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Friday, July 22, 2005

Going out of town

The girls & I will be in NE Ohio all weekend, starting tomorrow afternoon, to attend our first In Real Life meeting. We're meeting about 5-6 people who all post on trisomy21online.com. I think a few people from MI are coming, as well as most of the people who live in Ohio. We're meeting at someone's house for pizza on Sunday afternoon, but I'm getting together with a lady named Christi, who has 2 kids, Wheatley, age 7, and Veronica, age 2, who has Down syndrome. It should be a great weekend. Jeff can't go, due to work & school. So, I've been working my tail off all day to make sure he has clean clothes, food in the fridge and a relatively clean house. Of course by the time I get back, he'll be walking around in a loin cloth, saying he's starving, and the house will be a pigsty.

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Now I have to wait 2 years....

for the next Harry Potter book. I'm finished with "The Half-Blood Prince". I'm sad, both at the events in the book, and that fact that I'm going to have to wait for so long to find out what happens. I guess the only solace I have is that "The Goblet of Fire" is coming to theaters this November. Looks really good. Can't wait to see Fleur Delacore in the flesh, as prissy & pretentious as ever.
Jeff, unknowingly, kinda spoiled the book for me. He found a website that has an audio file of someone yelling outside a crowded bookstore, the ending of the book. Turns out it was true. Which was not unexpected. Just wrong, plain wrong, that it had to happen that way. Jeff, who hasn't read any of the books, doesn't know what else happened, and I guess he really doesn't have time to read them in order to find out. I kinda tell him tidbits as I read them. So, again, I'm sad, I won't deny I cried, and it sucks that it's over. I suppose I could have extended it a bit by not reading it so quickly, but hey, it's me. I read the first 5 books in 3 1/2 weeks. What can I say?

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Milestone!

Sarah is officially crawling! Of course, being as it's Sarah, she has to put her own unique twist on an old pasttime, and do it a little differently. Instead of being on all 4's, one of her legs sticks straight out, and she propels herself forward by pushing off from that foot. It's hilarious. I keep trying to correct her posture, but all she does is fall on her belly when I do. Oh well, at least she's making progress. She also pulled up to standing this morning! I was in the bathroom, and she crawled over to the tub, and pulled herself up while holding onto the edge! It's so cool to see her finally be able to get where she's been aching to go to for months. Although she's been rolling forever and army crawling for about 2 months, it hasn't exactly been the same as being able to make a beeline for where her aim is, and get there. Now that she's progressing to pulling up, though, we might need to rethink certain things, like where her crib mattress is, and what she can reach now on the coffee table.
Another milestone, while not alltogether a happy one, is the onset of Sarah's toddler attitude. And by attitude, I don't mean her giving me pouty looks and throwing herself on the ground in a pile of wallowing sadness, like her big sister. No, I mean the "I'm going to throw this on the floor to see what happens" attitude. And that's her big thing lately, throwing things on the floor. it wouldn't be so bad if were just things that I knew she was finished with, i.e. empty sippy cup or a toy. No, it's full bowls of food & cups brimming with liquid. But, I guess the funny part is, she doesn't care. She would not miss that food or drink or toy, until you had one. If she sees you with food and she doesn't have the exact same thing in front of her, you've committed a seriously heinous crime. And she'll let you know. Either by yelling indignantely, or by bursting into sobs. When you walk into a room with food, she'll eye you until you sit down, and if you haven't offered her a portion of it within a millisecond, she'll let you know her disapproval.

Saturday, July 16, 2005

More medical fun

Ok, ok, OK! I get it! Kids get weird illnesses and funky diseases and fall and break thing. But, WHY do they always happen to MY kids!? Emma comes up to me yesterday afternoon, and tells me her foot hurts. So I look at it. Right by where she got a bug bite about 2 weeks ago, is a welt-like, raised area, with a swollen, red area about 3 inches in diameter, around it. I start to panic a little, as I'm afraid she might have gotten bitten by one of the innumerable bugs we have scurrying around the house. I check her temp (fine), ask her if she hurts anywhere else (no) and ask her if she remembers when it started hurting (when she woke up). Yay. So I call Jeff to let him know what's up, I go online (never a good idea, especially when there's pictures of nasty bug bites), and call my fahter-in-law (pest control guy) to ask him what he thinks might have bitten her. Everyone suggests I take her to the doctor. Good idea, but I don't have the car. So, Jeff comes home early, takes over Sarah duty, and Emma & I go to Urgent Care. The triage nurse says he thinks it's cellulitis. And, after waiting over an hour to see an actual doctor, that's what SHE says it is, too. So, she got bit by something and get an infection in the tissue under the skin. If this seems familiar, it should. Emma had cellulitits 6 weeks ago, on her thigh, after her immunizations. Sigh. This kid gets the weirdest stuff! So, we're on Prednisone (yay) and antibiotics. I think it looks better today.
So, I went to Meijer last night at midnight, to buy the new Harry Potter book. Why, you ask? Because I'm a loser, that's why. I didn't pre-order it, so I wouldn't get it before Monday if I'd ordered it online, and I couldn't have that, could I? So, I stood in line, with half the town, for an hour, to buy a book. By the time I got home, it was so late, I couldn't even read it. But, I have it. Yay me.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Finally, some action

After Sarah's Upper GI a couple weeks ago, at first it looked like I was back at square one. The radiology nurse had given me false information that the radiologist thought Sarah had a condition called "pyloric stenosis", which is a narrowing of the tube from the stomach to the small intestine. But, turns out, he didn't even get a good look at that valve during her Upper GI, so I don't know where SHE got her information. Anyhow, her pedi still had a "wait & see" attitude. I was pushing for SOMETHING to be done, so I brought her in & got her weighed. She was down to 14 lbs. 10 oz. Still more than what she had been the previous week at the cardiologists, but still lower than what she was at 13 months. So, I think this was finally the kick in the pants the pedi needed. He called the pedi gastroenterologist in Lansing. He said he didn't want to see her just yet (figures) but wanted her to try Zantac (yay!) for a month and also get more blood work done (not yay). So, we've been on the Zantac for 2 1/2 days, and I'm not seeing very much progress yet. She's still spitting up after nursing and almost anything liquidy. She was chewing on the Infant Tylenol bottle this morning & when she spit up, it was quite forceful. So, just one more thing to talk to the pedi about.
On a good note, however, Sarah's been making some serious milestones!! In the past week she's: said her first two words (mama & dada), but hasn't said them again, lol; she's learned to wave with both hands (albeit different styles with each hand); she's starting to scoot instead of army crawl; and her 11th tooth finally popped through! She's also trying SO hard to pull up on everything. She's able to pull herself to her knees, but it's the process of getting her feet planted underneath her that's the next step. She's into EVERYTHING now. Gone are the days when I could put her down somewhere and she'd stay there. Nope, she's on to bigger & better things.
Emma started soccer last night. It's not really practices & games, but more of a 3 week training course. Just to get her introduced to the game. So, we had to go out yesterday & get the Mt. Pleasant Parks & Rec jersey (required), shin guards (also required), and some decent running shoes (required by ME). We got her some really nice Nike shoes, which I'm hoping will still fit her until about Christmas, as they were expensive. They're slip-ons, which is nice, so I don't have to worry about Emma's shoes becoming untied at school. She was so excited about soccer (although she keeps calling it "football", maybe she's tapping into her English ancestry?). But, as Emma is inclined to be, she wanted to be the center of attention. Which is hard to be on a team sport. Which is exactly why I put her in it. She needs to be in an environment where she's NOT the diva. So, after about 30 minutes of learning how to kick the ball & throw the ball (which she's quite good at), they had a little 4 on 4 scrimmage. The only problem was, Emma wanted to be the one to kick the ball ALL the time. She hasn't quite learned the "teamwork" part yet. So, she started throwing a fit, and told her coach she wanted to be on a different team. Nice. But, after a quick pep talk with Dad, she was off to her own team. We just have to remind ourselves that this is a learning experience for her, and it's going to take some time to change some of the "diva" traits she has, lol. But, she's excited about going again on Wednesday. So maybe by the end of the 3 weeks, she'll have a little bit of a different attitude.