The Andersons: Easter, Updates, and the ER

Our two crazy nuts have been cranking up the fun levels these days. They are rather good at that. Typically we don't have much to say about what is going on in our lives these days, because life is pretty mellow right now. It mostly consists of playing with these guys:

We certainly aren't complaining!

Ashlynn is 9 months old today, and as she usually likes to hit a big landmark right before I post, she decided to achieve something we would rather she hadn't. Her first trip to the ER.

We went up to Utah for a quick weekend visit and on Saturday afternoon she suddenly had a very high fever. 103.3 was the highest I ever read on the thermometer, but possibly higher since armpit thermometers and 9 month old infants tend to combine in a fit of tears that makes waiting for the final temperature seem like an impossibility. We gave her some medicine and had a family member who is also a pediatrician look at her ears. Nothing there. So our plan was to keep monitoring her and try to keep her fever down. She woke up that night with a fever again but after some medication it broke and she was fine most of Sunday morning. After dinnertime we hit the road to make the drive back to Vegas. Ashlynn still had a fever but seemed pretty fine. I sat in the backseat next to her and spent much of the drive holding my hands on her cheeks and kissing her forehead gently over and over again. This is kind of a trigger for her to relax at nap or bedtime and it kept her relatively happy for most of the drive. At around 8:50 she was feeling really hot to me (but we didn't have a thermometer) and it had a been a while so I woke her up to give her some more medicine. Ten minutes later I was leaning in close to her and I couldn't tell if her eyes were open or closed because of the darkness and I was curious if she had fallen back asleep. As I looked closer I realized her eyes were rolled back and fluttering and she was unresponsive. Immedietely I told Trustin that something was wrong and we screeched off to the side of the interstate onto an offramp. I unbuckled Ashlynn and carefully but quickly pulled her out of the seat and held her to me. She was limp and unresponsive and her eyes were still rolling. I handed her to Trustin who began giving her a blessing while I called 911. Those were the scariest minutes of my life thus far. We felt so helpless and scared. After what seemed like forever, but was probably about five minutes, the ambulance showed up and I rode with Ashlynn to the hospital while Trustin and Zeke followed behind in the car. Ashlynn was just fine. It was, as both Trustin and I suspected, a fibrile seizure. Although I didn't know this at the time, this type of seizure, while terrifying in the moment really causes no damage (yay). At the hospital they gave Ashlynn some tylenol and the doctor declared that she had an ear infection. I was a little bit skeptical of this because we'd had her ears looked at the day before and plus the hospital staff was really not impressing me. They hardly communicated with me at all, would just check her temperature and then leave the room and not come back for twenty minutes, while I could hear the whole bunch of them sitting our around the front desk chatting. True, they understood that Ashlynn was fine, but after standing on the side of the highway in my bare feet, holding my unresponsive baby and crying to the 911 operater, and now sitting here while my two year old is sleeping in the waiting room and my husband hasn't been allowed back to see Ashlynn at all, and we still have another hour and half of driving until we get home, I would have appreciated it if they could have given us a little more concern. Plus I was already a bit grumpy because the paramedic on the ambulance didn't know how to use his thermometer (really??). But truly, I shouldn't be grumpy about the night because it was full of blessings. How grateful we are that I was riding in the backseat which allowed me to see what was happening. How blessed that we were that out of all the miles of that drive Ashlynn's seizure happened as we were approaching the exit in Mesquite that was only minutes from the hospital. And how blessed we are that Ashlynn is fine and happy and healthy.

Just to finish up that story. We took Ashlynn in to our regular pediatrician for a follow up appointment and guess what. No ear infection. Hmm. She actually had roseola which often has high spiking fevers but is hard to diagnose until the fever breaks and a rash appears.

Of course, a hospital visit is not all that our sweet Ashlynn is up to. She has learned to wave, but it looks more like she is beckoning to us to come because she just pumps her little fingers closed towards herself. She loves the ABCs. Often when she cries and is unconsolable, Zeke starts singing it and without fail, she cheers up.

She has taken a liking to being upside down and will throw her head back until we hold her upside down. She also loves to be outside and cries when we bring her inside.

She is full of smiles and makes all of us smile too!

Updates on the Zekester: Still a silly great kid. He has learned the secrets to Mommy's heart. One day he said to me "Can I give you kiss?" I was happy to oblige. Then he immediately said, "I want candy from my pumpkin!" The next day this scene repeated, verbatim. This week he has taken to saying, "Can I have ___ because I love you?" It is hard to say no to that.

His all time favorite activity right now is hide and seek. Known to Zeke as "Hide and Zeke" or "Hide and this guy"[points to self].

And now the last few weeks in photos: