St. Louis Road Trip 2013

A couple of weeks ago Mr. and I packed up the kiddos and headed 750 miles north for miss Amelia's 2nd birthday!  Call us me crazy for taking a 3.5 week old and a 3.5 year old road tripping, but it was probably the easiest trip yet.  Both kids were awesome and no tears were shed the entire 11.5 hours going or coming home.

However, the night before we planned to leave was a different story.  At one point I was pretty certain that we'd have to stay home.  No sooner then we had the car completely loaded and were headed to bed, Jackson woke up screaming.  He was writhing in pain, complaining of his ear hurting.  I was sure that his other ear drum was bursting and assumed another infection.  Nothing that a call into the pediatrician wouldn't fix from the road...and then he completely forgot about his ear and all hell broke loose.

For the next five hours Jackson had terrible stomach cramps every 30 minutes.  We were sure that he was getting the stomach flu and poor baby tried to throw up with all his might, but just couldn't make himself.  We're still not sure what happened or caused the cramping, but it was terrible.

So instead of getting on the road first thing in the morning, Mr. took Jackson to the pediatrician's office.  Like we suspected, he had another ear infection and his stomach was fine by the time they saw the doctor.  We waited for a couple prescriptions to be filled and got on the road around 2pm, which put us arriving at my sister's around 2am...it was a long day!

As with all of our trips to St. Louis, they go by way too fast.

Four kids under the age of four makes for a lot of laundry and a crazy, loud house.  Lots of diapers were changed, alcohol consumed and precious memories were made.

We ventured out a couple of nights for dinner with the whole crew - my mom and Fred were in town as well as my dad and Nancy.  Hello, table for 8 adults and 4 highchairs.  Restaurants loved us, let me tell ya!

Over the holidays, we all promised Jackson that he could make a snowman and snow angels while we were in St. Louis.  Unfortunately, mother nature didn't keep her promise so we had to find some snow for Jackson.  My sister had the great idea to take him snow tubing at Hidden Valley, a little ski resort about a block away from her house.

Hidden Valley is where I learned to ski and spent many weekends and holiday breaks back in high school.  They recently opened the Polar Plunge, so the tubing experience was new to us all.  Yes, all of us.  Tubes for 8 adults and 2 toddlers...we took turns sitting with Ellie and Mattie...we'll wait until next year to send them down the plunge:)

 

Amelia was a little unsure of the whole thing, but by the end of the day she was loving it as much as Action Jackson.  Each person had to be in their own tube, but you could connect as many as four tubes together.  So we held on tight to the kid's tube and had a blast! Jackson was a trip as he covered his eyes and stuck his rain boots straight up in the air as we plunged.  He laughed and my sister and I screamed the whole way down:)

After an afternoon of plunging, the kids took long naps and we got ready to celebrate Amelia's 2nd birthday! Her party was at the St. Louis Carousel at Faust Park.  Our grandparents used to take us to this carousel on Sunday afternoons, so it was just perfect.  They have quite the set up for birthday parties and the kids loved going round and round on the carousel.

I was so glad that we were able to make the trip and be with Amelia for her birthday.  Jackson absolutely adores his 'melia and had to get her a special princess balloon.  It was so sweet to hear him tell her all about her birthday party.  I cannot wait for Ellie and Mattie to be just as close!

Speaking of Ellie and Mattie, what a difference one year can make.  If you remember, it was on Amelia's first birthday that Megan took us all by surprise when she found out she was pregnant.  God works in mysterious ways and here we are, one year later, with our baby girls born just 4 months apart.

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4th of July: St. Louis Vacation

We spent the 4th of July in St. Louis this year, as it has proven to be one of our favorite times of the year to visit. Thankfully, Mr. shares in our love for all things St. Louis around the 4th and I just love being a tourist in my hometown!

Jackson is a huge fan of the new car and DVD system:)

Since the holiday fell in the middle of the week, we took off after work on Tuesday.  The new car made the 750 mile drive so much easier than trips in the past.  Between the extra space and built in entertainment system (for Jackson, of course) it was a smooth drive! We made it about 3/4 of the way Tuesday night and spent the night just South of the Missouri state line.  I found a brand new Holiday Inn for us to stay and we all woke up feeling refreshed and ready to celebrate on the 4th!

We made it to my sister's house just in time to pack coolers and re-load the cars to head to downtown St. Louis for the airshow and fireworks.  My dad and his girlfriend met up with us downtown and we all spent a HOT afternoon together.  The heat was so intense that my mom and step-dad got us a hotel room to lounge in between the airshow, dinner, and fireworks.  To say it was a lifesaver would be a complete understatement.  The high reached 110 degrees that day and we all needed a place to escape the heat.

Jackson and Amelia equally enjoyed the airshow and the firework display later in the evening and were just as happy as can be!

Thursday was certainly a day of recouping for all of us as the heat exhaustion started to set in.  We tried to stay cool inside my sister's house for the majority of the day.  I worked in Amelia and Ellie's closets organizing pretty girl clothes.  And my mom and sister made shopping lists of things we needed to complete Amelia's big girl room and preparing the nursery for Miss Ellie's arrival.

That evening the guys took Jackson to his first Cardinal's baseball game! Jackson was in heaven with his daddy, Uncle Shorty, Pop and Papa.  And just minutes after Mr. bought Jackson a Cardinal's baseball my brother-in-law caught a real game ball for him! Talk about a fun night at the ballpark:)

Friday was another fun filled day playing tourists, complete with trips to both Grant's Farm and the Zoo...in 112 degree heat.  Thank goodness, Megan stayed home to keep cool, 'cause this barely pregnant momma was about ready to die from the heat and pure exhaustion.  But, seeing Jackson called down to feed "Bud" the elephant during the Elephant show at Grant's Farm was well worth the heat.  My mom is pretty well known for her ability to arrange such special treatment, and the elephant show was no exception!

Loli & Jackson feeding the goats

Jackson and the Shetland pony at Grant's Farm

Amelia & Jackson with the camel

Amelia, Loli, Pop, & Jackson with Mr. Camel...seconds before he spit in Loli's beer!

Jackson feeding 'Bud' the elephant a cantaloupe:)

my big boy with his "dirty" hand from the elephant

Later that night at the Zoo, Jackson trying to talk to "happy feet"

Our last day in St. Louis was just as enjoyable as the first.  The guys took both Jackson and Amelia back to the Zoo since we missed seeing most of the animals the night before due to the time.  They ended up seeing nearly every animal and spending most of their day there (in the heat again)! Then on the way home they stopped at a bike shop to get Jackson a big boy bike.  The rest of their afternoon was spent teaching Jackson how to ride and then swimming - big surprise!

As for us girls, we had a delightful afternoon lunch and spent the day shopping.  No kids, no worries, just my mom and my sister.  Besides the heat, nothing could have been better! We completed both Amelia and Ellie's rooms and even managed to get some ideas for baby Wilson 2.0's nursery and checked out double strollers. 

 We finished off the vacation with another amazing dinner before heading back to my sister's to sadly pack for our trip home.  Crazy to think that our next trip to St. Louis will be to meet baby Ellie!

The drive home was as easy as can be.  We stopped twice and rented Jackson movies from Red box and made it home before dark! Now, I'm just hoping this drive stays as nice and comfortable when we have two kids in the backseat:)

*Jackson's shirts made courtesy of L.M.N.O.P. Embroidery & Gifts
**Jackson's bracelet is an emergency contact/ID bracelet
***Jackson's necklace is his dogtag/ID from Disney with our contact information
Yes, I'm super paranoid about Jackson getting lost in big crowds!

 

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St. Louis Trip - Summer 2011

It's taken me a few days to get back to posting about our summer trip to St. Louis, as our trip getting there was cause enough for a vacation!

Jackson and I made it back to my sister's house pretty late into the evening, and it was even later by the time I was able to get Jackson settled and asleep. I made a mistake of letting him sleep with me while we were gone, and it's making the big boy bed transition this week harder than it should be.  But, he was sick and has outgrown the pack and play - and well it just felt right at the time.

No sooner then I rested my tired eyes for a couple of hours of sleep, the sun was shining and we were woken up with some sweet cuddles from little Miss Amelia and our vacation officially began.  In true Kerns (our maiden name) fashion, we drank our coffee and cuddled our babies for a good hour on the couch before it was time to shower and pack up again!

As if our travels the night before weren't bad enough, we had to cram in the car for a 3 hour drive to the Lake of the Ozarks to boat with my dad and Mr., who had gone up the day before to get the boat ready for us.  Thank goodness my little butt fit in between two car seats, or I would have been strapped to the roof of the car:)

We made it to the lake a little after noon and it was so good to see Mr. and my dad! We spent the rest of the afternoon on my dad's boat, trying to entertain Jackson and keep him happy...between the diaper blow outs, the horse fly attacks, and running out of diapers...we didn't make it too long.

Sunday was a much better day all around.  After a very rough night, Jackson was starting to feel better and the weather was beautiful.  We took the boat out to lunch and shopped a little before heading back to St. Louis for the rest of our visit.

Monday came and went way too fast! Mr. had to work, so I spent the day shopping and lunching with my sister and the kids.  That afternoon we had an hour to kill before taking Mr. back to the airport, so we made a quick trip to the Zoo! Maybe one of my favorite things to do for free in St. Louis!

Who needs a double stroller?!? :)

We ran through and saw as many animals as we could.  Jackson was amazing by the hippos and elephants - his expressions were priceless!

Mr. made it safely back to Louisiana, and I had one last morning with my sister so we went to the park.  The weather was so so nice in comparison to the oppressive heat we've had lately.  We got some great pictures of our Big Fish and Lil Fish and wore Jackson out before our flight home!

My dad works at the airport, so he took Jackson around to see lots of big planes before we boarded our flight.  Poor little dude still can't figure out that he's on a plane, but that will come soon enough:) And thank goodness, we made it home without any problems!

And because I'm true to my word, I told Jackson that if he'd stay in bed all night last night I would take him to the beach today...so we're heading to Blue Mountain Beach after work today to meet my in-laws:)

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Jackson and the terrible, horrible, very bad day

If I could redo a day in our lives, I think last Friday would totally be one of them...

It all started a few weeks ago, when we all got sick on our anniversary. Par for the course, as soon as Jackson finished up his antibiotics he got sick again. We went to his allergist and he was given the official label of an asthmatic toddler. Jackson got another round of steroids to help him breath, but besides his nebulizer medicine - there wasn't much else to do. He has allergies and asthma and we live in South Louisiana.

Fast forward to last week. Jackson was no better, no worse. Just totally irritable and throwing fits left and right. I tried to remind myself that I'd be cranky too if I couldn't breath. We counted to 10 a lot and drank lots of wine after bedtime.

Thursday night was unbearable. Jackson cried from the time I picked him up from school until he finally passed out around 9. During his bath the cries turned in to screams and shaking from pain. I could not figure out what was causing him so much pain. He wouldn't even let me wash the shampoo out of his hair...and that's when I saw it.

Jackson had a marble sized lump behind his left ear and it was red and tender to the touch.

right after Jackson's bath, when I first noticed the lump

I took this pictures and sent it to my mom and mother-in-law, who were both as dumbfound as I was. We couldn't tell if it was a bite or a bruise - certainly the farthest thing from what he was diagnosed with!

Around midnight, Jackson was sleeping but momma was up worrying...

Of course, the timing of this lump couldn't have been any worse. We were flying to St. Louis Friday afternoon and Mr. went up for work the day before us. I had an out of town meeting all day on Friday, that I would have canceled had I known what was about to happen...

I called Jackson's pediatrician first thing Friday morning and arranged for my mom to take Jackson to have his lump looked at. I went on with my boss to Baton Rouge and met with a client all morning. We took a quick break at noon and I had numerous missed call from not only my mom, but two doctor's offices as well.

Thank God my mom is so well connected with the medical community where we live, she took him to a few doctors Friday morning to address the multiple issues with Jackson.

The mysterious lump behind Jackson's ear was diagnosed as mastoiditis, which means that he has such a bad ear infection, the infection went into the bone behind his ear and the lump was his bone. The link has much more information about what it actually is.  Serious shit.

Jackson never ran fever or tugged at his ears, and never had drainage.  We've had no trouble with his ears since he got tubes last December.  Jackson was given an antibiotic shot, another round of steroids, and two additional antibiotics that he takes orally for 10 days...we're averaging at least one massive diaper blow out a day.  Oh and if you've lost count, that would be his third round of steroids this month!!!

On top of the mastoiditis, Jackson has an ear infection, server sinus infection, and tonsillitis.  So that nasty eye drainage and "allergy eyes" were because his sinus were so infected, not because his allergies were acting up - thanks Mr. Allergist for missing the boat on that one! And now his ENT wants to talk about taking out his tonsils...it's always something...

If you're still reading this post, our day doesn't get much better after this.  This all happened before noon.

After excusing myself from my meeting to call everyone back, my boss agreed that we needed to end our meeting early so that I could see about Jackson.  So nice right?!? Well it's a darn good thing we left when we did.  Our hour ride home took nearly three hours because of road construction!

Did I mention that we had a 5 o'clock flight to catch - yep, we came dangerously close to missing our flight...until it got canceled! So between seeing about my sick baby, picking up all of his medications, now I had to call the airline to see what the heck we were supposed to do!

Since our flight was canceled due to mechanic issues, they were able to put me on another flight with a different airline.  Great news, I had an extra hour to get to the airport and I'd get in to St. Louis a little earlier!  In theory, this was great news.  The reality was that our connecting flight in Houston was delayed almost 5 hours.

Does he remind you of Dennis the Menace - he should!

If you've never spent 5 hours in an airport with a severely sick child, totally jacked up on steroids, running wild - all while trying to keep you bags in tow and not lose your shit - well then consider yourself blessed!

Thankfully, Jackson was so worn out that he slept the whole way to St. Louis and I was able to recharge as well.

We finally made it to my sister's house in St. Louis around 1AM...more on that next!

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