First trip to ER

I guess I have to start by saying Seth is just fine, he's sleeping peacefully in his own crib at home tonight. But we had quite the scary day and I'm so thankful that it's over, and it went as well as it could.

Yesterday afternoon Seth had a bit of a runny nose and a cough, and didn't take much of a nap at day care so I put him to bed early. He was clearly not feeling good but went down okay and slept fairly well until 2am. When I went in and picked him up he was burning up, so we went downstairs and took his temperature. It was 101.4 I think so we had some juice and ibuprofen and watched tv for awhile until he seemed a little better and went back to bed. He woke up a couple more times but went back to sleep each time until 8am. He still had a fever so I gave him some more ibuprofen and after an hour or so it went down a little but he was still acting really whiney and just wanted to cuddle which is so unlike him. We decided to take him to Urgent Care just to make sure he didn't have an ear infection or something. Well in the car on the way there he was just really shivering and moaning and breathing heavy so I was already glad we were heading to the doctor! Then Eric looked back at him and told me "look back at your son." I looked back and his mouth was twitching to the side almost rhythmically at first, and then he kind of just went limp and his eyes were rolling back and his teeth were clenched and he was clearly having trouble breathing and I was FREAKING OUT, I had no idea what was going on!! We quickly re-routed to the emergency room and thankfully we were almost there by then anyway. I have never unbuckled that car seat so fast and we booked it into the ER and they whisked us right back and went to work. By then Seth was just kind of passed out and breathing really heavy and they were just giving him some oxygen and grilling us about what happened, that part was all a bit of a blur. They did also strip him down and take his temperature which was by then 104.3!

In the end, they said he had a febrile seizure. In hindsight it's not too surprising, Eric had them when he was a baby I guess and that tends to boost the risk of our children being more prone to them. I told Eric I've never seen a seizure in real life and at least in Seth's case, it looked nothing like what you are used to seeing on TV and in Movies! I thought he was dying! Anyway, they listened to his lungs and they were pretty noisy so they took a chest x-ray expecting that he would have pneumonia and that he would have to be admitted, but ultimately that wasn't it. His white cells were elevated so they gave him a round of antibiotics but at this point we still aren't exactly sure what made his temperature spike like that. They did a blood culture so maybe eventually we will know if there was bacteria, and what it was. We will be following up with Seth's doctor on Monday so maybe we'll find out more then.

What else...? Oh, they made him breathe some albuterol, which he was really not a fan of. He got an IV and a big pint of saline run through him. That was really annoying because the IV was in the crook of his elbow and any time he would bend his arm the machine would shut off and start beeping. We didn't want to have to strap his arm on a board so we were trying to keep him calm and keep his arm straight. We were hanging out for about 3 hours or so waiting for his temperature to go down, and his heart rate (it was up around 180-190 for a long time) before they would discharge him. He relaxed mostly, alternating between my lap and Eric's, and dozed off for a really short cat nap at one point. Finally he got down to 98.9 and 154 bpm and was getting super restless so we got up and walked around the hall with him. He was really alert and checking everything out so the doctor said we could go ahead and get out of there. We got him dressed while we waited for our discharge instructions and he was literally running up and down the hall laughing and I heard one of the nurses ask if that was the same kid that came in earlier!

So, we came home with instructions to bring him right back if things got worse again. But other than being really fussy all afternoon, which I'm sure was just because he was exhausted, he seems almost back to his normal self. I tell you what, I'd rather have him home throwing tantrums and dropping food on the floor than have to see him all listless and quiet and small in the middle of that hospital bed. I don't think I have ever been so scared in my life as I was in the car when he was having that seizure. But knowledge is power and hopefully now that I know what it looks like it will not be as scary if it ever happens again. And ironically, the doctor said that the seizure itself is not really a concern at all. Whew!

I had such big plans for this day. Just goes to show, they often go awry.

Day 3 Labs

I finally got to go in and get my blood drawn for the fertility doctor, this morning.  It was a mad house in their waiting room, literally standing room only.  Anyway, I got some of the results already, which is awesome.  Everything is normal of course, but here are the magic numbers for my documentation in case I ever want to look back:

E2: 58
FSH: 8.7
LH: 5.3

I looked up the reference ranges here: http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/hormonelevels.html

There are a couple of other tests that we probably won't get back until Monday, my TSH and progesterone.

I'm starting to warm up to the idea of having another baby.  For a few months there I was really against it but I guess the sting from the last one has worn off enough now that I could see myself getting excited again.

WA DC part 2

Okay, where was I? Right... so my hotel advertises complimentary yoga equipment so I asked at the front desk after breakfast if they would send up a yoga mat and they said they would straight away! Well, 40 minutes later I was finished with my yoga workout and still no mat. Oh well! We headed out to the Eastern Market and after getting on the wrong train at first, we had lunch at 7th Hill pizza which was amazing.

(Eric leading us astray)

Then we walked down to the Capital building and walked all around but it looked like we could not just wander inside. I guess you have to get a tour from your representative's office or something. By the way, if you want to tour the White House you also must contact your rep at least 21 days in advance. That was one thing I really wanted to do but sadly didn't know about the 3 week notice :( There were some guards wielding M-16s patrolling the capital, that was pretty crazy.



Then we wandered through the botanical garden for a minute before going to the air and space museum (zzzzz). We spent way too much time there, both of us thinking the other person was more interested than either of us really were. Our feet were really dying so we went to Starbucks and got coffee and sat outside and people watched for awhile. We tried to go to Arlington Cemetery after that but didn't get there until after 5pm and it was closed! Boo!

So we headed back up toward our home base to figure out what to have for dinner. We had a couple of happy hour drinks and snacks at a restaurant called Luna, and it was just ok. So we went out for sushi at a place called Cafe Japone (near Dupont Circle) and it was really really good. We were stuffed FULL of sushi and went back down to Cafe Citron and did a little salsa dancing before heading home to bed.

This morning I woke up just in the nick of time to make it over to the YMCA for Zumba!! I had a coupon from Eversave for this place called Fruit Bat so we tried to go there for lunch but ended up in the way wrong part of town (H street NW instead of NE). It was already like 1pm so we ended up scrapping that idea and having a mediocre lunch at Elephant and Castle downtown which was the DC equivalent of Applebee's I guess. After lunch we spent about an hour and a half each at the Museum of American History and the Holocaust Museum. Honestly, I'm just not too excited about museums... I think I am just as happy seeing the outside of the building! Plus waiting until Saturday to do museums was a huge mistake, I think there were twice as many people around as there were yesterday.

We made it over to Fruit Bat finally for a snack before our dinner reservations and it was really good. It was way up in the north east part of town and we had to walk a long way from the Metro station to get there, but it was worth the trip. Delicious homemade tacos and some unique mixed drinks, with a nice local feel. It's definitely not a touristy place.

So, our dinner reservations were at Fogo De Chao at 9pm. Fogo De Chao is not unique to DC but I've been wanting to go for a long time since someone told me about it like 5 years ago. Basically it is an all you can eat buffet with a really good salad bar and there are all these guys walking around with hunks of meat on swords that they bring to your table and cut pieces right off onto your plate. It was pretty awesome and a little pricey but we got our money's worth for sure. My favorite was the bacon wrapped filet mignon and the cheese puffs, YUM!

So, not a single picture was taken today! Boo! Tomorrow our plane doesn't leave until 5:30pm so we're hoping to check out Arlington before we have to leave. There might be some picture worthy sights there. We've been buying day passes for the Metro and are feeling pretty savvy about it. I definitely recommend if you are going to be in DC for a few days get a pass, it is so nice. I forgot how much I love the subway system, I wish they would build one in Spokane!

DC Trip part ONE of a million

I realized, to Eric's chagrin, that now would be a good time to post about the first half of our DC trip, rather than waiting until we get home and I have other, uh, responsibilities! Yesterday we got up around 8ish and had an adventure finding a Starbucks before returning the rental car near the airport and then took the shuttle to the train station which took us to the 30th St Amtrak in Philadelphia. The train ride to WA DC was fun. Definitely a nice change from air travel since you can look out and see the scenery... shabby scenery of dismal neighborhoods in general, but still better than clouds I guess. This part of the country seems pretty sad if you're just seeing it from the train tracks anyway. It was about a 2 hour trip and we ended up at Union Station in DC where it was a $20 cab ride to our hotel. I think our cab driver did his best but the actual fare was only $9.50 so we're really not exactly sure where the other half even came from.

We got our stuff to our room which was nice, but with kind of a creaky bed and a tiny bathroom. We were starving so went to the first place that had been recommended to me -- a Cafe Citron in Dupont Circle. We had a chips and salsa/guacamole platter which was amazing. It had this green creamy salsa in addition to the usual and was delicious. Sadly we missed the free salsa lessons that take place every Wednesday night! After that we headed down town and checked out the White House and then had a couple of beers at Aria before seeing some of the monuments at night, which I guess is the way to go since they look a lot cooler (I think) in the dark when they are all lit up.



We saw the Washington Monument, and the reflection pool which is not really a pool right now -- just a pile of rubble since the earthquake caused a leak. Then made our way to the World War II memorial and the Lincoln Memorial then back to the hotel bar where Eric and I made a game of naming all 32 NFL teams. Fun! I know! I was actually really proud of myself when we had gotten to 31 teams and after at least a half hour or so I finally came up with the last one - Tampa Bay :)

Today we made the most of jet lag and slept in long enough to barely catch the end of our free hotel continental breakfast which was a real disappointment. I then did a yoga workout online before...

Well dang it. I just typed a bunch more and somehow managed to delete an entire paragraph. So to be continued I guess.

Hi from Salt Lake City

Sitting in the SLC airport recharging my laptop and waiting for my flight to Philadelphia, which is currently delayed 25 minutes. I'm so glad the airports have gotten with the program and provided power for people and their portable electronics! I remember days when you'd have to hunt around and finally find an outlet hidden in the floor somewhere. And the free Wi-Fi is nice too.

The morning went okay, I was glad I stayed up and got all of my packing done last night. And made a list of all the things I couldn't pack until the last minute. Eric's dad picked me and Seth up and dropped me off at the airport. I thought for sure Seth would be fine with me leaving him at the airport. But when I opened the door and kissed him and said bye-bye he burst into tears. Dangit!! I did make a point to explain to him this morning that I was leaving for a few days and then both Eric and I would be home on Sunday. I never really know how much of that information he absorbs but I'm guessing it's a lot based on his reaction when I got out of the car today. I have to wonder what he thinks when Eric leaves for a few days and he's wondering where he went, and then all of a sudden I disappear too. Poor little guy.

Anyway, so going through security sucked as usual. I got in the wrong line so had to specifically opt out of the virtual strip search, er, body scanner. And as usual the security guy running the show was a total jerk about it. I never understand this, since there are signs all around telling you that use of the "technology" is optional! I know, I know, they are "safe" and the radiation is way less than I'm getting while I'm on the plane in the air, blah blah blah. So my refusal to go through that silly machine is partly just in protest of the ridiculousness of it in general. I'm with Ron Paul, seriously, abolish the TSA completely. Here in Salt Lake the Starbucks is right next to the security checkpoint so I got the opportunity to stand and watch the goings on for awhile. First of all the body scanners take at least 3 or 4 times longer than the regular metal detectors. Plus it seems like there are quite a few of those TSA people just standing around doing nothing. Maybe they're on stand by for a possible pat down for a skeptic like me, I don't know. Either way, it's just really annoying to watch. And there are a few scientist types out there who are concerned about those machines and I'm just not going to take any chances. At least not until they've been using them for oh, about another 50 years or so.

Month 1 and Done!

It's officially been a month and I haven't missed a day of working out, sweet!! It's actually been 33 days in a row now. I was a little worried about this next week because you see tomorrow I am getting on a plane to Philadelphia. Eric is there for a training so I am meeting up with him and then on Thursday we are taking the train to Washington D.C. Anyway, tomorrow won't be too much of a challenge because I don't have to leave for the airport until about 11:30am, which should be plenty of time to get my 30 minutes in. Especially if I can drag myself out of bed and get it done before Seth wakes up. We'll see about that (it's already 11:04pm)... Anyway, I had thought it might be tricky while we're in D.C. just because you know, we'll be on vacation and all that. And our hotel doesn't have it's own gym. However... I just went on their website to double check that and discovered that the YMCA is less than a block away from the hotel! What!?! I am so stoked!! How perfect is that? Now, if I can just talk Eric into going with me then I'll be golden. The hotel also has complimentary yoga equipment so I can probably download some yoga videos if I don't feel like going to the gym.

I am a little nervous leaving my Seth-y poo. It has been a little tough this week already since Eric left on Sunday. I had to take him to day care on Monday and that really sucked. When we walked in the door of his classroom and I put him down he immediately got this look of panic and gave me the big sad pouty face and his lower lip was all trembling and stuff. Oh. My. Gosh. My heart about broke into a million pieces. I wasn't in a huge hurry so I hung around with him for a few minutes, mostly with him clinging to me and whimpering. Finally he started playing with some toys that were nearby and was distracted enough that I could move toward the door. I don't like to sneak away when he's not looking so I waited for him to notice that I was leaving and I waved bye bye. He immediately started crying again so I had to make a run for it. I know that within minutes of me leaving he was totally fine but that didn't make it any easier. Bottom line, I'm really glad Eric is the one who usually drops him off.

Anyway, he's going to stay with his Nana and grandpa Haynes for the rest of the week and weekend. He likes it there and has a lot of fun playing with his toys there and out in the yard with Nana. I think he also has a play date scheduled in there somewhere with a friend of Auntie Jen's. But this will be the longest stretch so far that we've left him -- 4 nights. And by the time we get back I'm sure he will really be missing Eric. We called daddy on speakerphone last night and it was SO cute, he was holding the phone and waving at the picture of Eric on the screen saying "hi!" and laughing.

I've got the camera packed and an extra set of batteries. So hopefully when we get back I can share some awesome photos from our nation's capital. God Bless America. :)

Pizza pancakes pin = awesome!

Like I mentioned before, I was a little skeptical about these but oh my gosh I was so wrong. They are really good! I basically followed this recipe except I used regular Bisquick, a little more italian seasoning, no red pepper flakes or mushrooms (for Seth), some ground beef and onions left over from making mexican pizza last night, and maybe a little extra cheese, because I love cheese. I also just heated up some Ragu for dipping sauce because I just wasn't really in the mood to make my own pizza sauce although next time I definitely will, with oodles of garlic and olive oil. And there will absolutely be a next time because I am in love with these. And they have so much potential! I really went simple on them this time because I just wanted to try them out on Seth but with a little flair I would totally serve this for company! Yum yum yum num num. I really want to eat another one but we are meeting some friends for dinner in just a couple of hours. :(


One of these days when I get a nicer camera I promise to try and put a little more thought into "posing" my food. I'm sure my photographer friends all cringe when they see my pictures, hehe. But I do think the toy story kids table is a nice touch, don't you?

P.S. This officially gets 5 stars for sure.

Num num in my tum

Tonight I made Lasagna Soup, a pin that has been floating around for awhile. On my pin scale I think I'd rate it 4 stars. Ultimately the end result wasn't much of a soup, it was more of a lasagna deconstructed and not baked. But that could just be due to my inability/refusal to follow a recipe to a T. I took some liberties with the seasoning obviously and probably added more pasta than I should have. It was really good though, I am a big fan of anything resembling lasagna. The downside of making lasagna this way I think is that you don't get the nice browned cheese on top, which is my favorite part of any baked pasta dish. So that could be easily remedied by throwing your soup under the broiler for a minute, if that sort of thing floats your boat. The great thing about this is that you can be as liberal as you want with the cheese, Y-U-M! And oh boy I sure was and it was ooey gooey cheesy amazingness. I went back for seconds. Tomorrow is the first weigh in for our office pre-holiday biggest loser challenge, so it's my last day to splurge.


Another pin project I did this last week was the mind jar thing. These turned out pretty cool. I got these little containers at Joann fabrics, 6 of them for about $3. I used my hot glue gun to secure the lids on and closed. Definitely worked out better this time with the ultra fine glitter and I think you would just have to experiment with the amount of glue in the water, depending on how long you wanted it to take for it to settle. I timed my red one and it takes about 30-40 seconds for most of the glitter to fall to the bottom. That is actually about perfect for the length of a "time out" for Seth at this age, so if anything I might just use it like an egg timer - if and when I get serious about the whole time-out thing. I think he's still a little young to understand that but we'll see as time goes on.


Seth just started shaking his head "no" this week. He's been saying no for awhile but kind of randomly and without purpose. Now when you ask him a question he shakes his head I think regardless of what the answer really is. He's had this cough and a runny nose for about a week now and it's finally clearing up. Which means right on cue Eric and I are both feeling sick. Blech!

Tidbits

This weekend I made something from Pinterest - Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese!  A-Mazing!  If you like poppers you MUST MUST try this.  I got pre-sliced french bread, spread a little cream cheese on, used canned Ortega diced jalapenos, Tillamook cheddar and my dusty trusty panini press.  It was great with tomato soup.  Yum yum yum.  I didn't tell Eric the secret ingredient until after he took a bite and the look on his face was so gratifying.  I know he will request that one again.

Last night I also made homemade mac and cheese which was inspired by the crock pot mac and cheese that's been floating around Pinterest.  I had some veggies that needed to be used up so I threw in some pureed squash and added broccoli to my pasta while it was cooking.  Then just baked it for about 45 minutes.  I thought it was really good, but Eric wasn't a huge fan of the eggy-ness.  I think it would have been just fine without the egg so I might skip them next time.

Tomorrow will be the end of 3 weeks of exercising every day for 30 minutes.  Today I left the house at 6:45am and didn't get home until after 8pm.  Thankfully I had gotten up early and squeezed in a 20 minute yoga workout before I got in the shower.  Then tonight when I got home it was definitely too late to get my heart rate up much so I searched on You Tube for a short PM yoga routine and found this one, which was so good I ended up doing most of part 2 as well for a total of 24 minutes - yeah!

Speaking of yoga... has anyone ever seen this list of "potentially harmful and dangerous spiritual practices?"  That will make you stop and think.

This week Seth started saying "apple."  He obsessively signs "cracker" every chance he gets from the minute he wakes up until he lays down for bed.  I need to teach that boy some new signs!

Cannon Beach part 2 in pictures, mostly

This was the view from our balcony on the afternoon we arrived.

Saturday morning when Seth woke me up around 6:30am I had a k-i-l-l-e-r migraine.  I took him out to my mom, took my magic pillz and went back to bed for a bit.  When I got up this is what I found.

 Underneath the jacket he was also wearing his new rubber boots with his pajamas.  My mom said he found them and was pretty excited to put them on.  He stomped around the hotel room pretty proud of himself in those things.  Thank you Carter's outlet.

 Sunday we went over to Seaside to ride the carousel and go to the aquarium.  Along the way we stopped and watched the bumper cars for a bit while we waited for Seth's first Pronto Pup (corn dog).  He really enjoyed that.

Still a little young for the bumper cars.

I think Auntie Natalie had just as much fun as Seth did on the carousel.

Seth had a TON of fun out in the water.  He was laughing and giggling the whole time and every time I let go of him he went sprinting out to sea.  Then when the waves would come he would lose his balance and fall over and he totally didn't care, he loved it.  And the water was freezing!  It's hard to tell in the picture above but he is totally smiling from ear to ear. 

This puddle was left over from some kids' sand castle project, probably from the day before.  It was a muddy mess about the size of a plastic kiddie pool you'd have in your backyard.  And yes, Seth did fall face first right into the middle of it.  That was the end of our trip to Seaside.

Later that night when Seth woke up from his nap we took him down to the tide pools around haystack rock.  He wasn't really too excited about that whole business but once again was fascinated by the waves.  He liked wearing his boots I think until one big wave came and filled them up with water!  There were also some seagulls having a starfish buffet and Seth thought that was pretty interesting too.

Looking at the starfish and mussels at Haystack rock.

Classic Seth picture, I think he was making a seagull sound. 

Probably one of my favorite pictures of the trip...

So that's basically it.  I might consider writing more but Blogger is really irritating me right now.  Heaven forbid you upload your photos in the wrong freaking order, jeez louise!!  Is it time to migrate?