Limping Ethan

On Wednesday afternoon Ethan woke from his nap crying. He does this about 10%of the time, for no obvious reason, so we didn’t think much of it, but he was pointing to and touching his right leg. For the rest of the afternoon he limped around the house.

Thursday he was still limping, so in the afternoon we took him to the local medical centre. The doctor examined him and couldn’t find anything wrong, except for the fact that he was limping. No swelling, no redness, no bruising, no tenderness. Ethan is otherwise perfectly healthy, eating, drinking, playing even running (with a limp) and his temperature is normal. The doctor didn’t know what was wrong, so he sent us for an x-ray.

Friday morning, he was still limping. He even cried a bit when he stumbled, and we assume it’s because it hurt his poor leg. At 11am Ethan got his pelvis, right hip and entire right leg, all the way down to his toes x-rayed. He cried during the first x-ray, but when he realised it didn’t hurt, he was reasonably co-operative. About 4pm we took him back to the doctor with the x-rays. The doctor said the x-rays looked normal, and he did not know what was wrong….. he advised us to take Ethan to the hospital for a second opinion and further testing.

About 5:30pm we arrive to the hospital. Ethan was seen by the triage nurse and given a category 5, which is the lowest priority, least life threatening category. And so we waited….. and waited ……. and waited. Ethan was very good about waiting. He ate his dinner, watched The Wiggles on the iPod and played with the vending machines! He was tired, as he didn’t get a nap today, but he coped VERY well (for a 21month old toddler). We had to wait so long as they were very busy, we saw lots of other kids come in, and get seen before us. 2 kids with arms in slings, a few babies looking like they had high temperatures and 2 kids with head wounds…….

About 9pm we FINALLY got seen by a doctor. Ethan was very co-operative. He let the doctors look at his legs, and he walked up and down the examination room and showed off his limp. The doctors were stumped. They could not explain his limp. One doctor told us that sometimes kids get limps without a cause, and it goes away in a few days…. He suggested we do a blood test (to rule out infection) and come back on Monday morning for them to see how he was progressing……..So, Ethan got some Angel gel (local anaesthetic cream) on his arm and we waited another 45 mins for it to work. They did the blood test, and Ethan was EXCELLENT! He didn’t even flinch when they put the needle in, and they got enough blood first go! He was such a good boy. We were clever enough to have his favourite DVD playing to distract him :)

After the blood test we came home and out our tired boy to bed at about 10:30pm (normal bed time is 7pm). We’ll see how he goes over the weekend and go back Monday…..

Swimming Lessons

This morning the boys went to their first official swimming lesson. We had a mixed reaction. . . . . . . .

Ben loved it, he laughed and splashed and had a great time participating in all the activities.

Ethan wasn’t happy. He was very whingey and kept shaking his head whenever he was asked to participate. He fell and grazed his knee a few days ago, then while swimming, he knocked it and took the scab off the top and it started to bleed. I think his poor sore knee was bothering him a lot of the time.

I hope swimming lessons will be more fun for him next week.

HAIR – At last!!

I’m sure you’ve all noticed that our little Benny has been quite a baldy since he was born. He was actually born with hardly any hair at all. His hair has slowly been growing over the past 21 months. He’s had two hair cuts. Both were essentially to cut off his naturally grown mullet. The second haircut also evened up a few longer hairs on top. His hair is still very slow to grow……..

We think a week in the sun has given him a hair growth spurt. Here’s a picture of him a week or so before we went away.

And now…..

Hair growth spurt right?!?!?!?!

I think he’s grown about as much hair in the last week than he has in his entire life!!!!

I’m interested to see what happens next….I’m curious to see what colour it’s going to be when it thickens out. Nana (Sal’s mum) has been telling us for months that he’s going to be a red head, as he’s got red eyebrows. Sometimes his hair looks quite ginger, then other times it looks quite blonde. It all depends on the light. Maybe a strawberry blonde?!?!?!?!

 

 

Also, Ethan’s hair continues to get lighter each month. Here’s a shot of his hair today. He’s starting to look quite blonde in the sunlight.

Trip to Queensland – 21 months old

We’ve just spent the last week taking a road trip to Surfers Paradise in Queensland (QLD). We spent 6 nights away from home. One at Coffs Harbour on the way up, 4 nights in Surfers Paradise, QLD and one at Port Macquarie on the way home. For our American friends who aren’t familiar with Australian geography, Surfers Paradise is a little like a cross between Orlando and Miami in Florida. It’s beaches, theme parks and sun. It is about 10 hours drive north from our home and we made the trip in 2 days each way.

We packed up the car on Saturday evening, and left on Sunday morning about 9am. Our first stop was in Taree for a snack and change of clothes. Apparently giving an almost 2 year old a drink of water in the car leads to 2 wet boys!

Ethan and Mummy (Sal)

Ben eating his hotdog.

Ethan with his hotdog.

After another stop of two, and MANY MANY Wiggles, Dora, ABC Kids and Shaun the Sheep DVD’s we made it to Coffs Harbour at about 3pm. After checking into our resort, we headed straight to the pool for a swim…

Ethan, Ben and Mummy (Sal) relaxing by the pool

Poor Mummy getting splashed by Ben, while Ethan pretends to mind him own business

Ethan, Ben and Mummy checking out the mini waterfall under the bridge

Ben and Mumma (Tracie)

Ethan, Ben and Mumma

Ethan

Ethan, answering my question “Where is the sky?”

Ben and Mumma (Tracie)

Ben and Ethan

Ben, Mumma and Ethan – E’s a little bit sick of me taking his picture at this point!

After a swim, we has a spa bath in our room, then ordered dinner and went for a walk on the beach while they made our dinner.

Ethan and Mummy (Sal) on the beach

Ben and Ethan watching the waves

Mumma (Tracie) and boys watching the waves 

Uh-oh, watch out for the water!

Ethan and Mumma – E is picking up some stones on the beach 

Then a little walk around the resort looking at the pretty grounds.  

Ethan

View of the ocean from our room

View from our room.

The next morning we packed up and drove the remaining 4-5 hours to Surfers Paradise. Along the way we saw barge that was transporting cars across a river. We decided to hitch a ride and the boys though it was good fun going on a boat on the water!!!

We stopped for lunch at a road side cafe called Macadamia Castle. It was VERY hot and humid and we didn’t really enjoy it, but the boys had fun playing in the little park…

Ben and Ethan in a little toy house

Ethan and Ben

Ethan

Ben – waiting for lunch. Hot and tired….

Ethan 

Back on the road, with more kids DVD’s we made it to Surfers Paradise mid-late afternoon. We were very happy with our room and loved the view of the rivers.

Ben in our room at Surfers. Ben’s holding his favourite teddy/doll. It looks like a little baby, wearing a little hat. It plays a short lullaby type tune when you squeeze it’s chest. Ben LOVES this little dolly, he always takes it to bed at the moment, and will not sleep without it. This dolly has only been his favourite for about a month or two. The boys were given this dolly before they were born by some kind person at our baby shower.

View from our room

Sunset from our room one of the nights…

Below are a few random pictures from in our room during the week.

Ethan and Mumma (Tracie) relaxing on our bed watching Dora the Explorer

Ethan – tired boy watching TV and drinking water

Ben – cheeky boy creating mischief!

Ben and Ethan watching TV before bed 

Ben. See behind him on the clothes line….. He picked up two singlets and pegged them on the line. If you look closely, you’ll see all the pegs are upside down, He couldn’t work them properly, but he jammed them on upside down and they did the same job! He had a WONDERFUL time with the pegs the whole week. His favourite game was to break the peg, say “uh-oh” then run to Mumma (Tracie) and give it to her to fix it, just so he could break it again!

We had 3 full days in Surfers Paradise. We spent about 4 hours (10-2pm) of the first and third day at Dreamworld. Dreamworld is a theme park with many “worlds”. Primarily, we went to Dreamworld so we could take the boys to Wiggles World. We had told the boys we were taking them to Wiggles world, but they didn’t really know what that meant. When we rounded the corner and they got their first glimpses of Wiggles world….. they were so excited. They pointed and babbled excitedly about all the different things they could see. It was amazing to see their excitement. It makes the whole trip so worthwhile!

Once in Wiggle world, our first stop was the Big Red car ride. Below is Ben and Mumma (Tracie) heading for the Big Red Car. Ben is so excited!

Wiggle House

Entrance to Big Red Car ride T

he car we got to ride in….

On the car ride, driving through The Wiggles’ house.

The car stops several times, and the Wiggles on the TV’s talk to us.

Then we meet Wags the Dog

Ethan in the car

Then we meet Henry the Octopus

And Dorothy the Dinosaur  Then the ride was over. Before we even got out of the car, Ben was saying “again, again” went on the Big Red Car 3 times!! The boys LOVED it!

Also in Wiggles World, we went on Dorothy’s rosy tea cup ride.

Ethan, Mummy (Sal) and Ben in the teacup 

Ethan, Mummy and Ben

The boys also got the opportunity to meet their favourite characters. Below is Henry the Octopus, Mumma, Ethan, Ben and Dorothy the Dinosaur.

Ben, talking to Captain Feather Sword and Wags the Dog

Ethan having lunch

Ben having lunch, and examining his new Wiggle world cup. 

Also in Dreamworld on that first day, we went to the Animal Park and the boys saw some Kangaroos and Koalas.

Checking out the Kangaroos

We also found a train the the boys thought was great. Below is Mumma (Tracie) and Ben peering out of out the train window.

Ethan in the Train

Ben and Ethan in the Train. 

On the third day, we spent most of our time in Dreamworld’s White Water World. Of course, the highlight was Wiggle Bay, a water play area designed for toddlers and little kids.

 

Ethan, Ben and Mumma (Tracie) at Wiggle Bay

Ben – off to explore….

Ethan – not too sure about all this water spraying everywhere!  

Buckets of water that tipped over randomly.

Ethan

Run Ethan Run!! – Mumma and Ben in the background

Mumma and Ben heading towards the water slides

Ben going down the water slide. Our little dare devil LOVED the water slide, and must have gone down 10+ times! Mummy’s ready to catch him at the bottom. Each time he got to the bottom he said “AGAIN” as loud as he could!!

Ethan, Mummy (Sal) and TIRED Benjamin exhausted after all the playing in the water!

Each day after all the fun of Dreamworld the boys fell asleep in the car on the 20min drive back to the hotel. Poor tired boys!

Benjamin

Ethan

Poor tired Mummy – pitty she had to drive!

On the second day, we had a quieter day. Too many exhausting days in a row are no good for little boys. They do not cope very well. They need a quiet day :) On our quiet day, we went for a walk down to the beach, and along the foreshore. We found a nice park and the boys had fun playing…..

Mummy (Sal) and Ethan 

Ethan

Ethan

Ben

Ben

Ethan

Ethan

Ben

Ben and Ethan

Ethan

Ethan

Ben and Ethan

Ethan

After our walk, the boys had a LONG nap. Due to all the driving and going to Dreamworld, this was their first real nap in days.They defiantly needed a good nap!

Ben 

Ethan

Friday, we leave Surfers Paradise and drive for most of the day. The day starts out quite slowly. We had good intentions to leave about 8-9am and get on the road early. Unfortunately our tired little boys had other ideas. They slept in till 8:30. We left around 10am, and as soon as we got on the road we realised our DVD player was broken!!! MAJOR catastrophe!!! Ben was whinging already. We stopped by the first major shopping centre we could find, in search of a new DVD player. We would rather spend $200 on another DVD player, than listen to them whinge in the back seat for 10 hours all the way home!!! We could not find a DVD player that would play American DVD’s (we have lots, so we need a multizone player). After about an hour, we decided to see if we could get our other player fixed. We knew it was a power supply issue, so we went to an electrical store. Much to our surprise, the clever guys at the counter decided it had blown a fuse, and they fixed it in 5 mins. It cost us TWO DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!    YAY!!!!!! (shame we didn’t do that an hour earlier!! )It was closer to lunch time by the time we got going. It felt like a long slow trip, with quite a few stops along the way. The most fun (according to the boys) was ice cream from McDonalds. Ethan is quite neat, and didn’t make much mess…

Benjamin on the other hand is a very messy eater, and made a wonderful mess with his ice cream 

It was about 6pm by the time we arrived at Port Macquarie. We knew we were staying at a fancy hotel this time, but we were totally blown away by the size of the apartment room we had.

The living room

The dining room

Master bedroom (second bedroom where the boys slept was almost as big) 

Looking from one end of the apartment to the other.

We had a 180+ degree view of the water from our HUGE balcony. It was AMAZING. We’d love to go back and stay longer. It was a shame we arrived so late and only stayed one night. We would have loved to stay longer!

That’s the end of our trip. Today we drove home and the boys were very pleased to see all their toys again. They had great fun ‘re-discovering’ so many toys. They also liked being home in their own cots, and went to sleep tonight without a peep! We had such a great time, we’re already trying to work out when our next trip will be!