Independence Day and Recovery

Caleb had a tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy and a new set of ear tubes put in at the end of June. It was a great birthday present (note sarcasm). But, hopefully it was because he will be able to sleep better, hear better, eat better, talk, etc. etc. The main reason for the tonsillectomy and adenoids was to hopefully help with his severe obstructive sleep apnea. We won't know until his sleep study at the end of August what effect this procedure had, if any. They tell us before going in that there is the 30/30/30 statistic; 30% get better, 30% get worse and 30% stay the same. SO, we are really hoping he is in the first 30%, which we kind of think he will be because his ENT told us after the surgery that his adenoid was blacking 80% of his airway. I mean, seriously; that is like breathing through a straw! No wonder the poor kid had trouble breathing while drinking (which has been one improvement we have seen since the surgery). Finger's crossed, it also helped with his sleep apnea.

With that surgery, we had to stay in the hospital for a night to monitor if the swelling made him obstruct more and then came 10 days from H-E-double hockey sticks. Holy moly. I had been warned, but it was TOUGH. Honestly, harder than having a newborn. He was just so sad and uncomfortable and wouldn't sleep for longer than hour and a half long stints...it was tough. I literally pinned him down every 20 minutes to squirt a few mL of water and pedialyte in him so that he wouldn't get dehydrated. Those few seconds of torture were worth it to me seeing as I think he would have been WAY more miserable being hooked up to an IV in the hospital, which would have happened if I didn't get fluids in him. Day 10 was the miracle day when he started eating and drinking more than an ant-sized sip and being his silly self again.

 He would run and try to hide in his tent whenever he saw medicine or water coming. It made it easy to corner him!

 Snow cones were the winning ticket a few times to get fluid him. He would just devour them and be so happy in the process. We probably kept those little snow cone shacks int he green this year.

His GIGANTIC bottles of ibuprofen and Tylenol that they sent us home with. For 10 day, we alternated the two every 3-4 hours around the clock. We missed one dose on night to let him sleep and it was a HUGE mistake.

Thankfully, Terri came around day 5 of recovery, which was one of the worse because his scabs were falling off and took the boys while Dallin and I slept for 3 hours after a night of NO sleep. Sweet Kayla also came over and watched the boys earlier in the week and sent me to her house to sleep for an hour. Such saints we have in our lives!

I felt bad that we didn't get out and do much while Terri was here, but we did go see fireworks on the fourth, as well as the parade, went on a hike, had a make your own sushi night with Brad and Emma and a little pool fun. She will just have to come back out so we can show her a good time and not crazy-neurotic-sleep-deprived Kelli with sad-gloomy-suffering Caleb and neglected Luke.

Terri got Luke a big book of screen-free activities for his birthday and to say he loves it would be an understatement. EVERY day he asks if we can do an activity. It is just what his engineering mind needs.

Independence Day was wonderful. We had a nice little BBQ with the Evans family and then we all made the trek up to the Kaysville fireworks show, where all children and adults just had an amazing time. It was perfect, and Caleb's blue lollipop-fake-smile was everything.

Once Caleb got the all clear from his ENT to eat all foods, we celebrated with all things free. It happened to be 7/11 which meant free slurpees and free Chick-Fil-A day if you dressed up like a cow. We took part in both, thank you very much. That surgery was not cheap and Caleb was in heaven getting his beloved Chick-Fil-A nuggets.

We also made a trip to Pineview Resevoir up by Ogden one sunny Tuesday morning with the Evans for a little laketime. Oh man. It was heaven! The kids played joyously, the weather was perfect, Caleb though floating on his tummy and back were the greatest things every and Luke even went into the water up to his chin, which is kind-of a BIG deal; it was a very relaxing, enjoyable morning. We all can't wait to go back.

The rest of the month was spent with random little trips to the Hill Airforce Base museum (while I stayed home and cleaned after 2 weeks of the house being neglected while we nursed Caleb back to health), lots of snow cones and ice cream, Luke mastering his selfie skills, Caleb working on his dressing skills and just hanging out with buddies. We are grateful we are getting some cooler days so we can spend more than 20 minutes outside!