Our Weekend

On Friday, I took the kids outside for awhile and immediately Amy wanted to dig. She found a slug and proceeded to carry it around. Is not that not the most disgusting thing you've ever seen??? I know my mom will freak out when she reads this! Amy's love of bugs is unreal.

Will kept playing with some random piece of, I think, an old lawnmower. Or maybe a blower. Who knows. But he called it his rocket ship.

Amy had some homework over the weekend. She was given a turkey on white cardstock. The assignment was to "hide" it so it could hide from being the thanksgiving turkey... or something like that. Anyhow- when we were trying to come up with something, I turned it upside down. I thought it then looked like an elephant. Amy agreed and said it was one wearing a tutu. Lee added that it was wearing a crown. So here you have it- an upside down turkey, masquerading as an elephant wearing a tutu and a crown, while eating a banana.

On Saturday, Amy wanted to do a Thanksgiving craft. So I looked on Pinterest and we found something that I had all the stuff for. It's just an empty toilet paper tube, some colorful handprints and some of Una's buttons. I think it turned out cute and she sure had a great time making it. She's just like her Mama- she's LOVES crafts!

That night we had a first- we hired a babysitter!! Wowsers!! haha. Our Stake Conference was this weekend and our area member of the 70, Elder Tripp Meredith (who's mom and sister are good friends of mine) and one of the 12 apostles, Elder D. Todd Christofferson were coming and we really wanted to hear their talks and attend the Saturday evening session of the conference (which is always the best).  Thus the need for a sitter. We took Tyler with us. We also had our friends Beth and Mark ride with us and that created a very fun evening! The kids did well and Amy was overjoyed at having a sitter- she's been asking for one for months. I was a little nervous because Will has been sick and the last thing we need is for him to have a seizure and us be an hour away. But we Tylenoled him up before we left and everything was fine.

Today was the "official" stake conference. They took 2 stakes (Nashville and McMinnville) and created the Murfreesboro Stake. It was neat to see a new stake form, as that is somewhat rare... I've certainly never seen it before. It was also great to hear the talks from the leaders. Elder Meredith was definitely my favorite. But I think I feel a little more "kin" to him since I know and love his family so much (I've never actually met "him").

Tyler has started playing around more with Will- and Will loves every second of it. He was laughing and moving everywhere as Tyler was "attacking" him. The next few months are going to be so fun with these 2! And honestly- having a playmate for Will will be sooooo great!!

Onto a little "serious" matter..... Last week, when everyone was sick, and Tyler had a fever, he was doing a sort of spasm thing. It was enough that it was alarming and unusual. At one point I actually thought he was going to launch into a seizure. Thankfully, the "spasms" only lasted about 25 minutes and then his fever came down (thanks to Tylenol). He did it again the next day in the Pediatrician's office, which I was slightly grateful for so the Dr. could actually see what was happening. I held him for 2 nights straight, just afraid something would happen and we kept Tylenol and Ibuprofen in him around the clock for 3 days, to make sure his fever wouldn't come back. (Not sleeping for 2 days is what caused me to be sick).

The Pediatrician didn't know what it was but wanted us to see a pediatric neurologist to rule out Infant Spasms. Those are quite serious and basically can cause mental disabilities if they aren't caught and treated right away. And even if they are caught and treated, the medications to treat them are quite bad. We had an appointment with a pediatric neurologist on Thursday and now feel a little better.

The neurologist did all sorts of tests, looked in his eyes, saw how he responded to all sorts of things... looking, reaching, rolling, walking, etc. And Tyler did great on all of them. Once he did all these tests, he said his gut was that Tyler wouldn't have anything wrong and it may be a fluke thing, but of course, he didn't want to trust his gut. We didn't either and we all agreed the EEG was the best thing.

Tyler will have an EEG on this Friday and from there we'll know what, if anything, we are dealing with. Apparently Infant Spasms will definitely show up on an EEG. It will also show anything else that could be abnormal. The EEG itself is easy and non-invasive. Will has had a few. The baby just needs to sleep and then they hook all these wires to his head and watch his brain waves.

Anyway- if you can offer any kind thoughts and prayers in behalf of Tyler we would greatly appreciate it. We are praying for a "normal" EEG. If it's normal, they'll probably test him again in a month, and if everything is normal twice- we'll be clear for awhile. If any test is abnormal, or if they find something, there are all sorts of scenarios and courses of action depending on the results. I won't mention them now, because some are quite scary and hopefully will be unnecessary to even think about. So for now, we'll just pray for a normal EEG and take it from there.

It's so sad and scary to think that both our little boys have neurological problems. We pray that Tyler won't have anything like Will, as just Will's is stressful enough. But we know that the Lord's hand is in it all and we'll be ok. We are so thankful for silly things- like camcorders on cell phones. When it comes to diagnosing something like this- video is priceless. So if anything- file this away- if your kid starts doing something "weird" start recording immediately. Simple things like "they swing their arms out" versus "they swing their arms forward" can mean something completely different. Crazy, huh? So take video, and lots of it. :)

Thanks all! I'll update more about Tyler when I know more (which probably won't be until next week).