The longest time

This is the longest I've gone without updating the blog since we started it. It's been a crazy few weeks! I'm happy to report that while the boys aren't fully healed from the "sickness", we are all way better off now than we were 3 weeks ago. Nolan's cough has finally started getting better this weekend, which is awesome because it's not waking him up at night anymore! He relapsed a little this week, spiking a 102 degree fever Monday afternoon at daycare. Thank god for retired parents! My dad came to the rescue and spent Tuesday and Wednesday home with Nolan so he could heal up. Kale developed a worse cough over the past week, too, so I took him to the dr. on Friday. Our NP seems to think he may have a mild case of croup, but based on his improvement over the last few days he should continue to keep getting better. As for me and Adam - we're healthy.

Kale weighed in at 17 lbs, 11 oz at the dr. on Friday - with his clothes and helmet on. Not sure how accurate it is, but regardless he's a big boy! We had another set back with his helmet last weekend. He developed a rash on his forehead, so he couldn't wear the helmet until we got him in to see the orthotist. Finally on Wednesday he was able to wear it again. Hopefully he'll continue to not have any issues so his head can start reshaping faster! He's a busy little boy these days. He rolls everywhere - we found him under the kitchen table the other day! He's really working hard to develop his core muscles so he can start to sit on his own.
Even over the course of this weekend we can see improvement. He loves babbling at Nolan, and watches him like a hawk. He is so super drooly - you would think some teeth would start coming in sometime soon! He's developed a pretty good nap routine on the weekends - a 3 hour nap, either in the morning or afternoon, and a shorter nap at the opposite time. We stopped doing the dream feed last weekend, and so far so good. He is waking up about once a night, and we know it's because he hits his helmet on the side of his crib and it wakes him up. Sometimes he can get himself back to sleep . . . which is what we hope for, of course!


Nolan is on the mend, and we saw a pretty big improvement this weekend in his mood. The biggest thing for him is sleep, so we were thrilled to get 3 hour naps this weekend, and a full nights sleep last night. It's so fun to watch him right now. He seems to be picking up new words every day - shoes, cheese, in my woom (in my room), tooth bwush (tooth brush), boccli (broccoli), deer, sqwal (squirrel), tacta (tractor), fowk (fork), spoo (spoon), moosic (music) - and lots and lots of other ones. He especially likes asking "where's gampa"? Oh, the other morning I walked out of the kitchen and he asked Adam "where's Tisha"? Too funny! He can count to 3, and when you ask him how old he's going to be he can respond with two. Grandpa and Grandma Bleck gave him a bat and ball for Valentine's Day, and with a little practice this week with Grandpa Tom and Adam he was able to not only the hold the bat the right way and swing it, but he can hit a baseball, too! It's incredible to think about how far he's come in a year!

Adam and the boys survived without me just fine the week I was in North Carolina. I missed them all, but did enjoy eating leisurely meals! The weekend I got back we were able to spend some time together on Sunday at Sky Rock Farms in Hamel. Our friend's dad hosted an event for anyone who wanted to come. It was a neat little place - lots of antique carnival stuff, like organs, clowns, carousels, etc. We thought it might freak out Nolan a little bit, but he didn't have any problem. He liked the carousel ride, and had no fear to meet horses and ponies for the first time. He even wanted to ride a pony around the training area of the barn - didn't show any fear at all! I'm not sure if that's good or bad, but it was fun to hear him talk about the "horsies"!

Last night Adam and I were able to get out for an evening to hang out with our friends at the Shout House and Whiskey Junction. Paulette and Ryan came to our house to watch the kids, which is so nice. Nolan loves seeing them! I think the last time we were able to get out with our friends without the kids was at a wedding in September, 2 weeks after Kale was born. I must say it was well deserved!

Taken hostage

It all started on Sunday. Nolan had a rough day - coughing a lot, running nose, digging in his ears, etc. He didn't nap, which is not good for him - he needs his sleep! He woke up at 4 a.m. Monday morning with a 100.2 fever, so I gave him some Tylenol. When he got up for daycare at 6 he was still crabby and digging in his ears, and his breathing seemed labored. Adam thought we should make an appointment for him, because if we don't catch the ear infection early enough Nolan really struggles. Instead of waiting to make an appointment we decided I would take Nolan to the clinic in hopes of getting a scheduled appointment, and if not I would take him to urgent care. The other twist in this story is that either myself or Adam needed to spend some time with Jane at daycare, teaching her how to use Kale's helmet. I got to the clinic with Nolan around 7:45, and there weren't any appointments so we waited for urgent care. Nolan was getting really tired at this point, which didn't alarm me because he hadn't been sleeping well. When the nurse came in to the room she took one look at Nolan and was a little alarmed by how fast he was breathing. He didn't have a temp right away, but his respirations were about 70 a minute and his oxygen level was between 90 and 92%. Nolan was getting listless while we were at the clinic, which again wasn't a huge concern for me because he hadn't slept - but he usually had a little more get up and go. They put him on oxygen, which helped his O2 levels level out around 95%. The dr. who came in to see us was really concerned with Nolan's breathing, so much so that he sent us to the Children's Hospital ER via ambulance. It was a pretty scary experience. Nolan did really well, given the circumstances. The hardest part was calling Adam to let him know we were on our way to the ER in an ambulance. He didn't take it real well, for obvious reasons. Nolan only got scared when we had to strap him in the the safety harness to the stretcher. Normally the medics don't have to do that, but the roads were terrible so they wanted to play it safe. Nolan was hooked up to oxygen on the way down, and ended up falling asleep, which was good. When we got to Children's the were able to wheel us directly in to the ER. Adam was already there in the waiting room, so one of the nurses went to get him. I knew Nolan would be excited to see his dad, but I wasn't quite prepared for the reaction. Nolan shouted out "Daddy" when Adam walked in, and both Adam and I shed a few tears. It had already been an emotional day.

While we were at Children's, Nolan had a few things done to him. He didn't love the chest xrays, but did okay. He really hated the test for influenza/RSV. They had to stick this long tube up his nose and down his throat and pull some gunk out of it. Adam held one of his arms, a PCA held the other one and I held his legs. It was so sad - he screamed and cried. I would too - they didn't give him anything for the pain. His temp stayed at 104 until about 12:30, when it started to come down. We could tell he perked up a little after that. The chest xrays came back with the good news of no pneumonia, but he had a little fluid in his lungs and his lungs and bronchial tubes were inflammed. He ended up testing positive for influenza, too. We left the hospital around 3:15 with prescriptions for a steroid for the inflammation in his lungs, augmentin for his double ear infection, Tamiflu for the influenza and albuerol and a nebulizer machine for his wheezing/fluid in his lungs. He really hates taking the medicine, so Adam and I need to work together to get it in him. Adam stayed home with him on Tuesday, while Kale continued to go to daycare.

Low and behold, Adam started to develop cough/cold symptoms Tuesday afternoon. I followed soon after that, and by Tuesday evening both of us were down and out. I knew it was going to be bad when Adam had to crawl to the bathroom early that morning. Wednesday Adam and I both had to stay home from work because we were sick, in addition to Nolan staying home with us. Kale came home from daycare Wednesday with rosy cheeks - and sure enough an hour later he had a fever of 101.6. Seriously, we didn't think the week could get much worse. Poor Kale was coughing up a storm, had a super runny nose and a fever. He had a tough time sleeping last night. I called the nurse line to ask about when we needed to be concerned about him, and she recommended we get him seen the next day. So here we are on Thursday, and I'm staying home with Kale because he can't go to daycare due to the fever. I took both kids to the clinic with me, because Nolan needed his follow-up visit, too. Nolan was a good little patient - sat all by himself for the exam from the nurse and our NP. He still has some crackling in his lungs, so now he's getting a neb treatment twice/day, too. He weighs almost 29 lbs now, and Kale is up to 16 lbs, 11 oz. Kale looked so terrible when we were there, for good reason. He had a fever of 104, and was still coughing and had a runny nose. His oxygen levels were really good, and his lungs sounded clear. Just to make sure the NP order a chest xray for him. Nolan couldn't go with me, so he stayed with our wonderful LPN Barb. He didn't even cry - just got to sit on her lap at her work station and color, read a book, eat his snack and look at her computer. Kale's chest xray ended up coming back negative, which was good, but his influenza test came back positive - shock of all shocks. So now Kale is on Tamiflu, and so are me and Adam. We are really hoping that we'll all start to turn a corner soon. It is really difficult being sick at the same time as the whole family. We're literally just trying to stay on top of washing bottles and eating, and that's about it. It could be worse - I'm gone most of next week in North Carolina, so Adam will be home alone with the kiddos all week. I'm going to try and make it to work tomorrow, if I'm feeling better. I was still running a temp this afternoon, and I'm still achy. Adam is staying home with Kale tomorrow, and Nolan is going back to daycare for the first time all week. Kale has his one week check-up for his helmet tomorrow morning, which isn't the best timing since he hasn't been able to wear it since he got his fever last night.

I'm trying to write as much as possible about this whole situation so we can one day look back at this and laugh. I'm not sure when we'll be able to to do that, but it will sure be fun when we can!

"izza!"

Nolan was enjoying his favorite meal of "izza" (aka pizza) on Saturday for lunch. He stopped, looked at me and annouced "I like izza!". It's so fun to be able to have a real conversation with him lately. He loves talking about his "budda" (brother Kale). It's tough, because he can't pronounce Kale's name yet. However, he is super happy to shout out "my budda" every time he sees Kale. We learned this week that he is discovering the not so great joys of being a tattle tale. I guess I don't really know if it quite qualifies as that yet, but I'm sure it's a start. When I picked him up on Thursday from daycare he came running out of the toy room, pointed at the 2-year old twin girls who were crying because they had been fighting, and annouced to me "the babies cying" (crying). Jane let me know he had been doing that all day - pointing at things and announcing what was going on. I think Nolan is just so excited to be able to talk that he needs to give us a play by play. Kale got his helmet on Friday. I was really nervous about the appointment on Thursday night. It's a tough realization to know that for a temporary period of time, your kid is not like other kids his age. The appointment went way better than Adam and I thought it would. Kale didn't cry at all through the 3 different fittings he had. We were there for about an hour, going through all the details of the cleaning and putting the helmet on/taking it off. He didn't wear it much on Friday, but yesterday he was in it for about 4 hours, and today was about 7. Tomorrow morning I'm dropping off the kids at Jane's house so I can spend about 10 minutes with her, showing her how to handle the helmet. We didn't think she'd have to do anything with it, but based on the helmet schedule she'll need to take it off and put it back on Kale. She'll also have the ability to take it off and on when she has to change his clothes - which tends to be a lot because of all his spit up! Tomorrow is the first day he'll nap with the helmet on, and he'll sleep half the night with it on, too. That will be the real test. The helmet doesn't seem to be bothering him a whole heck of a lot at this point. Adam has the stickers all ready to be put on the helmet. Now he just has to find the time to put them on.

Nolan had swmimming lessons on Saturday morning, and Adam said he did really good again. He even figured out how to hold on to the edge of the pool and kick his legs. Nolan also got his haircut. The stylist was amazed at how low key he was during the haircut. He's going through a phase where he gets shy around people he doesn't know very well. I'd rather have him just sit and be shy then kick and scream! Last night we met up with Paulette and Ryan for dinner. Nolan had a nice, hearty meal of french fries dipped in ranch dressing, 2 bites of chicken strips and a cup of "ice ceam" (ice cream). He was getting a little wild and crazy after he ate the ice cream, but luckily the 20 minute ride home calmed him down.

Today I decided to take some time for myself and met up with Paulette to go shopping. She didn't need anything, and I was primarily looking for clearance clothes for the boys. I did find a new winter jacket/snow pants for Nolan for next winter. Kale needed his own snow suit for next winter, but after that he'll be able to use Nolan's hand me downs. I really try hard to take good care of Nolan's clothes so we can get more that 1 use out of them!

Last week I finally got my car washed. The poor thing had been neglected since Kale was born. It didn't even look black anymore! I go to a full service car wash, so I didn't see my car go through the process. I was waiting to see it, and saw this really nice looking black car coming through the line. I remember thinking what a great looking car it was - and was a little jealous it wasn't mine. Then I took a closer look and realized it was mine! What a great feeling to know I still love my car!

Our friendly neighborhood pheasant made an appearance yesterday, across the street in Julie's driveway. I was looking out the kitchen window and saw this really big bird swoop down. It landed, and sure enough it was the pheasant. You know there's too much snow cover when the poor bird needs to start looking for food in the driveway.

It's helmet time

Kale met with the orthotist last Monday to get his head measured. It's flat on the back right side of his head, and his ears aren't lined up exactly like they should be on his head. You wouldn't know by looking at him straight on! He has what's called asymmetrical brachycephaly (flatness on one side of the head). He is getting fitted for a cranial remolding helmet on Friday of this week. The orthotist is confident that after 4-5 months in the helmet that Kale's head will round out in the back. It's going to be extra work for me and Adam, but we figure Kale is worth it:) The first 4 days he won't be wearing the helmet full-time. Day one he'll be in it for 1 hour and then have it off for an hour - and not on during naptime or bedtime. Day 2 it's on for 2 hours and off for 1 hour, and not during nap or bedtime. Day 3 its on for 4 hours and off for 1, on during nap and off during bedtime. Day 4 it's on for 8 hours, off for 1, and on during nap and for 1/2 of his night sleep. By day 5 he'll be wearing it for 23 hours a day. During the hour that we can take the helmet off we need to give him a bath, specifically to wash his hair. We also need to wash his helmet every night. This will put a little kink in things Adam and I can plan, but we'll work around it. We ordered him a light blue helmet, and Adam ordered some MN Twin's stickers to decorate it. Kale will hopefully adjust just fine to the helmet. I know it's going to be hard on him and me and Adam, at least at the beginning. It's tough to have to do things to or for your kids that you know aren't comfortable. We just have to keep in mind that it will help him! The orthotist said we should see significant improvement between 6-8 weeks - that's when they'll rescan his head. Kale has to be in it for sure until he's 8 months old, and anything after that is upon the recommendation of the orthotist. The orthotist would like to see at a minimum a 5% change in shape on the right side of his head. Babies need to be at least 4 months old before they get a helmet, and even then some kids have to wait because they don't have enough head control yet. We're lucky that Kale is as strong as he is, partly because of the physical therapy appointments and extra work we do with him. He started rolling from his back to tummy in the last few weeks, and now we can't put him down anymore without him rolling all over the place. This past week he started rolling over in his sleep, and his new sleeping preference is on his belly. He's been sleeping really well - last night he went down at about 6:20 and didn't get up until 8:10 this morning!

Nolan is as busy as ever. New this week in his vocabulary is bampa (grandpa), izza (pizza), seeping (sleeping), piwwo (pillow) and dite (light). He also loves to say "oopsie" to everything - for example, when a football player get tackled! I took him to swimming this morning. It takes him about 5 -10 minutes to warm up to doing anything, but once he did I was impressed. He learned how to scoop the water (doggy paddle) on his belly, and really kicks well in his back float. He even lets me dunk him under at least once during the class. It helps that there are bath toys to play with in the pool. He especially loves the toys that shoot water!

Adam is ice fishing with his dad today. I'm feeling pretty good because Kale has been napping since 11:30 and Nolan since 12:15! I'm sure it won't last much longer, so I should enjoy it while I can. My dad watched the kids yesterday for us so we could attend the funeral of our brother-in-law's mom. The kids were pretty good, even if Nolan only napped for 2 hours and Kale needed to be held most of the day! Hopefully they didn't make it too hard on him, because we'll probably need his help again sometime soon!

Going to great lengths

Kale turned 4 months old last Thursday. It is incredible to me how fast time passes by the second time around! He started to get a cough/cold on Wednesday, so he's had a bit of a tough week. Yesterday he was miserable - watery eyes, coughing, sneezing - the whole bit. Today he's doing a little better, and is even napping, which is a huge improvement over yesterday when he didn't nap at all. He had his 4 month check-up on Friday. He weighed 15 lbs 7 oz (50 %) and is 26.75 inches long (96%) - head circumfrance of 16.5 inches (50%). The length is what really gets us. Kale is almost 2 inches taller than Nolan was at this age, and a pound heavier! We like to call him our little chunker. Overall he is doing well. We have his appointment for his head measurement on Monday, so we should know shortly after that if he'll need a helmet or not. Kale also had a PT and chiropractic appointment last week, and is doing so well that we don't have to go back for a month. I'm glad we're doing all we can for him, but all the driving in one day gets to be a lot. On Friday I drove him to Bloomington to see the chiropractor, then to Chan for his dr. appt., back to Mound to drop him off at daycare, and then back to work in St. Louis Park - 90 miles later! Kale is still doing really good sleeping through the night. We had a little bump in the road last Sunday night, which was awful. Kale was up 5 different times - which meant very little sleep for me and Adam. Then on Tuesday night we couldn't find any of his nooks, so when he woke up at 4 a.m. we weren't able to get him back to sleep. I get up around 5 anyway, so he just hung out with me as I got ready for the day. The rest of the week went much better and we had to wake up both him and Nolan for daycare. It's a great problem to have!

Nolan is finally getting rid of his cough/cold. Adam took him to dr. last Monday for a follow-up appointment for his ear infections (current weight: 28 lbs, 14 oz). His ears are finally better, which is a relief. What's tough is that we can't give him anything for his cough. Adam did ask about giving him honey to coat his throat, and our NP thought we were a little strange. She told us to mix a little honey with warm water for him to drink. We tried that and it didn't go real far - he took a sip, made quite a face, and handed the cup back to me. He did, however, like the syringe of honey we gave him. And amazingly it worked! A teaspoon of honey along with a dose of Tylenol did the trick and he's sleeping through the night again. Nolan is keeping busy reading lots of books lately. His favorites are If You Give a Pig a Party, a series of baby peek-a-boo books, and Snuggle Puppy. He loves his new spiderman slippers and wears them all the time. In fact, when I went in to get him this morning around 8 he was trying to put his slippers on his feet. Adam has worked really hard with him to learn his left vs right foot, so he at least knows which slipper goes on what foot. It's fun watching him figure out how to have conversations with us, for example:

M: Hey Nolan or Nolan, come here, please.
N: What?

M: What do you want for breakfast?
N: Boffy (coffee)

M: Who's that? (pointing at Kale)
N: My lidda butha (my little brother)

His other funny words are ot (hot), I tuck (I'm stuck) and elp (help). He pays really close attention to everything we do, which makes us laugh really hard when he tries to copy us. Adam taught Nolan how to cast his new fishing pole this morning. He picked up on it right away and already knows how to reel in the line. His favorite part about "fishing" is the fact that his pole lights up when you push the button! Nolan also figured out this week how to fold his hands when we say prayers. Prior to this he just put his fists together. The other funny thing he's doing lately is when he plays trucks. He loves to line up all his trucks and cars in one long line. If we try and move one of them out of the line he grabs it and puts it right back. I was telling a friend of mine about this, and he said his son still does that at 4 yrs old. It must be Nolan's type A personality coming out (a lot like his parent's)!

We were supposed to be up in Moose Lake this weekend, but the snow prevented us from going. I can't get over how much snow we've had this winter. It snowed 5 of the 7 days this week alone, which meant Adam had to shovel 4 times! I think we're going to deserve a really nice and warm spring/summer. Adam and I enjoyed the day home with the kids yesterday, but really, really enjoyed our evening out last night. Paulette was nice enough to come over to watch the kids for us so we could go out to eat. It's so nice to be able to really enjoy a meal and not feel rushed. Plus there was a great acoustic group playing, so it was quite relaxing. Adam is ice fishing with his dad again today, and has plans to go out again tomorrow after Kale's appointment. He doesn't have to work tomorrow - lucky.

I'm starting to get back in the swing of things at work. Last week I was offered a position as an HR Supervisor, which I happily accepted. It will be nice to be able to focus more on the compliance side of HR, as well as have a few direct reports and be a part of the HR leadership team.

Almost 4 months old

If I had a hammer