Crickets and Poo!

Oh what a weekend! Man oh man alive! It was PACKED full of stuff to do! We drug that poor, sweet baby all over hell and half of Georgia and he was sooooo good! Seriously! He was so good! We invited one of Kory's friends and Bryson spent the better part of the trip down staring at him as he sat in the seat next to him. Once he decided that Kaleb was his friend he politely proceeded to spend the rest of the weekend using Kalek as his slave. He persuaded Kaleb to play the "throw and pick up game" for close to four hours on the way there and on the way home. He talked to him non-stop, tried to touch him with his nasty cheetoh fingers. He made Kaleb feel right at home. I think Riley has figured out that riding in the backseat next to Bryson is not all it is cracked up to be and so he promptly volunteered to ride in the very back seat, behind Bryson. And Kory is just really good at tuning Bryson out.
We had the best time, lots of laughs and a little (alot) of poo but I will get to that story later.
We celebrated Kory's birthday while we were in Dallas as well and so we visited Pappadeux for dinner on Friday night. It was a long wait but the food was good. Bryson has decided that he REALLY likes to eat and so he is trying and taking just about everything we give him (explains the poo, I suppose).
Saturday we got up and went to spend the remainder of our donation money at Babies R Us. Bryson helped us pick things out. If he thought it was good for the kids at Children's he would grunt and yell accordingly. We picked out about four mobiles (those things are EXPENSIVE!) and several other things. I think in all our donations probably equaled around $1,000. I am so proud of everyone who gave for this occassion. It meant so much to us and so much to all those parents as well. They were very gratful to receive the donations, I understand they were running low so it felt good to help restock.
I was so glad to see April as soon as we got there! She asked if I wanted to go back to the unit and I agreed. She said that if I felt like I couldn't do it at any point I could just leave. The funny thing was that I didn't feel upset or scared, to be honest I felt nervous, very nervous, almost to the freaked out stage. I think I was talking very fast and acting nervous too and I didn't mean to but I hope I didn't seem strange to anyone. I guess I just felt out of my element. Someone described it to me as "surreal" and that is probably exactly what it was. It was like I had never been there. It was like all those things had happened to someone else. Very strange but not upsetting at all, which was nice. Any other time I would have craned my neck to see patients in rooms, just out of curiosity and concern, and I never once "saw" once patient. I didn't want to. Not sure why, God knows I read every blog of every sick kid in Texas, but I just didn't want to see it. I thought that I would recognize the smell, the beeping of the machines, the familiarity of it all. The only thing that I really noticed was how quiet it was. It was almost eerily quiet but it always was on Saturdays. We hated weekends because it was so quiet and time went by painfully slow on those weekends. It was quiet! I really enjoyed seeing everyone. I loved seeing all the nurses. April would walk up and kind of gesture towards us and they would look at us like, "I think I know them" and then it would hit them and they would say, "Oh my gosh! Bryson!" I know they probably recognized me more than they did him. They were all so thrilled with him and how chubby he was. He was so tired and seemed so very bored with all of our "oohing" and "aahhing". I am so glad he will NEVER remember! NEVER! We took a picture of him in his first room there. He was looking around like, "what in the world is all this stuff! I could tear this room up quick!" I think in all we bunked in 5 or 6 rooms out of the 18. We were in room eight longer than any room. As we passed room 8 I did see a grandma standing over the "display case" looking at her grandson. I didn't really look at the baby, I didn't really want to. I think I passed by that room pretty quick! Dr. Koch (Josh) came up to see Bryson too and it felt so good to hug him and for him to hold Bryson. Bryson went right to him and let him hold him. It probably helped that he found Josh's pen in his shirt and was eating it. We took pictures with everyone and visited for a little bit. Then they came and found Josh because they needed him for a problem. They came and got April too because someone's heart rate was really high. It just keeps moving, life just keeps moving! I set aside a specific gift for a blog I am reading about a little girl with hypoplastic left heart. I got to meet her parents and give them the gift. I felt rattled and weird. I didn't know what to say to them. It reminded me of all the times that people didn't know what to say to us either. It was strange being on the other end. It felt really good to be able to take those donations and to visit everyone. It was something I needed to heal and I feel like that has happened. It happened so slow at first when we came home, and then one day, I just realized that I hadn't thought about it for days, and then weeks and on and on. Healing takes time, it takes time for the joy to overtake the sadness but it is worth the wait!
April also gave us the paperwork to fill out for Bryson's "Beads of Courage". I think I have that program before. It was just starting when we left and so we got some beads but not many. A child gets a different bead for each thing they "encounter" while they are sick. There are many, many different beads for many different things. It is going to take me a while to fill out the paperwork and I think they are going to have to rent a UHaul to get all his beads here but HOW AWESOME is it going to be for him to see those beads when he gets older. He gets a bead for every blooddraw, for every overnight stay, for every xray, for every day intubated. It is going to be amazing! I am going to figure out some creative way to display the beads so that people can see them when they come in the house and ask what they are. He truly is courageous! And he deserves every, single bead!
Oh, I have to tell you the poo story and one more story as well. Bryson has decided, or shall I say "Bryson's body" has decided that if he smells food, he makes poo....every, single time so restaurant visits are more fun than ever. So we have breakfast at the downstairs lobby of our hotel and here comes the inevitable flared nostril and look of total concentration. Might I add that it is really hard to enjoy your food when you know for a fact that the person sitting next to you is taking a dump. It just tends to take away from the magic of the meal. We had already turned in our key so I decided that I would lay back my driver seat and change him there. I unlocked the car and just sat him in the seat. Within a matter of seconds he was on top of the dashboard. The child is like magic! So I figure I better work fast so I lay down the seat, fetch him and lay him down. He starts the fight. He sits back up and that is when I see it......when I laid him down on my seat I unknowingly forced all the fresh poo out of his diaper, up the back of his pants and all over my seat. I just kept screaming, "Oh no! Oh no!" Kory, Riley and Kaleb literally ran 1/2 a mile away on the other end of the parking lot. They had been inside the car only seconds earlier! My mom was laughing so hard I swear she peed herself! Needless to say for a full 15 seconds I was all on my own. I managed to wipe up as much poo out of my seat as possible but was now holding a dangling baby fully clothed with poo all up his back. I cleaned the poo off his back and pulled his pants off. From there the poo trailed all the way down the back of his legs, onto his feet. My mother finally got control of her laughter and managed to unhook the diaper and it fell, with a loud thud at our feet. I have NEVER seen that much poo! NEVER! It had to have been 10 pounds of poo. I am still holding a dangling Bryson and he is looking at me like I am absolutely crazy! We went through an entire box of wipes and had to go inside and ask for a trash bag to put all the wipes and diaper. We went back in and washed our hands in the hotel bathroom. I have NEVER wanted to bathe in a sink so bad in all my life. Bryson rode home with no pants and my car still smells like crap! So lovely!
And after the State Fair we talked Riley into eating a salted, dried cricket. He started gagging and his tongue came out 10 inches from his body I swear and there on his tongue were all the lovely cricket parts: wings, legs. His eyes watered the rest of the afternoon. THAT ONE made me laugh until I almost peed my pants!
Gotta love it!!!!!