Saturday night on the town

Let's start off by saying that everything and everyone is all right. That said, we had our first trip to the hospital last night. I'm sure it won't be the last. Something tells me that we'll be frequent flyers over the years with this one having fallen off (or having been pushed) off of the roof and that one having shoved a peanut up his nose or some such nonsense. Last night it was Allan (Griffith gets a bad rap for being the problem child). Allan hasn't quite settled down with his oxygen since we got home, but he's been doing all right. Yesterday, though, he kept dropping his sats -- the oxygen level in his blood was lower than it is supposed to be. It is supposed to be at 92% or so and his kept dipping in to the mid-to-low 80's, some times in to the 70s and, once, in to the high 60s. We kept having to turn up his oxygen and hold him upright on our chests to get him back in to the range that he needed to be in. About 7:30 or so (after I had just told Cheryl that he was doing great and seemed to have settled down), he started doing it again. Although he wasn't in any distress, he was outside of the numbers that the pediatrician had set for us as acceptable without letting him know. Just to be on the safe side (and because he knew we would drive ourselves nuts watching the monitor all night), he sent us to the ER -- who knew such mayhem was going on in our little town? Fortunately for us, Angie had brought dinner over so we could just leave Griffith with her while we headed out. Allan seemed to enjoy all of the attention -- a whole new set of doctors and nurses to pet him and tell him what a pretty boy he is. And, of course, as soon as we arrived at the hospital, his heart rate had returned to normal and he began satting exactly as he was supposed to (still on too much oxygen though.) They admitted him to the hospital and he is probably there until tomorrow. Dad spent the night and just talked to the doctor. They think that Allan may be a little "wet" and are restricting his fluids to see if that helps. They are also going to talk about adjusting his medications for reflux as well because that could be causing some problems, too. At any rate, he's where he needs to be and with any luck he will be home in a day or two, good as new. Allan is getting good care. Jay likes the peds nurses and some of the folks in the NICU already have been over to check as well (the transport team spotted us in the ER about 20 minutes after we got there). So far Cheryl has stopped by twice and Jennifer came by early. Allan is very popular for someone who has not mastered speech yet.
As far as our other boy, he has been the golden boy. When I got home Angie had been in charge of Griffith for about 3 hours. Although she is an otherwise competent, professional, modern woman, he had defeated her utterly. She reported that she was unable to get any thing done other than hold him (continuing the pattern set by Cheryl, Caitlin and Flora). She tried to clear the table and load the dishwasher, but he became enraged and she had to pick him up. Every time she tried to put him down it was the same thing, so she gave up. Smart girl. Resistance is futile. We had a pretty good night on our own -- he did manage to pee through one outfit and spit up on 3 more. And then he screamed at me as if my changing him was causing him actual physical pain. Still, golden.