Clowns & Elephants

Just hanging out waiting for the doctor...
take note of the nice, clean white sheets

You might be wondering what in the h that title is all about...well let me get right to it...clowns and elephants was the pattern of the baby johnny that Easton got to wear this past Monday night at the Winchester Hospital emergency room. Ugh... can the overreactive first time parent please stand up?? Here's our story...

Our pediatrician said that about half of little kiddos get over their milk intolerance at around 6 months old so we could give the Gerber Good Start another try (that advice was strongly and rather aggressively questioned by the on-call pediatrician we got the pleasure of meeting late Monday evening...but that's neither here nor there). I ended up taking little E in because after the switch he couldn't keep anything down (or in but I'll most definitely spare you those details) for almost an entire day. The kicker was when he decided to show me what bile looks like and then continued to dry-heave...away we went.

So cute in his little hospital johnny

We arrived at the ER and it was another top-notch experience with the staff at Winchester (it's where Easton was born, too). The doctor made it around to see us about 2 hours after we arrived and did his exam. All looked alright, he wasn't too concerned about dehydration and didn't want to stick a needle in the little guy's arm if it wasn't necessary. He just asked me to feed him another bottle so he could see how he responded and we'd go from there. I shook up a bottle of the good stuff, stuck it in Easton's mouth and KA-BOOM!, Smallz decorated his diaper, his clothes, my sweatshirt and the hospital linens in the most disgusting smelling stuff you've ever seen...nurse?!? Word got back to the doc and in addition to E's stomach being totally jacked from the formula switch he was now convinced little man had some sort of stomach virus. Next step...IV... :(

By this time Jace had made it back to Boston from his hockey tournament in Vegas and had arrived at the hospital at just the right time. The nurse and his coworker arrived (needed the assistant b/c these little guys are "crazy strong" - yes, direct quote). They turned on the bright lights, put on the smallest little "tourniquet" I've ever seen and (Mom's teeth clinched) proceeded to stick Easton's left arm. We waited for the screams, the kicks, the tears...but he didn't make a sound, not a peep or even a squirm. What a rock star! He took the IV drip for an hour, cried hard when the nurse took the tape off his arm, got a follow up with the doctor and then we went home. Our heads hit the pillows around 0400 Tues morn...exhausted but thankful all was OK.

Easton and his 1st IV - they had to wrap it about
50 times so he couldn't bend his arm

So that's a lot of words and not a whole lot of photos so to add a few to the photo count here's a couple quick ones from our hike today. The leaves have all pretty much fallen here so this scenery will soon be turning over from brown to snowy white...eeek!!

forgive the angle - still not sure why the DCR folks can't cut
trees down and leave perfectly level stumps so those who are
too cheap to buy a tripod can use them...sheesh...

You almost can't see her...great camo, Rae

I see something I like...

Ok but now I'm kinda scared...

Here I go getting artistic again - I think I needed
Jace and Rae to be just a bit closer

Will be covered in snow WAY too soon

Easton will be taking his third airplane ride this Thursday as we make our whirlwind trip to Minneapolis for Turkey Day. Hope you all have plans to be with the ones you love - or are at least thankful for - this Thursday. Much love :)