We’ve spent a lot of time this month in the care of medical professionals.  I suppose that’s to be expected with three boys, but nothing can prepare you for that feeling of your stomach turning inside out and loosing your mind all at once.  Last night was easily the worst experience of my life and I pray not too many of you can relate.

I don’t know how many of you out there have had the unbelievable misfortune of holding your baby as their eyes roll back into their head, their body convulsing uncontrollably, and between shakes feeling like there are no muscles inside them at all.  For those of you that have, I’ve joined in that fear, and I pray to never experience that again.

As soon as I got home last night, Cooper was in his highchair waiting for dinner and didn’t even look over at me when I walked in the door.  I walked up to him and noticed a blank stare on his face and his arm start to flex over and over.  I picked him up and the seizure started to get worse.  This is the moment, as a parent, you truly have no idea what to do.  I tried to get him to respond with no success, and had Kristin call the ambulance.  Ten minutes later or so, he had thrown up several times and was still not responding to anything.  

Once the ambulance got there he had stopped seizing, but his eyes were still rolling around and not responding.  For what seemed like the longest ambulance ride to Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital possible, Cooper was given oxygen, and was hooked up to all sorts of machines.  I sent out a Twitter and was immediately flooded with encouragement and prayers.  This online community blows me away daily.

Once we got to the hospital Cooper was responding to us talking but still wouldn’t talk or move around that much.  After much poking and prodding… and a popsicle, he started to come around and was acting more normal.  What seemed like an entire day of trauma truly only lasted about three hours.  The doctors checked him out, watched him off and on and finally told us it was a result of some virus and a really high fever spike.  Turns out that’s a pretty common thing but, no doubt, something a parent can never get used to.  Even as I write this, I can feel my throat closing up and my stomach turning.  

So, Kristin and my date night to The Swell Season was cancelled, and instead we spent the evening in the emergency room.  It’s disappointing, but I’m glad it happened before we left for the show.  We have some great neighbors that helped us out a ton and sprung into action as soon as we needed them.  Thanks for everyone’s prayers and spreading the word.  Cooper’s doing better today, his fever is still off and on and we are watching him pretty close, but he’s eaten today and woke up asking to watch Clifford, so he seems a little more normal. Thanks again everyone.  Your prayers meant so much to us.

The other day Kristin was browsing through one of the many notebooks that we have around the house that the kids draw in and found this little gem.  Blue’s old enough now to really start drawing things and he loves to copy things.  Currently he is in the middle of making an alphabet book.  One page for every letter.  I think he’s somewhere near “L” or “M”.  

Anyway, I loved this drawing and the attention to detail is awesome. Check out the queen’s hair and Peter’s shield.  My favorite is the backwards “N”.  So, Blue asked me to blog about this and say, “This is Blue’s drawing”.  So here it is.  I think it’s awesome.

A couple weeks ago Kristin came up with this clever way to give the boys incentive to obey.  She drew these little trees on paper and each leaf had a number.  If the boys were asked to do something and did it the first time they would move up the tree one spot.  If they were asked more than once, they moved down.  We told them that when they reached twenty-two at the top of the tree they could go see Star Wars - The Clone Wars.  That’s a big deal for for a six year old and a three year old, but it’s also a pretty big challenge to get to twenty-two.

Anyway, yesterday the boys finally reached their goal and we made plans to leave after dinner and have a boys night.  We stashed ‘cheaper than theatre’ candy in our pockets and went to the theater.  I hadn’t heard anything about the new Star Wars movie, but the boys were super excited about it.  Now, one thing I can say is that I think they should have made all the Star Wars movies like this one.  I might offend some Star Wars geeks out there, but this is easily the best Star Wars movie out there.  I know the other ones were revolutionary for their time and all that, but the problem is they had bad actors and they were written poorly.  Come on.  Tell me you don’t agree.

Anyone else seen it?  Heard anything about it?  Weirded out by Jabba the Hutt’s gay uncle?

“Blue how come you didn’t eat any of your lunch today at school?”

“I wanted to pretend to buy lunch.”

“You wanted to pretend to buy lunch?”

“Yep.”

“Well, what did you eat when you pretended to buy lunch?”

“Meatloaf, french fries…. carrots…  and juice.”

“So you just got in the lunch line and pretended that you paid for lunch and they gave it to you?”

“Yep.”

“Do you know that’s stealing?”

“Nope.  I was pretending.”

Did you buy or bring lunch to school as a kid?

Kids books are funny.

Most of you folks on Twitter already know but I spent half of the night last night in the Emergency Room with Blue.  Just before dinner he jumped off the couch (again) and landed on his head.  He was having a hard time eating and falling asleep at dinner so we had him lay down.  About an hour later he started throwing up, and acting really confused.  Not recognizing Kristin or I, and really disoriented.  By around ten, he had thrown up several times and was saying things that didn’t make sense, so I decided to take him in.

Almost immediately the doctor ordered a CAT Scan to make sure his neck and head were okay.  It’s a pretty weird feeling watching your six year old slide into a machine that’s scanning his brain for injury.  He did great and was half asleep during the whole thing.

After the CAT Scan we went back to the room we started in and Blue was hooked back up to the blood pressure thing and the finger thing to keep track of his pulse.  It was pretty quiet in the ER which gave me some time to think and just watch Blue.  I noticed that though he was asleep, I could see on the computer that his heart rate was around 123.  I don’t know anything about medicine so I don’t know if that’s normal in kids, or even if that’s normal in regular people, but as I watched it I could see the waves of what I assume his heart beat was.  After a couple minutes of watching, I reached out and started to rub the side of his face with my finger.  Instantly I noticed a change in his heart rate on the machine.  I watched as his heart rate slowed with every time I rubbed his face.  120, 119, 117, 106, 101, 98, 95, 94.  I stopped rubbing his face and watched as the number slowly climbed back up to the 120’s.  I started rubbing his cheek again and watched the number fall.

You see where I’m going with this don’t you?  Blue was not even awake, and was completely disoriented with what was going on to the point of having a hard time recognizing his parents, but something inside him knew that touch and it calmed him down.  Something inside his senses found peace in that touch, and his heart rate slowed down.  Maybe it was the drama of the night, maybe it was because it was the middle of the night, but I instantly recognized the connection to something more spiritual.  I started thinking about the peace that I feel some times in the middle of my disorientation.  In the middle of my confusion.  The times where even if I don’t recognize what’s going on, and I don’t want people around me, someone is there, rubbing my cheek and slowing my heart rate.

I love the moments in life where the definition of a “father’s love” is so evident.  Ever since I  became a dad I’ve noticed the Biblical connection to that “father’s love” become more and more real.  It’s awesome to see how something like sitting in an emergency room because your six year old has a concussion can actually bring a sense of peace.  A sense of peace that I have needed for a while now.

Anyway.  Blue just woke up and came downstairs and is completely back to normal.  He looks fine, is talking fine, and even has that six year old attitude this morning.  Thanks so much for your prayers last night, and thanks for all the Twitter folks that blew my phone up after hearing about it.  Community across the country still blows me away.

I know I’m supposed to be a responsible parent but this is Awesome.

Blue’s team lost by one run yesterday in his championship game. They played the Yankee’s.  You remember.  The team with the coaches with man goatees that take things to serious?  

Anyway, Blue’s team did great.  They were loosing most of the game but came back to tie it up at the top of the last inning.  Blue got on base all three times he was up and was somehow dirtier than every other kid.  He got a pretty cool trophy and loves carrying it around and putting it places so he can look at it.

Now, I played little league growing up and there were always one or two coaches that seemed to take things a little too far.  The way this league works is that the coach pitches five pitches to the kids and if they miss those then they are allowed to hit off the tee.  Let’s just say that if it were any other league the Yankee’s coach would have been a great pitcher.  He “struck out” every one of his kids allowing every batter to hit off the tee.  Clever strategy I suppose.  Either way we had a great time and the boys had fun.

We found out yesterday that there is a County Tournament for the cities best teams starting today that Blue’s team is in so it’s cool the season doesn’t have to end quite yet.  I can’t say enough good things about Blue’s coaches.  They have done a great job.  I have no idea how they are able to organize twelve 5 year olds, but somehow they do it and do it well.  I will have some pictures posted here as soon as I can.

This morning I went in to check on the boys as they were waking up. Cooper had woken up and since he shares a room with Aiden I waned to get him out of the room before he woke Aiden up. If Aiden is woken up and doesn’t wake up on his own, we all pay for it the entire day. He’s the musician in the family. Oh, come on you all know it’s true.

So anyway, as I was walking out of the room Aiden started to look around and I patted him on the head to tell him to go back to sleep.  When my hand touched the side of Aiden’s head I felt a little bump deep in his hair that felt like something stuck in his hair.  Not wanting to wake him up, I just let it go until he woke up.

About an hour later, Aiden came into our room and I asked him if I could take a look at his head.  I started digging around in his curly hair and found the tiny bump that I had felt earlier.  I noticed it was a little brown thing that looked like a mole or something like that, but I knew he didn’t have anything like that on his head.  I’ve seen his head with no hair on it and it’s never been there before.  I started to realize that it looked more like a little creature and decided to pull it out.  I grabbed it with my fingernails and did the twist pull thing that they tell you to do with ticks and out it popped.  

A freaking tick on Aiden’s head!  I wanted to throw up, but I was holding this little tiny creature that was, just moments ago, was sucking blood from my three-year-olds skull.  I knew that these little guys are tough to kill so I pinched it between my thumb and middle finger nail.  As soon as I did that I felt a quick, light spray all over my face and looked at my fingers that were now covered in smooshed bug and child skull blood.  If I had eaten breakfast yet it would have been on the floor.  So gross.

I checked the rest of Aiden’s head, and Blue’s and Coopers.  They are all good to go now, but I haven’t stopped itching yet.  I have a new understanding for that lame country song about the ticks.  You know the one with the guy that plays amazing guitar, but sings lame lyrics.  Yeah that guy.