A Day Underground

On Saturday, we wanted to go out and do something different. After Meg nixed the idea of shooting the children with paintball guns, we decided to take a ride out to Crystal Cave in Kutztown, PA (technically it's in Virginville . . . yeah, that sounds like a lot of fun). And despite feeling like we were making a futile trip to Wally World, we actually had a great day.

Founded in 1871, Crystal Cave is the most popular natural structure in Pennsylvania. They offer a 45 minuted guided tour of the cave (which is a pleasant 54 degrees year round!) including an 8 minute movie about formation of the cave and its discovery.

After purchasing our cave tickets ($10.50 for adults, $6.50 for kids 4-11, under 4 is free), we made our way up (and up and up and up) to the entrance of the cave.

Tours run about every 20 minutes, so we had a time to catch our breath a bit at the top and take some pictures.

Once inside, visitors are treated to a magnificent display of nature's awesome work. Some cave formations are created of hundreds of thousands of years. Though but a blink in geologic time, that timescale is nearly inconceivable to us. As oils on our fingers could indefinitely stunt the growth of the stalactites, stalagmites, flow stone, an other nature creations, we are reminded not to touch the interior of the cave - except where and when we are told.

After re-emerging into the hot summer air, we scaled back down to the main facilities where we enjoyed some Amish style fast food (beef and pork bbq and pierogies).

We then tried our hand and "panning" for gem stones and fossils, and AJ walked away with a sizable bag of each. Actually, bags of "loaded" dirt and sand are available in the gift shop in various sizes and prices.

Before leaving Crystal Cave, we had to indulge in one more summer time treat - hand dipped ice cream from Hershey's. Chocolate with rainbow sprinkles for Shane Victorino . . . err . . . AJ, Butter Pecan for Meg, and Denali Moose Tracks for me. Yum. Abby is not so interested in the sweets. Weirdo.

On the way home, we stopped at a farm for some freshly harvested sweet corn. And given the fact that it is quite infrequent that I pass one, we had to make a pit stop at Yocco's Hot Dogs for a Doggie Pac that we thoroughly enjoyed that night for dinner. Double yum!

My It's Hot

Just a quick, fun post (and a review) of our new Lil' Squirt Baby Pool from One Step Ahead.


First of all, this thing rocks . . . err . . . squirts. At only about $20, this thing is sure to beat the heat. You hook your garden hose up and voila! Once it fills up, you have a few dozen gentle fountains of water, and some stronger ones in the middle. AJ and Abby played in this most of the afternoon -- and that's saying something! Check this out.

I'm Baaaack!

Wow. It's been a while, huh! How have you been? Doesn't look like too much has changed since I was here last.


So, let's see. Where should I start? Well, as some of you might have noticed, I've been adding to my CafePress store quite regularly. This has been quite addictive, but fun nevertheless.



Last weekend, my brother-in-law got married in Pittsburgh. With such inexpensive flights on Southwest to The Steel City from Philly, we decided to fly. Abby stayed with my parents (with her schedule it wouldn't have been practical to take her with us), and AJ came with us for his first plane ride. Unfortunately, air traffic at the Southwest terminal was heavy.



But once we got in the air, AJ seemed to enjoy himself.





I'm going to save the "Minivan Story Part I & II" for later, but suffice it to say that my father-in-law was shocked to learn how much the repair job was going to cost.

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Now I'm not sure about the bride or groom, but Meg seemed to be getting cold feet.




So Saturday was the big day. AJ was the ring bearer and he had a tough job holding everything together.



Meg and my sister-in-law Lindsay got their drink on well before the ceremony, so they were pretty well toasted by the time we got to the "I do's".



AJ had to be the adult. Again. He wasn't happy.





My mother-in-law and the bride's Mom were nervous. Instead of lighting the two taper candles, they lit the single "Unity Candle". I'm pretty sure these two ladies just married themselves by accident.



By the end of the day, AJ pretty much had enough of the whole ring bearing gig and was ready to crash.

Revelations - Coming Full Circle

Tonight, after taking his shower and getting his pj's on, AJ, without socks on, reveals to me the following:

AJ: Dad, do you know why I always want to sleep with my socks on?

Me: No, AJ, I don't. Why?

AJ: Because I'm afraid that you or Mommy might sneak into my room at night and try to cut my toenails.

Me: Well, what would you say if I told you that one night, I came into your room with a flashlight and took off your sock and clipped your toenails?

AJ: Ha! No way, Dad. You don't have a flashlight.

Looks like the kid was smarter than me . . . he was wearing socks long before I took up my covert-ops mission!

And, We're Back

Home, that is. For the first night in the last 4, we are all together. At home!

Abby came home from the hospital this evening. She is still not in the best of moods -- cranky and wants to be held a lot-- but otherwise is doing OK. She is back to just 1 liter of O2 (1 1/2 at night) and holding her own. She'll be on antibiotics for the next few days, but is finished with the steroids (which should have been obvious when she threw the refrigerator across the room).

I doubt I'll be able to stay awake much longer, though I would love to watch LOST tonight. I don't think that's going to happen though, so shhh! No one tell me what happens.

Right now, I'm looking forward to night #3 on my new pillow!! Wow!

Abby was readmitted to the hospital around 2:00am this morning. The doctor is confident that:

1. It is NOT a new illness
2. It is NOT the old illness coming back/getting worse
3. It WAS a big mucus plug that we couldn't get out giving her chest PT at home

Meg and I thought this is what it and it sounded reasonable judging by the way last night's events unfolded.

Meg fell asleep last night holding Abby on the couch. Sound asleep, her sats were around 95% on 1.5 liters. We checked her again a little while later once she was in her crib, and she was still in the 90's. Then, I gave her a Xopenex breathing treatment and that's when things got bad. Seems likely that the neb loosened the mucus and it was just too big for her (and us) to work out. By the time she got to the ER, her sats were high 70's -- not good.

So right now, she's back to just 2 liters and in the mid-90's again. They are mimicking the type of support we'd be giving her at home to see how she does.

I'll be taking the night shift tonight as my company is closed on Good Friday, so hopefully we'll have a quiet rest of the day.

I Think I'm . . . Yeah, I'm Disappointed

So the 'rents were awesome enough to take AJ for the weekend. They took him down to the Jersey Shore to where my grandfather lives year-round now. They had a very nice time, though AJ was a bit under the weather. My grandfather gets a kick out of having the great-grandkids running around. Between my Dad's and my Aunt's (Dad's sister) family, we are clearly the favorites. And by that, I mean that he (my grandfather) gets significantly less annoyed by my kids than my cousins' kids. But I digress.

Meg and I spent a nice weekend with Miss Abby -- just the three of us. On Sunday though, we headed up to North Jersey and checked into a nice Radisson just off the New Jersey Parkway. Now, we didn't do this simply to enjoy the urban sprawl that is Paterson, Paramus, Mahwah and the quaint surrounding towns. On Monday, Abby had an appointment with the feeding clinic at St. Joseph's Hospital for Children.

Now, I need to provide some history here, so bear with me.

Abby doesn't eat.

And that's about the gist of it.

OK, so maybe a little more history would be useful. Abby had surgery to repair her esophagus, has reflux, used to be tube fed (NG tube), and has had all sorts of nasty stuff literally shoved down her throat. It took 10 months before she took sustainable nutrition solely through a bottle (and that's with formula mixed to a higher than normal concentration). She has slowly come to accept food, but only in small insignificant amounts. And for the most part, she needs to be in control (that's a big thing with her). Coming at her with a spoon full of baby food is just asking for trouble. Along with a shirt full of baby food.

We've seen many specialists over the past year to help us get control over the situation. We see a pediatric GI doc regularly (who is incredible), she gets OT and Speech therapy that also address her feeding issues to some extent, and we've been to the feeding clinic at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Most recently, we went to a private-practice speech pathologist (who does not take insurance). We actually got some good advice from her and have seen some optimistic if not encouraging signs from Abby within the past week as a result of more structured "practicing" with the spoon. We praise her for the good behaviors -- she loves that -- and we ignore the bad ones as to not reinforce those.

Everyone we've spoken to has really hyped up the feeding clinic at St. Joe's as being the best around. Needless to say, we had some moderately high expectations from this. So we got there and they took us back on time and the LNP took a history. We joked that we should just record Abby's (extensive) history and provide a CD to each medical professional who needs one. Side note: For all of you medical folk out there or those lay people who have experience with this, I came up with a little PDA joke. When asked if there are any cardiac issues with Abby, I say no, but that she did have a PDA. I then say that it either went away on its own or is now so big that no one can hear it. Ba-da-bum! I crack myself up.

OK. Sorry. So then they observe us feeding Abby with the spoon from behind a one-way mirror. We go through our regular routine, clapping when she accepts the spoon, and breaking eye contact and ignoring her when she refuses or swats it away. All in all, it was not one of her better performances. She did accept, chew, and swallow some Gerber puffs. Then they weighed her, measured her length, and a PT came in and did a brief evaluation.

After a few minutes of consultation behind closed doors, they came back with some recommendations. First, we need to address her recent constipation problem (TMI, I know), although her feeding/swallowing issues greatly precede her pooping difficulties, so we have a plan for that. They gave us a tip or two to refine the spoon feeding sessions. And they suggested we come back in a month.

And that's about it.

Huh?!?!

Good grief. And this is "The" place to go? Now I learned a while ago that feeding/swallowing difficulties are tough nuts to crack. It seems to be an art more than a science as there are just so many variables, but come on. I can't believe that we can't develop a more detailed action plan. I know it's one step at a time, but no one seems to know what the next step will be until we are there.

Do I have unrealistic expectations? If I do, please tell me. Mind you, I'd drive 500 miles a day to take her to a clinic if I thought it would help get us over this hump, but are we being selfish if we choose not to go back here as the trip doesn't seem to justify the benefits??

I think we are going to make an appointment with the GI doc to go over this evaluation and probably set up some kind of schedule with the private-practice speech pathologist and hopefully incorporate her guidance and advise into Abby's OT and Speech therapies.

Ugh.

Just very disappointed.

I have to start a blog . . . so I did

AJ hates having his toe nails clipped. HATES it. Screaming, crying, kicking, and generally freaking out is pretty much the norm. He's been like that with his toe nails since he's been born. We got away with it for a long time as I think the crawling around on carpet in bare feet would file the nails down for us!! His finger nails? No problem whatsoever. None. Heck, he'll even cut them himself.

So the nails on his one foot in particular have gotten pretty ridiculous. On Sunday night, I decided to do something about it. When I went up to bed, around 10:30 or so, I brought with me not a flashlight, but a head lamp. Yes, a head lamp like a miner would use. I got it as a White Elephant gift this past Christmas and I figured this would be the most logical way to break it in.

I crept into his room and went to the foot (no pun intended) of his bed. Nail clippers in hand, I went under the comforter and crawled, commando style, to my target. Socks. The kid won't sleep without socks on. Slowly, I removed one of his socks. Great Scott! I had not seen his toe nails, up close anyway, in quite sometime. Ever see the picture of that lady with finger nails like 3 feet long and they are all curled under? Yeah? Well, it didn't look like that, but still. He was sleeping on his belly, so his nails were facing down. This was going to be tricky.

At this point, Meg had come upstairs. She knew the plan and was there to draw fire, should AJ wake up. I was trying to think of what would go through his mind if he woke up, looked under his covers, and saw me with a head lamp on, one of his socks off, and clipper in hand. That it would have been ugly is all I can say for sure.

And so I started clipping. I opted for the unorthodox little-toe-to-big-toe strategy. I figured I needed to get out of there with as few clips as possible. I wasn't trying to get points for neatness and so I was unsure about going for the honking big toe first and having to make multiple clips. I need to start with a clip-to-toe ratio that was in my favor.

Clip - little toe done.
Clip - next toe (ring toe?) done.
Clip - middle toe done.
Clip - index toe(?) done.

I had my little stack of nail clippings piled up for removal upon completion of the mission (I had decided that this would be a one foot job). I was home free -- which, oddly enough, is always right where you are when disaster strikes. He was moving, stirring, whimpering. My wingman, err, Megan pushed my head down to the floor so I'd be out of his sight. I covered my head lamp with my hand for good measure. Meg said, "Hey, AJ" as if she had casually bumped into him at the grocery store and as if there was not a covert toe nail clipping mission going on right under his nose.

He settled down, and I moved back into position. CLIP. The big toe. I knew it would take more than one, and sure enough there it was. The last nail. Hanging there. Taunting me. He moved again. Tossed and turned. I went for it, trying to pull it the rest of the way off. It was there, between my fingers, and just like that I missed my opportunity. I was getting hot under there. It was getting hard to breathe. Suddently, he turned over one last time. This was it. It would be all or nothing. I grabbed his foot to hold it still and I took the shot. Got it. But now I needed to get out of there. I had no time to find the button to turn off the head lamp. So in one motion, I covered the light with my hand, ducked out from beneath the covers, pivoted around to face the door, and as I passed Meg on my way out, I somehow tripped over the 3/8" pile in his carpet and just about took a header into the wall outside of his room.

We made it into our bedroom and nearly collapsed with laughter. After we settled down, Meg said that we should write this down so that we'd always remember it. Somehow, I don't think I'll forget this. The next morning, when he came out of his room, he had his other sock back on. He mentioned that when he woke up, it was lying next to him, so he had just put it back on. I asked him if he had ever heard of the toe nail fairy and he said he hadn't. I dropped the subject.