Mom's crazy first week of school

This was an interesting beginning of the school year.  I am helping with volleyball while they look for a third coach.  I won't coach because Kayda's team would have games at the same time as mine and I refuse to miss hers.

The night before school started (Tuesday) I was helping with volleyball.  While waiting for the parent meeting I got a phone call from my principal.  I was a "close contact".  Two of the coworkers I sat with at kick off tested positive for covid.  This turned into "put in for a sub for tomorrow, go do a rapid test, if it's negative come in as soon as possible".  Being super efficient and connected, I was able to get ahold of a rapid test that evening and it came out negative.  So I got to cancel my sub and actually teach the first day.  I feel bad for the teachers that have to miss the first 3-5 days of school.    There actually ended up being 6 teachers out I believe, just at the high school.  I don't know about the other schools.

That wasn't the end of my adventures though... During 6th period of the first day, I was teaching, went to pull down the projector screen and the entire thing came down on my head.  We're talking about 8ft of metal casing and the screen itself.  The entire bracket had come out of the wall.  So now my head and neck hurt.  Yay!  

One of the maintenance staff came in... His response was "I have nothing but bad words".   It's actually one of the heaviest screens they have because it's a wide screen.  The bracket had been put up using the plastic anchors they provide for curtain rods...  This is a good 30+ lbs, plus the force of pulling the screen down.  We checked out the other bracket and it was also half out.  It had been screwed directly into the drywall without even using anchors.  Talk about dangerous!  He came in and fixed it, it would take significant effort to get that thing off the wall again.  He promised that "someone would have to take it down on purpose" and "if it comes down again I'll quit".   Good guy.

  I saw stars, then it was just my neck hurting.  I thought I was fine and would just be sore. Over the next couple of days my head started feeling fuzzy and "full" for lack of a better term, I can't concentrate or think clearly, I am really tired and holy heck my emotions are all over the place.  I finally decided to go to urgent care Friday.  My appointment at my normal one was cancelled because they don't do work related injury. So I went to the one they recommended but because I didn't have record of BOTH of my negative tests from being covid exposed they wouldn't treat me.  I had a picture of one but the other was done at school and they didn't give us our results.  I went home very emotional and frustrated.

Come Saturday I made an appointment for a rapid test so I could go to the urgent care. Just for the urgent care to tell me not to come, to go to the ER instead since they didn't have the diagnostic equipment that night be needed. So I didn't even need the negative test.

So off to the ER I go... Which was almost empty in case you were wondering.  They had me into a room within twenty minutes of walking in.  The doctor came in immediately.  Did some tests, decided imaging wasn't even necessary.  Prescribed me some pain meds for my neck, then walked away.  He didn't listen to all the stuff I was experiencing with my head which was frustrating.   Gave me no suggestions on what I should/shouldn't be doing...I had to ask the nurse that brought me my paperwork if they thought I had a concussion or what was going on.  I have a "mild" concussion since there was no black outs, pupil discrepancies, or vomiting.  

They asked me if I wanted days off.  Wanted, no, being gone as a teacher is miserable.  Hopefully I don't end up needing them.   Now I'll have a couple weeks+ of needing to chill out as much as possible while my brain heals itself.  So irritating.

On top of that, with the governor's vaccination mandate, our calculus teacher and her firefighter husband have decided to leave the state.  This could very well mean they're making HUGE changes to the master schedule and all the students.  Finding a new calculus teacher at this point would be next to impossible.   They need to move things around to get our college certified teacher all the college in the classroom classes.  I'd be really surprised if they chose not to move things around.

On that note... We're seeing estimates as high as 1 in 8 nurses refusing to the vaccination and 1 in 4 emergency responders.  For a state so worried about being able to care for the sick people... They've certainly found a way to make it worse.  Hopefully that is rescinded before we lose a lot of qualified staff in areas that already have shortages.  That applies to education too but the emergency/medical is much more urgent.

On a side note...

I know there have been a lot of updates today.  But I needed to share a couple of things extra.   First, Carson has switched from saying "Mama" and "Dada" to saying "Mommy" and "Daddy".  It's super cute how he says it but it still makes me sad.  At his two year doctor appointment we learned he is 36.5 inches tall (95%, about the height of the average three year old) and 29.2 lbs (50%).  I was very wrong with my guess on the number of words he knows, I guessed 15.... WRONG he knows closer to 40. He has a distinct way of saying them so that I can tell what he means but the average person wouldn't know.  Just like Kayda and Dillon.

Secondly, the pictures of Papa G with the kids were all taken on their camera.  So Grandma G had to email them all to me.  It can be a long, annoying process to email those pictures so thanks Grandma G.  The reason I'm sharing this is because I found her subject headings incredibly entertaining and felt like sharing them.... Here they are, in chronological order....

photos

one more pool

shooting 

more shooting

wish I could do this right

again

can't figure out how to reduce the size

so much easier on the ipad

almost done

done

Apparently it was more difficult than usual.  Love you Grandma G!  Thanks for your trouble!  It was a good laugh for a hectic, somewhat frustrating evening!

Carson's 1 year Appointment and some tidbits

We had Carson's 1 year well-check appointment yesterday.  He is a big, healthy, happy boy!

Weight: 24 pounds (70%)

Height: 30.75 inches (80%)

Head Circumference: 19.25 inches (95% or higher)

I've had a few people express confusion with the percentiles.  Here's the basic idea.  They take the general population of kids that age and have all the statistics about their height, weight, etc.  (No I do not know how current these statistics are, I heard somewhere once that they're from the 1980's)  Anyway, they have all the statistics and they compare where your child sits compared to those statistics so when they say Carson is in the 70th percentile for weight that means that 70% of the one year olds weighed less than he does.  Or he is in the "top 30% for weight".  Whichever way you would like to look at it.  So as you would expect if a child were 50% that would mean they were exactly in the middle. 

Back to my kiddos now.  Carson had to get a finger poke to check his iron levels (which are good) and 4 vaccinations!!!  Ouch!  Well-check appointments are NOT fun for children but I think the temporary pain is worth the immunity.  He got over it pretty quickly and was having a great time with the doctor.  Meanwhile Kayda and Dillon were swimming with Grandma H at her neighbor's pool.  They were still in there when we got back so Carson got to go swimming too.  He sat on the edge of the pool and actually lunged out to Grandma!  Everytime Grandma would set him up out of the pool he would walk off for a minute and then come back to the edge, turn onto his tummy and start to climb in.  He LOVES all things water...hoses, pools, buckets, showers, tubs, sinks, toilets (eww... my first toilet baby), the source does NOT matter to him.  He just wants to play with water. 

Now a few random photos!!!  They're my favorite part!

 Carson has REALLY started to enjoy books.  He's the first baby we've had that has wanted to look at them.  He picks them up and brings them to us, course he flips the pages so fast you can't really read anything but it's good that he's interested!

 Daddy had a great time planning family home evening.  We're just starting to do them and haven't quite gotten into the routine of it yet but you could tell Daddy had fun with this one!  He made clues and taped them up all over the place and had the kids and I walk around the yard and around the loop.  It was based on the liahona.  We then came inside "heaven" because, you know, home can be a heaven on Earth, and got our reward.  He found cookies that came with markers that had edible ink.  So Daddy, Kayda, Dillon and I had a great time coloring our suns.  The cookies by the way were about the grossest cookies I have ever tasted.  Daddy thought they tasted something like black licorice... NOT a black licorce fan... especially in a cookie. But hey, at least they looked pretty!

 Meanwhile Carson was making art of his own with the oreos.  All over himself ... his highchair tray was COVERED.  This little dude LOVES all things chocolate and oreos seem to be pretty high on that list.  Daddy made the observation that he looks like has has a beard. 

Dillon wanted a picture and we took it right as Kayda passed a marker to Daddy to open.  I tried to snap a shot of Kayda but she was NOT interested!

Off to the doctor!

We headed off to the doctor today for Dillon's 4 year and Carson's 6 month appointments.  Daddy met me down there since both of them got shots, I didn't want to take that on by myself!  And the verdict, they are both growing beautifully. 

Dillon's Stats:

40.75 inches tall - 60th percentile

44.5 lbs - 95th percentile, which the doctor even made note of, seems to be all muscle.

Carson's Stats:

29.25 inches tall - off the charts!

19lbs 7 oz - 85th percentile

Carson has all of 3/4 of an inch until he has "outgrown" his carseat.  I am not looking forward to switching him into a carseat that has to stay in the car.  I like being able to cart him around in his carseat but I'll do what I have to.  The nurse was telling me that the recommendation is to keep kids backward facing until 2 years and she proceeded to say that the law is still only one year so keep Carson backwards facing as long as he'll "fit" which she doesn't think will be very long! 

We're all moved in to Grandma and Papa G's house.  We're getting into a routine, though we haven't finished unpacking.  Kayda's favorite thing to do is play "back seat driver" while Papa is playing video games.  She sits there and orders him around.  Dillon just loves always having someone to snuggle with.  On Saturday mornings Daddy and I will get up and head upstairs to find that Kayda and Dillon have already gotten up and are snuggling next to Papa on the couch all wrapped up in blankets watching him play games.  No Papa isn't always playing games, though he would be if Kayda had her way!  Grandma G is still in Wisconsin with the newest cousin, they're both very excited for her to come back home.

Kayda and Dillon are both very loving towards their baby brother, they fight in the car over who Carson is looking at, love to play with him and will sing him songs if he is crying or upset.  We were trying to take a couple quick pictures and Carson started crying so they were each giving him kisses, naturally I had to make them do it at the same time so I could record it.  It's a regular thing for them and they seem to LOVE being big brother and big sister.

Carson's thing about living here is Papa. He lunges for Papa and loves play time with him. Papa likes to growl and pretend to bite Carson to tickle him a little, so what happened? Carson started making a growling type noise whenever he saw Papa!

Carson is trying SO hard to crawl. See his little bum stuck up in the air? He's pushing with his legs. He hasn't figured out his arm yet so he ends up pushing with his feet and kind of dragging his face across the ground.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

Last weekend we decorated for Christmas.  We ended up taking out pretty much all the decorations, which I didn't think we'd have the space to do.  Between that and FINALLY putting up our pictures our house feels completely different.  Sad that it took us 6 years to put up our family pictures.  Anyways, Kayda and Dillon had a great time putting up the ornaments!  Especially the ones I've made for them because they are THEIR ornaments with their names on them and everything. 

Today I finally got motivated to attempt a few pictures with all three kids.  It worked out nice that the baby santa hat fit Carson and Kayda and Dillon could wear Daddy and I's hats!

Dillon is having a rough day today, very emotional.  Check out that face!  Don't miss his little tear drop!

Carson was reaching for Hank, so I go to take a picture... this is what I got instead.  Not sure how I feel about that.  Kinda gross but weirdly cute at the same time.  No Hank's tongue never actually went in Carson's mouth, he's just licking Carson's drool covered chin.

Other, completely irrelevant information:

Check out this guy!  SUCH a handsome boy!  Can you believe he's 4 months.  Carson and Kayda both had doctor appointments last Friday.  Carson's 4 month check up and Kayda's 5 year.  According to the doctor Carson is the size of the average 6.5 month old!  Holy cow!!!  He cried for about a minute after getting his shots and then was right back to his smiley self.  Kayda got a finger poke to check her cholesterol and a few other things (standard procedure), she did fairly well.  It took her a little longer to calm down but she's bigger so that's to be expected. 

Carson's stats:

Height - 26.5 inches (95%)

Weight - 17lbs 2 oz (90%)

Head - 17 inches (75%)

Kayda's stats:

Height - 42.625 inches (50%)

Weight - 41.2 lbs (60%)

Sight 20/30 (normal for this age)



Carson's 2 month check up

Today Carson is 9 weeks old, or 2 months and 2 days.  Whichever you prefer.  In that time he has figured out how to support his head pretty well, stand up holding onto someone's hands, "swim", talk and smile!  He has also grown 4 and 7/8 inches and gained 5lb 1oz.  Talk about a healthy baby!

His stats:

Height - 25 1/8 inches (off the charts)

Weight - 14 pounfds (95th percentile)

Head - 16 1/8 inches (60th percentile) 

He got 3 shots and some yucky tasting stuff today and boy was he MAD!  There have been two times in his life that he has been so angry he turned red.  One was today, the other was obviously when he was circumsized.

Other news, I fixed the flash on the camera (with a watch spring pin, I find that funny).  So I can get more pictures!  Yay!

Carson's first doctor appointment, 10 days

I took Carson into his first appointment with our pediatrician today.  The general rule is that they want a newborn to be back at their birthweight by 14 days.  Well Carson is 10 days old and is 1.5 oz PAST birthweight!  Doc checked him out and he is as healthy as can be. 

Here are his stats:
21.25 inches long (90th percentile, 2 inches longer than birth)
9lbs 0.5 oz (80th percentile, 1.5 oz heavier than birth)
14.5 inches head circumference (60th percentile)

This little man is eating like crazy and apparently growing like crazy too.  Now if only I could get him to switch his day time sleeping habits with his night time sleeping habits.  Daddy and I had initially planned to introduce him to 1 bottle a day at 2 weeks but he's nursing so well we gave it a shot last night, he took the bottle without any problems and didn't eat again for just under four hours.  Going to leave Daddy with the 11pm feeding and I'll get some good sleep!!!  He's actually not doing too bad for being 10 days old but goodness it gets exhausting when you're doing it alone.  Not a lot Daddy can do when Carson is being nursed.

Snow days

Well, it's the end of February and we got SNOW!  The kids were so excited when it started snowing.  They immediately wanted to go out and play.  I made them wait until the grass was almost completely covered so that there would actually be enough to play with. 

 They ended up playing outside several times over the couple of days.  The played snowball fight, threw the snow in the air, played with their shovels in it.  It cracked me up the first day.  They seem to have an aversion to wearing clothes when they're in the house so they have t-shirts and underwear/diapers on and the next thing I know all of their snow clothes are being piled in my lap.  I thought it was pretty cool that they remembered everything including their gloves and hats. 

 Dillon threw this snow himself, you wouldn't think it based on how he's standing though. 

The snow started on Wednesday, by Friday whatever was left was pretty much ice.  The kids wanted to play outside though so they went out and rode their scooters.  They discovered ice chunks and had a blast throwing those in the street.  We pulled out some paint stir sticks so that they could explore the thin layer of ice on top of our neighbors big puddle.  They had so much fun doing that so I decided to take a walk around our neighborhood looking for frozen puddles... we didn't find any but the kids used their sticks to "measure" the snow anywhere they saw it. 

Earlier this week we had a baby check up, I got to listen to the heart beat which is always fun.  Next month we should find out if it's a boy or girl (provided the baby cooperates).

Growth Charts

I finally got around to hanging up the growth charts for the kids. Kayda and Dillon were so excited to mark their heights and I went and added their heights from all their past doctors appointments. I can't believe how big they're getting!!!  Best part is, if we ever move I just take them off the wall and bring them with us!

Trip to the doctor!

Well it was time for both babies' check ups. Here's their info...

Kayda:
height - 32.75inches, 85%
weight - 22lbs 9oz, 25%
head - 19in, 90%

Dillon:
height - 22.25inches, 70%
weight - 18lbs 2oz, 95%
head - 16.75in, 50%

I think it's hilarious that Dillon is only 4 lbs lighter than Kayda. He's 13.5 months younger and only 4 pounds short! The head information is mostly for the benefit of the Daddy's half... big heads seem to run in the family so I thought I would share!

Everything checks out well, they're both growing well and meeting the developmental milestones well so we have two healthy beautiful happy babies.

Kayda is here!

Kayda was due to come November 13th.  Once the due date passed I had to go in for regular check ups.  There would be non-stress tests where they hooked up machines to listen to her heartbeat and to check for contractions. They would have me drink juice to get her going and then I'd sit... and sit... and sit.  The last one we had to go to ended up being on Thanksgiving.  It ended up taking a ridiculous amount of time, I'm pretty sure they forgot about us for a while.  

The morning of November 27th came, it was two weeks past due.  They really don't want the baby in the womb longer than that.  So I went in for my appointment that morning, we packed everything we needed planning to be induced that day.   She was coming out no matter what.  We went in, everything was fine and I was given a choice, wait until tomorrow when my OB could be there, or go ahead and induce that day.  We had been prepared and planned for that day so opted to do that.  

I wrote this story before, when Kayda turned two.  Since I'm writing this when she is almost 11 now I think I'll mostly copy and paste!  It's obviously repetitive but I'd rather be accurate!

"They started the meds at 11:00 in the morning (turns out I was having contractions I couldn't feel every 12 minutes), they broke my water at 12:45 but things didn't really start getting going until 1:30 when I actually started to feel the contractions.  I got an epidural about an hour or so after that because I was only about 3 cm and didn't know how long it would take. 

It was the day of the big ice storm so Grandma Peggy couldn't make it down to see us, Grandma G was there, Grandpa G and Uncle Justin came down to visit and left before the roads got too bad. Grandpa Mike had to park at the bottom of the hill and hiked across the overpass to the hospital to come visit (he brought McDonald's for Daddy, it fell in the snow but Daddy still ate it!). Grandpa Mike should have stayed a little longer than he did and he would've gotten to meet you, it would've been better than the 3 hour drive home!!! Grandma G was with us the whole time.  

It was time for the nurses to change shifts right as I started pushing at 11:18pm.  Since the nurses were in the middle of a shift change and first time moms usually push for a long time Daddy held one of my legs while Grandma G held the other so I could keep pushing while they changed nurses. 

By now the epidural was starting to wear off to be that pins and needles numb feeling so I could kind of feel the contractions. By the time our nurse had gotten the other up to speed they came over to check me and she was crowning, we were ready to call the doctor. I could feel enough that when the nurse was tapping me saying "push down here" I was able to comply.  Since people were stranded at the hospital and the nurse that had been there didn't think she could get home we had several sets of nurses in the room when she was born at 11:48pm.  The nurse that had been with me all day had specifically asked if she could stay to see the baby. 

Kayda weighed 8lbs 10oz and was 19.5 inches long.  They set her on my stomach for Daddy to cut the umbilical cord.  Then Daddy went over to video tape her being measured and weighed.  By that time I was feeling really tired, I kind of felt like I was in a tunnel and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.  It turns out I had a lot of small tears that needed to be stitched up.  The tears made my blood pressure go down extremely low.  Dr. Duncan had to stop stitching so they could lay me back and prop up my legs to get the blood up where it's needed most.  It took a few minutes but I felt better.  Though I was still very tired.  This gave Daddy a scare for sure! We didn't name her right away, we waited until the next morning when I was a little more alert (Daddy was pretty tired by now too). Kayda spent her first night in her Grandma G's arms in the rocking chair, with the exception of when she needed to eat."

 I'm fairly certain this picture was as my blood pressure was starting to drop and I was getting so tired.

 First bath!  The nurse was washing her.  Some of the meconium (the baby poo that builds up while they're in the womb" was coming out so she went to wash it.  She kept scrubbing at one particular spot only to discover that it was a birthmark on her bum.

 Thank goodness for Grandma.  Daddy slept, I slept and Grandma snuggled Kayda all night.

 In the morning Papa G and Uncle Justin came down to visit.  The roads were still pretty icy so Grandma and Papa H waited until we got home.