Diary of a Stitches Professional - Age 3

5:45 pm Sunday - Mom and Dad are visiting a sick friend. I am making dinner and Keaton is setting the table. Keaton is taking cups to the table..or I should say glasses. He trips and falls with a glass in his hand. Blood everywhere! I run to the bathroom to wash it off but of course water makes it look really bloody. Apply a paper towel, call mom.
6:00 - Mom leaves dad and rushes home, we decide to go to the ER in case it needs stitches so we swing by to pick dad back up.
6:15 Check in to Carden Children's Hospital at Banner Desert. They put gauze and wrap his hand. They instruct us to go to the waiting room, no food or water. Waiting room full of very sick kids...we don't want the flu so we wait in main lobby. Keaton enjoys trains. We wait and wait.
9:30 - Finally got into a room. Nurse comes by to take vitals.
10:30- Doctor stops by, wants an x-ray to make sure no glass is inside. I ask the nurse, can he eat? She brings peanut butter and crackers, poptarts and OJ, Keaton eats it all, poor kids been starving since 2 pm when he had a snack.
11:30 - Xray people bring portable machine. Take x-ray and assure us it's digital and the doctor will see it immediately.
12:30 am Monday - Doctor comes back. No glass, ready to stitch. Now comes the fun. Strap Keaton to a papoose board. Lots of screaming while they clean wound. Almost passing out screaming when they give him the shot right in his cut, to numb the area. Doctor pulls back wound to show me that there aren't any tendons cut. They clean some more then they stitch. 9 stitches and they aren't very close together.
1:15 We head home from the hospital.
1:30 Keaton falls asleep
2:30 Keaton wakes up screaming. Cries for nearly and hour. Get him to sleep again by taking him outside.
3:30 Deanna goes back to sleep.
6:00 Deanna gets up to go to school and make sub plans.
7:30 Deanna comes home. Keaton's been away off and on but is now sleeping on the couch. this pattern holds until 11 am. Keaton and Deanna both sleep off and on.

This is what he looked like after the hospital visit. We affectionately called it the "snowman hand" We weren't allowed to remove this for 24 hours. So he went to sleep with it on Monday night.

After that 24 hours they told us it needed some air and we were supposed to leave it uncovered so we unbandaged it and this is what it looked like. NICE!

Well I didn't really want to leave it uncovered for school so we cleaned up the dry blood added some polysporin and put a band aide over it, plus a little tape so it didn't fall off. This is what he looked like headed to school Tuesday morning.

All in all, he's doing well. He plays and eats and sleeps, just one handed. Luckily he tends to do most things right handed and this is his left. But let's not forget this is his third set of stitches. The snowglobe incident happened in Dec. 07 and the eye surgery happened July 08. He's a little trooper.

Halloween...plus

Well I still haven't found my camera, the one I just got for Christmas last year. But I did find the memory card to my 6 year old camera, and it worked out for the most part. The screen doesn't always work and it doesn't fit in my pocket but we managed.

Halloween was a busy time. Keaton's Halloween started off really early Friday morning at school. The kids got dressed and went trick or treating around Dobson High during first hour. They had teachers who were interested sign up. Then they came back to the classroom and had a special chocolate chip pancake breakfast which included purple Gatorade with some dry ice for the spooky effect. After breakfast they went trick or treating to another set of teachers during 2nd hour. Keaton made a killing. Many teachers had given them treat bags with lots of thing. He also got several pencils, stickers, a little football, a lanyard, notepads etc. The bags they had decorated were over flowing and so each kids went home with their bag plus an extra.

While I'm on the topic of school, I just took this pic of some of his recent projects. The stop light was during safety week (he also has a cute fireman pic. on the other camera) during the week about staying healthy they made prints with fruits and vegetables, then there is some simple fall stuff. He brings home tons daily.

Ok back to Halloween - First stop the party at the Caza's. Erin does a really good job setting up little carnival games. She invited everyone from the ward between 2-4 (her kids ages) we ate pizza and got some treats. And of course the grand finale....the fishing pond, where you catch a real fish. He's safely home and in the tank 24 hours with our other large goldfish and he seems to be surviving.

Next stop - Ward Party - again more carnival games. I ate a Navajo taco, Keaton wouldn't try it.

We decided to skip the trunk-or-treat because a 3 year old just doesn't need that much candy.

Third stop - Neighborhood trick or treating. Keaton loved this of course, he ran around for the first half and was still very excited at the end. He got a few good scares and almost went into tears once. On the way back to the house he decided to take a ride.

Off to the next house with Dad and Aunt Jenn

Keaton and Daddy by a "kind of scary" ghost.

Back home at the end of the night. You would think that I torture this kid regularly.

Today - Sunday we celebrated Coopers birthday, my baby brother is 24. He requested "Levi Tacos" and cherry cheesecake. And even though it was Cooper birthday I got myself a little present too. The Brown's in our ward are moving to Utah and decided not to take the piano with them so I bought it. Since Cooper and Houston were both around they were able to bring it home for me. I'm so excited. Hopefully I'll have a home soon enough to put it in. Dumb short sales...60+days and waiting.

I think that's our news for now. Everyone is well and we are loving the cooler weather. Happy Fall!

LOST!

My camera :( Last time I remember having it I was taking a little video of Keaton dancing. I was sitting on the couch, but don't know what I did with it....went to the zoo, went to the dinosaur museum, went to a halloween carnival...no camera. Hope I can find it before this weekend.

FALL FUN!

We have been enjoying the cool weather and starting to get into the Halloween season. Here are a few fun things we've done.

First we made a little sign Keaton helped glue the papers together then he did all the stamping and stickering himself. (kept him busy for maybe 20 minutes of conference Sunday) We decided to hang it on the bedroom door.

Well that didn't take long enough so we went on to his pumpkin. He was very proud of its face and super excited to put in on the table and spread the leaves.

Then the next day for FHE treats we made orange jello that we cut into small cubes and put inside these cute little jack-o-lantern oranges. Mine aren't as cute as the picture I saw on the Internet but you get the idea. We made 5 and Keaton told me each time what the shape for the eyes and nose should be and if it was sad, happy or scary. He loved passing these out to everyone that night.

My next project... I need to scrapbook the last two years of Halloween before this one comes!!!!

Official Members

I recently took Keaton to the zoo. It was only his 2nd time and once again he loved it. It was $25 for both of us to go. No train ride, no stingray bay etc. Last year I got this zoo membership coupon. $108 for two adults and up to 4 kids...I decided to go for it but the new coupon won't be out until late October. So I just paid for the day and decided to wait. When I was leaving they told me I saw a sign that said I could apply that days admission toward the membership. So that's what we did. I now have an adult pass for myself and for "guest" plus four children. Do people actually say they only have 1 child? Anyway we had lots of fun and now that the weather is getting nicer maybe we'll make a few more visits.


Just for comparison, this was Keaton last October at the zoo, a little shorter and a little more baby face.

Then this year, last week of September. He has actually grown quite a bit and lost some roundness to his face, although he still has chubby cheeks.

The reptiles and amphibians were one of this favorite things.

He was actually a little scared with this Javelina (Collared Peccary) started walking toward him, it was hard to get this pic.

We watched a lion tear apart a box with some sort of bird inside that he and the female later shared. After that he definitely wanted to be the lion on the Carousel later that morning.

When it was time for a break we decided to go into the monkey village before we had food etc. It is pretty fun to watch those things scurry around. The man was telling us all about how the Alpha Male recently got out and he's always trying to escape because he gets picked on. The zoo had taken out the previous Alpha because he was getting old. None of the females like the new one because he didn't "prove himself" to get his position. Apparently he has still fathered many children but the women gang up and beat him frequently.

This is not him, he was in "time out" because of his recent attempts to run.

The slash pad is really conveniently placed half way around the long walk. This is where we took our break, there is a nice place to get food and sit by the lake.

Bye animals, see you soon! Maybe even over fall break!

BIRTHDAY WISHES!

My parents have the same birthday. September 26th (no- not the same year, my dad is one year older than my mom) Well this year with the anniversary of Disneyland, you get a free one day admission on your exact birthday. (the only time I ever wished Keaton was born on my birthday instead of one day later) Neither of my parents have been to Disneyland -can you believe it? No we never went as kids, but we did go to Sea World once, in case you were thinking I was a totally deprived child.

Anyway - my mom convinced my dad to go, then the debates about how much to pay for a hotel, two night or three, how close their hotel should be etc. We weren't actually sure they'd go, but they did. It was funny because I talked to both of them from Disneyland and they sounded like little kids really just giddy with excitement. I think they even surprised themselves because they were there from 8:30 am to 11:30 pm...way longer than they thought they'd have energy for. They had fun on most of the rides but were also impressed with the cleanliness and friendliness of Disneyland. They really enjoyed the shows too like Honey I Shrunk the Audience, the parade, fireworks and Fantasmic! My dad said it was fun to watch the kids eyes light up every time a character came around.

I am so glad they got a chance to go away and have fun. They spend so much of their time taking care of and serving other people. Not to mention how much they do for each of their kids. I am truly lucky to have had their support the last few years and their help with Keaton.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM AND DAD!

My Worker Bee

Keaton loves helping grandpa outside. When given the choice of going to the store, swimming, the gym, etc with me or mowing the lawn with grandpa he will always choose the lawn. He has to be just like grandpa. If grandpa wears a hat so does Keaton, same for gloves etc. On this day they were moving some rock out from behind the planter.

I just hope that when he's a teenager he still loves to do yard work just as much. I will need his help for years to come!