Mojo & Ho Ho

Visiting the big man

The Battan Kids met the man in the red suit. Nicholas was a little nervous and did his "frozen boy" routine, but it all worked out.

I highly recommend making an appointment to visit Santa at 'The Santa Experience' at Mall of America. Make an appointment online at professorbellows.com.

Ben's Week

Monday morning, while getting ready for work/school, Nathan was changing Ben and noticed that he was wheezing. I don't mess with possible breathing issues, but didn't hear anything odd myself, so figured we'd go to school and see what happened. Ben's teachers kept an ear on him, and they also noticed wheezing when he was getting worked up in some way - hungry/crying, etc. So, off to the pediatrician we went, with Mommy figuring on bronchitis or a cold or some other seasonal ailment.

Oh no. The pediatrician took a good long listen and decided that the wheeze was not an interthoracic wheeze, but higher. Could be a malformation of the nasal and throat area or vascular banding (as in a birth defect), could be reflux (irritating the membranes) or it could be a rather common issue with the larynx and esophagus. We left with an Rx for Prevacid, a referral to an ENT, and orders to have an esophagram and upper GI series done.

Wednesday afternoon we saw the ENT who did Abby and Daniel's ear tubes (because I like him) and he took a listen to Mojo and was certain it was the larynx/esophagus thing - laryngomalacia and that he would outgrow it. Nathan commented that he hadn't even been hearing the wheezing since Monday, Dr. Rhodes said that was because of the Prevacid. Apparently the stomach acid in reflux irritates the membranes and makes it all worse. We asked if he thought the Upper GI was still needed, and he said the more info the better, so we kept the appointment.

This morning Ben was at Children's Minneapolis (the best hospital anywhere - says this mommy!) and was the most perfect little angel for his Upper GI. He got to drink nearly 4 ounces of Barium (yum yum), which he actually chugged, while the radiologist took video and pictures of how everything looks inside. He took a little break and then we got to check for reflux as well. The radiologist said everything looks perfect, so I'm expecting that we'll keep him on Prevacid for a while and hopefully he will grow out of this laryngomalacia soon.

I'm just relieved there was no invasive scoping and no need for surgery!

Abby

Yesterday, when discussing her day Abby told us all about how she "wrote" that a shoe is a house for your feet.

How cute is that?

Nappin' with Dad

Welcome to God's Family Ben!

This Saturday evening, Benjamin was baptized. Nathan and I were thrilled that Father Mike Tix, pastor of St. John the Baptist Church agreed to do the sacrament, even though we are no longer parishioners. Fr. Mike's first assignment after seminary was St. John's, he was then assigned to a parish in Bloomington before returning to St. John's in 2004. His first Mass back at St. John's was Abby's baptism day. Since then he baptized all of our kids, so this was great for us.

Let's see... something weird tends to happen to us during ceremonies... Well, Ben cried during the whole thing. That is, until he got to have the nice warm water on his little noggin. He thought that was pretty neat, so he mellowed out and enjoyed the water. Nicholas was tempted to jump into the water too. He kept saying 'bath.' Luckily Nathan kept a good hold on him.

Here is Ben with us, Fr. Mike and his godparents: Mike and Erin Stuedemann.

Yeah, you can't see Ben - lots of crying still going on!

We did get a pretty good group photo with the rest of the kids though:

Today we had Ben's little reception to celebrate (any excuse for a party!) The kids all had a great time playing and Ben enjoyed being cuddled by everyone. Grandma Dorothy did a super-amazing job on his cake, and got it finished in record time. When I brought it out to get a photo of Ben with the cake, Daniel started to ask where the candles were. Too funny.

Fall Fun

A mild November day found the kids with the Nebraska grandparents out in the yard raking and winterizing today. Ok, so the kids were doing more playing than raking, but who could blame them?

I'm sick of sick!

We've now been through three rounds of H1N1-assumed and two rounds of Pink Eye (two people, 3 eyes total), and that's only if you count the kids. Add in the grown-ups and you need to add at least one more H1N1 and two pink eye cases (two eyes total). The only people in the house to have remained relatively healthy are Ben and Mommy, and Mommy has been fighting a scratchy throat, tendinitis in the wrist and (you guessed it) plain ol' exhaustion-due-to-newborn.

And to think I had planned on doing some projects on my leave. I go back to work on 11/9, and I barely scratched the surface of what I would have wanted to do. Daddy says I got to spend quality time with all of the kids. I say bah. (And I want more leave time!!)

The Bat Kids

Halloween was a riot this year. Daniel had his costume selected since mid-summer, as he normally requests that he be called Superman. Abby was able to get one last year out of the mermaid costume I made, but said that this year she was a mermaid princess. Nicholas on the other hand, did not understand any of the whole "dressing up" bit. The day we attempted to try on costumes ended up in tears.

Luckily when it came down to the actual night we got Nicholas into a zebra costume. Ben donned a black cat 'sleep & play' and hat (he wasn't fond of the hat though). Getting all four of them to sit still and look in the general direction of the camera... this is the best we could do. (Nicholas has a mouth full of Lentil Curl - we had to bribe him to sit with Superman.)



This was Nicholas's first time trick-or-treating. He was a bit confused in general and stared wide-eyed at all of the other kids running around outside. Daddy said it took him about two houses to understand the whole candy in the bucket thing and another house or two for him to learn to say "Happy Halloween!" Which, coming from Nicholas is less 'happy halloween' and more "all-oh-EEN" but said super fast.


Above - one confused zebra heading out for trick-or-treating.
Below - the kids, showing off their haul.
(Yes, Daniel and Nicholas are both wearing Batman t-shirts. Our last name does frequently get mis-pronounced, so I find this funny. What is even funnier to me is that Daniel wore a Superman costume over his Batman t-shirt!)