This is my 5th year in a row of making these monthly family films, but I’m not sure if any particular month has hit me quite like THIS month.
April started off nice and normal: April Fools Day, welcoming in spring, building lots of Legos (as usual), but then right in the middle of all of our Easter celebrations, things changed. I couldn’t see it at the time, but looking back through these videos – I can see the change slowly happening.
Easter was basically a week-long holiday for us: between different church events, our own family celebrations and traditions, going to visit extended family and celebrate with them, and then Easter with my extended family – it just seemed like the gift that kept on giving.
But right in the middle of all of that, Leander started to get sick.
When we did our own Easter family traditions (Friday night), I knew something wasn’t quite right with him, and then he fell asleep almost instantly as soon as we put him to bed that night (something that is extraordinarily out of the norm). He woke up the next morning and seemed “off”, but then was running races with Braelynn up and down the sidewalk, so we packed up our car for a weekend visited some of Derrick’s extended family – chalking his “off-ness” up to our house being extra warm and all the candy he ate the day before.
About an hour before we reached Derrick’s Aunt and Uncle’s house, we knew that it was definitely much more than just “feeling off”. As we arrived, it was clear that our sweet boy had spiked a fever and was just not feeling good.
Leander and I spent most of our weekend at Derrick’s Aunt and Uncle’s house, snuggled up on the guest bed, watching Ninjago and How to Train Your Dragon. (We did give him some Motrin which helped alleviate his symptoms enough to take a walk down to the stream and ride on the quad.) We really hoped it was a 24-hour bug and that he’d feel better soon.
Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Saturday, rolled into Sunday, which rolled into Monday. He seemed to start to feel a little better Monday afternoon – his fever finally broke and he was coming back around to his normal self. He still wasn’t quite feeling “great” on Tuesday though, so he spent most of the day sleeping and watching TV on the couch.
By Tuesday night, we knew that something else was wrong. Sure, he was acting more normal, his fever was gone, he was eating, and talking, and joking with us like normal, but he couldn’t walk. He cried that his calves hurt so bad and he simply could not put weight on them.
Wednesday morning, we called his doctor, and he said: “Take him to Children’s Hospital ER.”
So, that’s how we ended up spending all day Wednesday in the emergency room. Leander was diagnosed with viral myositis – it’s muscle inflammation (specifically in the calves) caused by a virus. He also tested positive for Flu B – which is likely the root cause of the issues.
It was A DAY. He had to have an IV put in for fluids to help flush his system, antibiotics – it was a long day. But, thankfully, miraculously, he actually walked out of the emergency room that night (slightly on his tip-toes, but he still walked! What a change from having to carry him in!)
Needless to say: the rest of that week was spent trying to get him to drink MORE (they told us the key to getting rid of viral myositis is “hyper hydration”) but simply being so so so thankful that he was walking again.
It’s just one of those things: you never know how thankful you are for something like: your kid being able to walk – until he can’t.
(Also, hugely thankful that Braelynn could spend the whole day with my sister and her cousins – she had the best day ever while her brother was in the ER!)
So, YEAH – what a month.
It’s a month I’m very thankful to be behind us – that’s for sure!
Moments of note this month:
(0:01) We pulled a big April Fools joke our the cousins!
(1:11) Happy birthday to both my Mom and sister!
(2:14) Leander got a new bike
(3:33) Easter celebration at church
(4:05) Leander loses ANOTHER tooth (this kid is going to lose all of his baby teeth before he’s 7!)
(4:42) Our family’s traditional Easter celebrations
(6:54) Celebrating Easter at Derrick’s Aunt and Uncle’s house
(8:00) Easter at my parent’s house (that Leander sadly missed out on for a second year in a row)
(8:57) Our day at the ER
(9:51) Derrick and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary by getting dinner at the restaurant we had our wedding reception at!
(10:09) First weekend at the Lakehouse!
(10:39) Happy birthday, Leo!
We also took our first roller coaster trip of the year – we visited Kings Dominion and Six Flags Great Adventure.
Our home park: Kennywood also had their opening day in April, so we had a blast welcoming in the 2025 season at Kennywood!
Just in case you’ve missed what I’m doing – I decided that I wanted to create a curated “home video” for our family every month (remember those old “home movies” our families used to create? with the giant video recorders that an entire VHS tape fit in?) Those videos were fantastic, but if you’ve ever sat down to watch one (does anyone even own a VHS player anymore?) you very quickly realize that you do a lot of “fast-forwarding”.
So, my goal, is to take all the little videos I take of our family over the course of a month & create a short (my goal is to be around 10 minutes) video of my favorite snippets. I am SO excited to finally have a dedicated place to chronicle my family videos & keep them safe & accessible.
Enjoy a little peek into what our April looked like!
