A Boy and His Blog

*posted by Daddy*

Owen made his very first trip to the emergency room last night!

Don’t worry, he’s fine.  But here’s what happened…

Owen was jumping on the futon and then hurling himself backwards onto the cushions.  This was all fun and games for the first ten or so dives, but then he had inadvertently positioned himself too close to the wood armrest, so on his next stunt, he slammed the back of his head onto the armrest.  It made a very loud noise!

Jennifer hugged Owen as he cried, and she felt a lump on the back of his head develop and then swell up very fast.  Jennifer suggested we go to the ER, and when I looked at the bump, I saw it was a veritable rainbow of colors and it looked like it was going to start bleeding.  We both worried about internal bleeding or pressure.

So Jennifer and I put our clothes back on (we were in pajamas) and drove Owen to the Monticello Hospital.  Owen calmed down immediately, and we began second-guessing our decision to go…but we figured it would help us sleep easier if we got him checked out.

Jennifer sat in the back seat with Owen as I drove, and she kept asking him how he was doing.  At one point, he said: “See that moon ball?” (a reference to the near-full moon last night), so we knew he wasn’t in too much pain.

As we waited to be seen, Jennifer pointed to Owen’s attire and said: “Hey, do you have your jamies on?”  Owen looked at his pajamas and slippers and said: “Uh-oh”, like he had only then realized he wasn’t dressed properly to leave the house.  But Jennifer told him it was okay, no one would mind.

The nurses and doctors at the hospital were very kind to Owen.  He stayed on my lap most of the time, and they took his blood pressure, checked for cranial swelling, looked in his eyes and his ears and tested some of his basic motor functions.  Owen seemed to think it was just a fun game we all decided to do at 10:00 at night.

Before we left, a nurse came in and gave us a sheet with some instructions on it.  He gave us an ice pack and told us to wake Owen up in about 4 hours to make sure he was still responding.  So we used the ice pack a little longer, gave him plenty of fluids.  I changed his diaper, and he winced when he laid his head on the rug, then put his hand behind his head and said: “Owen keep Owen hand here little bit”.   We set the alarm clock for 3AM.  Jennifer and I woke him up and made sure he was coherent, and then we let him fall back to sleep.  Overall, he got about 11 hours of sleep and was in very good spirits today.

This month Owen learned to jump!  It is so cute how he does it.  He is very cautious, and he keeps his head curled down a little and his legs pretty stiff, but he manages to get both feet off the ground.  We are very proud of him for this, it’s taken a long time for him to get it down.  It’s kind of the last physical thing that I would say he was delayed at.  I’m pretty sure everything now is simply due to sensory or anxiety issues, such as refusing to dance or refusing to hold up two fingers.

Owen is still addicted to Teletubbies and TV, but I’ve put my foot down and started limiting it much more.  He doesn’t even watch every day now.  I need to work towards no TV at all, because I really don’t like how it affects him.  When he watches TV he just goes into this zone and starts biting his nails like crazy.  He’s picked up three nervous habits, one is licking his bottom lip, the other is biting his nails, and the third is twirling his hands around each other, or just each one in circles on it’s own, really fast.  TV really encourages the nail biting.

Weaning is going okay.  He no longer nurses during the day or even asks to, even if he gets sad or hurt.  In the mornings before we got up for the day he used to have an all morning free for all, but I’m really starting to limit him to one nursing session when he climbs into bed with us around 5 or 6 am, and then small “sips” when he wakes up after that.  He still nurses a bit at night before bed too, but he is usually not interested in doing very much nursing.  He’s much more interested in talking about the day, Christmas, and the pool place, so I think I will actually be able to cut his night time nursing first.

Owen loves playing with board games now.  We’ve been buying them at thrift stores and he loves them.  We have Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Hi-Ho Cherry-O, a couple memory and sorting games, and Go Fish.  He gets how to play all the games and loves playing them, especially when “all us pay (play)”.  He continues to love playing with his trains, and his balls, and his cars, and his tools.  The other day he was hammering a nail into his tool bench/box and he handed me the hammer and said “can you hold this a minute?”  Then he would set up the nail and then he would reach for the hammer and say, “Owen need dat fur a second”.

Owen’s favorite phrase this month is “why Owen do that every time?”  Like, he’ll close the door when Daddy is coming up the stairs and then when Daddy opens it and gives him that annoyed look Owen will say, “why Owen do that every time?”  Or when we say “just one more time” he’ll say, “no, two!”  and then he’ll say, “Why Owen say two every time?”  Or I’ll give him a special toy to play with, the ones he doesn’t get free access to and I just take out when I want a moment of quiet, and he’ll throw the pieces all over the living room.  Then he’ll look up at me and say, “why Owen do that every time?”

Owen also says “more of dat (that)” constantly.  Whenever he thinks something is fun or interesting, he’ll say it.  He started saying “see you next week” whenever we say goodbye to someone.  The other day we left to go to some stores and he said, “by house, see you next week.”  And before we leave to go somewhere he’ll say, “ready go way now?”  He also does this thing were he begs for something and I say no, then he’ll casually say, “I guess we have popcorn” or “I guess Owen watch teletubbies”.  As if his sudden casual approach is going to convince me that it’s okay.  Whenever there is a noise he says, “what dat noise?”  When he is expecting Mama or Daddy to come back home, he’ll say “what dat noise doin’?”  “Hink (think) Daddy is home now!”  And it will be like 10:00 am and I’ll have to explain that Daddy wont be home for hours and that noise was just the cats.  He does this all day long, everywhere we go, wherever we are.  He is getting to be very hyper alert about noises.

Owen can also identify buildings.  When we drive by them he tells me what they are.  Like he’ll say, “Mama, you need gas?” when we pass a gas station.  Or he’ll say, “Oh, there Owen’s doctor” or “there chiropractor” or “there li-bay-ee (library)” or “oh, there Coburns (grocery store)” or “Mama, we go Car-y-boo (Caribou).”  He’s so smart