a trip to galveston and sir sam in the hospital

A few weekends ago, my family and I took a little weekend trip to Galveston.  My mom and I are both on the board of directors for our local municipal utility districts and there was a state wide conference we were going to attend.  We got adjoining rooms at the Hotel Galvez and my dad and Dave came along to watch the kids while we were in meetings and seminars.

We drove to the hotel on Friday and took the kids to lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.  At first, Katelyn was impressed.  We got a booth right next to a giant aquarium and she loved looking at all the "Nemo" and "Dory" fish.  And then the thunderstorms started happening.  About every fifteen minutes the restaurant lights would dim and there would be sounds of rumbling thunder and pouring rain.  Poor Kate is terrified of thunder so this pretty much made the Rainforest Cafe her worst culinary nightmare.

Sam loved it though.  The constant stream of french fries and salsa music was enough to keep this kid dancing through lunch.

That night we spent some time at the pool which was beautiful.  It was a little too chilly to swim but the hot tub was just right and the kids loved it.  We put the kids to bed and my mom and I had dinner in the hotel restaurant.  It was so fancy!

The next morning Sam woke up with a runny nose, cough, and a fever.  He seemed to be doing okay after some Tylenol though and I knew he was in good hands with Dave and my dad so my mom and I headed over to Moody Gardens to learn about water.  The most interesting class we attended was a lecture on water borne pathogens.  It was both fascinating and terrifying at the same time.

When we got back to the hotel, Sam was just waking up from his nap and he was not doing well.  It was obvious that he was miserable.  We all started talking about whether or not Dave and I should pack up and take the kids home so he could sleep more comfortably in his own crib.  I thought a bath might help him a bit so Dave and my dad took Kate down to the pool for a swim while my mom and I stayed behind to bathe Sam.  That was when we started to realize that he was more sick than we had initially thought.  When he got him undressed we noticed that his little belly was going in and out way more than usual and that he was struggling to breathe.

I called the after hours doctor who told us that we should probably take him to the ER.  Dave and I left immediately for Texas Children's just in time for evening traffic.  That drive felt like one of the longest of my life.  I sat in the backseat singing to Sam and praying to Heavenly Father and watching Sam's little chest going up and down.

When we got to the hospital, they wasted no time getting Sam treated.  I was both relieved that we weren't going to have to sit for hours in a crowded waiting room and scared by the seriousness of his condition.  Within an hour Sam was hooked up to heart and pulse ox monitors, oxygen, and an IV.  Placing the IV was the worst part.  It took four adults and an ultrasound to place the IV.  I stood by his face trying to comfort him while he screamed and stared into my eyes with a look of utter confusion and terror.  I'm not sure whether it was more traumatic for him or me.

The doctor came by soon and told us that he had croup and bronchiolitis and that his prognosis was good but that he would need to be admitted for a few days to make sure he wouldn't have breathing trouble again.  Apparently his respiratory distress was caused by a simple cold virus but because babies have smaller airways, the impact of inflammation from a viral illness is a lot worse.

Thankfully, his condition improved almost as quickly as it had deteriorated and within hours he was breathing much, much easier.  He was sounding better before we were even admitted.  We were really blessed to be so close to such excellent medical care.

We ended up staying at Texas Children's until Tuesday afternoon.  We were moved into a nice big room with a hospital bed and a couch that pulled out into another bed.  Dave and I took turns holding Sam while he either napped or crawled all over us trying to get down to play.  Once he felt better, he was fed up with being stuck in a bed for so long.

During his short stay in the hospital, Sam had so many visitors.  My parents both visited a few times, each time with good food and gifts.  My grandparents stopped by with dinner, presents, and perhaps best of all, a big bag filled with cans of Diet Coke.  It was like Christmas morning each time someone stopped by.  Sam is so lucky to have so many people that care about him and I really think it helped him to see familiar faces that he loves.

The only person who couldn't see Sam was Kate because she was too young to be a hospital visitor.  However, my mom said she kept asking about him.  I was so grateful to live near family so that I knew that Kate was safe and comfortable while I was in the hospital with Sam.

Finally the time came for Sam to be discharged and sent home.  Dave and I took him straight to Grandma's house where he was greeted with a hug from his sister, a meal of his favorite foods, and best of all, the freedom to roam free and play without the restriction of hospital wires and cords.

I am so grateful to have Sam home and well.  While this was a scary weekend for us, I know that there are so many families with children who are more sick than Sam and who won't be coming home soon.  I'm also so thankful that Dave and I have an amazing and supportive family.  There were so many friends and family members both near and far praying for Sam and letting us know that they were thinking about us.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful people in our lives.  This has been an experience that has caused me to stop and count my blessings and be grateful for the wonderful things in my life.

And having these two babies of mine upstairs asleep in their beds healthy and happy might just be one of the best things of all.

to the park!

After Saturday's failed family adventure attempt, we decided to keep things simple and stay in familiar territory.  It doesn't get much closer to home than McDonald's and the neighborhood park.

I know it sounds boring but Katelyn loves Happy Meals and she loves the park so, in her baby eyes, this was a success.

When we first took Kate for a ride on a swing, she absolutely loved it.  We have video documentation of a bundled up infant laughing hysterically in a little swing.  But then, sometime after her birthday, she decided that she was afraid of the swinging. (Which is a blasphemy in our family considering the fact that the swing set was the only playground equipment I enjoy as a kid.) For months, she has only reluctantly let me put her in the swing chair only to immediately scramble back out.

Today at the park, Dave asked if she wanted to go swing.

"No way," I said.  "She hates the swing.  Trust me, I know."

And, of course, because beloved Daddy is here, she was willing to get back in the swing set saddle.

And she loved it.

staycation

 So I dropped off the face of the blogosphere for a week long "staycation" and it was glorious.

(Dave hates the word "glorious" but sometimes it is just truly the most appropriate adjective.)

My brother and his wife rolled into town last Wednesday.  (Actually, they flew.  Can you imagine how crazy it would be if rolling across country was an actual means of transportation?  I'm getting way off track but this is the direction my mind wanders in when I have been spending a week doing nothing but chilling.  Seriously.  If I get any more chill, my pulse will slow down to a relaxed five beats per minute and I'm pretty sure that's frowned upon medically speaking.)

Dave and Jack are basically BFFLs (Best Friends for Life) so he took not just Thursday, not just Friday, but also Monday off from work!  This has been a long weekend for the record books.

We started things off with a bang.  Thursday is my mom's birthday but we kicked off the celebration on Wednesday with a night in and take out from Chipotle.  This was a wonderful sign of great things to come as we have spent the last several days chillaxing with nothing pressing and nothing scheduled.

On Thursday, we drove off to Quintana Beach where we had rented a cabin on the boardwalk.  It took us a while to realize it, but we were actually sleeping in a historic home from the 1800's.  Apparently, Quintana, as much of a ghost town as it is appears now, was one of the first places in Texas to have been explored by the famous Cabeza de Vaca.  Before hurricanes and disease wiped out most of the town's buildings and population, it was a happening summer destination for plantation owners and fancy people back in the day.  This may not sound like much, but to a history nerd, it just about made my trip.

This is the second time we have taken Katelyn to the beach and, again, she was not a fan.  I think it's the combination of the scratchy sand and the crashing waves that freaked her out.  Either way, she was just not interested, which is a shame because she looked like a legitimate surfer baby.  The Beach Boys song Surfer Girl ran on an infinite loop in my mind the entire weekend.

She spent most of her time on the shore sitting in her special baby beach chair playing with a half empty water bottle.

We celebrated my mom's actual birthday at Long John Silver's.  Things got a little crazy.  It was about an hour past bedtime and some people were getting a little punch drunk.

We spent our time at the Seaburn House playing in the warm waves, napping with the smell of the water still on our clothes, or sitting on the boardwalk in the breeze of ocean air while Kate ran around like a wild woman.

We also went out for late night walks on the beach while my parents stayed behind with sleeping Katelyn.  The breeze at night is refreshing and salty and the sand that just hours ago burned our feet flowed between our toes like a cool liquid.  Dave and I walked along the beach with Jack and Jessica and Lauren to the pier where a family was fishing in the light of the docks.  There will thousands of tiny fish that swarmed around our feet with each wave.  We had so much fun catching them and watching them swim back into the ocean.

On Friday, the air conditioning broke.  (I guess you shouldn't expect much out of a two hundred year old house.)  It took only a few minutes for the humid ocean air to feel overbearing and about an hour before conditions became intolerable.  Luckily, we got our money back and were able to pack up the car in a hurry and drive over to the air conditioned safety of Buccee's.

Sunday dinner was a "Make Your Own Mac and Cheese" Party at my parents' house.  This is a family favorite because who doesn't like pasta and cheese?  Also, even if you didn't care for pasta and cheese, I'm pretty sure you can't turn it down with fix ins like bacon and sausage, goat cheese, freshly grated parmesan, and pepperoni.

Tonight was our last night of "staycation" so we threw ourselves a pool party.  We brought the foil dinner ingredients we had planned to cook during our last night at the beach and threw everything on the grill while we played in the water.

Sitting around the picnic table, enjoying grill roasted veggies and hamburger and the sounds of an evening of family time at the pool, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness as I sensed the sun setting on the last few moments of this year's summer.  It's been a great couple months and a great couple days.  But, as sad as I am about the ending of a blissful time, I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.

And, really, I can't be too sad about everything because after summer comes fall and we all know how I feel about fall.

#tbt - better to give

If there's one thing my family has always excelled at, it's a good celebration.  Birthdays often became birthweeks and presents multiplied like bunnies underneath the Christmas tree.  One year there was an actual bunny rabbit.

I remember one Christmas sitting behind the gift wrapped fort I had constructed and peering over at the small piles of presents my parents had at their feet.  Compared to our mounds of gifts, my parents always seemed to have maybe five to six or seven on a big gift year.

At first I assumed it was because their gifts were more expensive.  I figured that the Barbie dolls I was opening were just worth less than the presents they got from Santa.  Eventually, I learned more about budgets and the prices of things and I realized that just wasn't the case.  They were getting more expensive surprises but it's not like they were receiving trips to the Bahamas or anything.  Year after year they opened books and CDs and workshirts and ties and the occasional gift certificate for a massage or tickets to a concert.  If there were dollar signs hovering over our gift piles theirs would be much smaller.

I always felt really bad for them and worried that it was the future waiting for me.  I would recount my shiny wrapped presents and gather them in a little closer.  I had heard that it was better to give than to receive but I wasn't completely convinced.

Our family vacations were spent traveling in the loaded up minivan with child friendly destinations like water parks and Disney World while my parents had to forgo the less family friendly cruises and beach trips to Hawaii.

I was less appreciative for their sacrifices than I should have been and more worried that it would someday happen to me.  I felt sorry for all the people who had whiny sniveling kids who required their parents to give up so much.  I thought spending a Saturday at the pool with a bunch of children seemed like a less fun option than sitting poolside with a magazine and a Diet Coke.  I spent a lot of time watching the time on the clock of my life that counted down to the days when I would be the sorry person stuck in the kiddie pool.

Last week we went to the splash pad at City Creek Mall.  We loaded up in a van that had no air conditioning and drove to downtown Salt Lake City in the heat of the day as I felt the first shocks of an oncoming migraine headache.  By the time we stepped into the oven roasted parking garage I thought to myself, "Well at least if I throw up everywhere it's on pavement and not in the car."

Getting out of the parking garage seemed like it would help but the beating sun on my aching head was worse and I felt trapped in a Catch 22 of bad options.  I couldn't get back into that stale hot car but I couldn't stay sitting in the hot sun either.  I looked down at Katelyn and caught sight of that innocent chubby face and precious toothy grin and realized the only option that motherhood allowed.

I had to get over myself for the sake of my baby.

I got up and changed Kate into her swimsuit and watched as Dave led her to the splash pad.  Soon I found myself standing at the edge of the spray watching her intently at first for safety's sake but eventually out of sheer amusement.

I watched as her stocky little legs carried a tubby little tummy and short little arms joltingly around the fountains.  She squealed with delight when the water shot upward and clapped when it rained back down.  With a scientific precision she studied the mechanics of the fountains around her.  She got down on the ground to get a better view and when the water sprayed in her face she reacted by simply blinking the water out of her eyes.  She had decided that further inspection was required so she got even closer and I watched the fearless daredevil spirit she was born with in action.  She spent the hour toddling around and watching the older children with a toddler's awed curiosity.

She was just having so much fun and within a few minutes I realized I was having fun too.  I almost couldn't believe it but if offered a cozy seat in an air conditioned room with a cold Diet Coke and a pedicure I would have turned it down.  (Well if I'm going to be one hundred percent honest and because I really love pedicures I will say that at the very least I would be really conflicted.)

I realized that I was finding a true sense of satisfaction from providing an environment where my baby could sense the contrast of the warm sunshine on her cheeks and the cold spray of water on her legs, where she could smell the unique scent of highly chlorinated water that is so characteristic of happy summer days, where she could feel the squish of wet shoes between her toes and the surprise of a spray of blue water.

I stood there the whole time with sweat running down the inside of my shirt and plastering my hair to my neck having a motherhood epiphany.  This is living, I thought.  This is the living my parents had been enjoying for years and I had pitied them for.  This was the kind of sacrifice that parents everywhere were enjoying everyday and this was why my parents never seemed to dread a Christmas morning where their piles of gifts were so insignificant compared to ours.  This was the exchange of comfort and fun for pure joy and happiness that you make the day that you leave the hospital with a squirming bundle of love and this was the trade that stretches you, pushes you, and ultimately changes you into a stronger, wiser, and better person with a larger capacity to love and care and feel for others.

Suddenly I wished that the hands of the clock could just take a break for a bit and that my senses could be heightened so that I could smell stronger, hear louder, and feel more distinctly this moment.  I wanted to stay standing at the rim of those fountains for another forever with the sun beating on my face and the sweat running down my back and the water streaking my makeup.  I wanted just another hour, another minute, another second to watch someone I love with an intensity I have only known about for the last fifteen months purely enjoying herself.  But that same sun was beating on her back and face and I worried about her sensitive porcelain skin getting burned so I knew that the moment was ending despite my internal pleading.  Once again, I had to sacrifice my wants.

But when I scooped her up and wrapped her in a soft towel to see two big beautiful eyes and a huge joyful smile I knew it was all totally worth it.