Dad's Car

Soccer

At Ikea

No injury - Evan insisted on bandaid!

The Scariest Moment

About two weeks ago Evan got a nasty stomach virus that took about a week to work its way through his system. He was throwing up on and off for about 5 days along with the other nastiness that goes with intestinal things. Two weeks ago, he was about 4 days into it and seemed to be on the mend - maybe even ready to go to daycare. I had gotten him his morning drink and dressed him when he got wobbly in my arms. I put him on the floor and he lay down face down and knees tucked in and started dry heaving. I dutifully put a towel under him and prepared myself for a small cleanup job. I noticed that Evan was not throwing up anything and that his eyes seemed to be rolled back. At this point I started freaking out. Was he having a seizure? Was he choking? I anxiously watched and reassured myself that he was breathing and his heart was beating. I don't know how long it lasted but Evan's heaving stopped and I picked him up. He was *limp* and his head just flopped to the side. This was definitely the scariest parenting moment yet. Should I call 911? Should I shake him like people seem to do with their lifeless children in the movies (answer: no!). Figuring he might have thrown something up and choked, I flipped him over face down, with one arm between his legs and hand on his chest and patted him on the back with the other. Luckily, he came to more or less immediately, though that was more a coincidence than anything. With a huge feeling of relief, I called Evan's pediatrician and got him on the phone within 15 seconds. The Doctor was not phased much at all by the events - something I found reassuring. This was the explanation: when kids have been sick and vomiting, they can be weak enough that the blood pressure drop associated with dry heaving can cause them to faint. I had never heard of it and I suppose it makes sense but, damn, I don't want to go through that again!

New! Random Pictures

I'm going to start posting pictures from my camera phone just because that gives me a way to do real-time updates to my blog wherever I am... I have it set up that I can take a picture, send it as a picture message to blogger, and automatically publish it to my blog. That means the pictures will be just a few minutes old when they are posted... The quality won't be great but that's the tradeoff. What do you think?

At the park