Fixed Hearing Aide

Ronan's hearing aide had an accident about a week and a half ago. He had thrown it down on the car floor and when I went to push the seat back I heard a weird noise. The hearing aide had gotten caught in the metal tread of the seat and it squished his right hearing aide. The top casing came off and it no longer worked. I was horrified and called his audiologist in tears. His audiologist assured me it was fixable.We joked a little that this was Ronan's ploy to dispose of his hearing aides. This is because Ronan thoroughly prefers a silent world. I still remember the moment he first got his hearing aides. He was eleven months old. I was completely caught off guard with his reaction. I'm not sure what I expected but his reaction had not even crossed my mind as a possibility.

His audiologist turned his hearing aides on for the first time. It was the first time ever he had heard noise at a normal level. Within about a half of a second he let out a sharp cry and tears started streaming. I was shocked. The audiologist wanted us to clap for him and make hearing seem like a good thing. I sat there clapping trying to sound enthusiastic while at the same time trying to hold in my own tears.

Ronan did get used to the hearing aides but if he had his choice he would not wear them. Certain things do still bother his ears but I've learned those and try to remove his hearing aides before those situations occur. The two big ones are parking garages and elevators. He can't tolerate wearing his hearing aides in those situations. He grabs his ears, lets out a scream and cries. Other than that he handles them fine.

Because of the hearing aide appointment we did not have time to swim in the morning and then I remembered I had a complex lab due for my Human Biology class. On top of that the maid was coming to clean. Landon was confused because I told him we had to clean up so the maid could come clean the room. I felt weird at the thought of a maid and I felt more like she was someone coming to visit so I straightened everything up. Besides I wanted to make her job as easy as possible. She's cleaning rooms all day and then she comes into one with five small children and I wanted to be fair to her. That may sound weird but none the less I pre-cleaned the rooms.

With all of this going on we did not go swimming and I could tell cabin fever was creeping itself in on the kids. We have to get out somehow tomorrow because otherwise I will have wall crawlers everywhere. All the adjacent rooms will be making a bee line for the front desk to inquire if they've allowed a hoard of chimpanzees to occupy our room.

Maybe we'll take a nice walk or make use of the ice cream shop across the street. One way or the other I will free my children from the room tomorrow. Overall they have been excellent troopers.

Hotel Day 1

Today was our first day in the hotel and the kids loved it. We started off by going down to breakfast. The kids were excited that we would be able to go to a "restaurant" for breakfast everyday. The breakfast was nice. They had bagels, muffins, fruit, cereal, big bottles of juice and a lot more. Even Ronan could eat there because they had yogurt. As the kids were picking out what they wanted Grandma and Grandpa Fullmer arrived with Landon.
Landon had been eaten up by mosquitoes. He has two massive welts on each side of his forehead and a few others in various locations. He was excited to catch breakfast even though he'd already eaten. He was happy to find they had his favorite breakfast item which is oatmeal. The boy loves oatmeal. Grandma Fullmer had bought the kids the largest monster cookies I've ever seen. I think it will take quite a few cookie eating sessions for them to be gone.

I set up the living room as the play area for the kids. I had it barricaded with chairs and foot rests so the babies could have a safe place to play. They had a good morning playing and I had to go to the doctor. My eyes have been bothering me. I have been prone to eye staph infections since I was a teenager. I do wear contacts but I'd recently run out of contacts and hadn't worn any for a couple of weeks so I couldn't blame it on the contacts.
I took Inara with me because she continues to have a bad diaper rash despite me trying all the uusual tricks. The doctor confirmed I had an eye infection and gave me some drops. Inara now has a yeast infection which had been my suspicion.When I got home I told the kids they had to take a nap. If they did not take a nap there would be no swimming today. Within ten minutes they were all sound asleep. I straightened the hotel a little and then I took a nap as well. When they woke up we went swimming.
This was Inara's and Ronan's first real swim. They both loved it. Inara actually moved her arms and legs as though she was really swimming. Ronan loved to splash and I kept him in shallow water since he aspirates thin liquids. He got cold when we were getting out and I gave him a towel. He kept wrapping it around himself when it would fall off.
We just got done eating dinner and the kids are quietly playing in the designated play area. They've had their baths and it should be time for bed shortly. Hopefully the time spent in the pool will make them sleep well.

Ronan blowing kisses to mommy.

Got To Be Going

I'm going to see how quickly I can write today's blog and still have it come off as somewhat coherent. I have to leave for class in a half an hour and am unsure I will have time later or how the internet will be at the hotel. I'm so close to a year without missing a post that I refuse to give up now.

Ronan handled breakfast ok and got to avoid the emergency endoscopy. Instead he got to go to therapy where he walked 30 feet at a time, several times in a row. He astonished his therapists. He had a really good therapy day. All the walking wore him completely out and he spent the rest of the afternoon out cold.I have everything loaded ready to go to the hotel. We will probably leave after my class gets done tonight. Ronan did cough a little during lunch so I called his GI doctor who upped his reflux medicine and is supposed to get back to me at some point with what they are going to do next.

Inara also took a leap towards walking full time today. She's been taking one or two steps here and there but today she keeps standing up and then takes off walking about ten steps. Both Inara and Ronan are going to be full time walkers in the next few weeks. For now that's all I'm going to blog about since I have to be going.

Starving Boredom with Apple Puppets and Skiing

I am wore out and ready to hit the hay. We had a really long day of trying to make sure everything is packed and ready to go. It has been a non stop day of sorting and packing and making sure I didn't pack anything too important. Most of the kids toys were packed today and it was a good time for Landon to be at his Grandparents' house because otherwise he would have been fighting boredom as Jadzia and Xander did.

Landon had a fun day of moving dirt with his Grandpa, getting his hair trimmed and playing at the park. I heard he made a couple of new friends. Xander and Jadzia however had to go to great lengths to keep themselves entertained. Xander found foam stuffing from a box and used them as skis and used the side of a poster frame as a pole. He pretended to climb Mt. Bungus (that's what he dubbed his imaginary mountain).

I realized they were getting pretty desperate when they turned their snack into puppets. They bit holes in their apples to give them a face. They gave voices to the apples by speaking really high pitched and fast. They did help me move some smaller boxes out. Jadzia had to keep on schedule and she performed her morning ballet routine amongst the mass chaos that had exploded all over our living room. She also tried to find as many hats as she could and wear them at once. After much searching she found three and piled one on top of the other.Ronan's teacher came over to work on play skills. She was gracious enough to excuse my cluttered living room. Ronan stacked three blocks today with encouragement from his teacher. He also walked everywhere today and barely crawled. He is becoming such a big boy. He scared me again today. I would have to say I've had to save Ronan from choking more times than I want to remember. I don't think it ever scares me any less. I always handle it in the moment but am left dizzy and shaken when it's done.
During dinner he started coughing which is not uncommon. I let him cough through and 9 times out of 10 he is fine. But this time he went from coughing to silent and he started turning purple. He looked as though he was trying extremely hard to cry but nothing was coming out. I pulled out from his chair. He wasn't breathing but was conscious. I hit his back hard four times and I heard him cry a little. I sat him up and he was silent again unable to breathe. I turned him over and hit his back again. I yelled for Xander to get my mom who was upstairs. She's CPR certified and had just this last Saturday got her re-certification in first aide and CPR.

As she came running down the stairs I got him to start coughing and he began to cry. I handed him to my mom so she could check him over but he seemed ok just understandably upset. I waited awhile and then gave him a drink from his bottle. He was gagging and coughing. I immediately called his GI doctor. Since Ronan was otherwise breathing ok he said he could stay home tonight unless of course he starts having breathing difficulties. He told me not to give him anything else to eat or drink tonight. He said wake Ronan up early tomorrow and try to give him some pediasure . If he is still gagging and/or coughing I am to take him into the hospital and he will have an emergency scope tomorrow morning to figure out why he is choking.Tomorrow is the day we are moving out. So what this will mean is I have to finish everything tonight. I will have everything set out in groups of what is staying what needs loaded so everyone coming to help tomorrow can put everything left where it needs to go. Ronan's choking has to be priority right now.

Here are two of my sweet babies sleeping in their make shift bedroom.

Moving with Baby Tummy Troubles

Inara and Ronan chose today to have tummy troubles. We stayed home from church and lets just say we went through a lot of diapers. We got a lot of the big things loaded and are waiting for the third storage pod that will be here tomorrow morning. I still have a lot of clothes to put in bags. I at least have everything we are taking packed and set aside.

Landon went with his Grandpa and Grandma Fullmer back to their house until Wednesday morning. They are going to drop him off at the hotel. I've been intertwining school assignments with packing. When I need a break from one I switch back to the other. I'm finding moving with five kids and full time summer school is rather interesting and calls me to keep my mind focused. This doesn't always happen and sometimes leaves me frantically searching to make sure something vital hasn't been packed away.

I have a list of all of Ronan's medications and machines to make sure we have his daily needs as well as his emergency needs planned for. It's amazing how much is needed for a three week stay with five kids. I'm a little pressed for time tonight so I think I will just post some pictures and maybe talk a little about what it happening in them.

Here are all five of the kids watching a movie on the computer. Daddy had packed the Entertainment center with the tv and they wanted to watch something wile we moved everything. Even the babies enjoyed the show.As I talked about in yesterday's blog post the big kids are sleeping in the living room on their mattresses. I snapped a picture of them while they slept last night.Here are Isaac and Nikko taking a pizza break from moving all the heavy stuff.

Here are all the rest of the men that helped us. If you look closely you can see Ronan being the center of attention.

No Mattress Surfing in the House!

We packed a large amount today. We have two and half more days until everything has to be out and we make our way to our hotel. I had the kids help pack their own room and they carried the bags with their stuffed animals down to be put in the storage pod. They turned out to be a big help. I did have to prevent them from sledding down the stairs on their mattresses. I know Mom is no fun.


Xander is apprehensive about having his bunk bed put in the storage pod. For some reason he thinks if it goes in there he'll never get it back. I told him it had to be gone for them to put his new window in. He thought they should just scoot it over or work around it. I have to keep assuring him his bed will be there when we get back from the hotel.We went ahead and took the mattresses off of the bunk beds so that I could get the big kids' room done before tomorrow. They are currently enjoying camping on their mattresses on the living room floor. They think it is an awesome adventure (those were Landon's words).

We were pretty tired by the time dinner rolled around. My in-laws were in town for a gun show and were staying at a hotel with a pool and hot tub. Isaac's back was sore from moving all the heavy furniture and the hot tub was just what he needed. We took the kids over to swim and get some energy out away from all the moving chaos. Grandma even supplied chocolate.

The boys are getting better at swimming. They still use their floatie rings a lot but they are at least not clinging to an adult anymore. Jadzia is still pretty cautious but she tends to be more on the cautious side for most everything. Xander was even brave enough to jump into the pool which was something that used to really scare him.

After an hour or two of swimming we went back up to the in-laws' room to get changed and give the kiddos baths. My mother in-law had an early anniversary present for Isaac and I. It was a t-shirt for each of us with a picture of each of the kids on it and says "Our reasons our world goes round." When you turn over it says "Isaac and Angela Fullmer " with our anniversary date and two rings inside a heart. I loved it. I've always wanted a t-shirt with my kids on it. I really like the fact it includes our kids and our anniversary.

We ate a late dinner and then I put the kids to bed in their make shift sleeping area. Tomorrow is church and then the afternoon brings more packing. I'm hoping we can finish it up tomorrow if not then by Monday afternoon. That way we have all of Tuesday to just think about making our way to the hotel. Tuesday should be interesting because we can't check in until three and then I have class that night.