Labor Day Camping Trip with Friends

For Labor Day weekend, we joined the Davis, Webster, and Newmeyer families for a camping trip.  I had started school the week before, so I did very little planning and pretty much just showed up exhausted with a scratchy voice.  They arrived on Friday night, but we waited until Saturday morning to make the trek down to San Diego's Sweetwater County Park. 

 

The weekend happened to be hotter than hot, so we were all pretty desperate for shade.  After hanging out for awhile, we drove into Lakeside (20 minutes away) to borrow the Buxton's pop-up and stop by Grandma Kay's for a short visit.  The drive gave Andrew time to take a good nap, but I forgot to take a single picture.  Both Tawni and Racheal took pictures are wrote great blogs about the trip back a month ago when we went (seriously, school consumes everything about my life).

 Photos starting on Sunday morning :)

Andrew and Elijiah found many interesting rocks to throw at each other!

 Just chilling in the big chair before it got too hot!

We had two sites, one for hanging out and eating and one for all our tents (we are light yellow on the left, Davis' are red, and Websters and orange).

 Mommy and Andrew playing!

 Dave and I took Reese, Jordan, and Andrew for a walk on the grass (seriously, if your site was one of the ones that backed up to this grassy park, this campground would be perfect in every way).  Jordan and Andrew had a lot of fun running after each other; Jordan loves Andrew, but she quickly decided that Reese was even better than Andrew.

 The other perk of this camp ground is the water splash park.  It's $3 a kiddo unless you're camping and then it's free.  It opens at 10 am and we were there and ready (it was already 91 degrees at that point).  Andrew immediately got wet and started playing in the water.

 Taylor and Nate

 Andrew yelling at Sam as he attempts to spray him (Sam just got Andrew over and over again).

 "Come on Dad, look at how cool this rainbow sprayer is!"

 "I'm going to give you a hug and get you all wet Mommy."

 Right next to the water park it a play structure.  Most of the kids spent more time here than in the water.  Sammy flew down the yellow slide (wet swim trucks will do that to you).

 Elijiah

 Back at camp, the little boys (Andrew, Nate, and Elijiah) spent a great amount of time watching Sophie (5 months old).  It was pretty funny.

 We tried to take a nap in the hot tent, but instead we just had Andrew steal the camera to take pictures of his own feet.  We ended up strapping him into his car seat for a drive/nap.  I slept in the backseat too :)

 After everyone took naps (and drove around Bonita to make it happen), we hung out with snacks under the pop-up (seriously, we would have died without it).

Racheal and Elijiah

 Tawni and Nate

 Matt with Sophie and Dave with Andrew

 Baby Sophie

 This picture makes me laugh.  Nate was on my lap first, playing and drinking with his squirt gun, but when Andrew saw that, he had to join us too.  Nate wasn't too happy to share.  His dirty looks captures it :)

 Feeding eight adults, six kids, and a baby at one time was a challenge.  Many props to Dave for cooking all the hamburgers and hot dogs on the fire.  Tawni and I usually prepared all the food inside the bug tent while Racheal watched all the kids outside.  We found another amazing use for our clip on high chair--it kept Andrew in one place!

 The rock base on our campsite wasn't the best for the little kids, so there was a lot of handholding.  Andrew face planted into the rocks several times, but thankfully we only had one small injury/scratch/bruise on his forehead.

 On Sunday night, we went to watch the bird lady show off her predator birds.

Jordan and Taylor watched on Justin's back

 Sam (in blue) and Andrew (on my lap) were very interested in the white barn owl as it hung up side down and flapped his wings.

 Sleeping at night wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  Our air mattress pretty much fills out entire tent, so Andrew slept in between us or on top of me for most of the night.  Dave took this photo Monday morning.

 Although we'd planned to be there most of the day on Monday, it was too hot.  We packed up and left the campground by 9 am.  As we packed, Andrew and Reese watched Mickey Mouse clubhouse on the iPad.

I love camping.  Next time, I think we'll go either early summer or later October so that it's cooler and I'm not in the first week of school haze. 

Tourist Day-Ayala, Pismo, San Luis Obispo

 On one of our days at Great Grandma's we went off on an all day adventure.  We started at Ayala Beach to see the sea lions and walk around the drive on pear.  Andrew was very, very excited about the sea lions!

 The coolest part of this location is that the sea lions and people are totally "free" to interact.  The gate above isn't locked and anyone can do down the stairs to where they are laying.  Dave is the only one in our family who attempted to get close, but came back immediately when they started barking at him!

 After the pier, we went to "The Farm" per Grandma's recommendation.  It was very cool!  The rooster roaming around immediately caught Andrew's attention.

 The goats were a bit scary at the beginning, that is until Andrew saw a cat and took off after it.

When it came to feeding the animals, Andrew was initially quite scared.  He quivered and said, "no" in his firm voice, yet he still tried to pick up the food and give it to the animals.  He would sort of hold it out about a foot away from their mouth and drop it.  The billy goats were pretty aggressive and scared him more.

 The lamas were nice and calm and he actually fed thim over and over again.  This one ended up getting pretty much our entire bag of food ($0.25).  As you can see from the below picture, Andrew was very serious as the food changed hands/mouth, but he loved that the lama ate it.

 The baby cows were adorable.  Andrew was sort of mooing at them.

 While we polished off an entire Fresh Apple pie, Andrew watched the horse rides with his noes and forehead pushed against the glass.

 After "The Farm" we made a stop at the Madonna Inn while Andrew slept and Grandpa read his book.

 We ate lunch at a great BBQ place and split up for the afternoon.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Melissa went back to Great Grandma's house and we headed to the San Luis Obispo's Children's Museum.

 

No more snake tongue!

If you missed the back story, you can read it here.

We got up bright and early this morning to get to Kaiser by 6:30 am.  Andrew was a happy camper like normal and smiled at everyone he saw.  We started in admitting, then went immediately to pre-op where they weighed him, took his pulse ox, temp, etc and gave him some medicine to help him relax (Tylenol with codeine and a two others I didn't recognize).  In the 20 minutes this was happening, he'd already "met" about 15 nurses and doctors charming them with smiles, high fives, and bumps.  There were several seniors around us having out patient surgery done and I'm sure they were probably annoyed at the amount of attention Andrew was getting.  He was given a doctor teddy bear that he held on to tightly. 

Anyway, he was happy and being fun.  Dave and I were calm.  After talking to the surgeon and anesthesiologist, Andrew was just barely getting tired looking but it was time to go.  He willingly went with the RN without tears (I have just a brave boy) and we went back to the waiting room at 7:30 am.

A very long 15 minutes later, we were taken to recovery.  When we walked in Andrew was up and wiggling around in the RN's arms trying to get down.  He was happy to see us, but irritated that the pulse ox thing was still on his toe.  We did our best to distract him (dog app on Dave's phone, apple juice, the iPad) and keep he calm.  It was clear that the "drugged" sensation was completely worn off because he honestly just wanted off my lap to walk/run/climb. 

We talked to both doctors about his surgery.  They reported he was perfect, only needed the mask (vs. the IV) to go to sleep, and now has three stitches in his tongue to put it back together.  As much as he may find the snake look cool as a seventh grader, this mommy is glad it is back together! We were given discharge instructions (liquids only today, soft diet for Thursday, soft diet/normal food if he'll take it after that, Tylenol every 4 hours for pain, don't let him play with it) and out the door by 8:30. 

As he was getting in the car seat, he saw a baggie of Cheerios and quickly let us know he was hungry NOW.  He polished off a baby food pouch within 30 seconds and then finished an apple sauce packet, but really wanted the Cheerios and was mad at me that I wouldn't let him have them.

When we got home, he was still wobbly, but showed no signs of slowing down and was climbing onto furniture within two minutes of walking in the door.   This video of Andrew and Reese is from 10 am (2.5 hours after surgery) just so it's clear that he's "good."

First major owie!

FYI: there are some nasty pictures of Andrew's tongue at the end of this post (in the second collage)--if you don't like to see it, stop at the end!

It was bound to happen with the crazy shenanigans that Andrew pulls on a daily basis, but I wasn't prepare for it.  On Sunday, after Disneyland, Dave and Melissa were napping, Andrew was playing calmly with his toys, and I blogged about our trip.  Andrew was getting bored so we had a snack, watched Yo Gabba Gabba and tried to relax in the air conditioning.  Andrew kept climbing into the low, squishy recliner and leaning towards the entertainment center and either Melissa or I would tell him to sit on his bottom (we probably say this 1,000 times a day) and he would.  All of a sudden, an ear piercing scream and cry have Melissa and I up immediately and grabbing Andrew.  Although we were both there, neither of us saw exactly what he did, but I'm assuming he tried to reach the X Box stuff and went head first into the corner of the entertainment center. 

When Melissa picked him up, there was a lot of blood immediately.  It was literally pouring out of his mouth.  We ran into the kitchen with him, sitting him on the counter and tried to stop/clean up some of the blood with a wet paper towel.  It was flowing (so much that Melissa's hand was covered, running down her arms, splattered on the floor and counter) and he'd let us no where near his mouth.  His chin was clearly cut too, but the blood was from inside.

Dave gave him some Tylenol, we bribed him with a otter pop, he continued to scream and bleed.  Finally, he opened his mouth enough so that I could see his tongue and it was pretty clear that it was severed.  I panicked a little bit, but Melissa kept me calm.  Dave called the Kaiser nurse line and left a message. After 45 minutes it was still bleeding and he was still crying; I decided we were going in without waiting for the nurse to call back.  As we pulled into the parking lot at Kaiser, she called back and told us to come immediately and they were waiting for us.  I'm not sure if Andrew was overwhelmed, tired, drugged, or a combination, but he slept in the car and in the waiting room at urgent care.  He was covered in blood and stunk to high heavens.

When we went in, it was pretty clean immediately to the nurses and doctor that he needed stitches/glue on his chin, but they were a bit stumped on his tongue.  The policy is basically "do nothing" because it heals on its own, but they'd never seen one quite as bad as Andrew's. They came in and out of the room several times; thankfully Andrew was relatively calm and happy to play with daddy and his toys that I had the piece of mind to grab on our way out the door.  He still didn't want anyone to touch his mouth and bloody drool was flowing; when he cried, it really flowed.  They told us that they were going to call "plastics at Fontana" to figure out what to do, but thankfully, Dr. Perez, one of the Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctors, was close by and was willing to stop in and check it out.  He got there about 10 minutes later and examined Andrew.  At that point, we realized he also had two indents on the top pallet of his mouth.  Dr. Perez was reassuring that it should close on its own and that it was okay to bleed (and could continue for up to 24 hours).  He scheduled a follow up for us to see him today (Tuesday morning) so he could make sure it was healing and decide if it needed stitches.
We had a rough night.  On Monday, Dave stayed home with Andrew (he was supposed to go to daycare) so I could get my classroom moved.  Andrew was pretty normal, just a bit more whiny and less willing to eat than normal.  He napped poorly and slept poorly last night too.  I ended up sleeping with him from 2-6:30 am.

This morning, Dr. Perez checked Andrew out and decided that Andrew does need to have some stitches to reattach the flap on his tongue.  He mentioned several times that would probably heal on its own in several weeks, but because it was healing "slower than he expected" stitches would probably be the best bet.  He also said that most likely Andrew was "playing" with it in his mouth causing the slow healing and random blood we're still seeing.
His surgery will be tomorrow at 7:30 am (we check in at 6:30) and will be preformed by the chief of ENT.  Depending on how Andrew cooperates, the surgery could last anywhere from 10-30 minutes, but they do have to put him to sleep with anesthesia (can you imagine trying to sew the tongue of a 16 month old while they are awake?!?).  There is a bunch of very gross medical stuff the doctor started to explain to me today, but I totally couldn't handle it so I asked him to stop (he started with, "so we'll go in and re-cut his tongue...), but basically the surgeon wants to "get in and get out" and his dissoluble stitches will be gone in 7-10 days and his tongue should be back to normal.

STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE THE ACTUAL INJURY

which I totally would not want to see!

Dave took these about 24 hours after it happened.  The white part you see is actually a good thing according to the ENT and identifies that healing is occurring.  You can tell on the left (Andrew's right) side it is detached flap.  The right is healing from a puncture type bite.