Not So Sure About This. . .

We are in the thick of kid sports right now. Marcus and Caleb are playing soccer and Sheridan is in a Track and Field club. So, Wednesdays, Marcus has a soccer game (anytime from 4:30-6:30, usually at the nearby Jr. High), and Sheridan has Track practice from 5-6:30. Thursdays, Caleb has his games (again, between 4:30-6:30), Sheridan has cub scouts at 4:30 and Marcus now has cub scouts at 7. Then on Saturdays, Sheridan has track again from 8-9:30, and both Caleb and Marcus have soccer games, anytime between 9 and noon. Sheridan's track club runs though June, but soccer finishes up at the end of this month (yea!).

The big boys are generally enjoying their sports--Sheridan is pretty intense about his, and Marcus is certainly a lot more of an asset than when he played soccer in 1st grade. Then there's Caleb. I normally wouldn't have thought of having him play a team sport at this age, but he's not in preschool, and there are simply NO children around that are his age. So most of his interaction with other kids is with his brothers' friends. When we talked to the big boys about what they wanted to be involved in this Spring, Caleb got all excited about soccer, so we decided to give him a chance to do something on his own--without his brothers involved. He plays on a pre-K/K team, and they play on much smaller fields, with smaller goals, no goalies, and only 4 players per team at a time. They spend the first half of the hour running drills with the kids and then play an abbreviated game for the last 30 minutes or so. It certainly seems like an appropriate set up for kids this age--with attention spans to match.

So far, Guy has taken him to most of his games, and I've gone to two. At the first one (it was his second game), he was determined to pretend to be a cute little puppy, so ran around much of the time taking micro steps, with his hands in front of him (paws), and his tongue hanging out. At that game when he took a break he asked if he could just go home and play with legos. The next game I went to with him, he had the running thing down, but his interesting tactic was to run in very large circles around the field, regardless of where the ball was. He told me he liked running around the goals best. Sigh. It's a learning experience for all of us. After each game, he says he's having fun. If that's really the case (and not just what he's saying because he thinks that's what I want to hear), then the rest doesn't matter. He is, naturally, the cutest one on the field and that's what's most important, right :-).

Of Hospitals, Helicopters, MRI's (and Bills)

So, I think that we have received all of the bills for Mitchell's trip to the hospital, including the follow-up MRI he had on March 19th. I spent a little time this morning adding it all up and I reached a total of $25,291.34. The most surprising charge to me was the lifeflight. Based on my sister, Marenda's experience with her newborn son being transferred from one hospital to another (less than 5 miles apart) in an ambulance, I expected the helicopter (the bill states it travelled 38 miles) to cost $15-20,000. It actually came it at $8,929.65. Much cheaper than I'd expected, but still one pricey flight.

Other interesting amounts:

• The stay at Primary Children's (w/out doctors' fees) came to almost as much as the helicopter ride.
• The Brain CT came in at $482.12
• One dose of the medicine to stop the seizure--$162.80
• MRI (including sedation and having the Dr. read the results)--$2,690.60
• Having Insurance pay off the bulk of all these bills--Priceless! (Well, not actually priceless since we do pay every month to have the coverage, but I couldn't resist).

On a very mercenary note, I'm really glad this happened fairly early in the calendar year because we've met our out-of-pocket maximum for Mitchell, which means the insurance will cover 100% of any other medical expenses he incurs in 2008--not that I'm wishing to HAVE any more medical expenses, but it would really have been frustrating if this had all happened, say, the last week of December and then we'd have to pay for the follow-ups in January.

There is one more big medical bill we'll have for Mitchell this year--another follow-up MRI. On the 19th of March, M and I went back to Primary Children's for an MRI just to follow-up and make sure nothing was wrong. M had been acting so great that I really hadn't given this procedure much thought, and fully expected to get a result of "everything looks great." It was a challenging day for several reasons. When the Nurse called the day before the procedure to get M's medical history, etc., she indicated that his MRI was scheduled for 9:30 am instead of the 10:15 time we'd had written on our discharge papers from the hospital. I arranged to drop Caleb off at Marenda's earlier and we arrived right on time for our 9:30 appointment.

(I do have to pause here and tell how I was completely unprepared for the emotionality I experienced just walking through the doors of the hospital. I felt so foolish, but it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears because I felt all the emotions of those days we spent there, just come rushing back to me--almost like they'd been waiting for me at that revolving door, and the minute I came through, they landed on me.)

Back to the story: While I was filling out papers, a very nice tech came and politely told me I was quite early for my 10:15 appointment. I explained what had happened, and after checking some things out, she told me they'd do their best to get M in as soon as possible. I'm not quite sure how it ended up working out, but I think one child who was supposed to go before us was late, so we did get bumped up a little. (Keep in mind, that M had to have IV sedation for this procedure which meant he'd not had any food since the night before so I appreciated anything they could do to speed up the process.)

After the scan was over, I was sitting by M's bed waiting for him to wake up when the Dr. who reads the scans came out to talk to me. He began by saying, "Well, we didn't find any tumors or bleeding or any really bad stuff." His tone and everything else made my heart stop waiting for the "but." He indicated that they had noticed (and I think these were his words) "some patchiness in the white matter of the brain." "Ok," I said, calmly while my brain was screaming, "WHAT?! There are holes in my baby's brain!" He indicated that it looks like what they see in patients with MS, but since children don't get MS, he didn't think that was it. After discussing the seizure with me he said that it his best guess would be that the virus M had actually caused inflammation in this part of the brain, which caused the brain to seize. The "patchiness" he guessed was the aftermath of that inflammation. Then he told me they'd need to see him back after his 2nd birthday, when, if his guess is right, the results should be pretty much normal. In the mean time he told me not to spend too much time worrying about it and went away.

It was certainly not the result I'd wanted or been expecting, so it took me several days to kind of be "ok" with it all. Naturally, I went home and googled "white brain matter" but many of the hits were dealing with child abuse, or "traumatic brain injury" so I didn't search too far. What I did find out, though, bodes well for Mitchell. From what I understand, the white matter is in the "core" of the brain, and it is where the connections between different parts of the gray matter are formed. Unlike gray matter damage, white matter damage (especially in children) generally heals very well--they simply grow new connections. From everything I've observed in Mitchell, it doesn't seem that he has any lasting effects from the seizure so this is probably nothing to worry about. But until October, there is still a small, back of my thoughts, lingering concern.

So, my answer to all this (I felt like I needed to take some action just to make me feel better) is that I'm going to be germ-phobic for a little while. Mitchell is now 18 months, but I don't plan to send him to nursery until I feel like children are generally healthier. I've also stopped going to my Book of Mormon class because of the same reason--the nursery. Unfortunately, I'm not sure it's working because M is sick even now. His nose has been running like crazy and he started on antibiotics yesterday for an ear infection. He's not nearly as cheerful during the day and I'm not sleeping that well at night because I keep startling awake with irrational fears about his well-being (and having the monitor right by my ear isn't that much of a comfort--if he's quiet, I worry he's too quiet. If he's coughing, I hold my breath until it calms down). I am really really ready for warm weather and well children (not that they necessarily are related, but they both should do wonders to improve my mood:-).

My Version of "Simple"?

For Marcus's treasure hunt, I came up with the idea to give him instructions and legos to build a block that would then tell him the hiding place of the next set of legos and instructions. When he had all four blocks built, he'd put them together to reveal the final hiding place (where his presents were hidden) written in studs on the top (yes, I know, but it really did seem simple at the time). We used a program you can downloard from Lego.com called Lego Digital Designer that lets you "build" a model on the computer. Then you can print out instructions, and even order your creation from Lego.

So, in reality, each block took way too many legos to build, the instructions ended up as mini-books, and I was short on time, so we only made three blocks. Even so, the treasure hunt took Marcus and his helpers quite a while to complete. I still think it's a cool idea, but it didn't come off quite as I had envisioned.

*Incidentally, the three Legos on top of the "TUB" block were not part of my original design, but one of the boys decided they should be there.

Marcus Turns 8!

March 15-16, 2008 By the time we were done celebrating, Marcus decided that having a birthday on a Sunday is pretty cool because his parties were spread over two days. On Saturday afternoon (top pic), Guy took Sheridan, Aaron Drennan, Marcus, Liam Vincent, Caleb and Drake (Aaron and Liam are school friends) to the IMAX movie Sea Monsters at Thanksgiving Point and the boys got to choose something small from the gift shop as well (Mitchell and I went to IKEA). Then on Sunday afternoon, family came over for dinner, treasure hunt and cake.

A word about the cake: It just goes to show my state of mind lately, but I made Marcus's chocolate cake from scratch and didn't realize, until it came out of the oven, that I had erroneously omitted the baking soda (or was it powder? I can't recall). Naturally, there wasn't enough time, or baking cocoa left to make another cake, so we called it "Brownie Cake" and pretended it was good anyway. Then there was the decorating. I've long wanted to do a lego cake because I thought they looked relatively simple. Most versions I've seen use cupcakes for the lego studs, but I found this idea http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/recipe.aspx?recipeId=40759 and thought it looked much better, using marshmallows cut in half for the studs. One suggestion I read mentioned using toothpicks to hold the marshmallows while you frost them, then putting them on the cake. From my experience that really just doesn't work. At any rate, Marcus's birthday cake was not one of my favorites.

One thing that did work out well (If I do say so myself) was Marcus's birthday sign. If you look closely, you can see that I inserted pictures of Marcus's face into lego scenes I downloaded from the Lego website. I got a kick out of seeing Marcus's reaction as he recognized himself as a minifigure.

"Boldly Going Where. . .

No One But Laundry Has Gone Before." March 12,2008 Mitchell was following me around upstairs while I did some chores (including folding laundry). At one point, I turned around and he wasn't with me. This was where I found him. He was quite pleased with himself.

In other Mitchell antics, I was flipping channels last night and he got very excited about both Lawrence Welk and the BYU Ballroom Dance Concert (on the BYU cable channel). Since I had the controls, I chose the Dance Concert for him to watch. He was in his chair eating and got a bit distressed if anyone blocked his view of the TV. Later, after Guy got home from the Priesthood Session of Conference, we put on a DVD and Mitchell let us know he didn't appreciate us turning off his show.

The Mitchell Gallery

March 2008 For the most part, once Mitchell recovered from the flu and his stay in the hospital, he has been just a delightful boy to have around. He is very busy "doing" and laughs easily. The third picture was taken the day Mitchell figured out that he can pull the flour bucket out from under the sink and use it as a stool to get to many of those places that have been off-limits. He did actually touch a hot pot on the stove, and I'm hopefull that the minor burn he sustained made enough of an impression to keep him from exploring there again.
The last picture is Mitchell with his beloved "Sleepy Bear." Mitchell loves Sleepy Bear's ears and tail which he rubs against his nose for comfort. Go figure.

Marcusalot

March 14, 2008 Marcus's class put on a performance of The Legend of King Arthur and Marcus got to be Sir Lancelot. For his costume he was mostly able to use Caleb's knight costume from Halloween, but I did make a new tunic and shield. As you can see, the play wasn't memorized, and they performed it on the reading loft out in the hallway between classrooms. It was pretty crowded and Mitchell kept wanting to run, so this was the only picture I managed to get. Marcus's favorite part was when he fought the Black Knight (his buddy, Liam).

Blogging Funk . . . And Some Cute Kid Stuff.

Maybe it's because I feel really behind on blogging, or because I've been really exhausted the last few weeks, or maybe I can blame it on our very reluctant Spring weather here (there were some piles of snow next to the fields at Caleb's soccer game yesterday--just wrong), but I've just been reluctant to blog much. I've got lots I need to record (Easter, Marcus's birthday and baptism, and lots of pics of Mitchell--we went on a bit of a photo binge after his hospital stay last month), but I've also got children in PJ's, a messy house, a yard to weed, a song to prepare for a church meeting in a week, laundry to fold, music to finish organizing, Pinewood Derby to plan, and I should take the boys to the library today, so I'm starting with something simple. . .

I was going through my two shelves of music, trying to sort, organize and get it all put away neatly in my new music cabinet (that I've had for over a month now) to make room for the stacks of books on the floor in Guy's office, when I found a spiral notebook that mostly contained notes from Sheridan's piano lessons just before we moved here. On some of the last pages of the notebook, I had jotted down some "kid-funnies" from April and May of 2004. I'm not sure if I have them recorded anywhere else, and I thought some were funny enough to share.

4-26-04: We're trying to get to bed
Guy: "Prayer time."
Sheridan (age 6): "I'm tired."
Guy playing Devil's advocate: "Why don't we all go to bed and forget about prayer?"
Sheridan (alarmed): "No, because then we'll be on the wide and wiggly path!"*

5-2004: We were reading in Mosiah about how the people of Limhi had to give 1/2 of all they had to the Lamanites. We were trying to help the boys understand this concept, so we said it would be like them having to give half their toys and belongings. Marcus (age 4), smiled and said, "I want to be a Lamanite! Because then Sheridan has to give me 1/2 of his Bionicles, 1/2 of his stuffed animals, and 1 of our cats!"

5-2004: For Family Home Evening, Sheridan had the special number and decided to demonstrate how well he sleeps (no, I don't mean that he fell asleep, I mean that he gave a demonstration of his talent for sleeping. It was riveting!).

5-12-2004: Marcus got himself dressed in blue and yellow shorts and found a long sleeved shirt with the same colors on it. He proudly walking into my room and announced, "Look Mom, I rhymed!"

******

More Recently:

3-19-08: Caleb has long been obsessed with getting a dog (though I think they actually scare him a bit). Caleb and I were driving in the car when he told me, "When I grow up I want to be a dog feeder and build a dog house and buy a bone for the dog. But I don't know if I'll have enough money to buy the bone."

3-27-08: Marcus said the blessing on the food with his unique touch. "Please bless the food, even the stuff that's already processing inside of us."

__________________
* Instead of the "straight and narrow," naturally.


Posts with pictures to come. . .eventually.

Blurry Action Shots

Top: Marcus; Bottom: Sheridan (who knows he's being photographed:-)

More Sledding

From top to bottom: 1) Marcus takes a break so I can get a picture. 2) Sheridan gets ready to go down the steep hill. The snow was really icy and the boys really went fast. I was just very relieved they didn't hit any of the jumps people had built. Those jumps looked like bone-breakers to me. 3) Looking out over the bowl of Rock Canyon Park at the sunset. 4) Caleb and Marcus hike back up the hill under the rising moon. It was a beautiful night.