Emergency room visit

We had a very eventful morning today. It all started last night when I was sound asleep one minute, and jumping out of bed the next because I heard a huge thud. Not sure what it was, I stood and listened for another noise - that noise turned out to be Ryan screaming. I ran across the hall into his room and saw him curled up on the floor next to his bed. I picked him up, calmed him down, and then took him to my bed with me. As we were laying in bed, Ryan kept saying his head hurt, and kept rubbing the same place. I rubbed my hand over his head and felt a bump on the lower, right side of his head. I didn't think it was anything unusual, so I laid there with him until he feel asleep again, and then carried him back to his own bed. Trav checked on him one more time during the night - nothing seemed too unusual - that was until this morning. I was already up with Lauren when I heard Ryan screaming. I went into his room to find him bent over the side of his bed saying his head hurt. He wasn't just crying, he was screaming, but again, I just figured it was him waking up in a bad mood, nothing serious. So I calm him down again, and pick him up to lay him in our bed to watch some cartoons. As I'm picking him up, he tells me to hold his head (this is unusual), so I do. I put him in our bed, turned on the cartoons, and went about with our normal morning activities. A couple of minutes later, I hear Ryan screaming again and Trav comes out to the kitchen to tell me Ryan is crying because it hurts to sit up - great, this is getting a little more serious. I go back and talk to Ryan and notice he isn't turning his head to the right at all so I check out his head again and realize the bump has gotten bigger, and now there is also a hard lump behind his ear - I'm getting a little nervous at this point, but am still trying to stay calm. It is only when Trav comes carrying Ryan out of the room and says, "maybe you should call the doctor because he is really hurt." Hearing Trav say that makes me really nervous because he never wants to call the doctor for anything. So I get on the phone and call the nurse's line. The lady asks me some basic questions about what happened and how Ryan is - she says she'll check out the schedule to see if Ryan's pediatrician is available. During this time, she asks me a few more questions, this is when the conversation changes. She tells me that Ryan might have to go to the ER because of the type of injury (head injury) he has, but she'll check with my doctor really quick and let me know for sure. As she is saying this, Ryan is screaming in the background. At this point, she asks me if he has been acting any different this morning, and I say, "other than the constant crying, and wanting to be held, not really." After that she says she is going to make her own decision and tells me to head over to the ER right away - are you kidding me? I was basically calling just to confirm our thoughts that maybe Ryan was overreacting a little, but it turns out there might be something seriously wrong here - not what I wanted to hear. So Ryan and I head out while Trav stays home with Lauren. For the first twenty to thirty minutes we are at the hospital, Ryan continues to scream non-stop. After the doctors give him some medicine to relax him and help with the pain, he calms down enough for the doctors to examine him and take x-rays. Two hours later, we are told that Ryan basically sprained his neck (there was some long medical term for it, but I can't remember what it was). His neck/head was swollen because the muscles/ligaments were tight (which accounted for the limited range of motion) and would eventually loosen up - thank god, I was imagining the worst. Some pain meds, lots of rest, and in a day or two, he should be good to go. By the time we were ready to head out, literally half of the nursing staff was lined up at our room waiting to say good-bye to Ryan - even in pain, the kid has charm. The nurses were so happy to see him calmed down and enjoying his time at the hospital - what's not to enjoy though when you are treated like 3 year old royalty. By the time we left, Ryan had a stock pile of stickers, a coloring book, a matchbox car, a popsicle, and some apple juice, all of this, while laying in a cool hospital bed watching cartoons - what could be better. After giving all the nurses a hug good-bye, and smacking the doc with a high-five, we headed home. I am just so happy it turned out the way it did. It was a very scary morning that I don't want to ever want to go through again.

Lauren's new boy toy

It seems as though Lauren has a new man in her life . . . Woody (from Toy Story). For some reason she has taken a real liking to him lately, and if he is in the same general area, she'll track him down, give him lots of hugs, and drag him wherever she goes. She also gives him her own version of a head rub, which is more of a chew, than a rub. His head is plastic so she maneuvers him into position, and goes to town chewing on his head (something I'm sure he enjoys). Luckily his head is too big to fit into her mouth so there hasn't been any damaged, but you would think at some point he might start losing some hair - we'll have to wait and see. Below is a play-by-play of one of her interactions with Woody.

The initial hug . . .

time for a "head rub" . . .

a pat to say, "I'm sorry for chewing on your head" . . .

one more hug for good measure.

She is a lovable little girl, just beware if you happen to have a plastic head - things could get a little vicious. Here are a couple more random shots from the day (Ryan was sleeping so we had a little alone time).

That has to be it for now. I have a date in five minutes with Trav and Ryan. We are going to watch, "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and have some popcorn - sounds like the perfect way to spend a Tuesday night.

Lauren's first word

I'm going to go ahead and say that Lauren has said her first official word - yeah! And what would be the perfect first word for a little girl who loves her mother very,very much - well, "mama" of course! I'm serious, I'm not making it up, and I have a video to prove it. I knew there would be skeptics out there saying that it is just wishful thinking on my part, but once you see the video, there is no denying it - she says "mama" clear as day. She has also come close to saying "dada", but as the video also shows, she's not quite there yet - sorry daddy. Enjoy!

Pumpkin carving

Ryan finally got to make our pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns this weekend - how fun! After waiting for an entire week for the big event, Ryan was ready to go right away on Saturday morning. Lucky for us, Lauren cooperated and took a nice long nap early in the morning so the rest of us were free to have some fun. Trav did the dirty work by cleaning out the pumpkins, I did the actual carving, and Ryan took care of painting his pumpkin, as well as Lauren's (seeing as though she was sleeping and probably wouldn't mind). We picked out one pattern (it is 3 wolves howling at the moon) from the carving book we had, and decided to do one with "QUAST" across the front, which was much easier and much less time consuming. Here are a couple of pictures from the morning. And yes, Trav does have knee pads on - either pumpkin carving got a lot harder than I remeber, or Trav is getting old and weak. After our pumpkin carving, we packed up the kids and headed out to visit one of Trav's old high school buddies who just had a baby. Ryan of course loved the baby and mentioned numerous times how cute and tiny he was - baby Colton was a hit to say the least - congrats to Chad and Molly. After a couple of hours, we packed up again and headed back home. It was a long day which lead to an early evening for the kiddies - yeah! All in all, a good family weekend - can't wait for Halloween to light up the pumpkins (again)!

Dreary days, dreary kid

These are pictures of Ryan showing off his new jammies just a few hours before he threw up all over them and had to take them off - poor kid. So either he wasn't completely over the stomach bug he had last week, or he managed to get something else in the two days he was actually feeling better. Whatever the case, it appears as though he is good now (Thursday night) after a restless night (Wed) and a day full of sleeping. He was running a low fever most of the day and threw up once more, but has been good since he woke up around 5:30pm. I hope these past two bouts with sickness aren't an indication of the winter to come. Ryan was pretty bummed he had to miss school today, especially since he just got a new teacher. His regular teacher had her baby the other day so a new teacher is coming in to help out while she is on maternity leave. Lauren doesn't appear to be sick at all, although it has been a struggle to keep her away from Ryan. When she sees me holding Ryan and rubbing his back, she automatically crawls up on me, lays her head down on Ryan, and gently (or not so gently) pats Ryan's back - it is the cutest thing. I would video tape it, but both of my hands are always full with the kids so I can't - maybe I'll try tomorrow. Ryan has his kindergarten screening tomorrow - not sure what to expect from it, but he is excited that he gets to play games and participate in some fun activities (that is what the brochure told me to tell him to prepare him for the day so I did). It will be a quiet weekend at the Quast household - just us and the kids hanging out. The goal for the weekend - get the pumpkins carved. Ryan has been patiently waiting so I'm sure he'll be excited to get started.

That's all for now. Have a great weekend!

Leaf jumping!

Monday provided us with some great weather again so the kids and I headed outside for some fun. We started out with a casual stroll around the neighborhood to check out everyone's Halloween decorations. There were lots of skeletons, bats, and spiders - most of which scared Ryan - what's new. After our walk (which was took about 45 minutes even though we only went about five blocks), we decided to do some leaf jumping in the backyard since we already had a pile from last night. Ryan dove right in, and Lauren even got into the action today by sitting and crawling around. Here are some picutres from the fun.
Onto other news . . . Lauren is officially done with formula. She hasn't been drinking her bottles the last few days - we assumed it was because she wasn't feeling the greatest, but once she got better, she still wasn't drinking her bottles so I decided to try some milk instead and she drank it up. We were happy to see this as she wasn't drinking a lot the past few days so she needed to get some fluids in her. She is also down to just two bottles a day - one in the morning, one before bed at night. Although, she isn't as crazy as usual about the bottle so I'm guessing she'll be done with bottles altogether pretty soon - what a big girl she is turning into! That's all for now. Stop reading the blog and go out and enjoy the nice weather (if you are not trapped at work)!

Pumpkin patch fun

Trav and I took the kids to the pumpkin patch this weekend in order to find just the right pumpkins for our front steps. The pumpkin patch was a little family owned place right outside of town so it only took a couple of minutes to get there, which made for an easy afternoon trip. The weather was great and the place, and people that worked there were very nice. Ryan already had a pumpkin from his field trip with school so we were on a mission to find 3 other (to finish our pumpkin family) perfect pumpkins. Having found the perfect "daddy", "mommy", and "Lauren" pumpkins, we paid for them and loaded them into the van. After that, we bought a bag of popcorn and headed out on a hayride. The farmer who drove the tractor was nice enough to let Ryan check out the tractor before we went into the fields - pretty cool! When the hayride was over, we packed up the kids and headed home - Lauren was sleeping before we pulled in the driveway, and the rest of us crawled into bed when we got home - all that pumpkin searching took a lot of energy, time to refuel with an afternoon nap.
Having spent most of the day on Sunday house shopping with Auntie (hopefully she'll get her dream home), Trav and I decided to take the kids outside that evening to enjoy the last of the great weekend weather. Lauren learned how to climb trees and Ryan helped rake up a big pile of leaves to jump in - talk about fun! It was a great fall weekend, hopefully next weekend will be just as nice as we plan on carving our pumpkins - should be good times.

More of "dad's way"

One more thing Trav did a little different than I usually do. I was at work again, and when I came home, I checked on both kids before I went to bed. Lauren looked fine in her crib, Ryan wasn't in his bed - must be laying in our room with Daddy. So I go get Ryan and pick him up to bring him into his own room. As I carry him, I notice he has his Spider Man top on and a different pair of pj pants - he must have had an accident, I'll ask Trav about it tomorrow. After tucking Ryan into bed, I head into the bathroom to get ready for bed. This is where I see how Trav handled Ryan's accident . . . there are his Spider Man pants and undies laying in the bathtub - why Travis puts the clothes in the tub, I have no idea. I decide to pick up the clothes and am surprised when I notice that his undies have a little extra color to them - brown! So he didn't pee his pants, he must have had a number 2 accident (his still has diarrhea pretty bad). Trav must think throwing the clothes in the tub will magically make the poo disappear- oh, if it really did work that way. I try to wash out the undies as best as I can, but the stain doesn't go away completely - set in poo is very hard to get out of clothes, why didn't he just wash it out when it happened, I'll have to ask him in the morning. So morning comes, and I ask him about Ryan's accident and tell him about the stain in his undies. Trav's response, "just throw them away." Gosh, why didn't I think of that! That is the obvious answer, one of the kids has an accident, just throw the clothes away - after all, we have money coming out of our ears so it's no big deal!

The "dad" way

I left for work at 5:30pm last night - no more incidents with either kid so maybe Trav will have a good night. I take my break at 8:00 and see there is a missed call from Trav - something had to happen with one of the kids. I listen to the message, and to my surprise, no mention of sick kids, instead, he tells me he has fixed the dryer - hallelujah!! So I call Trav to see what he did and ask about the kids. Turns out Lauren threw up again - it was all over her, the crib, and her blankets - that is the bad news, but the good news is that it only took 30 minutes to dry the load of laundry Trav did after getting Lauren back to sleep. Yes, I said it, Trav did a load of laundry by himself while managing both kids - I must be dreaming. Trav assures me everything at the house is fine, he got Lauren cleaned up and back to sleep and Ryan is in bed - sounds good to me. When I get home from work, I check on both kids. Ryan is tucked in bed sound asleep. I go check on Lauren next and have to laugh when I see what Trav did as "clean-up" for the crib and Lauren. Lauren is sleeping in a onsie even though it is 40 degrees outside - whatever, he has her heater turned up to 70 so she should be warm, but the real funny thing is what he decided to do to replace the bedding she threw up on. I would have put on her other mattress pad and sheets and finished it off with a new blanket, but Trav took the simple route - no mattress pad, no sheet, heck, he didn't even give her a blanket, nope, he opted a bath towel spread out on her mattress - not two towels to cover the entire mattress, just one towel at one end of the crib (just enough for her to lay on) - at least it was one of our nicer, fluffier towels. Oh to think like he does - life would be easier, but probably not as comfortable. I'm just happy he got through the night and even did a little cleaning along the way - I give him an "A" for effort.

Here is a picture of our poor little girl laying on her towel.

Ryan is feeling better - even good enough to try out his new (new to him at least) Spider Man pajamas. A lady my dad works with was nice enough to pass on her son's cool pjs so Ryan could enjoy them - we love hand-me-downs!

Oh shit!

I literally mean, oh shit, here it comes again. It seems both of the kiddies have picked up some kind of bug and the result is a house full of poo - so fun! When the kids woke up this morning, everything was as it usually is. About an hour and a half after waking up, Lauren started getting cranky so I gave her a bottle and put her down for a nap - nothing too unusual, but it was about an hour earlier than normal, and she only drank half the bottle - this IS unusual - the girl likes her food so I should have known something was up. When she woke up from her nap, I went to her crib to find it full of her breakfast - I literally had to scoop out mashed up bananas with a spoon from her crib - gross! After getting that little mess cleaned up, I went to throw all of her bedding in the washer, oh wait, the dryer is broke so this isn't going to work. Luckily I called my neighbor, and she was nice enough to let me borrow her dryer so I could get the mess cleaned up today versus waiting until Saturday (the day the dryer is getting fixed). Shortly after that, Ryan ran into the bathroom. Within seconds of being in there, I hear, "I got the sharts." Great, well at least he made it to the bathroom so the clean-up shouldn't be too bad. Of course it wasn't that simple, yes, some of the poo made it into the toilet, but the rest of it was in his pants and undies - fabulous - one more mess to clean up. After the activities of the morning, I packed the kids in the stroller for a short walk. Upon arriving home, Ryan was back in the bathroom - I'm assuming everyone can figure out what happened so I won't write it out again. Lauren was getting fussy again - thought maybe she wanted to eat - nope, just sleep - very odd. Both of the kids took naps without eating lunch -maybe they just need a little extra rest. After her nap, Lauren and I went downstairs to hang out until Ryan woke up. Unfortunately, she didn't last that long as she had a little (big) sharting incident of her own. One minute she is playing, the next, I hear a rather juicy farting sound - this can't be good. She starts crying, I pick her up, and there is shit everywhere - up her back, leaking out of her pants, everywhere (including the new carpet). Her clean-up takes a little longer as she needs a bath (or a hose down) to get rid of everything and a couple of towels and blankets need to be washed - time to call the neighbor again to secure some "dryer time" - thank god for nice neighbors! So that is my day so far (it is only 4:00pm). Luckily I have to work tonight so Daddy gets to take over the "shit patrol" - oh, how I wish I could be around to see his first clean-up. Somehow I could see myself getting a call at work to come home - we'll see.

Enough with that crap (literally), here are a couple of pictures of the kids. Ryan went on his first field trip yesterday to a local pumpkin patch where he got his face painted. Lauren is showing off her new pink sweater from her future Auntie Ann - doesn't she look cute!

I hope my kids don't read this someday and get mad at me for writing about their pooping issues. I just look at it as my right as I am the lady who gets to clean up after them - sounds about right doesn't it?

Enjoying the outdoors

The weather has been pretty nice lately so we are taking full advantage by getting outside as much as possible before it won't be an option anymore. Here are some random pictures during one of our backyard outings. It is so nice that Lauren can get down and play on the ground now - it is so much easier than trying to hold her and play with Ryan at the same time.
Ryan was loving the camera this day (as you can tell by the many poses he did for me) until Daddy came home. Then he had no time for it and hid until I put it away - can't blame him, the poor kid has a camera in his face almost daily. I can't help it, it is just too fun to stop.

Nurse Auntie

Auntie passed her Nursing Boards!! We are so proud of her. I'm not sure if she'll go by Nurse Auntie or not, but that is what Ryan calls her. When we found out (she called at 7 in the morning to tell us), we decided we would head to St. Peter for the afternoon to spend some time with her, and Grandma and Grandpa too. It was a perfect day outside so we took the kids to the park to run and play. Ryan found a "grill" to play with for a while and Grandma kept Lauren busy on the swings - it was fun for everyone. I of course brought my camera to get a few pics. My favorite is this one of Auntie . . .She is deep in thought here. She's probably regretting passing her test because now she has to get a job, pay her own bills, and be a real live grown-up. The caption should be, "oh, sh**, what have I done!"

Back to the kids. Here are a couple of action shots from the afternoon.

After a quick visit back at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we packed up and headed back home, had supper, baths, and went to bed. It was a fun way to spend the day - something a little different than usual.

WAY TO GO ASH!

Where's Ryan?

Is there such thing as too much camouflage? Not if you ask Ryan. In fact, the more he wears, the less anyone can see him - how cool is that? So today, he decided to really go all out. He wore his "army" pants along with his "army" shirt and socks, and to top off the outfit, he put on his matching "army" coat and hat - he was practically invisible. Luckily he was nice enough to let me get a few pictures before he disappeared into the surroundings - check it out.After I was done taking pictures, Ryan went back into "hiding" so we weren't able to see him for a while. But, it appears as though Lauren may have some kind of super power as she was still able to track him down in hiding and in full camo gear - simply amazing. Here are a couple of pictures of her when she finds Ryan "hiding" behind our bedroom door. She was so excited to find him - look how happy she is.
I had to put the last one in because that is her "signature" face. She breaks it out whenever things get a little out off control in her world, which is usually a couple of times a day - such a precious little girl isn't she.