One Long Week

SUNDAY

We got to church and Jossy didn't want to get off my lap. She didn't want to color or play with toys and even passed up on the Sacrament. She didn't want to stay in nursery (which is typical.) Normally I make her stay but I figured she was just really tired, so I took her with me to nurse Lacey then into Relief Society. She fell asleep quickly on the chairs. I thought she'd feel better after that nap.

After getting home, she started to develop a fever. We gave her some meds which eventually took down the fever, but she still acted very tired and took 3 separate naps that afternoon, eating almost nothing.

Around 6 she was feeling slightly more energetic thanks to the Motrin, so we put her in the stroller and took a walk thinking the fresh air might help her. We were gone only 10 minutes when she threw up in the stroller, down herself, and on the sidewalk. That wasn't so fun.

MONDAY

No throwing up since 6PM the night before, so I was thinking it would be a quick 24 hour thing. That is until about noon when she threw up a popsicle twice and some crackers later in the day. She spent the day on a sleeping bag in the living room where I could keep an eye on her. She never got up from it all day but she was still talking to us. Again, she slept alot.

TUESDAY

No throwing up over night, but she threw up 2 or 3 more times that day. She couldn't even keep water down and was fighting me to drink it. We tried a tablespoon every few minutes and still she would eventually throw it up. I debated all day whether to wait it out or take her in to the doctor. By late afternoon, I noticed she hadn't had much of a wet diaper, if anything. (She had recently been potty trained, but her lack of energy to make it to the bathroom made me decide to put her in diapers for the duration of her illness.) Given the lack of urine along with her no longer wanting to speak or move at all, I decided to at least call the nurse at our pediatrician's office. She said I should definitely bring her in, so 40 minutes later we were visiting with the PA. She was on the fence about whether or not Jossy needed IV fluids so she consulted the doctor on call, which happened to be our regular doctor. In her case, he felt it better to error on the side of caution so we headed over to the hospital nearby. He thought one bag would be enough to perk her back up and we'd only be there a couple hours at most.

We got there around 5PM. Her doctor thought he'd be there at 6 to check on her, but he got stuck with some serious emergencies and didn't get there til 10:30. Jossy screamed bloody murder over her IV being placed, but she never fought it. She just didn't have the energy. That's how bad off she was. They gave her a cute little fish stuffed animal, but that didn't do much to win her over on staying at the hospital. What DID do the trick was the pile of Barbie princess DVD's she could watch.

One bag of fluid later, she was still not well. It was obvious she needed to stay the night. I took Matty and Lacey home around 9:30, picked up some things for Dan to sleep at the hospital, and went back to be with Jossy for a bit while my sister sat with the other kids at home. I stayed until she was able to fall asleep (after a major meltdown on her part, singing on mine.) Leaving my sick baby there to go home was one of the hardest things I've done. Even knowing Dan was going to be there with her, it was hard for me not to be the one to stay. I cried alot, just as I had watching her get so ill over the past few days. But it just didn't make sense for me to keep Lacey there overnight as well (for nursing) when she'd just wake Jossy up all night long.

I got home around 11:30, crawled into bed around midnight and fell asleep. At 12:20 AM Lacey woke up to eat. I fed her and put her back in her bed, only to have to respond to more of her crying around 2:30. I was too tired to fight getting her to sleep again, so I just fed her some more. She finally started to drift off around 3AM . . . right when my phone rang. Before Dan even said anything, I could hear Jossy bawling in the background. She was having a meltdown only no one could figure out why since she refused to talk. Dan put me on speaker phone and I was able to talk to her and figure out that she wanted a hug but only from Mommy. :( I was trying to decide who I could get to come watch my other kids in the middle of the night. My trying to figure it out calmed her down. I was able to keep her calm by talking with her about it and singing to her for over an hour on the phone. She eventually fell back asleep without me having to go anywhere. Man, I was exhausted, but had a hard time falling back asleep until about 4:30. Lacey was again up around 6 something so I brought her to bed with me for one more precious hour of sleep.

WEDNESDAY

I got up at 7 AM to get Matty off to the bus, then rushed over to the hospital to be with my little girl. She was happy to see me and Lacey, even smiling a little. Progress. She was enjoying her Barbie movies but wasn't eating or drinking anything for the nurse.

Lacey strangely seemed to enjoy this position of having one arm stuck down the end of the bed. She would've been content to stay there, but I didn't want her to really get herself in there.

We eventually got Jossy to choose some toast for breakfast so she ate that along with a strawberry and some bites of french toast. The doctor was running late doing morning rounds, so by the time he got there she had a little more energy from her food. He said she was good to go home but would take a while to recover and the diarrhea (which was just beginning) may last a week or so.

Watching Barbie movies together from her bed

Only now we had a different problem: Jossy didn't want to leave. Getting the IV out was a little traumatic just from all the tape being pulled off. She SCREAMED and bawled about it. Then she didn't want to leave without all the Barbie movies. I told her we'd go buy one on the way home (which we did.) She got to ride in a wagon down to the car which helped her willingness to leave as well. We had to borrow the hospital scrubs since her pj's she came in had gotten wet. (All that IV fluid had overflowed her diaper overnight.)

On the way home she crashed. No sleep the night before will do that to you. The diarrhea was the most horrible I think I've ever dealt with as a parent. Lets just say I'll be cleaning my carpets very soon. Poor girl was crying off and on from a tummy ache and slept most the day, but at least she was talking to us a little more. I was getting worried about how long recovery would take.

THURSDAY

Again, the worst part of the day was the diarrhea. (You can thank me for sparing you from details.) She didn't seem so good, but at least she was finding little things to eat and food was staying down. Her favorite thing that day was homemade potato chips and otter pops. She still seemed super sick though. By this point I was extremely exhausted from worrying about her, constantly taking care of her along with 2 other kids, and getting no sleep. I was woken up that night by her crying because she wanted me to change her diaper in the middle of the night, not Daddy who was kindly sleeping on the couch to be near her. Lucky me.

FRIDAY

I wasn't sure when this day started how she was going to be. But her appetite has really picked up (for Fruit Loops anyway) and she was able to sit up on her own by late morning! I was really excited about that. She loved having a little breakfast tray to eat from all day. It was my way of encouraging her to sit up more.

By this evening, she asked if she could go outside for a bit. The doctor said not to limit her activity, so we let her. She was very tipsy and didn't have much coordination for the first little while, but soon got her bearings back. She was able to climb up the play set and go down the slide over and over. I couldn't believe she felt well enough to do that with how she had felt earlier in the day. It's nice to see my little girl coming back to us. She's definitely not completely better yet, but she's on her way.


So that's been my week. Dan hasn't slept in our bed since last Saturday (and is still sleeping by her tonight just in case,) I've lost weight because my appetite seems to fly out the window when cleaning up the things I've had to clean, we've gone through a whole thing of sanitizer, my hands are cracked and bleeding from washing them so often, I haven't slept more than 4 hours a night all spread out, my living room smells like Resolve, and I get to spend a nice chunk of change on an overnight trip to the hospital. But when you finally have a healthy little girl coming back, does any of that really matter?? Oh, and lucky me, Aunt Flo decided to come back for the first time since having Lacey the day all of this began. How kind of Mother Nature.

What a week!!!

5 Months

Lacey turned 5 months this past Sunday. I took her picture that day but haven't been able to post it until now for reasons I'll explain in the next post.


Lacey is a little ball of joy! She smiles at just about everyone who gives her their attention, but lately she won't let many people hold her. Guess "stranger danger" is starting already with her.

She loves to roll around. Last week I left her in the middle of the living room floor on her play mat and went upstairs for something. About 5 minutes later Jossy yelled at me, "Mom! Lacey's on the wood floor!" I thought maybe Jossy dragged her over there or something, but nope. She had done it on her own. I'm not really sure how she got around the bars on the play mat.


Just a few days before she turned 5 months she started army crawling!! I can't believe it! She uses her toes to push forward more than her knees. She's not very fast at it (thankfully) but she can definitely move forward. Absolutely everything goes directly to her mouth, especially her hand.


She never does more than one 4-hour stretch at night (which is usually during the time that I'm still up), and the rest of the night she's up about every 2 hours. I'm so tired dealing with her at night, but then I see that beautiful smile greet me first thing in the morning and I completely forgive her for being a pill the night before. I don't know that I've ever enjoyed having a baby in my home as much as I do now, and I don't think it's necessarily that she's a better baby than my other two. I think I'm just in a place where I can enjoy it more now, probably because I now realize how perfectly sweet this baby stage is compared to the toddler years on the horizon!

I love my little Lacey Face!!

Run 13

This past Saturday (the 17th) the kids participated in another race by Run 13. Matty had a great time and chose to have his Uncle Brandon run with him. He is a FAST little kid! In a sprint, he can beat me.

Jossy did not have such a great time. Something set her off into a fit right before her race was about to start, and I couldn't get her to happily run by my side. I literally had to drag her along the entire way because she wanted picked up. Not my funnest experience!


Because there were only 3 little girls and 3 boys participating in her age group, she was able to get a 3rd place medal, lucky duck. I think it should be mine just for dragging her around the track.


Afterwards, we waited in line an hour and a half just to get the kids' faces painted. I would never choose to stand there that long, but the kids really wanted to. The lady was good, but there was only one of her and a long line a kids.

Busy as a Bee, a Polka-Dot One

When I found out I was having a second daughter join our family, I didn't really feel super excited over a girl. She was what she was. But THEN I remembered that this meant I could dress them in cute matching dresses! Excitement took over, and I could hardly wait to take my little matching princesses off to church.

Fast forward one birth and 4 months after that, I realized that it's just about impossible to find a dress that comes in the size of a toddler as well as a new baby. Oh, there out there, I'm sure. I just don't want to pay a ton for them when Lacey gets to wear it all of 3 months! So what's the solution to my problem? Testing out my new sewing skills by sewing matching dresses ON MY OWN!! That's right, no help from my mom this time (other than the almost daily 10 PM call to her to complain about sewing my first zipper or similar issues.)

It took me 5 days to sew Jossy's dress first and just 3 to finish Lacey's. Sewing was my life last week and all I did in between taking care of kids and fixing meals. Jossy loved to try on any part of her dress that was finished and didn't want to give the parts back. She LOVES it.

They got to wear their new dresses to church this week. After church we took a drive to show them to Grandma and take a few pictures (roughly 1 million and 1) in her backyard. It's a far from perfect sewing job, but I'm pretty darn proud of my first attempts at sewing dresses on my own! I also made little matching rosettes for their hair.

Honestly, what's the point of wearing a pretty dress unless you can twirl in it??

I had to get a picture of Jossy helping her Aunt Dawn water flowers.
She makes gardening look so pretty.

Speaking of Aunt Dawn, we couldn't believe when we saw her that she had worn polka-dots to church as well! What are the odds?! Poor Lacey was done with pictures, but we forced her to take them anyway.

The Non-Camping Campout and Other Tales

For Labor Day weekend last year we spent the night as an extended family camping out in my sister's backyard. After the joys of not sleeping at all that night (and being about 8 weeks pregnant), we decided we'd just have a barbecue and set up tents for the kids to play in for a few hours. I guess I was having too much fun because I didn't take many pictures.

While we were there, Jossy tried on her cousin's Rapunzel costume. It's 2 sizes too big but we may try to make it work for Halloween anyway.

The next day we finally got to catch up with the Loaf Love Tour for Tillamook at a local grocery store. Free cheese samples? Coupons? Awesome buttons? Yes, please!!

Last week I wanted to just give Lacey a quick bath so I threw her in the tub with the big kids. It was not her favorite thing but she survived, though we may have lost her in a pink towel after getting her out.

The Serendipitous Napkin

3 posts in one day. I apologize for monopolizing your computer. I'm just anxious to get caught up.

Since Matty started having lunch at school this year, I've been writing on his napkin every day just little notes or drawing pictures, anything to make him smile midday and know I'm thinking of him.

One day I drew a sun on the napkin for no reason other than my drawing capabilities are pretty limited but a sun I can handle. It looked pretty boring to me so then I drew a picture of the sign for "I love you" in sign language, something Matty and I show one another often. I didn't think my drawing was obvious so I wrote the words next to it.


He came home that day and I asked if he liked his napkin. He said, "Oh yeah! It said 'Son, I love you!' I showed my friends! Can I keep this one, Mom?" Wow. I didn't intend the sun to mean "son" but why tell him that? :) So I guess this napkin is getting saved for his memory book.

The Zoo Up Close

We had gotten discount tickets to the zoo earlier in the year, and since they were about to expire we decided to go 2 weeks ago. Plus, we were trying to squeeze every last ounce of summer fun we could from our days before school started and this was perfect for that.

The temperature was SCORCHING hot that day, the crowds were horrible, and my kids were a little more than whiny. Even with all that, having my new lens with me made it one of my favorite trips to the zoo ever!! Honestly, I felt like I was really able to get close and actually see the animals for the first time. It was so much fun for me!

Guess I don't need to see monkeys at the zoo when I have these 2 at home.

There were these robotic dinosaurs throughout the zoo. My kids thought they were pretty cool.
One even spit water at us (which felt GREAT given the heat!)

The giraffe was probably my favorite thing to photograph.
I loved capturing all those textures! What a beautiful animal!

Matty the First Grader

Sorry for the birthday freak-out yesterday, but thanks to those who let me know I wasn't alone. I'm feeling much better today. Dan surprised me last night with a nice little get-together with my family and a couple friends. We went bowling then had pizza and ate a beautiful cake that I didn't have to bake myself! Wahoo! Wish I had a picture to show but hopefully I will soon.

Back to real life.
Matty started school last week. He's now in first grade.

I drove him to school that morning just to make sure he got where he needed to be and take pictures. I'm glad he doesn't think his mom's an embarrassment . . . yet. He was just a tad excited.

Matty has a very nice teacher this year. I hope he loves her classroom as much as his kindergarten one.

As we left, he gave Jossy an "air high 5." She was very sad that she couldn't stay at school with Matty. Just 2 more years and she can.

I didn't cry dropping him off! . . . but that may have been because all my tears were expended the night before. (Man, if you only read this post and the last one you'll think I cry all the time!) I was so nervous for him to be gone that long! I cried over others having more time with him during the day than me, which means I can't control if someone's mean to him or teaches him things I'd rather he not learn. I cried because 6 years has gone by way too fast since I first held my newborn son in my arms. Who gave him permission to grow up anyway? Because I certainly didn't!