Morning Update

If you haven't read about this latest Litwiller saga, read the post below first, then this one so it makes sense.

Matthew is doing much better this morning. They are planning to take out the IV today and he should come home this afternoon. He is on a bland diet and got pancakes for breakfast, which are his favorite. He got a good night's sleep and has not had more diarrehea. Rob is with him now, and I guess Matthew is not too sure he wants the IV out. He like the green bandage around it. :) I told Rob to have them put it back on him afterwards.

Ben, on the other hand, is coming down with this. Well, has already. He has thrown up four times in the last hour, but is already on the bile junk. Pray that it passes through his system quickly.

**sigh** No one is more thankful than I am that it's Friday.

Praise the Lord for IV's

If there is one thing that was always on my top ten list of things I hate, it's the IV. After this expereince with Matthew, it's now on my top ten list of things I'm thankful for. It has to be...it saved Matthew's life.

On Tuesday, Matthew woke up complaining of a stomach ache. Having not eaten much the night before, I figured he was just hungry. He did have a loose stool (in his pants...came on him suddenly) but he was acting okay. As the morning wore on, he got more and more lethargic and kept acting like he was in pain. I took him to the bathroom repeatedly in case he had more loose stool (which is most unusual...I've never really had to help him in the bathroom.) Finally, at about 10:30, he threw up (in the bathroom, thankfully!) From there on, he had a pattern of getting sick and sleeping. I tried giving him water at around 5:45pm, but he got rid of it by 6:30. Rob repeated giving him water later, but he got sick at 9:30. He slept pretty fitfully, but did sleep and did not get up except to pee around 1am.

On Wednesday, he woke up saying that he still felt the same as the day before. He wanted something to drink, so Rob gave him water and fixed him a piece of toast. I sat down at the table with him. He took one look at the toast, turned green, and expelled all of the water onto the toast. We got him to the couch and I called the doctor. We got him in at 9:45am and were told that he had a gastrointestinal virus. She checked him for influenza, but the test came back negative. At this point, he was already so weak that he had to be carried everywhere and fell asleep on command. Example: "Matthew, she's done taking your temperature. You can go to sleep." "Okay," and he was out.) We were told to either take him straight to the ER or go home and try giving him fluids to see if he'd keep them down. We opted to take him home so that he could get better rest and see if maybe the ordeal was all over with. Within 1 1/2 hours of coming home, he got sick again, so now we were preparing to head to the ER.

After making several phone calls and taking care of other business, we headed off around 2:30. I had a prenatal appontment at 2:45 (which I cancelled) and had a college girl coming over to watch the boys. When she arrived, we informed her of the change of plans. She told us she would stay as long as we needed her. Ben was napping, so we took off with Matthew. We were in the ER for 3 1/2 hours total. They checked him out, noting that he looked dehydrated. By this point, his eyes were sunken in and his skin was very yellow. He was also very lethargic, sleeping as often as he could. He did get up to pee while in the ER, which was the last time he has actually been to the potty to date. They did a blood test and discovered that he was far more dehydrated that they originally thought and decided to start an IV and admit him. They did try oral hydration, but the tests showed that that route would not work.

I had left at this point so our sitter could get to church and brought Ben back up with me. I kept getting told the wrong room number, but did eventually find them. Matthew was settled on the pediatric ward, looking very miserable on his bed. They took a picture of him (which I'll post later) for security reasons and rounds of nurses came in to monitor him. I brought supper up for Rob and I and we ate (while miserable Matthew looked on) and then Rob took Ben home. Rob was originally going to stay, but Matthew just wanted Mommy, so I stayed with him.

Shortly after 10pm, Matthew started groaning and rolling around in his bed. He complained of a stomach ache and I called a nurse in to help me get him to the bathroom. Too late...he had started his diarrehea. Thankfully, he was already in a diaper (having soiled himself in the ER) so the nurse just got me a stack of diapers. I'm glad, because I could not have ever gotten him to the bathroom in time. From 10:30 until around 6 or 7am, I changed him 15 times. Seven of those were within the same hour. He also threw up all of the apple juice they had given him (he no longer likes apple juice.) The attending doctor then put him on a Pedialyte only diet. He didn't want it (and who can blame him?). Until about 3am, he would groan, go potty, then sleep. By 3, he had settled down and slept hard, going potty and have diaper changes while he slept. I didn't get much sleep (I think the punishment for the person who designed that guest bed should be having to sleep on it!) but I'm glad I was there to keep him from getting a sore bottom.

Matthew slept well until 9:30 that morning. The doctor came in at seven and said he had a roto virus. He was very badly dehydrated and the IV fluids basically saved Matthew's life. I didn't realize until later when I looked all this up in a medical dictionary how very serious Matthew's condition was. I'm glad I didn't know, because I was taking everything in stride up to that point, just trusting that Matthew would be fine. Praise God that he is!

Matthew woke up feeling better and has been eating popsicles and Jell-O today. He tried a cracker but wasn't ready for it. He's chatting as usual (he corned a nurse for awhile), took a short walk down the hall, played with his new toys, read books, watched TV, played with every button on the bed including the one that calls the nurse, and bopped his balloon around. It's like seeing a totally different kid. He's still there tonight because of the diarrehea. He should be coming home tomorrow morning or early afternoon.

Praise the Lord for his goodness through all of this. For protecting us from the severity of the situation so we dealt with it better, for Ben being all smiles and cuddles and being so good with different sitters, for Rob being able to share the load, for a child who actually annoyed me tonight (Mommy? Mommy!), for nurses who care about him, for a doctor who is not eager to shove him out of the hospital, for guest food brought to the room (yummiest bacon ever!), and especially for that IV!!!

Matthew

I'll blog more about this experience later, but I just wanted to get out the word that Matthew was admitted to the hospital last night for severe dehydration. He has the roto (sp?) virus and had been vomiting since Tues. am. At last report, he was keeping down a popsicle, but only time will tell if he'll be well enough to come home today. He's very weak and tired from two-plus days of little eating and drinking, but he seems to be perking up some today. I'm going to nap soon since I was the one with him last night. Rob's there now. Please pray for him.

Funny from the Hubby

My husband amuses me often. He rarely shows his crazy sense of humor around other people, so I had to share this funny from him. He's currently putting together a tricycle that looks like Scoop from Bob the Builder. (It's Ben's birthday present--found it on clearance at Farm and Fleet!) Anyway, he's reading the directions aloud and it says "Adult assembly required." Rob replies, "Great. Now I have to assemble an adult."

Is it any wonder my kids are so silly??

Chocolate

Okay, for the three of you who don't like Hershey bars or arent' chocolate eaters (which is okay, as long as you have a vice to cling to) I have to explain why happiness is a Hershey bar. Several years ago, Hershey's had a commercial that said, "Happiness is a Hershey bar." I happen to be a great fan of plain milk chocolate (my favorite being See's candy bars...can't get that out here) so when my mom would ask what I wanted from the store, I would say, "Bring me some happiness" and she would come home with a Hershey bar for me. So, Hershey's for me is part memory and part yumminess. Their sugar free equivalent is actually pretty tolerable and does curb the chocolate beasty that lies within, but it's not as good.

Furthermore, they have proven that eating chocolate while pregnant makes for happier babies. When I was pregnant with Ben, I stopped eating the sugar free stuff and "snuck" smaller quantities of the regular stuff at off-testing times. I did not want an artifically happy baby :)

So, for those of you who don't eat chocolate and had very cranky babies (R.D.) that was your problem. :)

Happiness is.....

.....a Hershey bar. A regular kind, not that sugar free junk I've been eating.

.....knowing that my student loans are finally paid off, almost 11 years after graduating from Cedarville.

.....going out to Culver's to celebrate paying off the loan!

.....my little guy getting excited to see Mommy when I picked him up from the nursery tonight.

.....having my little man be such a big helper around the house by putting away his and Ben's laundry, picking up after himself, and praying with Ben so they could eat lunch while I finished in the kitchen.

.....having Matthew pray over my foot so it will feel better.

.....getting my stamp order tonight so I can make thank-you cards and work on new projects.

.....getting out of the house, even if it meant working with the adorable three-year-olds in Tiny Trackers.

.....having my husband come home, no matter how little time he spends here. :)

.....watching my husband play with the boys today.

.....listening to a first time pregnant mommy chatter about her pregnancy.

.....finding out my husband found a sitter so we can have a lunch date on Saturday.

.....remembering that "in whatsoever state I am, I will be content."

Housebound

Today, just as Rob was getting ready to warm up the car, we got the call that church had been cancelled. As an officer of the Ladies Missionary Fellowship, I did my duty calling around to my list of church members with the news. I caught one family that was already half-way there! Apparently, the police told our pastor that they wanted as few people on the roads as possible. Tonight was cancelled as well.

Why the cancellations? Well, we had ice last night. Lots of it. It rained and froze everywhere. Then it snowed this afternoon after freezing more of the rain. Not good driving conditions. Rob and our neighbor (who is a prof at MBBC) weren't even sure if there will be school tomorrow. Rob went out to shovel off as much slush as he could so there would be less ice on our sidewalks, but within ten minutes, the puddles would reform. It's just yucky out there.

So, we stayed indoors and had a relatively pleasant day together. The kids watched and discussed a Veggie Tale for Sunday school, Rob and I played lots of card games, I made meatloaf for lunch (and tested well on it!), we made chocolate-covered pretzels with sprinkles tonight for a snack, and had a pretty good day. The boys were going crazy about an hour ago, so they were put to bed a tad earlier than usual. I think they're just tired of being cooped up. I think I'm going to have to be creative tomorrow and keep them occupied, because I doubt we're going anywhere.

We're supposed to have more snow tonight, so we'll see what happens. Watertown has already used over half of it's snow removal budget for the year (and that was in January) and are already using more sand than salt. They are also concentrating on problem areas more than sanding everything. According to the Watertown Daily Times, they expect people to just drive safe on the snow. I guess they can't help it that the weather has been so bad!

Anyway, that's the scoop from here. I still love the snow and all, but even I had a case of the blahs on Friday. What I really need is my stamp order to come in so I can work on cards.......

Random Moments

I love it when my kids (and husband) catch me completely off guard. Anyone who has spent five minutes with me knows that I love to laugh, and my family provides me with an endless source of amusement.

Yesterday, I was sitting at the dining room table working on an order form. Ben ran in, excited, and said, "I had gas!" Then he ran back to the living room. I guess it was an important piece of info to "pass" on.

Today at breakfast, Matthew was trying to get Rob's attention, who was trying to finish telling me a story. We have been teaching Matthew that he needs to wait until someone is finished talking instead of interrupting, but I guess that whatever he had to say couldn't wait. Rob continued to ignore him, and Matthew in his frustration with Daddy, growled at him, breathed heavily, and tried again. Couldn't help it....that was a great laugh!

Happy Valentime's Day

(Nope....I didn't misspell Valentine's...that's how Matthew says it!) We had a nice day around here, although Rob and I didn't see much of each other. We've never really made a big deal out of Valentine's Day anyway, so neither of us feel like we missed much. It's our six month anniversary, so that's kind of more important anyway.

We did do a few things for each other in honor of the day. Rob made me a bone folder and a card. It's a card out of wood with a carved heart on it and it has a hinge. I have another one he made for Mother's Day and I think it's hilarious. It's rather cost effective, as all he has to do is change the insert every year. I told him I expect one for my birthday with a pumpkin on it. I gave him a bag of Ghiradelli 60% dark chocolates and a Skip Bo game (we are card game crazy right now.) I also wrote in his journal. Back when we were engaged, I started a journal for him that chronicled our "love story" and the events of the year, but in a more mushy way. I write in it every year at Valentine's Day and he loves it. This year I wasn't feeling very romanitc, so it started out "Hey, Buddy!" but it ended up being mushy and I even cried. I must be pregnant, because I don't cry easily! And what I wrote wasn't even all that sappy!

We got a box of Sweethearts for the boys and I'm not sure what they think of them. They also got candy and cards from grandparents. They love getting mail. We get the mail right before nap time and they usually sleep with whatever came for them.

In other news, Matthew won a prize at the library. We entered him in the Winter Reading Program. After "reading" ten books, he puts his book list into a drawing and puts stickers on a dinosaur in the children's room. We've finished six lists so far and are almost done with a seventh. It doesn't end until Feb. 29th, so I'm shooting for 100 books. I just can't believe he sits still for it all! He's even patient with books he doesn't like and will tell me at the end of them that he didn't enjoy it. And this is coming from the child who wouldn't let us read more than a couple of pages of anything to him before age 2! Anyway, he picked out a big Mommy bunny with a baby bunny (from the book "Guess How Much I Love You.") Rob was a little disappointed that he didn't pick a book, but I remember getting my stuffed Garfield from a library contest and I'm still a reader, so it's all okay :)

Ben has also surprised me recently. He counted to eight the other day. I have never worked on counting with him, other than letting him recite parts of "The Poky Little Puppy" when they count the puppies. He just blew past four and went to eight! Of course, that's the story of his life. It took us a week before we realized he had been saying his first word. He'll probably be running his own business, married, and moved out of the house before we pay any attention to what's going on.

Anna is doing fine. I think she's breech, just like the boys, because the doctor had to go to the top of my uterus to find her heartbeat yesterday. I'm not surprised, because I feel more pedaling movements at the bottom and the bigger head movements at the top. I also might have been having Braxton Hicks contractions, but never having gone through real labor, I wouldn't know. That's so weird...I will have three children but will have never given birth. Hmm....

Anyway, have a Happy Valentine's Day (or day after...whenever you read this....)

Warning....May Contain Nuts...

So we're driving to church today and listening to a Veggie Tales CD. It was a CD of songs straight from the videos, and the choice of the day was the King George and the Ducky songs. In the main song, Larry uses the word "yucky." Well, Ben found that to be absolutely hilarious! He said, "Yucky? Yucky!" Then he laughed very loudly. Then he said, "Oh, that's funny!" Gotta love toddler boy humor!

We went to Culver's real quick after church to curb Mommy's craving for a sourdough burger and mashed potatoes and Rob picked up some ice cream. (**aside: It's below zero and the man was craving ice cream...) He shared with the boys. Ben finished his, picked up his bowl, and slurped down the remainder. And I mean slurped....there were sucking sounds and everything! I told Rob that he's a Culver's commercial in the making!

Our week in review

We had a pretty good week overall, but it sure had some interesting highlights. The best one was the blizzard that hit us on Wednesday. MBBC cancelled their classes and our church cancelled its services, but Rob still had to go to work. He and the boys shoveled out the sidewalk and driveway at about 7:30 in the morning. By 11am, you couldn't tell. Our neighbor used his snowblower to do our front sidewalk and by the time Rob got home, it was covered again.

Rob had an interesting time trying to get home. His 10 minute drive took 40 minutes and he got stuck twice in the snow. The president sent the employees home at 4:30 (Rob got off at five anyway that day) because he couldn't get out of the parking lot. The guys worked on getting a pathway out of the lot for about 20 minutes. My hubby wears shorts to work, so his legs were blue in the front by the time he got into the car. (He now keeps jeans in the car for emergencies.) He got stuck in a drift leaving the lot and a good Samaritan pulled him out. Then, as he was passing Berres Brothers (the coffee factory) he swerved to avoid a stalled car, got into the wrong lane of traffic, and got stuck again. This time he was able to work himself out. (He now keeps the shovel in the car for any such emergency again!) He made it home by 5:30, but got stuck trying to get into the driveway. He put on the flashers, came in to change and warm up, then went out to shovel the two foot drifts out of the driveway. He got in no problem after that. In the morning, he had a three-foot wall of snow left by the plows to shovel through so he could get to work! It's crazy, but fun. At this moment, Wisconsin is one inch short of meeting the record amount of snowfall in one year, set in 1929. And it's snowing right now. And we're supposed to get more over the next five days. All I have to say is, "Woo-hoo!!!! I love snow!!!" And I'm being serious....I really love it!

Otherwise, our week has been uneventful. The boys have been running around yelling at the top of their lungs and driving me nuts. Rob and I discussed what to do, because I don't like punishing my boys for being boys. What we came up with is a designated yelling time. It has helped, because they can rip around the house and be as loud as they want until a timer goes off. I don't have to keep trying to shush them, so it's less stress on me. We're all happy again!

I'm feeling more and more pregnant as each day progresses and find it harder to stay on my feet for long periods of time. We've taken advantage of more frozen meals so that we're still eating decently. I can pop in an entree in the oven, frozen veggies in the microwave, add some rolls and we have supper! We also bought paper plates so I have less dishes to do. Just doing the dishes takes all my energy some mornings, so short cuts are welcome! If only they made paper pots and pans.....

Playtime with Daddy pictures

Pictures galore!

Braindead Moments

Rob is convinced that I am either having a blonde or this little girl is so smart that she's using all of my brain cells. Here is the proof:

#1--I was shopping at Pick 'n Save on Saturday and I picked up a rotissere (sp?) chicken for lunch. I walked away from the deli to continue my shopping. I kept smelling chicken and thought to myself, "Wow! That chicken smell is strong! I can smell the deli all the way from here!" Then I looked into my cart......

#2--I am scheduled to work at the nursery desk the first Sunday night of every month. As I was watching the service from my monitor, I realized that I have missed communion the last few months. I thought to myself, "Man, I always miss communion. How is it that I seem to be at the desk every time there is communion?" Then it dawned on me that we always have communion every first Sunday night of the month.......

#3--This happened a few months ago, but still while pregnant. We had Morning for Moms at church and I had my nursery pager in my back pocket. If you leave the building with a pager, it beeps continually until the battery dies or you return it. I kept hearing this beeping sound all the way home. I knew what it was, but I just couldn't find that pager. The sound kept following me everywhere......

Hope you got some good laughs!