Cream of Potato Soup

This morning we took Ev to his pediatrician's office to get his stitches out. They didn't knock him out for this, so it was a little trickier than putting them in! The first doctor came in with a med student to assist, but she couldn't get it. Three of us were holding Evan down on the table while she made her attempts, but he was screaming bloody murder so it made the whole thing almost impossible.

Another doctor came in next and suggested that Mike and I sit side by side, with me holding Evan's body and Mike holding his head still. This worked better, and though Ev screamed, the good doctor was able to cut and pull all three stitches out. Thank you, Dr. Leung.

I hope we don't have to do that again for a very, very long time.

Posted by jenny at 03:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while, but since two people mentioned tomorrow's trip to Pittsburgh to me this afternoon, I figured I better tell the tale.

Yeah, we're all done with our therapy in Pittsburgh. Last week was our last week--but we didn't know it until we got down there for our appointment. It turns out that the 12 visits had to be completed by July 28th (today), so the two visits we missed and an extra one just kind of went out the window.

I'm not really thrilled with the way Evan's therapy was handled down there. The therapists were great, and did a great job with Ev, but the communication sucked. Somehow the therapists didn't know until two weeks ago that we were only on a 12 week program. And they said things like, "If we had known you were paying for this out of pocket, we would have done things differently." I'm not sure what that means, but whatever. I am writing a letter to express my displeasure at the way things worked out for us. I had much higher hopes for the entire experience, given our travel and expense.

In other therapy news, we're increasing our home visits starting next week. He currently sees his SLP once a week and his teacher twice a month, but now he'll be getting his SLP twice a week and his teacher once a week. I'm excited about this--I think more frequent visits of shorter duration will help us to get more accomplished. We only have five more months before Evan gets discharged from therapy, and we have a lot of catching up to do.

Posted by jenny at 07:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Having a little boy is never dull, and to prove that, we ended a perfectly quiet and lovely weekend at Hamot getting Evan his first stitches.

Sunday afternoon, we were in Erie at Mike's aunt's house. His parents had been watching Evan there while Mike and I spent Saturday night at a beach bonfire with my girlfriends and (most of) their husbands. It was a late night for us, so Ev stayed over with his grandparents and we went to pick him up after lunch on Sunday.

All was going well, we were visiting and taking it easy, just starting to get packed up to head home. Somehow Evan tripped or fell on the stairs up to the house from the sun room, and it was all over. He had a great big gash on his lip and I panicked when I saw all the blood. Luckily Mike's parents kind of took over, mopping Ev with paper towels and announcing that he needed stitches and we should head to the emergency room.

We got to Hamot a little after 3, but we weren't seen by the doctor until after 5:30. The two hours of waiting passed trying to amuse Evan by turning the water on in the sink, throwing paper towels in the wastebasket, and balancing a cup on my head. And of course, Daddy's fake burps. Once the doctor finally saw him though, things went a lot quicker.

Click for a bigger picture

He needed three stitches below his lip, and the doctor decided it would be best to put him under for that. So Evan was hooked up to the monitors for heart and breathing (eerily similar to the ones in the NICU) and given a shot that would put him in happy land for about half an hour. My biggest moment of panic was when they brought out the equipment to bag him in case he stopped breathing. I tried really hard not to start bawling.

The drug worked quickly, and in just a few minutes Ev was out to lunch and they were sewing up his face. That went fast too and then we just had to wait a few hours for him to fully wake up. He woke slowly, first opening his eyes a little, then making some small noises. We could tell he was confused about the way his lip felt--he kept poking at it because it was numb. Before long though, he began turning a bit in bed, and suddenly he was sitting up and trying to pull off all the monitor leads.

We got out of there a little after 8:30 and made the trip back home to Meadville. It was an exhausting afternoon for all of us, and we were glad to be home and in our beds. It was no fun for Evan to get hurt, and less fun for me and Mike to see him that way. We always want to protect him from everything bad, and it's hard when you can't. But we're all okay now, and just trying to keep Ev from picking at the stitches. It's going to be a long week.

Posted by jenny at 08:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I really have nothing of importance to say this week. It's humid, and we need to go swimming and play outside more. Too bad we've had thunderstorms every day. That's about it. Tomorrow's another trip to Pittsburgh (I've really had enough of those) and this weekend we'll be hanging out with friends from out of town. Yup, that's pretty much it. I will try to return in a few days with something of note.

Posted by jenny at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Some of you may remember that we took Evan's 2 year portraits in our very own living room "studio", due to the fact that he had a major meltdown at each of three professional appointments. It worked out okay in the end, aside from the fact that our 10" x 13" wall frame still holds a picture of an 18 month old, Hawaiian shirted Evan.

Not that that's a bad thing, but I thought it might be time for a change. I was also a tad embarrassed to take out my wallet to show off Evan's picture at my class reunion last week, only to have to explain, "He looks like that, only bigger". So yesterday, we went for our very first family picture.

We thought that going all together would help ease Ev back into getting photographed without too much trauma. And, believe it or not, we've never had a family picture taken! So after much primping and smoothing of hair, we headed up to Wal-Mart.

Our appointment was at 5:30, but when we got there, the Dirties were there in droves. Several very Dirty families had "walked in" for pictures, and were taking their sweet time getting the whole thing figured out. Long story short, we waited 45 minutes with an antsy two year old before we got so annoyed that one of us (and I won't name names) crumpled up our camera card and threw the pen across the portrait studio.

Of course we still had some shopping to do, so we completed that in about 15 minutes and went to check out. As we were leaving, we noticed that the Dirties were gone so we figured, what the hell, we'll give it a go. We gave the the girl our crumpled card and proceeded to let her make an idiot of herself trying to get Evan to look at the camera.

After about 5 minutes of trying, she snapped one picture. It's not the best one we've ever taken, but we're all looking at the camera and smiling, so that's the best we could have hoped for. We told her to bag the idea of trying for the "six additional poses"--Evan was already irritated and we weren't going to buy them anyway. But we got our family picture! We'll have it in two weeks. Leave me a comment if you want a copy.

Posted by jenny at 12:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Today was Hamot's NICU reunion at Waldameer. Held once every three years, it brings together nurses and hospital staff with NICU graduates (there have been almost 7,000 over the past 30 years) and their families. This one was our first (Evan was born a few months after the last one), and we were pretty excited to go.

The set up was pretty sweet--they had all of Rainbow Gardens (where we also had our senior prom!) filled with tables for lunch and refreshments. There were balloons and face painting inside, and a petting zoo and the DinoJump outside. There was even a "wall of fame" with pictures of former NICU kids from infancy through college. Imagine a 2 pound baby at his high school graduation--this really is a miracle.

We got to see Ev's nurses, and they all exclaimed over how big he's gotten. His primary nurse (or the one we saw most often) talked to us for a bit, and it was great to see her too. I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again--those nurses were so kind and so caring, and we'll never forget what they did for us. I still get teary sometimes thinking about how wonderful they were. The NICU was our universe for the first five weeks of Evan's life, and the people there will always hold a special place in my heart.

It was fun too to see all the babies and kids and teenagers running around, knowing that most of them were preemies also. It gives hope to us about Ev's future. I remarked to Mike that in most social situations, we're "different" in that we had such a difficult start with Evan. Most people don't even know what the NICU is, let alone have ever set foot in one. But every person in that room today knew, and had been through something like what we had been through. Everyone there was different too, and that made us smile. Sometimes still our experience makes us feel very alone, but today that was not a problem. We'll go back again in three years, when Evan is five, and do it all again.

Posted by jenny at 10:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I realize that title is so unfunny, but I could not resist.

So yesterday we bought Evan a potty. He's not showing many signs of potty use readiness--aside from the fact that he enjoys helping both me and Mike go to the bathroom, but that's mainly because he loves to flush the toilet. But I figured, what the hell, we'll just have it around for a while and see what he thinks of it.

When we got home from the store, I set the potty up in front of the TV (great spot, no?). Ev took an interest in it right away, but mainly just to open and close the lid. Soon we had to go out again to get haircuts and run some other errands, so we abandoned potty play. But when we got home in the evening, Ev decided he wanted to try this thing out.

With no prompting, he sat on it with his clothes on. I asked him if he wanted to take his pants off and he didn't object, so it was diapers down and bare butt on the potty chair. I thought he was being cute, imitating us, until he actually peed in the potty! He kept getting on and off of the seat, checking things out, getting a feel for it. We were so proud. We praised and exclaimed over the pee, and before too long he did it again! Hooray for Evan! Two pees on the potty the first time we tried it!

I think it may have been beginner's luck though, because after another 15 minutes or so of being pantsless, Evan decided to whiz on the couch. Oops. But I can't be mad. He really was trying to use the potty and he knew exactly what he was supposed to do with it. I just know it's going to be a few more months before he's ready to make a serious go at potty training. He is a boy, and he is only 2 1/2, so I think he has plenty of time to get the hang of this. I'm proud that he did this much already.

So we're not going to rush him, or force him to sit on it. For now, it's just there, and he can use it if he wants. I don't want to scare him or traumatize him, so we're going to take it nice and slow. I hope that's a good way to do it. I'm new at this, and so is he. I think we'll do okay. But as of today, he's got two stickers on his potty seat and miles more to go.

Posted by jenny at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've posted some nice pictures from this past 4th of July. Here's a link.

Posted by Mike at 03:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, I almost forgot to say congratulations to my little brother Steven. He and his girlfriend Stacey got engaged this past week! Very exciting news indeed. Their wedding is set for next June, and Evan is going to be a ring bearer! That's going to be a hoot! I can hardly wait to see Ev in a little suit or tux.

Posted by jenny at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oh, have we been busy. Mike and Evan spent some time in Ohio this past week, and Mommy spent some time with her old pals. We had a soggy but fun Fourth of July as a family though, and I'll post some new pictures soon.

This past weekend was our 10 year high school reunion. Mike opted out, but I went with my girlfriends (and a few husbands). It was weird, and a little lame, but we had so much fun. I was super nervous about going, but I really enjoyed myself. There were fewer people there than I had hoped (maybe 80 out of a class of 470?) but that was okay. I actually got to catch up with some people that I haven't seen in years, and got to spend some quality time with the girls that I have stayed in touch with.

I came away from the experience with a few thoughts:
1. High school was actually a pretty good time, and any bad stuff that happened (at least to me) has been mostly forgotten.
2. I went to school with some great people. Yeah, we had more than our share of jerks and snobs and weirdos, but for the most part, there were some really quality people in our class.
3. My old friends are hot. Seriously. Most of the girls I was friends with in school were cute, but now they are hot. The last ten years have made them more, I don't know, sophisticated? I was impressed with how good everyone looks.

In other news, Evan has taken a liking to my toothbrush. He wants nothing to do with his, but he loves mine. He walks around with it and brushes his teeth with it, then tries to brush mine. It's cute, if not a little annoying due to my disgust at the thought of sharing a toothbrush. I think I'll let him have that one and keep a secret one for myself in the medicine cabinet. At least he's interested in oral hygiene.

Posted by jenny at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)