Mother's day and hospital stays.....

( this is going to be a very long post )

I've contimplated how much detail I should get into regarding what brought us to the hospital for Jack, but I've decided that since it's medical, that I'm going to treat the issue as if it was his ears or hands or tummy that was having the issues.

Background: Jack was not circumsized at birth due to having a "hidden penis" It hadn't fully dropped at the time of his birth. We have seen urologists since then and they always insisted that we would need to wait until he was old enough for a "local" instead of being put under since nothing was technically wrong.

Well - something is now technically wrong.

Last week he started complaining that his "pee pee" hurt, but he was still urinating with no problem, so I assumed that it was bugging him when it was "active" <--- lol.... not sure what I should have said! it looked the same. Friday brought a doctors appt for all 3 kids, and Jack had an ear infection and Kyla had bronchitis. ( Kade is too stubborn to get sick! ) I had the doctor look at him while we were there, and he told me that if it gets worse before the antibiotics kick in to take him to the ER. We almost did Friday night, but he seemed ok, so we thought we would wait until Robert got off work the next day ( no fever or anything ) Well, Robert went to work and Jack woke up, he had his first pee of the morning and screamed louder and more painfully than I have ever heard - the pain dropped him to the floor. I threw him in a baking soda bath which helped keep him calm while I prepped the kids and myself and we were in the ER within 30 minutes. My parents had Kyla and Kade and Robert met us at Los Alamitos hospital. They took a culture and he wouldn't pee because he was so freaked out about the pain. 6 hours of sitting in an 8 x 8 room later, they ordered an ambulance and my Jackie and I got our first ambulance ride to LB Memorial. Our bed was all ready.... it was overlooking this really nice outside patio and we got our own little tv, dvd, vcr player and everything (o:



Then came the IV. We had to swaddle him and have 4 people help. He didn't do that badly actually - and didn't even really mess with it after a few minutes.




After a short time we were moved out of our own nice big room to a shared room with a little boy who had been there for 9 days with phnemonia. Poor little boy.

Jack was continually hooked up to his IV, wasn't urinating and was in a lot of pain. They gave him morphine for the pain and had 2 kinds of antibiotics running through him at all times. We were there until Monday at minimum as there were no specialists there over the weekend. The first night was really hard and they had to re-do his IV at 2:30 a.m. ( that was not fun - it broke my heart )
For the most part though, he was an ideal patient. The nurses all loved him, and he even said "thanks" after they finished doing stuff to him - even if he didn't like it.

After the 3rd IV insertion - the nurses said they've never had a 3 yr old lay so still! I know if it would have been Kade in the hospital they would have either kicked us out or charged me double!!! Kyla would have just been dramatic the whole entire time (o:

I cried a lot, I held him the whole time practically, and I did my best to keep it together. It really could have been SO much worse, but it was very difficult to see my baby like that.

My mom came up and brought lots of toys and cards, and Robert stayed with him for several hours so I could have a little bit of a mother's day.... He kept the kids otherwise, and had campout's with Kade at night time. Kyla wanted to be with meme of course for the most part (o:

There is so much more to say about our stay there, but my brain is on slow mode - so I'm going to leave it the general stuff... I can't even say enough though about how thankful I am about everyone's concern and offers to help ( not to mention my amazing friends with the meal deliveries!!!!!!!!! it was hard to accept, but I'm giving in this time... I LOVE YOU GUYS!! )


The journey isn't over unfortunately - we have to change his antibiotic and see a specialist tomorrow.... at least we aren't in the hospital anymore!!

Jack was taking lots of pictures with my phone... we watched this movie 4 times while we were there, so he was thrilled to find the big sticker on the wall!





Can you tell how tired I am?


Kyla playing nintendo with Jackie...



Right after we heard we get to go home (o:

Pictures took up some of our boring time

Kade playing nintendo with Jackie!

This is a silly picture, but I had to take it because it's a picture of his "tape" that he loved. He wouldn't put it down. It was soft squishy tape that the nurse gave him a whole roll of to take home.

One of his get well cards from Kyla and Papa

These are the rest of his get well cards:

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For mother's day I took the kids to the carnival at Mayfair park like we do every year... It was nice to get out of the hospital and be with Kyla and Kade for a bit (o: They had fun. Kade started out slow, but he warmed up and ended up enjoying himself. He even won his brother a little dragon (o:










This ride had her CRACKING up!!!!




Notice Kade's "gold chain" I do not love this! He got it at one of those $.25 machines at pacific star and wont take it off. Nice.


Ok, I have to show off my beautiful roses. I'm so not a roses person, but these are just amazing. Colors I haven't seen before.... I hope the pictures do them justice!



I hope all of my mommy friends had an absolutely wonderful mother's day with their babies and their families!!! XOXOXO

BASEBALL

Every single day - we go in the backyard and play baseball. Kade is teaching Jack how to hit off of a tee, and we had to buy Kyla her own pink bat so now they all have t-ball bats. They all get an equal distance away from each other and pitches are thrown accordingly.

If we aren't in the backyard playing baseball, they are in the house playing catch with a softer ball, or we are at a friend's baseball game.

We are signing Kyla up for pop warner cheer leading and Aiden is going to start playing pop warner flag football this year as well - so I'll get my fix soon! NFL pre-season starts in August - and pop warner practice starts then too! WOO HOO!

We went to my friend Anissa's son's baseball game a couple of weeks ago - I knew Kade would be fascinated with how much faster it is than the 5 yr old games he's used to. Anissa bought them all wrist bands and it's like they were magic wristbands that instantly made them "real" baseball players.



This is Anissa's son Elijah - he's SO good! He got scouted for a travel team and he's only 7 ( about to turn 8 ) My kids adore him (o:

Jack kept throwing his ball under the bleachers so he could crawl under there to get dirty!

They were standing behind the bleachers playing catch! See the blue ball in the air?

By the time they were done, Jack had his Popsicle all over his entire face, shirt, arms, hands and pants!

This is my favorite picture... they were watching the game through this little crack in the wood!

I must be honest and tell you all that I can only hope that my kids love football as much as they love baseball - because I am hoping to get to spend as much time on my favorite sport as I am on my least favorite sport. Don't get me wrong, I'm impressed with it and have come to really appreciate it much more now that I am watching little kids play it and learn it.....

2, 3 yr olds and a 4 yr old - for a few more days at least....

I just re-read my post last year from when Jack turned 2, and I am sitting here reflecting on how different he is from last year. Last year he didn't talk. Last year he had food preferences of about 10 things. Last year I was horribly ( even though I didn't always admit it ) worried about his progress or lack there of.

Yesterday, May 4th, my baby Jack turned 3. He's not a baby anymore. I have no babies. In my heart, he'll always be my baby, and I plan to still use that excuse to keep him protected his whole life, but he's really no longer a baby. He is doing great at peeing in the toilet, he speaks wonderfully and puts full sentences together instead of leaving out some nouns and verbs. He eats tacos, burritos, pizza, bbq chicken, hamburgers, ranch dip (with his sister now ) we don't use sippy cups, and the list goes on and on. He has immense amounts of pride when he accomplishes something whether big or small, he loves with ALL of his heart and not 1% less. He adores his brother Kade, and wants to make sure he can see him as he falls asleep... when he goes potty, Kade is who he wants to tell that he just "did it." When he gets a surprise or likes something - the pure joy of his exaggerated "WOW" and the big eyes and dimples is something that I hope he enjoys and keeps close to his heart forever.

He gives great kisses, back rubs, and loves my hair. He holds my hand REALLY tight, and instructs me on exactly how he would like me to rub him as he's falling asleep. Jackie brings joy and smiles to the whole house and my life would not be complete without him.

To my Jack; I love you more than all of the cars in all of the stores in all of the world plus fifty times.

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we were going to go to Knotts Berry Farm for his birthday yesterday, but the kids all have colds and the morning didn't really prove to give us a good feeling of what the day would have been like - so we opted out and went and got birthday bikes, ran around together, had donuts with a candle in them and after Jack's nap - went to Chuckie Cheeses! He had a great day ( except for the singing in the morning..... It was either my horrible voice or he hates attention, but he cried when we were singing )

Here are lots of pictures from bike riding and chuckie cheeses.....

The card Kyla made for Jack.....

We blew up a bunch of balloons for when he walked out of his bedroom (o:

Enjoying the donuts - I guess I could have waited until they were done chewing (o:

My big kids on their big kid bikes! Kyla's training wheels are coming off as soon as we get her kickstand on. She was able to ride Aiden's first try... we just need to get her wheels off.

He is so proud!!!!!!!!!!!

I want a bike like hers in my size!

The big car on hydraulics at Chuckie Cheeses

He was so proud of "scoring"
(I wish he would let me grow his hair out - he said the other day, I never want to have hair mommy. ) boooooooooo! He has the best hair ever.

He just loves playing anything at all as long as he's with Kade!

I love that they are really starting to play the same things! It's wonderful.

Look at his mouth - he's saying: "WHOOOOOOAA"

Kade was REALLY good at skeeball - he kept getting them in the 2000 hole!

Kade's score! LOL

My baby. Oh ya, I mean - my big boy. )o:

I was holding the gas pedal down while my mom helped him steer, he was in awe.

A rare moment of joint smiles!! I love it!