03.20.09 Boone Park - Jacksonville, FL

Chris was on call last night, so he came home to sleep, and my family and I drove down to Boone Park to play for a while. It's one of my favorite parks here because of all the beautiful trees and shady spots to play. Grant really likes it, too. We had so much fun playing on the playground, walking through the tree-lined path, climbing trees (mom couldn't do it...but I could!!) :-) and walking through the cute little shops in Riverside.

Grant was swinging - well, sort of. You know the kind where you lay on the swing on your tummy and swing back and forth? Well, that's what he was doing for a short while before he completely flipped over the swing and landed face first on the ground beneath him. He wasn't happy, and by the time he made it over to me, his nose was bleeding and all we heard for the rest of the day (and several days after) was that his nose was "broke." He needed his daddy to fix it! Grandpa thought this was hilarious as he was the one who originally planted that idea in his mind. What a character.

03.20.09 Mason's First Birthday!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Our computer hard drive has been fried, and so I haven't been able to upload any pictures. :-( We have been busy, and hopefully I'll be posting here more soon, however, our computer is still down. The special treat this week is that my mom and grandparents are here for a visit. And Dad is coming on Monday! Mom brought her laptop, so I jumped at the chance to upload some pictures and share our life with you again!

Yesterday, Mason turned one! I can't believe a whole year has passed already. Chris and I were talking last night, and we still think of Mason as such a baby. We don't picture him this old just yet. And yet, here he is...ONE YEAR OLD! Here are a few pics of his party and of him digging into his cake. You should have seen him. Unlike Grant who went head first, he just dug in with both hands and downed almost the entire two layer cake before we knew it. When I took it away, he was groping for more!! He sure loved his chocolate cake. :-) We had a basketball themed party, and had about 34 friends and family come and celebrate this great milestone in our little one's life. Thank you all for coming, and to those of you too far away, we missed you so much and wished you were here!

Our Basketball themed party decorations - of course I had to do them in UK BLUE!! Go CATS!

We had "Concession Food" to go along with our Basketball theme. We had Nachos, Hotdogs, Pretzels, fruit and cake, of course! We even made a concession food sign advertising prices...too bad no one actually paid! Ha!

Mason eating his first Birthday Cake

Doctor Visit

Throughout this whole ordeal, Chris has been telling me that there's nothing more that the doctors at the hospital can do than what we're doing here at home. Chris had checked his ears, listened to his breathing, felt for lymph nodes in unusual places, etc. He was confident that whatever Mason had it was not life threatening. If we took him to the hospital, they would do all sorts of really invasive, terrible tests, and he really wanted to avoid that at all costs. Saturday and Sunday when the fever was so high, I was really freaking out and he finally in exasperation told me to take Mason in to the ER and he would stay home with Grant. Well, I wasn't about to do that. First, I really didn't want to go to the ER by myself and second, I wanted to show Chris that I have faith in him as a doctor. Well, he was right. He scheduled an appointment for Mason today, so I took him up to the hospital at 2:00. Dr. Sams, the program director, came in, listened to the story, checked his ears, listened to his breathing, checked for lymph nodes in unusual places and told me that because all of those things were normal, that the next step would be these horribly invasive tests. He said if it were his kid, he'd ride it out a few more days because Mason does not look terribly sick, and while we were there Mason was smiling, laughing, clapping, etc. He suspects that Mason has Roseola. Basically, it is a fever for 5-7 days, then after the fever breaks, you break out in a rash. Though there are no signs of a rash at this point, we're on the lookout. If Mason has a fever greater than 102 tomorrow, we'll take him back in for the tests. But I'm hoping to avoid that at all costs! Hopefully he merely has this common childhood infection, roseola. And to Chris I'm happy to say, "You were right, Honey." He really does know what he's talking about, and he continues to impress me with his medical expertise!

Mason Update

Well, poor Mason is still one sick little boy. It's funny - one minute he just wants to lay on my lap, and the next, he's sitting up laughing at Grant, clapping his hands, and trying to walk. It has baffled us greatly. We can't figure out how a baby that's so sick can act so normal. This is very encouraging to Chris, signalling that Mason's doing very well, despite the high fevers. Yesterday he awoke with a fever of 103. It went up to 104.7, and it never went below 103 until about 7:00 last night when it finally broke. He was very hyper for about an hour and we really enjoyed playing with him. I was concerned yesterday because he stopped eating and I couldn't really get him to drink much, either. So I resorted to trying something to drink about every 45 minutes or so. He would take about an ounce at a time, so at least he was staying somewhat hydrated. Chris spoke with a senior resident, explained his symptoms, etc, and they agreed the best line of treatment at this point was to start him on a round of antibiotics. If they haven't helped within 48 hours, we'll have to take him in for some more extensive testing (including a lumbar puncture, lots of blood work, a catheter, etc. Ugh!!) I'm really hoping and praying that it won't come to that...I just don't know if this mom could handle it! After his first round of antibiotics, he threw up. I'm hoping that he can keep them down. If not, we'll be making a trip to the hospital for sure. When we went to bed last night, Mason didn't have a fever at all. I was feeling so encouraged. But I was awoken at 2:00 by screams. When I went in to check on him, he was burning up and his fever had spiked to 104.5 again. Grrr. I was up with him for a couple of hours, felt the fever break, put him back to bed and was encouraged when I got up that it is only about 100.5 this morning. Hopefully it will stay down. The poor kid is just getting medicine all day long between tylenol, motrin and augmenten. Yuck. I feel so sorry for him. So, keep praying for him (and for me - Chris said I'm a typical mom...the kind that drive doctor's crazy! Ha!). Hopefully next time I post, I'll have some encouraging news!! Thanks for all your prayers. Oh - something sort of cute...Chris had pulled out his stethescope while I was holding Mason yesterday morning. Grant stood there and watched him listen to Mason's breathing, then ran to the play room. A few minutes later, he returned with his toy stethescope, placed it on Mason's back right next to Daddy's and they listened together. It was so cute. He said that he had fixed Mason. He's been very concerned about his little brother and is constantly reminding me, "Mommy, Mason's a sick boy!"