London's First (and Hopefully Last) Ride in a Firetruck

This Friday, London was sick with a runny nose, low-grade fever, and also started having these involuntary jerks of his arms throughout the day. He wanted to be held all day and I could tell he was pretty miserable. Saturday, he was still sick and the jerks were getting a little stronger/more prolonged. Around one pm, he went into a full-blown seizure that lasted over 5 minutes long. It was one of the worst moments in my life. We called 9-1-1 and two fire trucks showed up within minutes. They checked him out, administered a sedative, then drove us (London and I, Scott had to meet us there) to Cardon's Children emergency section at Banner Desert Hospital. As we checked in, the sedative started to kick in, and London gave the fireman a very loopy grin. It got us all laughing.

Back at our house, London's temperature had gone from 100 degrees 30 minutes before the seizure, to 101.6 by the time the firemen took his temperature. By the time we arrived at the hospital, his temperature had risen to 104. The nurse quickly took his vitals, set him up to all these monitors, then administered Motrin to bring the fever down. He was very upset and somewhat out of it still. It took a long time to calm him down, but eventually the Motrin kicked in and he fell asleep in my arms. Scott finally made it into the room and we waited (forever) to meet with the doctor. The doctor was from Nigeria and had a thick accent. He asked us some questions, then said that because his fever was so high, they were going to do some blood work to see if he had a bacterial infection. My favorite part of this doctor's visit is when he said in his Nigerian accent, "He is a very cool boy!" as he pinched London's cheek. London just stared him down, as he did all the nurses that came in throughout our time there.

Though I got him to smile for a little while, most of the day involved lots of tears and sad faces.

After waiting (forever again...probably at least an hour) our busy nurse finally got a chance to come get a urine and blood sample from London. I tried to comfort him as one nurse helped hold him down and the other nurse inserted a catheter to collect the urine sample. It was not a fun experience for London. Then, they had to hold him down again as they inserted the IV, took a blood sample and then hooked him up to a fluid drip (luckily, they already numbed the area, London just did not like being held still). After that ordeal was over, I bounced London in my arms until he calmed down. Unfortunately, the minute he calmed down, was the minute he discovered his very-taped, robotic-looking IV hand. He freaked out and started crying all over again, trying to bite and rip the thing off his hand. Luckily, I was able to prevent him from ripping it off, and got him to finally fall back asleep.

After waiting another eternity (waiting in a room for 5 hours with a 1 year old = torture), the nurse came in to tell us that they got the results back from the lab, that they looked good, and that the doctor would be in shortly. The doctor that came in this time had an accent that sounded like he may be from South America or something like that. He said that London did not have a bacterial infection, that it was probably viral, that he had a febrile seizure-which is fairly common and usually not too harmful. We just needed to try to keep his fever down to prevent them from happening again.

This picture doesn't do the club-IV-hand or all the wires justice.
That poor guy was hooked up to so many different things. 

Six + hours later, we finally left the hospital with a very grumpy baby (I don't blame him) and two very tired/drained parents. That night was rough, with me up all night worrying about keeping him cool and keeping his fever down. As if I wasn't enough of a worried, freaked out parent already....

Right around this time of year last year, I was at Banner Gateway hospital, getting ready to deliver London. He turns one tomorrow and I think he just wanted to celebrate this time of year in a place similar to where it all began...a Banner hospital. I sure hope that these hospital visits do not become a yearly tradition for the Cardons!

Being a Mom Pt. 2

Awhile back, I wrote about hardships of being a mom. And a lot of days/nearly every day, it still is hard. But, it is also really great and filled with plenty of happy times too:

Like when you're having a nice, little picnic at the park and your happy, munching, little guy decides to give you a big, fat hug for no reason at all.

Or those times you're washing him off in the shower and he decides to lay his wet, little head on your shoulder and then look up at you with the sweetest, smiling, dripping eyes.
And there's those times he chucks his bottle across the room in the night, only to throw his pudgy, little arms around your neck and fall fast asleep in a second.
And there's times that he lets you hold him while he drinks his milk, and his grimy fingers touch every part of your face, pull your eyelashes, poke your eyes, in your mouth, as if he's a lost boy and you're an old Peter Pan.
Or when you find yourself dancing and spinning around the house with your babe in your arms and he's laughing his little head off.

And OH that Laugh! Is anything better?! Nope. Not really.

Nine...ish Months

As always, I'm a little [lot] late on the monthly milestone post. London was officially 9 months old two weeks ago, on the 14th. He is so fun!

Army Crawls with One Leg. Into Everything. Loves to play peek-a-boo & chase.

Happy New Year

A few months ago I won a blog giveaway for a free family photo session by Brittany LeSueur complete with hair/makeup by The Beauty Mark Girls. I was thrilled. I am always signing up for all these blog giveaways and nothing happens. But this time, I won. The pictures turned out beautiful and I considered for a second sending a Christmas/New Years card, but postage is expensive. I thought about doing some sort of E-card instead, but could never get motivated to actually put it together. So, pretend this post is a Christmas/New Years card from the Cardon's. Here's some of my favorite pics from the shoot, along with a short recap of 2013.

2013 was life-changing. On April 14^th, London was born and time has been flying by ever since. I just know I’m going to wake up one day and he’ll be graduating high school, and I’ll be wondering where the days went. Every day I’m just trying my best to catch up.

Once London was born, I quit my job at Brycon and started working from home, part-time, doing insurance billing for my dad’s chiropractic business. I also started babysitting two cute little girls (6 and 1½ years old) once a week. Our ward released me from my calling as ward pianist and primary teacher and instead called me as the primary pianist. (Bestcallingever!) Some big events for us this year included moving to a slightly bigger home across the parking lot from our old home, London’s first vacation (6 weeks old) to California for my grandparents’ wedding anniversary celebration, a trip to Utah in October for Scott’s sister’s wedding, London’s first Halloween, first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, and first NYE.

I’ve been on-the-job training for the past 8.5 months trying to figure out this “mom” thing. It has been pretty rigorous, exhausting, confusing, and frustrating, but it’s also been incredible, wonderful, amazing, and blissful. It’s this crazy whirlwind of ups and downs, but it’s also this constant feeling of gratitude, love, amazement, and happiness. There’s been a lot of growing in the Cardon house. London takes the cake for most physical growth. But Scott and I have also done our share of growing…growing into our new roles as parents and figuring out what that means for our relationship-how to be parents and partners too. There’s also been some spiritual growth as we begin to see God’s love for us with new eyes…the eyes of a parent. Heavenly Father must really love us to send His beloved son to earth to die for us. That point’s been reiterated over and over again in my life the past eight months. Truly, God loves us, His children.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

With Love,

The Cardon’s

Bed Problems.

First, let me refer you to this post.  Beautiful. Right?

Well, a couple weeks after I wrote that post, London got a bad cold and simultaneously learned to roll from back to belly, but hadn't quite mastered rolling from belly to back. During the night, he would roll onto his belly then start crying because he didn't like being on his belly and couldn't figure out how to roll back over onto his back. This resulted in no sleep as I made endless trips to his room to flip him back over and help him fall back to sleep. Also, this new rolling business worried me. With the cold, he could barely breathe and I was worried he would roll over and suffocate. My solution? I moved him into our bed.

Now, co-sleeping is a very controversial topic in the US. Most people I know are adamantly against it. I understand. Some people are all for it. I understand that too. I've heard about studies that co-sleeping decreases the chances of SIDS and I've heard about studies that co-sleeping increases the chances of SIDS. I've read about cases where the parents roll over onto the baby and suffocate it. Everyone wants the safety and well-being of both the baby and the family, so I can see why this is such a disputed topic. Therefore, if you are starting to feel uncomfortable/angry/etc. about this post, feel free to stop reading now. I'm not offended. Really.

Moving on. I had intended to only keep him in our bed until he got over his cold and/or mastered the belly-to-back rolling, eliminating the need to constantly check on him and roll him back over throughout the night. Little did I know that the cold would last a MONTH AND A HALF! Before I had a chance to move him back to his own bed, he started getting some new teeth. Which meant that he would be up a lot crying in pain throughout the night. Which meant that is was much easier for me to keep in our bed where I could easily comfort him back to sleep without getting out of bed.

From that point until now, there was always a new reason why I couldn't move him back to his own bed...sick again, teething again, has another cold, etc. The kid's never got a break! As of today, he still sleeps in our bed.

And I have a confession. I love it. I love cuddling with him at night. I love waking up to him touching my face or grabbing my hair. I love handing him a bottle in the night without getting out of bed. I love having him so close to me all night long. I love watching him roll over to get closer to his sleeping dad. I love weekend mornings when we all cuddle and huddle together in bed. It's the best.

But, it's starting to become a problem. He is going to be crawling soon. He is already moving around in a circle, he just hasn't figured out the forward motion yet. But once he does, I'm in trouble and I don't think our ring of pillows is going to hold up against this big, crawling boy. So, obviously, the crib, with its high bars, is a safer option once he starts moving around. But I'm torn. I love this boy in our bed. During the day and at night. It gives me lots of time to cuddle and lay down by him. I love it. After watching our neighbors house burn down, I am much more comfortable having him in our room. I have seriously considered installing bed rails, but Scott said that is not an option.

So, I now have the task of moving him back to the crib, to the chagrin of both London and myself. This week he's been sick with a fever/barfing and is breaking a new tooth, so I still have a good excuse to keep him in our bed. But, I'm worried that tomorrow he'll start crawling and I will be forced to move him to the crib. It's tough I tell you.

A Tale of Terror

Is anything more terrifying than bugs? Especially the jumpy ones. I am a million times bigger than they are, but the thought of one of them jumping on me gives me the heebie jeebies. Last night, a cricket decided to drop by uninvited and chill on my Boppy pillow in the middle of the living room floor. I was pumping, so I couldn't do anything about it right away. Scott put his shoes on to squash the bugger. I protested, as I did not want bug guts on my nice pillow. Scott got a cup so that he could try to catch it and let it outside, but as he got closer to the cricket, the fear paralyzed him. He couldn't do it. For the next ten minutes we each begged the other to catch the cricket, laughing hysterically at our ridiculous fear of such a small creature. The negotiations began. Finally, it was decided that I would catch the cricket (as I have "experience"* with crickets), in exchange for a 15 minute massage from Scott while watching an episode of Project Runway. I finished pumping, took the cup and bravely captured the unwanted visitor. Scott and I carried the pillow and cup to the doorway and threw the cricket outside. And though it was an unpleasant experience, I got a massage out of it. Boo-ya.

*One time, I had to babysit my little brother's bearded dragon. The thing eats crickets. I had to feed LIVE crickets to a lizard. It was disgusting. I would have to take this black tube filled with crickets and shake it into the lizard cage so that the lizard could capture them. Sometimes, while shaking the crickets into the lizard cage, the crickets would escape out of the open cage door and jump towards me. Trying to avoid these jumping bugs, I would leap out of the way, only to accidentally release more crickets from the tube I was holding, into the air. One cricket actually touched me. Ugghh. After I was done feeding the lizard, I would have to try to catch all of the crickets that had escaped in the process. The escaped convicts walked and jumped down the hallway like they owned the place. Most of them escaped my grasp into crevices I couldn't reach, but occasionally, I would catch one under a plate and then leave it there for the return of my brother. I would catch the bugger, but don't expect me to move it from that place. And all this nastiness isn't even the worst part of the job. Because my family was gone for a week, eventually the crickets ran out and I had to buy more. They come in a bag of 50. I had to shake that bag of disgusting, live crickets into the cricket cage. I cried real tears the whole drive from the pet shop to the house, dreading the task. It was traumatizing. Needless to say, my kids will never have cricket-eating lizards. PERIOD.

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I Can't Put My Arms Down

In addition to the million other problems we've had with this house since moving in, we turned on the heater for the first time a couple weeks ago only to find out that it didn't work. Within an hour of turning it on, the air dropped from 66 degrees to 62. The air coming out of the vents was ice cold. Unfortunately, the repairman wasn't  able to come until later the next day. We bundled up, kept the oven on, took long, steamy showers, and huddled together at night under the electric blanket to stay warm.

Two layers of pants, two pairs of socks, a shirt, a sweater, a jacket, and a beanie.