Josh's 28th Birthday and Rough Week for James

Tomorrow is my baby's 28th birthday! Since we're having company come in tonight, I'm blogging about it today. Last night, we had the family over for cake after church. We will do more celebrating tomorrow with our friends from college! Last year, Josh was writhing in pain from his back injuries, so it's nice for him to be able to enjoy be spoiled and celebrated on his birthday this year! 28 is starting to sound old, but we always feel kind of young because a lot of our friends are a year or two (or more) older than us, and we're both the babies in our families, youngest of three.

This has not been the best week for little Jamesy, though. Two nights ago, we were on a walk with James in his wagon. About halfway through our walk, I handed the handle over to Josh for him to pull. James lost his balance and busted his lip and tounge on the wagon. There was blood (and tears) everywhere! His lip was swollen (as you might can tell in this picture taken right after), but the worst part was his tongue. Yesterday, it looked really bad, to where even the doctor commented on how bad it looked.

The reason we went to the doctor was not for his mouth, but for another thing! He has had diarrhea all week and yesterday woke up with a mild fever. I took him in, and his fever was gone, so the doctor just said to feed him bran, bananas, etc. Last night, while my family was on their way over, James threw up...a lot! He has never in his life thrown up this much. We gave him a bath and hoped that was the end of it (and I was thankful my mom was over there so she could help!). Well, he threw up about everything else in his stomach all over me, soaking through my shirt! Now that I've been thrown up on, I feel that I've been fully indoctrinated into the world of parenthood! It didn't stop there. He threw up every 15-30 minutes until about midnight. About 10:00, we got some good advice from the on call doctor and one of our friends who's a doctor, to help prevent dehydration. I thought I'd list them in case someone ever needs it, or if I need it again!



They said to give him a teaspoon at a time of liquid (preferably pedialite, but a lot of kids hate it, so you can do Gatorade, very watered down juice, or water)...no milk! Give it every 15 minutes or so, and if he keeps it down 3 times, up it a teaspoon, until you get him to drink an ounce. James didn't want any of that near his mouth, so our friend said to give him benadryl. That did the trick for him! I gave him that about midnight, so it coated his stomach, stopping the throwing up, and knocked him out! He also said to hold him upright, and that would help stop the process. I did that until about 12:30, but James wanted to stretch out, so I put him in bed. He woke up at 7:45 without any throw up on him! He has been happy as can be, drinking juice, and even kept down a banana! I'm so thankful to God he's over it (for now and hopefully for good) and that it didn't turn into anything worse. My nurse mama said to watch for signs of dehydration, which is sunken in eyes, dry lips, skin not going right back down when you pinch it, but he wasn't anywhere close. Also, early on we were calling friends to see if anyone had fenergin, but thankfully no one did, because both docs said that they don't like to give it to anyone under 2, since their brains aren't fully fortified until age 2. Wanted to throw that in there, hopefully to help someone going through the same thing!