Cold Spaghetti

Will gives his baby sister a hug at the end of “Happy Birthday, Kate” sung by their Abeona friends and special guest Johnette Downing.

The Little Man came limping into our room at 6am this morning… “Mommy, Daddy! Look! I can walk!”

(Paul’s response: “Good, Will. We were thinking we were going to have to take you out to the back pasture…”)

The limp faded by mid-morning. He’s still a bit cranky and clingy (from his ears? lingering discomfort in his legs?) but otherwise moving fine. I dropped off the kids at school and then returned to Abeona later in the morning to photograph our Extra Special Celebrity Visitor (more on this later) and Will was moving well during my visit.

Here’s hoping that yesterday was our last adventure into the world of childhood hip disorders!

… I had left Mama’s Cradle, tired from several hours of strange labor and anxious over the unexpected problems we’d encountered, and was arriving at Baptist Hospital. About now is when I started to beg for the epidural, just wanting everything to slow down long enough for me to think.

Baby girl, we were just a few hours away from meeting you.

Will told me this on the way home from school yesterday. “My bones hurt. On the inside.” We came home to our usual evening whirlwind: the girls next door came over, we were cleaning up and getting dinner ready, the kids were playing. Scott and Andrea stopped by with Zoe, their 4-month old who we watched while they went out for dinner with Andrea’s parents. Neighborhood babysitter (and neat nursing/midwifery student) Andrea arrived to babysit next door. So our little homes were Ground Zero for excitement last night. Culminating in me bathing the kids next door while Paul walked the house with Zoe (poor little thing had some tummy pain and is refusing bottles), then everyone coming over to admire the sleeping baby and watch, of all things, Baby Beethoven.

And in all that excitement, Will mentioned it a few more times: “My bones hurt on the inside.” We chalked up to growing pains, or maybe a random bruise, or maybe just nothing at all. How could a boy, running and laughing, singing “You are my Sunshine” to baby Zoe, blowing raspberries on his sister’s belly, following the girls around like they hung the moon… certainly this child was perfectly fine, there was nothing to worry about.

WRONG.

Roughly 2:30am. Will wakes up, crying. He’s in pain. “My bones hurt. My knee hurts.” Paul investigates, his knee bends fine — full range of motion. But something is still bothering Will. He remains restless. Paul lays down with him and comforts him through the night, neither of them sleeping much.

6:00-8:30am. Morning routine is rough. Will won’t walk. He is crying a lot. He is uncooperative with taking off his pull-up, using the bathroom, and getting dressed. At first we think he’s being cranky, then difficult. We examine him closely, feel up and down both legs, look from different angles to determine if there is swelling, encourage him to stand, take a step, walk, move, bend… something that will visually confirm his reason for not walking. We don’t notice anything, although we are convinced something IS hurting him.

8:30am. Maybe it’s just a sprain. Let’s keep with the plan — bring the computers to work from the cafe, we still are subbing this afternoon so teachers can have their appreciation lunch. If we aren’t there, maybe there won’t be enough subs for everyone to go. Will is okay. Once he gets to school, he’ll want to go so badly that he’ll get past the discomfort; I bet once he’s moving the pain will work it’s way out. He probably just slept funny or pulled something yesterday.

8:31am. Will is carried to the car because he can’t walk to it.

8:40am. Will says: “Mommy, I can’t go to school until I’m fixed.”

8:41am. I’m on the phone with the pediatrician’s office. They’ll see him as soon as we can get there.

8:45am. Kate is dropped off at Abeona. We’re on our way to the medical group offices.

9:05am. Arrive in the parking lot. Will has to be carried into the building and up to the office. He cries at every transition.

9:10am. Dr. Oates sees us almost immediately. Will tells her about his bones. Paul tells her about the night. I tell her about the ears. She checks the ears: both are infected. (One mystery solved!) She begins Will’s physical exam. It’s clear very quickly that although he’s indicating pain in and around his knee, it’s his hip that is the source of his discomfort.

9:15am. Here’s the plan: X-ray first. If it’s a fracture, we’ll stop there. If not, we’ll move on to blood work.

11:15am. X-ray results are finally in. He’s 100%, bone-wise. Will has received a good education about taking pictures of bones “where it’s very dark inside.” We move on to blood work, carrying order forms with “STAT, please” written twice and circled in a big red loop. It’s a little scary. And frustrating, because the STAT means nothing to the staff in the busy waiting room.

11:55am. Will gets a time out, right in the waiting room, for continuing to put his fingers up our noses. He may hurt too much to walk, but he’s still Will.

12:30pm. We’re finally done. We’re going home, via Bud’s for a cheeseburger for our champ. Will, covered in stickers for his morning bravery, is carried out in our arms pharaoh-style, as if seated in front of us. It hurts his hips too much to put him on the side.

1:15pm. We notice Will has a temperature. We call Dr. Oates, as she’s asked us to call with signs of fever. We’re patched through immediately.

1:30pm. I lay Will down for a nap. He holds onto my hand and we fall asleep together. The last thing he says to me before sleeping is “My leg still hurts.”

3:00pm. Dr. Oates calls. Will’s lab work looks good, although we need to watch his fever and be sure he’s not getting worse. He’s got Toxic or Transient Synovitis. It could last more than a week, or clear up in a few days. We will forgo antibiotics for his ear, for now. He’ll be seen again tomorrow when we go back for Kate’s 1-year wellness.

In the end…
Diagnosis: Toxic or Transient Synovitis. A diagnosis of exclusion (meaning that the other, more scary, things were ruled out… thank goodness). It’s fairly common with young kids, boys more than girls.
Treatment: Whatever normal activity that can be tolerated. Motrin as needed.

What we learned…
Will does a really good job of telling us when things are going strangely, even if he doesn’t quite have the words to figure out exactly what is going on.
It is really scary to have a perfect kid one moment… and forms for tests that say “STAT” in the next.
Even when you are freaking out inside about your kid, there are still moments where you have to parent (i.e.: our time out in the waiting room).

The scariest part…
Driving home where we had a conversation about “what if something is really really wrong.” Not a good thing to dwell on.

During our flights back from North Carolina two weeks ago, Will had a little trouble equalizing his ears during descent. It was nothing major, very predictable, and he responded well to the standard treatment: holding one’s nose and blowing hard.

Since then, he’s mentioned odd things with his ears. Specifically, that he “can’t hear his voice.” He doesn’t mention it everyday, but has mentioned it enough that we have gone through the processes of being concerned (first 2-3 times) to wondering if it is a new technique from throwing us off schedule at critical points, like at bedtime (occurs after mentioning 10+ times). Because he has not expressed any signs of pain, discomfort, or distress, we have not worried about it.

About a week ago, Will put small foam pieces (parts of foam art sets) in his ears. We noticed quickly and I used a small tweezer to get them out. They weren’t far in, but I didn’t want to use a finger and risk pushing them in further. As far as we could tell, nothing else was in there. Because he didn’t complain about any ear pain, we haven’t worried further. (Besides the general worry that Will is going to start putting wide ranges of foreign objects in various orafices, as children are sometimes known to do.)

Then, last night, Will told us that his ear “snapped.” Or maybe that it “cracked” or “popped” — I can’t quite remember. Whatever he said, it caught my attention and the attention of one of the girls next door and we had a little conversation about it, finally deciding that it was related to his ear clearing as a result of our recent flying, his trip to the pool yesterday morning, or both. He was fine the rest of the night and this morning.

Without knowing anything about the above stories, my friend Chris sent me this. OhMyGoodnessFreakOut. I called the pediatrician and signed Will up to be seen during Kate’s 1-year wellness on Wednesday afternoon… with a note asking if I should bring Will in to be seen sooner. Is it crazy to ask a doctor to look in your child’s ear to make sure it is free of spiders??

On Saturday, Paul celebrated his birthday. Although we were very tempted to take off to Jazz Fest, we decided that we did not want to have to deal with the kids. Huge rainstorms Friday and an extremely humid morning did not strike us as a situation where our kids would be docile and complacent, so we decided to not test it. (*sniff*)
Instead, we went to City Park — to the Amusement area — and enjoyed a wonderful morning of rides and park-like fun! We got there early and waited just inside the gates, where Will could hear the sounds of the Ladybug Rollercoaster (they open early for exclusive use by birthday parties and other events). He’s holding his ears because he felt it “too loud.”
I got a little artsy-fartsy waiting for the amusements to open. It would be a real delight to just go and practice taking pictures for a morning.
Our first ride was the City Park Train, a miniature children’s choo-choo that circles the South end of City Park… around the New Orleans Museum of Art, through the Sculpture Gardens, around the pony rides, duck ponds, and other beautiful areas of the park. Many of them are still in their post-Katrina states. City Park is being slowly brought back, piece by piece, by volunteers… a daunting task for the country’s 6th largest park (and 7th most visited!)
Will was thrilled by the prospect of a train ride.
And I got all artsy while waiting for the conductor.
This is Will’s “smile” face. Is that patriotism on his face, or does he need a trip to the loo?
This incredibly interesting sculpture-on-wheels is decorated with hundreds of Mardi Gras beads and sits in a section of the park that has not seen post-Katrina clean-up. We do not know what it is… although we think it looks like a fish or whale. An early Mardi Gras float? We don’t know.
After the train, Will talked us into letting him on the Ladybug Rollercoaster. It was not a good idea, but what can we say? We’re suckers. Paul got to go with him because it was his birthday. I did my best to catch them as they sped around.
This is just the beginning, Will still looks happy.
He started freaking out a bit when the ride took speed. But it’s a very short ride, so Will did okay. Until the ‘coaster only slowed a bit at the terminal and took off for a second loop. (It’s a two-loop ride, otherwise, it’d be an extremely fast one.)
Will wasn’t thrilled with the experience, although he did very well considering it was his first high-speed ride. No big screams or cries… just an unhappy camper. So we went over to the kiddie rides next.
Even though he could have managed it alone, he asked me to accompany him on the planes. It was your basic airplane-in-circle… round and round, going up if you pull (hard!) on the handles. Will LOVED it.
Baby Kate was content to chill in the stroller through it all. (She went on the train with us, but waited out the rest.)
We checked out of the park after those few rides (there are a ton more — what a great place to visit for cheap kid entertainment!) Based on a recommendation from our neighbors, we went to Russell’s Marina Grill for lunch, out on Lake Ponchartrain. What a GREAT place, PERFECT for my parents. Causal menu, down home feel, very affordable ($8 or less for entrees), and very very family friendly. Worth the drive to Lakeview. Happy Birthday, Pancho!

“Well, Paul, thanks to our son, people think I’m pregnant and have us all freaked out. Do you know what this means?”

“That we’re buying a triple stroller?”

“No.”

“That we’ve surpassed the Minivan and are moving on to the Full Size?”

“No…”

“Will, did you tell your teachers that I had another baby in my belly?”

(nodding) “um hm”

“And is it a sister or brother?”

“Sister. I going to have TWO baby sisters.” (holds up two fingers to illustrate.)

“Two sisters and no brothers, wow.”

“Oh, I going to have two brothers later.”

Who was that pajama-clad lady running barefoot through the street, wildly waving a child’s sippy cup?

Me. It was me, providing this morning’s neighborhood entertainment.

Will is 3 and is dutifully learning all of things that will help support his development into a full-blown kid. Part of this process is learning songs, something that is fun, but also has a dark side.

In the beginning of learning a song, Will remembers various pieces. So when he sings it, it is as if each phrase is on a small card, with Will singing the phrase as he randomly selects one of the cards. No cards ever leave the deck, so the same card can be drawn and repeated over and over again. It goes sort of like this:

“My poor MEATball….ran into a BUSH…out of the door…my poor MEATball…poor little MEATBALL…ran into a BUSH…fell on the floor…my poor meatBALL…on some spisghetti…my meatball…somebody sneezed.”

This is the cute part. This is when we grow incredible quiet, turning down all other noises to secretly listen. It’s the stuff parenting dreams are made of.

And then there are the other songs. Our current winner of “most annoying thing my son does” goes like this:

“Trick-or-treat, smell my feet…” (and repeat and repeat and repeat and repeat…)

Yes, THAT annoying thing. Ugh. If he knew anymore of it — especially if he knew it had something to do with underwear — I think it would be the only thing he’d ever say. The current mode of operation is to ignore it and redirect him to something else. I don’t want him to think that the phrase has any power over me — although in truth, it’s repetition is like kryptonite, slowly eating away at my Supermom powers. I’ll hang in there. It will wear off eventually… right?