Grandma

We had a lovely visit with my mom. First of all, she brought them spongebob pajamas and that is gold to those two. She discovered the joys of trying to get J dressed in the morning -- by the end of the visit she was referring to him as "Hef" 'cause the kid would live in his PJs if he could - well, actually he does because it's just not worth the fight to get him to wear only daytime clothes so he's usually wearing his pajamas under his regular clothes and the second we get home, he strips 'em off. Whattayagunnado? Anyway, they loved having her here! The two nice days that we had, she took them to the park and they had a picnic lunch. They made cookies with her and got high on sugar on a daily basis. They are now going through rehab because their mean parents don't give them anything. I'm putting money away each month for their therapy bills.
One morning as I was getting dressed, mom came in to tell me that J went outside to go pee (he likes to do that - makes him feel like a man) and when he came back in he said to her, "When I pee I make smoke and I breathe fire!" That's J.
So, we had a great time and the boys are detoxing nicely, not just from the sugar (I'm kidding, but I'm not) but also from the wonderful attention and devotion that they received from Grandma. That's really the best part.
Mom if you're reading this - thank you for taking time off from work to come out here to give us a hand. Sorry you got sick! I do so appreciate how hard you try to be a part of their lives and please know that we talk about you often - about your visit with us, what they did when you were here, the things they made from cookies to puppets. You're an important part of our family and we love you very much.

he's just fine

D's surgery went very well. He only had the right hernia (they checked for one on the left) so they only had one repair to do. Thursday was kind of a tough day for him - he was in some pain and when the motrin/tylenol combo would wear off, he was pretty miserable. But on Friday morning he was acting a lot better and didn't need the pain relieving combo - just motrin. Today we went to the Farmer's Market, where he jumped in the bounce house for 15 minutes then we went to Balboa Park where he played for 2 hours. You'd never know he had surgery a few days ago.

diagnosis

I was wrong. D has an inguinal hernia and needs surgery. We meet with the surgeon tomorrow so he can take a look at the misbehaving bowel and determine when to operate.

Stay tuned . . .

Emergency

Had to go to the emergency room Saturday night with the Bean. T noticed some swelling in his right testicle as he was getting him ready for bed. He was sick one day last week - frequent coughing and 8 hours of vomiting, then a low-grade fever. I paged the doctor then hopped on my friend the internet to do some research. From what I could tell on WebMD, he either had a twisted testicle (requires emergency surgery), an inguinal hernia (requires surgery), or a hydrocele (might require surgery). None of it looked good. We called our neighbors to stay with J, who thankfully was already asleep, and we went off to the emergency room. Apparently, 9:00pm at the emergency room in Tarzana is a very good time to have an emergency. Good information to file away later. Anyway, we got to see a doctor fairly quickly and he was concerned that it may be either the twist or the hernia. So, they called in the ultrasound technician. I curled up with the Bean to try to get him to go to sleep and about a half hour later, the ultrasound technician came in. D slept right through it. Doc came back in and said that it wasn't a twisted testicle (whew!) - it probably is a hydrocele which is when a little tissue seeps into the testicular sac and then fluid accumulates around it. At worst, it may require surgery but most likely, it was go away on it's own. We have to call the pediatric urologist on Monday and do a follow up with him. Today I checked him and the swelling has definitely gone down.
We won't know if he'll need surgery until we meet with the urologist but judging by the difference in swelling, I'm hopeful that he won't need it. There were funny moments throughout that evening as T and I questioned D about his testicle. We've determined that a 3 year old makes a very poor witness.