The Dinosaur

The toe was finally fully functional...the canker had healed and Zander was back to his normal full of life self. I was at work, when I get a phone call from Amy. We talked for a second and then she said "Zander stuck a dinosaur up his nose". Well that wasn't a surprise, he doesn't have a habit of sticking things up his nose but he is always looking for something new to try, so why not that? I laughed...but then she said "They can't get it out and they are going to the doctor."

We heard a couple of hours later that the dinosaur was out and Zander had a sucker in his mouth and was doing fine. I was anxious to see him that night and hear the whole story. The first thing he said to me was "I broke a dinosaur in my nose". I couldn't help but laugh, and he seemed fine so the whole thing was amusing. It turns out he had put the tail of a plastic dinosaur up his nose, and then it broke off. There was no way they could get it out and it was bleeding pretty badly so they took him to the doctor. The doctor had to have the nurse put Zander in a headlock to hold his head still to pull the piece out. I can completely picture this scene. Zander told me they used "pliers" to pull it out. He was in great spirits and proud to tell his whole story.

Zanders final words of wisdom where..."I will never stick a dinosaur up my nose again."

The Canker

And the saga continues....

Conner has been one to catch Strep throat at a drop of a hat. He gets it at least once a year. It wasn't a surprise when we got a call from the doctor informing us he had come down with it once again. When this happens, we make great efforts to close him in our bedroom and keep him away from all the healthy ones in the household. Even with Conner tucked away in his temporary bubble, we are still very cautious for anything that might give us the slightest inclination one of the other kids had caught the miserable sickness.

Is wasn't long before Zander started to complain that his mouth was hurting. He would point to his mouth and scream very loudly, "My mouth hurts!!! I need to hold you!!!!" Being the sympathetic parents we are, immediately we pick him up and showered him with attention and pity.... this would be the same thing we did with him when he hurt his toe.
We continued to play the waiting game... waiting for the fever, a reason to rush to the doctor's office, begging for some antibiotics to get him better and attempt to avoid anymore sickness throughout our home. We waited... and waited... and waited. His screaming persisted, but the fever never became present. With confused looks, we tried to figure out what was going on. That night, we gave Zander some ibuprofen in hopes he wouldn't feel the pain of his throat, and go to sleep. Just like with the toe, he would wake up in the middle of the night in crying sobs telling us that his mouth hurt. Yet, when morning came, there still was no fever to be felt. We began to get curious. When he would cry with pain, he never pointed to his throat, it was always to his mouth. He went to Grandma's house with a bag of ibuprofen, some Airbourne, and explanation that we weren't sure what he had, but with the pain he seemed to be in, we were sure it had to be something serious. We asked her to watch him throughout the day and call if anything serious happened.
Well.... Grandma figured out what the problem was. It wasn't his throat, it was a tiny little canker sore on the bottom of his lower lip. Leave it to Grandma to figure out such a simple problem... and a simple solution. She went to the store to purchase him some Anbesol. It was a quick way to stop the pain. He seemed content. It was funny though, because he would continue to use his canker pain as a way to get some attention. What can I say, he is a smart kid. The screaming quickly ended when he realized his canker issues weren't going to get him much attention. He was back to his usual self before the week was over. The house was happy once again!!! Well, that is until the dinosaur incident....

The toe...

It seems that we write about Zander a lot, but the kid is an endless source of entertainment.
On the night of our halloween party Zander was dressed in his lion costume happily running around outside in anticipation of greeting the guests. Suddenly we heard a scream from Zander that was beyond his normal "Garrett is torturing me" scream. Pretty soon Grandma came in holding Zander and we could tell he was really hurt. He couldn't describe what had happened, only that his toe really hurt. It took him a while to calm down but he finally did, and he really tried to enjoy the evening. But every where he went he would limp around. We knew he was hurting, but it was hart not too laugh at the little lion limping around the house. Sometimes he would get half way to where he was going, stop, and say 'I need you to hold you" (his way of saying...please pick me up), and when he would get picked up he would say 'Thank you', in his most sincere voice.

We thought a good nights sleep would cure the problem, and it probably would have...but he did not sleep well. He would wake up screaming about his toe every 20 minutes. We could not figure out what was wrong, it didn't swell up or look black and blue, but it was definitely hurting him. We even thought about taking him to the hospital, but weren't sure what they would do. How do you put a cast on a toe? Amy ran to WalMart at 2:00 AM to get some child's Ibuprofen, and I sat there with Zander laying on my chest. Every 4-5 breaths he would sob and take a deep breath, but he slept somewhat peacefully. Finally, after getting a nice dose of Ibuprofen, he slept for a few hours. We were sure in the morning he would still be in great pain, but he woke up and barely remembered he had a hurt toe. Well, at least he forgot until he didn't want to walk anymore, then he would stop...and scream 'My toe hurts...I want to hold you"

Stay tuned for the stories of the canker sore and the dinosaur. You won't want to miss them.