Monday in Pictures

We start our days every day this week by getting an xray and then call and leave a message for the nurse about how things are going.  So today after the xray we went to the Florence Y'all Mall.

Waiting in the waiting room for an xray

Playing on the river boat at the mall playground

 

Riding the dragon on the carousel at the mall

Riding Rudolph at the Mall

Riding a horse at the Mall

Shaking the tigers hand

Cincinnati Museum Center

Today we went to the Cincinnati Museum Center.  Several area attractions donate to tickets to hospital for the patients and families who are here from out of town.  Cincinnati Museum is one such attraction and we loved our time visiting the museum.  We spent our time in the Holiday train exhibit and also in the children's museum. 

Driving the fire car

Working at the construction site.  Samuel had just filled his wheelbarrow with rock and he was taking it to the rock pile.

Pounding nails

Sitting in a canoe

Driving the city bus

Dinosaur Lego table

Slide in the treehouse

Crawling to the treehouse slide

Rope bridge in the treehouse

Spiderweb

Jumping onto the spiderweb

Water area

Bug Tunnel

Christmas Train

Warning posted at the loading zone to the Christmas train.  I did read it to Samuel so that he would know the result of standing up on this train!

Trains!

Newport Aquarium

It is cold outside! So instead of going to the zoo we decided to go to the aquarium today and hope that it will warm up perhaps next week so that we can go to the zoo on an evening when it isn't quite so bitter. Here are some of our pictures of the aquarium. We had a wonderful time!

Waiting at the entrance

Playing the drums

PENGUINS!

With Scuba Santa's sleigh

Playing in the frog bog gym

Playing on the frog bog frogs

A Shark! 

This was after we left the aquarium and walked around the little mall.  These guys were at the theater!

Keeping Contact

Being away from Daddy is very hard for Samuel, but thanks to a wonderful co-worker who let us borrow her laptop and to Skype, we have been able to video chat with Daddy at least every evening!  Here is Samuel showing Daddy how to blow up the balloon....a skill that he learned at the doctor's office this afternoon!

Child Life

I love child life specialists in hospitals and Cincinnati has awesome professionals working in their child life and patient advocate departments.  They really care about the patients and the families.  While I attended the lecture this morning, Samuel got to go to the room with the children (he asked Grandma Shari if she would stay with him so she attended that room too!)  Samuel had a great time playing with the tools, and of course, Samuel, aka Mr Safety, wore the goggles while playing! 

The child life specialist also helped so much during Samuel's appointment.  Samuel was doing pretty well until the doctor needed to do the exam and Samuel would have none of that.  The nurse, two interns, and doctor along with myself tried to get Samuel to calm down.  One of the interns even showed Samuel his iPad with a cool game and nothing worked to get Samuel to let the doctor look at him.  Then the child life specialist entered the room and started blowing bubbles then asked Samuel if he would like to try to blow some bubbles.  That was all it took, Samuel settled down.  Popped bubbles that the child life specialist had blown then then blew bubbles back at us.  Technology is wonderful, but sometimes all that is needed is a caring person with a bottle of bubbles to make everything better!

MRI

Samuel had his MRI yesterday.  He was scheduled to go in at 11:30 for anesthesia and then the MRI was to start at 12:30.  He could have any solids after 3:30 AM and then wasn't allowed any liquid after 9:30 AM.  He was so hungry in the morning and was so sad when we couldn't let him eat.  Poor buddy did his best to still be cheerful, but having an empty stomach, being in a new place without Daddy, and having to go to the hospital makes it very hard.  Luckily Grandma is here with us!

When we got to the hospital they got us right back to a room, but there we were told that they were running behind.  We didn't end up going in for anesthesia until 1PM.  They had me hold Samuel as they gave him the gas to make him go to sleep.  That was very hard to do because Samuel didn't want that mask on his face.  So we cried together.  After he went to sleep (only a minute or so after the gas started) I placed him on the bed, gave him a kiss, and went to the waiting room....crying the whole time, of course. Two hours later they called us back into the recovery room.  The nurse was very good and called me back before Samuel opened his eyes so that he would see me when he woke and wouldn't be as nervous.  It went very well!  I love understanding and helpful medical providers!

Crafting

Samuel loves to cut and craft so one of the activities we brought to do while here is make a wish book.  I had been gathering the toy catalogs that have been coming out.  Today we starting cutting out the pictures and pasting them to pages.  We are one our way to having a wonderful wish book!