Update with lots of pictures!

We've been pretty busy this last week, so I will try to get everything covered...

I got the Spring pictures back from school and they were GREAT! Which meant I had to buy a lot! :) But that's ok.  I don't know how to scan them in, so I will show my cell phone pics instead:

We are still going to swim lessons every week and we are going to continue with them.  Teddy hated it at first, but last Wednesday he had a "break through" and now loves it! Charlie still loves going and on Monday was in the class by himself so he got a lot of extra time with Mrs. Toni.  He can swim across the whole (short side) of the pool, he "swims" the length of the pool with the barbells, started learning to float on his back, can pick up toys/rings from the bottom (3 ft deep) and is learning to dive (from his knees) off the side of the pool.  Here are some pictures from Monday's class:

Barbells

If you remember about 2 years ago, Jeff made a flower bed on the backside of our house.  This year, the plants are doing amazingly well.  Our agapantha's are about to go crazy.  Last year only one bloomed, but this year, there are multiple blooms on every plant. Now we are just waiting on the daylilies to start blooming.

We also started up our garden again.  Last year I planted two basil plants and they went nuts! They were over 4 feet tall, each! So as we were getting the soil ready, I noticed tons of baby basil plants sprouting up! Awesome! I also have a ton of mint growing in there, which I have to thin out every few days or so, but it smells so good out there!

First garden bed. Mint along the edges, basil in the middle

Close up of little basil plants

Jalapeno plant

Side view, tomato plants barely visible

About a week after we planted the tomatoes and jalapeno (and mowed!)

Teddy checking out the plants.  Got to watch him, he likes to pick!

Close up of jalapeno

2nd garden bed. 

From top to bottom: chinese cabbage, bell pepper/lemongrass, spinach/parsley, spinach

I'm pretty excited about the garden. The challenge will be to keep it watered!

Our next thing we are working on is getting Teddy used to sleeping in something other than his crib.  He does great in it and I'm not ready to get rid of it completely, but for the sake of traveling, he needs to get used to sleeping on a regular mattress.  So we (Jeff) drug the twin mattress we had above the garage and with a little rearranging, got it set up in Teddy's room.  Day one he did great, we did end up putting the gate on his door, but it was a success.

Day 2 was yesterday and was a failure. :(  We were out and he fell asleep in the car on the way home and I tried his crib and the mattress, but he ended up just playing in his room.  Oh well.  Day 3 was today.  It was a school day and he is usually pretty tired when he gets home.  I put him down on the mattress, but he wound up screaming by the door.  Which lasted maybe 1 minute.  He eventually laid down and is now asleep! Yippee! Progress!

On Friday, we added another cousin to our Mauldin crew.  Jeff's sister-in-law Kasuen gave birth to Baby Rex:

Now there are 7 cousins! Christmas should be pretty interesting this year! And the tally is  4 boys and 3 girls.  Pretty even split.

I had heard of a dairy farm near here that sells raw milk and various other milk products, so I thought it would be a fun outing for the kids. My friend and her family came along as well.  We had a great time and got to try some raw milk and I think it's great! We will be back and maybe we can time it to see the cows getting milked.  But here are some pics Shane took of the kids with the calves that were hanging out near the front:

This is 1/2 gal of the raw milk we got.  Check out that cream on top!

I attempted to make butter from it:

                                         Not much, but very delicious!


And Jeff is in California this week on a business trip.  He is also going to be the first in the family to meet Rex! Lucky timing on his part! :)

We have a diagnosis...

On Saturday, Teddy was acting pretty normal and didn't have a fever, but we did notice a rash begin to develop mainly on his legs, but his arms and face as well.  On Sunday, the rash was worse, but didn't seem to be bothering him at all.  But being great parents, we looked up "rash after febrile seizure" and came across a diagnosis that seemed to fit every symptom he had.  Irritability, upper respiratory symptoms (runny nose), decreased appetite, high fever (often causing a febrile seizure), then a rash after the fever has broken.  This is roseola.  So I was pretty sure that's what he had but wanted to confirm with his pedi.  The thing about roseola is I think it's a one time thing and you don't get it again, like chicken pox.  So I was hoping it was this and then maybe we wouldn't have to be as concerned about him having more febrile seizures in the future (but this was all in my mind. No idea if that is really the case). But we saw the doctor and she immediately said "hand/foot/mouth disease".  Great.  A different virus, but I believe you can get this one more than once, but don't quote me on that.  And this means that I need to be worried if he has any fever now, since you don't associate febrile seizures with hand/foot/mouth like you do with roseola.  So anyway, that's his official diagnosis.  No treatment. You only treat the fever anyway.  I think Charlie had this when he was little, so I'm not too concerned about it.  I am wondering where he picked it up from (even though the pedi said it's going around).  We went to Chick-fil-A last Monday and both boys played on the playground there. Neither one has ever played on a fast food playground before and I think we will stay away from them if we can.  Charlie hasn't gotten sick so I think he's in the clear.  He doesn't tend to stick his hands in his mouth like Teddy does and he also takes coconut oil every day so he may have a better immune system than Teddy.  I have tried to get Teddy to take the coconut oil a few times, but he seems to spill more than he drinks.  Oh well, guess I need to keep trying! But at least now we have a diagnosis.  His eating is still sort of sporadic, but he does have at least one sore in his mouth, so that explains that.  Hopefully, it will all go away soon and he will be back to normal! 

Teddy tries to give me a heart attack

Yesterday, I got a call from the boys school saying that Teddy was running a fever and not feeling well, so I needed to come pick him up.  They told me his temperature was 100.4.  I got him home and checked his temperature with our thermometer and it said 98.8.  Ok, not bad. He was pretty lethargic so I sat down with him and got him some juice and I put on sesame street for him to watch.  I decided to put him down for a nap around noon because he was laying down on the chair.  I put him in his crib and normally I would have just walked out since he falls asleep on his own, but since he was sick I decided to stay until he fell asleep.  It had only been a minute or two since I laid him down and he started whimpering, then fell silent and started seizing.  Full blown tonic clonic seizure.  I knew exactly what was happening but kept saying, NO, NO, NO, this is not happening! Stop! Stop! I picked him up out of his crib, hoping that would snap him out of it (it didn't of course) and placed him on the floor.  I needed help so I had to run out of the room to get the phone to call 911.  He stopped convulsing while I was on the phone with them and they sent an ambulance to the house.  The whole thing lasted from 2-4 minutes, but seemed like an eternity.  After the convulsing stopped, he just laid there not moving and seemed to me not really breathing much.  Still did not respond to his name or anything.  I kept trying to stimulate him to get some reaction from him. His lips turned blue until eventually I could tell he came out of it. The ambulance arrived about 5-10 minutes after I called.  The paramedics took his vital signs and we got into the ambulance to head to the hospital.  I had called Jeff after talking to 911 and before the paramedics arrived so he met me at the hospital.  Teddy was still pretty quiet but responsive.  His temperature in the ambulance was around 101, so they gave him a pretty good dose of Tylenol.  They checked his blood sugar and it was 137 (I think). His heart rate was pretty high, but that is completely normal after an episode like this.  We finally arrived at the hospital (the driver took the scenic route out of our neighborhood) and Jeff met us at the door.  We got to the room and got settled in with all the normal admission things (blood work, saline lock, vitals) and some motrin to help bring the fever down.  At one point in the ER his temp was 103 rectally, but that's the highest it got (that we know of).  Teddy finally got to take a little nap and Jeff left to pick up Charlie from school and switch cars at home.  They took a chest xray as well but that and every thing else they checked came back negative.  Jeff and Charlie arrived around 2:30 or so and we were home around 3. Teddy was feeling a lot better as we left the ER because he was motor boating and smiling again.  So diagnosis was febrile seizure caused by rapidly increasing temperature due to a virus.  He had no other symptoms except a slight runny nose and a little irritability that morning.  And now that he has had one febrile seizure, he's prone to having them again.  Yay.  We just need to be more cautious and vigilant when he has a fever from now on.  This was an extremely scary thing for me even though I am a nurse.  Your perspective totally changes when it's your child that's sick.  I feel I kept as calm as I could have and didn't panic so that's a good thing.  I'm hoping we don't have to go through this again.  But for those of you that aren't familiar with what to do if your child has a seizure, you basically have to leave them alone until it stops.  Make sure they are safe and remove anything around them that could potentially hurt them (clear the area), the floor is a good place to be.  If they vomit or are salivating, turn them on their side, but never put anything in their mouth, including your hands! Those are the main points.  Then call either 911 or the doctor.  And I learned something.  I thought a febrile seizure happened when you had a high fever, but this is not true.  It occurs when you have a rapidly increasing fever.  Doesn't necessarily matter how high it gets.  Good info to know! He did have a slight fever last night and again this morning, but I could tell he felt a lot better than yesterday.  We'll keep a close eye on him, though.  ;)

And as a follow up from last post, I was told the boys took their pictures last week, so I'm hopeful they are decent.  I'll post them here if they turn out good...

Ok, so 2 months between posts is getting better...

Where to begin? I guess I'll start with me.  I had my checkup in March which showed no new tumor growth (yay!) and the inflammation is resolving.  I can now keep up my regularly scheduled checkups every 4 months, which means I will go back at the end of July.  When (not if) that comes back clear, I'll be close to the 4 year mark and then I only have to have checkups every 6 months.  I can't wait for that! Then after I hit 5 years, I only go once a year.  That's an awesome milestone and hard to believe that will be October 2014. I think I can, I think I can... :) Anyway, so that's the good news on me.  So health wise I'm doing really well.

The boys are keeping me busy.  They still go to Mother's Day Out twice a week, which they love! And I enjoy my 4 hour breaks as well.  They had school pictures today and I was a little nervous, because of what happened last year.  They try to get individual pictures of the kids and then siblings together.  I'll show you what I got last year:

Teddy:

This was taken in between crying fits.

Charlie:




No, that is not a mistake.  He didn't take a picture.  At all! The only kid in the whole school that didn't take a picture.  So I wasn't getting my hopes up.  We took a practice picture before we left and this is what I got...

So I was extremely nervous about pictures today. I have been talking to Charlie about being a big boy and taking a nice picture and helping out Teddy and I think it sunk in, because they tell me that they got some good ones.  Fingers crossed! I'll find out in a few weeks when the pictures come back.

We also started swim lessons this week.  Teddy and I are in a class and Charlie goes in the class after us.  We were initially worried about Charlie because he has to wait by him self (patiently, quietly, etc) while Teddy and I are in the pool.  He surprised us and has been great! He sits and watches us and waits for his turn.  Teddy on the other hand cried the entire session on Monday.  It's a 30 min class with 5 other babies and their parents.  Even when Teddy wasn't doing anything, he was crying.  Gah! I was right there too.  There's another baby in the class (who we actually know) that has been going for over 6 months and her mom told me she cried for  the first 8 weeks.  Oh my.  We are in trouble! But when we went on Wed, he did a lot better.  He cried at the beginning, but I got him interested in a panda water toy and he got distracted enough to actually enjoy himself.  He actually pushed me away on the step! Progress! And Charlie has been doing awesome in the water! He has 2 other kids in his class.  He listens and stays on the steps until it's his turn, he puts his face in the water and is doing really well.  Here are a few (bad) pictures from the first day:

Charlie in his first class. Only one other boy that day. 

Teddy desperately trying to get out of the pool. 

The sessions are usually 12 weeks long (30 min sessions twice a week), but we have only signed up for 4 weeks.  I wanted to see how they did (Charlie sitting by himself and Teddy how much he got out of the class) before we added any more classes.  We'll reevaluate and add more if needed, which at this point, we probably will.

I'll just sum up the last few months with some pictures:

Camping in the backyard. 

Go Texan Day at school. 

Easter bunny pictures. We all had to get in to get them to sit there. 

Family pictures after the Easter Bunny pics. 

Easter morning

Charlie

Jeff and Teddy picking strawberries. 

Charlie and his bucket of strawberries.