Chest Pains

For the last 5 or 6 months Ben has been complaining that his chest hurts at recess. No other time of the day. Just the end of  recess. I thought maybe there was something happening at recess but I volunteer every Friday and he seems to have a great time. I thought maybe it was all the running, swinging, playing etc. But it doesn't happen after he jumps on the trampoline or rides his scooter. 

So we decided to make an appointment for him. The doctor checked him out and said his breathing sounds normal and his lungs sound clear. It's most likely just pain in his chest wall. But he wanted to do an x-ray and an EKG to make sure.  He also said to put him on a half  a Zantac twice a day for a week. If it doesn't help then discontinue it. 

This is a really crappy picture. It was taken with my cell phone. This is Ben getting the chest x-ray. The technician was great. He let Ben go back and look at the x-rays and showed him where his heart, spine and ribs are. Ben was so excited. Then he let Ben pick out a sucker. Ben does not like Root-Beer suckers. 

Then we went up for the EKG. For the record, I have never had one of these. I have never seen one done either. So I couldn't even tell him what was going to happen. (I usually prepare him for whatever appointment he has.) He likes to know what is going on and why. This time I had no info for him except "they are going to check your heart." We go in and again the technician is great. He talks to Ben throughout the whole thing telling him what he is doing and why. At the end he even let Ben help take off all of the "stickers" I took this picture of Ben and showed it to him. 

He said "It looks like I'm going to be changed into a monster!" He thought it was pretty awesome. He gave Ben two suckers. Ben does like Bubblegum and Banana suckers. 

We have another appointment in two weeks to go over the results. 

Name that Rash

On Sunday Ben went to bed with a little bit of a rash on his arm pits. I put some hydrocorizone cream on it and didn't think anything of it. The next morning we woke up to this:

 

  

So we added Benadryl (or as Ben calls it "Ben and a Drill") hoping that would cure it. (along with the Hydrocorizone cream)

Later Monday it looks like this:

 

  

  

  

He's acting fine but that rash isn't going away. We continued all day with the hydrocortzone cream and Benadryl. 

But Tuesday we woke up with this

 

  

So we were off to the Dr.  Here's an interesting piece of info. If you go to the pediatricians office with your child who has an OBVIOUS rash all over - you get right in. You don't have to wait in the waiting room or anything. The receptionist takes you right back to the "Pediatric Rash Room" The nurse came in and said she had no idea what it was. He didn't have a temperature and hadn't been exposed to anything new. 

Dr. B came in and said it was definitely an allergic reaction. (Just like my mom said) It was a bad case of hives. We have no idea what triggered it. The only two things that we could think of that may have caused it were - 1. he had a new brand of apple juice and 2. he got a new shirt. But here's the case against either of them. 1. he's had apple juice before. It was just a different brand. 2. The rash wasn't under where his shirt was. It was mainly on his legs, face and arms. Not on his chest or stomach. 

So Dr. B said we were doing the right thing giving him Benadryl and hydrocortizone cream. If he swelled up any more (his hands and feet were swollen a little) especially on his face or lips, to bring him right in and they will give him a steriod. He did ask if he could show the medical students Ben's rash. We said that was ok. He brought us out to the medical students and asked them to look at it, figure out what they thought it was, and research it. One of them thought it was a reaction to amoxicilin. But Ben hasn't had any medicine lately. It seemed to puzzle both the medical students and the nurse. Thankfully Dr. B wasn't worried about it. 

I brought Ben home and told my mom what the Dr said. She remembered one more thing that it could have been. Ben was stung by a bee on Friday. We got most of the stinger out but not all of it. I'm not sure it could be that because it had been a couple days before the rash started. I called today and left a message for the dr, just to tell him about it. I haven't heard back from him so I guess he isn't worried about it either. 

Thankfully today the rash is almost gone. (I didn't get pictures of it today but I will get some tomorrow) It's on his chest a little bit today but now barely on his legs. It's still on his arms but it doesn't look so bad.  Hopefully by tomorrow it will be gone completely.

 

The post with no name

I started this post a week or so ago and just haven't been able to finish it. So I figured I would try to finish it and get it posted. Here goes:

It's been too long since I posted. For some reason I can't seem to find anything to post about. Actually that's not true, There's been stuff to blog about. But I get writers block every time I try to start. Here's our life in bullet points:

• 
  
  Will has 6 teeth now.
• 
  
  Ellie has 4 teeth.
• 
  
  Will can pull himself up on furniture and cruise around.
• 
  
  Will can also crawl on his hands and knees. Up until today he would just do the army crawl.
• 
  
  We've all been sick. Jim got it first, then Ben, Will and me. Ellie barely got sick at all. Jim got it the worst.
• 
  
  Jim almost lost his job but it seems pretty ok now.
• 
  
  Will bit me three or four times while nursing and my right breast was so painful that you can barely touch it. It made me almost cry to nurse on that side. There were two little holes where he bit me. It looked like I was nursing Reneseme (LOL that's for Twilight fans. - I just reread Breaking Dawn) The pediatrician (I mentioned it during an appointment for Ben and the ped knew we were in between primary care doctors so he checked me out. AWESOME DR! ) gave me an antibiotic to cure the infection which took away the pain. Will hasn't bit me in over a week thank goodness! I would cringe every time I'd go to nurse him because I was so scared of being bit again. It was REALLY Painful!
• 
  
  Ellie knows how to clap when you say "Yeah!"
• 
  
  Ellie will copy me and Ben when we shake our head and say "No! No! No!"
• 
  
  Ben had a horrible rash. On his front and his back. I took him to the doctor and it turns out his excema has returned. He gave me a prescription for a cream and told me to coat him in lotion. ( should have remembered that's what we had to do when he was little)
• 
  
  Ellie can pull herself up to standing. We had to lower her crib on Monday. She was still at the highest setting until then.
• 
  
  Ellie can't resist a laundry basket. If there is a full one near her she has to empty it. There's one next to her crib and today when I went in to get her up from her "nap" (she didn't sleep) There were two towels and two sleeper jammies in her crib.
• Will said "Mama" today. (I can't say for certain that he knew what he was saying but I was down the hall and he saw me and started crawling to me and he said "MaMa"
• We went on a  tour of a preschool the other day. Ben will be going in Sept. I think he's pretty excited about it. (Not that I think he's really aware of what preschool is. He knows preschool is learning and fun but he doesn't understand this preschool isn't at our house and Mommy isn't going to be there. )

I think that is our updated life. Now for the part you are really here for - PICTURES:

Standing in their crib (no he's really not THAT much taller than her. I think he's on his toes)

Ellie's stink face

Will trying to watch tv over the table

Ben's monster face

Will's First mohawk

Ben

Ben's rash

My Boys

Ben painting a volcano

Jim and Ben ( I LOVE THIS PICTURE)

Ellie with her crazy smile in the laundry

Ears, Throat, Thighs and Poop

How's that for a catchy title. It draws you right in doesn't it? Makes you wonder how they all connect. Well let me tell you...

We'll start with the poop, just because. Ben seems to have decided to potty train himself. We tried for a little while but he didn't seem interested and I got overwhelmed with the thought of potty training him and dealing with the twins. On Friday he told him he was poopy so I laid him down to change his diaper. I opened his diaper and he was clean. I said "Do you want to go potty on the toilet?" He said "yep" so he jumped up and ran down the hall buck naked (is it buck naked or butt naked? Butt naked makes more sense to me since his butt was in fact naked but I believe buck naked is the proper - if either way is really "proper" - way to say it.) He climbed up on the potty and actually pooped! Then Saturday he did it again 3 times. Sunday was the same thing (even twice at church) and today he's gone on the potty 3 more times. I haven't had to change a size 4 poopy diaper in 4 days! (I have had to change many newborn and size one diapers). Peeing on the potty is another story so we are still in diapers (sometimes pullups) but we are definately on our way!!

Next we'll go to the thighs. That is where the babies got their 4 month old vaccinations :( Two shots each. Good news Will is now 13 lbs 5oz and 24 inches long. He is in the 25% now! Will is definately my little chunky boy :) Ellie is 10lbs 9oz!!! and 22 inches long. She is still in the 5% but she's finally in double digits!! They have both over doubled their birth weights!

On to the throat. The Zantac hasn't seem to be working as well as it used to. Will has been pretty grumpy lately. He was on .7ml 2x a day. I talked to the doctor today and we are upping it to .9ml 2x a day. Hopefully that will help. He's still a million times better than he was before we started the Zantac.

Last up is the ears. Ellie has been screaming a lot lately (well since Friday) I thought maybe she was either developing reflux like Will (she has always spit up alot) or maybe she was getting sick. At the doctors today they took her temp and it was 99 under her arm (Which from what I've read is the least accurate way to take a temperature but that's neither here nor there) He looked in her right ear and it was perfect but when he tried to look in her left she screamed at him. I held her and he looked again. He said her ear looks a little "fussy" but he can't say 100% if it's the beginning of an ear infection or the end. He doesn't want to medicate her unnecessarily so if she's still in pain tomorrow or the next day then I'm to bring her back and just take her back to the back. I don't even have to check in he will just see her and check her ear again. Right now I'm rotating between Tylenol and Motrin. (partially for the ear infection and partially for the shots) I do love my Ped because he doesn't just automatically medicate them at every little cough or sneeze. Also if he doesn't put them on medication he will usually tell me to just bring them back in a day or so if they are still acting like they are in pain and he will see them without a copay. Which is awesome especially with three kids.

I hate having sick kids. I'm hoping she will feel better tomorrow but I have a feeling I will be in the doctor's office tomorrow or the next day.

Also, On Sunday (Aug 24th) we are having the twins blessed (It's like a christening. They give the baby a name and a blessing on the records of the church) It will be at my parents house (so if you live in the area you are more than welcome to attend. It will be at 1:00 or so. drop me an email and I will give you directions if you don't already have them. You don't have to be Mormon to come.) But I found the most beautiful blessing dress that I wanted to buy.

But it was $149.00 I couldn't justify it. So we found some lace at JoAnn's that is gorgeous and my mom made one. She is almost finished with it and I will post pictures of it. It only cost us $70 (still outrageous but oh well) It is so beautiful and I can't wait to put Ellie in it.