Visiting Teaching and Throw-up = Memories Made

Kevin had his fun and Kherington was not to be left out...she got sick, but not nearly as bad/scary as Kevin's seizure.

We had some friends over for lunch/playing right after school.  They left, Kevin was already down for nap time and Kherington had what I like to call 'quiet movie time'.  She can watch a movie but has to be quiet :).  All was well.

I was going visiting teaching so we pulled Kevin out of bed (he woke up happy) and got both the kids in the car.  Kherington fell asleep on the drive over.  Not a huge shocker.  I woke her up when we got to our destination and we went inside and up to the playroom.  She wasn't acting like her normal self.  She went potty on her own while I was chatting.  Then came back and laid on the floor complaining about her tummy.  It might be a bad habit, but for he most part when my kids whine I try to ignore them keep doing what I'm doing.  Finally, I knelt down and scooped her up.  I had almost got her head over my shoulder and she threw up...in her hair, all down my front and back, in my purse (which was unzipped and on my shoulder), and on the rug.  I had to stand straight up without moving my feet so I didn't step in any of the throw up which was a challenge in itself.  The shower room was just down the hall so I took her there...we were both cover in throw-up and just our luck, there was a HUGE spider chilling in the bathtub.  It was so big it looked fake.  Our friend killed it for us and we got Kherington undressed and into the tub.

This wasn't exactly the visiting teaching experience I was going for.  Then Kevin was whining so much that I put him in the tub also.  They were happy, so I went to pull out the lesson from my purse...well, it was covered in throw-up.  Haha.  This just keeps getting better.  No worries, our friend took a couple pictures of this whole experience.  Oh the joy of making memories :).  We'll see if she ever lets me come back to visit.

In the end, Kherington ended up having more stuff come out both ends before we left.  Luckily she was fine on the drive home.  The rest of the day she's just been laying around watching movies and occasionally throwing up her lemon lime soda.

I'm hoping we didn't give any of our lunchtime friends the flu and that now that each kid has had their sickness for the year we can be done until next year

ER visit #4 (Kevin's Febrile Seizure)

We have now been to the ER 4 times. Once at Edith Cavell for Kevin's high fever when he was only a couple weeks old (I deliver him at Edith Cavell which is why we took him there).  Then Saint-Luc is closer to us so we went once for Ryan's kidney stone, once for Kherington's weekend ear infection and now once for Kevin's seizure.

Yeah, that's right, I said seizure.  It was pretty scary.  Here's the details:

Kevin woke up a little warm and had been teething so Ryan gave him some Tylenol before he left for work.  We met up with some friends at the nearby sand park.  The kids played for awhile like normal.  Then a school group (well, daycare since it was a holiday) showed up.  Kevin was at the bottom of a tunnel slide and a much older kid came barreling down and the collided.  He was okay enough to cry his way across the playground to me.  After that he was pretty cuddly.  He just wanted to be held (not normal Kevin at all).  When he did get down he wanted me to go with him.  Not his normal self, but understandable considering the collision and teething.

We stayed at the park for a good 4 hours (the rain held out for the most part).  When we got home both kids were exhausted so we all climbed in my bed for a nap.  I had my arm around Kevin.  He was sleeping next to me and I was getting a couple things done on my laptop.  He kept jerking out of his sleep then going right back to sleep.  Then suddenly his body stiffened and he started shaking.  His eyelids were half opened, with his eyeballs rolled back and shaking too.  Seizure are pretty scary and even more so when you're holding the person who's having it and have no idea what is going on.  I scooped him up and sat on the edge of the bed holding him, then walked down the hall and sat on the couch trying to think of what to do.  He finally stopped, lay still for a second then groggily opened his eyes.  I called Ryan and told him to get home.  I wasn't sure what to do so I gave him a couple spoonfuls of yogurt (maybe not the brightest move...I'm not sure why, but I did) and some infant ibuprofen.  I kept him awake even though he just wanted to cuddle up and go back to sleep.  Ryan got home, I woke Kherington up, grabbed our passports and Kevin's health info book and we hurried to the hospital.  Ryan went in with Kevin while I did the paperwork.  One of the first things the lady said to me was that I should have called an ambulance and if there was a next time that's what I should do.  Not exactly what I needed to hear at the time...and it didn't help that I couldn't even think of what number I would have called...for anyone reading in Belgium you would call 100 for an ambulance.

I switched with Ryan and he took Kherington out to the waiting room (no kids allowed in the ER area).  They hooked up an IV to his hand, drew blood, took a urine sample and had me give him a syringe of medicine...and all this while the young doctor (that's what he called himself...pretty much not a nurse but the doctor's assistant) was asking me questions in broken English.  They said it would take an hour get results.  The normal doctor came in and told me they weren't very worried about Kevin since he had a temperature when he had the seizure.

I passed the message on to Ryan who said he would drop Kherington off at someones house and come back.  I didn't realize how literally he meant that.  When he came back I asked where he took her and he responded, "It worked out perfectly.  I had just gotten Kherington out of the car with her stuff and was knocking on the door when they pulled into the drive way."  I was like, "You called on your way over, right."  Nope.  I am very very thankful to have friends (and new friends at that...they've only been here a month) who will take our kids at the drop of a hat.  The mom took Kherington and sent Ryan with some food (best chicken skewer ever, grapes and water...all of which came in handy at the hospital).

Ryan got back.  In total we waited 2.5 hours for the results...not the 1 hour we were told.  While we were waiting for the results, Kevin decided he was done with the little stickers they put on to hook him up to the monitoring machine and peel them off himself.  He was tired (he cried a lot when they were poking and prodding him and crying makes you even more tired) and wanted to leave but other than that beginning to be normal Kevin again.

Everything was fine.  They said he had a very very very minor viral infection.  I also learned that the seizure was a Febrile seizure that is cause from a spike in temperature.  So it's not so much how high the temperature is, but how fast it goes up.  There is no long term damage associated with this kind of seizure and they are fairly common in toddlers.  A friend told me to think of the seizure as the body resetting itself.  Much scarier for me than for him.

After they told us the results, they said the hospital needed to keep him for 24 hours (overnight), they were cleaning a room for us and someone would be down to take us up.  Well, 2.5 hours later someone finally came.  Let me tell you, Kevin felt fine at this point and just wanted to leave.  He had his shoes and socks on and was wandering the halls trying to find the exit.

When we finally did get up to the room, it was huge and had an awesome view of Brussels...I could even see the Atonium in the distance.  Kevin and I watched the cars for awhile which he loved.  Ryan had left to get things for staying overnight.  He is pretty awesome and had no problem staying with Kevin (side note - I don't like hospital.  I can deal fine with a lot of things, but medical problems are not my strong suit because I don't understand anything and feel so helpless.  I really didn't want to stay and am thankful that Ryan didn't have problem with it).  I'm not sure what happen in the US, but one parent stays if a kid has to stay overnight.

I went to pick Kherington up.  We hadn't even gotten out of the driveway and Kherington was asking when she could go back to play (you think she missed us?).  While we'd been at the hospital she got to run wild with 3 little boys at an amazing house with a huge yard an new toys, go to one of the boys soccer practice and run around there, have spaghetti and chips for dinner and stay up late watching the Octonauts.  I'm definitely not as fun as exciting as they are...maybe they'll rub off on me :).

Back at the hospital, Kevin got hooked up to some fluids for the night.  During the night he pulled out the IV....I guess he was really done.  They didn't make him put it back in.  Ryan and him wandered the halls from 2am - 4am, facetimed with family and Kevin downed the entire container of grapes (only food he'd eaten).  By 11am the next morning Ryan called to tell me I could come pick them up.

If you saw Kevin that day you would never have known anything had happened.  I am very thankful that everything is okay.  I hope it never happens again.  On the bright side, Ryan, Kherington and Kevin are all in the system at the Saint-Luc hospital if anything else does happen.

Football Funday and No Car Sunday

Some awesome new friends invited us to watch a football at the American School.  After some tasty sandwich's at their place we headed over to the school.  They have 3 little boys.  I love watching Kevin play with other boys and with them I feel like he just fits right in :).  The kids had a fun time dancing to the band's music and running around barefoot (no dogs allowed = no poo to watch out for).  At one point Kevin snatch one of the boy's hats...a UW hat.  Got me thinking maybe I should order some kid size hat for him.

We've had a couple new families move in recently all of which have primary age kids and we are loving it!

Here they are getting their groove on to the band:

Sunday was no car Sunday for Brussels. Ryan had woke up at 4 to watch the BYU game with a friend so he drove to church for his meetings (the church is literally across the street from the border of the no-car zone).  The kids and I walked up to the tram and rode that in.  We ended up meeting up with some other families on the tram which made it more fun.  I came prepared with suckers...we had to wait 10-15 minutes for the tram (we were extra early) and those kept the kids entertained the entire time.  After church we stuck around til after Ryan's meetings were done so he could tram it home with us.  Here he is with the little munchkins:

"There's a Monkey in my Bed"

Ryan had already put the kids to bed, Kherington came running out of her room saying, "There's a monkey in my bed!"  We peeked in and found this:

Kevin is a pretty good climber.  Naturally we took him down, grabbed the camera and recorded how he was able to get his tiny self up onto the top bunk...then rearranged the room so it was no longer possible :).

Kevin also got his last set of shots until he turns 5!  We were about 15 minutes late to the appointment (I forgot about it until it was actually the appointment time).  We walked into the waiting room just as the doctor was walking out to get us.  Whew!  I got Kevin stripped down and was not happy.  He just clung to me (like Kherington did a while ago).  It made it extra difficult to get accurate stats, but here's what the doctor said:

17 months old
Weight: 10 kilos
Height: 81cm (31.9 inches)
Head: 48cm (18.9 inches)
*the weight is very rough - he wouldn't let go of me and stay on the scale, so I would think he actually weighs a tiny bit more

Brussels Comic Book Balloon Festival

The beautiful weather has continued into September.  I could really get used to this.  We didn't make plans this weekend since we thought Ryan would have to work (it's his busy season through Sept 15th).  We were pleasantly surprised that he wouldn't need to (instead next week will be all late hours).  With no plans, Ryan jumped online to see what was going on around here.  Lucky for us it was the comic book balloon festival!  After a let down at the hot air balloon festival (we didn't see any hot air balloons there) this one was great!

We jumped on the bus and took it downtown.  Both kids fell asleep on the bus, so when we got to our stop both Ryan and I were thinking, 'why are we doing this?'  We found some grass in Brussels downtown park and chilled for a bit.  Kherington woke up when we sat down and chowed down on Cheetos (she loves them just as much as I do).

We started our wandering by going through the comic book tents.  We found Smurfs, Tin Tin, and a bunch of other ones that I wasn't very familiar with.

Walking out of the tents as the first time the kids could see the huge balloons and we were standing right under them!  Kherington had been begging for ice cream, but instead we found that they were handing out free pudding cups. Perfect!  Then the marching bands started marching right under the balloons next to us through the crowd plans songs like the JAG theme song.  I also was able to snap this sweet picture of them filling up the balloon on the truck.  Kinda interesting.

Before the parade started, we found one more sample, a coloring wall, free balloons for both kids and free face painting.  Kherington has never been into the face painting, but this time she requested to paint her arm.  She got a smurf print.  If was fun to watch all the kids squeeze up around her as she was getting it done.  She liked it for about 20 minutes then wanted to wash it off.

With just a little more time to kill, we found some more grass...and both kids loved having their daddy there to sit on.  Better yet, I loved having their daddy there so I didn't get sat on :).

We found a wall to climb up behind for the actual parade so it was like having front row seats.  The parade was the perfect length for the kids (short).  The loved the music and the balloons...oh and look closely...do you see a balloon you definitely would not see in a parade in the US?  Yeah, the Manneken Pis in gigantic balloon form.

We walk a little bit to get on a different less crowed bus home.  Then made a pit stop at the park near our house to finish off the day.  Just a nice relaxing fun day :).

Ryan's 29th

Ryan's birthday was on a Tuesday this year.  Kherington and I made breakfast in bed for him (we had to send him back to bed though).  Aside from that, we decided to celebrate on Friday instead because Tuesday night he plays basketball.

For dinner he requested bacon hamburgers (tough guy to please...well, come to think of it I did burn the first half of the bacon).  The kids helped me do a quick decorating job.  Kherington is pretty good at the noise makes, but Kevin, uh, not so much.  I think he tore apart 3 of them.  He would see Kherington blow on hers and it would make noise and blow out.  So he'd try to do the same, but didn't get any noise and it would blow out.  So instead he'd pull at the bottom to make it straight...pull too hard and it breaks :).  They also really enjoy the balloon sticks (kinda like swords).  Anyways, back to Ryan. 

For dessert we had a failed attempt at a marshmallow fluff shake.  I couldn't get the cream to set up into stiff peaks and we only have a food processor (no blender).  They looked nothing like the picture online, but they tasted decent...until they got knocked onto the floor.  Kids.  It'll be a good day when we're back in the land of blizzards. 

After our failed attempt at dessert, we broke out the stuff to make Caramel Apple Spice (we bought the syrup from at Starbucks).  Well, I didn't realize how low I was on spray cream.  Yet another fail.  The rest of the drink tasted good though.

Even with all the failed attempts we had a fun time celebrating.  Ryan is an awesome daddy (and probably Kherington's favorite person on this planet).  He always takes time to roughhouse with the kids, read them stories and jump on the trampoline PLUS he does tons of household chores.  He's a keeper :).

First Day of School 2012

Kherington started school again today!  She is still going half day (8:15am - 12:05pm) each day.

She woke up this morning not so happy.  She was having a dream and kept saying 'I want to go back.'  Which usually means she wants to go back to the park.  I had just finished my workout and was sweaty, but she wanted mom not dad.  So we cuddle for a little, then got some breakfast ready.  She went for mandarin oranges, the rest of her cinnamon roll the night before, a bran muffin and the juice from the canned oranges (with  a pink straw).  Of that, she only ate the oranges and a nibble of the bran muffin.

We set her clothes out the night before so when she finished her small breakfast we went and got her clothes to put on.  We were getting a little short on time but she really really really wanted her nails pained too.  So I told her if we could brush and put her hair up quickly I would do them.  Good thing it only takes a minute to painted her nails.

The drop off went awesome!  We all went (since I had planned on walking to the grocery store after).  She has the same teacher as last year (Madame Sandy).  When we got there she went right in, hung up her jacket, put her backpack in the cubbie, gave us all 'bisous' and went on in.  No tears, just happy as could be.

Kevin was super excited when we picked her up from school.  After they buzzed us in the gate, he ran to the door and got the biggest smile on his face when he found his sister.  We had some chocolate crecents on our walk home.  Pretty awesome first day of school!  Oh, and it look like all her English speaking friends from last year are gone, but there are a couple new Indian kids who speak English so  I'm pretty excited about that.

After school we had lunch (crepes and corn), Kevin went down for nap, I did some blogging and Kherington had quite move.  And the best part of it is that quite movie has returned to nap time!  I love that school totally wipes her out.  That way both kids nap together then can play the rest of the afternoon.  Pretty sweet deal :).