I obviously typed too soon.

Got done blogging, surfed the web a bit....heard Caden ralph all over his crib. Child #5 has fallen! Ugh.

The pukes have invaded.

So far, not a child has been spared except for sweet Caden. Lord, please keep it that way!

Poor Caden fell (twice) today at school and they were very concerned he may have injured his elbow further. We went back in for xrays late this afternoon and were told we'd get a call back. We didn't. I'm assuming no news is good news and we'll leave it at that. He cannot bend it to 90 degrees anymore, but I'm guessing that is because he simply doesn't use it and it's stiff. He cried SO hard when they tried to bend it for the xrays, broke my heart! In case you were wondering, he fell at school because mommy let him wear his croc mammoths that are officially too big. Yeah, feeling REAL wonderful about that right now.

Here's to hoping we wake up vomit-free and happy tomorrow!!

Long time, no see!

I remember my blog. Daily. But I just don't have the umption to add anything to it! Until tonight, that is. Are you ready for some picture overload?

A few highlights - Caden's arm is still useless to him, poor bud. He doesn't use it at all. His handwriting goals at school are having to be reworked! We had follow up xrays after one week and it showed exactly the same thing, which was, essentially...nothing. He is to use it as much as he tolerates which is, essentially...not at all. He will NOT bend at the elbow, and the elbow is where we're pretty certain the fracture is. Say it with me, poor buddy!!

In OTHER Caden news....he lost his first tooth! I was so excited. Last Tuesday (16th) James and I made a good date of our day kid-free and shopped in Des Moines all day. Grandma Jean (respite provider) got here around 8am and we took off. When we got home James noticed his wiggly tooth was totally gone! Jean thought we knew - apparently it hadn't been around all day! And, she had washed his bedding so if it WAS in the bedding it was gone. We haven't found it. We assume Cay swallowed it. But anyway, first tooth lost! Super exciting!


Ok then we have a picture of Declan. This is mainly because I don't have much news about him other than he threw up ALL over the supper table tonight....aaaand the only thing he's had to eat all day were some Cheerios and chocolate milk, so you can imagine how incredible that was to the rest of us trying to eat. Anywho, this is Declan in a typical morning pose - poptart in hand, sippy cup nearby, taunting Montana with the possibility of getting a morsel of that. And quite frankly, she often gets the whole dang thing, which makes me angry.


And of course there's more of Caden and some of Avery, with the twins. Caden and Avery can be very, very sweet about helping with the babies. You have to watch Caden carefully. He can't be left unattended with a baby but Avery is REALLY good. On this evening we let them help feed and Macey and Madelyn were so enthralled with being so close to their brother or their sister! It was really precious. Caden has Macey and Avery has Madelyn (you'll notice that Caden, who is very right-handed, is using his left hand to feed...evidence of his owie):



And last we have my favorite picture of them all. I wanted to snap a candid shot of Avery "reading" to her sisters. She loves to make up words to any book and they love to watch her. They typically cutely look at the pages, look at Avery...all cuteness. Well, apparently they know what a camera is now. I bent down to take this picture when they were cutely looking at the book. They must have caught sight of me in the meantime, before the flash, and here's the outcome:


HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! That's Madelyn (aka, the clown) on the left, Macey on the right. Hilarious!

I'd hardly believe it myself unless it happened to me.

That's sorta how I feel about my life.

Thursday night Madelyn had been home from the hospital for all of about 1 hour and it was bedtime. The kids had been playing outside and came in to get ready for bed. James carried Caden to his crib on his shoulders and put him in his crib with the rail down (we usually leave the rail down and Caden climbs in himself with the assistance of a step stool - we started this when I was hugely pregnant with the twins and couldn't hoist him in there anymore). Caden likes to sleep in just his pull up, so he was pulling his shirt off, standing up in his crib. You know how when you're little (like Caden) you feel like you have to lean WAY over to pull your shirt off over your head? Yeah, well Cay did that but in the process he fell head first out of his crib. I stated in my last blog post that he cried hard from a fall and got a bloody nose. Well, apparently that was just the tip of the iceberg.

When Caden woke up Friday morning he was crying. James went to get him to start getting ready for school and he wouldn't use his right arm. AT. ALL. We decided he needed to be seen, so I drove him to the clinic and our doctor looked him over and sent us for xrays.

Nothing huge showed up on the xrays. Apparently Caden has a "posterior fat pad" on his elbow - it means he for sure hurt it, but we don't know if it's a tiny fracture or what it is. He's "wearing a sling" (I say that loosely because mostly he just lets his arm hang down from the sling) until we have repeat xrays on Friday. He has a totally abnormal response to pain - his threshhold is CRAZY high. But he won't use that arm. AT. ALL. I know it must really hurt. However. For prayer tonight I did see him slip his left hand over to his right hand and all 10 fingers clasped. How precious to me, God!!!

And now for the moment of mommy heartache. When Caden went to bed Thursday night after his fall, I put him back in his crib and he was still REALLY crying hard. I assumed it was because his nose had just bled a lot and he was scared from falling head over heels onto the floor (wouldn't you be?). I stroked his head a bit but then I left the room, with him still sobbing. I didn't know what else to do. And he cried for a while. Probably at LEAST 15 more minutes. And now I know he very well could have fractured his elbow. And I walked away from him. With him still crying. I feel horrible about that. It's SO heartbreaking that he couldn't tell me that he was hurting. He didn't have the words. He could only cry. My only comfort is that God heard his unspoken hurt and took it away...I know he finally fell asleep and did sleep all night. So hard. So hard.

She's home!

She came around this afternoon. She pulled her oxygen out before 11am and I decided to leave it out. Her sats stayed around 94. Then she just stayed doing well with her sats all afternoon and our dr came to see her after 5pm and said she could go home! YAY! We're all back under one roof. Whatta feeling!

Now please pray. Pray for continued healing for Madelyn (she sounds atrocious but is getting better). Pray for Macey, who is acting quite sick. Pray also for Declan and Avery, who both have fevers. And, for Caden, who fell tonight and cried (HARD) for a solid 5 minutes with a heckuva bloody nose. I think we have ALL had it.

She's still in the hospital.

Madelyn just can't seem to shake needing the oxygen. So for now, she's still in the hospital. James has stayed with her nearly the entire time, which has been very difficult because the hospital air is so incredibly dry and it's making his coughing horrible. I think he went back to work too early last week - he has thrown up and coughed more this week than just about any other week. I think he needs some more time off, for his health physically and mentally.

Things here at home are going pretty well. I'm so thankful to have been able to be at home and Heather's been over nearly every day to help with household stuff or whatnot because I've got more sick kids here at home. Declan is sick - fever, runny nose, just not feeling well. He was also supposed to have surgery on Friday (to bring his left testicle down) but that has now been postponed until he is feeling better. Who knows when that will be...

Macey is also not herself. We think it might be teeth - they are 8 months old now. She does a lot of crying and just acts like something hurts. Not sure what to do for her either...

So we keep on keeping on. I'm tired. I'm sure James is tired. But we do it. I don't think we have another choice! God is blessing us on the journey and we just keep listening for His voice.

It's (almost) getting funny.

Madelyn is back in the hospital. She doesn't have RSV. Her blood work is excellent. Her chest xray looks good. But she's got something "like" RSV and is really sick.

We were in Wisconsin Dells all weekend for the annual Midwest RTS Reunion. We left Friday morning and Madelyn wasn't feeling well - had been throwing up and fever, but both girls had just had their shots and I figured that was it. Well, she progressively got worse over the weekend. Saturday night I got back to our hotel room with Caden and James said she wasn't doing well. We weren't sure what to do - she was breathing fast, retracting, nasal flaring, all the bad signs. We didn't want her to be hospitalized in WI when we were supposed to leave the next morning to go home, so we decided to leave Caden and Avery with grandpa and grandma in their hotel room (to come home the next morning) and we packed Declan and the twins into our van and headed home....5 hours mind you. We never.stopped.once. The little ones just slept all the way home. We got a few hours of shut eye after arriving home at 3am and then we got up and I brought Madelyn to the ER. Sure enough, she needs to be in the hospital. So that is how I spent my birthday - in a hospital room with a very sick baby.

They say the temps are going to be warming up here. If that isn't true, I just might quit. Quit winter, that is. Do you think it'll play along??