Sunday, July 20, 2008
War of the Roses
Okay, if you've been around my house in the last 2 years, you know about a usually sad looking plant I keep trying my darndest to kill, then reviving with this crazy level of patience past the point where most people would give it up and throw it away already. Well, after maybe the 4th round of killing and reviving, I started leaving it outside a little too early in the spring and it kind of froze. Not completely, but the leaves all turned brown. The main stem, however, hung on and stayed green. I almost gave up, but after yet another revival, I am proud to say there are 12 FLOWERS on my rose bush. Hurrah! Please admire! I have graduated from a black thumb to a brownish green thumb. If I ever get around to yanking out the hideous shrubs in our front yard, maybe I'll actually plant it in the ground. Imagine that!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
An update without a theme
Okay, honestly, I just don’t have it in me to come up with a cute title and theme for this post. Just a plain old update about our lives this time. I’m back to work this week after Ellie’s surgery. She’s doing quite well. We even attempted no painkillers today – she almost made it. I still think she would have, if she had taken a better morning nap, but she settled right down after being given some Tylenol. We ARE down to straight old Tylenol now, so that’s a really good thing.
I decided that my week wasn’t stressful enough last week, and decided it would be a great idea to paint!! What WAS I thinking? I painted Matthew’s room (mostly done) and an accent wall in our entryway. I like both. I just have to go in Matthew’s room and fill in some squares with varying colors. Let me just say part of me wishes I hadn’t done that. But I had the week off at home, and painting seems to be a project I just never can find time for – Matthew’s room has been hanging over my head since we moved into the house 2 years ago. A working mom dilemma - multi-tasking is the name of the game when you actually have a day off work. Don’t worry – Ellie was asleep whenever I worked on it. It took 4 days to get it all done with all the kid interruptions. At least it’s done. Mostly.
All that has been going on took its toll on AJ, our cat. He decided it would be a good time to find a nice plush carpeted area to pee on. Thanks, AJ. I’m attributing it to all the changes, the furniture rearrangements and Arm&Hammer changing their litter and making it more rocky – what’s up with that. Also, I have to admit that cats hate vinegar apparently, and I cleaned his box a couple weeks ago – WITH VINEGAR. Pardon me a second while I pat myself on the back for that smooth move. I ran out and got a brand new litter box, and different litter, filled up his food nicely for him, cleaned the water dish, gave him petromalt and treats, and all seems to be well. And yes – odor remover. It hasn’t worked completely yet, but I keep working on it. We think there must be another area that we haven’t found yet. I sure hope this problem stops. The last thing I want is a cat that pees all over the place. Ewww, gross!
Matthew’s birthday was Sunday, and since we've been so Ellie-centered, we celebrated in style. First of all, on Friday, he got to go to the zoo with daycare - and they had at least 2 birthday parties for other kids during the week. Saturday we took him to a fabulous little local train store where they have a b-day party room. We had pizza and cake and lots and lots of presents there, and family and friends. What a great idea, btw. A b-day party out of the house! Much easier! And it has a time a limit. Very key. :)
On Sunday, we went to church, which actually is a treat for Matthew. He loves it! Then in the evening we took him to Applebee's for dinner. He loves that place. He even got an ice cream sundae on the house! We came home and he opened his presents from us. Let me just say, this boy got an amazing amount of CRAP - oh, I mean, presents. My gosh. Trains, trains, trains. We'll be Thomas'd out. But thanks everybody. It's his absolute favorite thing in the world these days.
Here he is at Applebee's, my big old 3-year old. Amazing how grown up he looks to me!
I decided that my week wasn’t stressful enough last week, and decided it would be a great idea to paint!! What WAS I thinking? I painted Matthew’s room (mostly done) and an accent wall in our entryway. I like both. I just have to go in Matthew’s room and fill in some squares with varying colors. Let me just say part of me wishes I hadn’t done that. But I had the week off at home, and painting seems to be a project I just never can find time for – Matthew’s room has been hanging over my head since we moved into the house 2 years ago. A working mom dilemma - multi-tasking is the name of the game when you actually have a day off work. Don’t worry – Ellie was asleep whenever I worked on it. It took 4 days to get it all done with all the kid interruptions. At least it’s done. Mostly.
All that has been going on took its toll on AJ, our cat. He decided it would be a good time to find a nice plush carpeted area to pee on. Thanks, AJ. I’m attributing it to all the changes, the furniture rearrangements and Arm&Hammer changing their litter and making it more rocky – what’s up with that. Also, I have to admit that cats hate vinegar apparently, and I cleaned his box a couple weeks ago – WITH VINEGAR. Pardon me a second while I pat myself on the back for that smooth move. I ran out and got a brand new litter box, and different litter, filled up his food nicely for him, cleaned the water dish, gave him petromalt and treats, and all seems to be well. And yes – odor remover. It hasn’t worked completely yet, but I keep working on it. We think there must be another area that we haven’t found yet. I sure hope this problem stops. The last thing I want is a cat that pees all over the place. Ewww, gross!
Matthew’s birthday was Sunday, and since we've been so Ellie-centered, we celebrated in style. First of all, on Friday, he got to go to the zoo with daycare - and they had at least 2 birthday parties for other kids during the week. Saturday we took him to a fabulous little local train store where they have a b-day party room. We had pizza and cake and lots and lots of presents there, and family and friends. What a great idea, btw. A b-day party out of the house! Much easier! And it has a time a limit. Very key. :)
On Sunday, we went to church, which actually is a treat for Matthew. He loves it! Then in the evening we took him to Applebee's for dinner. He loves that place. He even got an ice cream sundae on the house! We came home and he opened his presents from us. Let me just say, this boy got an amazing amount of CRAP - oh, I mean, presents. My gosh. Trains, trains, trains. We'll be Thomas'd out. But thanks everybody. It's his absolute favorite thing in the world these days.
Here he is at Applebee's, my big old 3-year old. Amazing how grown up he looks to me!
Friday, July 11, 2008
The Cuteness Factor
Welcome to the July 11th edition of The Cuteness Factor.
Ellie
Need I say anything? What a little sweetheart!!
Her cast does not slow her down a bit!! Well, maybe a bit, but not much. She still rolls over in a flash, and sits up, plays in her walker, etc. She moves her casted arm a lot too.
In the hospital, when we went to bed at night, Ellie slept about 4.5 hours, until a nurse came in and messed with her around 12:30am. I woke up - barely - and watched her toss and turn for a while. She must have quieted down and slept for a while, since I fell back asleep. Next thing I knew, it was 3:30am, and I awoke to the sound of Ellie doing the grunt/growl thing she does to get your attention. As I stumbled up out of the hospital chair-pull-out-bed, how surprised was I to find her on her tummy at the foot of the crib, on top of a bunch of wires and the monitor, with her little glowing cherubic face grinning at me. Adorable. I knew she was going to be fine after surgery when I saw that!!
Matthew
I can't leave Matthew out. It's been a little Ellie-centered around here the past 2 weeks. Here he is swinging at the park. Notice, he still thinks he can sit in baby swings. This park is awesome and has a splash pad, that's why he's topless. He's got his swimsuit on. Have you heard of splash pads? That's where there's all kinds of things spraying water with a non-slip pool surface that kids can run through. Free water entertainment is always a plus.
This is funny. At the hospital, when Matthew came to visit, his daycare provider brought him to the hospital. It was at an awkward time such that we weren't sure if he had eaten dinner or not. Nobody thought to ask, because Ellie was an unhappy mess when they first arrived. He wasn't acting hungry, and if you asked him if he had eaten, he said yes. (he says yes to every yes/no question, so you can never tell for sure - and he doesn't understand the breakfast/lunch/dinner difference yet) He was really well behaved. After a while, my parents brought me a hospital vending machine dinner. (yum) Matthew came right over, and started asking if he could have some of everything. First he saw my yogurt and kept asking "pease can i have some of your yogurt?" I said no because I have a little cold. Then he says in a sad little tone "pease can i have some appwesauwwwwce?" I thought he would never stop dragging out the sauwwwwwwwwwce into the longest word of all time. I cracked up!!! I decided he must not have eaten dinner, so I gave him a bag of pretzels I had. He gobbled, and I mean gobbled, them right up. Afterwards he says "pease, can i have some miwk?" One thing after the other. Needless to say, Sean stopped at Wendy's on the way home, and Matthew chowed!!
Here ends the latest reading of The Cuteness Factor.
Holy fear, batman!
Wow. We had a mini-hurricane whip right over our house yesterday. In reflecting on it since it happened, it occurred to me I've never been that scared in my whole life. And what ended with an EFzero tornado (not for me, don't worry) is what did it. I can't begin to imagine if that storm had produced an EF2, 3, 4, or 5. Yikes.
Here's what happened. I was having a normal day at home with Ellie. I started to notice it was getting kind of dark outside. Not a big deal. Looked like a normal summer thunderstorm was coming. Just to be an informed citizen, I went and checked out the radar. Severe thunderstorm warning. No big deal. Looked like the worst of it was going to be just north of us according to the news. No warnings out for my county. I kept an eye on it, but it just never seemed that bad. I went outside to make sure all the toys were inside, and stopped to watch the sky for a minute. It still looked slightly north of us. I checked the radar on TV again, and it still didn't look like it was coming for us - we'd expereience the thunderstorm, but the worst wouldn't hit us. Apparently the nat'l weather service radar was showing it would smack us according to Sean, but I had already shut down the computer in case the power went out so I couldn't see that. I went up to wash something and kept watching out the window over the sink.
The sky started looking green to me, so I went out to see which way things were moving. All of a sudden the sky starts looking green, and clouds so dark the sky looked purple, and red clouds were moving quickly towards me. I quickly headed into the house, locked everything, and with amazing speed the storm moved straight for my neighborhood with a vengeance and I tore up the stairs, yanked Ellie out of her crib in a sound sleep, and ran as fast as I could to the basement. As I was getting her, the wind went NUTS, and kept seeming to get worse as I went to the basement. I was TERRIFIED! I ran up one level to glance at the TV, which was showing purple and black right over where I live. BLACK - I'm thinking, I've never seen BLACK!!!! We're done for! By then the sirens were going off a 2nd time, we were upgraded to a tornado warning, and the wind was so loud. I was sure we were going to be hit by a tornado. I've never been so sure. I was in the safest corner of the basement with Ellie tucked under me in tornado position (against the wall, head tucked in, completely wrapped around Ellie). I sat and listened, trembling, and I could hear amazing wind and snapping sounds. I was chanting "God, keep us safe" "God, keep us safe" over and over. After about 10 minutes, all I could hear was strong wind, so I snuck up to the TV, and the worst was past us.
We found out later, that a tornado came out of that storm and touched down about 3 minutes southeast from the exact line it moved over our house (that's about like 10 miles away, I want to say, but the storm was so quick, it had to have been 2-3 minutes after coming through here). That's as close as I EVER want to come to a tornado.
The snapping sounds were boards and nails from our privacy fence popping off. 2 boards were down, 1 crossbrace, and one joint is loosened. We almost lost a whole side of that fence. Some trees went down in the neighborhood, someone's basketball hoop knocked over, almost landing on their car, and a bunch of branches were down. It could have been a lot worse.
The reason I was so scared, as if all of this weren't already enough, is because I just KNEW at the time there would be a tornado, I was waiting to hear deafening noise and things crashing above me in the house. And I was so terrified I wouldn't be able to hold onto Ellie, especially with her giant awkward cast. There is nothing worse than a storm with small children! I'm convinced. Matthew was at daycare, in case you're wondering. Even though they're only 1.5 miles away, they are just enough NW of us, that it wasn't nearly as bad right there, though there were plenty of branches down.
Whew, at least we're safe and no major damage occurred. I'm calling it a mini-hurricane since the winds were 65-75mph. We're due for worse storms today, but they should at least be more predictable. At least, that's what they're saying. God help us all!
To my CA readers, I'm ready to pack up and come join you (not seriously), but then I'd have to worry about earthquakes and my state falling into the ocean...
Here's what happened. I was having a normal day at home with Ellie. I started to notice it was getting kind of dark outside. Not a big deal. Looked like a normal summer thunderstorm was coming. Just to be an informed citizen, I went and checked out the radar. Severe thunderstorm warning. No big deal. Looked like the worst of it was going to be just north of us according to the news. No warnings out for my county. I kept an eye on it, but it just never seemed that bad. I went outside to make sure all the toys were inside, and stopped to watch the sky for a minute. It still looked slightly north of us. I checked the radar on TV again, and it still didn't look like it was coming for us - we'd expereience the thunderstorm, but the worst wouldn't hit us. Apparently the nat'l weather service radar was showing it would smack us according to Sean, but I had already shut down the computer in case the power went out so I couldn't see that. I went up to wash something and kept watching out the window over the sink.
The sky started looking green to me, so I went out to see which way things were moving. All of a sudden the sky starts looking green, and clouds so dark the sky looked purple, and red clouds were moving quickly towards me. I quickly headed into the house, locked everything, and with amazing speed the storm moved straight for my neighborhood with a vengeance and I tore up the stairs, yanked Ellie out of her crib in a sound sleep, and ran as fast as I could to the basement. As I was getting her, the wind went NUTS, and kept seeming to get worse as I went to the basement. I was TERRIFIED! I ran up one level to glance at the TV, which was showing purple and black right over where I live. BLACK - I'm thinking, I've never seen BLACK!!!! We're done for! By then the sirens were going off a 2nd time, we were upgraded to a tornado warning, and the wind was so loud. I was sure we were going to be hit by a tornado. I've never been so sure. I was in the safest corner of the basement with Ellie tucked under me in tornado position (against the wall, head tucked in, completely wrapped around Ellie). I sat and listened, trembling, and I could hear amazing wind and snapping sounds. I was chanting "God, keep us safe" "God, keep us safe" over and over. After about 10 minutes, all I could hear was strong wind, so I snuck up to the TV, and the worst was past us.
We found out later, that a tornado came out of that storm and touched down about 3 minutes southeast from the exact line it moved over our house (that's about like 10 miles away, I want to say, but the storm was so quick, it had to have been 2-3 minutes after coming through here). That's as close as I EVER want to come to a tornado.
The snapping sounds were boards and nails from our privacy fence popping off. 2 boards were down, 1 crossbrace, and one joint is loosened. We almost lost a whole side of that fence. Some trees went down in the neighborhood, someone's basketball hoop knocked over, almost landing on their car, and a bunch of branches were down. It could have been a lot worse.
The reason I was so scared, as if all of this weren't already enough, is because I just KNEW at the time there would be a tornado, I was waiting to hear deafening noise and things crashing above me in the house. And I was so terrified I wouldn't be able to hold onto Ellie, especially with her giant awkward cast. There is nothing worse than a storm with small children! I'm convinced. Matthew was at daycare, in case you're wondering. Even though they're only 1.5 miles away, they are just enough NW of us, that it wasn't nearly as bad right there, though there were plenty of branches down.
Whew, at least we're safe and no major damage occurred. I'm calling it a mini-hurricane since the winds were 65-75mph. We're due for worse storms today, but they should at least be more predictable. At least, that's what they're saying. God help us all!
To my CA readers, I'm ready to pack up and come join you (not seriously), but then I'd have to worry about earthquakes and my state falling into the ocean...
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Home and Relieved
And 24 hours after surgery began, we are home. What a fast 24 hours. I am in complete letdown mode. I am flooded with emotions, just from the release of all the time leading up to the surgery. Apparently I was a little stressed or something???? I am flooded with emotions thinking about all the love and support we had too. I can't begin to imagine how many prayers were uttered for us yesterday. Thank you everybody! It's truly amazing. And all the grandparents were a big part of the day - including my parents who spent almost the entire time with us, minus going home to sleep in between yesterday and today. Incredible. And our daycare provider brought Matthew and her whole family for a visit - and she came during the crying time - which was making me cry at the time, and in turn made her cry. We love you, Kelly. We can't believe how much she loves our children as if they were her own. Times like these really show what an impact love and support can have. Enough gushing already!!
We arrived at the hospital at 9:30am Monday morning. We were ushered right in to the prep room, where we were surrounded by every staff member in the place. No small thanks to Ellie's curls - they draw a crowd, let me tell you. I never worry about whether she'll be in good hands. Honestly, the anesthesiologists were arguing over whose turn it was to get "the cute baby." One told the other, "oh no, you had a cute baby last time - it's my turn." Weird. But funny. Ellie was quickly weighed and changed into a mini hospital gown. Loads of staff came to discuss everything with us - the O/R nurse, the resident following the case the whole day, both anesthesiologists, the nurse anesthestist, the surgeon, you get the idea. Lesson 1: Always go to a pediatric hospital if your child needs surgery. Wow.
About 11:15am, they whisked Ellie away. Literally. The whole surgical entourage and our whole entourage practically ran to the surgery entrance, and they wasted no time getting us to cram in our hugs and kisses, and like a flash, they took our baby. What a moment that was. All the moms present, especially this one, commenced crying immediately. :) Thankfully, we were able to get to our room where we stayed overnight during the day, so it was nice to have something to do, hauling all our things to the room and waiting there, where we could all talk and sit and distract ourselves. They paged us around noon saying they had begun and Ellie was asleep and was doing fabulous. You want to know what the worst feeling is? The first page. Everything in the room stopped as I called in for the status. What a relief to hear everything was fabulous. From there we all relaxed quite a bit. After a while we went to get lunch. They paged again halfway through the surgery to let us know everything was still fabulous. (that's their word choice, not mine, so don't make fun of me)! They paged again towards the end and had us come down to the waiting room. Within 10 minutes, the surgeon came to tell us what occurred during surgery. She showed us an x-ray revealing a brand new thumb!!! HOORAY!!! She pinned the thumb inside the cast to straighten it, to set the bone, and to keep Ellie from moving it inside the cast. The resident that was present the entire time described the skin graft as beautiful. It matched up really nicely. And the x-ray showing the thumb? What a CUTE little hand she's going to have!
We arrived at the hospital at 9:30am Monday morning. We were ushered right in to the prep room, where we were surrounded by every staff member in the place. No small thanks to Ellie's curls - they draw a crowd, let me tell you. I never worry about whether she'll be in good hands. Honestly, the anesthesiologists were arguing over whose turn it was to get "the cute baby." One told the other, "oh no, you had a cute baby last time - it's my turn." Weird. But funny. Ellie was quickly weighed and changed into a mini hospital gown. Loads of staff came to discuss everything with us - the O/R nurse, the resident following the case the whole day, both anesthesiologists, the nurse anesthestist, the surgeon, you get the idea. Lesson 1: Always go to a pediatric hospital if your child needs surgery. Wow.
About 11:15am, they whisked Ellie away. Literally. The whole surgical entourage and our whole entourage practically ran to the surgery entrance, and they wasted no time getting us to cram in our hugs and kisses, and like a flash, they took our baby. What a moment that was. All the moms present, especially this one, commenced crying immediately. :) Thankfully, we were able to get to our room where we stayed overnight during the day, so it was nice to have something to do, hauling all our things to the room and waiting there, where we could all talk and sit and distract ourselves. They paged us around noon saying they had begun and Ellie was asleep and was doing fabulous. You want to know what the worst feeling is? The first page. Everything in the room stopped as I called in for the status. What a relief to hear everything was fabulous. From there we all relaxed quite a bit. After a while we went to get lunch. They paged again halfway through the surgery to let us know everything was still fabulous. (that's their word choice, not mine, so don't make fun of me)! They paged again towards the end and had us come down to the waiting room. Within 10 minutes, the surgeon came to tell us what occurred during surgery. She showed us an x-ray revealing a brand new thumb!!! HOORAY!!! She pinned the thumb inside the cast to straighten it, to set the bone, and to keep Ellie from moving it inside the cast. The resident that was present the entire time described the skin graft as beautiful. It matched up really nicely. And the x-ray showing the thumb? What a CUTE little hand she's going to have!
Not too much later, someone from the recovery room came to get us so we could see Ellie, who was starting to wake up. What a pitiful sight when we got there. A drug stupor. Ellie had half-open eyes, puffy lips, and was just laying there, hardly moving. She was turning her head side-to-side every so slightly, to get a look at Sean and me and the nurse. She looked like she calmed down when she saw us. Of course, the morphine probably had something to do with that too. She was on morphine for only a short time, and has moved onto tylenol with codeine every 4 hours.
Ellie is such a trooper. She had one really fussy time after surgery when her body was fighting with itself, which was more important - sleep or food. A raging battle ensued. Just kidding, but she did cry hard for 30 minutes straight. Some time in there they also came in to administer some extra IV painkillers. I don't know what kind it was, and honestly I didn't care at that point. She calmed down and went to sleep. That was her worst crying fit. She actually hardly cried the entire time except for that period. We were all amazed. Thank you prayer!! I truly believe all the prayer support made a HUGE difference.
This morning, Ellie was on formula, and for lunch I tried giving her solids. She practically tore the bowl of cereal and pears out of my hands when she saw it!
We left the hospital around 10am this morning, with a girl with a shiny new huge purple cast. Okay, maybe not shiny, but definitely huge and purple. There's even a giant sock on it, so she doesn't rip her face off rubbing it with her cast. What a sight.
Here are some pictures of the experience:
Ellie - post-op, looking pitiful and barely awake
Moved into our room for the night - asleep (out cold):
The cast, with a giant sock over it, propped up on a pillow:
Tuesday morning - bright eyed and bushy tailed, with her usual spunk:
We are glad to be done with stage 1. Stage 2 is set for August 15th. They're leaving the cast on until then, and cutting it off as part of the procedure, separating the remaining digits, and re-casting. We are thrilled with the thought of seeing her hand. 2 months to go. I think it's going to be a long 2 months, and we're all going to be bruised by her hard-casted boxing glove of a hand, but it will be worth it. Thank you, God, for bringing us successfully through part one of this journey.
One of these days, I can't wait to share about our hospital - what a great experience!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Twas the Night Before Surgery
This is it! The night before surgery! We'll fairly calm, actually. I just can't wait to be done. And I'm more anxious that my trying-to-be-a-cold forming will actually form. Pray it will be unformed enough that they won't kick me out! I'm on the Airborne/Zicam defense. So far so good.Here are "Before" pics, and later I will add "After" pics. This is Ellie's left hand currently.
Okay, fine. Those WERE before pics. Apparently I uploaded strangely, and I'm not going to waste my time figuring it out, given that it's 10pm and I have to wake up Ellie at 3am to feed her the last formula she can have before surgery. She can have clear fluids till 8am, but I figure she might not take them very well - not a big fan of juice/water - so this seems like the best option to make sure she has some nutrition in her.
More updates later. Surgery is at 11am. Go Ellie go!
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