I was doing some packing today and came across a CD labeled “Ezra Pics @ KJK Party 5/05” so I popped it into the computer to see what they were. They were, of course, pictures of Ezra taken in May 2005 when he was two months old. So cute!
Thanks, Aaron!
A mere couple of hours after I snapped the picture of the boys watching cartoons in my previous post, things took a turn for the worse. At about 11:00 I noticed Finn felt really hot and when I took his temperature it was 104.4. I gave him a dose of Tylenol and put a call in to the pediatrician to see if I should take him to Urgent Care. A few minutes after that I walked into the family room to find him face down on the couch having a seizure. When I picked him up he was dead weight and unresponsive. I started yelling for Bruce, who came running from outside. I handed Finn to Bruce and called 911, screaming at the poor operator to send an ambulance.
The ambulance (and to Ezra’s delight, fire truck) came and took Finn and me down to Huntington’s ER. The paramedics could see that I was scared to death, and they assured me right away that he would be fine. They said what the doctors later confirmed — Finn had a febrile seizure caused by a spike in his fever. Apparently it happens a lot with little kids because their bodies can’t tolerate the sudden rise in temperature. They all did a good job of assuring me that he was OK, while confirming that seeing your child having a seizure is terrifying (and that we did the right thing by calling 911).
It took Finn a while to recover once we got to the hospital. He was very sleepy and we couldn’t seem to keep him awake for more than a few seconds, which was worrisome. When I finally felt like we were out of the woods, I snapped a picture for posterity’s sake.
About an hour after he got a dose of Motrin, he finally started to perk up. And by perk up, I mean beg for food. Luckily we had a granola bar or we might have been in trouble.
Our stay in the ER lasted about three and a half hours and when we left his temperature was 99.8. He’s had a few more spikes since we got home, but this time we jump right on it with medication and a lukewarm bath. So far, so good.
I was worried that Ezra would have some anxiety over this episode, but he seems fine. We were lucky enough to have Jerri come get him from the ER so he didn’t have to wait the whole time. (Everyone should have a great friend who lives a couple of blocks from the hospital and volunteers weekly in the ER so she can just waltz right back to the restricted area!) Once they got to her house, she tried to grill Ezra for details but he had none. I think the extent of his reporting was that the fire truck came.
All kidding aside, this incident made me realize just how fortunate our little family has been health-wise. I know several children with serious life-threatening health issues, and parents who have to deal with ambulance rides, ERs and hospital stays on a regular basis. I feel so lucky that Finn’s seizure is not related to any greater problem, and my heart goes out to the families I know and love who have to handle medical emergencies all the time.
After a couple of weeks of off-and-on runny noses and coughs, I finally took the boys in to get checked out by the doctor. Verdict: viruses. So, nothing much to do but wait. However, Finn also has a fever (103.3 last night), so the doc said to watch him carefully and bring him back Monday if it’s not gone.
Our best laid plans of four hours of babysitting this morning (we can get so much done in four child-free hours!) have crumbled and the boys are parked on the couch watching old Tom & Jerry cartoons (which they think are hysterical).
As a side note, they both got weighed at the doctor’s office yesterday. Ezra: 43.0 pounds; Finn: 43.4 pounds. Little brother for the win! He is one solid little linebacker.
Finn and I had some errands to do on Wednesday and he wanted to wear his Batman mask.
My favorite part was that when I told him we were going to pick up Papa from work he said, “Mommy, don’t tell Papa that I am Batman!”
… or at least that’s what it feels like. Bruce and I have never done as much major work to a house all at once. When we renovated our first house, we took it slow and Bruce did most of the work himself. But, since we’re trying to move into our new house in just over a week, we’ve got roofers, plumbers, painters, drywallers, wrought iron workers and electricians working at the same time. The house is a hub of activity. It’s exciting and a bit unsettling. It reminds me of one of my favorite Richard Scarry stories.
I feel like we’ve just been running from one house to the other, having appointments with contractors, making phone calls to get quotes, etc. and I haven’t really posted much. So, I’m combining last week into one post of randomness.
Here’s Finn enjoying his ice cream cone on Friday. (At Ezra’s request we went to Baskin Robbins after school.)
Here he shows off his physique complete with tool belt. He was doing some important work around the house.
Ezra put up this sign … on his closet. Not sure what that’s about.
And here are a few from the new house. The boys like to sit on the stoop for snack time.
Finn pretending to be a tree in the front jungle … er … yard.
They discovered this weekend that the giant windows in the living room actually open and they can get out that way. Ugh.
This has been a crazy week of home ownership. In addition to removing the seller’s left-over junk, we’ve had three painters, four contractors, a roofer, a plumber, and a gardener come to have a look around and give bids on work that needs to be done. There is a lot of deferred maintenance. It’s exciting to be in the process of bringing the house back to life, but frustrating due to the waiting involved.
Yesterday our plumber came to fix some problems in the upstairs bathroom. One of them (a leak) had caused the kitchen ceiling below to bubble up so that it looked like a blister. Here’s Bruce popping it to let the water out.
We were expecting a huge gush of water, but instead got a trickle. Not very dramatic, but probably a good thing. It turned out it was a simple problem to fix in the bathroom, too, so that’s a relief.
While we were waiting for appointments, we all did a little gardening. There was at least a year’s worth of oak leaves on the ground so Finn, Bruce and I started sweeping. Finn liked the shoveling the best.
Friday Ezra brought home this picture he drew last week. He’d told me about it earlier in the week — he was worried he wouldn’t have time to finish it. His view of Belize includes palm trees, sand, a bright sun, himself and a crab. I’m not positive, but I think the class was asked to draw their best day ever.
Friday afternoon brought some excitement to our new house — a giant dumpster. The boys were stunned and fascinated to watch how the truck dropped the dumpster in the driveway.
Bruce and I were thrilled to know that the previous owner’s junk would be hauled away quickly. The next day, the seller came back with some hired help to load it up. Believe it or not, they filled it.
The driveway, garage and backyard are now debris-free. The dumpster will be gone tomorrow. Things are moving right along.
After four months of drama, we closed escrow yesterday on our dream house. It’s a bit of a wreck at the moment — lots of deferred maintenance, overgrown landscaping, and, irritatingly, trash left by the previous owner. But we will plug away. Here’s a shot of the exterior that I took a few weeks ago.
And here is my favorite picture of the house. It was taken in the 1930s (the house was built in 1927) and was featured in the brochure for the Historic Highlands home tour in 2003. We hope to restore the house to its former beauty.
All three Moision boys had Monday off for Martin Luther King, Jr. day, so we decided to take a hike in the canyon in Monrovia. It was slow going for the boys at first with much complaining, but once they realized there was a stream it was all good.
On Friday morning Finn asked if we could go to Target to see if they had a doll that had long hair he could cut. My mantra lately whenever the boys ask for toys is that we just had Christmas and their birthday are coming up, so we can put whatever they’re asking for on their birthday lists. This was not OK with Finn. So Bruce had the idea that they could make Finn a doll. That sat better with Finn and they made a plan to go to the yarn store so they could make a long-haired doll. Seventeen dollars later (mainly due to the race car buttons Finn insisted on), they headed home to make the doll.
By the time I got home, they had cut out the doll from cardboard, used an old shirt for material for the clothes, sewn on shoes and buttons, and Bruce was starting on the hair. Finn was thrilled and couldn’t wait to show me. Rapunzel started off with painstakingly sewn-on orange hair, which Finn promptly cut off (the whole point of the long-haired doll, after all).
After a couple more rounds of this, Bruce decided to sew loops on and attach long hair to the loops so that new long hair could be put on more easily after each haircut. Here are two more shots of Rapunzel in all her glory.
Ezra’s second tooth came out on Thursday but he didn’t even notice. He came home from school and was telling me what he learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. that day, when I noticed the hole in his mouth was even bigger. He was very surprised to hear the tooth was gone. He thinks he lost it at school, but I’m guessing he probably swallowed it.
(Note Finn trying to pull his Angry Bird plush toy through the slats in his chair. Crazy kid.)
He was worried about the Tooth Fairy, but I told him if he wrote a note and explained what happened she’d probably leave something under his pillow. We all forgot about it Thursday night, but Friday he wrote a note:
A little demanding, perhaps, but he did draw hearts and teeth. She must not have been too offended because she responded with her own note last night. She couldn’t find the tooth at Aveson but will keep looking. And she left him four quarters. He loves coins so life is good.
We went to the [hopefully] new house on Tuesday for the much-delayed City Occupancy Inspection and the boys had fun running around in the front yard. The landscaping is a bit of a mess right now with lots of overgrown plants and debris from the last storm that blew through. The two palm trees dropped lots of fronds, some of which are piled up near the street for the City to pick up. Ezra found two small fronds, though, and used them as a horse and sword, making him a knight. Finn found a rubber band and was in heaven. They do enjoy the simple pleasures.
Friday was Ezra’s first day back at school after Christmas break and they did some switching around between the two Kindergarten classes. The teachers put the kids into different reading groups based on their reading levels, and switched some kids to the other class. I was a little worried that the changes would make him anxious, and, in fact, he expressed some confusion about it Sunday night at bedtime. So, when I picked him up from school on Monday I was very interested to hear how his day went, if he was feeling better about the changes, and if he could tell me who was in his group. (Unlike his friend Lucy, who gives her mom a full rundown of the entire day, Ezra doesn’t talk much about school. I think it’s a boy thing.)
Anyway, he still couldn’t remember who was in his group, but said he felt a little less confused than Friday. When I pressed him for more information, he said, “Mommy, I’m trying to read.” I looked in my rearview mirror and he did have a book. And then he started reading out loud. It was awesome. I didn’t even care that it was a not-entirely-age-appropriate comic book. Needless to say, I stopped asking questions and let him go on with his reading.
