Two ER visits and a near miss

The hospital gave Brayden several Thomas the Train toys that fortunately work with our train set.

This weekend has been a little traumatic for Braydo. Friday morning Brayden took a thermarest camping mattress and built a bridge between his bed and Caleb's bed and was racing matchbox cars on it. Than he decided he could run across it. I heard one of those crashes where you run, not walk, to find out what is going on and found out Brayden had smashed his face into the side of his bed and it hurt really bad. A couple minutes later his speech became really slurred and he couldn't shut his jaw and the right side of his face where he hit started swelling. At that point I got worried that he might have broken something and I knew I wasn't going to be great at handling it with the amount of sleep I had gotten the night before, so I called Mike and made him come home. We took Brayden to the pediatrician who sent Mike and Brayden to the ER. After an x-ray and a cat scan, they decided he had a broken mandible and a dislocated TMJ joint. They re-set the dislocated joint and said the broke bone would heal on its own. They discharged him the next morning, he came home and by the afternoon he was back in the ER because his bone had popped out again. We thought for sure they would have to wire his jaw shut, which freaked Brayden out, but they reset the bone again, and said they would try again to go without wiring it. We brought him home and this morning he started throwing up and couldn't keep anything down. We called the on-call nurse and she said if things didn't improve by the afternoon we had to take him back in. Fortunately after a little nap (and a priesthood blessing) he was able to keep down sprite and by evening he was back on his soft-food diet. Thus far his jaw is staying in place and feeling much better. We are grateful for priesthood blessings, prayers, family, good friends, and a really tough little boy who took this like a man.

One of the more tender moments this weekend for me was that the ENT we saw Friday night seemed annoyed to be there on a Friday night and not really wanting to spend much time or energy making sure Brayden was getting the best care. When we took Brayden back to the hospital on Saturday we prayed that the doctor that saw Brayden would feel a lot of compassion for him and would care more about giving him the best care than his personal time. We had the same doctor we did the night before, but the difference in attitude was amazing. At one point he flat out said that he was going to take a different route than most doctors because he wanted this to be the best for Brayden. He said it could take a lot more of his time, but he wasn't worried about that. I love that the spirit can touch people when they are not even aware of it.

Now I just have to try and keep a house full of boys calm enough that Brayden's jaw can actually mend properly. I think we might be investing in some new board games or something.

Cute boys

I took a couple pictures of Brayden and Caleb hoping to get something that would work for taking advantage of Shutterfly's 50% off canvas prints. I didn't end up getting pictures that would work for canvas, but I think they turned out really cute (especially after Jessica doctored them a bit). I think I might have to print and frame them even if I can't turn them into canvases.

Made in Michigan

Devin was born Tuesday and we saved a little Michigan hat from when Caleb was born, and we decided to use it for Devin since he is our last Michigan baby. I was really amazed how many people at the hospital recognized the M for Michigan. One guy even confessed to being a Buckeye. Who would have thought so many people in AZ follow Michigan ball. Go blue!!

Induction date

So I got a pleasant surprise at my 38-week OB appointment today. The doctor asked, "So, do you want to be induced?" Umm, yeah! So they set it up for next week, Feb. 23 first thing in the morning. So I'm counting on no baby this week so that next Tuesday I can get a good night sleep, wake up, drive to the hospital without having contractions for the whole half an hour drive, get my epidural early, and have my sister all set to watch my kids, and hopefully have a baby by bedtime. And I seriously think I'll need the whole week to get everything ready. Wash the clothes, do deep cleaning that won't happen after the baby is born, sterilize bottles, find a diaper bag, buy a nursing bra, etc, etc, etc. Should be fun!

Cutest nephew ever

So do I have the cutest nephew ever?? And the craftiest sister-in-law ever? This is the cutest thing I've ever seen. Maybe I can have this baby soon and copy their idea. Bring on the contractions.

Your IPod is my IPod if you don't listen up

Ever heard the mom song? Well, if not, google it and listen (I'm too lazy to give you the link). The title is one of our favorite quotes from that song/parody. The reason I bring it up is because my new favorite website has your own candy IPod that my sister has promised me she'll make for the boys for Valentine's Day. Having a really crafty sister in the house has been great for the boys. They really like arts and crafts right now and we've been able to do some really fun things. Another reason this little craft is so applicable to our family is that Michelle is a big time music lover and it has also rubbed off on the boys. Yesterday she was doing craft time with them and they were all singing Cowboy Casanova by Carrie Underwood. Often she'll bribe Caleb to go running with her by saying he can listen to her IPod while he sits in the jogger. Last time she took him he wouldn't get out of the jogger because he wanted to keep listening.

Christmas Casualties

So you can't get a large number of people together (we had all of Mike's family in town) without a few casualties. Our first was Caleb. Christmas Eve he didn't want Mike to change his diaper, so he tried to pull away when Mike grabbed his arm. All the sudden he's a puddle of tears on the ground and it's not getting better. Anyone familiar with nurse-maid's elbow? I always thought it was the actual bone in the elbow dislocating, but I guess it's just a ligament that pops out of place. So 2 hours and $75 later Caleb was back home super happy because his arm was fixed. It's a really simple fix. So simple in fact that a couple days later when our nephew did the same thing, his dad just grabbed his arm, did what the doctor did and fixed his son's arm instantaneously. Mike had looked up how to fix it on the Internet and wanted to do it himself, and was a little bummed his brother-in-law got to fix his son's arm and I made him take Caleb to the ER.

A couple days later Mike was at Urgent Care with a different brother-in-law. They had gone mountain biking and about 20 minutes into their ride Jason got a spine from a cactus stuck into his finger. It went through his finger and was pushing against the skin on the opposite side and broke off so that there was no way to pull it out. So again, a couple hours later, they were back home without much biking and Jason having had his finger cut open, pliers shoved inside the incision and (finally) a spine-free finger.

Mike's dad was our next casualty, he caught some bug and had to miss two days of vacation staying in his room with a fever, cold symptoms and throwing up. No fun! Thankfully nothing serious happened, and we really had a great time together. Maybe when I get pictures from the others I'll post about all the fun things we did.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, Brayden's bed as our last casualty. When we bought it the sales lady tried so hard to assure me that "engineered birch wood" was more durable and hard than regular solid birch. Yeah right. We didn't believe her, but it's hard to pass up $200 for good looking bunk beds and considering the price of really good, solid hardwood bunkbeds seems to be between $1200 and $1600, we figured we could replace these cheapos many times and it would still be more cost efficient. At last it will be cost efficient if nobody jumps on them because they will break in half. Literally. I wish I had a picture. Thank goodness for a handy husband who had the bed better than new the next morning with one trip to Ace Hardware. I'm still glad that we went with the cheap beds, and I'm glad we knew the sales lady at Art Van was blowing smoke when we bought the beds or we might have been pretty disappointed. "Just don't be disappointed. Don't be it." (Caleb)