Settling in

Day one upon arriving here to Arizona we were jolted by quite the scare. We had noticed that Brayden wasn't feeling well so I thought he was starting to get sick. I noticed he had a little fever and gave him infant Tylenol and just kind of watched him throughout the day. He was acting so strange, I felt so bad for him. I decided to put him down for a nap hoping that it would help him fight off whatever it seemed that he was coming down with. After his nap I had never seen him so red and flushed. His cheeks were bright red and his head was burning hot. His nap had done the opposite affects I was hoping for, and instead of his fever reducing it had spiked. I held him up to the freezer and opened the door trying to cool him down for a little bit but eventually decided I needed to take him into the doctors. Luckily Kyle was home so while he was calling to make sure our Tricare insurance had correctly switched over to Tricare West (because everything gets all mixed up during a PCS move), I was calling Luke AFB pediatrics line to make an appointment to get in him that day. All of a sudden I felt Brayden start shaking. When I looked down at him in my arms my heart stopped and I saw my sweet baby begin to convulse in a seizure. His eyes rolled back in his head and I quickly and gently laid him  on the carpet and on his side to have him finish out the seizure in a safe environment and began to yell at Kyle to hang up and call 911.

Thankfully the paramedics arrived just 5 minute later. Brayden's seizure lasted a minute, but for about 30 seconds of that minute he turned completely blue and wasn't breathing. I was sobbing and felt completely useless as I watched my sweet baby go through such a traumatizing event. After a minute the convulsions stopped and he began to spit up. The paramedics helped me strip his clothes off of him and they began to immediately do a bunch of tests on him there on our living room floor. Since we had just arrived we had no furniture, the walls were half painted, clothes and toys were thrown everywhere and we all looked like a hot mess having just driven 12 hours cross country the day before. I can only imagine what the paramedics thought when they saw us and our house. They suggested he be taken by ambulance to the Phoenix Children's hospital so they could continue to monitor him. We strapped him to his car seat and then to the stretcher and together Brayden and I went off in the ambulance. I am so grateful Kyle was home cause I don't know what I would've have done with my other kids. We are brand new to this area and don't know anyone to watch them for us if I was all alone. 

The ride to the hospital seemed to take forever and I didn't take my eyes off of Brayden once! They gave him oxygen and continued to do tests periodically till we arrived to the doctor's care at the hospital. Brayden was extremely sleepy and continued to sleep, and sleep, and sleep. The doctors ensured me that that was normal behavior after a seizure and continued to watch him. We all did our best to get fluids down him but he wasn't interested. The doctor finally came up with a diagnosis of what happened and called it a febrile seizure. They are very common in kids under the age of 5 and occur when a spike in body temperature occurs. When this happens the body almost needs to shut down and reboot like a computer which spurs on the seizure. 

Thankfully no permanent damage occurred, and he is fine. He is now susceptible to have another one again though. I just don't know if my mommy heart can handle another seizure. As an Athletic Trainer I have witnessed seizures before and have assisted individuals recovering from a seizure, but when you see your own child go through one it is completely different. I was far from calm during the experience and am forever scarred after seeing my baby that way. There is something to be said about a mother's love, will, and attachment to her kids. I would have done anything to take it away from him, and I was going to stop at nothing to ensure he got the best treatment and was going to be alright.

After spending 6 hours at the hospital where they watched him to make sure he was returning to normal behavior and that his temperature was under 102, Kyle and the kids finally came and picked us up. I pray we never have an experience like that ever again.

So we are living in limbo right now. We have no furniture and found out that it will take an additional week for our stuff to arrive. So instead of "camping out" on air mattresses in a furniture less house for one week, we now have to endure two weeks of this craziness. Heaven help us! We have no toys, nothing for the kids to play with. They are going stir crazy, I am going stir crazy, and all we want are our beds to sleep in and a chair to sit on. I do have to take my hat off to my kids though. They are handling this move very well. We have uprooted them from their comfortable home in Japan of all that they know of, dragged them all across the country while living out of suit cases, living in temporary apartments while Kyle attends training, and now living in an empty shell of a house all while trying to tell them this is their new home and have them grasp that concept. They are beyond confused, but have such great attitudes about everything. Military kids truly are the strongest kids out there, they endure so much!

So while I continue to finish up the interior painting, Kyle takes the kids out to go exploring around town. They have gone to Krispy Kremes, the park, Lowes to grab me more paint, and Chick-Fil-A to name just a few locations. I am grateful that Kyle's transition into the squadron is nice and slow and he doesn't have to put in 12 hour days just yet. It has helped me get most of the paining complete inside before the new carpet gets installed and our furniture arrives.

Carpet installation day arrived, yippee!! Goodbye old nasty orange carpet, and hello beautiful new carpet. We originally only had the up stair bedrooms and stairs carpeted thinking we were going to tile downstairs, but we could not find the matching tile to continue the tile into the den and family room, so we are having to carpet that as well. That means the installers had to come out a second day to put the rest of the carpet in, but that's ok... we don't have much going on right now so it wasn't a big inconvenience to us. The kids have enjoyed using the left over padding and carpet as their "tumbling" mat. I think I need to sign those kids up for some kind of activity pronto cause they need some kind of channel to get their wiggles out, and maybe tumbling classes could be a great choice.

Kyle and the kids have been hard at work in the back yard. There are tiny little pebbles sprinkled all over the top layer of dirt, so Kyle first tired to rake them and failed. So now he is literally sweeping our backyard and it's actually working. The kids enjoy helping their dad and feel so important. I need to be better at letting the kids help out around the house. A lot of times it's more work for me if the kids help out so I usually opt to not let them, but how is that teaching them? Even if it takes me twice as long the long term results of teaching my kids how to work and how to accomplish different chores will be worth it.

My favorite story of the week was when I spotted Brayden red handed two fisting the donuts in his mouth while hiding in the kitchen. I was painting upstairs and realized it was way to quiet for comfort. Kyle was at work for a couple hours and I knew the kids were doing their ABC Mouse homework on the laptop, but I was scared to see what Brayden was up to. I couldn't find him and then all of a sudden I turned to the other side of the island in the kitchen and caught him hiding while stuffing his face full with donuts. I couldn't help but laugh and he got so scared when I found him. That silly little nugget, stealing, hiding, and devouring donuts as stealth as possible. I would have known it was him no matter what because he always leave his favorite giraffe, Gerald, at the scene of his crimes. You think he would start getting smarter and not leave any evidence.

Our house hold shipment has finally arrived!!! After 3 long months of our stuff coming by barge from Japan across the pacific it made it, and it feels like Christmas day. All of our stuff arrived in 10 crates, and watching them unpack crate after crate left me so happy. One of the first boxes I opened was filled with toys for the kids so they could play and stay out of our way. They were just as excited as I was to see all of our stuff again. While Abby and Connor go off and play with the little people toys together, Brayden has been stealing Connor's pilot vest and hasn't been willing to take it off. He loves it and has been wearing it several days in a row, including during nap time and bedtime. Perhaps He will follow in his daddy's boots and become a pilot? Maybe, but I sure hope not. We only need one pilot in the family, I can't handle another.

Slowly and surely the crates were being un-packed and boxes were being stacked inside our house. They only sent two guys to unload the truck so it took them all day to get the job done. When all the crates were un-loaded I asked them to help us set up the beds and other big furniture pieces. They did nothing but complain and complain and were doing a very poor quality job at assembling things by stripping our screws and dinging our walls. It got so bad and I was getting so frustrated that I just asked them to leave and decided that I would complete the process myself. I was very upset with the work ethic of the movers, but then again what was I expecting? Movers don't have the best reputation of being hard working ethical individuals that take pride in their work. They don't care, it's not their stuff, and all they want to do after a long day of unpacking is to go out on a Friday night and have some fun. We contacted the moving company to complain and to set up a time for them to come back and pick up the millions of boxes and paper that were left behind. Of course they never came back to pick up their stuff, and even the head moving department at Luke AFB got involved in our case. It was a pain, and extremely frustrating, but we ended up having to take care of the boxes and paper on our own by taking 5 different loads to the recycling and dump center. Worst move to date by far, and a lot of our stuff got damaged along the way, but hey, at least we have our stuff now. I am trying to focus on the silver lining.

Now I feel like we can officially get settled in and make this house feel like a home. Next up on our agenda is to get the pool going in the backyard. They are scheduled to come out and begin the work next week. Bring it on! I am so ready for a place to cool off this summer cause it's already getting warm, I fear for what the temperatures will be like in July and August.