More on Gus and Connie's 3rd Birthday Party

Gus has taken a turn for the worse. He's been losing a lot of blood. Losing it faster than they can replace it. He has to be on blood thinners so that his LVAD (pump) doesn't get clots, but that therapy is causing him to not be able to clot. Additionally, he suffered a stroke this morning and has blood on the brain, causing continual seizures throughout the day. This has affected his status on the transplant list, causing him to be removed for now. Please pray for this family and this child-that God will comfort them all. Greg and I have been pretty shaken by his story.

We invited grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins over today to celebrate Connie's third birthday (coming up on Wednesday). He had a great time and even sang the "Happy Birthday" song to himself! It was so cute and so fun to think how far he's come. Speaking of how far he has come, we had to say goodbye last week to Connie's wonderful First Steps therapists who have been coming to the house weekly for the last 28 months. There were times that he would have 4 visits a week from the various therapists. He was down to just speech therapy weekly and physical therapy once every other month. He was recently evaluated by our local school district to determine eligibility and whether or not he will continue receiving services. We have our meeting with them tomorrow to go over the results and I'll let you know how it goes. We are so proud of how far he's come!

Gus Update

Thank you all for your prayers for Gus. Unfortunately, the staff has been unable to successfully wean him off the LVAD machine and as of last night, the plan was to complete all the data gathering today via a cath and then list him tonight for a heart transplant. Please continue to pray for him, for God to give him the strength to endure until a match can be made for him. This position is such a difficult one for families to be in because they feel guilty praying for their child to get a healthy heart knowing full well what it means for the donor's family.

Coming up on Saturday we will mark 6 months since Connie's mitral valve repair and ablation. The significance of this is that we were told at that time that if he made it six months with no arrhythmias (atrial flutter episodes) that it was a good sign that he would remain free of arrhythmias! Go Connie!

Prayer Request

Gus, an eight year old local heart friend underwent an attempt to repair his mitral valve today (like what Connie had this past August) and is having serious complications. Here is what his dad posted on his carepage a little bit ago. "Shortly after his surgery his heart rate became unstable and could not be stabilized on its own. The surgery team had to install a left ventricle assist (pump) which is outside of his body to support the blood flow thru the aorta. He will remain sedated for an undetermined amount of time, guesstimates rage 3-5 days, while his heart and body can heal from surgery. The hope and expectation is that the left ventricle function will improve. Many issues are on the table for Gus and we all know he is a fighter. With the grace of God and the support of the medical staff we will have to wait out the immediate future and pray for his recovery." Please storm heaven on this boy's behalf. We have all witnessed the power of prayer!

Eye Doctor Appointment

We got good news today! Conway had a six month follow up appointment with the eye doctor. At his last appointment they said that his far sightedness had worsened and if it continued to do so that he would either need to wear the glasses full time (which we didn't have much luck with before) or have eye surgery. We were pleasantly surprised today to find out that they are very impressed with his eyes. He's showing no signs of lazy eye or crossed eyes, which is common with extreme far sightedness. After a few tests they sent us on our way and said to come back for another check in September! He didn't even have to have his eyes dilated! They just kept saying how good things looked and at this time we can possibly even expect that his far sightedness could improve on it's own over time! Woohoo!

Snow Day

For those without a facebook account...

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Crossing Fingers

Just when we thought we had turned a corner with Connie and his lingering cough (started Zyrtec and Singulair 6 days ago) he woke up last night around 3:30. Not for a wet diaper but to cry out that his "head hurt". He's complained every single day since his pacemaker was changed that his head hurts but usually only says it once and then goes about his business. We were hoping it might be a side effect of the mono hanging on and planned to wait it out a couple more weeks to give the new pacer settings a chance to improve his LV function. Most often, the complaint about the headache comes right after rising-in the morning and after nap. Last night it was literally preventing him from going back to sleep so we brought him to our bed around 3:30. He continued to complain and moan about it even after a dose of ibuprofen and around 5am he vomited up the med. We'd like this to just be nothing, but know in the back of our minds that this could be heart related. Right now he's still sleeping, presumably because he was up so much last night. We'll see how the day goes and keep everyone posted. Please say some prayers today that we can all get over these winter bugs, stay healthy and for his heart to be okay.

Happy 5th Birthday Big Sister Mary Kathleen!

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Bloodwork Update

The nurse from Dr. Davis' office called this morning to say that the lab results from Saturday are in and it's official. Connie has mono. Good news is that he's NOT allergic to penicillin/amoxicillin/augmentin!

Maybe a Glimmer?

I gather many of you did not quite know what to think of the last post from Thursday regarding his check up. In a nutshell, here's how we took the news: DEVASTATED!
While nothing is imminent, it sounded to us like our best case scenario was that his function could improve with some simple changes to the pacemaker. Worse case scenario is that this is actually a life threatening disease-one for which there is no cure.

Well, one test we had done yesterday was that notorious BNP to measure heart failure. We were kind of expecting it to be elevated above what it was in October since his echo and physical exam are showing that his heart function is decreased. In October, 8 weeks after his surgery and when he was absolutely doing phenomenally heart-wise, his BNP was 1800 (normal is under 100). Guess what it was yesterday? 439! It has dropped significantly so it's quite puzzling to me that he could actually be getting worse. I haven't heard back from the doctor yet about what this may or may not mean, but for the moment we're taking it as the best news we've had all week! Hope is the new theme around here... for the day, anyway!

Side note: He's developed a nasty rash and it's been narrowed down to one of two possibilities. Either it's an allergy to penicillin or it's Mono. We get the lab results on Monday to determine if it's mono. He's stopped the antibiotics he was on for his ears and whatever bug he had and his ears looked great today.

Cardio Appt. Update

Connie saw Dr. Bromberg this morning. Here are his new numbers... He's grown two inches (now 38 in.) but hasn't gained any weight since late September. His BP, HR and SATs were all pretty much exactly the same as his last visit. He was echoed because there were concerns about a decrease in his left ventricular function and the aortic valve leakage worsening as well. We were hoping that things just looked different on that December echo because it was not the same tech. Well, today's echo did confirm that things are not as good as they were in the early fall. On numbers alone, Connie's ejection fraction (the measurement of how efficiently the heart is squeezing/pumping) before valve repair (when he was super sick)was 32%. After his August surgery that climbed to somewhere in the mid to upper 50's, around 56%. Today the numbers we got were in the low 40's. The tech kept remeasuring as she would get a 40% but swear it looked like a better squeeze than 40%. No matter how many different times she tried, it never got higher than 44%. Meanwhile, he's not showing any signs of being in heart failure (a good thing) other than those two little episodes in December where he'd have a sustained high resting heart rate and vomit for no reason.

So, after thinking a lot about it, Dr. Bromberg has come up with a plan. He's seen lots of cases where simply changing the way the pacemaker does it's job can make a big difference and improve LV function. That's what we'll try first. Today he reset the pacemaker to no longer force the ventricle to beat in accordance with the atrium. Before the technology got as good as it is now, that's how all young children used to be paced. It is theoretically less efficient, but for someone with high atrial rates, it can prevent the ventricle from overworking along with the atria. We are to go back in 2 months to do another echo and labwork and compare it with today's.

If we do not see improvement, we may be looking at a case of dilated cardiomyopathy. It's highlighted so you can read what exactly that is. Here are possible treatment options for it. The one he mentioned specifically was adding a beta blocker, Carvidilol.

Oh, and his pulmonary valve (we think) appears to be leaking more. The murmur is louder and echo appears to confirm it. This was actually our bit of good news from the appointment because if it has to happen, it's better that it's this valve rather than the aortic or mitral.

This news brought up the conversations/fears about future surgeries or transplant and Dr. Bromberg says we're still a ways off on those discussions. He said he had a patient that he said was probably his sickest ever who had cardiomyopathy and he treated him with drugs and 9yrs later he's still here and still hasn't been transplanted. The good news is that if it is dilated cardiomyopathy, Connie is still symptom free and we might be the lucky ones that are catching it early. There is no cure, but we may be able to reverse or at least stall the damage.

This is why frequent check ups are so important for these kiddos! Connie looks and acts fine. He did have a BNP level drawn in Sept or Oct that in retrospect probably should have been a little bit lower (that's that blood test that detects heart failure). You can't just look at one thing. But with the BNP, the echo, and the exam all pointing to his little heart working harder, it probably would just be a matter of time before it caught up with him and he became symptomatic. Hopefully we'll get some good news in 2 months that shows that he just needed to be paced in a different way. In the meantime, we ask for your prayers. Specifically for his heart function to improve and for him to stay symptom free. It probably wouldn't hurt either to ask God to help him gain a pound or two.

We are puzzled by this development, but keep repeating to ourselves the words that God spoke to my mom when he was so sick after his first surgery-that Connie would live a long and happy life. There are times like this when we question how can that be possible? If he ends up needing a transplant it is almost a guarantee that we will outlive him. Thankfully, we are not at that place so we will continue to trust and have faith and pray. Back when we thought he'd be blind and severely cognitively delayed we certainly didn't imagine we'd ever see him as happy and normal and smart as he is today, but look what God did for him then!

Update on being sick and cardio news

First, the update. Connie is still sick. His fever is gone, but his cough is the same and he's been complaining of pain in his left ear as well. His pediatrician changed his antiobiotic from Amoxicillan to Augmentin. We're supposed to check back in three days to let him know if he's improving. The biggest problem is his sleeping is all screwed up. He's waking 4-5 times a night either in pain or just not feeling well and because of this, is napping about three times a day! He's just been miserable and whiny and not himself.

Now for the cardio news. I got a call out of the blue today from his cardiologist. He said that he's been thinking about Connie for weeks now and is wondering if he's feeling better since we took him in right before Christmas. If you remember, he had had two little scares with high heart rates and vomiting and acting like he was in flutter again and both times checked out okay. Well, Dr. Bromberg did look at his late December echo the day after it was done and it did look to him like the LV function might be down a bit. Of course, he wasn't in the office to examine him and his partners read the echo and compared it with Septembers and saw no change, but he said it was different and it may just be that a different tech did the echo than the one that normally does, or it may be that his Left Ventricle is indeed not squeezing as well. Either way, he wants to see him sooner than the Feb. 15th appt. we had set up and make some adjustments to the pacemaker settings. We're going in next Thursday and he wants another echo and to change the pacer. He might try uncoordinating the V pacing from the A pacing. What can sometimes happen in patients who are artificially paced is a weakening of the LV over time. He suspects that what might be happening is that when his atrial rate is increased (illness or whatever) that it is forcing the ventricle to do the same and overworking it causing it to weaken. This is generally not a problem once children get older and have a much lower resting heart rate. For now, we know that Connie's rate does increase on occasion for no good reason (that we can see anyway) and for this reason, we think pacing the ventricle in a different way, one in which does not correspond directly to the atrial rate, might help his function improve. It might not. It might cause other problems. We won't know until we try and for now that is the plan. After it's adjusted, he'll wait for feedback from us on what changes, if any, we notice in his energy level, sleep, etc. Then he'll repeat an echo 4-6 weeks out and see if there is any noticeable difference there.

While I was surprised in a negative way to hear from Dr. Bromberg, I can't explain to you how good it made me feel. I mean, he's been thinking about my boy since before Christmas and trying to figure out exactly what could be triggering this and he thinks he's got a solution now and that's pretty neat. I don't think there are that many doctors that try so hard for one patient.

Sick Again

Hello All! Hoping everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We sure did. Connie's new favorite phrase was "Happy Christmas!" and he would say it frequently. We modified it to add "Happy New Year" but instead it turned out "Happy Christmas Year Year!" It sounds so adorable coming from his little voice. It's been awhile since we've posted anything about him or new pics so I'll just jot down a few things that come to mind. He's still completely obsessed with bowling. He can turn anything into a bowling set. He loves to paint and got an easel from Grandma and Grandpa for Christmas. He names all the colors that he wants to paint with and does a good job asking for more when one is all gone. Other times, he just sets up all the paint bottles and bowls them down. Like I said, he can turn anything into bowling! When he's not bowling, he's playing the Wii. It started with him bowling on the Wii, but now he knows how to play pretty much every game on Wii Sports Resort. He'd spend hours downstairs playing if we let him. At least when he's down there he's not aggravating the daylights out of his sister Mary Kathleen. During breakfast he's become fond of watching Super Why, a PBS cartoon about fairy tales and reading. He requests to watch this show no less than 50 times a day.

Well, the main purpose of this post was to let you know that he's got a fever, cough and drainage (still clear). The cough sounds very much like when he had the croup at Thanksgiving, but that was not accompanied by runny nose or anything else. Last night I took him out in the night air for a few minutes and that seemed to help. Today he was annoyed with the drainage and had no appetite, but overall was pretty pleasant and feeling better. By dinner time tonight the cough was increasing and the fever came back. He had been in bed a little over an hour, and sound asleep, when he woke up coughing and wheezing again. I had given him albuterol and motrin along with his regular heart meds before bed, but the cough continues to prevent him from sleeping and the difficulty breathing is making him scared. I used the nebulizer again with just water and that calmed him down. He's back in bed now but I'm a little leary, if his condition worsens, of taking him for a car ride with the windows open in these extreme temperatures (which is what was recommended by the nurses when he had this cough before). They are saying the wind chill is supposed to be around minus 24F tonight! Please pray that he gets some rest and that the cough improves.

Karsten Michael

Here's how the boy looks at 23 weeks and 1 day pregnant. Less than 17 weeks to go! We are thankful that he is in a "head down" position as he was breech last time we checked. There is still time for him to cause trouble, but chances are, he'll stay head down until the delivery.


Covering his face

Crossing his legs just like his big brother Connie does

Definitely a BOY!

Yay for School!

I posted this on Facebook last Thursday, but forgot to put it here. Connie had school again and this time he did GREAT! He cried for the first five minutes and then he perked up and the teacher said he played and sang and followed directions, etc. When I picked him up there were no tears and he was happy! Thank you God! Of course we totally made a big deal out of the small success and got a happy meal to celebrate. Here he is enjoying it.

Baby Update

Today was the fetal echo to check on Baby Karsten's heart and make sure there are no major defects such as atresias, hypoplastic ventricles or L-transposition. Dr. Goel did the echo himself and said that everything is pointing to a perfectly healthy heart baby. Since the heart is not pumping to the lungs until after birth and since the view is more reliable on the child himself rather than through the mother's abdomen, he is going to repeat an echo on Baby Karsten sometime before he's discharged from the hospital after birth. He said that generally it wouldn't be warranted, but given Connie's history it is easily justifiable and it would certainly make us feel 100% confident that we wouldn't be surprised down the road.

After the echo I had my regular OB appt. and it was so brief. Since I had just come from the echo there was no need to even listen with the doppler. He just asked if I had any questions and then scheduled me for another appt. in 4 more weeks.

Thank you for all your prayers for this new little one. We are getting more and more excited for his arrival with each passing day!

2009 Christmas Card and More!

Three years of Miracles...

Conway's First Christmas

2nd...

2009

2009 Beckemeier Christmas Card

Vaccine and School Update

Connie had school again today, his second time going. He recognized the classroom and was not too happy, but could be coaxed easily into playing. When I left he was engaged and cheerful. When I came back and hour and a half later to pick him up, he was sitting in a chair at circle time listening to the butterfly song but not sneezing them off his head. Seemed a little leary, but wasn't crying. As soon as the song was over, he walked toward the door and cried, "Mommy". He couldn't see me, but was so sad. After class, the teacher said he'd been that way most of the time. She said that he wasn't as upset as he was the first class, so that is good. It's too bad that after one more class he's got another two week break before classes resume in Jan. What he needs more than anything right now is to go enough to actually get used to it, but I guess that's not our choice!

After such a traumatic morning, I picked him up we headed straight to the St. Peters Wal-Mart for the kids to get their second dose of the H1N1 vaccine. Poor baby! That was no reward for being brave and going to school! The lady who gave the shots was not gentle AT ALL. Even Mookie cried and she never cries for shots. Hopefully they can stay flu-free the rest of the winter.

Out of Order: Some Thanksgiving Pics

MK when she was so nauseous. Yes, we did give the Marriott their ice bucket back!

Napping on Great Uncle Doyle's bed. The farm wears a boy out!

Con and Mook napping on Cousin Abby's bed. The suburban park wears a boy out!

Mary Kathleen and Cousin Ainsley.

Visit with Santa

It was very brief as he is still petrified of the man. He did enjoy the other activities at the parents as teachers holiday event but then remembered that his monkey lovey was in the car and started whining for it. I found a package of skittles in the diaper bag that seemed to keep him content for a bit while Mookie finished her crafts. Mary Kathleen brought the parent educators to tears when Santa entered the room and she ran up to him and threw her arms around him. It was so cute!

Finally content...thanks to Skittles!

Still traumatized from being touched by Santa

Still scared

Thanksgiving ER Visit

After all the festivities were over yesterday, Greg took the kids back to the hotel for a proper bedtime as the multiple days of no napping were taking a toll. Things didn't quite go as planned, but they both did fall asleep just before 10pm. I got to the hotel shortly after and as soon as I settled into bed, Connie let out a huge barky cough and then began to wheeze. The wheezing kept up even after 15 minutes in a steamy bathroom so we called the pediatrician's exchange and they said to get him to the nearest ER. The nurse who took the call could hear him through the phone and said with his history it and the fact that we didn't have a nebulizer or any albuterol with us definitely called for a trip to the ER. Greg looked one up on the computer and found TX Presbyterian 3 miles away. We got great service and were seen right away. Dr. Grimm (a horrible name for a doctor) was very nice and diagnosed him immediately with croup when she heard the cough. The funny thing is, he isn't coughing much and has no fever, but since croup is a virus, other virus related symptoms were suddenly explained. Like the diarrhea and the tiny red spots all over his torso and neck. He got a steroid shot which lasts 72 hours, the same length of the virus, and then she debated on whether or not to give him any racimic epinepherine (sp?). She wasn't sure about giving him any epi with his heart and specifically with his history of flutter. I told her that he'd had it after both surgeries as every time he was extubated he would have stridor and required two treatments each time. When she heard that, she decided he was a candidate for it but wanted to watch him on the monitor for an hour afterward to make sure his heart rate stayed okay. The monitor was behind me but I did see it up near 170 once. It didn't last long though and quickly started dropping into a more normal range. After waiting it out an hour, he got a dose of benadryl and was discharged. He was such a good boy and fell asleep soon after we got back to the hotel around 2am. He was up at 8am demanding hashbrowns so I guess he's feeling better already!

First Day of "School"

Connie attended his first session of "Speech Group" which meets weekly for an hour an a half. It is a group of six kids between ages 2-3 and two speech therapists. They just play and have a snack and work on speech skills through playing. It's held at the same school where he'll attend preschool starting in March so we think it will be good for him to get used to the faces, the setting and being away from Mommy and Daddy. Mary Kathleen and I dropped him off and he was more than fine separating from us. A bowling set caught his eye so he was off in no time to go play with that. When I came back to pick him up, I could see through the window that he was sitting at the table with the other kids but crying very hard. Soon the teachers opened the door and let the moms in and he was very happy to see us but kept crying as if to tell me how terrible it was! We spent a few minutes with me asking him about what he had for snack and taking him around the room to let him point out things he did while he was there. He was still crying a little and trying to catch his breath. We went out for sub sandwiches and his favorite, chips, afterward and he was totally fine. During lunch I asked him if he cried today at school and he said, "uh huh." I asked him why and he said, "Mommy". I said he didn't have to miss Mommy because I will always come pick him up. We'll see how it goes in two weeks when he goes back. Next week they don't have class due to Thanksgiving so maybe he'll forget how upset he got there.

New Baby Update

We had our "big" ultrasound today and learned that our little 3/4 lb. baby is a BOY!!! That evens the family up at 3 boys and 3 girls :) The tech tried to get as good of a look as possible, but the baby was kind of lazy and kind of content to just lay there in the same, hard to view position. The high risk OB came in and took some measurements and said that all things now point to a healthy baby. All parts are proportionate and show excellent growth. Looks like the heart has four chambers and things appear to be in the right place, but he said it is too early to say for sure. I am going back in a couple weeks for a fetal echocardiogram done by a cardiologist (Dr. Bromberg's partner) and then in four weeks we see the high risk OB again just to make sure everything is still okay. He said that there is a possibility there is a small VSD (hole) there but when I asked if it was small enough that it might go away on it's own or at least not require open heart surgery he replied, "or not be there at all." That made me feel better.

Update on yesterday

When I last posted, Connie was sleeping peacefully. Wouldn't you know we just reinstated the tough love thing at night about 5 days ago and had to ruin our progress? He woke up at 4:30am and I was afraid he might still be sick or feeling ill so I sat in his chair in his room thinking he'd fall right back to sleep and I'd sneak back to my bed. 1/2 hour later, he finally shut his eyes. As soon as I tucked myself in my bed, he was crying and already out of bed! I was so exhausted I just laid with him and he fell asleep about 1/2 hour later. So he was up for a total of an hour, but didn't vomit again. Today he's acted completely normal. Since it didn't even last 24 hours, I'm assuming it was just some weird reaction to the shot he got on Thursday afternoon. Thank you for thinking of him and praying extra hard that this didn't send us down that path, the one that all heart moms know we could be back on at any time.

Also, I have to share a big milestone. Mary Kathleen scored her first soccer goal today. She kicked the tying goal in what was the closest game the Assumption Pre-K girls have had to date. It was a genuine goal too, not just one the goalie happened to let through. Once she scored, she became a totally different little player. She must have gained a great deal of confidence with that shot because she took off and went after that ball with a new sense about her. It was so fun to watch. You'd have thought she won a gold medal or something the way we carried on. Of course, all the parents do that on our team since it is so rare that we actually score!

Tonight we've made s'mores outside and told stories and read books in the tent in the backyard. The plan is for the girls and Greg to stay the night out there while Connie and I remain in the comfort of our own beds. We shall see how long they all last!

It's not flutter, but...

...Connie is not right. Conway got his H1N1 shot yesterday around 5pm. Today at about 3pm he started getting whiny and following me around and asking to be held. I asked if he wanted to snuggle and so we laid down for a while on his bed. He seemed really tired (he woke from his nap around 2:20 so not sure why he would be so tired) and his eyes kept drooping shut but he couldn't get comfortable. He coughed a few times like he might get sick to his stomach. I felt his chest and it seemed like his heart was beating rather fast so I went to grab the stethescope. His resting HR was almost 130! I just knew he was back in atrial flutter like he had been this summer so I went to get the phone to call the card before they left for the weekend and he vomited all over his bed. I checked his temp and it was 97.5 so I thought it absolutely had to be his heart. This is exactly what happens to him when he is in flutter, only this time he was paler and even more listless. Kelly told us to come in so we could interrogate the pacemaker and see if he was. He vomited again on the way to St. John's, turned white as a ghost and fell asleep. I kept waking him up thinking that if he fell asleep he'd go unconscious or something. When we got there, she did an ekg first and faxed it to Dr. Bromberg who was somewhere else doing an ablation. He read it and said it looked good but wanted the interrogation. She hooked him up and got his atrial EGM and Dr. Bromberg pulled that up from where he was and said that he was in Normal Sinus Rhythm.

So. . .that leaves us with either 1) he caught a stomach bug while at the Take Care Clinic waiting for his H1N1 shot-unlikely since everyone there was just there for the shot, no sick people waiting in line, or 2) he's having a reaction to the vaccine. What's scary to me is not that he's vomiting, but that his heart rate is so high and staying so high while resting. Kelly told us that from the people and nurses she's talked to about the vax, if someone has a reaction, it generally presents within 24 hours and lasts between 24-48 hours. She said if he's not better by Sunday to call our pediatrician.

As we left the office he seemed to be doing fine and asked for a sucker and ate it before we even got buckled in the car seat. We decided not to sit in traffic all the way back out west so we went to meet Daddy and the girls at Cece's swim practice, which was just winding up. By the time we got there, he was being a wild man and silly and acted just fine. We decided to eat something down south before coming all the way back home and he ate and drank and was silly as could be in the restaurant. He downed 1.5 glasses of chocolate milk and by the end of the meal, he looked a little green again. He made one burp that sounded like there was more behind it so we promptly left the restaurant and headed home. I covered him with bibs and towels hoping to avoid the inevitable, disgusting mess that was bound to occur on the way. Instead of getting sick, he fell asleep and has been sleeping ever since. Please say a prayer that whatever was going on with him is over and on it's way out the door! We are so thankful it wasn't his heart and are just hoping that his heart rate can stay down. I checked it a minute ago and it was around 100 so that sounds a lot better to me!

Happy Halloween!

Connie was a very good trick or treater this year. We brought the wagon, but he did quite a bit of walking himself, which was both good for him and for us to see. He was a dragon, but he didn't care for the wings so he looked more like a dinosaur. Oh well. For some reason, he thought it was okay to reach into the candy bowls himself and to try to go into people's houses. After a few houses, he learned to just hold out his monster candy bucket-which became too heavy for him rather quickly. He told everyone "Happy Halloween" but it came out more like "Happyween." He also would tell everyone he was a dragon and roar in a scary voice. It made everyone laugh. His sisters got candy from the firefighters and saw the big truck, but he was already in his pajamas so he missed it. I got to see lots of my former students and parents, including one who moved away but still comes back to the old neighborhood to trick or treat. When we got back to Grandma and Grandpa's house, he loaded up on candy and then was completely delerious! He was so tired (up about an hour after bedtime) and yet so full of sugar that he was literally running in circles but almost falling constantly. It was funny to watch. He fell asleep on the way home and slept all night long in his big boy bed.
The kids with their cousins

A close-up of the scary dragon

Cece (Vampire), Mary Kathleen (Ladybug Ballerina) and Connie (Dragon)

Connie digging into his haul