An October Like No Other!

Hey all!
Did October cruise by or what? Some big things happened to us this month and it's good to share them with you.

First William started full time at his new daycare. We ended up switching because our other daycare couldn't offer us 5 days a week and we didn't want to expect my dad to keep taking William 1 day a week to make up for it. His new daycare is still in Woodbury and he goes there with one of his little buddies (Enrique who is 12 hours younger than him and a teacher friend's son) and now another teacher's daughter Rylie. He is now adjusted and VERY happy there! It was sad to leave Jan's and we still miss her though!

We REALLY had a great Halloween and totally made up for last year when all 3 of us were suffering from H1N1. Thinking back to that sometimes is mind blowing...it was the first time William was EVER sick and getting through it with Mommy and Daddy being sick was tough! (Who knew that that was just prep for what we were heading towards in that year?)

The Tuesday before Halloween, my mom and I took William trick-or-treating at Kowalski's in Woodbury. They had little stations set up all over the grocery store and I was BLOWN away to see how he knew just what to do. I realized later that he had been playing with a trick-or-treating plastic pumpkin at daycare for weeks, loading it up with little toys etc. so he'd been practicing. At the store he was so happy each time they would put something into his bucket and for the next several days he would dig through, bring us something and wait until we let him have a little taste!

Now for the crazy part of that night... If you remember that Tuesday was the first night of the huge windstorm we had. After trick-or-treating at Kowalski's William and I had to stop at my parent's house to borrow something for Paul. (He was teaching his community ed. pottery class as usual). As William and I arrived home and drove down our alley, we slowly dodged blown around garbage cans only to see our neighbor guys moving some brush near our driveway. Our nextdoor neighbor Rodger said, "You might want to park in my driveway because you are not getting into yours!" I pulled forward to see one of our greatest fears...our neighbor on the other side's enormous Silver Maple tree lost a huge limb in the storm. Of course it fell right on our garage! (If you don't know...Paul has put an enormous amount of work into the garage since we moved here...go back in our blog archives to May 2008 to see where he started from if you are bored).


The AMAZING and lucky part is that the tree fell just 15 minutes after Paul left to go teach his class. It also fell 15 minutes BEFORE William and I got home. Had we not stopped at my parent's house for a small errand, who knows what might have been. All I know is that we both park on the driveway, never in the garage, and the main part of the limb landed right where my car is normally. It also took down our neighbor's main power line, wedged it under the limb, and remained live on the ground for several days.

Immediately the fire department showed up to check out the live wire and to mark off our yeard with yellow tape. I was so in awe of everything happening that my only reaction was, "Can my son see your firetruck?" Ha ha ha! They walked me down the alley to their truck and let William
get in. He was super excited and they even turned the lights on for him. Unfortunately I set my bags and camera down in our yard and didn't get any photos.

We're still wading through that mess with insurance and getting bids for repairs but we know it will all work out.

REAL HALLOWEEN
This year we had 2 fun costumes for William. His real costume was a dragon outfit from Old Navy...it was cuddly, shiny, and adorable! We practiced wearing it a few times the week before and he had fun running around in it growling in it. On Halloween we visited my grandpa Papa Dick and William trick-or-treated there. Then my parents came over and we took William trick or treating around our block. He liked that but his favorite part of the night, was answering the door for all of the trick-or-treaters at our house. He would squeal with delight when he heard their knocks!
William' second costume was purely for Mommy and Daddy's entertainment but was a hit! This summer we found an employee name tag in the parking lot at Target. We just HAD to dress him up as "Eddie." See for yourself!


The big news of the month is that on the same day the tree fell, I took William for his latest finger poke and ANC (Absolute Neutrophil Count). We were wondering what we'd get because he had just had the Flu/H1N1 shot and at this point his system might show any complications from it (if there were any). Instead when the results came in...his ANC was 1,232 ALL ON HIS OWN! This is the first time we have seen this in nearly a year!!! Generally we have been told that 1,500 is the bottom of the normal range, but he is getting darn close! We won't see the Hematologist until late December early January but for now we can't even begin to explain how this makes us feel!

William did make it through a Croup diagnosis which did develop into uncontrollable coughing for two nights called Reactive Airway Disease. After that though he has been doing fairly well. We always have his Nebulizer at home to help out with respiratory issues and although he hates it, we are not afraid to try it when in doublt! We are mindful of all of his sniffles, endless runny noses, coughing all night and other normal kid cold stuff, but for the most part he's been ok. He is happy, playful, and learning new things and new words every day. I'll say from now until forever that I've mistakenly blinked and he turned into a little boy!

Thanks for reading!
Love,
Katie, Paul and Sweet William