Gus's latest adventure

I typed this up on Sunday but was waiting for photos to go along with it. I am a lazy, lazy woman. Here's the dish:

Today while I was making lunch, Gus was sitting in his booster seat at
the table and decided to stand up and turn around to mess with the
patio door. I heard him, and turned around, and told him to sit down.
I glanced back down at what I was doing, and heard him hit the floor.
Gus is just one of those kids who is constantly getting hurt. He's
very accident-prone, I guess you could say. So him bashing his mouth
on something and having a bloody lip is not cause for concern around
here.

I went over, scooped him up, and snuggled him, while lecturing him on
the dangers of standing up on chairs. A minute later, I did the
standard check to be sure all of his teeth are still in place and
realized that he was bleeding a lot more than usual. I wiped the blood
away and checked his mouth and realized that his lower lip was split
way open. Like, to the point where I could see inner lip stuff that I
did not care to see. I informed Oliver that I thought he needed
stitches, and we debated over who would take him in. It was already
'one of those days'!

I took him first to the Urgent Care Center, because I didn't feel like
waiting for hours at the ER, even though, from experience (when Simon
got his eyelid ripped open by Grissom's razor-sharp puppy teeth during
a play session) I figured they'd send me to the ER due to it being a
facial wound and scarring possibilites and all that. Sure enough, 30
minutes later, I was doubling back toward the ER. After an hour wait
(some of which Gus slept in my lap) we were shown to a room at the
hospital, and about 2 hours (and way too much TV) later, a nurse
finally came in. About 30 minutes later, the doctor moseyed in, and by
then I was fighting mad. Gus had fallen during lunch, meaning he
didn't finish. It was dangerously close to dinner time, and he'd slept
all of about 20 minutes worth of a normally 2 hour nap. He was running
out of things to explore in our room, and my forgotten stash of Jelly
Bellies was just about gone. Most unfortunately, the doctor we saw was
the one who had sewn up Simon's eyelid, and I didn't think he'd done
the best job ever. Not much I could do at that point, since Gus's lip
was well on it's way to healing itself by then, and apparently he's
the 'stitches guy' there.

Here we are, waiting for medical attention. The lip was swollen enough that the cut didn't look too deep at that point.



The worst part for me, when watching my kids get stitches, is when
they strap the kid down. No one likes being contained like that
(unless you're a 2 day old baby or just 'one of those' people), and it
just adds to the panic, although I completely understand, obviously,
why it has to be done. So he got wrapped in a straight-jacket of bed
sheets, basically, and they injected his lip (and INTO the cut, what
the hell!) with pain-killer, and of course some got in his mouth and
he was hating that... it was just 15 minutes of screaming, thrashing,
heart-breaking chaos including one old man with a hook and thread, a
young nurse with Gus's head in a vise, and his mama, hugging his torso
and trying to assure him that it would be over soon. In the end, he
received 4 stitches, and we realized that he'd cut his lower lip
pretty deeply on the inside in another spot, but that it didn't need
stitches.

Stitches finished (and not liking the flash). You can see the thumb nail on his left hand, all bruised from the automatic door incident a month or so ago.



We finally got home at 5:40 or so, and of course everyone was worried
about Gus, and worried about their empty bellies. And Gus was not
happy about *anything*. Wanted to be held, didn't want to be held.
Wanted a drink, didn't want a drink. Wanted to eat, didn't want to
eat, and so on. Apparently he could either still taste the painkiller,
or he was remembering the taste, because he kept saying 'yucky' about
everything he put in his mouth. But we were all starving, so Oly and I
played a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would run for
take-out. He lost, but then couldn't find his wallet, so after 10
minutes of searching, it was decided that I would go, instead.

Finally, about an hour later, we were all fed, and now all of the
children are in bed. I am not looking forward to the next three days
of a 2 year old with stitches. Do they make those dog cones for kids?

I have uploaded some more photos from Christmas Eve and a few misc. other shots. They are viewable here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kabanta/MoreChristmasAndOther# but as always, you can click on the link on the right of this main page (in the blue box, under Relevant Links) to take you to the entire album. :) If you are receiving this message as an email, you can click on the link from the email to take you to the main page of this blog. Happy weekend, everyone! :)

New photos!

Hope you all had a safe and happy holiday! We're about to go to the store to get some supplies for our rockin' New Years party tomorrow night! It'll be a fun crowd - just us and the kids! We're going to play games, make our own pizzas, and eat a bunch of junk food... and hope to stay up at least until 10. :)

I posted some Christmas photos here: http://picasaweb.google.com/kabanta/ChristmasPhotos2008# Too many to post on the blog. Happy New Year, everyone!!

Today

This morning, I took Max to the LPS central office to get his hearing and speech re-evaluated, since it's been almost 6 months since he got tubes put in, due to excess fluid behind his eardrums, which was causing hearing issues, and thusly, speech issues. His hearing is normal now, the tubes are still in place and open (not infected) and everything looks great there. His speech is also a lot better and he is right on track developmental-wise. The only thing the speech pathologist said we could work on is asking him to articulate when he uses 'gibberish', which is not nearly as often as it was before. Otherwise, she said he is doing great! That's awesome news, especially since I am apparently a huge fan of unfounded worrying. It's a good thing that the kids' doctor is a good friend of ours, or he probably would not be nearly as patient with me. :)

On the way out of the building, Gus got his left thumb smashed in between the heavy steel door and the door jamb. It is an automatic open/shut handicapped access type door, and Max had pushed the button to open the door, gone outside, and pushed the button again to close it. Gus reached up to push the button from the inside and got his thumb trapped. His thumb was flat when I got it out of the door, and immediately swelled up and started to bruise. He was screaming, obviously! I got him to the van, got all the boys buckled in, and went to the ER since it was close to where we were. We got checked in, as I was holding a thrashing, screaming Gus and a tired Sam. I then called Oly and asked him to meet us there. About 5 minutes before he arrived (10 or so minutes after I'd called him), Gus calmed down and was watching PBS and eating TicTacs. I always swore I wouldn't be That Mother, but desperate times call for desperate measures, surely. So Oly and I discussed and decided that it probably wasn't broken, since he was doing okay, and we went home. I took some photos and emailed them to Gus's doctor (our friend) and he wrote back, confirming that it most likely wasn't broken. So now Gus has a swollen, bruised thumb and is favoring it greatly. At least he's not crying anymore. :(

It's more bruised now than it was in these photos, but the swelling is about the same. Such is life with kids, especially 4 boys, eh?

Christmas photo success! Well, kind of.

We went with the second image - these were the better handful out of about 80 photos I took (in about 4 minutes). It gets complicated when you add a dog to the mix!

Christmas card photo attempt, take one!

This afternoon was supposed to be much sunnier (and warmer!) than it actually was, but I had it in my mind that we were going to go to Holmes Lake to get some photos for our Christmas cards, so off we went. It was me, the 5 kids, Grissom (our dog), and my camera. Needless to say, I got about 10 shots of all 5 of them together, and in each one, every last one of them was looking in a different direction or had their eyes closed, or were picking their nose or someone else's nose, etc. I really like the individual shots I got, though, and they all had a great time, so not a total loss! Unfortunately, Gus has had a very runny nose, so in addition to having snot on his face for most of the shots, he also has a scab around his nostril from it all, so the photos of him aren't as cute as usual. :( Oh well - this is why I started the Christmas card photo adventure so early - plenty of time to get a good shot, even if we have to stay inside!

Max and Gus walking up the embankment:

Max, surveying the situation:

Max was saying "Stop taking my picture!":

Gus walking off, Max still angry at my trying to capture his soul:

Sunset over the lake:

Emma and Grissom, waiting for the rest of the kids to congregate for the group shot:

Simon, post-group shot:

Emma and Simon watching the ducks. While I was taking this photo, Grissom was *freaking out*, trying to get to the ducks. Hunting dog breed, indeed!:

I let him off his leash, and he was off! Unfortunately for him, so were the ducks:

Grissom, Max, Emma, and Simon watch the ducks swim away:

Simon was sitting down to wring out his socks from having gotten too close to the lake:

Emma loves the camera, and the camera loves her!:

Grissom, looking around for more prey, as Max walks on:

Pensive Max:

Simon was throwing sticks in the lake... he had to use the biggest one he could find, of course!

The one solitary shot of Sam. Babies just don't do many interesting things when they're strapped into a stroller!

More Max - had to get him while he wasn't looking!:

I'm a slacker! Here the kids are on Halloween. It gets harder every year to get a good photo of them all together... wonder why that is. Christmas photos should be a blast!