It's always something at the Nordlander house...

Ryan woke up Sunday morning and asked for OJ. When he took a drink, he started screaming. I thought he had bitten his cheek (which is something he's recently learned to do). I looked in his mouth and saw a HUGE ulcer on his tongue. A little while later, I noticed what looked like ant bites all over his hands. In the past we have had a problem with fire ants getting into his bed and biting him in the night. I looked down and noticed that he had them all over his feet too. That's when it clicked....hand, foot and mouth disease. He's had it before, when he was a baby. And I'm guessing he picked it up at VBS last week. I called the doctor and he said that's what it was. He started with a rash on his bottom that afternoon. Then yesterday morning, Ryan woke up and the rash had turned into blisters, too. I called the doctor again and he wanted to see him. We went in around 4:00 yesterday and got seen by Dr. Dockray. When he looked at his hands I could tell he was thinking I was crazy for bringing him in (it doesn't look that bad there)...then he looked at his feet and got a little more concerned. But it wasn't till I took off his diaper and showed him all of the blisters on his bottom that he realized how serious it was. He said (and I quote)..."It has been many, many, many...and I mean MANY, years since I have seen a case of it this bad. This is pretty serious." He said that basically the blisters form on the nerve endings...hence why they hurt so bad. (I got it too the last time he had it, so I know the pain that each blister causes.) He gave him Tylenol with codeine to help with the pain. I asked him how long he needed to stay away from other kids. He said that he needs to stay away from everyone (not just kids) for the next week and a half. He said that since the blisters just showed up on Sunday, he's still at the beginning of it and it will get worse. The spots need to be gone for 4-5 days before he gets around people. (I'm going to go crazy being stuck in the house for over a week!) Fast forward a few hours. I get a call at about 6:15 last night that his fever had shot up to over 102 and he was shaking and throwing up everywhere. By the time I got him, he was lethargic and still throwing up. I called the doctor for a third time. I finally talked to the on-call doctor about 9 last night. We had put Ryan in the bath and gotten him to stop shaking...and the throwing up had slowed down some. She said to keep him hydrated and wake him up throughout the night to make sure he would respond. Luckily, we had a smooth night. He woke up this morning...and the fever is back. It's almost 103 today. I'm doing my best to keep fluids going in.

I tell you all of that to say, please pray for my little boy. Pray for his body to fight off this virus. Pray for him to not get dehydrated. It's hard to see him just laying there with no energy...that's not like him. I'm ready for my crazy two year old monster to be back! Also, please pray that Drew won't get it. It's impossible to explain to a baby that he has to drink or else he'll end up in the hospital. Thanks!

Drew's Song

We have come up with an "official" song for Drew. Each of the lines in the song have meaning (to us, at least). Here goes....

Hey little merman
Shaped like a coke can
With hair like Papa Duck.
You're cute as a muffin
You drool like nuthin'
And you bee-bup everywhere, yuck!

Now to explain (in case you're curious)...
Hey little merman - Drew can do this crazy thing with his feet...he makes them look like a mermaid tail. But since he's a boy, he has to be a "merman" according to his Aunt Bebe (Molly).
Shaped like a coke can - Each time we go to the doctor for check-ups, Drew is in the 75th percentile for weight and less than 25th for height. So, he literally is the shape of a coke can. He's short and round!
With hair like Papa Duck - My dad (aka Papa Duck) has lost almost all of the hair on the top of his head. He pretty much just has hair around the bottom, along the back...very similar to the "do" that Drew has.
You're cute as a muffin - No real significance to this line, it just goes.
You drool like nuthin' - Man, this boy can drool! He always looks like we've just pulled his clothes straight from the washing machine...without drying them. His shirt is always SOAKED from the neck, all the way to his belly button.
And you bee-bup everywhere, yuck - Ryan tries to tell us when Drew has spit up, but he calls it "bee-bup"...and Drew is REALLY good at this, too. After eating, the first burp is always dry. (And then people think he's done and go back to playing with him...but really he has more in store.) Then comes the oh-so-lovely WET burp...which can soak you!

You could poke someone's eye out with that!

Well, here we are on vacation in North Carolina...and what a time we've had so far. On Saturday, our first REAL day of vacation (we won't count Friday since we spent 15 hours of it traveling), we woke up and decided to head to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Pretty much the entire family went...minus my mom and grandparents. Ryan is in a "do everything myself" mode right now...and he doesn't want help with anything. Our food came to the table and Rob was helping him butter his pancakes. Ryan, with fork in hand, got upset and said "No, Daddy," as he threw back his arms. Rob's face was in the dangerous path of Ryan's fork. The next thing we know, Rob has his hand over his eye and is running from the table. Steve went to check on him (since I'd be a little out of place in the men's restroom)...and soon enough they were headed back to the table. We assumed everything was fine...until Rob sat down. He had been stabbed in his eye with Ryan's fork...and was bleeding from his eye ball. Gross! We ended up calling our doctor in Houston, and he said to get straight to the ER. So, we did what every family would do in that situation...we finished breakfast and then headed to the hospital. (As Rob put it, "You never know how long you'll be there, so we might as well eat first!") Rob spent 8 hours of the day in the Pardee Hospital in the mountains of N.C. (I bet he's glad he finished his food first!) He ended up being seen by 4 doctors because they all wanted to get another opinion. In the end, he was told that he had a "punctured cornea"...luckily only one prong of the fork got him. He had to see an ophthalmologist on Tuesday to make sure there was no permanent damage (it could've changed the shape of his eye, somehow). He got good news from his follow-up...she said everything was healing just fine. This has really taught Ryan a lesson about hitting...too bad it was at Rob's expense. (Molly took a nice close-up picture of his bleeding eye as we were heading to the ER. I'll post it once she sends it to me.)