Our little trooper

We took Erin for an MRI yesterday just to make sure her headaches aren't being caused by something other than being tired or dehydrated or, most likely, her Uncle (we love you always Uncle Jon, even if you did "share" your migraines).  Our pediatrician is not one to generally push for tests, but neither of us want to be the doctor/parent who two years down the road wonders, well why didn't we do the test?

Since the MRI required Erin to be still for 40 minutes while laying in a frightening space, we all decided that a sedated MRI would work the best.  The hospital would put in an IV and then give her some medicine to make her sleep.  This made mommy very nervous, but running the test would be worth it.

We talked for a week or so ahead of time that Erin would "get a shot" in her hand.  This would allow the doctors to give her medicine to make her sleepy.  She was pretty nervous and had a difficult time falling asleep the night before (as did mommy). 

We woke up Tuesday morning and gave her a glass of water for breakfast.  I had packed up a bag of activities for her to keep her occupied while we were waiting at the hospital.  Tom took the morning off to be with us.  Once we were there things moved very smoothly and rather quickly.  We easily got registered and headed back to the pediatric MRI waiting room.  Erin and daddy colored and read "Frog and Toad".  A nice nurse came out and talked to Erin about what would happen and put some numbing cream on her hands (for the IV). 

About 20 minutes later we went back.  Erin sat on daddy's lap in the cool yellow chair.  We brought her frog Webkinz and she held tight to her.  I knelt on the floor and tried my best to distract her, but she just HAD to watch while the doctor put in her IV.  Let me tell you, Erin still has a great set of lungs on her.  She screamed her head off.  BUT she held amazingly still.  It only took less than a minute for the IV to be put in place.  Thank heavens she doesn't have her mommy's veins.

We then went back to another room.  Erin got to see the MRI machine, and the tech promised to show her pictures of her head when she was all done.  We pulled off her snow boots (yes there's still a ton of snow).  In order to distract her while they put some medicine in the IV, Erin was handed a ball that lit up when she shook it.  She treated it as if she'd never seen anything so cool in her life.  But it did the trick.  She refused to let go of it.  When they started the sleepy medicine they said it would work quickly.  Boy, did it.  We tried to get her to count or sing us a song, but nope.  She was OUT.  Still holding fast to the ball.

Daddy and I went back out to the waiting room during the test.  About 30 minutes later, the nurse came back to get us saying she was waking up.  She was still pretty disoriented but insisted on sitting up and reaching for daddy.  He scooped her up.  We tried to show her the pictures of her head, but she wasn't all that into it.  We took our time and headed out to the waiting room to get her settled again.  I had to finish filling out paperwork.  Erin saw the nurse and perked right up.  Hey, she gave me that cool ball.  That was a really neat ball.  The nurse smiled and excused herself for a minute.  She quickly returned with a light-up ball for Erin to take home. 

We spent the rest of the day pretty low key.  Erin wanted to go out for lunch and ice cream.  They warned us she might seem a little silly and she was.  She had a little trouble walking and was just talking and talking and talking.  Not sure what about, just silly talking.  We told her how proud of her we are and how brave she was.  It's pretty impressive.  She certainly was a trooper.  

Back to Normal??

It's been almost 3 weeks since Jeffrey has been to school.  And in the past 2 weeks Erin's only been one day - and it was a two hour delay.  That's just how things go here in the Mid-Atlantic when we're hit with a mountain of snow.  Today they're both at school (but still under a two hour delay).  And it's supposed to snow/ice this afternoon.  What will tomorrow bring?

Needless to say, we're all a little stir crazy.  We've done our best to get out.  Thank god for the gym or we'd be more than stir crazy.  But everything is on it's head.  Tom has had to work from home a few days because we couldn't get the car up the hills.  That means the basement is off limits during the day.  There's been some sleeping in.  Some staying up later.  Lots of Wii Sports and Super Mario Brothers.  Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs seems to be on repeat play. 

And of course when you all spend so much time confined there's the inevitable fights.  He took my computer!!! She won't share!!! I wanna play the DS!!! I don't want to nap/read!!!! 

There's been lots of extra time to finish making Valentine's (which Jeffrey still has work to do).  Our "things to do" boxes are getting empty.  The crayons are wearing down to nibs.  There's paint on the table from making model cars and airplanes (which have already broken). 

So I guess you can say we've survived the Blizzard of '10.  Sometimes it feels like just barely.  And I'll fully admit I'm over the moon that they're back in school today -- even if Tom has taken over the basement again.

Story Time

This is just precious.  Erin is my little reading queen.  She loves to read.  The other night Jeffrey kept asking Tom and I to read him this book, but we were busy.  I came downstairs and found this . . .




Just melts my heart :)