Our Little Conner

I recently noticed that Cade and I have stopped taking pictures of Conner doing everyday things so I've been trying to get us to pay more attention to that. So I thought I would share some of those pictures.

One day he was into making a fort with the chair in his room.

I was cleaning up in the kitchen for like 2 minutes and when I looked up I found toilet paper going across the house.

I followed it to find the culprit.

I also just took Conner to his 2 year well visit, only a few months late. He weighed in at 23 lbs and 12 oz putting him into the 4th percentile for weight. And he is 33.5 inches tall and for the first time making it to the 20th percentile for height. The doctor couldn't believe it. He said that usually when kids are that low in the weight ranks that it really shows but Conner didn't look particularly skinny to him. In fact, he made us go back out and he re-measured himself since he didn't believe it so much. But it was accurate.

Conner discovered all the shoes in the bottom drawer of his dresser and was really proud of himself for putting them on. I didn't have the heart to tell him they were on wrong.

Sadly though, if we re-measured today he would probably be off the weight charts and he now looks too skinny and little sickly. Two days after his well visit he came down with a cold. It was Valentines Day so we were thankful we had gone out a day early before all this started. The next day a fever came. He refused to take any medicine because of the taste, so I told Cade to bring a new kind home with him from work. Cade didn't get home until after Conner went to bed so he never got the medicine but woke up without a fever. Cade also came down with something, what we thought was the flu because of the chills and nausea, but he never threw up. So the boys spent the 3 day weekend recovering together, while I worked. But only Cade got better. Conner had a fever off and on for another week. His cold symptoms were getting better but he started sleeping, a lot. Sleeping all day in fact. One day he woke up about 9:30 and went back to sleep about 11 and literally slept the rest of the day and through the night and most of the next day. He did wake up fairly frequently, cried a minute, and then got in a new position and went right back to sleep. And of course we had to hold him the whole time because otherwise he couldn't sleep and would just cry and cry.

"Hey look at the mess I made with the Frosted Flakes!"

Eight days after getting sick he said his ear hurt. We all know what that means, but I thought I would wait until the next day to take him to the doctor, just to make sure his ear really did hurt before I bothered taking him in. But soon he was sticking his finger in his ear and it was coming out wet. I was pretty sure that was a bad sign so I gave in and took him to the doctor. I kind of thought he also had another fever but didn't bother to check it. When the nurse was looking him over he had a temperature of 103. I'm not sure how I was so off on that. After BARELY eating for days (one day he had about an ounce of a smoothie and 5 frosted mini wheats for the entire day) he now weighed only 22.5 pounds. He lost a pound and a half in one week. And as my mom says, "He just lost everything he gained in the last 6 months!"

The nurse immediately gave him the exact same medicine I had given him a few times for his fever. But this time, within minutes he was coming alive, more than he had been in over a week. The "doctor" (she isn't actually a doctor but I forget what her credentials are, maybe a nurse practitioner) that was seeing walk-in patients is a lady I have seen before and not liked. I quickly remembered why I didn't like her. Our regular doctor takes his time, chats with us, answers any and all questions we may have. This lady was just starting to tell me what she was going to do when she walked out with her laptop and told the nurse the plan. I thought she would come back in to finish discussing it with me but instead she just typed things up in the hallway and disappeared. She had said she was going to give him a shot of something I had never heard of to "jump start" him getting better. I was ok with that since he had been sick for so long. But she also said we would have to wait in the office for 15 minutes to make sure he didn't have any kind of reaction. I was curious what those reactions might be but didn't get to ask. The nurse reassured me though by saying she had never seen any reaction to it. The "doctor" had also said that he had a bad ear infection and that she would get a prescription that we could start in the morning. She said it wasn't ruptured and that the wetness had probably been melted ear wax from his fever.

 Once a week a local gymnastics place lets kids come and play for free and they all love it. Here is Conner in the foam pit.

With his good friend Sophi

A few hours after going to bed Conner woke up crying. Then we noticed the crap dripping out of his ear and figured his ear drum had ruptured. He was understandably upset and we didn't know what to do so we thought we should pick up his prescription. I only assumed it was where we normally go since the "doctor" hadn't said anything about where to get it. But the place had no prescription for him. Then I was really annoyed. I called the after hours number and informed them that he was not dripping ear wax and that the prescription wasn't where it should be. The triage lady said she was going to call the "doctor" and I was glad she was going to disturb her at 10:30 pm. The "doctor" reported back that we couldn't start the medicine until the morning since he already had the shot and that she wasn't surprised his eardrum ruptured because it was the worst she had ever seen. It would have been nice if she had mentioned that to me in person and let me know what might soon be occurring. The triage lady also said that kids feel better once the ear has ruptured because the pressure is gone and he should feel better in "a few hours". I was not excited to listen to Conner's pathetic moaning/crying for a few hours, but luckily it only lasted about 45 minutes and then he was back to sleep. I still can't believe his ear infection got so bad before he ever started complaining about it. I guess I can believe him when he says something hurts.

Here is the bloody ooze collecting in his ear.

By the next afternoon Conner was finally feeling much better, but not great. Now it has been 3 days since his eardrum ruptured and it is still oozing pretty steadily. This morning he had a fit and cried a long time, which set off a cough attack from his cold, and soon after that the oozing was much bloodier for the rest of the day. His ooze has gotten all over his pillow, my pillow, some sheets, clothes, and pajamas. Overall Conner is getting close to being back to normal, but he still complains about his ear sometimes and is a little cranky. I was so happy to be able to leave the house with him after 9 long days stuck at home. But now he is looking too skinny and scrawny to Cade and I so he is getting extra cookies to get him looking back to normal.

I didn't know about this until I happened to go through the pictures on Cade's phone. Apparently this is what the boys do when I'm working.

I wish I had a picture of our scrawny Conner but it hasn't worked out. It probably wouldn't be noticeable in a picture anyway. Hopefully he'll be looking like himself again soon, his face looks funny to us now.