Better Than Money

You know those scenes in movies where a bag of money busts open and dollar bills go everywhere - then all the people scramble around grabbing as many as they can in their tight little fists?

That was Ryker last night. Only it wasn't money, it was clumps of dirt and dead grass and dead leaves. He sat on the ground for half an hour spinning in circles on his butt and grabbing everything in reach. At first he kept trying to put it in his mouth (he actually succeeded once, as I later realized when I pulled a small leaf off his gums). Then he decided it was just as fun to grab a fistful and thrust it towards me as proof of his dirt-holding abilities, with a huge grin on his face. He was so happy.

I often wonder if the neighbors can hear what I say to the kids in the backyard, and if so, what they must think. Last night it was "Yes, nice dirt...Yes, I like the dirt too...No, no - Icky...Bleh...Oh thank you for that leaf. That's nice." And then to Jack "Oh the nice monsters live there? Cool. Hi nice monsters!...No, no - we don't ride our bike on the slide...Why are you taking the broom up there?"

We have fun, anyway.

iCan'tStop

I'm so ridiculously hooked on my iPhone it's sad. But lucky for you (or not, maybe) that means more pictures! And I can send them straight from my phone.

See Flickr link on the right.

Poem

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You are very healthy (and don't have Cystic Fibrosis or thyroid problems or anemia)
And Ryker is too.


Test results looked perfectly normal.

And now I can rat myself out - as I told several of you I would. So the pediatrician told us NOT to look up Cystic Fibrosis under any circumstance. She made that very clear. And I didn't!

For a whole 3 hours I didn't look it up! Then I did.

They say one of the symptoms is that the baby's skin tastes salty, and their sweat tastes even saltier. So I licked my baby. Over and over and over. I licked his face, his arm, his chin, his shoulder. I made him sweat and licked that. Poor Ryker has been my personal salt lick for the last week. And he wasn't salty. Not once. So the test result really just confirmed my own very scientific findings. But it's nice to know the wacky doctors and their highfalutin tests say the same thing.

Thanks for all the positive thoughts.

Best Answer

Jack came in and out of our room ALL NIGHT last night. I'm not kidding - ALL NIGHT. So this morning we were pretty irritated with him and we were harassing him about it, Spanish Inquisition style...

Chuck: "Jackson - you keep coming into our room at night."
Jack: "......"
C: "It's really making us frustrated because we just need to sleep."
J: "...."
C: "So you need to sleep. For real!"
J: "Oooo-kaaaayyyy."
C: "We're not playing around Jack. Why do you come in to our room? Why do you do that? What's your answer????"
J: "Sprinkles."

He said it totally straight-faced. Like that was clear as day. Chuck had to turn around and face me because he was laughing so hard.

My reaction was one of jealously. I wish I could answer like that. For instance, I just made a huge blunder at work and I'm likely to have to talk about it today. And when they say "You just can't mess up like that" I want to say "Ooooo-kaaaayyy." And when they press me for an answer as to why it happened? "Sprinkles."

No News is Good News?

Okay, here are the things we've learned in the last few days:

1. Ryk's allergic to cephalosporins (I might be spelling that wrong) - that was the first reaction he had while we were at Children's.
2. Ryker is ALSO allergic to penicillin - he reacted to that Tuesday night after we got back from the hospital.
3. I have a Pavlovian response to putting medicine in my baby now. I break out in hives FOR him as I wait to see if The Spots are going to come back.
4. He's a champ at the lab tests - slept through some of it and cried harder at having his pants pulled down than he did at the blood draw.
5. Trying to collect a urine sample from a baby is a pretty funny endeavor.
6. Children's Hospital won't send results to your doctor unless the doctor calls and requests them. Because "they don't know the fax number." Really? REALLY?
7. Ryker does not have kidney disease. I didn't even know we were testing for that.
8. Everything that HAS come back to the doctor's office (not sure how since they don't know the fax number) has been negative - he looks great on all the things that they have seen.
9. We are awful at waiting.

There are still some tests that we don't have results for. We'll let you know what we find out.

In the meantime we don't want you all to forget about our awesome 3 year old. Here he is:

Update, But Only Barely

We headed off to Children's Hospital this morning, but while in Admitting we noticed that Ryker looked like this:
Not the best picture, but basically he was breaking out in little red bumps all over his belly, back and neck. So we ditched the Admitting lady and went to the ER instead (conveniently located right down the hall). Ryker was admitted there for an allergic reaction to the antibiotic we started him on last night (to help his congestion and fever). Here's his little wristband:

So the redo is Thursday. Stay tuned. But in the meantime, this is what he looked like just a few minutes ago, happily chomping on his Baby Ronald McDonald.

Positive Thoughts Please

Hey devoted readers. Just a note to say I hope you all think good thoughts tomorrow - we're having a bunch of tests run on Ryker. Hopefully it's nothing, but the doc just wants to be sure. He hasn't gained much weight in the last 3 months. I, of course, am freaking out. If you talk to Chuck he'll say nothing is wrong - so maybe if you add our responses together and divide by two, you'll get a healthy, normal response to the appointment we had today. Still, seeing "failure to thrive" written on my sweet baby boy's referral sheet made me want to throw up. That's not a helpful response so I opted not to. Instead, I blog.