Sick Again?

Surprise, surprise Grace is sick again. We're really very lucky that she doesn't get real sick, but she's still miserable. She didn't eat at daycare on Thursday, and she was having a hard time taking a nap, so I brought her to the pediatrician. When my child doesn't want to eat, somethings wrong. We could tell Thursday morning that she wasn't feeling well, but assumed it was teething, since she's drooling buckets, so i just gave her some Tylenol and Ora-gel. I hate that there's not more that can be done for teething.
So the Pedi said she had an little infection from all the antibiotics. We got a prescription and went home. Friday she seemed to be felling better, so she went to school. When I picked her up on Friday, they again said she didn't eat. Grace ate dinner that night but was up crying all night. Saturday she was a mess. The only time she napped was on top of my for about and hour and a half.
After not really wanting to eat anything, I felt like it was time for a bath and bed. When I picked her up to give her a bath, she felt hot. 101.8 to be exact. So now we have a fever. Grace feel asleep on the counter before I could get her shirt on and was very put out, when I inadvertently woke her up putting it on.
She ended up in our bed, and this is what Jared woke up to this morning.

Today she's still feels terrible and if nothing changes, will probably earn herself another doctor's visit. So far this morning she's kept up her fever and done nothing but lay on me, sleep, and watch her videos.

this one's for the boys

Oakley is, and will always be, my best pal. We adopted Oakley from a shelter a little over 4 years ago. I've been through two knee surgeries and a host of other "if it's going to happen to a dog, it'll happen to my dog," issues. I love him.

Itchy is my other dog. I love him, but Itchy is... has always been difficult. Jared and I went for a walk one night in December and Itchy followed us home. It was suppose to freeze that night and we just couldn't leave him out there. We decided to inspect him before letting him in, just in case. Immediately we noticed something was wrong, but not sure what. He was skinny and had no hair on his ears; most definitely a street dog. We carried him upstairs for a bath, it was at this point when he seemed to be rethinking picking us to follow home. We put him in Oakley's old kennel and gave him a big bowl of food. He ate fast and for the rest of the night he scratched. I took him to the vet and was told he had scabies. Scabies, or sarcoptic mange, is super contagious for both humans and animals. Awesome. I washed everything with bleach, well, everything except Oakley. But he did get a bath. Itch was at the vet for 2 solid weeks, then the plan was to set him up to get adopted, but we would "foster" him.

Fast forward 2 months later, we're sitting in Jared's car at PetSmart, and I'm a blubbering mess. I absolutely did not want another dog, but I was attached. Jared walked me, Itchy and my red swollen eyes into the store were we adopted the beast.

The following are a list of things Itch has eaten.
a box spring
carpet (from door frame to door frame)
my new sofa
numerous blankets, sheets, etc.
3 thick black plastic kennel bottoms
magazines
hand fulls of Grace's toys
Not to mention that the dog walked up to me in the living room straddled my foot and proceeded to pee on it. He's a terror, but yet, we still love him.
There is a point to all this.
While both boys love Grace, Oakley would rather love her from a distance. She scares him, but he tries so hard. He's always the first to her room when she cries and as long as she remains calm, they can be friends.
Itchy is wild! He jumps around and barks at her, but she loves it. He'll let her do whatever she wants to do. Pull his ear hair (I think he was blessed with extra after the scabies), fluff his tail, slap his sides, you name it. Today we witnessed this:

Grace went from nice brushing to almost poking out his eye, and he never flinched.
He's a good dog.
He never snaps, or ever tries to run away. He's always been sweet, just not always good. I'm so glad Itch found us, and I'm glad he's my dog. He's definitely sealed the deal on his free ride.

Easter 2009

Why is the most random toy always the favorite? Grace got so much for Easter, but from the Bunny she got a lamb, a blanket, pajamas, and the coolest sippy cup in town. Once she saw the little yellow duck sippy cup it didn't matter what else was in her basket.

Can you hear it? "Who care about pajamas Daddy I want the duck!"


From home, it was off to visit Grams, Uncle Josh and Aunt Jill, Uncle Randy, Kendra and David (Aunt Jill's sister and brother-in-law), and Delilah and Sam (Uncle Josh and Aunt Jill's' furry children). We had lots of fun and Grace got a chance to show off her pretty pink piggies to Uncle Josh.

Next we went to eat with Granny, Papaw, Memaw, and a bunch of other family. Grace was very good and didn't stop eating. She ate all her lunch, helped Dad out with his bread and Papaw with his french fries. Uncle Nay also held her for the first time ever. The nice waitress gave her some crayons, which she's never used before, and Papaw help her color her first picture. Isn't it perfect?


Next we went to visit Memere and more family. Grace had lots of fun with cousin Sarah's sweet pup Beau. Grace made Beau a little nervous at first, but one he warmed up to her, they were fast friends. I didn't really get any good pictures of them together, but I'm sure they'll hang out more in the future. Grace barely had a nap the whole day, but remained in a most excellent mood. When we got home, she crashed. It was a great day and a successful 2nd Easter.

Happy Girl

Grace's surgery went very well and after two very long naps at home, she was a happy girl. We spent the rest of the day playing with everyone and some good quality quiet time with Mom and Dad.

Since everything went so well, I thought I'd explain a couple of the lovely things we were told in recovery. We were warned that it was normal if Grace had some dried blood on her nose when we first saw her (from the adenoids), which was good cause I would have freaked if I hadn't been told that.
The super sweet nurse said it would be normal if she had some blood and drainage from her ears. Fine. Then she explained that if blood came from her nose and mouth it would also be normal. Excuse me, what? She said, "I just want to warm you that it is normal, so you don't panic. If it's more than a teaspoon, you'll need to call us." Internally I'm thinking, "You gotta be 'exploit deleted' kidding me." Can't speak for him, but I know him, and I'm sure Jared was thinking the same thing. I assured the very kind nurse that any blood coming from my child's nose and mouth would result in immediate panic, but thanks for the warning. She tried to reassure me it was normal. There's nothing normal about seeing blood pouring from my baby's nose and mouth. Okay, no one said pouring, but that's what I saw in my mind. I visualize everything, and there's no off switch. As if it couldn't get any better, she goes on to tell us that if Grace vomits and it looks like coffee grounds, "Don't be alarmed, it's just dried blood." I thought Jared was going to lose it. He very sarcastically looks over to me and said something to the effect of, yeah no big deal, it's just dried blood, followed by a gag.
Lucky for us, us meaning Grace, she did great. No pouring blood; liquid or solid. Gross.


Within the next couple days Grace was back to her old self.

Yippy for Grace

We (barely) got to the surgery center for Grace at 5am. We went back and got her super cute surgery gown on, and waited for a little while. Grace took this time to run away from us an ham it up for the other patients and family.

It's her job to bring joy to others. It's just to bad she can't get paid for it, she's excellent at it. We were called back again to go over some things, and then it was game time. She hesitantly went to the nurse, but when she realized we weren't gone with her she started to cry. Just like I thought, they wouldn't let me go back with her. Less than 10 minutes later it was all done, and we sat down with her doctor. He said her right ear was a disaster and she had formed a little hole in her eardrum, which was the cause for all the recent leakage. He removed and replaced her tubes then took out her adenoids. Apparently she had rather large adenoids, so removing them should be a great help to her ears and allergy issues. About five minutes later, they called us back to recovery. Grace was much calmer than last time. Because they removed her adenoids they had to start an IV for just in case stuff, so they were also able to give her some pain medicine, which is probably what kept her calm. She was very sweet and very tired, we stayed in recovery for about 15 minutes, then loaded her in the car. As long as we were moving she was happy and eventually passed out. We got home at around 7:30 and Grace's now asleep laying comfortably in her bed. I'll post more about how she's doing later on today.

Mommy is a LIAR

So I ate my words, "You'll never ever have to get blood work again." Even though she didn't understand what I was saying, I still feel like a jerk. I talked to two different nurses about the surgery all before 9:30 this morning. Then at about noon, I got another call from the nurse at the ENT's office. Some of Grace's levels were elevated and they wanted her to come in immediately for more blood work. Great! Her PTT level was high, which means her blood was not clotting at an acceptable rate. This meant that they could still remove and replace the tubes, but they could not remove her adenoids unless the levels went down. Super great! Like I wasn't freaking out about the surgery before, this new tidbit of info made me feel oh so much better. So I grabbed her blood work orders, grabbed her and headed over to the hospital. During this I also made a frantic call to Jared, who dropped everything to meet me. I didn't want to go alone the first time and having to bring Grace a second time in the same week by myself was a less then appealing thought. We got there, she screamed, but actually took it much better this time. The nurse who stuck her was way nicer and super accurate. She also gave Grace a super cute bandaid, complete with purple hearts for bravery.

Jared picked on me for lying to our child, which also helped with my guilt. Thanks honey.
We got a call late this afternoon saying that her levels went down, and while they're still a little higher than normal, they are at an acceptable level. All I know is, they better take good care of my precious baby.
We have to be at the surgery center for 5am, and I'll try to post when I get home.

Getting Physical

Grace had an appointment today with her pediatrician for a physical. An after her traumatic experience yesterday, she was pretty upset that I brought her there. She cried every time someone in scrubs looked in her direction. The only time I had to let her go was to be weighted and again she screamed like she was on fire. She even tried throwing herself off the scale in my direction. I'm really hoping they let me stay with her until she's sleeping before her surgery, but I don't think they will. They didn't last time. I just feel so bad, because she's older now and more aware that they're taking her away from mommy and daddy. Poor baby just wants to feel better. Everything went well for the most part, but her doctor did confirm our suspicion that she has a little eczema. I don't think it's anything the right concoction of soap and lotion can't handle. We did gets some drops for her ears, which will hopefully help her get through the next couple days. Grace was in a lot of pain early this morning and from what her teacher said most of the day. We just keep promising her it'll all be better soon.

Growing Pains

With Grace's upcoming surgery, we have a few pre-opp appointments. Today was blood work. Awesome! I was not doing this one alone; enter Daddy. Grace was in a good mood when I picked her up from school, which made me happy but extraordinarily guilty at the same time. Happy, because I always love to see her happy and guilty because I knew that beautiful smile would be short lived. We sat and played in the car for a little while waiting for Dad. She was so excited, she never gets to just crawl around the car.


But as with everything the car became old news, and we decided to walk around inside. We had some crackers and apple juice while we waited and Grace was hamming it up for all the passing nurses. When Daddy got there we headed down the long hall to the place I'm sure Grace would describe as, "the bad place." As soon as we walked into the little white room, she stared to come unglued. From the time I laid her on the table until the time I picked her up, not that I ever let her go, she screamed like she was on fire. We both cried, but Dad held it together. As I watched the nurse stick my precious baby in the arm and wiggle the needle around, all I wanted to do, besides take Grace and run, was punch this woman in her mouth. I know it's awful, and she really was very nice, but she made my child bleed... on purpose. Grace didn't appreciate her kind attitude. Once I was holding her again, she would turn to look at the nurse and let out little screams before turning back to me and Jared. She did it repeatedly, she wanted her to know she was mad. But once we left and Grace had her juice all was right with her world.

She was too cute showing off her battle wound before bathtime.

X Games - Parenthood Edition

Saturday morning, I walked into my perfect daughters perfect room, to get her from a perfect nap. She was playing quietly in her crib, which is not unusual for such a perfect little child. Then I saw it, that is, before I smelled it. Grace, my perfect child, sitting in a lake of poop. Early on in her life I choose the perfect diapers for a perfect daughter, but there in no diaper in the world that could have withstood this monster. I immediately started screaming for reinforcements. As Jared came running up the stairs, I was carrying Grace (at arms length) down the hall. Daddy smelled it before he saw it. I tossed gently placed Grace into an empty tub as Jared followed. "There's just so much poo," was all that I could say. I can remember thinking, how can she not look deflated? It was a lot. Like 1/2 her body weight. A lot. Now Grace, like lots of kids, has had blowouts before, but this could have won a prize. You know, like those pictures of teeny tiny kids holding a fish twice their size? Just like that, minus the verage kid with fish, insert the perfect child with overflowing pamper. She was stripped, rinsed, and scrubbed cleaned. That was followed by the entire bathroom and her crib experiencing the same fate. Parenthood is not for wimps!

An apple a day?

Doctors, doctors, doctors everywhere. So a couple Mondays ago I escorted 40% of my family to the doctor. Itchy was first. After being sick (all over everything) all weekend, and Jared and I noticing one of Grace's toys missing, I thought it would be best to take him to the vet. I was also trying to schedule another ENT appointment for Grace. I called the vet first, trying to make both appointments in the afternoon so I didn't have to take off work. Once I told the tech at the vet's office our suspicion about the missing toy she freaked me out about Itchy possibly suffering intestinal death from a lodged toy. I immediately turned off my computer and was out the door to pick up my dog. I grabbed both Oakley and Itchy (where one goes the other follows) and proceeded to the vet.


$266.00 and two x-rays later, I was relieved there was no obstruction and he was fine, physically anyway. I've always been concerned the scabbies he had when we found him, ate the majority of his brain. The vet thinks I'm being funny. I'm not. He's sweet but not to bright. Then came the ride home, ah the ride home.


The vet gave Itch a shot for the nausea, but warned me it was very possible for one more episode for vomiting. And my sweet little Itchy always delivers. As soon as I turned into our subdivision he vomited on the floor of my car. Super! Thank God for black interior. After getting the boys settled and cleaning out my car it was back to work.
Picked up my little Gracie Goose, and we were off to the ENT. A couple weeks before her birthday the tube in her right ear feel out, leading to an ear infection, and I was pretty sure she had another one. Grace, just like Itch before her, did not disappoint. Her ENT felt like this was enough to score her a second set of tubes. Her second surgery is scheduled for next week. She'll do anything for a new toy, and a new toy she shall have.

I love my kids. All three of them, but we could have so much more fun together if we could stay out the doctors office.