Chattin' on the Phone

Brian taught this to Nathan. Every time he does it, I can't get over how adorable he looks. Happy New Year everyone!

PS. I will blog about Christmas, but it won't be until next week sometime. I actually didn't take that many pictures or videos but I'll share what I have!

The Chronicles of the Cast

It's been three weeks  since Nathan broke his arm, so Tuesday morning Nathan and I headed back to the doctors office. I knew that they would be taking the cast off and I assumed that we would have another X-ray, but I still wasn't prepared for all the fun that was in store for us!

But before we even got on our way, trauma befell us. Literally. Nathan was standing at the entrance to the sunporch (gate open) watching Nana and Granddad take their luggage out to the car when he somehow slipped and ended up face down on the step. He came away with a red bruised area on his left eye.  And it only got worse from there.

I will say that getting your cast sawed off would be unnerving for anyone and definitely scary for any child. Nathan certainly made the tech earn his pay as he screamed and writhed as his cast was cut. Thankfully I could tell the tech had had dealt with screaming children before as he efficiently and quickly dealt with the situation.  Next we were off to the x-ray room, which Nathan must have remembered from our last visit because he got upset as soon as we got into the room. Thankfully they didn't strap Nathan to a board this time; instead he got to sit in my lap as he had his arm X-rayed on a table top unit.  Nathan still wasn't pleased with the experience and cried the whole time. Then we were off to be checked in at the orthopedist's office, which included taking Nathan's height, weight and temperature. More crying.

The only part of the experience that Nathan stayed relatively calm for was the exam by the physician. He said that the X-rays showed that the bones were healing well, but his preference was to provide support to the healing area for another two weeks. Normally that would entail a brace or splint, however Nathan's arm was so short that they didn't have anything that would fit him, which meant a soft cast.  The soft cast is basically a repeat of the long arm hard cast we've had, but with a slight give.  Actually I can't tell much of a difference between the two and I don't think Nathan can either.  The one huge benefit of the soft cast is that at the end of the two weeks, Brian and I will be able to unwrap and take it off ourselves! That is a relief!

Laughing in the Snow

Nathan and Nana came up with a hilarious snow game.  Why is it funny?  Only Nathan could explain and he still doesn't talk.  So let me know if you figure it out...

A White Christmas

 It started snowing around noon on Christmas and didn't stop until this morning, giving us about 6" of snow to play in today!  We bundled up this morning and braved the cold, not knowing how Nathan would react to it all.  We started off with a smile and thumbs up (not intentional, I'm sure)...

 ...but then promptly tipped over and face-planted into the snow.  He was not happy!

Nathan rallied admirably...

...and was giggling up a storm as he and Nana made a game of pushing the snow off Brian's pick-up truck (video to follow, hopefully).

Then Brian decided to start a snowball fight with me!

I retaliated and then he hit my camera with his next throw.  After a cease-fire allowed me to dry off my camera and leave it safely in the house, I went back out for some revenge.  Snowball on the back of Brian's unprotected neck!  But Nathan didn't understand it was all fun and games with Brian and my snowball fight, and started crying again.  As I calmed him back down, Nana and Brian built a snowman for Nathan, so the camera came out again for a final picture.  

 

Nathan's Christmas Eve Present

Growing up, our family had a tradition of opening up one present on Christmas Eve evening. I think its a fun tradition and want to keep it going for our family. But I didn't actually buy a designated present for Nathan to open tonight... oops!  However Nana and Granddad came through with one!  And Nathan LOVED it!  He played with it for 10 or 15 minutes and then cried when I took it away from him so that he could get ready for bed.  Way more exciting than pajamas, I give you...

The Cast Can't Stop Nathan!

Brian gifted me with an Ipod Touch for my birthday, which has a built in camera that I've been testing out these past few days. I finally got some of the videos uploaded and can share them with you. I've decided that I don't love the ipod for taking videos all the time (the video is oddly shaped), but it will be nice for capturing memories on the fly when I don't have the other camera handy. So enough chit chat...

From Broken Arm to Ear Infection

We've had kind of a rough week this past week.  It took Nathan a few days to get used to his cast, but then he was able to walk, scoot (at least until he got to something that he could pull up on) and sometimes stand up on his own.  The cast itself didn't seem to bother or even interest Nathan.  I may have seen him looking at it and tapping on it once, but he basically ignores it. 

Toward the end of the week last, Nathan started to get VERY clingy and was pretty fussy on Saturday.  Sunday after church Nathan started running a fever and that afternoon while Brian was at work Nathan just wanted to be held and sleep on me.  That evening and the next morning, he had a temperature of 103.1, but Brian and I agreed that I didn't need to take him to the doctor.  I guess our reasoning was that it was likely a virus and there wasn't much the pediatrician could do for him anyways.  Almost all of Monday I held Nathan again, but that evening we found out that one of our little friends, Penny, had tested positive for the flu, so Brian and I agreed that I would take him to the pediatrician Tuesday morning.  Nathan woke up feeling better, so I was tempted to skip the pediatrician appointment, but decided to call the office and speak to a nurse about whether he needed to be seen or not.  She recommended that we come in since Nathan was still so young.  As it turned out, Nathan didn't have the flu, he had his first ear infection!  So we've been on antiobiotics since yesterday morning and Nathan is feeling much better!  However, he is having a MAJORLY runny nose, so we are all having fun (not!) dealing with that. 

I know I've been slack about updating the blog this month, and that will likely continue as things get busier with Christmas just around the corner.  So I'm going to make it one of my New Year's Resolutions to get back on top of blog updating.  But until then, you may or may not hear much from us!

An Unfortunate Break

Monday morning I was sitting at the table eating breakfast when I heard "Thump, thump... thump, thump... WHAAAAAAAAAAA!"  As I bolted out of my chair headed for Nathan's room, I thought there were a few more thumps then normal.  As I rounded the corner into the kitchen and saw the open door to the basement, my heart sank and I knew why I heard so many thumps: Nathan fell down the stairs.  I flew down into the basement and snatched Nathan up from where he was lying on the floor, knowing the thin layer of carpet would have provided little padding considering the concrete slab underneath.  

As I picked him up, I was thinking to myself, "What if his neck or back is broken?  Could I have made things worse by picking him up?"  But I don't think there was any way I could have prevented myself from grabbing him.  I sat with him on the floor and rocked him as I tried to calm him down some.  Finally he started to get quieter, only to to start right back up again with the screaming.  I picked him up and headed upstairs, grabbing my phone before sitting down with him on the rocking chair in his room. 

The most obvious injury was on his forehead, which was all scraped up in one area.  But he was moving his arms and legs, a great sign!  I finally got him calmed down, so I paged Brian with a "911" page to see if I should take him to the emergency room or not.  Then I called the pediatrician in case Brian couldn't return my call immediately.  Unfortunately the office wasn't open yet, so I had to leave a message for the on-call nurse who would call me back.  Thankfully as I was getting off that call, Brian beeped in.  I told him what had happened and we agreed that I should bring him to the ER to get examined.

I was still in my pjs, so I took Nathan into my room and sat him down on the floor and handed him my phone to hopefully entertain him.  As I was getting dressed, he tried to scoot and just collapsed in a heap on the floor, crying loudly.  That made me even more worried because clumsiness was a sign of head trauma.  I grabbed our coats, his bag, a sippy cup, snacks and my purse and flew out the door.  As I was pulling in to the ER parking lot, Brian called - he was there to meet us.  Thank you God!

At the ER, they took us straight back, and after a few frustrating minutes of trying to weigh Nathan ("of course he's not going to sit still on the scale for you to weigh him and was this really necessary?!" I was thinking to myself!!) we were taken back to a bed.  The resident came over and talked to us about what happened, then looked Nathan over top to bottom.  She said it looked like he was ok, she would talk to the attending physician and we would stay so they could keep an eye on Nathan for a while.  We were there for about two hours before we were given the all-clear to take Nathan home.  I would need to keep a close eye on him for the next 24 hours, but it was ok if he napped.

Nathan was exhausted by this point, so as soon as we got home I put him to bed and I took a nap myself.  I heard him fussing after only half an hour and then he was up at an hour.  I could tell he didn't feel very good because he just wanted to cuddle with me and would just cry when I set him down.  After watching him for a while, I could tell that his left wrist was really hurting him. I called Brian back again and we agreed that I would call the pediatrician and see what they said.  I called and again had to leave a message for the nurse.  Meanwhile Nathan fell asleep on my lap on the couch.

Around 2:30 I got a call from the nurse.  After I explained everything that had happened, she consulted with out pediatrician and they sent us straight for an x-ray of Nathan's wrist.  Depending on what the x-ray showed, we would determine what to do next.  I bundled us back up and headed to the doctors office.

The x-ray was horrible!  They had to strap Nathan to a board, with his right hand wedged up by his head.  Then they took his left hand and taped it to a piece of plastic to keep it straight.  I stood by his head and tried to comfort him, with no luck.  Thankfully the x-rays didn't take too long and Nathan and I headed back to the waiting room while the x-ray was read.

Nathan's arm was broken.  Both the radius and ulna were fractured near the wrist.  They squeezed us in for an appointment with an orthopedic PA, who told me that Nathan would have to be in a cast for 3 weeks.  Though Nathan only needed a forearm cast, he recommended a long arm cast (past the elbow) because it was less likely Nathan would pull his arm out of it.  So we were sent to the cast room.

Unfortunately there was a long line for the cast room that afternoon, but thankfully Nathan was feeling ok at this point.  We made friends with the family of three little boys in front of us, and then Nathan started waving at everyone who passed us in the hallway.  Brian was able to get off work and meet us just before it was Nathan's turn to get the cast applied.  That process went better then I had anticipated.

 As we were finally leaving the medical center, Brian offered to take my car and Nathan and pick us up some food for dinner.  I thankfully took him up on his offer so that I could go home and finally take a shower and brush my teeth for the first time that day. After Brian got home and we had dinner, Brian installed an automatic door closer on the door to the basement (like what's usually installed on screen doors).  Before, the basement door didn't always latch when it closed, and Oreo the cat had become a pro at getting the unlatched door open.  But the door closer makes the door latch about 90% of the time and even when it doesn't, it provides enough resistance that neither a cat nor a little boy could open the door themselves (in fact, I have to yank pretty hard on the door to get it open myself!)

In the two days since the fall, Nathan has done very well.  He doesn't seem bothered by the cast specifically, though it does present quite a few problems for his mobility.  Thankfully he can walk well now, though the cast threw his balance off a little.  It also prevents him from scooting and makes standing up difficult without the full use of that arm.  But for the most part, we're both taking this all in stride.  And we are VERY thankful that Nathan escaped from this disaster with only a cast and a few scrapes on his head to show for it!

Towering Towers

Nathan keeps me entertained and impressed with his increasing building skills. I thought I'd snap a few pictures of the towers he's built over the past week to share!

Here's the progression of what turned into Nathan's most impressive tower to date...

He actually didn't have any luck getting that last block to stay on top and the whole thing came tumbling down. He usually doesn't bat an eye when his carefully crafted building lies in shambles around him. He just takes the next block he was planning on using and starts building something new!

The Great "One Nap" Experiment

Well, it lasted all of two days.  But I had high hopes.

You see, for months Nathan was sleeping like clockwork.  He would sleep from 7pm to 7am, then take his first nap at 9am and his second nap between 1 and 2 pm, both of which would usually last an hour a piece.

And then back in September we started having trouble with going to sleep at night without us in the room.  And then he got sick and was up at all hours during the night and early in the morning.  And then he got sick again and was up at night again.  And then the time changed which threw us all off our schedules.  And then we tried going to church on Wednesday nights which gets Nathan to bed 1.5 hours after his normal bedtime, resulting in lots of early morning wakeups (for some reason, instead of sleeping in after a late night, Nathan likes to get up even earlier then usual!).  And then Nathan decides to not go to sleep at night and/or that he likes really early morning wakings for no discernible reason at all.  And then... and then...  So basically for the last 3ish months I can never predict how our nights are going to go.  And as the (slightly excessive) planner that I am, it really irks me to not know what to expect.

To apply logic to the situation (which I know is probably a mistake!) the only thing I haven't tried yet is to transition him to one nap.  He will sporadically have one nap days, usually due to Sunday morning church or Thursday morning bible study, but overall he is still a two nap kid.  But my thinking is that if he only has one nap during the days, he'll make up for the lost sleep during the night and go back to glorious the 7pm/7am sleeping habit.

I started out the experiment on Monday.  Brian, unexpectedly, was awake for the day after a night of call, so we went to buy a Christmas tree during our normal morning nap time.  The rest of the morning remained pretty entertaining with setting up the Christmas tree, then Nathan took a good 1.5 hour-ish nap after lunch.  He went to bed great that night, but unfortunately was up at 6am yesterday morning.  After I let him talk to himself a little to see if he would fall back asleep, I went in to try and rock him back to sleep.  After rocking with me a few minutes, he sat up purposefully and pointed to the noise machine (meaning: turn off the sleep-time noise) then pointed to the bookcase (meaning: read me a book) and then the light switch and the window (meaning: turn on the lights and open up the window shade, its time to get up!).

On Tuesday's there's a "Movement and Music" class offered at the public library (similar to Kindermusic except that its free!), so Nathan and I headed there from 11-11:45.  On the way home, Nathan was trying his hardest to fall asleep in the car, while I was doing everything I could to keep him awake.  Once home, I quickly fed him some lunch, but as he was finishing he started to fall asleep in his high chair!  I whisked him off for a nap, from which he woke up after 80 minutes, so I rocked him for another 40 minutes.  Last night he was so tired, but it took him forever (and me coming in multiple times and rocking him twice) to fall asleep, and then he was up early again this morning.  At 9am he started getting really fussy and I decided to put us both out of our misery and put him down for a nap.  He went right to sleep, and thus the end of the "one nap" experiment (for now)!

PS. Nathan just woke up talking to himself, which means he's in a great mood from his nap!  I even heard a few "dickles" from him!