Connor was so excited for this birthday that he was looking forward for July to come, then as soon as July 1st came, he started counting down to his birthday every day.  Daily he also asked us if we were as excited as he was turning 10.  Of course, he was looking forward to any presents; when it got closer to the big date, he could not help it and kept begging us to give him hints.

    Finally the day came.  All three of us and Buddy rushed to his bedroom to wake the 10 year old boy.  Connor was so happy and planned the whole day which mainly involved game time, what he wanted to eat, and swimming.  He did not ask about the presents, but then we presented him with a bunch of puzzles to solve to lead to his presents.  Connor was intrigued and enjoyed solving each puzzle to get to one gift at a time.  Our planning did turn out well; the whole present opening lasted much longer than usual to a point that Connor complained being tired of solving puzzles.  Connor was happy to get all presents he received at the end.

     The rest of the day Connor enjoyed more game time, swimming and cake.  At the end, Connor was telling us that he was sad though that the day was ending.  He wanted his birthday to last longer.  Now we have two 2-digit boys.

    One week after we stopped Connor’s stomach med, Connor started to complain about tummy ache and occasional lump in the throat again.  By then it was just a few days before his highly anticipated birthday, Connor started to get worried that he would be sick on his birthday and got very sad one night when it often bothered him most.  Thus we contacted his doctor and we were suggested to restart the medication for two more weeks. With that, we fortunately managed to avoid Connor’s stomach from getting too bad and his big day did not get ruined later.

    It has been a week since we started the med, but Connor is still being bothered by the tummy and throat mildly.  We might have to consider bringing him to see the doctor later.

   Connor asked Buddy to go up onto his bed one night and Buddy immediately accepted the invite.  The next night, Logan did the same and Buddy did not refuse either.  Now Buddy often visits the boys, and he usually stays only several minutes on their beds.  They all look very happy together.

   When I asked the boys to learn how to draw their names in 3D, these were their great work.

    Connor has been complaining of stomachache on and off for some time.  On 7/2 evening after they had gone to bed, Connor started reporting more tummy pain and something in his throat.  He even mentioned about having some trouble breathing with the throat issue.  The symptoms lingered around for over an hour.  It seemed to change in intensity back and forth; finally Connor fell asleep.  I had decided that his symptoms was GERD, and started him on Pepcid as of 7/3 and had him change some of the bad habit he had,i.e.laying down after eating breakfast or lunch.  That evening by bedtime, Connor was bothered quite a bit with the symptoms again, tummy ache, something in his throat and also complained of “can’t breathe”.  Because of that, I called the Advice nurse that night at 9pm.  After talking with the Advice Nurse for quite awhile, Connor also answered some of her questions.  She consulted an ED doc and suggested for us to take Connor in to ED due to the complaints of trouble breathing.  The reasons we called the Advice Nurse was to assure what we were doing for Connor, and I truly believed that it was very bad GERD symptoms Connor was experiencing and that he did get through it the night before.  So we declined taking Connor in; the ED doctor came on the line later to make sure we understood the danger if Connor truly could not breathe.  Fortunately after some of struggle, Connor felt asleep and woke up better the next morning. 

     For the next few days Connor continued to have tummy ache and the lump in his throat, but not as severe as the first 2 nights.  I put him on omeprazole as I could not find more Pepcid at the store.  We had a video visit with a doctor in mid week; she felt that we were on the right track taking care of Connor.  She suggested to continue the medication for another week and stop to see what happens next.  Today is the first day without the medicine; hope Connor will not have more issue.

    This was our annual camping weekend, but due to the pandemic and the recent surge, our friends and us finally decided to call it off.  We had initially planned to go to the Kao’s backyard to hangout on this holiday, but because Connor was having bad tummy ache the night before, we unfortunately had to call this off too.  for this holiday, we spent some time in our backyard instead.  We had a quick lunch out there, and in the evening after our long walk, we spent time around a campfire.  We enjoyed grilling marshmallow to have some S’more; Logan had quite a few and still wanted more.  We then watched the fire, playing with the long sticks, telling scary stories, we ended up staying in the yard for 2 hours.  Buddy did well hanging and laying down with us too.  This pit that we used was actually bought 15 years ago, and for the first time we made a good use of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlwIPkXwKSs