Boys Will Be Boys

There is a big difference between little boys and little girls and one of the most noticeable of those differences is the desire in little boys to fight and beat each other up.  Duncan has a pair of boxing gloves that he has for his punching bag in the gym and Brady and Colby love to each take one so that they can "box" each other.  Mostly it's harmless since they are, after all, only three and five.  Unfortunately, sometimes it's not.  Recently we had one of those times.  It was about 8:00 pm on a Thursday evening and I was resting on the couch, perhaps with my eyes closed.  I heard the boys come down the stairs and start making noise in front of me.  A few seconds later, I heard Colby start yowling and I knew something had gone awry.  Sure enough, he comes over to me and I spot blood on his forehead.  I yelled for Duncan to come since I don't do well with blood.  A quick look and Duncan diagnosed him with needing a few stitches, most likely.  I asked if he wanted to get a second opinion but he said "I've been around this block a few times." That is indeed true since Brady has had two sets.

As I post this picture, it's the first time I've even had the courage to look at the wound.

Calleigh completely freaked out when she came downstairs and heard what had happened...yelling and screaming, the whole lot.  We finally got her calmed down and she was nice enough to help.

Sadly, the Centra Care (where we have a hookup) had just closed so it seemed like the best option was to take him to the ER at the Winter Garden Hospital.  The bleeding stopped pretty quickly but Aubree went with them just in case she needed to do anything on the drive there.

You know all those horror stories people tell about waiting in the ER for hours?  Well, this wasn't a horror story like that but it did take 2.5 hours from walk in to walk out. Then, in the end, all they did was superglue it which Duncan says he could have easily done himself.  We will know to have some on hand since you just KNOW there will be a next time! Here's a video from the ER that we recorded of Colby.

Calleigh and Brady quickly put together a gift for Colby to help him feel better when he got home.

Waiting for the doctor.

We weren't exactly sure how it all happened but the best we can glean is that Colby fell down and hit the lower edge of the ottoman.  The ottoman itself is all soft and cushioned but the bottom where the legs are is hard.  Duncan made several attempts to get an answer out of Brady and Brady finally said "THIS conversation again??" So yeah, he clammed right up.

All's well that ends well although we did have a little scare a few days later.  On the Tuesday before the head incident, Brady started puking in the evening (purple smoothie all over the rug - - argh!!!) and on into the night.  Fortunately he never had any other symptoms and was completely better by the next afternoon.  Fast forward to Saturday night (two days after Colby's head incident) and Colby starts vomiting.  It was a long night but it's amazing how great both boys are.  They never said a word.  They'd just sit up and throw up into the bowl without uttering a sound.  Colby did this throughout Saturday night and he and I just stayed in bed Sunday morning since we hadn't slept much.  Come early afternoon, I noted that he felt warm so I took his temperature which was 102.2.  Well, that got me paranoid.  Brady hadn't had a fever. Colby had had the head trauma and they say to watch for vomiting, fever, etc. I started getting worried that maybe he had an infection.  Duncan looked at the wound carefully and we didn't see any problem signs.  Colby slept with me again that night and I was going to call the pediatrician in the morning but he slept fine and when we woke up in the morning, the fever was gone and he seemed completely normal.  All's well that ends well again.

I hate him being sick but I did love the cuddling.  He sat on my lap and fell asleep while I was doing school with the girls.

I think he put himself on the floor rather than rolled off.  I hope!

Lazy Sunday with Mom in bed.  He may be growing up but he sure still loves to play with my hair.

A week ago Friday night (the 7th) we were excited to have the Frosts (Shannon, Sean, Finley, Griffen, and Hudson) come stay at our house for a few nights.  They had come down to see some of Sean's relatives and also to go stay at a time share they had booked at Ormond Beach.  Of course, we were having some very cold weather, for us, right about then so that stunk.  Still warmer then up north though!  The girls were SO excited to have Finley to play AG dolls.  Both the girls love playing with younger girls for which I'm grateful.  I guess that must be because they are the older cousins (reminds me of myself).  Having said that, I think Brady was the one who played with Finley the most.  They are less than four months apart in age and Finley is clearly accustomed to playing with boys (having two brothers and also mostly boy first cousins) and the two of them were best buds in no time.  We actually even caught them kissing....very innocently, of course.  They were at our house Friday and Saturday night and I felt so bad because it was during the Colby sick time so I made especially sure to stay quarantined. Thank goodness they never caught anything. They also came back Wednesday night and when they had to leave on Thursday evening, Finley says to me, frowning, "I wish I could live here." The kids really did have a good time!

The girls laid out dress-up clothes and labeled them with names for when Finley would arrive.

At church on Sabbath morning.

These two!

Hudson at 15 months

While Finley and Brady may be great pals, these two got along great too.  Both have a mutual love for dinosaurs.  In fact, we raved so much at the T-Rex Cafe that the Frosts went themselves for Griffen.

They are exactly seven weeks apart in age.

All the Frost and Grodack kids being very serious.

My mom arrived on Wednesday evening.  Since she had her vacation with us disrupted by the state being in her nursing home during Christmas, she said she would come to Florida in January to see us.  She had another purpose too but I'll save that for the next post.  She slept in Aubree's room (which is always empty since Aubree sleeps with Calleigh) the first night since the Frosts were here.  Thursday morning I'm sitting in the living room and Calleigh strolls down and announces, "I threw up at 1:00 last night." I was like, "What?? You didn't even come and tell me?" She says, "No, I went in the bathroom next to Gigi and she helped me." Of course, anytime Calleigh throws up I'm worried that it's the ongoing problem she has with vomiting in the early morning hours but considering both the boys had it and plus she had mentioned before going to bed that her stomach felt strange, I felt good that it wasn't connected to her other problem. After she did her thing, she climbed into bed with Gigi for the rest of the night.  My mom comes down and says that Calleigh woke her up during the night to ask her to stop snoring and Gigi told her, "You know, you can either just listen to the snoring or you can go back to your own bed." So Calleigh rolled over and went back to sleep! I guess it wasn't THAT bad.

Alas, this isn't the end of the sickness story as both Aubree and Duncan were hit with it, the latter very badly, later in the day and into the (whole) night.  Basically, what it boils down to is that I'm the last woman standing.  I hope I don't regret saying those words.  But really, I guess I must have a very strong constitution.  No doubt it's all the tea I drink and staying up late.  Hehe.

The night Duncan was sick, I slept on the couch downstairs with Aubree (my mom was in the guest room) and Calleigh set up this make shirt bed in the boys room (I don't know why but she decided to sleep with them!)

A few other pictures...

It was really cold the first Sabbath of January!

A Science experiment with a 2-liter bottle.  We boiled the one on the left to show how heat would make a balloon blow up.  But it clearly also made the bottle shrink dramatically.

This boy loves his books.

While this boy loves his red Coca Cola glass we got in Atlanta.

Every time he uses it, he washes it very gently by hand.

That's it for now.  Have a great week!