Smell My Feet

The days are getting shorter and it's getting dark so early, but tonight the darkness could not come soon enough.  The kids were chomping at the bit to get out there and get to work harvesting their candy.  This year Cameron begged me to get him a "store bought" costume instead of making him one which made me so sad not only because I love making costumes, but because he is starting to show his age and growing up. The other two were no better, they also wanted the cheap, thin, unoriginal costumes and I obliged.   I don't let the kids choose gory costumes, so I was happy enough with an army soldier, pirate (but no patch mom), and Batman.  Even Baldwin got to join in on the fun, we picked him out a hammerhead shark costume for a Guiding Eyes costume party a few weeks ago that he got to wear again tonight trick or treating.  The hardest part was keeping him from trying to eat it like the stuffed animals he gets in the house.  As always, my job is to take them up and down our street and then Jeremy takes his shift as long as the kids will last.  This time even Mason had more in him and went back out.  Baldwin and I are just hanging out passing out the candy and the boys are still not back.  How long do you bet we have the candy last?

The aftermath...  We try to outdo ourselves every year!

All Things Halloween

Mid October I had a realization that we had not done anything fallish yet and Halloween was right around the corner.  I set my mind to rectifying that by pulling the kids out of school early one day and meeting Jeremy at Ticonderoga Farms, my favorite local pumpkin patch.  This little place is tucked away so that it feels like a hidden gem.  I think there were a total of 3 families there at the same time as us, so we basically had it all to ourselves.  The kids love the slides, there are tons of them, I love the hay ride because it is long and even Baldwin loved it, Jeremy loves the fire pits because they keep him warm when he forgets to bring a coat :)  We brought hot dogs and s'mores fixins and had dinner and closed the place down.

A few nights later we made doughnuts and carved pumpkins, ad we also participated in the Ward Halloween party and Trunk or Treat.  Luckily (?)  I was in charge of the whole thing this year.  Jeremy and I cut out bats 'till our fingers bled and turned the church gym into a creepy cave.  And those bats didn't go to waste, we used them for our Caring Hands Animal Hospital open house a week later.  I've still got a few things to check off my fall list, but we're working hard to get it all done!

Nosebleeds be gone!

One night when Gavin was younger than two I woke up to the sound of him crying in his crib.  When I entered his room I turned on the light and saw what looked like a CSI crime scene, there was blood in his crib, on the walls, the carpet and all over his little body.  I screamed for Jeremy and it took us a few minutes to find the source of the blood, Gavin's nose.  Ever since that night, we have been battling nosebleeds.  They happen at home, in the car, at school, swimming, church, they have happened everywhere.  Gavin has gotten quite good at the drill and grabs a tissue and pinches his nose, it is second nature to him now.  We have tried humidifiers, vaseline, saline spray, and even butter to try to minimize the occurences, but nothing has really helped.  We have taken him to two ENT's and had his nose cauterized in the office 6-8 times, using a little bit of lidocaine on a cotton ball and silver nitrate sticks.  Still the nosebleeds have persisted.  Last June I got a call from the nurse at school telling me that she could not stop Gavin's nosebleed and it had been 30 minutes.  She agreed to wait another 20 and when she called again I was asked to take him home.  He had another one really bad this summer that we could not get under control for probably about 45 minutes, the blood just kept coming and I thought we would have to take him to the ER.  It was too scary.  We made another appointment with his ENT and he told us about an option to use electrocautery but Gavin would need to be anesthetized for the procedure.  We scheduled it.  As the day approached the nerves crept in and we started to worry.  I have never had any of my children anesthetized, we haven't had tubes in ears or tonsils removed, so for us, this was a big deal.  We didn't know anyone else that had had this procedure done so we really did not know what to expect.  On the day of the surgery, Gavin couldn't eat or drink anything, and his surgery wasn't until 1 pm.  We went to the surgical center and go him all checked in.  Gavin wore an adorable hospital gown and I got to wear what looked like a painters coveralls since I would be going in with him while he got the gas that would put him to sleep.  They asked him questions about his halloween costume and withing seconds he was out.  Jeremy and I waited for what seemed like hours but in reality was only about 20 minutes.  The doctor came out and told us that this was one of the most extreme cases  he had ever seen.  He said he just touched the blood vessels and they began to bleed, and he suspects they were arteries instead of the small capillaries that are supposed to be in your nose.  We then went to recovery and they brought him to us.  He woke up painful and grumpy and it was a difficult recovery, especially to have to watch, but eventually the pain meds kicked in and we were given the green light to go.  Poor thing slept the rest of the day and much of the next.  We hope and pray that this is truly the end of Gavin's problems with his nose, he has been through so much.