Jadens Journey

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

This past week we joined a group put together by the mother of two toddlers. The group is designed to allow parents to connect with other parents, and to attend fun events in the area. The events this group puts together tend to be further away than I’d like, but it is good to have a calendar full of opportunities to take Jaden out and have him meet other toddlers.

Yesterday we got up early (which is not difficult these days with the usual sleeping patterns), rushed through our morning schedule and hopped in the car to go to our first meet-up with our newly joined group. They were getting together at a MOPS meeting, which is an organization, “Mothers Of Preschoolers”, that has meetings at different locations throughout the U.S.

Did you ever start driving somewhere and the thought pops into your head “something doesn’t feel right”. I brushed it off as being nervous meeting a bunch of mothers and their toddlers for the first time, and continued driving.

It turns out I should have (once again) listened to my instincts. The meeting was canceled. Supposedly they posted notice somewhere, but seeing that we had to drive 45 minutes to get there, there was no way I was going to see this notice before arriving.

We made the most of the day by heading to Mystic Seaport. This time Jaden was more interested in the fish, sea lions, and other creatures (especially those running around in sneakers) than he was the last time we went. I’m happy about that – it is a great place to go even just for a quick (albeit 45 minute drive for a) morning out so I was hoping he’d eventually be more interested.

As an aside: I found some pictures of Jaden on my phone from our hospital visit. I’ll post them to the pictures tab asap.

This weekend we are having a dinner party, which I’ll be busy getting ready for starting this afternoon. One of Neville’s colleagues has family visiting from Korea. This is part of the same family that picked us up and dropped us off at the airport, and showed us around Seoul while we were there. We also invited my colleague that was in Seoul while we were there, who has now returned to the States. It’ll be the second time Jaden sees most of those that are coming. The English speakers will be greatly outnumbered by Korean speakers, so it should be interesting. We’re really looking forward to it.  I’ll try to take lots of pictures

Everything else Aquarium, dinner, guests, MOPS, Mystic