We are Moving

Whelp, I've been gone from blogging for a few weeks now.  Life is busy and about to get even busier.  We are moving!  Tony is getting a promotion at work and is taking over the office closer to where we used to live.  We are moving back "home."

How do I feel about moving?  Here are the positives:

• We are moving back to our friends and family.  No more 1.5 hour drives.  No more having to spend the night at the in-laws, which is only terrible because it always messes up Ayden and Rylee's sleep for at least a week.  
• We will have child care more readily available when needed.  I desperately need to make a few doctor appointments for myself, but that's impossible here because we don't know anyone to help watch the kids.  Tony has to work, and it just doesn't work taking them with me for things like that.
• Ayden and Rylee will be able to spend more time at their grandparents house.  They have a lot of property to explore and the kiddos absolutely adore the cows. 
• The timing worked out perfectly that my in-laws have a rental available for us to move into.  They just put brand new carpet, linoleum, a few new windows, and all new kitchen appliances in the house.
• The rent is a lot cheaper, so we will be able to put aside a large amount each month toward our down payment on a new house.
• It's within walking distance to the WOU softball fields.  We have two girls that we coached that are freshman on the team.  We'll also be able to attend more high school games at the school where I coached for 20 years.

The negatives:

• We will be leaving the new friends we made here, particularly our twin friends.  I was really looking forward to having one more summer of park play dates and adventures with them.  
• I will miss the Community Playgroup that we've gotten involved with.  Even though we are moving back home, Ayden and Rylee were barely just a year old when we left and hadn't gotten involved in anything like that yet.  We lived there for over 20 years, but never with kids.  I have to start all over with finding things for us to do and meeting new mom friends.  I suck at that stuff.  Thus, the reason I've only made one "real" friend here so far.
• The house we are moving into is much, much smaller than what we are used to.
  We have too much furniture for this house.  We aren't even sure our bed and both our dressers will fit in the master bedroom.  This should be interesting.  It also only has one bathroom.  Not the end of the world, but Tony's not the.... most careful or clean in the bathroom, and I'm seriously not very excited about how often I'll be cleaning it since Ayden and Rylee have to touch EVERYTHING!  Ugh.
• The garage door to the new (to us) house doesn't open, which is extremely inconvenient.  We will be buying an outdoor shed to store the lawnmower, wheel barrel, etc.  We'll see how it works with the stroller and bikes.
• The kitchen got all new appliances, except a microwave.  We have to buy a microwave.
• We have to pack up and move again.  I hate moving.  The worst part is that we'll most likely be doing the same exact thing in about another year when we will have a sizable down payment and are more in a position to buy.  Moving three times in three years with babies/toddlers.  Sigh....

Overall, we are very excited to move back.  We feel like this is a very good thing.  Moving is just crazy.  Packing and unpacking is no fun.  We will be moving our first load of stuff, all the things we don't use daily, the first weekend of March.  Then the following weekend, Tony will be gone on a business trip and I am taking the babies south to visit my aunt.  Then our big moving date will be the weekend of March 19-20th!  We only have three weeks left here!  Aaaagghhhh!

Microblog Monday: One More Class

We have one more gymnastics class left.  It is safe to say that we won't be signing up again any time soon.  The last two classes were a little bit of an improvement for Ayden in that he didn't have complete breakdowns and we could at least get him to somewhat participate.  This last Saturday we were back to square one though.  He MAYBE had about 10 seconds that he enjoyed himself and actually smiled.  Otherwise, he wanted nothing to do with being there.

Rylee has done very well in the class and goes with the flow of everything.  She's only had one meltdown, which happened to be this last Saturday also.  It was at the very end of the class when they were doing some activity with an "octopus."  She didn't want to give up the octopus so the other kids could have a turn.  I didn't actually see this happen though, since I was already out at the car with Ayden.

I suppose there's a chance we might sign Rylee up again and we can take turns taking her to the class and having one on one time with each of them.  We'll see.  It definitely won't be this next session though.  One more class and we are done with gymnastics for awhile.  I'm glad we tried it, but now we know that any organized and structured class is not the thing for Ayden.



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Another Blood Draw

Ayden has now had his final blood draw to check his glucose levels.  The results came back normal this time, and I am not at all surprised.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that Ayden is now traumatized about going to the doctor, and it was all unnecessary!

I asked for the very first blood draw to find out if he was nutritionally deficient in some vitamin/mineral, which would have been an easy answer to explain his diaper eating issue.  The results came back showing that not to be the explanation for his diaper eating, but it did show that his glucose was a little high.  The doctor wanted a second blood draw to rule out the possibility of diabetes being a concern.

That second blood draw took place a few weeks later at Ayden and Rylee's 2 year check up.  He also got a couple of vaccination shots that day.  Rylee handled the shots like a champ, but Ayden wasn't at all happy about it.  Then to follow those shots up with a blood draw... It was not a good day for him.  The results the second time around were a little better, but still not within the normal ranges.

Several friends commented after hearing the results, that they felt like his glucose levels were normal for not being fasting blood draws.  Anything over 100 is considered abnormal.  His first test results came back at 117.  The second time was 109.  I was never told he shouldn't eat before these blood draws.  The appointments were both scheduled for right after their naps, so I gave them their snacks while we waited in the lobby to be called back.  This served two purposes for me.  One, they got their snack and two, it kept them occupied and somewhat under control in the lobby of the clinic.  I was told that if the results of the third draw came back high, then we'd have to do buckle down and do a more serious fasting blood draw.

This time though, I didn't feed them anything while we waited.  They had lunch around 11:45am, took their nap, and the appointment was at 3:30.  I asked his doctor about the numbers being within normal ranges for having eaten a snack right before the test.  Her answer was that the perimeters for the test took that into consideration, and didn't need for him to be fasting.

Let me back up.  Ayden was perfectly fine in the lobby at the doctor's office, but as soon as his name was called and we stepped through the door to head down the hall to our little room, he started crying and did NOT want to go any further.  The poor little guy has now developed a healthy fear of going to the doctor.  And that was BEFORE even heading over to the lab!  He's old enough now to remember his previous visit.  As soon as we got called into the lab, Ayden completely lost it and just started screaming.  He sat on my lap for the blood draws and I had to hold him as still as possible.  He got so worked up and tight this time around, that when the lab tech inserted the needle, she couldn't get any blood from him and it took several minutes for her to be able to get it just right to do the draw.  I was so afraid she was going to blow his vein and we'd have to go to the other arm.  Thank goodness that didn't happen!

Did I mention that the lab tech was surprised that this wasn't a fasting draw, since it was to check his glucose?  Yep.  She even double checked with the doctor that she had the right order before taking the draw just in case.  Hmmmm.....

By the time we got called into the lab for his blood draw, it had been at least 4 hours since he had eaten.  No snacks this time, and guess what?  The numbers came back normal.  I feel like this was all not only a waste of time and money, but unnecessary and traumatizing to my son, who will now always have a fear of needles and going to the doctor.

I do appreciate the doctor's concern and follow up after the results of the first test, and understand why that one didn't need to be a fasting draw since glucose wasn't even the concern that time.  I feel like I should have known not to give him crackers before the second test, but I didn't even think about it.  Shouldn't the doctor have said something about making sure we didn't eat right before?  If friends hadn't told me they thought the numbers were normal, considering he had eaten, I would have done the same thing this time around too, and probably gotten similar results!  Then we would have had to do a 12 hour fasting draw.  Another freaking unnecessary blood draw for my poor Ayden!  I'm so glad that didn't happen.

I do like this doctor, and as I said, I do appreciate her initially ruling out there being a problem.  However, I'm really not happy with knowing this third blood draw was unnecessary, and then also the thought that we would be going back yet again, and be even more concerned about the possibility of diabetes, if I hadn't waited to feed them their afternoon snack this time around.

Microblog Monday: Our First ER Trip

Yesterday we had our first trip to the ER for one of my munchkins.  Poor Rylee fell and bit her tongue.  While I was sitting on the toilet, Ayden and Rylee were climbing into the dry bathtub, something they've been doing successfully for months now.  We tried to stop them from doing this at first, but then once we knew they were actually proficient at climbing in, we just let them because it made it much easier to do our own business on the toilet!

Well, yesterday Rylee slipped and fell in.  She didn't even land hard or hit her head on anything.  I thought she was just being dramatic about falling, as she sometimes is.  And then I saw the blood.  Oops!  It was hard to get a good look in her mouth to determine how bad it really was, but it looked bad enough to warrant a visit to the aftercare hours at our pediatric clinic.

I took her there because I wanted to avoid an unnecessary trip to the ER if possible, and because it's only a $25 copay.  Rylee wasn't very cooperative with letting the doctor look in her mouth, but with me and a nurse, she was finally able to determine that Rylee needed stitches.  Unfortunately, we had to go to the ER for that.

Once there, again Rylee wasn't very cooperative at opening her mouth for the doctor, but from what he did see, he wasn't going to do stitches.  He said they very rarely do sutures in the mouth.

While I'm very thankful that Rylee didn't have to be sedated and get stitches,  I'm pretty frustrated that we got sent to the ER unnecessarily and had to pay a $250 copay there, not to mention the extra 2.5 hours of our time spent.

Today, Rylee has been shockingly in good spirits and acting as if it doesn't bother her at all.  She is a tough little cookie.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be handling it near as well!  Her tongue actually looks a million times better in this picture than it did even just earlier this morning.  She got it pretty good.  Poor baby!

Please ignore my ugly tongue!
 It was the only way I could get Rylee to let me have a good look.

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