The Encounter

I hadn't been to church in several weeks because of Will and all the illness going around our house. I finally made it to Sacrament Meeting last week. Hooray, I thought, Life is starting to get back to normal. The first announcement was new membership records. The ex and family. Hmmm, that's interesting. It didn't end great, so I knew it was going to be awkward. I was picturing things at church...introducing him to Mike, meeting his wife, etc. So I was standing in the cereal aisle at Smith's and someone walked up behind me.
Ex: Becky?
Me: Oh...hi.
(Handshake)
Ex: Wow, it's been a long time.
Me: Yup.
(I had Will with me)
Ex: So, this is your son? Well...obviously...
Me: Yeah, one of them.
Ex: I have two boys...
Me: I know.
Ex: (Looking very confused) How do you know?
Me: Because we're in the same ward now.
Ex: (Now looking shocked) We are?
Me: Yeah, I live down the street from you.
Ex: You do?
Me: Yeah.
This is really where the conversation ended. I can't hide emotion on my face, and since I hadn't been feeling great, and I was still in my lawn-mowing clothes, and I was taken completely off-guard, I think I had a fairly unpleasant look on my face. I ended by saying something like, "Well, it's good to see you..." He said see ya, and then he walked away. Well that didn't go as planned.

Breathe

It's probably going to take several posts to fully update from the last couple of weeks. Here's a short recap, so the next time I'm posting I won't forget any of the fun.

• Another trip to the ER
• Two trips to Bear Lake (about a day and a half total)
• I've been sick
• Will's been sick
• Sam got stung by a wasp
• The ex moved in down the street and is now in my ward.
• More doctor visits and tests for Will

It sure felt like a lot more was going on, but probably because it all happened pretty much at the same time. I'm ready for boring. When does boring happen?

(July 23, 2008) I'm just going to update this post because this all happened so long ago. We decided to go up to Bear Lake for the 4th of July. We got up there Wednesday night, pretty much in time to put the kids to bed. We woke up early the next morning (because Will doesn't sleep as well when he's not in his bed). We had breakfast, watched some kid show, and then I told Mike we should go on a walk. We were getting ready to go, and since I'm so fast I was playing with Will on the bed. He was laughing and crawling away from me. He tripped over his hands or something, and ended up faceplanting into the pillow. Mind you, he was on his hands and knees, so it was about 6 inches. I don't know if it just scared him, or if he strained his neck or what, but I picked him up right away and he started to cry. I could tell he was starting a breath-holding spell, so I started blowing in his face to snap him out of it. [Breath holding is a reflex that about 5% of kids have when scared or in pain. Some kids just do it when they're really upset] He didn't start breathing, and then his eyes started rolling. Mike was right there at this point, so I handed him over (Mind you, we don't know what's going on right now because this has never happened before). Mike thought he might have been choking, so he was sweeping his mouth and hitting his back. Will was going limp and was unresponsive, and we started to panic. Bad. He came to after about a minute, so we put the kids in the car and drove straight to the Bear Lake Clinic. We were trying to leave Bear Lake West and a couple of old people were stopped on the road in their vehicles chatting. In all the years we've been there, this was the ONLY time we've ever seen people block the road. Mike stuck his head out the window and yelled at them to get out of the road. They looked at him kind of funny, and then resumed their conversation. He yelled again that we had to get our baby to the doctor, and then they finally moved. Seemed like an eternity. I know they didn't know, but Mike never yells unless something is really wrong. We sped to the clinic and went straight back to see a doctor (with a lot of stares from people in the waiting room). They said they didn't know what had happened, but one possibility was that his heart stopped, causing him to lose consciousness and stop breathing, and that we should have an EKG. They could call an ambulance for us, but it would drop us off in Evanston or Logan. He recommended going to Primary Children's ER to have them check him out. Mike went back to the cabin to grab a couple of things, but we left pretty much everything there. I threw up in the car as we were leaving the parking lot, and then again about half way down to Salt Lake. I felt awful, but I also felt compelled to look back and check on Will every minute while he was awake, and every few minutes while he was asleep. It took us 2 hours to get to Primary Children's. Mike's dad met us there to take Sam, and we stayed for several hours. After a CT scan, an EKG, and waiting forever, they finally determined that he just passed out from a breath holding spell. That was it. We were scared out of our minds. The most terrifying thing a parent can experience is when something happens to your child and it's out of your control. And it was just breath-holding. Will is turning out to be one expensive child. Holidays are CANCELED.

We went to a follow-up appointment with Will's pediatrician and I mentioned that Will wasn't a very good eater anymore. He sent me up to Primary's (again) to have his blood drawn to make sure he wasn't anemic (and yay! he wasn't!!), and he also told me to take him to a pediatric GI specialist to make sure he doesn't have some kind of stomach issue (like reflux or a blockage). It's common that a stomach problem is the cause of a good eater turning into a bad eater. Since I made the appointment, Will's appetite has actually improved, and he's been putting on a little weight.

We went back to Bear Lake the week after the initial trip to get our stuff. We ended up having a nice mini vacation and hanging out with one of Mike's high school buddies and his family.

We were enjoying a nice, quiet evening on the deck one Sunday just before Sam went to bed. Sam jumped onto one of the deck chairs and was immediately surrounded by a swarm of wasps (or was it hornets? I can never tell). Mike jumped up as fast as he could, grabbed Sam (who was now screaming in pain), and we all ran inside before they came after us. Poor little Sam got stung on his foot. Thank goodness for Web MD. We fixed up his sting (amazingly he only got one), and he went right to bed. There was a wasp nest on the underneath side of the chair, and Sam jumped right on top of it. There was also one behind the chair on the wall. We also had three inside our grill, and two on the front porch. The ants have been bad this year too. I think we need one of those bug barriers. It's been so bad this year, not sure why. One of the nests in the grill is back. We're firing it up tomorrow...wasp roast!

Boys are Pirates

Sam frequently reminds us that boys are pirates and girls are princesses. This is not something we've taught him, but he's adamant. His cousin Osie LOVES to be a princess, which is probably why Sam is so firm in his opinion. Osie is, after all, a girl. We were at my mom's house a couple of weeks ago, and they have some really fun toys. When you shake the little pirate sword it makes a noise.Sam just said to me, "I don't like to be a princess, not at all. Boys don't like to be princesses, only girls do...huh?" You know all that nature vs. nurture stuff? Garbage. Sam has never ever been interested in dolls, pink, or anything else that might be remotely related to girls. He's been exposed to it a lot, but he just doesn't want anything to do with it. He loves pirates, trains, trucks, cars, gross noises, throwing stuff, bugs, and most other typical boy stuff. He's all boy. Will, thus far, is the same as his brother. I realize that boys can like girl stuff and vice versa, but I think kids just like what they like. It's not because we trained him to like boy stuff, he just prefers it. The feminists are wrong.

*Mike wanted me to add that his very, very liberal brother (who used to buy into nature vs. nurture) is now a firm believer that girls like girly stuff and boys like boy stuff. Just because it's how they are. I have one niece that likes to be a princess and a pirate, but all the other girls in the family are very girly. All the boys are very boyish. Just like men and women. Not the same.

Silly Boy

I was in the kitchen, and when I turned around I saw Sam sitting on the couch under the cooler completely enclosed in his blankie. It took me a second, but then I realized he had taken my phone and was playing Brick Breaker, his favorite game. Every time he won a level he would poke his head out and yell, "Mom, I won!" He would wait for me to congratulate him before re-burying himself and continue playing.

Conversation

I made frosting for some brownies. It went something like this:

Mom: Sam, did you share with Will?

Sam: No.

Mom: Oh, really?


I'm a little suspicious.

Onion Ball

Will's favorite game: pick up whatever he can get his hands on, and throw it all around the house! My onion was an unfortunate casualty. Usually he does this with a ball or some kind of toy, but when I'm making dinner and leave the cupboard open, everything is fair game. He always goes for the onions.

Binoculars

In between all the sickness, or maybe it was before it all started, Sam and I made binoculars! We took them on a walk so he could explore with them, but he put them in the stroller basket and promptly forgot about them. He really likes them though. His favorite part was putting train and truck stickers all over them.