Author: A Mama's Blog

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Activities Cole Family & Friends Ryan

It’s Begining to Look a lot Like Christmas

Tonight we put up our Christmas tree, and decorated it as much as possible.  Since we have a little munchkin- aka- Cole, we had to decorate the top 3/4’s of the tree, because nothing would last within his grip.  We put a few non-breakable ornaments at the bottom, and Cole is having fun taking them off, and putting them back on. 

Ryan and Cole were so excited; Ryan would look at an ornament, say he wanted to hang it up, and then dive into the next box, deciding what ornaments he wanted to hang.  When I got to my special boxes of glass ornaments, boxes of highly breakable ornaments, I held one up which is a glass snowflake.  I put that at the very top, and Ryan said, “Oh, that one is adorable.”

We only had one tragedy in only one ornament got broken.  It was from my vintage set that my mom got for me a few years ago, and I was bummed because it was a cute little blue car-Ryan was sad too, because that was the first one we hung up.  Surprisingly, neither boy broke it, it was a total accident.  When Joe was plugging in the star at the top; it just fell off the branch. 

Tomorrow, we will hang our stockings with care.  Joe’s mom is a wonderful cross stitcher and seamstress.   She has made all four us beautiful, cross-stitched, one of a kind stockings. (I’ll post a picture of our stockings when we get them hung.)

Ryan is very excited about hanging his stocking this year.  We got a Little House on the Prairie book at the library, Christmas in the Big Woods, where all the children get a piece of peppermint candy left in their stocking by Santa.  He just knows Santa is going to leave him a piece of that candy that he left for Laura and Mary.  🙂

Here is a picture of the three of us, taking a break from all the ornament hanging (you can click on it to see the image larger):

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After the boys were in bed, I went outside to put some recycling materials in the bin, and it was snowing!  A light snow, but it feels like Christmas and winter is here.

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Activities Ryan

Winter Birthday Party Ideas

Ryan is going to be four in January (just a little more than a month away!)  Since he is  “winter” baby, I have always struggled with what to do for his birthday.

Sometimes we have nice weather in January, but sometimes we don’t.  That makes it very hard to plan something outside, because it could be 60 degrees and sunny, or it could be 20 degrees and snowing.  Currently our house doesn’t have enough space to have an indoor party, so that doesn’t leave us with very many options.

To make it a bit harder, there really aren’t too many places in our town for kids Ryan’s age to have a birthday party indoors at.  There are lots of places about 50 miles away- in the big city- but I don’t expect his friends’ parents (all of whom have young children as well- oy!) to make a trip that far away for a two hour, at the most party.

When Ryan turned one, we had our family and a few friends over for pizza and cake.  It was nice-crowded-but nice, and none of our friends had babies with them, so that made a little more room in our house.

When Ryan turned two, we had a swimming party in the afternoon at the rec center.  We had a room for an hour, where the kids had snacks and cake, and then they got to go swimming.  It was OK, but at that age, Ryan didn’t really care who was there, or what the activities were.  It was nice for ME though, to visit with my friends while our kiddos were just a few arms lengths away, playing in the shallow water.

Last year, Ryan was insistent that he didn’t want a birthday party, so we took him to a neighboring town, about 20 minutes away, and let him play at one of those bouncy inside places.  It was really crowded though, then we went and got lunch. 

Ryan is getting excited about his birthday, and since it is so close to Christmas, I always find myself two weeks away from his birthday, trying to plan something.  I am hoping to get a jump on it this year, but I am really at a loss at what to do.  Ryan says he doesn’t want a party, but he wants to go see trucks and big rigs.  Where are you supposed to do that at?  There *is* a truck stop off the highway from us, but we aren’t about to go ask a strange truck driver if we can see his truck. 

Part of me really wants to have a fourth birthday party for Ryan with his friends, games, silly hats, and cake, because I think Ryan would like a party, once all the action started.  The other part of me is leaning towards just doing something like we did last year.  Part of the big problem is I don’t know where to have it indoors, and our house really is too small to have a party like that here.

So, does anyone have any great ideas for me?  If you live in a colder area, and have a child who has a winter birthday, what do you do?  I appreciate any and all suggestions.  🙂

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Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs Shopping

Coupon for Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs Store

I haven’t mentioned my on-line store, Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs,  very often in my blog, even though I have a few links to it.  When I checked my e-mail for the store today, I discovered the following special coupon from Cafe Press (who hosts the site), and thought I would share this special.   If you think you might do some shopping here, hurry though, because it looks like the coupon code (FRFAM2007) is valid only until the 28th.  I also have a feeling this code will work on other stores at Cafe Press, so that may be worth a try if you find other things you like as well in a different store.

Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs carries designs for babies, children, maternity, and women.   (The onesie in the picture below which says, “My Grandpa Can Fix Anything,”is one of my designs you’ll find in the store.  There are also some breastfeeding advocacy designs and bumper stickers, birth and home birth designs, and some “Green” designs.  Check out the site, and pick up a cute onesie for that special baby in your life- remember Christmas is right around the corner.  🙂

Friends & Family of

Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs

Get $15 off $50*

Start shopping at Little Pumpkin Sweet Pea Designs,

https://www.cafepress.com/lpspd
Categories
Cole Health

Update on Cole

Cole is doing a lot better today, and did well during the last two-nights.  His stridor is almost gone, and now it seems like that gunk is starting to drain in the form of a cough, sneezing, and runny nose.  But his breathing is so much better.

We got out for a little while today and took a very short walk (it was colder out than I thought, but cold air is good for croup), and went to a hardware store to look at all their Christmas trees, and then on to the health food store for some groceries. 

We all rested a lot yesterday ( I stayed in my PJ’s until 1pm!), so hopefully we are all on the mend.

I’m taking Nicole’s suggestion and carrying hand sanitizer w/ me now, and putting it on all of our hands right away- all these colds seem to start w/ Cole since his hands are in his mouth constantly. 

I found a neat one at the health food store today called Clean Well.  I was looking for a spray, since the gels are harder to distribute.  Clean Well is a spray, is alcohol free, is made with ingenium (which is made from essential plant oils), and it’s safe if kids put their hands in their mouth with it on, and it kills 99.99 of germs naturally.  From Clean Well’s website: It is the only all-natural antimicrobial that meets EPA and FDA standards for germ killing efficacy.

We’ll see if this slows down these colds and illnesses we keep catching.  It certainly can’t hurt!

Categories
Cole Family & Friends Mothering Parenting

ER Vist for Croup

We ended up taking Cole into the ER last night at midnight, after he started having a lot of trouble breathing.  

Turns out he has croup, although he never was making the “barking” noises, that is a classic symptom of croup.  He sounded more like he was wheezing, and even a nurse said he sounded like he was breathing like an asthmatic.  

After trying two rounds of the steroid breathing treatments, they weren’t working, and Cole was running a fever of 104.5- so the Dr.’s decided to admit him, and test him for secondary infections & the flu as well.  They said his ear was really inflamed & thought he may have had an ear infection too. 

It was a miserable night- they poked him, prodded him, drew blood, gave him shots, (they wanted to do an IV line, and I asked them not to unless it was absolutely necessary.  I  hate IV’s, and they agreed to just give him the shots, but at least he wasn’t tied down to an IV line- he would have hated that more) , and he was just so sick!  I was in tears the entire time.  Finally at 5 am, his fever went to 101, and it seemed like the treatments were finally starting to work.

 Joe went home to rest, and I stayed w/ Cole until 9am; dozing off and on, until the pediatrician came to check up on him.  Fortunately,  he was much better but he still has the raspy, stridor, breathing,  but the doctors say it isn’t in his chest, or lungs, but in his upper respiratory system, which isn’t as bad.  

Cole’s doctor said they wanted us to stay until Sunday for observation, but said we could take him home today since we live so close to the hospital, but stressed we needed to watch him very carefully.  Evidently croup can come back, even when you think it is under control, and it is worse at night than during the day.

The pediatrician today said he didn’t think he had an ear infection, but it was the high fever that was causing his ears to be inflamed, and all his blood work came back fine- viral- but fine. 

That is how croup is caught- from a virus.  One nurse said 100 kids could have the same cold from a virus, and about 2 or 3 will go on to develop croup.  The doctors and nurses said once kids are about 4, it is very rare for them to develop it, since their airway passages become larger.  Obviously adults don’t get croup, but when adults develop the virus, they get it in the form of laryngitis.

So, what an ordeal!  I have never been that scared before regarding my child’s health.  I still am worried he still has the raspy stuff, but they say his steroid medication will help.  

Before we took him in last night, I was reading about croup on Dr. Sears’ website.  I was very impressed that everything I had read on the website regarding croup and the treatment of it, was what the hospital, doctor’s, and nurses were doing. 

When we were deciding if we should take Cole in, I also placed a call into my local children’s hospital, which has a free 24 hour nurse help line.  She actually listened to Cole’s breathing, and told me it was croup over the phone, and to take him to the ER.  I feel like we had excellent care, and the doctors and nurses did everything they could to make Cole (and Mom and Dad) comfortable, and they did a very thorough job in making sure Cole didn’t have any other causes for his high fever.

Even though Cole’s “barking” symptoms weren’t quite as described, if your child sounds like he is wheezing, having trouble breathing, is breathing faster, drooling excessively, or the area right above his breastbone is caving in while breathing, or his ribs are really working while breathing, take him in.  Cole had all these sypmtoms.  We obviously waited too long.  Joe really picked up on the abnormal breathing, but since Cole didn’t have that barking seal noise, it just threw me.  I thought he just had a lot of congestion in his throat, but looking back now, it was more than congestion.  No one said it, but I think Cole’s breathing was getting so bad, since we had waited almost 2 days to take him in.

At any rate, I have been listening to his breathing tonight and he sounds so much better than yesterday.  What a difference 24 hours can make.  I hope he is over the worst of it, and now we can all get back to resting and healing.

Druing all of this, Ryan was spending the night at his grandparents with his cousins last night, so I guess if this had to happen, at least it was last night.  Ryan’s uncle and grandpa took the kids today ice skating, window shopping at a train store, to lunch, to play miniture golf, and then a train ride at the mall!  Ryan was in heaven.  I think he had the best day ever.  We are so lucky to have such wonderful family near by to help out in cases like this.  It helps so much, in not having to worry about the other child, so we could focus on Cole.