This will be a "too-much-information" post, so if you have a problem with that, stop reading now!
Now, on to Tattoo's surgery. He was born with one undescended testicle. The other one is fine. We were waiting for it to drop on its own, but it still hadn't, and we were nearing his 2 year mark. His pediatrician sent his inf
ormation up to Primary Children's Hospital for a consultation with the urology department. Matthew's cousin, Nik, had to have surgery in that department when he was younger, so Nathan's family was able to recommend a fabulous doctor for us to see. The problem with being a fabulous doctor, is that it took 6 weeks to get in for the consult! Well, we went in for that a couple of weeks ago, and decided that the best, quickest and most efficient method was surgery. They need to bring it down for it to develop fully, and the younger we do it, the better, especially so that he won't remember.
I completely trusted Dr. Cartwright to do an excellent job and take care of my baby, but I did have one huge fear about the situation. Tattoo has had stranger danger issues since birth, and I was afraid that scary doctors taking him away from us would cause permanent damage. Well, Primary Children's is the best in every way, and
think of situations like this beforehand. They offered to give him some drugs that would make him sleepy and loopy before they took him away from us. They also said that it would help make him forget being taken away. I was on board! He was so silly while on those drugs, and just kept laughing at everything! Finally they took him back. The surgery took about an hour, which was right on schedule. Dr. Cartwright came out to tell us that it went very smoothly, and just as planned. It took Tattoo a while to wake up after the surgery, but they let me come back to be with him when he did wake. He was so thirsty, that within about 5 minutes of waking up, he had downed 2 sippy cups full of apple juice! Swallowing is one of the main things they make sure a kid can do after surgery before sending him home, so we were right on track. We stayed for about an hour after he woke up. We just sat in wonderful, padded rocking chairs, snuggling with him while the n
urses made sure everything else was good to go. He passed with flying colors and has been doing really great ever since. They put some tape over his upper incision, as there are only stitches there under the skin, and they said that it should take about a week or two to fall off. Of course, Tattoo doesn't like to do anything according to plan, and had the tape off on Friday night! I panicked and made Nathan call to see if that was okay, which it was. I just overreact sometimes. Everything's doing really great and he's healing like a trooper. We go back for a follow-up visit in a month, but I think everything will be perfect at that appointment too!
Tattoo had a great 2nd birthday! His birthday was on the 7th. For the actual day of his birthday, we took the kids to Chuck E Cheese for the first time. Boy, did they
have a blast! I had some great coupons that got us hundreds of tokens for the games, for very little money. We gave each of the kids a cup of tokens and sent them on their way. We also had Ghyslin with us, so it worked perfectly. Ghyslin and PJ were working together, I was following Kaiden around and Nathan was in charge of Tattoo. Tattoo was having a great time walking around pretending to play the games. Kaiden was actually pretty good at some of them. The girls, however, made bank on tickets from the games they were playing. Between all of the kids, they had enough tic
kets to get Tattoo a new ball, and each of the big kids several small toys. Although the food there sucks, we still had a great time!
d went very smoothly, as a pot-luck dinner. Great food, hilarious entertainment (2 silly boys), and a fun, relaxing evening with family. Tattoo's favorite toys are cars, stuffed animals and balls. He got TONS of cars, a snuggly bear, a new light for his room, a book and some jammies. Good times!
I had to do them in advance, they were a little shriveled by Halloween night. After I got off work on Halloween, I finished the last pumpkin. Whew! Cutting it close!
y best part was the "drunk dragon walk." The costume was so padded, that he kind of waddled and ended up swerving a bit when walking. He was so funny!
This will be a "too-much-information" post, so if you have a problem with that, stop reading now!
ormation up to Primary Children's Hospital for a consultation with the urology department. Matthew's cousin, Nik, had to have surgery in that department when he was younger, so Nathan's family was able to recommend a fabulous doctor for us to see. The problem with being a fabulous doctor, is that it took 6 weeks to get in for the consult! Well, we went in for that a couple of weeks ago, and decided that the best, quickest and most efficient method was surgery. They need to bring it down for it to develop fully, and the younger we do it, the better, especially so that he won't remember.
think of situations like this beforehand. They offered to give him some drugs that would make him sleepy and loopy before they took him away from us. They also said that it would help make him forget being taken away. I was on board! He was so silly while on those drugs, and just kept laughing at everything! Finally they took him back. The surgery took about an hour, which was right on schedule. Dr. Cartwright came out to tell us that it went very smoothly, and just as planned. It took Tattoo a while to wake up after the surgery, but they let me come back to be with him when he did wake. He was so thirsty, that within about 5 minutes of waking up, he had downed 2 sippy cups full of apple juice! Swallowing is one of the main things they make sure a kid can do after surgery before sending him home, so we were right on track. We stayed for about an hour after he woke up. We just sat in wonderful, padded rocking chairs, snuggling with him while the n
urses made sure everything else was good to go. He passed with flying colors and has been doing really great ever since. They put some tape over his upper incision, as there are only stitches there under the skin, and they said that it should take about a week or two to fall off. Of course, Tattoo doesn't like to do anything according to plan, and had the tape off on Friday night! I panicked and made Nathan call to see if that was okay, which it was. I just overreact sometimes. Everything's doing really great and he's healing like a trooper. We go back for a follow-up visit in a month, but I think everything will be perfect at that appointment too!
I sure loved Halloween when I was a kid! As I got to be a teenager, and especially when I became an adult, I decided I didn't love Halloween so much anymore. I didn't, and still don't, like it when teenagers would just color their hair or wear a stupid mask and consider themselves "dressed up" for Halloween and expect people to s
till give them candy while trick-or-treating. I still feel that trick-or-treating is for the little kids, and if you're old enough to get a job, you shouldn't be trick-or-treating; you can buy your own candy!
Halloween again! Having kids makes it at least as fun, if not more fun than it was when I was a kid. Having our own house to decorate makes it even better. As we were just moving in the week of Halloween last year, we didn't get to really enjoy the fun decorations, as we had to take them down nearly immediately after putting them up! This year, we whipped those decorations out as soon as it got slightly chilly! We've been gradually adding a bit more at a time over the last week or so, but the best part was just added last night. For years, Nathan has had a Halloween tradition of building a "monster" for the front porch. Last night, the monster was assembled. As he was being built, Tattoo decided to try on the mask. Cutest monster ever! In addition to the monster on t
he porch, Granny and Papa donated some Indian corn stalks to the decorations, which we tied around the front porch posts. Very festive effect overall!
