On Saturday, we spent the day traveling home from Colorado. We finally got home and were getting ready to go to bed at 11pm when we had a horrible scare. Jackson ran away from us when we were getting ready to brush his teeth. He hit a slick spot on our hardwood floors and fell, hitting his head. We immediately picked him up to comfort him and he started to cry.

If you know Jackson, you know “his cry.” He holds his breath for a little while, then lets out a huge, dramatic cry. Except this time, he never let anything out. He held his breath and quickly turned blue. His body went limp in BC Man’s arms and his eyes rolled back into his head. We both freaked out and I yanked him out of his Dad’s arms. I shook him, running into his bedroom while holding him. After about 10 seconds (which felt like an eternity) he opened his eyes and softly cried. We held him tight and rocked him, but he still didn’t look like himself. His face was even paler than normal and there was an eery white-ish blue shade around his mouth and nose.

After we caught our breath we laid him on the bed with us and let him watch Curious George. I called the pediatrician and spoke with the covering nurse on call. She asked if he was walking straight (he was) and if he was talking/making sense (he was). We decided to take him to the emergency room since he lost consciousness but decided against calling 911 since he seemed to be fine now.

I stayed home with Sidney (who is recovering from a cold and doesn’t need to be spending a Saturday night at the ER) while Jackson went with his Dad to the hospital. They checked him out, ran some tests and he checked out ok. Besides a super rude receptionist, the staff was wonderful to my little man.

The doctor on call diagnosed him as having a cyanotic breath-holding spell. According to the hand out he came home with,

“a cyanotic breath-holding spell is an abnormal reflex that allows 5% of healthy children to hold their breath long enough to pass out. Most kids don’t do this deliberately.”

When this happens again (I hope it doesn’t) we are supposed to lie him flat on his back so the blood flows to his brain and put a wet washcloth on his forehead. They also recommend to not make a big deal about it so that he doesn’t learn that holding his breath can get him what he wants. That’s going to be a tough one, because when you see your child’s body go limp and lifeless, the only thing you want do is hold him tight and tell him how much you love him. We have to follow up with our regular pediatrician this week. It’s a good thing I love her because I seem to visit her on a weekly basis now.

The emergency room trip was the grand finale of a great vacation week with family out in Colorado. The beauty of parenting is that once you think you have things figured out, a new curve ball is thrown at you. I’ll let you know what our regular pediatrician says, but until then I will find a CPR class to take (another recommendation from the ER doctor). Life with small children is never dull, is it?

Since then, we’ve grown up as individuals and more importantly, as a couple and family. My husband has become my rock and an amazing father to our two children.

I’m so thankful to be married to my best friend. Happy Birthday, we love you!
I hope your 36th year is the best yet.

We’re having a great time out here and Jackson is starting to love the snow and building “Frosties” aka Snowmen.

I’ve written before how to fly cross country with a toddler. I am by no means an expert, but have flown quite a bit with Jackson P.S. {Pre-Sidney}. I am 3 hours into our Southwest flight from Providence to Denver and I need to tell you how it is much more difficult to fly with 2 small children.

The entire day has felt like a bad sitcom. Our day started with bickering about how many suitcases we needed (I won that one- we needed 4) proceeded by trying to fit those 4 suitcases into the CR-V. The dog ended up having to sit on top of luggage while we drove him to BC Man’s parents for his “dog vacation”. Rex was so happy to get away from us and the chaos he bound into my in-law’s house without even a look back. I swore I heard him say “so long suckers!” under his breath.

The next challenge was getting all those bags into the airport and parking the car, all without losing a child along the way. Our solution was to use the curb-side check in (nicest people ever) while wearing Sidney in my Beco Gemini and BC Man carrying the 4 bags over (plus 2 car seats). We had to leave Jackson in the locked car, 20 feet away, and the poor guy was hysterical when BC Man got back to the car because he thought we had forgot about him.

Sidney and I went to security while BC Man & Jackson parked the car and rode the shuttle back. Security was great and let me wear Sidney and bypass the full body scan. Once we got to the gate it was pretty smooth sailing, until about 30 minutes into our flight. That’s when the chaos began.

We had to pull out the binkies for this flight...

Jackson realized he could kick the seat in front of us AND undo the snack tray with his toes (thanks Mom for teaching him how to use his feet for everyday activities). We tried to proactively explain to the lucky woman in front of Jackson that he was a toddler and we gave her 2 free drink tickets. She took the tickets but didn’t even nod a thanks. That’s when I made less of an effort to curb his seat-kicking. I can’t stand people who don’t know how to say thank you. I did threaten him with time-out and held his feet down, but OMG that was not fun.

Not enthused. At all.

 The next couple of hours are a blur. There were at least 3 explosive poops by Sidney and a few times both kids were hysterically crying. All BC Man and I could do was laugh, but I’m not going to pretend a few tears didn’t fall out of my eyes. We have a little over an hour left in our wifi-less flight and the kids are finally happy. Jackson is in his Daddy’s arms and Sidney is happily napping {finally} in her big brother’s car seat. I really hope we aren’t on a sold out flight coming home and I can finagle a seat for Sidney in her car seat. Baby girl likes her space. Why do flights to vacation never feel like a vacation? It’s days like this I wish I could just hop on my private jet and go somewhere. Speaking of private jet, remember this video of Jackson dancing to like a G6 at 10 months old? Enjoy.

When I was 8 years old, the hot gift at the time was a Nintendo. I clearly remember the day my Mom, Grandma and I went to Toys R’ Us to buy mine. I had never been so excited my entire life. I loved my Nintendo and played it until my thumbs were sore and my eyes were bloodshot. I woke up at 5 am so I could play before school. Not long after, my parents took away the Nintendo because I had turned into a monster. They gave me another chance and the same thing happened, I morphed back into a Nintendo monster. I never got the Nintendo back and I’m still not sure what they did with it.

Fast forward to today and I now see the same problem with Jackson, who is 25 months old. The minute he opens up his eyes in the morning he asks for “Jackson’s iPhone,” which is really an iPod loaded with educational games and videos. It’s set to not have internet access or the ability to delete apps and I thought we were doing a good thing when we downloaded all the educational apps. I set it up for Jackson with the intention of using it on our nearly 5 hour flight to Denver we are taking soon. Since the set up a week ago, Jackson wants to be on it 24/7. 

Any parent knows how a 2 year old can meltdown and the iPod has caused some epic meltdowns. What do I do? Obviously it needs to be very limited in our house since Jackson has my tendency to become a *little* obsessed with technology.

This is my plan so far:

• Limit iPod use to 1 hour per day
• Allow iPod use while he is eating (remember that whole failure to thrive deal? He still doesn’t eat so I figured this might help. He’s still only 23.5 pounds)
• Reduce the use of gadgets in the house overall and have family time after dinner with NO iPhones/Macbooks/iPads allowed

I need some help here, I feel like this is my biggest parenting fail yet. Do your kids struggle with this too? What are your suggestions?

This week was a great week. It started off with our fundraiser for Peter, which went off without a hitch and raised over $10,000 (final number to come next week). Then I was able to relax a little and catch up on my neglected housework, finally getting some laundry done so my family can wear clean clothes. There were a few trips to the pediatrician scattered in there, thanks to a cold, but everyone is on the mend and we are ready for our vacation tomorrow. I can’t wait!

Did you see Baby Gators Den’s new look? If you’re reading this in your RSS reader, click on over and say hi! For the past 2 years I did my own designs (if you can call them that), so for my 2 year blogging anniversary coming up in a couple of weeks I treated myself to a makeover.

Sarah from One Starry Night gave me exactly what I was looking for in a design.I’m thrilled that I simply told her what I was looking for and she nailed it! If you’re ever in the need of a new design, she’s your girl.

Thanks again Sarah and, of course, my good friend Veronica from Crunchy VT Mommy for recommending her

PS. I’m trying to think of something fun to give away to y’all for my 2 year blogiversary– maybe another Alex & Ani bracelet? What do you think?

Valentine’s Day is only a few weeks away and I can’t wait! Some of my favorite memories of Valentine’s Day as a kid were the cards. I loved putting a lot of thought into what my cards were going to be and who I was going to give them to (the entire class room because my Mom wouldn’t let me exclude anyone). I’ve always been a stationery geek so this holiday is right up my alley.

I have written before about how much I love Tiny Prints. I have used them for both kids’birth announcements, holiday cards and I use their greeting card service all of the time. They kindly offered Valentine’s Day Cards for me to review this year, but since neither of my kids are in school yet I would rather give the {50} Classroom Valentine’s Day Greeting Cards to one of you. I know there are lots of Moms who read Baby Gators Den who could use them to make a super cute, personalized card for their kids to hand out at school.

I loved this one because it’s personalized and techy, 2 of my favorite things! There are so many cute cards that you can put your own pictures on and personalize. When I was little we would buy the grocery store cards where you have to rip the the Valentine’s Day cards from a sheet of 4. Things have gotten much more adorable on the stationery front with the invention of the internet.

My craftiness is another story because I grew up in a house with 4 older brothers and sisters so scissors were never available when I needed to do a project. My Mom could always spot my art or science project at school because mine was the one with ripped edges, usually one of the only ones that weren’t finished by parents. At least as an adult I can make all of my stationery look perfect with the help of a computer, no scissors needed.

To win 50 Classroom Valentine’s Day Cards from Tiny Prints, please enter using the Rafflecopter widget below. I will draw a winner on January 28th, 2012. (I bumped up the date a few days because I realized people need to plan for these kinda things, this way if you didn’t win you still have plenty of time to order your own cards!)

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The "Toddler Cave" is ready for a party!

Originally the title of this post was “We are going to the Super Bowl.” We as in the Patriots. Not We as in the Gators Den. People were tweeting me asking how I got tickets. Whoops. I don’t think Sidney is up for a Super Bowl game yet.

For the first time in my 2 year career as a mother, I had to call the after hours service at our pediatrician’s office. Fortunately, our personal doctor (one of 5 in the practice) was on call and knew Sidney’s history of wheezing. She even let me email her a video since I never know if her breathing is too labored or just right. She said that if she got any worse to take her to the hospital, but otherwise she’d see me this morning.

Fast forward to this morning and we have our first snow storm of the year. Murphy’s Law, right? Luckily my CR-V is all wheel drive so Sidney and I bundled up and slid drove to the doctors. She was, in fact, wheezing and  she got her very first nebulizer treatment. The nebulizer is completely new to me since neither I nor Jackson have ever wheezed. She was a great sport and we had to brave the snow again to the Target pharmacy on the way home to get the very last box of the infant dose of Xopenex.  While they filled the script I managed to fill my shopping cart with more crap from Target (side note: why can’t I ever make it out of there spending less than $100?!). Her prescription was filled and we headed home.

She’s now enjoying our first “real” New England snow storm in her swing while the rest of us watch BC Man’s team get beat play a basketball game. My fingers are crossed that the nebulizer will help her breathe easier and kick this virus to the curb. If you’re getting snow today, I hope you’re able to curl up next to the fireplace and relax. We have some crafts on the agenda for Jackson, including making some homemade Valentine’s Day Cards. xo

PS. At 14 weeks and 1 day old she weighs 12 pounds and 12 ounces.