October 12 = Pumpkin Patch Day

Zachary had today off!  We had planned to go to Gettysburg today but last night, Malia decided she didn't want to sleep so I didn't sleep so instead of going too far away, we stayed local and headed to a pumpkin patch.

Sportin' Dad's hat

Silly girl- eating her pretzels while we packed the car

Liam wasn't a huge fan of staying in the wagon but Malia didn't mind it

They had a little pumpkin house and so naturally, Liam was drawn to it.

Lovin' on momma in the pumpkin house

Liam pulling and Malia pushing - big helpers!

Sunflowers!

Zachary and I picked out two pumpkins but Liam went a different route.

A little too high for my comfort...

We put a sheet down outside and got busy cleaning out the pumpkins.

October 18 = Pumpkin Patch Take Two Day

Zachary had a cool trip he took with his LEAD Program classmates, exploring areas where battles in the civil war were fought- they stayed overnight outside- sounds fun but not something I'd actually want to do.  So my mom and brother came up to help me with the babies and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to take a trip to the pumpkin patch since the last time we went there (see 10/1), didn't turn out quite how we had planned.

Warning: Lots of pictures to follow!

Here's Malia, all ready to go!

So this looks like a preset Windows desktop background but it's the view we had at the pumpkin patch.

The first item on the agenda was the pony ride!  We waited for the smallest pony and one of the staff members put him up on the saddle.  He wasn't sure about this but he was a good sport.

 Then we got to feed some goats!  There was an aggressive one that I fed so that he was distracted which let Matthew help Liam feed one of the nicer goats.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think Liam was a good 'ole farm boy!

Then we went to a mini petting zoo they had set up.  The bunny and the horse were the only ones Liam was really interested in- he wasn't feeling the chickens or sheep.

 

The next stop was the cow train.  I had no clue what that meant before we got there but it ended up being really cute and they had a couple of "cows" that were big enough for the parent to join in for the smaller kids.

 The patience level was waning- Liam's, not mine!  So the last thing we did was a hay ride to the actual pumpkin patch and we picked out a pumpkin just Liam's size.  The whole ride to the pumpkin patch, Liam pulled hay out of the bale he was sitting on.  When we got off and started walking around looking for the perfect pumpkin, he sat in the grass and started pulling grass out of the ground and throwing it to the side. 

Malia was a big fan of the pumpkins!  How cute is she?!

October 1 = Seizure Day

We had a feeling this day would come but it still took me by surprise.  Today was supposed to be a super exciting, fun day.  Zachary had an early day at school so he was leaving as I woke up but I got Malia up, changed and fed and then tackled Liam's morning routine.  We left, on time, for our 45 minute drive to the pumpkin patch!  I had memories of last year's pumpkin patch visit- we got cute pictures out of it and I had fun but Liam was a bit too young to enjoy it himself.  This time, he was going to ride a cow train, whatever that is, and a pony!  We had a ticket to pick out a pumpkin and to take a hay ride.  We got to the pumpkin patch, Malia was in her carrier, Liam was in the stroller- lunch was on the picnic table waiting for us for when we finished the tour and then it happened.  Something made me look down as we were walking towards the tour guide and Malia was having a seizure.  Following Zachary's example from almost 2 years ago, I stayed very calm and told the people around me my baby was having a seizure.  Liam's assistant teacher took Malia from me while I called 911 and while I was talking to the dispatcher, a parent who also happens to be a nurse started attending to her.  The dispatcher was asking me questions that I would, in turn, ask the nurse.  The ambulance got there pretty quickly and we loaded Malia and her car seat onto the ambulance and I drove Liam to Howard County General Hospital.

Funny side story.  As we were waiting for the ambulance I attempted to call Zachary.  His phone was doing random things all by itself and somehow answered itself while he was in class.  The whole class could hear me saying, "Hello?  Hello??" because I heard it pick up but Zachary wasn't talking.  After I hung up, one of the wives of the guys in Zachary's class had texted a group of us wives that I was able to respond to without clumsily trying to assemble a group text of my own and said "Malia just had a seizure and Zachary's not answering his phone.  Can someone get their husband to tell him to call me?"  At this point, all the guys in Zachary's class started looking at him and pointing at their phones trying to motion to him to look at it assuming I had texted him telling him to call me but instead, he thought they were trying to tell him to turn his phone off, that they could hear sound coming out of a phone and it was his.  After a few minutes he put together that maybe they were trying to say something else so he got his phone out and was able to email me and tell me he was on the way even with a very messed up phone.

We got to the hospital and they hadn't done anything yet besides hooking her up to a monitor.  Zachary got there about 45 minutes later and soon after that, they decided to discharge us.  We had told them we have the strongest possible family history of this and that she's going to have another seizure but they basically said if she has another seizure to bring her back in.  As we walked to the car we decided that when, not if, she had her next seizure we would take her to Walter Reed since Liam is established with a neurologist there and both his and Malia's records would be easily accessible being that Walter Reed is a military hospital.  As we were putting the kids in the car, Malia had a seizure.  We hadn't even left the parking lot.  So we stuck with the original plan.  We went home and grabbed some things, dropped Liam off at a friend's house and headed to Bethesda.  My parents left around that time and would pick Liam up from the friend's house and took care of him until we got home after what seemed to be an eternity.

This was Malia in the ER at Walter Reed- it took a while to get admitted but finally we were and she ended up having nine seizures total.  As they did with Liam, they wanted to make sure the cause of the seizure wasn't something scary so they did lots of tests.  Come to find out, Malia is an exceptionally hard blood draw so every time they would take blood, it took multiple tries.  She blew three IVs as well and for the third placement, had to go under anesthesia.  Because of all of this distress placed upon her, her heart rate went through the roof and they decided she needed to be moved to the PICU, convinced that whatever was causing her seizures was also causing the increase in her heart rate.  The stress of multiple IVs and blood draws was too simple of an answer (although it ended up being the right answer).

 In addition to the IVs and blood draws, she also had a CT scan and EEG and an EKG.