Day at the Park

It's been pretty hot here lately. The weather here is so strange. I have been waiting for it to 'warm up' since February, and the temperature would just hover in the 60s, we'd get an occasional day in the 70s, a day or two in the 40s and then BAM! IT'S OVER 100 DEGREES. All of the sudden, just like that.
Also - it's still EXTREMELY WINDY here. and the wind...it's HOT. It's like living in a convection oven.

Before it got too excruciating, we had an afternoon picnic at the park on the only patch of grass in the Mojave desert.

Day Date

Cory and I were lucky enough to go on a 'Day Date' two weekends ago into L.A.
Our neighbors watched the kids all day Saturday and we watched their kids for them all day on Sunday.

We started off by driving down Mulholland Dr. to catch a glimpse of the 'scenic' LA and the mansions that sit atop the hills. I was able to see some of them, but unfortunately to road is SO WINDY that Cory had to keep his eye on the road every second or we would have burned up in a fiery car crash. Plus, anytime we're in LA, the locals take it upon themselves to honk at us rudely, just because we have Texas plates.

Here we are at one of the Scenic overlooks of the city.



HOLLYWOOD!



I took this picture quickly out of Cory's window. They were fumigating this GIANT mansion! How do they make tents that big!!!











We parked down close to Hollywood and Sunset Blvd, and had lunch at a GREAT Mexican place called El Compadre and then checked out Madame Tussauds. The wax statues look SO REAL! They look a little shiny in the pictures, but when you were in there, it was hard to know who was a statue and who wasn't!

Jackie Chan




Cory and the character from Halo



Ooooh, Leo. My first love!



And Johnny Depp..




Jim Carey




Life is like a box of Chocolates...



Hannibal (so creepy, I couldn't even get close to him. I was sure he was going to pop to life!)



Tell us how you really feel Cory











I am totally Gangster....




Brangelina




Jenn - they had here across the room facing (glaring at) Brangelina




Carrie Underwood




The prez, yo.

Name That Baby!

Cory and I cannot decide on a name. We're not arguing over it, or even having trouble finding names we like. The problem. We kind of like A LOT of names...No one hates any of them, so we can't eliminate any of them. It's hard to pick a name when you're kind of 'meh' on about 10 of them.

So in classic across the pond fashion, I have set up a name poll...Go ahead, it's on the right, and have at it.



***Name of the baby will not necessarily be chosen by popularity of this poll. If you remember correctly, Clay wasn't even an option on our baby name poll last year. :)

Random medical condtion-itis

It's my official diagnosis for Clay. Everyone has kind of given up, everything serious has been ruled out and there's really nothing more to do.

A lot of me feels really blessed and thankful that the serious diseases that had been considered are no longer an option (Cystic fibrosis, Spherocytosis, hemolytic anemia, celiac disease, etc..)

In another sense, I am beyond frustrated because I feel like we've wasted so much time, energy, and worry over the last 6 months. (not to mention gas money!) Also, if I have any mothers' intuition, I know what lies ahead for him: a very frustrating medical history and denial of premium life insurance as an adult.
I know, because I have the same disease: random medical condition-itis.

I'm a pretty healthy person, I just have 'bad luck' when it comes to random medical conditions. None of them are, in a word, serious, but they cause just enough worry when you discover them to make everyone freak out for a month. Just to fix it and realize every thing's okay.


Here's Clay's list of non-emergent but baffling medical problems:

Chronic diarrhea. The GI doc and surgeon and regular pediatrician all have no answers for this. But, because they've ruled out all the serious things and Clay isn't losing weight, there's nothing they can really do. He takes medicines twice a day for this that doesn't help at all. Let me tell you how I LOVE changing diarrhea diapers everyday as Clay gets older and stronger and it takes every ounce of strength for me to hold him down, that I BREAK A SWEAT every time I change his diaper.

Anemia: Everyone's just decided some kids are anemic...He'll take Iron, for a long time.

GERD (Gastroesophageal reflux disease): He takes and will continue to take two different medications twice a day until further notice...It was enough to scar his vocal cords and cause speech delays, but whaddaya going to do right?

Cholelithiasis (gall stones): Well, technically he doesn't have this problem anymore because he doesn't have a gallbladder. Turns out, his gallstones were NOT made of bilirubin like expected, but made out of carbonate apatite. Good news: means there's no hematological component because there's no rbcs that are breaking down or anything. Bad news: no one has a freaking clue what this or these kind of gall stones mean. I guess that's good news too. It's probably nothing at all serious and a weird total fluke...just like the rest of his stuff.

Post Operative Urinary tract infection: We had to make a flying trip back down to UCLA a few nights ago because we couldn't stave off a high fever. After a phone call to the surgeon he wanted us to come back to rule out any serious surgery complications. They did a complete workup and found out it was only a UTI. He had about 5 procedures done there in the ER and it was a long, awful night for both of us. We're currently taking medicine for this 3 times a day.

Thymus Enlargement: Clay's thymus in enlarged (more so than a normal 'large' pediatric thymus) and no one knows what that means either. I actually laughed when I got off the phone with the surgeon when he told me this. Because why wouldn't he have another random medical condition that doesn't mean anything?

Hopefully, as long as Clay can keep the rest of his organs, and we can stave off any freak accident ER trips, he'll be totally fine...but don't be surprised if we find out he end up getting the chicken pox 3 times or one of his legs ends up shorter than the other.

Oh God, who thought it was a good idea to GIVE THEM WHEELS!?

Carter and Clay finally got one of their Christmas presents this weekend. Uncle Rich sent out the gift cards (with enclosed picture of said gift) at Christmas, but Toys R Us had been out of stock until now.

First - Carter is a HORRIBLE driver, I mean, like worse than me.
Second - we had to put a helmet on Clay now when they ride together, because he is such a HORRIBLE driver.
Third - there is a little screw that allows us as parents to control the speed. Leave the screw in - goes slow(er) take the screw out - it goes 100mph. After our neighbor friend who's Carter's age (who has had MUCH more practice driving this thing around) was zooming past Carter, Cory decided the screw must come out....

Which was probably the worst idea I've ever heard....
But you can't let the neighbor kid zoom past you in his jeep! That would be....EMBARRASSING or something, right?

But, of course, they're boys, they LOVE it, and ask to ride it every night when Daddy comes home.

Carter's First School Pictures

A few weeks ago, Carter got his first school pictures done. Yes, it is southern California, and yes, it was like 35 degrees that day....in APRIL.

I am actually very pleasantly surprised they turned out so well.

Enjoy!







ps. Carter won the prize for the roundest head...just kidding.
Not really, he really should win a prize for that. I mean like, someone at a county fair would pay hundreds of dollars to get produce that round...I'm just sayin'.

Happy Cinco De Mayo - A great Day to have your Gallbladder Removed! Ole!

Sorry it has been FOREVER since I've updated everyone. It has been such a crazy week, and I have needed more recovery than Clay did.

Clay had his surgery on Wednesday at ULCA and did wonderfully. We spent the night at the Tiverton House across the street the night before so we could meet our arrival time of 6:00am.
The anesthesiologist looked about 20 years old, but took great care of him and was very informative with us, and very sweet with Clay.
He came back to the PACU several times and checked on us telling us how great Clay did.



When Clay woke up from his EGD last month he was very disgruntled and angry. I have to admit, this was one of my biggest concerns about his surgery this time. Since he has weaned, I don't have the "cure-all" and I did not like that I couldn't get him to instantly stop crying when he was so upset.
He was out of surgery by about 10am and actually very pleasant. He didn't mind when I had to leave his bedside to go the bathroom, or when his nurse changed for lunch, or when they took his vitals 100 times.



After several hours in the PACU he was finally transferred to a peds room at the Mattel Children's Hospital.
He actually had surgery at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center but the Mattel Childrens' Hospital is actually the same hospital. (Just the 3rd and 5th floors) Kind of confusing, I know.



Clay was pretty sleepy and uncomfortable the first day and mainly slept and watched TV.
The nurses came in and gave him pain meds around the clock, and he was up and at 'em the next morning. We had breakfast, took several walks around the 5th floor and played 'how many tissues can we pull out of the box and throw into the trash can'. He was pretty bored, but still took a decent enough nap for me to sneak down to the cafeteria for lunch.


Overall, Clay's stay at Mattel was pretty good, but I'll have a post for another time about my issues with that place. My opinion is that for being the Best Children's Hospital in the US last year, I shouldn't have 'issues' with them. But like I said, another post, for another time.


We will be seeing the surgeon for a follow up on Monday and then be seeing a hematologist in the near future. The surgeon confirmed that the stones were all made of billirubin (basically broken down red blood cells) and that he thinks there is something causing his rbcs to break down too early. We're waiting for the spherocytosis labs to come back and if those come back negative we'll navigate some different paths (as directed by the hematologist.)

Clay is doing wonderfully and we took his bandages off today. He wants to wrestle, play and I don't think he even knows he had surgery.
I definitely think that if you're going to have your gallbladder removed you should do it at 17 months. It doesn't even have seemed to phase him.