Plano Week 2. . .Jackson’s Asthma/Mother’s Day/My birthday

If you read my last post you might notice that I’m awfully verbose these days.  Not sure what it is. . .but I seem to be typing a LOT.  Hopefully I’ll enjoy reading back thru these someday and remembering all of the wonderful a little bit of the crazy.  But for the few people who read this and are not me-sorry.  Maybe just skip all of the excessive wordiness and go right to the ridiculous amount of pictures

Now, back to business. . .After our fun swing set weekend we loaded back up and drove to Plano again.  In the car Jackson started coughing but I didn’t think much of it.  We arrived at my dads on Monday evening and I made dinner.  Dad asked if I thought Jackson was having asthma (which he has never had before) and I replied that he was breathing just fine and only coughing so it couldn’t be asthma.  Jackson fell asleep on the sofa and wasn’t coughing any more so I moved him up to bed.  That night I woke up around 2 and prayed for a bit before Lincoln woke up around 2:15 to nurse.  After nursing Lincoln I went to check on Jackson and he was already up.  My poor sweet baby said he wasn’t feeling well and asked if I would bring the monitor into his room and sleep with him.  He’s never asked this before so I quickly obliged.  Once in his room I checked him out and immediately noticed that he was having tremendous trouble breathing.  I asked him why he hadn’t awakened me (he said he’d been up for hours) and he said he knew how tired I was from Lincoln and didn’t want to disturb me.  I told him that I’d never be upset for him waking me up and he said he knew but he wanted me to get good rest.  Ugh, my heart just broke picturing him up sick and not immediately coming to get me up.
Then he looked up at me and said, “mom, I’m starting to worry that I’m about to stop breathing.  But I know some tips from watching national geographic.  If I stop please just press on my chest and then breath into my mouth so that I won’t die ok?”
OH.MY.GOODNESS.
Instantly I jumped up and grabbed my clothes and told him we were going to the ER.  I had Jackson go tell Papa that we were leaving and off we went.  It was a real blessing that we were at Papa’s house for many reasons.  He’s fantastic in emergency situations and always stays calm, he is a rock star with my boys and I had no worries about leaving him with my littles while I took Jack AND he is blessed to be flexible schedule/work wise and was able to take off the day on Tuesday. Papa pretty much just rocks all around.

So-Jack and I drove to the ER and they immediately ushered us back.  His oxygen levels were in the upper 80’s and they began breathing treatments and giving him steroids via IV.  After a few breathing treatments they decided to admit him to the pediatric unit upstairs.  He ended up having 7 breathing treatments among other medications and his breathing still couldn’t reach 90 without an oxygen mask.  He should have been around 99.  They said we needed to stay at least 24 hours.
Jackson, as usual, was a rock star and all of the doctors and nurses loved him.  The gentleman who put in Jack’s IV was really great and told him that he should be a Navy Seal because he was so tough.  Jack loved that.

My only complaint with the hospital was their horrific complete and total lack of nutritional choices in the snacks for Jackson.  They brought him a SUGAR FREE (ie-artificially sweetened) popsicle.  Ugh.  When I asked if they had anything else I was told that the hospital was fighting childhood obesity.  I told the nurse that I would far prefer actual sugar to the cancer causing aspartame in the popsicle she offered.  We was shocked and said that sugar and fat had been taken out of the hospital.  Sigh.  She had never heard of aspartame and had no idea that it was an undisputed neurotoxin.  Sure wish there were more medical professionals that had any idea of health.  It’s so hard to have respect for someone who gives neurotoxins to children.

Ok, back to our hospital day. . .Jack was admitted to a great room in the pediatric unit.

At 7 a.m. Lincoln woke up so I picked him up from Papa’s and brought him up to the hospital with Jackson and me.  He’s back to exclusively nursing-he only ate baby food for a week. . . 

Jack was thrilled when I showed him the menu and he asked, “is this like a fancy hotel with room service?!”  I was proud that he wanted to order a meal with some veggies and a grilled chicken breast.  Of course, we promptly threw away the margarine (“no butter, we’re with Michelle Obama fighting childhood diabetes so we don’t give kids butter because it has fat!”) that came with the roll.

Luckily Lincoln was still sleeping in the infant carrier so he was able to take naps in the carrier in the bathroom (of our private room).  During those naps Jackson and I had a great time.  One of the nurses wheeled in a Wii (video game system) with 25 games.  Since we don’t have video games at home this thrilled Jackson beyond belief.  During Lincoln’s two, two hour naps (seriously he slept better in the hospital than ever before-which was very helpful) I just laid in Jack’s hospital bed with him and played super mario brothers.  He was pretty impressed with my skills and I was pretty amazed that I remembered so much from playing the game 20ish years ago.

Of course we took some silly pictures.

Wrestling Lincoln was not easy in the hospital room and luckily Jackson wanted to snuggle him as much as possible. 

We ended up being able to go home around 8 Tuesday night, after just 18ish hours at the hospital.  Bear had had a wonderful day with his sweet Papa and Gaga met us up at the hospital and loved on Jack for a bit.  As we were about to leave Jackson looked at me and said, “mom, this was like the best BFF (best friend forever) day ever.  Thanks for being with me.”  Yeah, he melts my heart over and over and over again. 

The next day Jackson was feeling back to his normal self.  He’s actually only had to take his inhaler a few times since the hospital stay.  They had prescribed an oral steroid for him to be on for the following 14 days but I didn’t feel it was necessary and my pediatrician (who we saw the next day) completely agreed.

Wednesday morning we went to the last meeting of my MOMS Connection group at our church in Plano.  It was Tea and Testimony, my favorite meeting of the year.  I gave my testimony a few years ago and it was a great experience and I love hearing others share as well.

Our table. . .unfortunately a few of the ladies (Adrienne, Jessica G and Alisha) were missing.

That night we were at Gaga’s.  Grandmommy spent the night which is always a special treat.

Grandmommy brought us some farm fresh eggs for breakfast the next morning.  The boys got a kick out of the fact that they were all different colors.

Our very favorite babysitter, Amanda was graduating from high school the next week and Jackson wanted to bring her pink roses.  He also made her a sweet card.  Can you tell how excited he was to visit her?!

Baron loving on his sweet great grandmother.

Friday was my birthday and Dad took the day off and we went to the Dallas Zoo with the boys.  As always we had a really great time.  I’m so impressed with the way that my dad is always so calm, patient, loving and in control with the boys.  Mom said he was like that with us too.  I’m reading a lot right now about parenting with calm authority and how God wants us to teach our children self control and my dad is such a great example of that.  As is everything with me, my parenting is an ever evolving work in progress.  Thank goodness for God’s grace!

As always, the boys loved the carousel. 

Fun Papa in the hurricane simulator with Jackson.

Baron really wanted to see the bird show and afterwards Papa gave each of the boys a dollar to give to one of the birds.  Bear was so fast that I couldn’t get a picture of him with the bird.

I feel blessed beyond measure with these three boys!

Thanks to Papa and my guys for such a fun birthday!

That night my Uncle Lew and Aunt Clare came over for dinner at Dad and Laura’s.

Jay (who had driven up from Austin that day) with Aunt Clare.

Jack with his lego buddy, Nana.

My Uncle Lew always says that Jackson is exactly like my dad as a kid.  Here’s Dad teaching Jackson the fine are of a noogie.

Jack giving it a shot.

I just love these two!  They are moving to California soon and we will definitely miss them.

Uncle Lew remembered that it was my birthday and they brought a cake.  Jack was of course excited to be the only one of the boys allowed to stay up for dessert. 

He took one bite and exclaimed, “mom, is this what they call an ice cream cake!?!”  It was his first ice cream cake-and he approved.

The next day Nana and the boys built a lego city.

Total buddies.

Sweetest little 9 month old ever!

I can’t get enough of this sweet smile.

I finally got to meet sweet little 3 month old baby Will.  It was such a treat to see Ann-Renee and meet her precious little man.

Saturday night we went to hear some live music-who doesn’t love a good Elvis impersonator?!

The bigs got to play in the fountains.

We enjoyed being outside and listening to music and watching the kids play.  After that we put the boys down and had a wonderful steak dinner. . .just the 4 adults.  How cool it was to have a nice adult dinner!

The next day, Sunday, was Mother’s Day.  We met mom and David at church and then Grandmommy came over and we all went to lunch together.

The soft serve ice cream after lunch was a huge treat-and a huge hit!

No food for Lincoln-he was just happy to be with the family!