Our trip to the hosipal

No, I didn't misspell "hospital." That's the way Logan pronounces it. The word "breakfast" seems to allude him, too. It comes out more like "bresick." Ah, it's pretty adorable the way toddlers pronounce things.

Well, that heart murmur of Logan's hasn't gone away since we heard it a month ago, so the doc suggested we have an echocardiogram done. Aside from being an extremely complicated word for me to pronounce, it's basically an ultrasound of the patient's heart. The pediatric cardiologists should be perusing pictures, videos, and sound clips of my son's little ticker tomorrow, and I'm really hoping they'll tell me he'll most likely grow out of this little noisy heartbeat thing. Logan doesn't seem to mind. He didn't seem to mind the whole test thing, either. You see, Logan thinks the hospital is one of the coolest places he knows. He associates it with the helicopter he saw take off just as we were leaving from one of my ultrasounds. And he thinks of the time Grammy Renee and Papa George came to stay with him, and then took him there to see his new baby brother. So every time we drive by the hospital, he asks if we can go there. "Not today, babe," I say, hoping to myself we won't have an unfortunate incident that will bring us there. No, Logan wasn't worried about the hospital. He was worried about shots.

He got a flu vaccine at his last doctor's checkup and was not keen on the idea of having another injection. Despite promises from his dad and I that he would not be given a shot, Logan, who is usually really shy around new people, introduced himself to the ultrasound tech by announcing loudly and plainly: "I don't want a shot." Once she told him she definitely wouldn't be giving him a shot, he relaxed a bit. But he sat wide-eyed through the whole procedure. For once in his life, he didn't wiggle an inch--the ultrasound tech loved him. And when were walking out the doors of the exam room, sucker in hand, he said," That was fun!" Yeah, I guess it was fun, but I don't really want to repeat it.

Even though I had been convinced this whole murmur thing is no big deal, that it's some little anomaly that will fix itself, I have to admit, I welled up a bit when they put the hospital band around his wrist and told him that this was his second hospital bracelet he's ever had. Well, now it's just the waiting game!

We managed to fit in even more fun today, the kind of fun I wouldn't mind repeating. We went swimming at the Y, the four of us--this was the baby's first trip to a pool. Once Auden got over the chilliness of the pool (why does it always get you right at the tummy?), he smiled and had a good time, while Logan was finally persuaded to doggie paddle (with mom assisting) across the pool a couple of times. Then it was home to jump in some leaf piles, watch daddy-o burn some yard waste in the back yard, and turn his nose up at his dinner. It's really all in a day's work for a toddler.