So April is nearly over and this is only my second posting for the month... I am sorry about that but life has been moving at a pretty fast pace around here. We seem to have a little bit of a moment to breath and take it easy this week... though I am not going to say it too loudly because well everyone knows good old Murphy and I am not going to invite him into our lives.
At any rate Ash is better. Though it took forever. This flu was a real pain... as it lingered for a week and every other day or so she would wake up puking and she had terrible diaper blowouts for the entire week. Dave and I had agreed that if she hadn't shown marked improvement by Monday we were taking her to the doctor...because it was the flu that never ends. It just goes on and on my friend. Well anyways... she did show improvement and so she did not have to enter the much hated doctor zone. I don't know what he ever did to her but she hates the docs office... not the dermatologist so much but her doc... she cries from the point that they call us back. So we try to go as infrequently as possible. We did have to make a visit to afore mentioned dermatologist. We had the eczema breakout from hell. But a few extra applications of her cream and extra doses of her antihistamine and she was set. We have to pay for those visits out of pocket so we try to keep them to a minimum... but when the need presents itself it is rarely shy about it. Ash likes Lori alot so it is never a hardship to get her in THERE. Besides Lori helped me to feel less guilty about the fact that my child is constantly on allergy medication which makes bedtime easy most nights. Although she is starting to build up an immunity to the sleepiness effect so these last few months we have not had the piece of cake we used to. There for a while she was out like a light in minutes flat. I was however feeling guilty about that. What mother really wants to give her kid Benedryl every night when there are mothers out there who use the same stuff to put their kids to sleep. But like Lori said " anybody who looks at your child knows that she has allergies with the circles she has under the eyes and all the signs in her skin. She is atopic and you are going to need to use that allergy medicine for years to come to keep her comfortable." Besides like she pointed out there are parents who use it three times a day rather than once. And honestly on bad days we do have to use it two to three times but I try not to use it too often because I LIKE my child alert. Still when the nose is running like a faucet and she is head to toe eczema there is little choice. At least we have moved away from the Aderal that she was using which is a prescription allergy med. And this here season is not the time to take it away from her. If she doesn't get at least one dose of allergy meds she is one miserable kid.
Ash is a mile a minute these days. She is so much fun. She is a little parrot and will repeat anything that you say... so beware what you say. Dave the other day taught her " For Shizzle" which means for sure in Snoop Dogg speak for those of you who don't know. Now she goes around saying that constantly. I always hoped for a multilingual kid... but snoop dogg speak was not exactly what I had meant. That is only one of the hundreds of words that this child uses. At an age where they expect 20-40 words out of a child ours has a vocabulary that is easily more than a hundred of words that she uses correctly... and is at this time putting together simple sentences. For example the other day on the way home from the visitation for my uncle she pipes from the back seat " Mommy drop nuk! Mommy get it please!" My own mother says " Holy cow that was two full sentences out of that child!" I could only nod...because I didn't know what to say really. She has been using simple sentences like that for a couple of weeks but it still shocks me a little. I was a fast talker when I was little and I was reading out loud by the time I was three and reading chapter books before kindergarten... so I guess there shouldn't be a ton of surprise still it makes you catch your breath. She is also getting the concept of counting and has most of the colors down pat. Red Orange and Yellow are still able to give her a little trouble but she has the rest of the rainbow down. When she notices that there is more than one of something she will count " One two three ____" and fill in the blank with the item she is counting. So while she doesn't get the count yet... she gets the concept, which is a pretty good step considering she has yet to turn 18 months. She also helps to clean the house... or rather a clean up sweep. We have a little song that she sings as she cleans up... and she actually sings it while putting books and toys away. She also has learned how to feed the dog and wants to do that endlessly. She does it over at Gran and Gramps' house also.... to the point where we have to watch closely because she will feed Lucky the dog all night long if allowed.
Reading to her has become an absolute joy. We have always read to her from the point where she was a teeny teeny baby, only a few weeks old. And we went through the stage where we read the same book twenty five times wanting to bang our heads against a wall. We still often have to read the same book repeatedly... but the reading has taken on a different flavor. Now instead of reading the book over and over we look at the pages and she tells me what is on the page... or what sound the animal makes. MOO cow... and Piggy Oink oink. Quack quack ducky. She will point our balls and puppies and bears and blocks. She will tell you about the blue birdy and the yellow birdy and the bunny. She will find the hidden eggs in the Easter book and point out the Easter Bunny hiding in the bushes. It is always new and exciting. Yes she wants the book read to her, but she also wants a chance to talk about what is in the pictures too. Her grandma Barb got her Goodnight Moon for her birthday and that particular book has the distinction of being the first book that she knows by name and asks for by name. Granted she says " Night night Moon" but she gets her point across. With me getting bigger and needing to take more down time... we read ALOT. But I was thinking just the other night that this pregnancy has given me a special opportunity to be able to sit and read with her for hours that I might not otherwise have gotten. I would be busy with household tasks and other things and not have so much time to sit with her and read to her. So for all that I worry about what a new baby is going to do when she gets here.... the pregnancy is offering me the chance to make hay while the sun shines... and love on the one I have while I only have one.
By the way I did go to the doc on Tuesday as scheduled. Ummmm I lost 5 1/2 pounds in the last week. They are not impressed at all by that... but as I had the flu and was in the hospital for it... they weren't terribly surprised. My A1C ( or the three month average of blood sugars) was EXCELLENT! It was 5.2 and no one could ask for better. I kind of look at that number as my progress report and that number is an A+++ Any thing less than 6.5 is good. less than 6.0 is Excellent and 5.0 is the lowest they want to see. my iron was a little low... but that isn't terribly surprising either as this kiddo makes the thought of protein other than seafood sound terrible. I still have a hard time with nausea if there is too much protein in a meal. With Ash I was looking for the next steak... and indeed my poor husband brought me a really nice steak home as a surprise a few weeks ago and I could hardly eat it. Dave expected me to attack it like the vampire I was when I was pregnant with Ash. I had to control my urges to eat it as rare as possible with her. With this one you could cook it to shoe leather and I still could care less. Instead with this one I want fish! Shrimp! Salmon! You name it if it lives in the water I want it. I think Dave had to control his own nausea when I ate an entire can of smoked oysters the other day.... and I would have eaten another if it was available. Canned salmon has my name on it too. He made me catfish nuggets the other day and I would have married him all over again for it. Go figure.
Alright I have talked your ears right off ... I guess it would actually be your eyes wouldn't it. Anyways whatever it is I should give you a rest. So off I go. I am sure that I will post again... just not sure when.

Easter bunnys, death and a hospital stay

Once again we have had one of those not so uneventful weeks... more like week and a half or two weeks. It has been over two weeks since I last blogged for all of you and I am sorry... but as I said we have had a busy busy schedule. Last week I had some contractions so I was at the doc an extra long time while they had me on the monitor and checked to see if there are any changes to my cervix. The cervix is a little soft but the cerclage is still holding so while they are a little concerned about the cervix there is little we can do and there haven't been any more contractions. They told me it was time to start thinking of ways to get some serious help with A but Dave and I have racked our brains and there just isn't much we can do about it all so, again we will just have to pray. I started Physical therapy last week... I am walking so much better. I had to cancel this weeks because I was in the hospital but we will start again next week. Yes you heard me I was in the hospital. I had a terrible flu and couldn't keep anything down and that made my blood sugars go way low... so they kept me in the hospital to keep my blood sugars up and to hydrate me. Stupid Flu.
A bear got the flu too... so we had a fun house around here. At least A got the flu Sunday and Monday... mommy got it Tuesday and Wed. Gramps got it Wed and Gran has it today. Daddy hasn't seemed to get it yet. So on Sunday and Monday ( and a little on Tuesday) Mommy was cleaning up mess after mess from A. It really is hard to have a child that has the flu who can't tell you they are about to puke on you or all nearby surfaces... and why the heck does the puking disease always hit when it is the dead of night and everyone is sleeping. I had to give A a bath at 3AM and wanted to get the sheets changed but Dave refused to budge from the bed and when I made mention that the bed was puked on and I certainly wasn't sleeping in it... he got nasty. So I did what any self-respecting woman would do... I slept on the couch with my freshly washed child and let him sleep in the puke. NOT MY PROBLEM! She managed to puke another three times and covered mommy a couple of times... so perhaps it was best that we weren't on fresh sheets in the bedroom anyways. We ended up sleeping with mommy sitting up with A in her lap and a bowl on A's lap.
When Mommy started to get sick A must have had some memory and connected it with her own issues... because she was very worried about me. Dave went to work leaving early again... I think that he is afraid to be in the house when we are sick. At any rate at 10:30 PM I had to call him to meet me at the hospital because blood sugars in the 60s are not acceptable and my doctor agreed when I called. Not to mention I wasn't having any luck keeping even a Popsicle down. By the time my dad got me there I was dehydrated and that was all she wrote. I came home yesterday afternoon when they were able to see a marked improvement in the ketone level in my urine. Dave stayed home from work yesterday just to be sure that all was well and is back to work today.
On Easter weekend my parents had my niece R for 4 days. She came over on Thursday and went home late Sunday. On Friday A and R decorated Easter eggs and made construction paper eggs that R can send to her Daddy who is in Afghanistan. Dave and I took her on Sat for 5 hours or so to give my parents a break. We went to see the Easter bunny.... and waited for 30 minutes. When we got up there R leaned into me and pointed and said " there is a person in that costume. I'm not going up there" Pretty sophisticated for a three year old. And so we left without having visited. Not that I was heartbroken the picture with the Easter bunny would have cost us 20.00 and that is outrageous. So off we went to the PET STORE. Um that is like the best place in the world for kids next to a toy store. We had taken A there a couple of weeks ago and she loved it. So we decided that would be a great place to take both girls. While there they petted rabbits, Guinea pigs, ferrets, and even a parrot. They also both got to touch a turtle and a hamster and a chinchilla. They offered ( of course) to take out puppies for us... but it was a bit crowded and so we declined. But R got to see Nemo fish and Dory fish ( if you don't know who they are that just means that you haven't watched Finding Nemo 101 times with a three year old and just wait your time is bound to be coming.) A just saw an endless supply of "fishies" and at her age that is all she needed to know. She pointed and said Fishy for every fish in the joint I think. We then went to Red Robin where Dave and I shared a burger and R and A shared a burger. After we ate and made off with the requisite helium balloons we went to Toys R Us where each girl had a ten dollar limit and the option to buy whatever toy they wanted in that limit. A found an Elmo doll and R found a disney doll both of which fit into their budget and away we went.
When we got home we got the devestating news that my uncle had been in a motorcycle accident earlier in the day and that they could not bring him around. So I stayed at my parents house with the girls while my parents ran to the hospital to be with my father's sister Cheryl. I played Beauty shop with R and had my hair done for hours as well as painted her nails for her to match her easter dress. My uncle passed away on Sunday morning at 2:45 A.M. So very heartbreaking for everyone. Understandably the Easter celebration at my Grandparents house was cancelled. However just as understandably R didn't understand at three much about what this meant. So my brother Brenden saved the day for the girls by hiding Easter eggs around this house so that the girls could have a hunt. The girls both woke up to a visit from the Easter Bunny that thrilled both of them with toys perfectly chosen just for them and then Gran fixed a beautiful breakfast complete with rolls. The girls dressed in their Easter dresses ( that gran made for them) and as beautiful as two princesses can be they went outside and found Easter eggs. As the night had been long for every adult either waiting up at home for news or waiting around the hospital for news we all took naps with the kids. And then Gran cooked an Easter Ham. It was a little late that we sat down for Easter dinner but it would have been well worth it if my daughter hadn't gotten sick as we all sat down right onto the dinner table. And so we come round in a full circle to the beginning of this post and the puking disease that seems to have hit everyone. R thought it was great fun to see A puke into her plate, and indeed it was the first thing she told her mother about when she came to get her. All of the fun that we had and the tragedy that had occured in the four days she was over and A puking was the highlight... who would have thought.
So we will be heading to the visitation here in an hour or so. My daughter will have a second opportunity to wear her dress, I will visit with family that I haven't seen for five years, and I wish to God that it were different. I would trade so much to have my uncle John still here. Every time I think of my Aunt Cheryl my heartbreaks in half. The thought of my cousins Gary and Chrissy brings tears to my eyes. John was a good man who loved his family and had so much life still ahead of him. It seems so unfair for it to be cut short this way. Though we are busy trying to count the blessings involved in this.... my Aunt Cheryl normally would have been on the back of that bike! being one of them, they are of little consolation. We miss you already Uncle John! WE LOVE YOU!