Jadens Journey

I was just typing a post and it disappeared, just like that. I have no idea why or what happened to it – it is just gone. It’s not in drafts and it doesn’t seem to have posted to the blog, so we’ll see if it mysteriously turns up on someone else’s blog tonight.

I was on my way to pick up Jaden from school (daycare) when they called to say he had fallen and was hurt (why didn’t I leave 10 minutes sooner!?). This is the second time in two weeks, and both times he fell flat on his face, albeit for a different reason and in a different location each time.

This time he was running with the velcro on his shoes not completely done and somehow tripped over the hanging strap. The problem is that he didn’t try to put his hands down to break his fall, so he fell flat on his face. They said his bloody nose was so bad it even scared the teachers. The lump on his head this time is twice the size it was two weeks ago – and two weeks ago it was the size of a golf ball.

I was so worried about him when I picked him up that I headed over to the doctors’ office but they had already closed. I called Neville to see if he thought I should take Jaden to the ER, but he said the closest ER is not equipped well for children and I should call the pediatrician’s on-call doctor first. When the on-call doctor called me back, it was actually the nurse. She said as long as he doesn’t start staring into space, and doesn’t get a high fever, he should be fine— it’s the back of the head that causes great concern. The front of the head is pretty stable. He’s in the bath right now getting ready for bed—- I’m not going to sleep tonight, I just know it.

I’ll have to talk with the early intervention people to see if the falling without putting hands out is something to worry about. We had this problem when Jaden started walking, which they said was because he didn’t crawl for long before he started walking. Without the practice on the floor, his reflex to use his arms when he fell wasn’t great. At the time they had us practice ‘wheel barrow’ walking with him, which fixed the problem in almost no time at all, but I feel like it’s happening all over again. I know it was only two falls but you should see him. He looks like he’s been beaten up. Ugh. Parenthood. Couldn’t one of you have warned me??

Everything else doctor, ER, fall, school

As most of you probably already know we took Jaden to Disney for a week in August. We loved it so much we already reserved the resort for a trip in 2011. I could tell you all about it here, but pictures will do a much better job than my words ever could.

SO – I uploaded a bunch of pictures from my Dad’s camera to Snapfish (I haven’t even moved my own pictures from my camera to the computer yet). I’m going to try something different (again?!) with the pictures. My family always shares pictures on Snapfish, and adding them to slide.com was proving so torturous that I didn’t spend any additional time adding them to snapfish, so I am way behind uploading to snapfish. I have to eliminate one step, so if linking the blog to snapfish is successful, I might have my solution.

The pictures are in a group room called “Blog Photos.” The link to the room is jadensjourney.snapfish.com/snapfish and the password is the same one as for this blog. You should only have to put in the password once – each time after that as long as you sign into Snapfish you’ll have access to the pictures. Let me know how it works!

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About Jaden's Journey, Everything else, Pictures circus, Mimi, Pictures, pop-pop

Everything else, Pictures party, Pictures, pool, swimming

My phone lived through its brief attempt at an olympic gold in toilet bowl diving. It’s now back in service, so there will be no decisions whether “to wait or not to wait” for the new iPhone to be released. I will have to wait for my turn at owning a new model, but I’m glad it will be on my terms now, and not my damn phone’s decision.

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Jaden has been consistently happier (much!!) since the surgery than he was before the surgery. I can only imagine what kind of pain he must have been in, and who knows for how long. I feel bad that it took us this long to take care of it (for many reasons, most of which we could not control). I’m convinced the pain was what caused him to be moody (and close to monstrous on a few occasions) before. Imagine needing two teeth pulled and three root canals, and not knowing how to describe to anyone what’s wrong?

I, on the other hand, have not been so happy this week. Anyone who is my ‘friend’ on Facebook already knows my cell phone decided to take a dive into the toilet bowl yesterday. The bowl was empty, for those of you who have that type of morbid curiosity– but yes, it’s still gross. Thankfully it was at home and not at some slimy public restroom. No offense intended to all of the clean public restrooms who may be reading this. And if I do offend you, there’s no need to come back.

The pitiful thing about losing the phone to the bowl is that I was trying to AVOID having it leap into the bowl. Let me explain… the problem begins with the fact that they make the iPhone so damn slippery. It’s nice to look at with its sleek design and touch screen, but the truth is it is impossible to hold onto. The thing is like a jumping bean, literally, and that’s without vibrate on. Two weeks after I first purchased the phone it nearly went into my parents’ pool. I was pulling it out of my pocket to show my new prize to my siblings when the phone leapt out of my hands and onto the pool deck, dangerously close to the edge. I should have been happy that it didn’t drown, but instead I was just pissed at myself for dropping it and getting two scratches on it.

To make matters worse, I’m no stranger to losing phones to water damage. I lost two other phones to bodies of water – one previously to the toilet bowl and the other to a gigantic cat bowl with enough water in it for nineteen cats (not mine– don’t ask). After suffering these two losses, I became very skittish about having my phone near anything even remotely damp. This is where the pitiful part comes in. I was headed for the bathroom and didn’t want to chance losing yet another phone to the bowl, so before I even entered the room, I started to take my phone out of my pants pocket, to put down far, far away from the water.

The damned thing managed to jump out of my pocket, slip through my hand, fly through the air toward the bowl, bounce off of the rim, and dunk right into the water. How on earth!!??

I grabbed it immediately and tried to shut it off. Probably a stupid thing, I know, but I get a million texts and a few calls a day, so I was afraid if of continuing to operate, shooting electric currents through itself while soaking wet. That, I thought, would not be a good thing. However, every time I shut it off, the darn thing turned itself back on. I tried three times then gave up.

After spending a good twenty minutes online trying to figure out my best course of action, I have stuffed it in a bag full of rice and I’m letting it bake on the windowsill for a couple of days. Supposedly the rice will absorb the moisture from within the phone, and then I can turn it on (or off?) again to see if it works.

A lot of people suggested taking the battery out, but those if you with an iPhone know that is not possible unless you want to pry open the case, and I’m no electronics genius so the rice is as complex as I’m going to get.

Now, believe it or not, until I started searching online for ways to salvage my phone, I had no idea the new iPhone 4 was announced and is being released in 2 weeks (Yes, I must live on another planet). So although I was ready to shoot (KILL!) myself for the potential destruction of my phone BEFORE I went online, afterwards I have to admit I thought to myself “hmmm… maybe this won’t be such a bad deal after all”.

Time will determine the outcome. I have to wait a few days and pray my phone dries out successfully. My decision in the interim is whether or not to spend 30 bucks on a pre-paid go phone or just to take my chances driving around without a cell phone until this one decides to work again (or until I get a new phone). Maybe I should just hold onto the $30 and put it toward the new phone when (yes, I said “when”) I get it.

By the way, the phone isn’t the only electronic object that is went kaput on me this week – my printer just decided to stop working today too. I’m only mentioning it so you don’t think I’m shallow enough to let my day be ruined by the destruction of my beloved iPhone (even though I really am that shallow).

Here’s a few pictures of Jaden being a ham at the dinner table tonight…. click on each image to enlarge then use the “back” button on your browser to return to this post.

Everything else, Pictures iPhone, Pictures, printer, water damage

Everything else, Pictures

Wow – I didn’t realize I hadn’t written since before Jaden was diagnosed with asthma. I think you already know we were fighting wicked allergies all season long – Jaden was sent home a number of times (at least once or twice a week) from school because he’d wake up from nap with swollen eyes and difficulty breathing. The symptoms came to a head one day in the beginning of May when we rushed him to the ER because he wasn’t breathing properly in the middle of the night. It was very scary and his frightened cries were heart-wrenching. We spent a good portion of the day at the ER only to be sent home with the wonderful diagnosis of asthma, and a whole slew of new medicines to give our poor little guy on top of everything he already takes.

We continued in and out of the doctor’s office for the following 3 weeks each time Jaden was sent home from school with continued symptoms (needless to say I nearly needed a shrink over the stress of him being sick and also trying to get my work done), until finally one of the docs had the brilliant idea to try antibiotics in case it was a sinus or ear infection that was not showing itself via a full-blown fever. He was all apologetic about wanting to try the antibiotics until he saw the crazy look on my face that told him at this point I’d try just about anything!

Thank goodness this man had the sense to give in and prescribe the antibiotics because we FINALLY have our generally happy son back. He is sleeping through the night ever since he started the antibiotics, he’s having less trouble breathing, and he is much, much less cranky and much more like himself than he had been in months. I hope that once the antibiotics eliminate whatever the problem was that we’ll be able to back down on the asthma medications.

Neville’s parents and Aunt and Uncle came for dinner yesterday and to see the new swing set. My MIL just emailed us these pics of Jaden from their visit. I didn’t realize how tan he is from going outside twice a day during school days until I saw these pictures! Jaden loves the piano so much I guess it’s going to be time soon to look into lessons for him — how old does a child need to be before starting lessons?

Everything else, Pictures allergies, antibiotics, asthma, dinner, piano, Pictures, school, tan

These were taken in the couple of days it took to put the playscape in. First the sprinkler system guys came and marked off the sprinkler lines so the landscapers wouldn’t rip them apart when they leveled the section of the yard intended for the play area (pink flags). Then the landscapers came and leveled the yard, and ripped out the sprinkler lines anyway – so we had to have the sprinkler guys back again to fix the mess. Finally the playscape came. There were three guys there to put it together (it took 4 hours) then another two guys came with the rubber mulch (which took another 4 hours). It’s a very good thing installation was included. If I had left it to Neville it would have taken 8 years, not 8 hours!

Jaden was very impressed, once he figured out what it was. We had him outside all morning on Saturday playing. Saturday afternoon and Sunday we paid the piper with his allergies – but it was definitely worth it!

Everything else, Pictures allergies, Pictures, playscape

Everything else, Pictures Cape Cod, mini-vacation, Pictures, weekend