A Week of Firsts

This week we had two big firsts at our house. It was Megan's first day of preschool on Monday, and we had our first visit to the ER with either of our children (in this case, it was Rachel) on Tuesday.

As for the FIRST first, Megan had a great time at preschool, as expected! Her transition back into school has been pretty seamless. There are 18 kids in her class this year, and 12 of those are returning students from last year's three year old class. So, she already has a lot of familiar friends. The classroom is the same as the one she was in last year, and one of her teachers, Mrs. Fleming, had substituted for her class frequently last year, so Megan is already fairly acquainted with her. All of that consistency helps! Speaking of consistency, Megan has been very aware of the things that are different about her classroom routine this year as compared to last year. For example, she seemed a bit concerned that this year, the snack helper does NOT get to sit on the star at circle time. And, what used to be called "story time" last year, is now called "circle time." She is very excited about going on field trips this year. The first two days of school, she came home and announced to me, "Mama, we did not go on any field trips today." I keep telling her that she will know ahead of time when a field trip is going to occur, but it hasn't sunk in yet. Megan's also very excited that she gets to do "art projects" again. (I have been a lazy mama in this regard over the summer, preferring to go outside and take the girls fun places rather than sit inside and be creative.) I am once again so thankful that Megan is a child who loves school, and that she can't wait to go back each time. I hope this attitude will continue!

As for the first ER visit....well, I hope this will be our last! Most of you reading this will know this story by now, but I want to write it down to keep the details alive for the girls someday. Tuesday night, Bill was putting Rachel to bed because I was out. She has this pink fleece penguin PJ shirt that she loves, and she wanted to wear it. Bill wouldn't let her, because it was not cold enough for it. She threw a fit, and was crying when he put her in her bed. A short time later, as she continued to scream and cry, Bill heard a loud "THUD" upstairs. He ran up to find that Rachel had climbed/fallen/jumped out of her crib. She was laying on her side, and was really upset, but was quickly soothed, and fell asleep pretty fast after that. All of this happened around 7:30-7:45 pm. When I got home Bill told me this story and we had a good laugh about our feisty, stubborn little girl. I had figured it was only a matter of time before she learned how to get out of the crib.

Flash forward to 9:00...Rachel started crying, after having been asleep for some time. Bill went up there to rub her back, and both of us were a little worried that maybe she had hurt her arm or something when she fell. All of a sudden she started throwing up. Yeah...possible head injury + vomiting = not good. I will not soon forget Bill's strained and worried voice when he said, "I think we need to take her to the ER." Bill doesn't usually panic or get easily freaked out. (In fact, when I call him at work, panicking about some malady or injury the girls have, he usually blows me off much too calmly for my liking!) Because he seemed so worried, I got very worried. My awesome girlfriend Julie came over to sit at the house so we didn't have to take Megan with us (who slept through all of this blissfully unaware).

We called the pediatrician's after hours line while on the way to the hospital. They didn't really think, based on what I told them, that we needed to go to the ER, but because I told them that Bill is a physician and that he was worried, they told me to go ahead. Rachel threw up once more in the car (thankfully I had had the foresight to bring a trash can), once when we were checking in at triage, and one or two more times, before they gave her an anti-nausea medication. The doctor who examined Rachel thought that based on her exam and Rachel's symptoms and actions, that she most likely was fine, but agreed to order a CT scan if we were still worried. We were still worried. So, we got the CT scan.

She was so good during this whole ordeal! She fell asleep a few times while we were waiting for the doctor, the results, etc., and at one point even cried to us, "I want to go to sleep!" (Not something you hear a small child verbalize every day!) We thought for sure that she would throw a Rachel fit during the CT scan, but they strapped her to the board and put her little head in the head hold, and she lay as still as a doll! She didn't even cry out for us. The only things that moved were her little eyes, darting around. We got to be right there, and it was quite hilarious to us how docile she was behaving! The CT techs were in the control room laughing and commenting that this was the model child! It was truly funny because that is SO NOT Rachel! I think she was just tired enough, and just curious enough, that she didn't have much energy to do more than look around passively.

We ended up having to wait about 1 1/2 hours for the results of the CT. By this time we weren't too worried about her, because she was acting just like herself. She wanted us to sing to her, and we did. Then she kept asking for the "penguin song," and what that was, neither Bill nor I for the life of us could figure out. She got pretty mad at us that we would not sing the penguin song. I still don't know what the heck she was talking about. Finally we got her to fall back to sleep on the bed in our ER room. Bill took a nice nap too, hunched over the bed like a student with his head down on a desk. Sometime after 1 am we got the all clear. It was 1:45 by the time we got home. Thankfully Rachel fell asleep pretty immediately in her crib at home. Although not before crying for her "real baby." Her beloved baby doll had gotten throw-up on its hand, and so when we got home I tried to trick Rachel by giving her the backup baby doll (identical, but not as loved) as I put her down, so I could clean the other one. Even though it was 1:45 am, and she was surely exhausted, she would have no part of it! I had to do a quick wash off and give her the "real baby," pukey smell and all.

Of course we are so glad Rachel is OK, and glad that our first (and hopefully last!) ER visit with one of the kids was for something as benign as this. But still, not the most fun way to spend a Tuesday night. Bill was actually on call that night, and had to hand it off to the backup person because of this situation. We joked the next day that the 4 1/2 hours of solid sleep he got that night were probably more than he would have gotten had he had a normal night being on call!

One final PS....today is Saturday, and as of now (knock on the wood it's made of!), Rachel has not again attempted to climb out of her crib. I'm hoping she was scared enough by the whole ordeal to not try it again. I am so NOT ready to have her in a bed! She will be running around her room like a banshee at 3 am, of that I am certain!