stick with the hot dogs next year.

Buttercup and Wesley

Ever since we went on vacation and SweetPea watched the movie "The Princess Bride", we have been inundated with requests to legally change the names of our two youngest children to Buttercup and Wesley. SweetPea goes through many days where she will only answer to her self-appointed nickname and requests that you call Pork by Wesley. She has gone as far as introducing herself by this new name, attempting to write it on her lessons and scolding me for calling PorkChop by the "wrong" name. To be honest, I find it insufferably cute that she has developed such a liking for a character. At the same time, I get enough weird looks without people wondering why I chose to name my daughter Buttercup.

Dueling to a "draw"

Tonight, while forcing Wesley to carry her baby for her (since Buttercup is a princess and Wesley just says "As you wish" which really means "I love you"), I made him a little cardboard sword so he could be happier. Didn't last long before Buttercup insisted that she needed a sword too but that hers needed to be longer and thinner and not so black in the handle.

The two then raced outside and proceeded to duel. Didn't last too long before Wesley's sword was quite a bit crumpled and Buttercup noticed that her sword was better for drawing pictures in the sand.

I am pretty certain that I am going to have to resign myself to a future of grandkids with names like Indigo, Humperdink, and Wesley. :)

its a dirty job, but someone has to do it

Having a large family, I try my hardest to teach my children the importance of being kind to the Earth. I know that large families leave a large carbon foot print so I feel extra responsible for raising green-conscientious children. I try to buy more "real" food than processed food (although I am far from perfect), I look for the least packaging that I can get with our produce. We recycle everything and anything that our city will take back (which is actually a fair-ish number of items). We use our yard waste, instead of disposing of it through the yard waste removal program. Most years, we garden (sadly, it looks like its just not going to happen this year due to money issues). And now, we are getting more serious about composting.

Start them young and make it a habit

For some reason, composting is one thing that kind of worried me. I have had no problem making my own laundry soap for the past three years. I love our cloth in the bathroom and for diapering needs. We don't buy paper plates, cups, napkins, etc even when bbq'ing.... we just make sure that we are prepared for the onslaught of dirty dishes. But for some reason, the thought of using every piece of fruit core, every single egg shell, every scrap of peeled veggies just made me.... I don't know? Feel like I was leaving a mess instead of cleaning it up? Turning our backyard into a dumping ground? Giving the dogs something else to dig up and eat?

But in actuality, its easy. Most of the kids don't even mind helping with the turning, digging, raking, watering.... They volunteer to take the scraps out and are actually pretty impressed by the subtle color changes in the dirt that we have already seen this past year. I am pretty impressed that after the first few times, the dogs have learned that the compost area doesn't contain meat, hence there is not a single thing of interest to them. And most importantly, it hasn't seemed to attract the local wildlife that I was worried would be invading our yard for an easy meal.

I won't say that I am an expert on this, because I am far from it. I won't even say that I am really a novice since I am totally learning as I go. But I will say that I am proud to be the parent of child that asks if waste can go in the compost, recycling or if its ready for the garbage. And I am VERY proud that for a family of seven people, four pets and a wild life, that we only throw out maybe three garbage bags a week (and that's mainly because when the rabbits' cage gets changed/cleaned out, the garbage bag goes out too, full or not).

leap of.......

When you get a phone call from the doctor's office, its never a good thing. Just once I would like a doctor to call and say "Hello, I have good news. Nothing is wrong. Just wanted to tell you to have a blessed day." But nope, offices don't do that. Instead they call to tell you that they are sorry, but new appointments need to be made. Things get overlooked. Specialists need to be called.

walking on air

I really thought the call was about Pork. After all, two stool samples have been taken to the hospital and yet, no call has ever been given to us to let us know what the heck happened with his stomach/digestive tract over vacation. Best guess that I have now is that he must have picked up something from the petting zoo in St Louis. But it could have been norovirus or rotovirus as well. Not knowing why he had severe diarrhea for two straight weeks doesn't thrill me. But knowing that his body is healed on its own (apparently) makes me happy.

Speaking of happy, Punk is the exact opposite. After a wonderful track practice tonight, coming home with the expectation that he would be preparing for soccer, I had to break (ha ha) the news to him that we got a call from radiology today letting us know that he, in fact, DID break his wrist again. We need to now put a call into the orthopedic surgeon and have him re-x-rayed, cast, and pulled out of sports/gym until it heals. Wonderful.

The only good news that I could offer him is that they said that he most likely has a buckle type fracture this time. Which is a much quicker heal than his last break. We are only looking at 2-3 weeks instead of 4-6 weeks in a cast. Basically though, just long enough to take him almost to the end of his track season and about halfway through this season of soccer.

I am just concerned at this point that he has been walking around (running, stumbling, throwing, catching, etc) with a broken wrist for a week. I am really hoping that no further damage was done and that when he get in to the ortho, that it really is a quick heal. 

I hate making Punk unhappy. I hate hearing him cry because he is now missing out on everything that he loves once again because of a broken wrist. I really wish that there was some way that I could make this up to him but I know that having a mom hanging all over you, trying to cheer you up is just not the "cool" thing when you are 13. Instead, I have to just put on a brave face and allow him to work through the grief on his own. Hopefully, he will find his silver lining soon.

and so it begins again

Its that time again. Sports season begins to reign supreme in our house. Tonight, Punk had his first soccer game of the spring season and SweetPea had her dance class, at the same time. *sigh* It really stinks trying to be the parent sometimes when you need to be in two places at the same time.

day one and he is already worn out!

Punk did fine last year attending some of his soccer games without one of us being there. Pickle would ride to the field with him and then they would ride home together. This year is proving that that cannot be the case. I arrived after SweetPea's dance class, in the middle of the second quarter, to find Punk sitting on the sidelines because of an injury. Flashbacks to the fall season, first game, where Punk broke his wrist flashed through my head. I checked and it looked ok... a bit puffy but no where near odd like when the entire field sat for him last season. I asked how bad it hurt and he said bad enough that he just wanted to go home. *double sigh*

Hubby thinks that he just is done with soccer. That playing with kids that are all way taller than him has him quitting. I know that he doesn't want to miss going to his dad's house on the weekends and having a weekend game does cut into how much time he can stay there (since bio-dad refuses to transport for game time, lame!) I guess that only time will tell. 

We decided against urgent care tonight since he can move his hand and fingers, something that he couldn't initially do in September. If the wrist still feels sore tomorrow, I will go ahead and make an appointment. Gut instinct is telling me that he probably just sprained it. Hubby's gut is telling him that its all just a way to get out of playing. I think that I need to just breathe and remember that just because he got hurt last season doesn't mean that he is seriously hurt now. 

tonight... tonight... we leave TONIGHT

Tonight is going to be BUSY! We still haven't settled completely on a departure time but we are thinking about midnight. Totally is going to depend on when hubby can get to bed so he can catch a few hours before our grand vacation. Breathe.. I need to breathe! Everything that should be done is now done minus packing the car and that has to wait until its here in the driveway. Kids are packed, I am packed, hubby is mostly done.... Animals have a scheduled care giver for each day.... Everyone is over-excited and doesn't think that they will sleep until we return... Yep, its vacation time!

rub a dub dub... two kiddies in the tub

Since my enthusiasm has been rubbing off on the littles, I decided to try something extra special today to give them something tangible to be excited about.... homemade bath-time body paint!

First, let me say that the recipe that I tried wasn't that great. It needed a bit lot of tweaking. And it didn't seem to "stick" well at all. But... it did serve the purpose of entertaining the littles while I bathed them and got them ready for tonight. Best of all, Pork actually liked the scent of the body paint so he was more than willing to paint things with it. I may need to see about making our own finger paints here and scenting them with essential oils to see if that will help him to play and discover more.

more "prep" work

Hubby and I have a long time disagreement going about PorkChop's beautiful locks. I love them. I love his long, soft, baby-ish hair. Where as all my other children (who had hair at this point) already had coarser, toddler hair, my Pork still retains his sweet baby locks. And they are beautiful! You can totally tell that he is a healthy child by looking at his sweet crown.

Hubby, on the other hand, hates that people comment that he is such a beautiful girl (amber necklace is probably more of the culprit but whatever). He adores his men to have shaved, clean cut looks. But after the disaster that was Pork's first hair cut (where they left him totally uneven), daddy hasn't said too much about the golden tresses.

Until now....

*sigh, sniff, tear*

Daddy laid down the law that great-grandma deserves to meet her great-grandson looking like a boy. He wanted him to look "cleaned-up" instead of with his wild Einstein bed-head look. If this was for my family, I would probably have fought it more but I DID get to leave PorkChop's hair longer for my sister's wedding (who then didn't bother with any family pics like she said she wanted). So I can (and did) concede for daddy to shorten Pork's mane before vacation.

I will not post an after pic right now because he looks so different. I actually did a double take a few times tonight while out to make sure that it was my little boy running just ahead of us. I know that I will grow used to the change and I know that everyone else will adore it (as texts are already coming through about how much better he looks). Its just, MY boy has beautiful hair. MY boy looks like a boy, no matter how long his hair is. This little boy must be his daddy's child because I am still looking high and low for MY little man.

"Cops! Trucks! Go!"

Our sweet PorkChop is definitely a man of few words. Its insane to me to have a child that is this big and not a talker. I understand that a major part of his speech delay, in my opinion, is from his tongue and lip ties that we need to get revised  but its still odd. I am used to my children being very verbally advanced. If it wasn't for the fact that I know that Pork can hear and, more importantly, can listen, I would be very worried.

"trucks!"

Now, there are words that he says on a daily basis that everyone can understand.... "Boob" means that he wants to eat. "Cock" means that someone had better put his socks on his feet RIGHT NOW. "Boots" are any non-sock item that belongs on the foot... this is not reserved just for boots, but for shoes (which he can say that too), slippers, sandals, dress-up shoes, etc. He says "mama" and "daddy" (dah-dee), "hi", "guh-bye" and "hey". He has been known to pop off with "Shut up", "Stop it" and my favorite "Love you" (luv uyou).

But his most recent words are "cop" and "truck". "Cop" is not a police officer... a cop is a helicopter, plane, or jet. Sometimes, its also a hot air balloon. "Truck" is any vehicle on the street, but most often, "truck" is reserved for the garbage truck and the mail truck.

My littlest man will now happily spend minutes gazing at his books to find those elusive vehicles that he desires above all else. Not only will he "read" his books but gaming magazines, yearbooks, ads, the newspaper, etc. He is not picky how he finds his trucks and cops as long as he can find them.

Its so neat getting to watch this part of his personality develop. Before now, he has been my imitator.... copying whatever I do with his own babies. Suddenly, he is gaining interests beyond those that we introduce to him. Many times over the course of the day, I just sit back and watch those little wheels in his brain just spin as he puzzles out the bigger world around him.

baby, you never looked so good

I think that I had this kind of break down last year too but I will say it again... I am in complete and utter shock that my BABY is actually going to turn another year older. In three short months, I am not going to have a "baby" anymore. I am going to have a terrible two. Not that I can picture my sweet blonde boy ever being "terrible".... but he will be two before I know it. I can try to hang on to the baby days as hard as I want but they are slipping through my fingers, just like his beautiful golden locks do every morning while he is nursing. 

turning 20 (months) never looked so good

Today was a big day for my girls as well. My sister and her friend came over to give them both "make-overs" before the rehearsal dinner. I wish that I had thought to take a before picture instead of just an after one because they both looked so grown once their hair was done and their dresses were on.

rehearsal dinner beauties

Its hard for me to believe just how quickly time can pass. I never think that its going by fast until I see pictures like this. Peanut is anything but a little girl anymore... She is growing up to become such a beautiful young lady. And SweetPea isn't a toddler anymore. All the round is gone from her face and you can see that she is a little girl. No more baby girls with rolls of fat and sweet curls. No more baby girls with chubby hands and fingers pulling my hair. No more wobbly baby girl feet, clad in tiny slippers. Instead, I have a preteen daughter and a preschool daughter before me.

Time is passing by for us all. In two days, my sister will be married to her best friend. In two days, my nephew will have an official "dad" in his life again... Not that M has ever been anything but since he came into their lives. But it will be official. SweetPea is so excited to have Uncle M REALLY become Uncle M. Pork will never know any different. And hopefully, it will mean some baby cousins soon to cure my baby fever.

not too much

I wish that I had more to say right now. I wish that the end of the week would hurry up and get here so I would know if my x was yanking my chain or if he was being sincere. I wish that I wasn't so interested in knowing. I wish that it was the end of the month but once the end gets here, I know that I am going to be regretting that our fun filled vacation is over.

silly little goofball

March is normally a good month for me, but not this one. Or at least, not so far. I am just so blah about everything and its even wearing on me. I don't have the get up and go to do much, but I have the desire to be active and doing. I don't have the intensity to get things done but I very much need things to fall into place for my peace of mind.

I think that the winter blues are just hitting especially hard right now with our back and forth weather. One day its brutally cold so we stay in, the next its beautiful out but so muddy that I don't go out because I don't want to deal with the mess. Homeschooling is becoming a chore again because SweetPea is just as cabin crazy as I am. Only my sweet little Porker is still in high spirits... albeit, psychotic ones at times. But at least he is still putting a smile on my face and joy in my heart. I can be thankful for that.

Just... ugh!

I have nothing nice to say today. Nothing at all. After finally finding a pediatrician that we thought was going to rock, after thinking that we were going to finally have some answers about our little man, I learned today that we need to "schedule" his fevers for a more convienant time because running a fever all weekend means that he won't be seen if it breaks before office hours. Better yet, it also means that the doctor won't call you back to tell you that. Instead, a nurse will tell you, repeatedly, that the doctor will contact you and you will hear NOTHING. So we still don't know the ultrasound results (guessing that everything was normal), we can't get him in to check for the other symptoms (which we think that we saw but can't tell) and we are still just waiting.

I got your back

To make matters worse, we had yet another reddish stained diaper this morning. Second diaper of the day and this time, instead of just a little streaking, this time is was soaked through the soaker. I don't know what to do.... Something is not right but I feel that I am spending all my time either waiting for an answer or feeling like I am one of those crazy moms that is just convinced that something is wrong with her child when nothing is. But I know in my heart that its more than that but I don't know how much more.

I know that if I can't get some answers soon, that I am going to have to pursue other options. I know that I need to find a pediatric dentist that specializes (or at least understands) in ties so PorkChop can be evaluated there too. I know that I need to call the ped and have him checked too because his speech is lacking. I feel that all of this could all be related back to each other but I am not sure how to connect the dots. And I can't seem to find a doctor that will help me connect them either.

Yay!! Finally!

Oh wow! I think that this is the longest that I have gone without a knitting project since I learned how back in August of 2010. Which might not seem like much to the general public but to me, someone who is constantly doing "something", its a good size break.

But with only about five weeks until our family vacation, I needed to stop dragging my feet and get started. I already knew which pattern that I wanted to follow for PorkChop, so I got the yarn ordered and fell right into it.

Qing Long, take one

I love learning new techniques but to be thrown into learning two for one project (and right at the beginning), its a bit stressful. Ok, its a LOT stressful. And made me consider scrapping this piece to try another. But thankfully, I kept trudging ahead and now, I can say that after about fifteen attempts, I did figure out the cast on and got it tight enough to not look "frumpy" a few rows down. As for magic looping, I don't think that I will ever be a fan. Its nice to say that I did it and that I can do it if I have to but I think that I prefer my dpns.

I am really hoping to be done with this by next Sunday. One week.... Why do I set these kinds of deadlines for myself? Because I like the torture? Maybe. But I want to give myself ample time to work on SweetPea's sweater too. Not that she "needs" one, whereas PorkChop does, but I want to feel accomplished.

my little buddy is 19 months!

Looking at that sweet little face, I am still in shock that its been 19 months since he dropped into our lives. Literally. But while the saying goes that a problem has been "dropped into your lap", when you fall into your parent's hands, it can never be a bad thing.

Doing a quick measure today, PorkChop is now 26.5lbs and almost 34inches tall. I forgot to check his head circumference but I am sure that its still small.  What can I say... I seem to give birth to babies with little heads but huge personalities.

19 months old!

PorkChop is my little monkey. He is constantly climbing and revels in jumping off of the furniture and into someone's arms. He doesn't climb down stairs, but prefers to launch himself off of them. He never walks if he can run and never runs if he can soar. Boobing has taken a huge downward turn lately and I am honestly not sure if its because he is done but not ready to quit or if its because its getting harder for  him to latch (potential lip and tongue tie that we really need to find a pediatric dentist to look at). He's a man of few words but he LOVES singing and will happily serenade us all day.

playing the waiting game

I wanted to keep chronicling how our midwinter break was going but I think that this took precedence today. Although, I am sure that there isn't going to be any shocking revelations or any big answers that will help us to understand what is going on better, I need to take a few moments to focus on today and what I learned.

another for the vaults

1. Its pretty difficult to get a full night's sleep when you know that your baby is undergoing testing in the morning. Its even harder when your baby keeps waking every hour on the hour to boob. And its difficult NOT turning off the alarm clock at 645 when you know that you need to get that one last feeding in before the three hour cut off time. 

It IS a good thing though when you can't fall back asleep because of worry and you find out that when you "thought" you had reset the alarm clock, you didn't manage to turn it back on.

2. Giving yourself an hour to get four kids ready for a hospital trip is not feasible. Two hours would be better... or four. But not an hour. It will occur to three of the four that they are STARVING that morning when any other, you have to hog tie them down to get them to eat breakfast after waking.

3. Ultrasounds should be done in imaging. Unless you have an infant or a toddler... then they are done in another whole separate wing of the hospital. One you can access quickly by going outside in below freezing temps or you can access by a 20 minute trip through multiple floors/wings of the hospital. The choice is yours.

4. A little guy who has had a few hospital visits WILL remember the white  anklet/bracelet... and will try his hardest to remove said offending item at every chance. Complete with sad faces when it doesn't magically come off. Said little guy will also exhibit signs of PTSD when confronted with a bed with a white sheet on it. Sad faces, wailing, tears and contortionism also will not help.

5. Mama will not get to see a single image from the ultrasound because of number 4.

6. Once you are done, the little man will not want to boob because he is worked up about the testing. He will then become tyrannical because you are not boobing him and he is starving. He will then bite said boob for being in his face while he is obviously upset. While trying to comfort him, he may bite shoulder too because he really wants the boob.

7. Treating kids to pizza when you haven't eaten all morning and cannot have dairy is not a good thing.... because it means that mama will break down, have a piece and then deal with a crabby toddler for the rest of the day as a result.

Good news is that radiology should have their report done by tomorrow and will be sending their findings to Porker's doc. I am not sure when we will hear the results but I am praying for a phone call before the weekend.

Super Super Bowl Sunday

I have never been a big football fan. Being from the Mitten State, its not like we have anything awe-inspiring in the way of pigskin. As a result, I am not a Super Bowl watcher. I don't even care about the new commercials. I can come up with about 50 more things off the top of my head that I would rather be doing. But hubby asks to watch two games all year.... the Super Bowl and the UofM/OSU game. And I don't think that that's too much to ask. So Super Bowl Sunday was observed here.

our future Olympian swimmer

And while the lights went out in Georgia, the littles got their bath time in. I was a little worried about actually doing our Sunday night bath routine since SweetPea was still running a fever, but its PorkChop's favorite time (other than boobing... I think that that one ranks high on is hit list as well). And why not? It was a good way to pass the 40 minutes while we waited for the game to come back on.

Besides, after helping me "bake" chocolate marshmallow cupcakes this morning, having grilled chicken ka-bobs for dinner, getting overly excited about the Big Game and all the "normal" Sunday things, those two littles NEEDED their bath time. They needed it to get clean, to unwind, and to get some fun play in.

Usually though, to bathe Porker means that you are really bathing the entire bathroom. But hubby invented an awesome game to keep him occupied.... dumping cups of water on his head. Now, most babies (and all our other kids) hate having water on their face. PorkChop though, he LOVES it. And best yet, it saves the rest of our bathroom!

maybe some hope

Today, PorkChop had his very important appointment with a pediatric of Infectious Disease to try to pinpoint just what is going on with our little man. And I have to say that I was very impressed. Not only with how wonderfully everything went but with how willing this pediatrician was to work with us to find an answer.

We still might not have any concrete answers on what is going on in PorkChop's body but at least we are one step closer and have a good idea on what avenue to look towards.

big guy at his big appointment

The long and the short of the appointment, Dr F believes that Porker has PFAPA Syndrome or Periodic Fever, Aphthous Stomatitis (mouth ulcers), Pharyngitis (red throat), Adenitis (swollen adenoids). It is catergorized by a sudden high fever that comes in a pattern, usually lasting 3-5 days, ulcers in the mouth that develop around the second day, a red, irritated throat (but not strep) and swollen adenoids. He presented today, after an almost four day long high fever with the ulcers all over his right cheek (which I am surprised that we all missed in the ER since they were very noticeable today), swollen adenoids along his right jaw and a reddened throat.

Unfortunately, there is no definitive blood test for this auto-inflammatory disease. Diagnosis is made by a repeated visit with the same symptoms. And since these symptoms were never "looked for" during his earlier fevers, we  cannot say that they have all ran the same path. Now, it is unusual for a baby to develop this syndrome. Most times, it begins in children between the ages of 2-5 years. So what can I say? Either PorkChop doesn't have this condition or he is an over-achiever. And there are a few other periodic fevers that we can still look into but for the initial visit, this one definitely seems to fit the current bill.

Because of family history though and Porker's penchant for low urine output even on the best of days (and virtually non-existant on high fever days) means that something else could still be going on. So we also have a referral to have an abdominal ultrasound done on the little man in the soonish future. Basically, the doc wants them to take a look at his kidneys, spleen, liver, pancreas and gall bladder to make sure that everything looks ok. He doesn't expect this to change what he thinks is already going on but it will also rule in or out if 1. we are one step closer to a diagnosis of PFAPA and that the fevers are just leaving him quickly dehydrated 2. we find out that there is a kidney issue causing the fevers or 3. we find out that there are two totally separate conditions going on here.

I am not going to lie.... its scary hearing that your baby might have an auto-inflammatory disease. Even scarier knowing that there is a family history of auto-immune disorders. Its hard hearing that your baby might have a condition that has had no long term studies because its a relatively new finding. In most cases, the fevers end during the second decade of life but that doesn't mean that it always happens. PorkChop is lucky that his cycles, right now, appear to be every two months. One sign is a fever that repeats every 3-5 weeks. There is no "cure" for this but having a tonsillectomy "may" end the fevers. Thankfully, our doc is not about removing a healthy organ from a young toddler just to see if it works. He will not consider it unless the fevers become too much of a burden on PorkChop's life. Another option will be putting him on prednisone whenever a fever starts. It will shorten the life of the fever (yay) but can cause them to come closer together (boo).

So that's where we stand right now. No more appointments until another fever starts. Then we are to bring him in on the second or the third day to see if the other symptoms appear. After the ultrasound, if everything appears normal, we won't hear any more about it until the next fever appointment. If something does show up.... well, we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

*copied*

I would love to go into the full story but I am wiped. Instead, I am going to just copy my update from facebook here in order to not have to run around in circles.

poor little guy :(

Ok.... Long story short, we are home. I won't go into all the details because this would be too long. But the short of it, we left the house for PorkChop's appt and he was at 104.7 in the ear. Got to the doc's office and they weighed him (down a lb since his last check three weeks ago) and checked his temperature.... 105.5 under the arm.  Nurse left to find the doc (not let him know that we were ready but to find him). Dr came in, rechecked his temperature (still 105.5) and told us to just head straight to the ER, that there was nothing that he felt he could do with a presenting fever that high.

Got to the ER and they sent him through admitting pretty quickly. They had me strip him immediately down to just his shirt and diaper, refused to let his "soft" drape over him and then did his temperature under his arm.... back to over 104 but under 105. She took his weight, and then checked heart rate/bp/breathing. Breathing was still within normal at 35 rpm but his heart  rate was 175. The nurse forced motrin into him (literally.... was a really fun experience) and sent us out to the waiting room for a ward room to open.

ER doc was sure that he had the flu between his cough and fever so she did a flu swab, RSV swab, checked his ears and throat and said that once those came back, we would probably be out. About an hour later, she came back in to tell me that we needed a urine sample and a chest x-ray. So they cath'ed him and couldn't pull enough to do a "proper" test (duh.... dehydrated..... just wasn't presenting with any symptom of dehydration) but enough that they thought that they could check for infection. Which, they were now leaning toward a UTI/bladder infection. Xray came down, got their pictures and we were sent back to the room.

Fever was finally coming down at this point to just over 100, so barely a fever, so they brought in a dose of tylenol to piggy back the motrin. At this time, ER doc comes back in and said that she had good news... Flu and RSV swabs came back negative. They were still sending away for the 48hr cultures but she didn't see anything coming from that. But... his urine showed an elevated white blood count (20,800+)  blood (which she wasn't positive couldn't have come from the shitty cath that they did) and bilirubin of 2+. She also said that it looked like the sample had been "contaminated" so they wanted to do a catch bag on him for another sample.

She also decided that they would need to run some blood work because everything was saying that he had an infection but they couldn't find it. And given his history of these mystery fevers, she didn't want to overlook something. Especially since she said that there were markers of things showing up but nothing was connecting for her.

So then they drew blood, hooked PorkChop up to an iv for fluids and did the catch bag. An hour and a half on the iv (and nursing) and he barely had enough for a sample again but enough to re-run the initial tests quickly. No UTI or bladder.

At this point, ER doc came back and let me know that they would be admitting him for further testing. She threw out some possibilities of what this could be (honestly, only one sticking in my head is septic arthritis) and then started asking me what tests they have already run on him (which was none). Told me that they could possibly do a cat scan, MRI, spinal tap, etc..... At that point, I called hubby to come back up there to bring me what I needed for at least a night and to let him know because I did not want to be consenting to anything without someone there to discuss things with.

Blood work came back with the urinalysis and still no obvious cause. ER doc spoke to the on-call pediatrician and they decided NOT to admit PorkChop for the further testing only because its the flu season and they didn't want to expose him to anything else. Instead, she came in and talked to hubby and I about making an appt with pediatric infectious disease. Said that this could all be nothing, he could just be really prone to viruses. Or it could be autoimmune. Or it could be something that she, as an ER doc and not a pediatrician, is just missing.

So that's where we are today. For the first time ever, he has a recurrent fever this morning (before, once the fever has broke with medication, it has stayed broken, this time, it broke and came back during the night). I don't have any answers, I don't know what they are going to put him through. I can't even guarantee that they won't send him back to the hospital. I am very glad that someone is FINALLY going to get to the bottom of these fevers since our only link was at 6 months, his WBC was elevated with one of these fevers too. No other time has much anything been done other than guessing that it must be an ear infection because "no other signs of infection but the fever says something is wrong".

poor little wee one

My poor little buddy is sick. Well, sick like only my buddy gets. He woke up this morning running a temperature of 103 and its wavered between there and 101 all day. Little PorkChop doesn't take medications kindly so I have worn more than my fair share of motrin today. I don't even really think that I got any into him.

Fevers are not a new thing for Porker. Most kids get the sniffles.... he gets scary high fevers that, thankfully, usually only last a day. Burn hot and bright, and then like a star, burns themselves just as quickly right out. So its just a waiting game. I figure by tomorrow that he will be back to his normal rambunctious self. And while there are days when I wish that he would slow down and take a break, this is not how I want him to accomplish that goal.

my poor miserable boy

Thankfully, I have had a bit of help today. Even though our temperatures outside neared 50, the bigs all had a snow day due to the ice storm that hit last night. Its still kind of funny to see the weather gauge and hear the words "snow day" in the same frame since they went to school when the temperatures were in the single digits last week. But then you walk outside (or did this morning anyway, its basically all just slush now) and see a good half inch of ice coating everything and suddenly, it makes more sense.

So for today, I am thankful for odd snow days on warm, spring-like days. One, because it meant that I got an extra day with the family (minus hubby, unfortunately, who worked late) but two, because it meant that I got to give Porker as many snuggles as he wanted without having to tell him no so I could spend equal time with SweetPea. In fact, having Peanut here, I barely saw either of them today.

Gone Fishin'

Do remember being a kid and spending hours in your living room jumping from cushion to cushion because they were "safe" and the rest of the floor was boiling lava? Do you remember driving your cardboard box to the movies and eating popcorn while gazing up at the big screen? Do you remember sheet forts and spending hours inside on a cold winter day, marveling over how a thin little sheet could wrap you in such warmth?

catching the big one

I love the days when I can still play that way with the littles. Today, we went fishing, compliments of SweetPea's huge imagination. We fished for some sharks, some swordfish, a little bit of "fish sticks" and even caught a whale. We used pencils that I tied a bit of yarn around and a maracas for bait. We fished off our "couch boat" and off the bridge of the climber. We fished from the lakes, the "o-chen", and a pond. Sometimes, we caught a fish. Sometimes, we caught each other. It didn't have the same thrill as riding dragons through the kitchen... It was calmer, more laid back, relaxing.

Maybe we will fish again tomorrow. Or maybe we will hunt alligators with our bare hands. We could chase snails (like SweetPea did with her dinner tonight) or become barking chinooks. No matter what we do, we will do it together. And I will spend a few minutes remembering what its like to be a child again.

a year and a half ago....

this sweet little face arrived Earth side. I cannot believe that its been 18 months already. Where does the time go? How did I manage to blink my eyes and yet still manage to capture all these small moments?

PorkChop is now 25lbs and just a hair under 34in tall. His little head is 18.25in around. At 12 months, he was just under 23lbs and 32in. Talk about growing bigger and bigger every day.

He now has all four of his molars and all the rest of his teeth are peeking through the gums, if not all the way through.

18 months

Physically, PorkChop is so more advanced than SweetPea was at this age. He can jump with both feet off the ground and has been since around 15 months. Amazing for a little boy who drug his feet about walking. He adores jumping off the speakers onto the couch and off the chair into the kitchen. He can climb anything and everything and spends most of his day doing just that. He loves stacking blocks, flipping through books and making his Little People converse back and forth.

Talking wise.... he seems pretty behind to me. His speech is so garbled that except for family, he can't really be understood. Unless he wants to be. He has an amazing ear for repetition and loves mimicking the sounds of sirens, the bread machine and certain toys. I am starting to worry that his lip and tongue ties are making it difficult for him to speak but I am not positive. PorkChop still falls within the "normal" range and has proved that his hearing is well. I think that I just need to relax and realize that Porker is so much go, go, go that slowing down to talk just might not even be on his radar yet.

I am eager to see where the next six months takes us. I am ready to watch him continue to flourish and grow. I am making more of a  point to enjoy each and every cuddle, every time that he pulls on my shirt and asks for "bub" with a little knowing nod. I relish each night as he falls asleep in my arms, warm and heavy, with his "soft" cuddled to his nose. I know that these moments are just as fleeting as those baby days were and I am not ready to wish them away just yet.