Sam's 12 month cardio check up

OK, Sorry y'all, but the pix loaded in a really weird way and it won't let me move them, so just bear with me and read captions!

So Tues. we had Sam's cardio check up. We'd gotten a phone call telling us to have him stop eating at a certain time, but not why. I was guessing at maybe bloodwork or something? Anyway, when we got there, they sent us off for a chest X-ray, which made me REALLY glad AJ was there, b/c I couldn't go in there with him b/c of Tiger.

Then we all trooped back to Peds Cardio, having been all over the hospital for about an hour and a half by now, and got called back for Sam to get weighed and stuff. The nurse told us they wanted to sedate him for his Echocardiogram. That was a bit of a surprise, and when we told her that they didn't sedate him for his 6 month one, she commented that b/c he was being so good for her, maybe the Dr. would consider not sedating him. But the Dr. came in and told us they had to do some 3D and 4D Echoes and he'd have to be SUPER still, which is not likely for any one year old, much less ours. So they sedated him. OI!! That was a MESS!

First they gave him an oral medication called Chloral hydrate around 1135. The nurses told me it should take about 30 min. or less for him to fall asleep. It's metabolized in the liver and basically affects him like alcohol. AJ took Josh out to play and spend some energy and have a snack, and I sat with Sam. He didn't love the taste of the medicine, but he was ok with it. I was holding him for awhile, and he was all sleepy and laying on my shouldar...and then the meds started kicking in. He was so hilarious!! I sooo wish I'd gotten some video of him... He started playing with his tongue and flirting with the nurses and rolling around and stuff. But 30 min. later, he was still going pretty strong. So around 1205 they gave him a nasal injection of Versed. He didn't like that AT ALL!! I actually was a little afraid he was going to throw up, he kept gagging and coughing at it going down his throat and stuff, and was crying at the same time. But eventually he calmed down a bit. The nurses informed me that it should make him sleep in about 5 min. And about 5 min. later he was much dopier and MUCH grumpier about it!! He was rolling around and freaking out and NOT happy, not happy being held, being on the bed, nothing. I couldn't stop laughing at him b/c he was so upset about being out of control, but it was one of those if I hadn't been laughing I'd have been crying types of things...it was really really stressful, and he's really getting strong!! Anyway, so about 15 min. later he was STILL awake!! Barely...but still fighting really hard, so they brought in the Pentobarbital injection and had to give him a shot in his thigh... OH MAN!! NOT GOOD!! He seriously freaked then. But about 5 min. later he finally fell asleep...WHEW!! Poor kiddo...But they got the echos done...took about 30 or 40 min. maybe? I'm not really sure...but Sam was OUT. And Josh was so good while they were doing all this...and esp. b/c we had to be quiet for most of it.

Anyway, after that, they took Sam over to the same day observation till he woke up. They also did an EKG on him while he was still sleeping. Josh thought that was pretty cool.

After that, Josh and I went and got some lunch and then AJ texted saying that the Dr. was there to talk to us, so Josh and I ran back upstairs, poor kid, and I listened to as much as I could, until Josh insisted again that he needed to go potty RIGHT NOW! So I ran him down the hall to the bathroom and back again, ending up missing another large chunk of the discussion of AJ and the Dr. about stuff. I was kinda irritated and made them repeat it all for me!

Basically my understanding of this rather disjointed conversation was this: Sam's right atrium is still enlarged. They also found a TEENY hole b/t the two upper chambers of his heart, but not big enough either to fix or to be causing the enlargement. He also said Sam's tricuspid valve is shaped and functioning abnormally, but perfectly adequately. So the couple of irregularities they found couldn't be causing the enlargement, and so he's still our little mystery! He's taking 1/2 a baby Asprin a day basically as a precaution, and if he stays the same condition in the next few years, should be able to play sports and all just fine, so that was good to know.

For now they want to keep doing check ups on him. In Sept. he'll be going back in for an EKG so no sedation (yay!), and then probably every 6 mos. again after that.

After we talked to the doctor, it wasn't too much later that Sam finally decided to wake up. He was REALLY groggy still, and wanting to get the heart monitor (on his thumb) off even if it meant chewing it off!! So they put it on his toe...that didn't really help, he kept kicking his feet up and all around till they finally just took it off b/c of course they couldn't get a reading while he was being so crazy! He got some apple juice and water, and did really well with that, so after about 20 min. of him being up they let us leave...around 3:30 or so in the afternoon!! He kept almost drifting off in the car, but refused to actually go to sleep. Finally got him home and he really wanted to get down and crawl around and play, but was still so wobbly and rubbery that he kept falling over, so for awhile we wrestled him on the couch, then put him in the high chair. And finally we just put him in his bed for a little nap, which he needed! He came with us to community group that night and ate a ton, begging brownies from everyone there, and chasing the Rileys' dogs off their bed and stealing their toys! He was still slightly wobbly, but much more coordinated than before. Of course now he's back to his normal self.

So it was a LONG and slightly traumatic day for us, but with pretty good results. We love the nursing staff there, the peds nurses with us for the sedation were awesome! I have a video that I'll post later of one of them with Sam after he woke up a little but was still really loopy.

Josh was kinda tired...this is when they were weighing him and everything before the sedation.
Such a cute little man...and he loves to play with his belly button!
Josh being weird
Sam and AJ were in that room where it says X-ray in use. Josh and I were in the waiting area pictured below... really awesome!!
this was some sort of interactive game
Sam right after waking up
Out cold getting his EKG...wow, that's a lot of wires!!
Josh being really good during the echos.
Sam during the echo...the wires were to monitor his vitals while he was sleeping.
More boy piles of silliness! We sure do love our little mystery boy!!

Sneaky Chef

So my sister Jenny just sent me her Sneaky Chef cookbook and I'm soo excited to start using some of these recipes! So today when I was making out my grocery list I sat down w/ the book and made sure I had things to make some of her "make ahead" purees and mixes for things. There were some kind of uncommon (at least for me!) things on there, like wheat germ. Does anyone know where to find wheat germ in the grocery store?? Because I couldn't find it...

I did get the stuff to make the green and orange purees I think, so I may try to find enough energy to make those and freeze them in 1/4 cup portions to be able to pull out and use when I need to. I'm seriously exhausted just after doing the grocery store, though, so I'm not sure I will. But still hoping I'll be able to get more veggies into all of us, not just the boys!

Thanks again, Jenny!! I'll let y'all know if there's any recipes we just really really enjoy!

Third boy-child...what are we going to do???

So we had our ultrasound this morning. Could not believe when we saw "boy parts" on the monitor, but there he was. Our Tiger is a boy! I'm still coming to terms with the no new baby stuff and no girly, ruffly, pink clothes again, but I know I'll be excited, and not just resigned at some point. I'm excited to meet him, just not looking forward to the next few months with nothing to prepare. I was really hoping to be able to re-do the nursery and get new clothes organized in the dresser and all that. It's ok, though, we love our Tiger!

We still don't have a name for him, though. We haven't been able to agree on a name yet, and I've run out of boy names that I'm just really excited about. So, please, if you have a name you'd like to suggest, we're open!! We'd love to hear what you think! We don't want to repeat letters though, so no "S" or "J" names...and not really wanting to use an "L" name, either. Also, Daniel, Max, Mark, Paul, and a few others are definitely out. They've already been suggested, and turned down...I actually love Daniel and Max, but there are some very cute doggies who already have those names, and we can't use them. My current short list includes Zachariah, but AJ doesn't like it. He does like Zachary, which I'm not a huge fan of...go figure! But neither really sounds like "our" kiddo.

Anyway, here are some pix from the appt. He's perfectly healthy, normal size for his due date, and his heart looks great. He's about 12 oz, and his heart rate was 145 beats per min.

Heart rate
Profile w/ either an arm or leg up there
Same thing
His cute little feet!
nose and mouth to check for cleft palette.
Yay for 4D ultrasounds! He looks like the other two...
He had both feet up by/over his head pretty much the whole appt.
Very flexible little one! Maybe he will be a gymnast or a dancer!
More profile
The first boy pic...I started thinking maybe she saw something else, but if you look at the next pic, you'll be able to tell that there was no way anyone could mistake him for anything but a boy!
Poor Tiger, having his private areas on display! But now we all know for sure!

Kids' names

OK, this is for Jessica...you want to know about my kids and how they got their names, and I think that's a pretty cool idea, so I'm gonna do it, too.

Joshua William:

Well, I've always loved the name Joshua, despite its popularity. I love the Biblical stories about Joshua, and how strong he is as a leader of God's people, and I pray that same spirit will be evident in our Joshua. It's also AJ's middle name, so that was nice, too...not a huge fan of "juniors", but this was kinda the same concept w/o being that.

William was AJ's choice. It's a family name, both on his mom and dad's side. On his mom's side is apparently William Barret Travis, and his Grandpa on his Dad's side can trace their family back to Kaiser Wilhelm I...I believe his sister's branch (the kaiser's).

So anyway, we had Joshua William, which is a classic sounding name, and very "male". I'm like Jessica, I'm a fan of definite gender names.

Samuel Henry:

We didn't have a new "boy" name picked originally...took some brainstorming on our part. We came up with Henry pretty quickly, actually AJ did, but I liked it right away, partly because it's my Grandaddy's name, but I also just like old fashioned type names. Samuel took us awhile longer...but one night I was lying there thinking about things, and it popped in my head, and I decided I loved it! We had been studying Samuel in our Bible study class, and that's probably why it popped in my head, but I loved having another strong Bible name for our son, and it sounded really cute with Henry. Come to find out, apparently my great grandfather (my Papaw's father) was named Samuel, too, so it's also a family name. Plus I think Sam is just about the cutest boy name ever! I love it! Which is good, huh? Since my kid's named that...

Tiger:

Well...we don't have any for sure yet, we're waiting to see what gender the ultrasound tech happens to see in a couple weeks, but we do have some contenders. I'll share them, since we're not secretive about names, like SOME people I know (Jessica!! lol, just kidding).

For a boy we've discussed Thomas as the first name, with James or Eugene as middle names...Thomas for my Papaw (Tommie) and James is AJ's dad and Eugene is his middle name, named for his Dad, Gene. We've tossed around others, but that's the strongest candidate for now. We haven't been doing a lot of brain storming lately, since we're so close to finding out what Tiger is. Plus we've been busy, and AJ's gone currently.

For a girl, we've thought about several...many more options for that gender, as we don't have any yet! Gwendolynn is the top of my list currently, but switches places regularly with Margaret and Kaelynn, with Ruth and Aisling as middle names. I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up for a girl that I've been trying not to dwell on it too much either way. With both the boys I knew they were boys...with Sam I even had a dream about him, that he had brown hair and everything! Kinda weird, but w/ Tiger, I've felt that it's a girl some, and then immediately doubt everything, and back peddle so as not to get my hopes up. We'll welcome and be excited by either boy or girl, but let's face it, we're both hoping for a girl...and so is Josh, he really wants a sister! We'll see (hopefully, if Tiger cooperates) on May 28th, and we'll figure out a name from there. Only bad thing about if it's a girl: What will we name her? I've got about 18 names that I love, and there's only one child in here!! LOL! We'll figure it out!

Anyway, that's the story of our kids' names.

The Census

So when we filled out the census awhile back, Josh was curious...so we decided to see what his answers to the questions would be. I wrote them down so I could share them!

Age: Josh "I not know....umm...free."

Are you Hispanic: Josh "No. Mommy's."

Are you white: Josh "Well...I have whipe on my pants..."

What race are you: Josh "What's a race?"

Daddy "Who your ancestors are."

Josh "Am I ancestor? I wanna be a car race!"

Do you sometimes live somewhere else: Josh "Ummmm...yeah! At Grandmom and Grandad's house!"

It was hilarious! Though tempted, we did not put his answers on the form.

Birthday Donut Tradition continues...

OK, once again, backwards order. Sorry. But personally, I'm just thrilled I can finally upload pix again!!

OK, so we had a tradition in my family growing up: on your birthday, you get a chocolate donut w/ sprinkles, and a candle in it for breakfast. (As we got older, we sometimes switched to the slightly more healthy birthday bagel!) I LOVE donuts so I wanted to continue this tradition with my own family. So here's Sam's first birthday donut. Scroll down, it's on there, I promise!!

After breakfast, (AJ was already at work), my Dad took the panel off the dishwasher to inspect the leaking part. He fiddled with it, and discovered the probable fix, but we have yet to order the new part and try it out to see if that's actually what's wrong. Anyhoo, I got a few cute pix of the boys "helping" Grandad with the dishwasher.

Birthday donut at last! Fully committed to eating the whole donut and getting as much chocolate frosting on his face as possible for maximum picture cuteness!
Before he committed...
Seriously, Mom?? Can I eat yet??
Grandad holding Sam's hands so he didn't grab the candle flame...he really wanted to. And Big Brother Josh singing Happy Birthday to Sam!
Everyone eagerly watching the candle lighting...even Gus
It looked a little girly b/c they used Easter colored sprinkles.
The fun headband/hat didn't last too long!
More to come...don't want to overwhelm Blogspot when it's actually cooperating!

12 week photo

Easter Sunday...I'll try to take another one soon. Not much bump going on here in this pic.

I did start feeling Tiger moving around some about a week later (13 wks). Not all the time, but when I eat something cold or sugary, or am sitting really still. Can't wait to find out if it's a Tiger or a Tiger Lilly!!