Sick little girl

A1 getting a nebulizer treatment this morning

Sunday evening late K noticed that A1 sounded like she had raspy breathing. She asked me if I noticed, but at that point I couldn't hear anything. Then last night when the kids were running around, up and down the stairs, we noticed that she was having a hard time breathing. When we stopped her and listened more carefully it sounded like she was really forcing herself to breath, although you couldn't tell anything was wrong from how cheerful she was acting.

We called the 24 hour nurse and described her symptoms and held the phone up to her mouth and the nurse said what K dreaded she would say all along, "bring her in" (what is it about children always getting sick after hours?) We weren't sure how serious it was, but the nurse seemed pretty worried about not having her coming in, so at about 10:00 PM last night K took her to the St. Luke's East Hospital emergency room.

Fortunately they got her in to see a respiratory therapist fairly quickly and her oxygen levels were 95% (not so fortunate). Over the course of the night they dropped down to 90% and so they gave her 15 to 20 minutes of a nebulizer treatment of Xoponex (Levalbuterol). This helped with her oxygen levels slightly. The hospital told K that if a baby's O2 level is 95 or less that they have to stay at the hospital. Her O2 levels came up to 96 and so, after doing a chest x-ray and giving her a liquid steroid, they sent her home around 12:45 AM with a diagnosis of viral branchiolitis and a brand new nebulizer machine so we could give her medicine at home (which they said might cost $1000 a week!). They also said she had to see the pediatrician as soon as possible in the morning.

Xoponex - Sci-fi starship or medicine?

K took A1 in to the pediatrician this morning and they tested her O2 level and it was at 92, and dropped down to 89 at one point. Her stomach started sucking underneath her ribs which was alarming. They gave her another nebulizer treatment (albuterol), but it only brought the O2 levels up temporarily. They decided to send her to Children's Mercy South Hospital. They debated sending her by ambulance, but in the end they thought that it would be ok for K to drive her as long as she kept her in from the cold air and hurried there right away.

Thanks to our neighbors, K was able to drop C4 off at their home on the way and took A1 in to the hospital, by this time a little panicky because the pediatricians had been talking about how she might need an ambulance, and said it was possible A1 could be admitted up to 2 weeks! Fortunately Children's Mercy is only about 30 minutes away and when K and A1 arrived it wasn't crowded, although there was some delay because they initially couldn't find the records that Raintree Pediatricians faxed because somehow they mixed up the first letter of our last name.

The good news was that A1 saw an experienced physician, Dr. Shashtri, who especially liked A1's chubby cheeks. (Imagine hearing this in an Indian accent, "I love their plump little bellies and their chubby cheeks!") He checked her out and then he recommended that we do an inhaler instead of a nebulizer, because sometimes children respond better to this style of treament. So he gave her a dose of Ventolin HFA (albuterol) and she responded really well, her O2 levels coming back up and staying at 97 within about 5 minutes. The doc thinks that she may just have a cold that has settled in her lungs, possibly because she won't let herself cough. I guess she is such a polite little girl that she doesn't want to draw attention to herself (yeah, right!)

Giving an inhaler to a baby requires some extra tubing.

This goes over the baby's mouth.

Since her levels were back up long enough she got to go home again, although going outside is out of the question for a while (she has already complained about this; she loves going outside). So now we are giving her the inhaler every 4 to 6 hours, and she seems to be doing fine.

A1 playing her version of Connect 4 as she recovers

It is amazing how quickly what sounded like just raspy breathing turned into a minor emergency. I guess the lesson is that if you hear a baby having trouble breathing, pay attention -- we debated calling the nurse initially, but we're glad we did in the end (although I'm not looking forward to the explanation of benefits from our insurance company!). But as B8 says, would you rather not pay or have an Alive A1?

On being the fifth child

Being the fifth child must be kind of like getting a new job where you show up and find that you are working with people who have known each other for a while. I look at A1 (our 1-year-old daughter) and it strikes me that she is having quite a different experience growing up than her older sister (M12 who just turned twelve). Having three older brothers means that instead of learning lullabies, she has learned the Darth Vader march and rather than knowing Strawberry Shortcake, she knows the storyline to the Zelda video games (and she can sing themes from this as well).

There must be some advantages to coming late because she seems to be learning how to speak quickly and has already mastered the skill of removing all of her clothes, to the chagrin of her parents who are impressed, but would rather have control over whether she is dressed or not.

Another one of the first words A1 has mastered is "spot", something she learned from her older brother who frequently tells the others to "get out of my spot." Spot is a good general purpose word used to label a chair, box, laundry baskets, couches, benches, stools, etc. She points at one of these items and says "spot" which tells everyone else that this is reserved for her. I think that this comes out of the heightened competition she faces in finding spots. There are several spots in our house that are coveted for their padding. When she successfully sits in a spot, her smile broadens and you can tell that having a place to sit is not something she takes for granted like her older siblings.

A1 happy to have a spot.

Another thing A1 is really good at is saying goodbye -- she says goodbye to me in the morning, and then says goodbye to the oldest three when they leave for school. Sometimes she says goodbye to mom, although probably mom deserves to hear this more often. Not surprisingly, one of her other favorite songs, which she often sings out of the blue is "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye." You know, this song:

On Motivating Kids to do Chores

Lately we have been struggling to get B8 to do his small list of chores by the end of each day. He is like me in that the usual gimmicks don't do much to get him excited to do things he perceives as unpleasant. I remember going to piano lessons and being introduced to the wonderful prizes I could earn for practicing and not really feeling any more motivated. It is like an immunity, and I think B8 has inherited it from me.

So we have resorted to giving B8 dinner only after he has done at least the majority of his chores. This seems to be working although it clashes with that other imperative about always having a family dinner together. Although he has eaten breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snack, he really tries to lay the "I'm starving! I can't do anything because there is no food in me" routine on us.

So far I don't think he has actually not had dinner one night, because he finally realizes that we are serious and then he buckles down, but it sure is a pain to have the drama going on about it throughout the evening. K now tells me that even though there have actually been a couple days where he hasn't had dinner, she has sent him to bed with some toast and butter so that he does actually have food in his system.

I think what we will have to do is set a deadline hour by which if chores are done, there just isn't any dinner. You are probably saying, wow they are mean! but I think we are just desperate. Or maybe we just all need more sleep.

At Jason's Deli

All this good organic jason's deli food is making us hyper.

Real Families, Real Answers

While hunting for something to watch on BYU TV today to get my mind off of politics, I came across a show called Real Families, Real Answers. (To get to it, click the BYU Original Production tab once you are on byu.tv) I watched the first episode and was really impressed, especially because, although it is a BYU production, the families they feature are from a variety of faiths.

The show is beautifully produced and pleasant to watch (having the music written by Sam Cardon is a big plus too!). It probably also helps that the director is Blair Treu, who appears to be an experienced LDS Hollywood director, and former ABC News anchor Jane Clayson Johnson narrates the series.

I think it is a new series because so far there are only two shows available. It looks like they will be following a set of families throughout the series and talking about what they do to have a healthy family. As well as featuring BYU professors, they also interview marriage and family expert William Doherty in the show who makes some excellent points about making your family an intentional family.

As pointed out in the first 2 episodes,
these are the nine characteristics shared by successful families

There is more information about the show here as well: http://kbyutv.org/rfra/

macaroni and cheese comin'!

To improve Mac and Cheese (which makes me wonder why McCain and Palin never adopted the moniker Mac and Cheese?), add some salsa before you eat it.

Just me and the 4 youngest today

My wife and oldest daughter M12 (on this blog I am not going to use first names -- fortunately we didn't use the same first initial for any of our children, so this works out well) went on a temple trip this morning to St. Louis with the Young Women (yes M is already a young woman), so it is just me and T10, B8, C4, and A1. So far I have done two loads of dishes, minus the cups on the top layer that never get clean. We just leave them in there hoping they will get clean, but day-after-day they disappoint us.
We have also made a lot of progress today on Zelda: Twilight Princess which we play on our old school Gamecube. In a lot of ways though I think the Gamecube still is better than the Wii - it's cheaper, and you don't need a lot of space to wave your arms in. Plus, Link is still left handed when you play the GameCube version of Twilight Princess, which is truer to the franchise (disclosure: I am a lefty myself). The game is rated T (teen) but I am making sure to stay ahead of the kids enough to find anything that merits the rating. So far I don't see anything much worse than the other Zelda games.
A1 (1-year-old girl) is walking around holding some Pokemon cards that undoubtedly belong to one of her brothers. She is singing some kind of song about them and waving them triumphantly. She just threw them across the kitchen floor and is recollecting them. I'll never understand why the boys leave these out if they really are as valuable as they claim them to be.
I am noticing an odor as A1 walks by that elicits my instinct that tells me "I wonder how long I can go without changing her diaper before it becomes a problem." If you wait to long you undoubtedly will change it and realize you caused a diaper rash by delaying. Looks like I will delay no longer.