Always On Holladays

A few months ago, Russell was playing Hide-and-seek with the neighbor boy.  I don’t think he really understood the concept though – here are some of his hiding spots:

Behind a tree

This wouldn’t be a bad spot, IF the seeker wasn’t counting from behind him!  Oh, and if there wasn’t a big gaping hole between the tree right where he is standing.  

Whenever I play hide and seek with him I’ll say, “Russell, where are you?!”  Just for the effect of looking for him.  But he always answers, “I’m right over here!”   Then I tell him he’s not supposed to tell me.  Kids must get so confused.  We parents say, “Answer me when I call you!”   But then sometimes we tell them not to (like if we’re playing games).  We tell them, “Don’t take candy from strangers.”  Yet once every year we dress them up and tell them to go and actually knock on the strangers door and ASK for candy! So confusing to be a kid.

Uh oh, I think I just got sidetracked again – where were we…

Another Tree

Trees were really the only thing in the yard to hide behind, but he’s kind of got the wrong concept.  Here he looks like an environmentalist instead of someone hiding.  Again here, he simply needs to walk around the tree a little further.  

and another tree....my favorite.

This has to be my favorite.  This is an actual hiding spot he picked…and what is really funny about this pic is the look on his face.  Like he’s thinking, “Oh, there he is…I don’t think he will find me here!  I just need to stay really still!”  

We’ll have to work on this.  He’s still got plenty of years before he plays with the professionals in his youth…I’m not too worried.

Yesterday I had to take Russell to get another “poke.”  Usually he just “loses it” when our number is called and we are sitting there waiting in the chair.  This time he cried as soon as I told him we were going to get one, all the way to town, and as we walked into the “Poke Center” as he sometimes calls it.

Oh that reminds me, quick story:  Last week we tried to take him to get his poke but the nurses were operating in “super slow” mode, and with the other two kids in the van with Grams I wasn’t about to wait another hour, so we left and decided to come back next week (yesterday).  ANYWHO…before we had even got there last week, we (grandma and I) were trying to help Russell stop crying, talking about the sticker they always give him after and things like that.  Grandma said, “You know what Russell…when I went and got a poke, they never gave me a sticker!”  Russell, his face a little perplexed said, “What poke shop do you go to?!” I had never called it a “poke shop” before…it’s not like we get to shop around and pick the one we like the best!  So now it’s the “poke shop” or “poke center”.  

Ok, where was I…oh yes, we had walked into the “poke shop”, took a number and sat down.  Russell was still having a hard time, drawing all the attention to us.  The nice lady sitting beside us asked if he would like a candy and offered a mint mento.  I politely declined, telling her he doesn’t like mint.  Russell continued with the sobs and this lady pulled a loony out of her purse and said, “Here, you take this and buy a little treat afterwards.”  What a sweet lady.  So I thanked her and took it (Russell was being shy) and put it in his coat pocket.  

Well, we waited and waited and he had calmed down a bit and we were playing and laughing, and Russell would say, “I’m going to cry though.”  And I would say, “that’s ok, you’re allowed to cry…just not yet though ok, cause we’re not even in there!”  Russell said, “ok, tell me when.”  I agreed.

Our number was called and he started to cry again…really hard (without my prompting him to)!  He was practically going berserk and I figured they’d have to sedate him just to take a little blood.  The nurse pulled out a teddy bear and gave to him, thinking that would calm him down.  I chuckled to myself knowing how many stuffed animals he’s gotten from that place and that they hadn’t done a bit of good in the calming department.  (That’s ok though, Bryn always likes the animals.)  He continued to spaz, but they managed to get what they needed and then let him pick something out of the prize box, AND gave him sticker!  

Moral of the story:  The bigger the fuss, the bigger the prize!

So today our Cardiologist called to tell us the results…and the good news!  As soon as I got off the phone I said, “Russell, guess who that was on the phone.”  He shrugged and I said, “It was Dr. Harder (the most amazing Dr. we’ve ever had, I might add…) and guess what she said!”  Russell’s eyes widened, not knowing what to expect and I said, “She said ‘No more pokes for Russell!!’”  I wish so badly that I could have his reaction on video!  He gasped, raised his arms in the air and jumping up and down yelled “woo hoo, woo hoo!!!”  He was so excited…and so was I! 

By Christmas he gets to be on aspirin and off those awful little pink pills that caused us so much grief in the beginning.  I really hate those things!  I’d like to dump a bunch on the table and take a really sharp knife and stab them to bits!  But that would only do two things…make me look psycho, and wreck my kitchen table…so I don’t think I will. But now you have a visual of just how much I hate them, which was my point.

Once a month, Russell has to get blood work done.  Since his open-heart surgery last November, he has been going quite often to get his INR checked.  That just means that they are seeing how fast his blood clots.  One of the meds he is on is Warfarin (or Coumadin)…also known as rat poisoning.  Appearantly it is the most effective blood thinner out there. Russell has come a long way as far as taking meds is concerned.  In fact, he hasn’t gone a day in his life yet without taking something!  I’d have to say though that he has been pretty amazing at taking his meds without too much fight.  Prior to Nov surgery, he would take his two pills and just chew them up and swallow!  As a baby he did not too bad with all the gross liquid ones.  We would hide it in his milk when we could, but that has not always been possible.  So he has done quite well, up until he had to take the Warfarin, that is.  

pills

These little pink nightmares have caused us a lot of grief!  They taste too horrible to chew up, and even crushed and hidden in food wouldn’t work…he’d gag and throw up most of the time.  We tried crushing it and smothering it in chocolate syrup, which worked maybe twice, but that just wasn’t our answer.  We tried everything but couldn’t think of any more tricks.  But after a lot of prayer…pleading for the Lord to somehow help him take these really important pills, we used our last resort.  We said “Russell, just put it on the back of your tounge, take a drink and swallow…don’t bite it!”  So he did, and it worked!  What a blessing!  We thought that was pretty impressive for a three year old to know how to swallow pills! I don’t think I even learned how till I was like 12.  

Taking his meds.

So now he takes them every night, but it always has to be with chocolate milk!  The pills have to be lined up in a specific order (does this sound obsessive compulsive?) with the white one being first (white is his favorite color).  Then the half pink one and the whole pink one come last, as shown in the above pic.  We usually have to say the “eenie meenie miney moe” thing so he can see which one to take first.  The thing is though, he’ll point to his two pink ones back and forth until we get to “moe” and then he’ll point to the white one, cause he always has to take that one first!  Funny kid.  

I think he likes white because it looks “clean”.  He hates getting dirty, and sometimes I even have to feed him his jam sandwiches because he’d rather just not eat than    

Down the hatch!

risk it dripping onto his fingers…heaven forbid!  Sometimes he’ll just ask for plain bread so there’s no chance of getting anything on his hands.  In his November surgery, while he was still in the ICU, the nurses offered him a pbj sandwich.  He said no, but we continued to offer. Finally I asked him why he didn’t want one and he said, “Because that will make my hands dirty!”  I was thinking, “uhh, that’s the least of your concerns right now little buddy!”  (As he layed there all attached to tubes and wires.)  What a kid.

Back to the pokes.  We always give Russell warning when we are taking him to get a “poke”.  We’ve always given him the heads up about things like that so as to maintain his trust with us.  He usually panicks and cries a little, but then after we assure him that we will hold him and be right there with him, he calms down again until he is sitting in the hot seat.  Then he’ll scream and cry until it’s over.  Generally we’ve had some pretty good nurses…they know how to work with kids.  But we’ve also had our run ins with the insensitive jerky nurses (pardon my language).  Like the one that yelled threateningly at my crying boy to stop crying and hold still, then proceeded to hold his arm so tight there were fingernail imprints in his little arm!  I was not impressed – and she knew it!  I will not be letting her near Russell any more!  

We have to make sure we tell the nurses “NO BANDAIDS!”  He hates bandaids, and will cry even at the mention of them almost as hard as when he has to get the actual poke!  That’s something we have to be very careful we tell Dr.s and nurses at every checkup and procedure he has…if it’s at all possible – don’t use or mention bandaids, or even try to refer to them as “stickers”.  The fact that it has Lightning McQueen on it doesn’t change things…he doesn’t want anything sticking to him.  This is all very understandable, as he has had so many “dressings” and things all over his body through all his surgeries and procedures.  

It’s interesting to watch Russell play Dr. now days.  Russell and Bryn always give us “pokes” and Russell does it with precission, the way he has it done at the hospital.  Sometimes he checks to make sure the name on the form is spelled right…he’ll spell his name out to me and wait till I confirm it.  He then wipes my arm with “cold stuff”, puts in the needle (then he waits for a min, obviously waiting till the vial fills with blood), puts a cotton swab on my arm, and gives me a sticker!  Sometimes they give him knitted finger puppets…I think we have enough of them now to restock the clinic!  They are kind of cute, and somewhat useful as they occupy some of Bryn’s attention at church. Here’s a small sample. 

Finger Puppets