Our Unexpected Trip to the Hospital

(This post is not for the squeamish.)

Starting on Tuesday 2-28 Carter woke up in the early morning hours with the stomach flu. He has never acted that sick before. He layed in my arms all day long. He didn't want me to read to him or anything. He would try to walk, take two steps and fall to the ground. We layed around all day and watched shows. Thank goodness for satellite with 2 Nick channels, 2 Disney channels, Noggin and DVR! Wed. morning Carter woke up super cute and happy, but still with diarrhea. Thursday Carter woke up just as bad as he was on Tuesday. He couldn't hold down any fluid. Around 4:00pm when Carter threw up and was crying but no tears came I decided it was time to call the doctor to see if he had any tips for me on how to keep fluids inside him. After giving his status, the nurse told us to take him right away to the Children's Hospital. So Matt (he had just walked in the door), Carter, and I grabbed some stuff to get through the hours of wait time at the ER and took off.

While in the waiting room, Carter chomped on a few ice chips and started to perk up a bit. We figured it was the end of the day and Carter's body was already healing itself. We were feeling like idiots showing up at the ER and having the Doctor tell us, yep your child has the stomach flu, nothin we can do for ya. Matt and I have never been the parents to be overly cautious and take our kid in the doctors quickly. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just not our style. So we decided we should just pack up and leave before we pay out our $75 dollars to be sent home with our child who was hardly sick anymore. But as we were walking out the door, Carter's name was called and we decided what the heck, let's just go.

Here we are waiting to see the doctor. Carter is somewhat smiling, he is actually talking which he wasn't doing before, paying attention to books I was reading him, etc. They asked him if he wanted a popsicle which Carter calls "colds" and Carter said he did.
Matt and I got a big kick out of him eating this "25 cent" popsicle and kidded around that this was the most expensive popsicle that he will ever have since it really cost us $75 because we were certain we were going home as soon as he finished that popsicle.

The resident came in looked at him and agreed with us that Clinically he looked like he was on the mend. She said let's just get the attending in here so we can send you home. Thank goodness for attending doctors who have more experience and wisdom (sorry all my resident friends & husband, but it is the truth) because our attending caught some warning signs and said we needed to stay and get more liquid down him before he could go. Carter promptly threw up everything we tried to put down him so on the IV he went.

Doesn't he look so cute in his hospital gown? After blood work, we found out he was in the danger zone of dehydration, the doctors all told us that his test results were "impressive." In fact, it was bad enough that he needed to be admitted to the hospital. They all got a kick out of it too, because he was fairly perky for the dehydration state that he was in.

So Carter layed there with his IV and Jungle Book. THANK GOODNESS for portable DVD players!!!

All of Carter's veins were sunken so they kept poking him over and over. Two people were laying on him while a third was poking him. I just sat there and cried the whole time while my little boy was screaming and struggling. It was horrible!

Finally around 10 o' clock while we were still waiting for a room in the hospital, Carter "passed out." The nurses got a big kick out of the way he was sprawled out. One would sing the wipe out song as she passed our draped off room.

This is Carter and I on our bed we shared during our night at the hospital. It was a restless night for me, but Carter did pretty good. We shared a room with a newborn baby and a mom who left the TV on till 4 o' clock. At around 3:30 Carter woke up and saw me in bed next to him. He gasped and then in a super loving voice said, "Mommy." It melted my heart.

So we were admitted on Thursday and on Friday Carter was okayed to play in the kid center. This room was awesome! It had a Thomas Train Table, every kind of gaming system, arts and crafts, computers, lots of toys, and a hand full of volunteers to play with the kids. Carter thought this was the greatest. Matt and I are worried he might like this hospital stay a little too much. Carter's face looks so funny in the picture above because he is being a duck in this picture, this is him quaking.

The video below i think is pretty funny. He woke up from his night sleep asking where his friend went? I said he must have been dreaming. He said, "Oh yes, dreaming." Then he told me he also dreamed about water and juice. He must have been a pretty thirsty boy!

One more thing I wanted to add, the doctors came and rounded on him shortly after I took this video. As you can see he was a pretty chipper kid. He had just finished watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse. While the doctors were talking to Matt and I, Carter busted into the "Hot Dog" song and the doctors laughed and said what is a kid like that doing in the hospital. Later on that day when they told us they were going to let us go (we were worried they might not because his diarrhea was still really bad) they said a kid who sings the "Hot Dog" song in the hospital really shouldn't have to be in the hospital so I really think that is what pushed the doctors over the edge into letting us go home. Thank goodness I have a spunky kid because I don't think I could have taken another night in there. More than that, thank goodness for modern day medicine and for the priesthood and that my husband is worthy and able to give my son and myself blessings. My family continually is blessed by Heavenly Father's tender mercies and I am so thankful to Him and His Son Jesus Christ.

Murray Pool

My adorable Dad and brother Big Timmay

Another activity that was on the "must do list" was swimming at Murray Pool. We did this last year when we went home, but Matt was not with us and I thought he would really enjoy it.

Brother Dan and Sydney

Lexi
Emi
Jen and Sawyer
Carter freezing as we were waiting for the pool check to be over so we could get back in.

The cool thing about the Murray Swimming Pool is that they have a water playground and water slide that you can take the kids on:

Sledding in UT

One of the activities we for sure wanted to get in while in Utah was sledding. We get snow in Pittsburgh but not like out in Utah. Plus, sledding was a big part of growing up for me in my family and it is so fun getting together with the siblings and nieces and nephews and goin' down the hill.

My mom, Me, and Stacey's son Kyle
My sister Stacey's 2nd, Makenna

Stacey and Kyle (Twin)

Nicki with Stac's other twin Ashlyn

Chris's two girls, Lexi (back) and Emily (front)

MaKenna and Carter Hugging

Me with the Coolest dog ever, Scout. Scout loves to sled down the hill and would go with whoever would take him. (Kaylee, Stac's 3rd is to the side.)

Left to Right: Emi, Aubrey (Stac's oldest), Carter, Kaylee, and Sydney (Dan's oldest)

This was the favorite kind of sledding for the three and unders. Carter really flew down with his slick, red suit. He became our little red bullet.

Lexi is such a champ and tough girl. Here she is sledding it up.

Happy Valentine's Day

My cousins Adrienne and Afton threw a Valentine Party while Carter and I were out in Utah. My cousin Adrienne aka "A" as you can see in the pictures and videos is the most adorable person. At home in Arlington, VA she does a music class where the kids sing, dance, and play with music. She gave us a little glimpse into her world with this so cute Valentine party. I thought I would share her talents with my blogging friends and family.

After shaking out all the wiggles with music, "A" read Valentine books to the kids.

At this point, I sadly stopped taking pictures but after storytime we congregated in the kitchen where Afton and Adrienne made FANTASTIC homemade waffles with homemade buttermilk syrup and strawberries on top (to die for). Then the kids were able to decorate a heart cookie and make them look all fancy. We had such a great time and is a party tradition that I hope to carry on. Adrienne said this was her fourth V-day party.

By the way, I am trying to convince Adrienne that she could sell her music class lesson plans (she has a ton of themed lessons) to people who wanted to start up their own classes in their area. If you are interested let me know, I will pass it on.

My Little Red Blob

For Carter's 2nd Birthday he got a sled from Grandma Karen and Grandpa Craig. So when we finally got enough snow to go sledding we bundled up and headed out for Carter's first real sledding trip. He cracked me up decked out in his big ol snow suit. But I tell you what it is AWESOME for keeping a little guy all warm and cozy.

Another Nielsen Rock Band Junkie

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Our little family of three had such a nice Holiday break. We spent Christmas here in Pittsburgh since Matt was working the week of Christmas and had to go into the hospital for a bit on Christmas Day. So here is a journaling of our Christmas Events:

Christmas Eve we did Matt's family's traditional Chinese take out. Then we went with our friends Heather and Oliver to their church's Christmas Eve service. It was really nice and a great way to start our Christmas Celebration. My favorite part was when they turned out the lights and lit everyone's candle and we sang Silent Night. Then we came home and opened Grandma Bonnie's traditional pajama Christmas Eve presents.

I loved putting all the presents underneath the tree. This was our first time being in our own home for Christmas and it was kind of nice and fun. I loved organizing the presents and just seeing how pretty everything looked.

Christmas morning was really nice. Carter for one of the rare times in his life slept in late, along with Daddy. So while my boys slept I got up and finished getting things ready for our traditional breakfast from my family's side: sausage souffle, grapefruit, hot chocolate, and then Heather brought over a coffee U that is I think she said a Norwegian type of pastry (it was really delicious!) And to all you Mormons out there, don't worry it didn't have coffee in it. :) Once the boys woke up we opened presents. I didn't get a lot of pictures of us opening presents, but I did get some video for the sake of Carter's grandparents. I didn't think that everyone would want to see every video so I won't post all of them here, but if you are interested you can go to www.youtube.com/aynielsen and see all the videos I downloaded. I did want to share one of the videos though. What I love about this video is this captures the first day of which Carter started using "Yes Momma/Daddy" and "Thank You Momma/Daddy". Of all mornings Christmas morning is a great one to learn how to be polite. Since Christmas Carter has been using please and thank you like crazy and it has been so awesome as his Momma to hear it!!

Later that day, we went over to our friend's house for dinner (Richy, Marie, and Linus). Dinner was extremely delicious. Richy just got a smoker so he smoked a Turkey, we brought ham, the Hecks brought yummy sides, and the Nunnery's brought a huge spread of dessert. We all gained a few extra pounds that night on top of our already gains.

A couple weeks before Christmas when we were planning this dinner get together I was so excited because I thought we would have enough children to put on a Nativity Scene...not my brightest idea. It turned out to be somewhat of a disaster. We all brought items to contribute for the nativity and someone brought the cutest little duck bathrobe. Carter being obsessed with the show Little Bear that has a duck in it immediately was drawn to the duck robe and so instantly we had a very loud quacking duck in our nativity.

We also had a shepard-to-be decide he wanted nothing to do with our nativity. But my favorite mishap was adorable Linus who is obsessed with trucks and building things. He wanted nothing to do with being a shepard or wise man, he wanted to be a builder man in his builder man uniform. Marie (his mother) tried to explain to him that there weren't builder men back then that dressed like that, and he turned to his mother and said, "Then who built the stable?!?" So with that logic we decided to add a builder man to our nativity scene except at that point he decided that this pagent shouldn't even be happening so through at least half of Richy's scripture reading we had a little boy pleading for his daddy to stop reading. But in the midst of all the choas, our Joseph and sweet Mary remained stalwart and carried on as did some of the adult actors:

Oh yes, and I forgot that balls were flying at us from all directions.

This candy train was just one of our many delicious desserts! Isn't that so creative?!?

Kansas City, MO

The Saturday after Christmas Matt's work week ended and we got up at 2:30am and were off to Kansas City (a 13 hour drive). Our biggest concern with the drive was of course our 2 year old and to our pleasant surprise, he was a champ!! He either slept, watched Little Bear, sang songs, or read books. He never cried unless we weren't fast enough starting over his Little Bear movie. Well, I guess to be totally honest on our way home he did start to cry to get out of his seat when we were just 20 minutes away from our house!

We had a BLAST in Kansas City, I didn't take a lot of pictures or videos to document it. Here were some of my favorite things (in no particular order):

1. The train displays at Union Station and Crown Center.

I know you can't really see the trains here, but I just thought this was a sweet picture of me and my boy.

2. Watching the relationships grow stronger with his Aunt Whitney and Uncle Cory. Sometimes I think Carter is one of the luckiest kids in the world because he is surrounded by so many people who love him so much.

3. Arthur Bryant's, mine and Matt's favorite KC BBQ. (GT we got a few laughs remembering you with your big ole Arthur Bryant's cup.)


4. Carter realizing that he had Grandma wrapped around his little finger. One morning he was wanting me to go play down in the basement with him and I didn't want to so I said no and he automatically turned to Grandma and in his sweet pleading voice he said, "Grama!" And of course her heart melted.

5. Carter being so sweet and polite. Just about everytime someone did something for him he would say, "Thank you Grama" or whoever it was who helped him.

6. Watching Carter thrive being around his Aunt and Uncle and Grama and Pampa.

7. Farming it up several times (aka this means we played The Farming Game).

8. The Nielsen Family Band: (Matt, Cory, and Whit playing Rockband on the Wii)

This Wheezer video is a great one to check out just for Cory alone. He cracks me up, and really does pull off a great rock star. And yes ladies he is single!






9. The Fun Run, this was a fun place with blow up toys right by my in-laws house.


Uncle Big Timmay you would be so proud to see your little C Man climbing like a champ!

One of the many things I love about my husband, is if you wnat to have fun all you need is him. He is one awesome playmate.