Goose Egg Continues

The feeling of terrible mom continues yet another day. I don't remember where exactly I left off with Melanie's falling incident this weekend. She acted fine on Saturday, a little sleepy, but still naughty. Sunday morning she cried around 5am, and like any other good mom....I let her cry. When I got her out of the bed at 8 it was very evident from the smell that she had gotten sick. So she stayed home from church and took a morning nap and an afternoon nap. She acted ok, just sleepy. Monday she was great. Her normal little pain in the pa-tooty. Today (Tuesday), we went to Big Rapids to help a friend set up her 1st grade classroom (if you call three children 5 and under 'help'). The day was uneventful, Melanie was a little bit of stinker, but also seemed tired again. We left with all intentions of Mel napping on the way home. She had a different idea. She thought crying for a long time and then throwing up at the half-way point would be really fun. Being the 'great' mother again, it took me a good 15 min to figure out what that smell was. I thought it was one of Mel's super nasty diapers but that just didn't seem right. Then I started looking at the vehicles we were traveling with on the road thinking we were following a rendering truck or something of the sort. Finally realized Melanie had puked at which point I had to do a couple sympathy dry heaves out the window. A good mom would pull-over and clean her up, put on the extra outfit folded in the diaper bag, right? Not this mommy. We notched up the cruise two more mph and busted for home with the windows down. After all, we ONLY had another 30min or so and she wasn't crying anymore.

As I was pulling Melanie out of the bath, I started wondering if these puking incidents were related to her fall from Friday. She didn't act like she was sick so I called Dr. G even though the goal was to go a WHOLE 6 months without seeing him. FAILED!! They wanted to see her just to make sure. Dr. G checked her out and just wasn't comfortable sending her home for the night. He wanted a head CT to make sure there wasn't something going on inside that tiny little head of hers. We are so thankful for a Dr. that treats our kids just like he would his own. We love Dr. G and his staff~maybe that's why we can't stay out of their office. Anyways, due to insurance and timing issues we had the joy of getting her head CT through the ER. Yuppers, Melanie got to be checked over AGAIN before they ordered her CT. By this time it was around 7 and the poor thing had her last meal at 11:30. She was not the happiest kid. I forgot to mention I had used the last diaper at the Dr.s office and didn't pack a bottle (Dr. G gave us some diapers just in case they were needed, but didn't want her to eat in case she had to be sedated). My sister came to take Miya and Jayden home for some supper and my dad stayed to help entertain Mel (Jeff was 45min from Chicago).

The event of the CT scan went okay. Melanie's cry is getting louder and she may have nightmares of a man with a large rubber glove. She acted like any hungry, 18month old would act. We then waited an hour for the results (through a shift change I think). God has once again blessed our family with health. They said Melanie looked just fine. Nothing in her head came back abnormal....NOTHING, which also means that little area of white matter on the movement part of her brain when she was born was not found!!! Dr. G didn't think anything would be found, but wanted to cover the bases. So glad he did, now we'll be able to sleep in peace tonight, thanking God for his mercies.

Melanie finally ate supper at 8:30, she wasn't too hungry since Papa was able to find her a bag of cookies in a vending machine. She did enjoy the chocolate malt Aunt Wendi made though. By the way, she now weighs 22lbs and 8oz's.Yaayy!! She officially graduated out of her infant seat today (mostly because it was in the wash and we needed to get to the Doctor's office).

I think it's time for bed!! Maybe tomorrow we'll just stick around the house. . . maybe.

Up North

I think I won a "bad parent" award this weekend. We went up north to Boyne Highlands and Avalanche Bay Friday and Saturday for Jeff's work. Friday night after we finished eating the girls were walking around the tables with some friends they met. Melanie, whose not so great at walking yet, fell and hit her head on the edge of a metal chair. She has a very quiet cry (as many of you know) and we didn't realize she was crying till the 7 year old brought her over to us at which time Melanie threw her whole body backwards....the 7 yr old did a great job of not dropping her, pretty sure I would have. So Jeff grab her right away at which point she started turning purple and then passed out from crying and not breathing. This was our first experience with a child passing out. I was trying to think through what Dr. G has told me to do in this situation. He is always surprised this hasn't happened in our family yet. Jeff was getting very anxious but was able to get her to take a breath after several blows to her face. Melanie had a goose egg on her head that was sticking out at least an inch!! No JOKE!! I've never seen a bump that big. We were trying to decide if we should take her in or not. Jeff was able to get some smiles from her after about 15 min and by the end of the night she was back to her naughty little self. I felt terrible, but I'm not sure how to stop the child from falling. It seems she is falling all the time lately. Either she trips while walking, or she falls off from something she climbed. I try to deter the climbing, that doesn't seem to work very well. As for the walking, eventually she'll figure it out, right? Thankfully she's a tough kid and usually doesn't cry when she falls.

Saturday morning we went to Avalanche Bay, and indoor water park. The girls had lots of fun. Thankfully they enjoy swimming now (since their swimming lessons earlier this year) so they tried the slides. Until Melanie gets a little bigger I think we can skip the water parks. Either Jeff or I had to stay back with Melanie while the other took Miya or Jayden down a slide. Once they went down the bigger slides they didn't want to go again which was a bummer for the other parent. So I think we can put off the water parks till the kids are a little older, or until we have more helpers, or wait till we can go with some of their friends or COUSINS!! Everyone still had lots of fun. Including Melanie who feel asleep on Jeff's shoulder cuddled up in a towel while still in the water park. Would have made a great picture if would have remembered to pull out the camera :(

After some great family time together we are anxiously awaiting our vacation next week. I will hopefully use my camera a little more too. And we should probably scout out the nearest intermed just in case.