The Jenkins Family Blog

Through the magic mirror

2011-08-05T20:29:00.005-04:00

I wish God would have given me a magic mirror many many years ago for just a peak, just a snippet of what life would be like now.

When she was born and the nurse handed me a packet of what VACTERL was and I was so doped up on pain meds that I was laughing while reading the oh-so informative packet. Really, no anus....where was THAT chapter in the "what to expect when you are expecting". Not in my edition. No husband around because he was sitting in an icy cold NICU waiting room wondering when my daughter was coming out of her life-saving surgery and what the heck was going on. Or hearing babies cry down the hall on the maternity floor and all I had was a picture to her to look out-I couldn't see her, hold her or feed her. Those 72 hours were the worst ever. No husband and no baby. That sucked.

Or the horrible months of summer when she turned one and was taken back into the OR for 6 weeks straight for our surgeon to destroy her but*t hole even more. But more so in the nights following the surgery, when her temp would spike over 105 (I didn't even wait for the stupid thermometer to finish beeping) and I would literally throw her out of her crib into her bathtub of COLD water, pjs at all, at 2am only to her the surgeon on call tell me that is a NORMAL REACTION! WTH? SERIOUSLY? And later that summer, when we had to do other painful procedures to her and I expressed concerns that she was in pain, and I felt that something wasn't right, I was called "crazy" to my face and perhaps I should get help. And that my daughter has a low tolerance for pain. Pure hell-watching someone hold down your child as they escort you out of the room. And nothing to stop it.

Or the next summer that I had to torture her with solid metal rods(that get progressively larger) where the sun don't shine, twice daily, for months, to keep that 100K but*t hole we got made for her in Cincinnati from closing up. How I used to sob afterwards because there was no other choice so it HAD to be done. Not what I wanted to be doing for the next 8 months.

Or when we finally moved to a city who evaluated our daughter for speech and OT and informed us she has a 18 month delay and WHY didn't be do anything before (thanks Virginia Beach) and that we would shell out over $1200 for a summer of intensive speech/OT (thanks insurance for the lack of outpatient coverage) and prayed that maybe one day she would wear sandals without socks, pjs without long pants, go into water without screaming, play in the sand....that summer was hard too-new house-new city and a big ol IEP that became our best buddy.

And then today....as I was zoning out slightly at the beach watching her play with other 4 and 5 year olds laughing and splashing in the water and having the time of her life it occurred to me that all the tears that I have cried, all the heartbreak, all the bitter words spoken, have been worth it. She is my normal, life loving, 5 year old child of joy

If only...if only I could have seen into this summer all those years ago to know that those experiences were just little bumps in the road.

Reflections

2011-06-24T22:21:00.002-04:00

It has been a day. I didn't think we would still be standing five years later after multiple medical procedures, surgeries, diagnosis, bundles of medical supplies and yet, here we are. On Emma's 5th birthday, at a VACTERL conference. At a VACTERL conference. Finally. I was really struggling to hold it together tonight-finally meeting some of the moms, in person, that I have known for years online....its simply amazing. I thank God for facebook and yahoo because I would have not found my support without the power of the internet. I love my family to pieces and they have been supportive in every way. But...I still needed an outlet to bounce off ideas/frustrations/tears to and I found that over a laptop keyboard. I just don't have words for it. And my friend Becca giving her the barbie and her horse...I bawled when we got back to our room. That was so very thoughtful and Emma is clutching it as she drifts off to sleep.

In the days after she was born, after the morphine and perocet had worn off, I was presented with a reality that I did not have a "normal" child. I was bitter, angry, sad, scared....feelings that shouldn't happen when you have a new baby. I didn't see her until she was 4 days old, I didn't get to hold her until she was a week old, didn't get to hold her without any leads/tubes/pumps until the day she came home from the NICU. And the VACTERL diagnosis....I thought it was the end of all things. And I did for awhile when we practically lived at the hospital those first couple of months. But when I crawled out from under my shell and was shocked at first to even find other mom's in the same boat as me and even more shocked that our kids were months apart, I suddenly didn't feel so alone, and bitter, and angry. Having VACTERL has been a blessing-I would have never known some of these moms and dads had my child been born with a correct anatomy and girly parts. Its been worth all the tears, the surgeries, the trips to Ohio to make Emma who she is today. Happy birthday to my little Emma Rose....hope your 5th birthday was one to remember.

Please Pray

2011-06-13T17:26:00.002-04:00

Eithene's CB site- http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/eithenerosehilliard

Maybe its the fact that Emma is celebrating her 5th birthday next week which coincides with the VACTERL conference and I am trying to get excited BUT knowing that we are about to lose another little girl to the angels from complications from VACTERL and mito is really getting to me. No parent ever in a million years envisions themselves having to make the kind of decisions Jessica and Sean have been forced to make for their little girl. Their faith in God is awe-inspiring-I don't know if I could have done the same. Please mail birthday cards (no gifts) to the address in her CB site. She also loves princesses too :)

Dear Winter

2011-02-23T12:56:00.003-05:00

Dear winter,

Please leave ASAP. You are making me shock everything insight (cat/kid/patient file drawer at the office), contribute to global warming even more (running car in am to warm up), decreasing my urge to eat rabbit food to leave ('cause hey, its cold and lets eat potato soup) and causing my 4 year old to go stir crazy because yet again, its TOO COLD TO GO TO THE PARK.

And my sandals are begging to get out of their boxes to be worn on my feet.

Thank you and good bye!

My donation to the RMH of Cincinnati

2010-04-10T14:57:00.005-04:00

I have been meaning to clean out my stock-pile closet of freebies that I have been collecting since January. And we had no more room left for me to get any more so it was donation time ;)

First of all, RHMC mean a lot to me considering we were there for almost 2 weeks when Emma got her PSARP redone in March of 2008. The people we encountered there were wonderful-some of the parents I met had been there over a year...yes a year in the hospital while their children fought for their lives. I was touched by a lot of their stories, the willingness of the staff to help out in anyway they can, the volunteers who cooked us meals, cleaned our room, drove us to the store.

Well, I just mailed out a ginoumous package on Thursday. Yes, that is a lot of toothpaste which most I made money on-thanks CVS/Wags/Rite Aid. I called our local RMH but they told me nothing that I had to give was needed. Cincinnati on the other hand, said yes, we need all of it. THey have over 50 rooms there, the one in Norfolk where ours is has 4 or 5 rooms.

Yay-time to buy (I mean, get for free and then some) to start the process all over again. MOst of this is tax-deductible and our accountant will be happy to see that we do in fact, donate things.

If you are an IA mom....I know Dulcolax is the evil of all evils (same active ingredient as Miralax). The fiber is bad too -should have added notes to those items saying not to be given to Levitt/Pena patients :)

More ways to save-writing to the companies whose food you love

2010-01-19T13:13:00.002-05:00

For a little bit of your time, you can usually get some high value coupons or FREE product coupons by writing to food companies of your choice.

These are who I wrote to last month and what I got in return:

Johnsonville Sausage- 2 $1 off coupons for any 1 sausage

Plum Organics- try one product on us for free (we get the fruit snacks at BRU)

Van's Waffles- Free box of waffles (saved me about $4-expensive little waffles)

Earthbound Organic Farm- $1.50 off pre-packaged salad

Pilgrim's Pride- $1 off any product (using this to buy E her mickey mouse nuggets at Target)

Organic Valley- $1.50 off any size milk (which made for some cheap milk 2 weeks ago)

Some companies will only mail you coupons 1x per year but for 10 minutes of your time, you might be able to save a couple of dollars. Most big companies (Heinz, Kraft, General Mills) usually write be back and say they don't mail coupons but be on the lookout for ones in your paper. I gave up on those last year but I might try 'em again to see what happens.

And if you get something and don't like it, write to the company and explain your dissatisfaction. They might throw in something for you in return :)

Couponing 101

2010-01-13T14:07:00.005-05:00

Why type a ginormous post when you can check out Amber's blog on how to get started with coupons. When you land on her blog, you will see a category called....you guessed it...coupons.

I am getting to be a fanatic about this. I just got my MIL 3 (4 packs) of Activa yogurt yesterday for $1.50. Should have waited an extra day b/c I would have gotten them for FREE today at Farm Fresh. Oh well, got 2 things of creamer yesterday for free so I shouldn't whine too much.

Here is a quick run down on some couponing FYI

Coupons that start with 9 WILL NOT DOUBLE. These are usually blinkies and store coupons. But I would say 90% of my coupons start with 5 and 99% of the time they will double/triple accordingly. Try a few out at your local grocery store to see if the ones that say DO NOT DOUBLE do in fact, double. Nobody around here manually enters coupons-the little scanner thing does the doubling thing automatically.

Stores such as Target/CVS/Walgreens/Rite Aid will let you use one store coupon AND one manufacturer's coupon for the same item. I have print outs from each store stating their coupon policy in my handy dandy binder.

Don't spend loads of $$$ on fancy schmancy binders/organizing systems until you are really doing this thing on a daily basis. Why waste all that money if you aren't committed to it. Use envelopes and organize this way until you are really serious about it.

The expensive grocery stores will usually have the "best" sales BUT what really makes it a great deal is the coupon(s) used on top of the item that is on sale. This is where you save the $$$.

Write a list, buy what is on your list only. The expensive grocery store knows they are having a great sale but really really hope that your preschooler throws in that $5 box of cookies without your knowledge. Stick with your list and buy only what you need. Return extra items that made it into your cart for refund.

Search coupons.com, redplum.com, smartsource.com for online coupons you can print.

My favorite money saving sites:

moneysavingmadness.com
moneysavingmom.com
thefrugalgirls.com
hiptosave.com
couponingtodisney.com

My child is up from her nap-did not get chance to link above sites so cut and paste and enjoy! Oh, and check out Amber's blog-she has a great post on terminology you will find in handy :)

Sears Care thank you!

2010-01-11T13:48:00.002-05:00

Wouldn't you know it? Sears actually commented on my blog post about the little dishwasher mishap of 2009. And guess what? Sears Care refunded 20% of our purchase price....$277.00!!! We have THE top of the line dishwasher that Sears carries. But now we got it at almost the same price of the dishwasher we first ordered and then cancelled b/c it never got delivered in the first place.

Following me? :)

Thank You Sears-I am making sure I tell everybody who will listen about your Sears Care department and how quickly you help solve the situation. Big thank you to Gabriel for following up with me on the phone calls I first ignored.

Will be shopping at Sears again-yay!

Get out of my mama's way lady

2010-01-08T15:15:00.003-05:00

Harris Teeter was doing super double coupons this week (will double up to $1.98 face value) so I had quite a few $1.50 coupons that doubled to $3 which made for a nice trip.

Total Value of Goods pictured: $116 (granted some of these prices are higher than Walmart)

What I paid: $37.17

These items I got for $0.22 or less after using my coupons

Creamer: Free

Guac:Free:

Beachnut: $0.22 a box (snacks for school)

Potatoes: Free

Lysol Wipes (2 containers): Free

Dozen eggs(hiding behind one of the boxes): Free

The most expensive thing I got was coffee at $3.99. Must have coffee and must have good decent coffee. Even better b/c it was on sale and I had a coupon.

Best part about this trip-took my child who was once again nap-less and as I was trying to maneuver my cart into the cheese section, Emma, at the top of her pretty little princess voice yelled:

GET OUT OF MY MAMA'S WAY LADY!

Classy. Real classy.

I thought the little old lady was going to flip her lid and I wasn't in the mood to deal with the drama. Made Emma apologize and the nice little old lady laughed and said our children say the funniest things sometimes and that I really must have wanted the last package of the 2% mozzarella cheese. We left the store shortly after that little outburst, singing the theme song from The Little Einsteins on the way out to the car. But in the end, outburst and all, it was worth the trip.

4 Reusable bags=check

Plastic bag count= 1 for the spot shot but thank goodness b/c it leaked.

My first CVS Deal

2010-01-05T19:45:00.004-05:00

Scenario...child who has been screaming for 2 hours straight in her room (doesn't want to take a nap) so I decide to drag her butt all the way down to the CVS store close to the beach...its about a half hour drive and always traffic heading down there, even in the winter:

What I got:

That is 4o big rolls of TP (high quality TP I might add), 4 cans of oust, 3 boxes of SoyJoy (6 bars per box), Nivea body wash, 2 Nivea lip balms and 1 40 watt GE light bulb.

Total Retail Cost.....$87.37

Total Savings....$71.94

Plus the tax which was crazy on certain items...geesh

What I paid....$18.32 plus $10 overage in ECB

That folks is an 82% savings if I did my math correctly.

How? I walked into the store with ZERO ECBs

Back up....check out Money Saving Madness blog (listed on the side of my page) to explain how CVS works and what ECB's are.

Anyway, here how the transactions went down:

Light Bulb

Oust

SoyJoy

Total=$22.97

Coupons:

-$1.50 off light bulb

BOGO free on Oust

-5.00 of $20 purchase

Total oop (plus tax) $13.14

Total ECB back....$20 (6 for oust, 12 for soyjoy and 2 for light bulb)

Soyjoy

Nivea lip balm

Nivea body wash

Total=$30.96

Coupons:

-20 ECB

-$5 off any purchase of $30

BOGO on lip balm

-2 off body wash

Total oop (plus tax)...$2.15

Total ECB back....$15 (6 for soyjoy, 5 for Nivea stuff, 4 for TP)

Oust

Total=$20.97

Coupons:

BOGO oust

-15 ECB

Total oop (plus tax)....$3.03

Total ECB back....$10 (6 for oust, 4 for TP)

At least at this store, you can do transactions back to back to back and use your ECB you got back on TP to buy yet more TP. I have heard other stories from people about rude cashiers, no more than one transaction per day but at this store, the lady who helped me out was great. No problems taking my Internet, my target logo (but manufacturer's coupon) or my bogo. Great thing about ECBs...even though 2 of the ousts were free, I still got $6 ECB on them.

Yes, this took about an hour of planning and adding up scenarios for the BEST deal and the crazy drive down there BUT what I saved alone was worth it. I search other blogs for the CVS deals, find the coupons they tell me to get plus the ones I have and combine the two together.

If you are thinking that the prices are higher here and that you could spend this amount at Walmart with their cheaper prices....well you would be off on this purchase. Even if the TP was $8 at Walmart (its 20 double rolls) which is really low....you could buy the TP and spend $18 but still have to buy the rest.

Let's put it this way for the skeptics, I paid $18.32 for 40 rolls of TP...about 0.45 a roll which is a great buy and got the rest of the stuff for free, plus $10 of free money to buy more things.

Good? Start CVSing. And I broke my resolution of the plastic bag usage by 1 today :(

To do 2010

2010-01-03T20:05:00.002-05:00

I always have lofty unattainable New Year goals but I am going to try and stick with these.

1-No more plastic bags. I have some decent sized reusable bags and I am going to either be carrying items in my arms or in the bags. I did really good 2 years ago and then slacked off. Target now gives you 0.05 credit per bag, so does farm fresh. I am sure one day in the not so far off future plastic bags will be banned.

2-Eat from the pantry. FishMama has a challenge going on this month called eating from your pantry/freezer. We have some stuff stockpiled up and I am going to try really really hard to use whatever we have in the freezers/pantry for January. The exception are for things such as produce/OJ/milk/coffee creamer/eggs. We are going to use up everything first before buying more.

3- Couponing like crazy. Ok, the other exception for #2 is a mad crazy deal (like getting dishwasher detergent for $1.25 or No Yolk Noodles for $0.05...I can't pass up on amazing (not just good, amazing good) deals for the pantry. I use a variety of coupon sources and have saved loads last year using them. Sure, it takes daily work searching, printing, sorting, planning but in the end I can afford to splurge on weekly Starbucks, organic milk/produce and high-quality bread. One day I will post the sites...there are about 10 of them I check on daily.

4-Keep work and home separate. Sometimes the office is crazy (and we have another office which I handle insurance for, billing for) and once I am home, the phone still rings. Which I don't mind but sometimes I cut lunch short, or playing with Emma short to handle these things. New rule- I am taking an hour lunch without picking up the phone! We'll see how long this lasts....

5-Potty training my IA child. It's going to be a tough road ahead but hopefully by the time she is 4, she'll be out of diapers. Otherwise, the testing that lies ahead for her in the fall of 2010 will not be fun (and be in Ohio) so keeping all possible body parts crossed.

6- The whole diet/exercise/eat right blah blah blah and maybe try for another baby...but not unless I get into better form. I know when I am serious when the afternoon cup of coffee is gone...so not anytime this winter :)

7-Blog more. Done 2 posts within the last week. Happy 2010!

The Best and Worst of 2009

2009-12-29T15:02:00.003-05:00

First off the worst....

Sears Home Delivery: Please get your act together for 2010. Don't know how you manage to screw up our order and delivered 3 WRONG model dishwashers to our new home is unreal. You delayed us moving into our new home BUT you did get it right finally. But then you wanted to charge us $$$ to pick up the WRONG dishwashers you delivered. After I had a lovely chat with you on the phone where my daughter learned some new big girl words, you had the 2 dishwashers that were the wrong model/color out of our home the day before move in. We will not be using you again.

The head of ENT doc at the children's hospital who must not be named....you called me a silly unreasonable mom minutes before you wanted to slice into my daughter's head. I called you on it, probably the first anybody has ever called you on something, minutes before surgery. I held my ground, you held yours and somehow we both got what we wanted. FYI, moms don't want to be called "silly" when you want to operate on their kid. Payback when my daughter bit you checking on her tubes in August was priceless. Sometimes you do what you gotta do ;)

The unnamed appraisal company who effectively screwed us over by under-appraising our new home by...oh about $30,000. You suck at your job. How our home dropped in value from $451,000 to $412,000 in 6 months will never ever ever sit well with us nor will your explanation of how the real estate market works. Your "appraisal" caused us unnecessary stress before closing this month, made our bank forever hate us and yet you continue to appraise homes. Newsflash-we will never use you again.

And now for the best of 2009.....

My SIL husband Scott Kitchens-our new house ROCKS! Thanks for putting up with us and all of our questions. The finished product is wonderful and we are so happy to be living here. If you need a deck or a fence or would like to buy a piece of land next to us in Virginia, please give him a call. We would love some neighbors.

Chesapeake City Infant Services-you got on the ball, got my daughter speech/OT when she clearly still needed it and got her eligible for preschool this fall. Her progress is remarkable and she is finally talking like a 3 year old.

The head of ENT's nurse....thank you for the smile you gave me after the doc and I had a smack down in the exam room. You knew what I was thinking and it made me feel so much better.

My husband-thank you for watching Emma for ~60 hours while I got to go to Amanda's wedding in Cancun. You did such a great job that I plan on going away again, alone, in the future. You can be a dad without me being around :)

Happy New Year!

Coupon Savings

2009-10-20T13:47:00.003-04:00

I love coupons. More so in the past few months since I really started "couponing" so to speak and got a fancy schmancy binder with dividers to store my 100 plus coupon collection.

Steals from last week:

Walgreens:

2 soy glade candles $3.79 each...on sale for 2/$5
1 glade oil diffuser (with reeds)...$9.99 on sale for $4.99 (acai berry only)
Reeces Cup $0.89
Total cost $10.88

Used (2) $1 off any glade candle
Used (1) $3 off any glade oil diffuser
Wags had a sale on Reeces...$0.50
Used my $4 RR from the diapers I got last week
Total cost out of pocket....$1.50

Not too shabby....oh and I got a $1 RR off my next purchase.

Harris Teeter:

Steamfresh veggies by Birdseye....On sale for 5/$5
Used my 0.50 coupon for 5 bags (which all doubled)
Out of pocket...FREE

Hotpockets...On sale 5/$10
Used my 0.50 off each box (which all doubled)
Out of pocket $5 or $1 each box

Farm Fresh (I went here 2 times last week)

Ragu sauce on sale for 2/$3.00
Used 4 (0.75) off each jar (doubled)
Out of pocket...FREE...there was a limit on 4 jars per customer so I went back

Snack size halloween candy on sale...$2.50 a bag
Used $1.00 off 1 bag (which doubled last Wednesday)
Out of pocket...$0.50 for a bag of Twix...

Bloom
Perdue bags of Chix (single serve, 5 individual breasts per bag) $8.99
On sale BOGO....used 2 $1.00 off each bag coupons
Out of pocket $6.99 for 2 bags....this is better than Walmart prices

Chad thinks I am a looney but I spend about 2 hours a week getting everything together and I have probably saved close to $750 since April on groceries. I can buy with coupons at the pricey grocery stores and save more than I would using coupons at Walmart. All my grocery stores are about 1 mile apart from each other, and Walgreens and Rite Aid are inbetween 2 of them. So I really don't waste any gas going between the 3 (takes me 5 minutes to get to Harris Teeter which is the farthest away).

So if you overlooked coupons before, now is the time to start :)

Prayers for Amber

2009-07-26T15:53:00.004-04:00

I know I posted this on my facebook page, but I would love whoever comes across this blog to visit my dear friend Amber's blog family.kentuckystudio.com

Her daughter Kyleigh was also born with VACTERLS and they have had their fair shares of ups and downs these past 3 years. Now Amber is going to start a battle of her own....Amber has gone through hell and back (to put it nicely-sorry Troy if you are reading this) the past 12-18 months or so and things were FINALLY getting to be somewhat normal for her, her husband and their 3 kids.

All I can do is ask for your prayers for her. If you ever get the chance to meet her, she is an amazing woman, mom, friend, photographer, martha stewart wannabe, ect. Take a moment and visit her blog and leave her a note-

Happy 3rd Birthday Emma!

2009-06-24T14:54:00.002-04:00

Three years ago today, God was looking out for all 3 of us. Thank him for giving Chad the courage to watch his newly born daughter be whisked away to have emergency surgery without having the chance to hold her. Thank the Lord for giving me the strength to remain calm as I watched on the monitors as my baby's heart stopped and wondering as the mask went over my face if she was going to make it. And most importantly thank the Lord for giving Emma the fighting spirit that she has because without it, she would not have overcame all of the obstacles that was laid out before her. God made her a fighter and boy is she ever! I think this day will always be emotional for me simply because Ems and I might not have been here today if we didn't haul tail to the hospital when we did.

We have had a great year-Emma gained 12lbs and almost a foot in height. Her way of pooping now has greatly reduced the stress in all of our lives and contributed to her growth. And since she started Speech and Occupational Therapy, she is a talking, thriving and happy 3 year old. Its simply amazing to see how much has changed in a year. She started pre-pre school part-time (8-12) during the week so I could go back to the office and Emma loves it! Swim lessons are up (maybe) for the later part of the summer and maybe a mini-vay-cay in August. She loves Dora, Princess stuff and most importantly, the cat. She enjoys playing in the water, riding her bikes and eating ice cream cones-she lives the life!

Happy Birthday Emma Rose!

Another doc to add to the blog

2009-05-20T14:07:00.002-04:00

Seriously? Like we need yet another specialist? I thought 2009 would be the first year Emma would not see an inside of an OR but I was wrong.

We had a standing appointment with the ENT since March when the 4th ear infection of the year failed to clear up. Dr.Curry made the appointment, along with a hearing test b/c she felt that some damage (a.ka. HEARING LOSS) could have resulted from the back to back to back ear infections since Christmas. Well, she was right.

Fast-Forward to this month. She started speech and OT therapy-about a year behind with all of the chit-chat. Ems drops consonants and endings on almost all of her words. It's like she doesn't hear the "end" of them (or chooses to ignore them-typical Emma fashion). Oh and no sentences yet among another things. She has a senorsy processing disorder which I am simply too exhausted to talk about right now.

But today explains a lot- mild hearing loss in at least one of the ears, if not both. The audiologist wanted to know the whole "what does she say/doesn't say/doesn't say correctly" and when you put 2 and 2 together, it makes sense now of why she says the word "HOUSE" like "HOW"....drops off the ending. Duh, she can't hear the ending. So we think. Because while Melissa was trying to admin the test, Emma was screaming so hard she puked. So lovely. Goldfish and Juice. So we got about a 80-90% accurate test. It was a rotten morning.

After this lovely ride, we got to meet with Dr.Derkay, the head of ENT at our children's hospital. He took a quick peek in her ears (as she was screaming and dry-heaving) and remarked on how strong she was....I just couldn't bear to go into the story of WHY she was that strong.
Good news....no ear infection, just lovely seasonal allergies. Bad news.....we won a ticket to the OR come this July. He wants to examine her ears under anesthesia to really get a good look without having to torture her while she is awake. And he feels that tubes will help, tubes will go in. I don't want her in hearing aids if we can drain the fluid so she can HEAR. Good gracious does it have to be this hard??!!! We will also have a ABA test done (auditory brainstem response) to really get a accurate account of just how much (if any) of a hearing loss she may or may not have. This is the best test you can do and frankly, I can't believe we were able to get any results after how hard she cried today.

As she was crying and coughing.....he went into her whole EA/TE repair and history. He is actually more worried about the snoring and cough than the ears lol! Dr. Derkay is going to do a scope of her trachea to see if any stricturing has occurred, check to see if the trachea is growing with her and check the healing from the initial surgery. It's never been done before b/c I just accepted that she will always snore and have a scary barky cough while she sleeps. He said it's not normal at this point. Of course not right? Before he takes a looksee, I am going to have Dr.Kuhn in the OR with him since she did the first repair at birth. I always drill the docs and the anesthesiologist before anybody sticks a ET tube down her throat b/c of all that has been done. He'll scope first before placing the lovely blue tube down the hatch and Dr.Kuhn will be standing by protecting her work.

Lovely eh? Explains a lot with speech which her therapists will be delighted to hear. Looks like we meet our $5900 deductible this year after all :) I am pretty pissed, or more like annoyed or just simply exhausted of having yet another thing out of place with Emma. God is up there thinking....lets give her yet another issue to deal with and see how she swims with the fishes. Its frustrating that's all. I look around at her healthy "never has seen the inside of an OR" friends and I am still bitter about it. I thought I was over it but I am apparently not. It's hard to explain to them how I feel b/c frankly, they haven't had to say goodbye to their baby while someone else takes them away to be cut open. And on the other hand, we have friends that have gone through similar things, sometimes even more than us, and then I feel guilty bitching about a simple minor surgery. Emma has been through much much worse.

All I want to do is have a tall glass of something alcoholic and go to bed. More likely I am going to mop my kitchen floors, do an enema and go out to buy an overpriced cupcake to make me feel better.

8 things...For Amber S.

2009-05-02T14:09:00.002-04:00

Yeah, I am a MIA blogger.....things have been so crazy with the move, with Emma in preschool, with me going back to work (she is in school 8-12, I work 8-12), a doctor and his family staying with us (might open up a office for him here at the beach) and well....blogging has taken a back seat. I still keep up on everyone else's blog which leads me to post the "8 things" since Amber believes I have fallen off the face of the earth :) Which in the blogland, I have :) So for Amber, here is my 8 things-love ya!

* Mention the person that tagged you* Complete the list of 8 things* Tag 8 of your wonderful bloggy friends* Go tell them you tagged them :)

8 Things I look forward to:

The start of summer....lots of 90 degree days and trips to the beach
Emma going to preschool 5x a week so I can work at the office
My cup of coffee in the morning
My sister's wedding in MEXICO this fall (we love the swine flu, bring it on!)
Emma's 3rd birthday in June
Getting sod in our front and back yard
Grilling out on the deck and eating outside....before it gets too hot lol
Unpacking the last of the boxes in our FROG

8 things I did yesterday:

Drank coffee
Took Emma to school and had her pryed off my leg with a crowbar (aka as Ms.Jeffries)
Ordered wobble chairs and CT units for the office
Had a cupcake
Drank another cup of coffee
Cooked dinner for Jason, Cassie, their kids plus mine
Played bubbles outside
Drank another cup of coffee (decaf, 9pm)

8 things I wish I could do:

Get rid of the debt (doesn't everybody)
Grow my hair out faster so I can can just get it cut again
Watch the last 6 episodes of Grey's so I can finally talk about it-isn't it almost over for the season?
Keep my kitchen floors/fridge clean...a constant daily battle
Workout more...period
Get a tan that didn't come from a bottle
Unpack the last of the boxes in the FROG
Cook scrambled eggs that didn't stick to the pan....again

8 shows I watch:

Greys Anatomy
House
Good Eats
What Not to Wear
Jon and Kate plus 8 (just started, again....sigh)
Cops
My friends Tigger and Pooh
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
(Ok the last two I watch b/c well Emma watches them lol)

I tag Amber S, Becca, Toni, Mindy and since my laptop is going to lose its juice, that is it for now!

Happy Butt Day!

2009-03-05T08:07:00.003-05:00

Hello from my hospital bed 3 days after surgery-still on the good drugs!

I forgot to update this blog on Saturday, but it's been a whole YEAR since Emma got a new heiney courtesy of Dr. Levitt. What a difference it has made in our lives. It simply floors me to think how far we have come with her, how amazing she is doing now and how wonderful Dr.Breech and Dr.Levitt has been with us. I am relieved to know that they will continue to follow her until who knows when...maybe they will stop when she has children of her own? If we get her potty trained for pee by the fall, then we will be going back to Ohio for a laxative trial in October. If she isn't potty trained, it will have to wait until March of 2010 b/c spending a week in Ohio from Nov-March is well, cold. I hate cold :) I will wait until the weather is nicer so we can do some traveling during that week.

Hanging out in the ER on our last day in Cincy

Yes, our cruise was fun and no the house isn't done b/c we keep failing the inspection because our dishwasher STILL hasn't arrived.....but that is another story :)

I promise more pics, but I have a facebook page which has a bunch....search Laura Young Jenkins and you will find my page. Well, gotta do Emma's poop thing now so we can get on with

Taken about 2 months ago-she is TALL!

Hmmmm....

2009-01-14T14:58:00.002-05:00

Yeah, I haven't posted in forever. Seems like when there is no drama, I have nothing to write about :) We are going on a cruise to Mexico/Belize next month which will totally rock b/c I'll be somewhere warm in the middle of February :) We had to get a letter from Dr.Levitt saying all is ok for Emma to travel (since we have to bring all of her supplies on board with us and well that raises a lot of questions). All should be fine :)

And our house is almost done!!!! About 5-6 more weeks and it will be move in ready. Paint is on the walls, tile has been laid and the cabinets get installed next week. Whoo-whoo! I have had all I can take from the lack of available storage in this house...the new house has closets galore!

THis is a short post because Emma is yelling the name Ella in my ear because she is ready to go down the street and play with her. I will miss having my friends less than a condo away but good thing we all have cars to go see each other! Ta-ta!

A year ago today.....

2008-12-04T14:08:00.002-05:00

A year ago today was a day from hell, literally, hell. We just finished another horrible dilation in Dr.Kuhn's office and had a big pow-wow with everyone saying that Emma needed a colostomy and another PSARP b/c she wasn't healing up from her surgery (the biggest DUH inserted here). I know after that appointment I puked in the bathroom with the door wide open for everyone to see and ask if I was okay. No, I wasn't okay-I felt like the world was crashing down all on top of me and Emma was coming along for the ride. I had to pull it all together because I had to meet with her geneticist for her yearly checkup. I think I had the mini-nervous breakdown in between her weight and height check (3% on both) and when the genetic counselor came in. I don't even know how I made it through that appointment. I cried all the way home, cried until Chad came home, cried over the thought of having to do this all over again. It was simply surreal that night.

But what started as the day from hell ended with these words from Dr.Levitt "Sure I would be happy to help you". Our saving grace. I got an email response in less than 1/2 hour.....simply amazing. In less than 3 months, she had her surgery in Ohio.

And now a year later, a new butt later, she is 28.5lbs and 36 inches tall (60% baby!). What a difference a year can make.

Thanks Mindy!

2008-11-20T14:50:00.001-05:00

I love the new background, courtsey of thecuteblogontheblock.com, which I found off of Mindy's blog :)

Time to start waking Emma up-we are going to see Madagascar II....should be fun!

Emma's new glasses

2008-11-19T21:16:00.003-05:00

Wow, back to back posts! Well here are some pics for ya'll!

Its not cancer-YAY!

2008-11-18T13:50:00.003-05:00

If you are not into reading TMI.....I would stop now!

Anyway, my breast biopsy came back negative for cancer. Yes, cancer. I had some weird things going on with my left boob/nip area and my gyn wasn't too concerned. I however, was, because this is the same boob that had a lovely tumor removed from it in 2002, in the same area where the tumor once had a lovely home. My gyn said fine, lets get you in with the surgeon.

Last week, I saw Dr.Stewart. She talked to me first before examining me and I read in her face..."she is a silly girl here over some rash that probably isn't anything". Fine lady, wait till you see it. And when she did, her demeanor changed which in my world, is bad news. And the ever so famous words which I heard from a breast surgeon back in OKC...."I can't be certain that it is not cancer without some additional tests" (i.e. involving stitches, needles and lots of anesthetic). And when she said she was going to do the punch biopsy that day, I knew she was serious. They look a lovely chunk of skin out of my breast/nipple and placed some wonderful prolene blue sutures that hurt/itched all week and sent me on my way. Ow. Ow.Ow. The stiches were the worst-the actual procedure was a piece of cake.

But I have to add a tidbit here....Emma had to come with me today and Dr.Stewart's office was great-they kept Emma for me (and she let them) and she was happily playing in the nurses lounge with stickers, highlighters and pens and having a blast. All the staff was just loving her and I got to have 15 minutes of peace with the doctor. And they sent her home with stickers and a lolipop-that is a nice office-I will have to write a thank you card.

The pathologist just faxed over the report this morning, indicating that my boob is cancer free. Now I can apply some cream to the boob and see if this takes care of the "stuff" that is going on. If it goes away, yay, I am done seeing Dr.Stewart. But if it doesn't clear up, there is a slight, slight chance that she didn't get enough tissue of the breast (hey you can only do so much with a local) that the next step will be a quick trip to the OR to take a deeper tissue sample out. Eeeeeeee....I hope it doesn't come to that. If you are curious, they were testing for Paget's cancer of the breast, which is rare, and even rarer in those under 50.

I didn't worry about the results, because I know worrying doesn't change the outcome. Its harsh, but when we knew in utero that something was not quite right with Ems, I stayed positive for the remainder of my pregnancy. It didn't change the outcome but worrying would have done nothing except generate fear. Boo for fear!

Now that I am out of the woods, I shall celebrate by eating cookies!

Not Fair!

2008-11-10T13:50:00.004-05:00

First of all, I am finally ready to upload some pics of Emma and can't find the other digital camera that has the most recent pics. These were taken yesterday at the new house (and I so love her Ohio state shirt). So maybe I will try and find the other camera and get some halloween ones up :)

Ok, not fair....Emma will be getting glasses this week. Really? Come on!!! Can't she catch a break? Seriously, she has surgery at less than day old, more surgeries after that, metal things stuck up her rear, plastic tubing stuck up her rear, nasty chalky stuff she has to swallow 2-3x a year (with another UGI next month) and now you want my baby to wear glasses????? I had a breakdown Friday night after I got home from the ophthalmologist's office b/c it was just too much to handle. And yes folks, its just glasses. It could be worse. But its glasses and you are 2. You are stuck wearing them the rest of your life. And your amblyopia is so bad that you might have to have surgery (FREAKING A) to correct it at a later date. Oh and your prescription doesn't qualify you for our kids package b/c its so bad. I wanted to scream at everyone in the place-ugh! And what is ironic (or whatever you may call it) is that I love, love my glasses. I have multiple pairs b/c I love them so much. However, kids glasses are not cool like mine and I don't bend/twist/step/drop on my $200 a pair Nine West frames. I got Emma 3 pairs of glasses (1 from the ophtho office and another 2 pairs at America's Best) because hey you are 2 and glasses are fun to break. Did I mention that Emma hates sunglasses/hats/scarfs or anything remotely on her face/head? I can't even get this child to wear a bow in her hair and now I have to force her to wear glasses?

Yes, it could be worse.......pity party for me day. In better news, our house is framed and will have a roof on it in about 2 more weeks. We went out yesterday and its huge, I mean like double if not triple the size of our place now. And the back yard is about the size of the park I take Emma to now LOL. It will be so nice to have some wiggle room and STORAGE space, which we lack now.

Ems is up-gotta run!

lack of pics, lack of time

2008-11-03T20:37:00.003-05:00

Stupid bloggger......had an entry and it gave me an error message! Whatever-I will post some pics on Wednesday :)

Go vote!

Do we really need a fireplace in Chesapeake, VA?

2008-10-24T14:38:00.004-04:00

Seriously people, it doesn't even get "gotta wear a hat cold" here. Then again, once you live in Iowa and suffered through some winters like we have, you'll have a whole new level of cold to compare everything to.

Yes, our new house is FINALLY being built-the foundation is down, the blocking has begun and framing should be finished within the month. More cool (or boring) pics to follow. Since I decided to blog just as Emma was waking up from her nap, this is all I can give right now!

Chuck-E-Cheese and binkys

2008-10-11T20:50:00.004-04:00

I have a feeling I will get to know this C-E-C place very very well over the next decade LOL! I am surprised I got her to sit long enough for the "drawing ride" but I can't explain the look I have on my face! She was chomping on a noise thingy to compensate for the "no binky during the day rule" I am trying to enforce (Emma is silently laughing about this topic in her sleep). Maybe she is cutting teeth but I swear this child has to have something in her mouth at all times, whether it be some noise maker, dolly doll's foot, a corner of her lovey or a mangled up straw she found from an empty juice box. If I could, I'd pop a piece of gum in her mouth to satisfy this fixation but since it poses a choking hazzard, I will have a wait a few years and resort to her chewing on whatever she finds appealing at that moment.

I am over the binky. Done with the binky! Ready to pitch them all to the binky fairy done. Except I am a wuss and can't break her off the habit cold turkey. She still wants it when I am doing her enemas or when she is in a tiny room with lots of people in white coats. She runs around the house calling for her "bee-bee" and will say in a frantic voice...."bee-bee"? bee-bee"? over and over and over again until she finds the stupid thing that I didn't hide in a very good spot. Her teeth are starting to shift and that scares me so "the bink" has got to go for most of the day. I will have to wait until Chad is gone for a very long seminar somewhere before I break her of the night binky habit. Lord help our neighbours when we decide to do this!

Butt update

2008-10-07T08:53:00.002-04:00

Real quick here b/c Emma is taking everything out of my suitcase that is still on the living room floor.....

Butt looks FANTASTIC!!! No more surgeries on her million dollar butt hole. Dr.Levitt is having us continue with enemas until she is potty trained for pee. Once she has that down....well we will be back in Ohio for a week of bowel managment doing a laxative trial to see if we can do this route instead of the enemas. This probably won't happen until early next summer or early fall 2009-whenever she decides that peeing in the diaper is no longer cool, then we'll start making plans.

The va-jay-jay looks great too-everything has healed up nicely. Dr.Breech will keep an eye on her for like, forever, so I am sure Emma will get to know Cincinnati very well growing up.

Okay, must clean up cat puke, shower and get the day started!

Jumping Monkey

2008-09-29T20:46:00.008-04:00

Last week in the middle of the Nor'easter that was slamming Hampton Roads, the booby club (yes Dad, I did not refer to them as the N.C. girls) chicks and their kiddos went to the Jumping Monkey-a bounce house thing for toddlers. So I can set the record straight for my confused family, these are my FRIENDS that I met 2 years ago but when all of us are together, its easier to refer to us as the booby club girls so you know who we are talking about. As opposed to the Tarleton Oaks Condo Moms that I hang out with that live up and down the street from me :) Everyone had a good time and I got some good pics which I still have not emailed to the other moms..but enjoy some of the cuties I took pics of!

The youngest one in our group....3 months old. He is just too cute!

Can you say HAPPY BABY!!!!!

Emma and Timmy rocking out!

Shelia, Jayden and Sara riding in the car.

Emma and Jayden going down the slide. I have the cutest pic of these two when they were about 9 months old, before they were even walking yet....time does fly by....

Emma "bouncing" in the house LOL

After this little outing, Emma napped for 2 hours. Gotta love tiring the kids out!

Part of Growing Up....

2008-09-22T20:50:00.007-04:00

The lollipop made things a little bit better...... she isn't exactly smiling in this pic....

We went to Pigtails and Crewcuts for her first 'do....overpriced but since she'll only have one "first haircut", why not right? They have cool seats for the kids to sit in (firetruck, race car) while they cut your hair BUT they also have "adult seats" for those kids like Emma who did not want to sit in the special seats. Emma sat on Chad's lap and cried while they snipped a few inches off of her head. She really wailed when they started cutting her bangs. But a little while later, a lollipop and a new brown hair bow (since most of our fall clothes has some sort of brown in it), she was happy as a clam. She also found the store's treasure box and came home with 3 star rings (a.k.a our little multi-colored choking hazards).

And since we got the "first haircut package", they sent us home with a lock of her hair and a pic of her afterwards. See if I had extra time on my hands (before Emma was born), I could have scrapbooked the whole thing. Now all I have to do it plop this page into an empty sleeve in my current scrapbook and I just saved myself an afternoon! I think the last thing that went into my scrapbook were her ultrasound pics circa March 2006 LOL. One day I will scrapbook again but in the meantime, all my "stuff" can continue to collect dust in the corner of my bedroom.

The Nipple Club

2008-09-18T13:54:00.002-04:00

Or the booby club or what it is officially known as the Breastfeeding support group at Chesapeake General Hospital. Without the booby club, I would have given up breastfeeding the first week we had her home from the NICU.

I remember the first day I went, a Friday, and it was right after Emma had some pictures taken with her cousins at JC Pennys. I remember how freakin' exhausted, frustrated and scared I was to be with Emma all day......and back in those days she cried and cried and barfed and barfed all day.....it was a mini-hell for awhile back then. Anyhow, I remember walking in this big room with all these mamas bf and having fun with their babies. And there was chocolate cake. I remember the cake clearly b/c that was the first meal I had all day. I ate cake and had some tea and met a lot of people who I long forgot some of their names now. The leader of the group then was a older lady name Jacqueline, who my doula told me about. Technically speaking, I shouldn't have even been there since I live in Virginia Beach and I wasn't a part of the WIC program but she said to come anyway. I had dragged in my stroller, her carseat, my huge diaper bag, her bag with pumped breastmilk oh and yes, I dragged my favorite pal at the time, my yellow Medula Symphony Breastpump b/c I didn't know how long I was going to be there for. I got there right at the end and Jackie was able to watch Emma bf, give me some pointers, show me how to get her positioned and lots of other things to try. I told her if she didn't catch on soon, I was going to pump for 6 months and be done with it-it was draining the life out of me trying to get her to latch on and stay on and oh yeah, not barf doing it. She was still healing from the TEF surgery and probably wasn't feeling too well and with me not feeling too well (still anemic from all my blood loss from the C-section) we made a lovely pair. Jackie continued to help me like the entire month of August before Emma had her PSARP surgery to try and get through things day to day.

Anyhow, today was a booby club day thing. My friend Verda runs the show now (I think) and it isn't quite the same (or as large) as it was 2 years ago. However, there are a few of us that still do things together since our kids are so close in age (and we all started at the same time 2 years ago). I was watching all four of our kids play today and I couldn't believe how fast the time has gone by. They were just bitty babies not too long ago and now they were running around chasing each other at the library. I am not always the best at showing up to these things b/c of dr appts or other typical Emma things but I hadn't gone out with everyone in a long long time and I am so happy that I got my rear in gear and got to go today. My goal is to try and come to these things more often now that we don't spend our lives at the children's hospital. Emma gets to play with her friends and she had a blast doing it today.

Long story short, if it wasn't for the booby club, I wouldn't have bf'ed her for 1.5 years(and had a whole bunch of support behind me), wouldn't have known what craigslist was (thanks Denise) or met some great mamas! Yay for the nipple club!

Before and after

2008-09-11T11:58:00.004-04:00

Before: blah blah boring hair (this shirt makes me look preggers, which i am NOT)

After: No more ponytail for me!

My so not exciting life

2008-09-10T17:39:00.003-04:00

Here it is, another Wednesday, and we are bored to pieces. It is that misty/humid/rainy day that makes it impossible to go outside and play, for the fear of getting poured on at any second or struck by lightening (my biggest fear). The only exciting things we did today was 1) Go to Dillards to get some more moisturizer (since I am scraping the last bit out of my jar) and it happened to be bonus days at Clinique (I use the super defense moisturizer which is AWESOME) and I got some freebies of lipstick and mascara, which is always nice.
2) I FINALLY sold something this week on CL-I have about 10 items for sale and I have sold, the only thing I have sold, was her old leapfrog playtable, in which Emma proceeded to grab the table out of this poor girl's hand as she was heading out the door. Emma hasn't played with it in months.....the cat however, has been sleeping underneath of it so I am sure HE will miss it more than the kid.

Yesterday was the real exciting day when I decided that I was going to lob off about 8 inches of hair and get a real "style". My hair looks amazing and I finally ditched that "mom" look that has been driving me nutso lately. I would take a picture, but I have no idea where my camera is. The kid has it somewhere I am sure. Plus, I look like crap today b/c Emma was up all night with some post-nasally-coughing-congestion thing so I got zippo in the sleep department. Once I have the camera, I will post some pics of the new do. Its short, as in above the chin short. Chad, not surprisingly, hates it but alas, he'll deal with it somehow.

Oh well, maybe something exciting will happen tomorrow. You never know with a 2 year old!

Prayers for Lilie Clark's Family

2008-09-03T20:53:00.002-04:00

It breaks my heart to know that Miss Lilie Clark passed away a few hours ago. I have been following her life (blog) for almost a year now and she finally earned her angel wings tonight. Through the help of Amber and many others, we were able to send Lilie and her family to Florida this past spring for a wonderful vacation, knowing it would be their last one with Lilie.

She was truly a fighter and will be missed dearly by her family. If you are reading this, please pray for healing for this family-their toughest days are yet to come. They are donating some of Lilie's organs for research on GM1 Gangliosidosis.

It is a rare, incurable lysosomal storage disease (enzyme deficiency) that has no cure and most children do not live to see their second birthday. Lilie surprised most of her doctors and lived a wonderful life with a family who loved her ever so dearly.

I hope you are finally able to run free around Heaven Miss Lilie-you are finally healed!

Myrtle Beach-we are home!

2008-08-28T19:34:00.022-04:00

We are home-had a great time away, ate some good food and enjoyed the beach....its crazy that we had to drive 6 hours to go to Myrtle Beach when our "own" beach is only a 20 minute drive down the road-seriously we never go to the beach and we live here LOL.

We stayed at the Royale Palms (part of the Kingston Shores Resort) and it was super nice-the condo was bigger than the one we live in. We stayed on the 18th floor and had a awesome ocean front view. We got a 2 bed-2 bath condo b/c those were the only ones that had a oceanfront view like this. It was well worth the money for the view and the extra space. We even had a doorbell-I thought that was pretty cool.

View of part of our deck-it continued out to the left and wrapped around to the other side. Emma and I had breakfast out there one morning.

View straight down looking down at the many of the pools at the resort. Part of the pool had a real sand bottom and a waterfall. Pic taken on Monday, in the rain.

View of the building from the beach. Ours is the one on the left, the other one on the right is the Hilton.

View of the living room/dining room from the deck.

Gotta love the decked out kitchen-laundry room on the right. I love this kitchen!

Dining room/living room

We got there around 2 on Sunday, spent most of the afternoon at the waterpark on the other side of the complex (I forgot the camera a lot while we were down here) and then had dinner at a pizza place on the other side of town. We were almost in North Myrtle Beach so most of the stuff to do was about a 15 minute drive from us. Chad and I took her to a local park to "play" (ie to tire her out). This was followed by a trip to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store (which I had to go in b/c of the name) and for the fact we needed to stock up on snacks/juice/milk. Meltdown at the check-out line followed....

The trip to the park didn't work b/c she didn't conk out until 10 that night.

Had a little too much fun on this day.....

We went to Barefoot Landing, which was 5 minutes up the road from our hotel-and she rode a cow, the carousel and had a butterfly balloon made for her. I have her monkey harness on her in this pic-that way she can walk in crowds and we still have a good hand on her. I get some "I would never put my child on a "leash" look but then again, I used to give those looks....until I had a child who won't always hold my hand. And Emma LOVES the monkey and she loves having us "walk with her".

Snack time on the beach.

Checking out the waves with Daddy

At the Ultimate California Pizza place with Daddy

Where am I? Behind the camera. And Emma wouldn't want to pose with my anyway on this trip. This was a "da-da" trip. Daddy had to dress her, change her diapers, shower with her, walk with her, sit next to her, hold her hand, put her in her carseat, put her to sleep, cut up her food for her, ride on rides with her, walk with monkey with her, push her stroller and play ball with her. Mommy was left out in the cold most of the trip. I don't know if she finally realizes that Chad isn't around much ('cause he is working, making us money, putting food on the table) and by golly, she was going to get everything out of him on this trip. Chad had to take her to the bathroom with her b/c on the first night, she PUKED from crying so hard when he got up from the table to pee. I couldn't even push her stroller without her turning around and saying "da-da push". If I held her, she wanted daddy. If I tried to change her diaper, she would run, grab the diaper and give it to Chad. It was great :)

Our last night there we had dinner at Rioz, which is a Brazilian Steakhouse. It was the best meat I have ever had there. It's basically an all you can eat meat buffet (with an awesome salad/seafood bar) but the "buffet" is guys walking around the restaurant carving various types of meat at your table. I am butchering the description so you better check the link to see what I mean. They gave Emma mac and cheese, freshly baked nuggets, fries, polenta sticks, grilled bananas and mashed potatoes with cheese. The fries arrived before our drinks did LOL. It was the best meal we had down there.

It rained on Monday and then the rest of the week the weather was beautiful. I got some sun finally and was able to lay out by the pool for a bit without Emma in tow. The waterpark at the end of the resort was a big hit with Emma (2 slides to go down) and she had fun playing in the water. Forgot the camera of course :)

All in all, we had a great first va-cay with Emma. Now back to the real world :)

Myrtle Beach

2008-08-22T21:57:00.002-04:00

We are hopefully out of here without any drama tomorrow morning. Chad has to go adjust for an hour, and then pack up the car and we are off! We are going to drive 1/2 way tomorrow to Durham, NC to visit an old college friend, spend the night there and drive the rest of the way to the beach on Sunday. We are just about all packed up so all is left is the little odds and ends.

Surprisingly (big shocker here), we have a hard time finding someone to check in on what Avery, my niece, calls "cujo cat" because lets face it, when I am not here and other people try to make sure he is alive, has water and food, the cat goes nuts....so people tell me. My mil will check on the crazy cat only if my fil comes with her. Pungo spits and hisses all the way from the front door to the kitchen, where the food and drink are at. He about ate our friend Heidi alive a few years ago when we lived in Ohio (and he wasn't a year old yet) when we had to drive back to Iowa for Chad's graduation....after that, she didn't volunteer to watch the cat if we happened to go away. Why have a dog when you can have a cat like mine?

I am sure cujo cat will be fine, since we have left him alone this long before....actually, we have left him longer when we left to take Emma to Cincinnati this past spring and boy was the cat pissed when Chad walked in the front door without me :) Chad was trying to get over the nasty stomach flu and the cat was biting him all night. I am more worried about the neighbor's cat who we feed 2x daily (don't ask) so hopefully he won't camp out in our backyard waiting for food.

I am tired and now that the last load of laundry is finished, I am going to bed. I will try and post some pics while we are down there, but don't hold your breath b/c I can't seem to post pics while I am staring at the digital camera across the living room. Now add the vacation into it......so we'll see :)

Fantasy Football

2008-08-17T21:22:00.003-04:00

I made a passing comment at lunch last week that I wanted to play FF with Chad (one of his patients formed a league last year) and he said no go- it was all filled up so maybe next year.

But then, today, a new league has been formed and now I am playing....LOL

I need a cool "girl power" name so when I win, it won't be forgotten :) I found "Victorious Secret" to be the best so far....

Obviously Chad and I have nothing else better to do (pack/put house up for rent/build new house/clean house/sell stuff) after our va-cay next week except worry about the draft.

Love the fact we have our priorities straight!

Traffic....Traffic.....More Traffic....Truck off bridge....

2008-08-11T20:59:00.002-04:00

*Sigh* We spent about 15 hours or so in the Jeep this weekend. Our friend Jim was getting married in Bethesda, which is a suburb just outside DC. My parents live in Catonsville, about 30 miles north of there and was going to watch Emma for us while we had some fun living it up. Just zip on up there, drop her off and relax at the wedding.....NOT!

Leave VA Beach at 10:15 (b/c Chad just had to have the office open for an hour on Saturday). Get to the bank and realized he forgot his dress shoes. Backtrack back home, grab the shoes, get on our way. This is a bad omen-I check my bag to make sure I got my heels!

Traffic Delay 1: 5 mile back-up at the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, one of two ways to get out of this place...we quickly jump off the interstate 64 and go down 264 to 164 to 664 and pick up the Monitor Merimac Bridge Tunnel....this was somewhat out of our way and not a big surprise-always a back up on Saturday mornings on the stupid bridge-tunnel.

Traffic Delay 2: We are back on 64, across the bay.....7 mile back up at Jefferson Ave in Newport News. Off 64 we go again up some back roads to Williamsburg and get back on 64. Traffic is still not cleared and we crawl up to Richmond at 40 mph. Count endless cars on side of road.

It is now almost 1:15pm....3 hours and we are finally in Richmond, which normally takes 1.5 hours to get to. Snarf down Chick-Fil-A and off we go around the city on 295N.

Traffic Delay 3: Sign reads...Major Delay at 295/95 split....off we go onto route 301 N to avoid 95 for the rest of the trip. If its bad in Richmond, DC will be hell and we would never make the wedding. We are moving, but there are lights, 55mph speed limit, little towns..ect. And I am driving and I am a lousy driver when it comes to speed LOL.

Finally cross into MD at 4pm....wedding starts at 4:30.....we decide that we are going to miss the wedding and make it our goal to get to the reception. We get off of 301 and onto 97 to head to my parents house. You guess it! Accident. But we get through quickly. I start to speed b/c I know these roads better than life itself. We arrive at my parents at 4:45pm (the wedding is shot, we are trying to make the reception at this point). Hurry up and change, I do my hair/make-up (mascara included) while Chad zips down dreaded 95 S (but no traffic) and we arrive at the reception at 5:45pm-one of the first people there. Nice wedding. Good to see all of our friends from our college days, which were about 10 years ago....has it been that long? We seem so old. And no one wants to dance :( It was different when we were back in our twenties with no wedding rings, no kids and lots of booze in our systems. We last until 9:30 and have to go home.

Time in Car on Saturday: 7.5 hours

Emma and Chad snore all night.....4 hours of sleep is what I get.

Sunday: We are out the door at 10am, grab some McD's and head down 97 to go to our college on the eastern shore to visit a friend. I am not anticipating anything big b/c in the 100 or so times I have made this drive over the past 15 years, I have hit traffic on a Sunday maybe 2 or 3 times and 1 major jam in 1996 or so on a Saturday morning trying to go to the beach.

Traffic Delay 1: See flashing sign.....delay at exit 27.....about 10 miles from the bridge. We should have turned around and scraped the visit right then and there b/c we were at the 97/50 split. 50 would have taken us back to DC and down 95. But we press on and then WHAM! Sitting in traffic at exit 27, right before the Severn River Bridge. But we are moving, slowly and decide to wait it out. An hour goes by and we have not made it to exit 29, 2 miles away. The bay bridge is still 8 miles away. At this point we decide to turn around, scrap the visit (b/c that is the ONLY way to get to Salisbury without going back through B-more, up 95 N and down 301....about 5 hours out of our way). Turn around at exit 29 and head towards DC. ***It turns out a truck had run-off the bride and fell 40 feet into the bay at 4am......perhaps if we wern't listening to Barney's trip to the zoo we would have heard about the backup from hell on the radio*****

Traffic Delay 2: No traffic at all through DC.....no traffic heading into Virginia and then we hit #&$^$ Springfield and lo and behold a sign flashes ....8 mile back up......expect delays. Off we go on the back roads again. Thank GOd for our GPS in the car.....we would have totally been screwed without it. At some point we decide to try out 95 S again and we get on right before the IKEA store. Got on 95, got off 95 and had lunch and shopped at IKEA so poor Emma could see something other than the back of our heads. Got food, got coffee, got a new stuffed cat and some stuff for the office. 2 hours later, back in the car we go.

Traffic Delay 3: And now it is POURING outside, we get on 95 and.....oh you guess it......accident b/c of the rain but after about 15 minutes, we are moving through the rain. On the other side, I think I counted a 15 mile backup.....that just sucked for those drivers trying to get back home in the storm that turned the sky purple (I wish I would have taken some pics).

Traffic Delay 4: We get on 64 E and all was good. I was checking the 511 info line for delays and couldn't find any. We get to the split with 664/64 and see a sign......3 mile backup to bridge-tunnel.....freak.....are you kidding me?????....we take the long way around again! And then.....the gas light comes on-we don't even have enough gas in the damn car to get home. Off the interstate, get gas and hauled some ass to get back home. Fed Emma some turkey and cheese in the car to calm her down.

We finally walked in our front door at 7:45-Emma is finally free of the carseat!

Time in car on Sunday: 7.75 hours

Total round trip time: 18 hours

I cannot believe how many cars were on the road this weekend-even through these little towns there were cars everywhere! And the traffic jam at the md bay bridge....holy cow it was at least 20 miles......they only had 1 lane open to get across the other span of the bridge. All these cars had to go through the toll plaza and then merge into 1 lane, cross the stupid bridge and then you have all these cars flooding the towns on route 50 trying more likely to get to the ocean before summer is over. If we sat there, it would have taken over 6 hours for a 2 hour trip to Salisbury. Thank the Lord we turned around. The driver of the truck did not make it....looks like he ran into on-coming traffic, lost control of the truck, crashed through the concrete barriers and fell 40 feet off the bridge into the bay. It was a horrific accident and who knows when the other bridge will open back up.

Did I mention we had fun at the wedding and Emma was a perfect doll for my parents? I pray that our trip to Myrtle Beach in 2 weeks goes a little smoother!

GI update

2008-08-04T20:56:00.002-04:00

Waiting....we just love to wait at the GI's office. Arrive at 9 (early for once), appt at 9:15, wait about 1/2 hour to get vitals and into a room, wait another 1/2 hour for Dr.Kobak to come in, have a 1/2 hour appt re-hashing the previous 3 months of pooping/eating/developmental stuff and finally at 10:45, we were out of there, almost 2 hours later. I except this so I came prepared with snacks, toys and lots of milk in her sippy to hold her over.

Emma loves Dr.Kobak and was making lots of conservation with him today, which is rare for her to do with all the doctors that she sees. I think out of all of them, he is the most laid back one and always reassures me that I am doing a fantastic job raising her and addresses every single one of my questions.

I thought he would would totally flip out over the daily enema thing but once I told him the story on how we ended up there, he was perfectly fine with it. The less we stress about poop, the better off everyone around here is. He also told me to not worry/stress out about the whole potty training thing either-though he agreeded that we could save some trees if we got her to sit on the potty after the enema LOL-we go through about 200 diapers a month just for collecting the enema solution. His advice is if she is scared to sit, don't push it and when she is willing to sit on the potty for a longer time, then start trying it more and more often.

I thought this time we would be scheduling the esophageal dilation but....no. He wants to see her in November, see how things are going and get an upper GI in early December. He said as horrible as this test is for us, its a heck of a lot less invasive than taking her back to the OR and doing a dilation that may not really need to be done. If the UGI shows the same size stricture, then we'll wait another 6 months and repeat the test unless something changes. If the stricture is larger, well we'll be booked for an OR in the second week of December. He doesn't want to put her to sleep unless she has to. I like his approach and he never wants to rush her to the OR unless something absolutely needs to be done-hence repeat the test to see if things really have changed. If not and she is doing fine, then we spare her from being put to sleep for the almost 15th or something time-its hard to keep count.

Next year, this is the year we drop down from every 3 months to every 4 month visits with GI and the year after, 2x a year and then 1x a year. Kind of like our dilation schedule LOL. I have a feeling most of her specialists will be seeing her at least 1x a year until she is 18. I have traveled a lifetime's worth of visits to our childrens hospital so any decrease in appts is a good thing.

I am beat-massive migraine so I am off to bed-yay for a good day. Oh, she is 34 inches and 25.8 lbs...2 lbs and 2 inches since her visit in May.

We got the loan!

2008-07-28T15:37:00.002-04:00

Some bank is actually crazy enough to give us a $400,000 loan (people in the midwest/south probably just choked or passed out at the cost...CPR maybe necessary) but $400K is a drop in the bucket for loans around here :)

Now we go out and get our construction loan (its so complicated I will just leave these details out) and hopefully in the next few weeks, we will officially start building our new home!

Here is a link to the property site.....the whole piece of land is divided into 3 pieces of property and we are the middle lot. Chad's BIL owns the lots and the first one on the end is sold, ours is ours and they are waiting on a buyer for the third lot. The middle lot was the biggest (and the nicest) so we took it.

Now the fun part begins......

Binky Girls

2008-07-27T18:49:00.005-04:00

I got to watch Gabriella on Friday afternoon and she was just a doll! Emma on the other hand.....threw a couple of fits but what else is new lol! They both love their binkys and when one didn't have it in her mouth, the other was trying to find it and couldn't wait to pop it into the empty paci-less mouth. It was just too cute to watch. They play a little better now then they did last month at her party and it was neat to see them interact with each other. They were pooped

out by the end of the day (see pic above) and that is when the cat got brave enough to make an appearance-he hid from the girls most of the day. Smart cat :)

Snowballs!

2008-07-23T20:12:00.007-04:00

If you have never lived in or visited Baltimore, then you probably never truly had a snowball. These are NOT SNOWCONES or fake imitations from Rita's Italian Ice. There is nothing like a snowball on a hot day. We went to Opies, which is about a 2 minute drive from my parents house.

Snowballs hold a special place in my heart for 3 reasons: 1-I grew up eating them with my grandparents in the summer, eating grape snowballs with marshmallow with vanilla ice cream. I so loved those days when I was little.

2-I got my first work permit ever when I was 16 to work.....at a snowball stand! I loved this job!!! Free snowballs anytime and I got paid a whooping $4.25 an hour to slave away in a little shack on the corner sweating out strawberry snowballs.

3-If I hadn't been working that night 15 years ago (probably right around this date and time) a lady asked if she could post a flyer about new Labrador puppies for sale....that night after my shift we got our dog Daisy, who sadly passed away to doggie heaven a few months ago (tears in eyes writing this). So snowballs to me aren't simply shaved ice doused in neon color syrups; they are a part of my being, especially in the summer.

My favorite is chocolate or egg custard flavors......until you have one, those flavors sound a bit bizarre. Emma had her first one of many last weekend. When I was little, I usually got 1 of 2 flavors-grape or skylite, the aqua blue color. I got Emma skylight and true to her Baltimore blood that runs through her from her me-mom and pop-pop, she LOVED it! Oh, and Lacy, the new dog loved them too. There isn't anything like it on earth. So if you happen to be in B-more, you must must must get a snowball in the summer-it'll be the best $1.50 you'll ever spend.

Pee Pee in the potty!

2008-07-10T20:24:00.004-04:00

I got a new potty today.....the baby bjorn hot pink potty.....a little more "simple" than the one I already have. She tryed it sans diaper when I was in the bathroom and didn't do anything. Then in the living room she went back into the bathroom and dragged the potty to the living room. I then told her if she wanted to sit on the potty watching her movie, she had to take off her diaper and pee.......

She then proceeded to take off her diaper (she does this now and then), sat on the potty and PEED!!! I about peed my pants LOL because she just gave me this "I told you so look" and then started peeing while I stared at her with my mouth on the floor. She then stood up and said "done done?" and tried to put the diaper back on. Good thing I got some pull-ups today on a whim-on sale at Target.

She got 1 M&M which she didn't eat (found the remains on the floor) so I better find something else she likes instead. Who knows if this was a fluke or not but I guess I will be starting to sit her more on the potty each day.

Yay for pee-pee in the potty! Its hard to tell from the pic but yes, there is some light colored pee in the potty pic.

The perils of eating "freshly picked"

2008-07-07T20:58:00.005-04:00

Ahhh.....probably from the fresh corn I got today-the guy told me he had just picked it from the field. Emma and I took a trip down to Pungo to go blueberry pickin'! Its about a 1/2 drive down there which seems like eons nowadays. I used to drive an hour to go to the mall when we lived in Ohio but now anything over 20 minutes is a hike LOL.

It was a walk to where you parked your car from where you pick and of course, I forgot the camera in the car and there was no way I was walking back in the heat to get it. I don't think you can tell from the pic but Emma has blueberry all over her face LOL. She wasn't the best helper-she had her own bucket and would pick about 3 or 4 into the bucket, eat them, and start all over again. And if I got too close to where she was picking (and putting them in my basket), she would push me away and try to reclaim those berries!

She had a good time sans sunscreen, which I also forgot at home and stayed close the entire time. We went to Pungo Blueberries Ect., where they also have BLACKBERRIES! By the time we were done picking our 2.6 pounds of berries, I knew better and called it a day. These are the pics after we were done (with the camera that was baking in the car).

I filled up another one of these size containers, plus a smaller one. Muffins are now baking in the oven.

I did end up buying some sweet corn and already picked blackberries at Henleys Farm my local Pungo standby and this is where I probably got my stowaway. About 3 or 4 years ago, I was in blackberry heaven and took a bite of one (these are huge) and when I looked at the half-bitten berry, there was a half of a grub squirming out....the other half was already in my stomach. From there on, I only eat blackberries in one bite so if there is something alive still in it, I don't want to know about it.

All in all, it wasn't too bad of a Monday!

Mmmmmm....monkey munch!

2008-07-02T20:50:00.002-04:00

Need I say more?

Ms.Debbie

2008-07-01T13:56:00.002-04:00

Yesterday was a sad, yet exciting afternoon. Ms.Debbie has been with us since April 2007 as Emma's PT gal. And after a visit with Ms.Debbie and Ms.Jenn (Speech Eval)....we no longer qualify for the Infant Program (program for kids with developmental delays). Emma passed her speech eval with flying colors oddly enough. She can say about 50 words and was a little chatterbox during the test. We have to work on the "paci usage" and start doing time-outs with her when she is being bad LOL. Emma has also caught up with her peers for gross and fine motor skills :) When Debbie first met her, Emma couldn't even sit up on her own (9 months) and refused to try any solid foods. Emma also cried non-stop during our weekly sessions so it was draining on her and me. Today, Emma just chatted away with Debbie, looking in her box of toys for her baby doll and having a grand ol time playing with the therapists. I was trying to hold back tears because we have worked so hard with Emma trying to get her to sit-up, to be on her tummy, to eat, to crawl, to cruise, to walk, to color and to jump and its good to know our hard work has finally paid off!!! I feel as I no longer need to say "well she isn't doing xxx yet b/c she was 6 weeks premature". None of those labels apply to us anymore. We have "graduation" in August and unless something else comes up, we have our weeks completely free of therapy! Yay for Emma!

The look.....

2008-06-27T19:51:00.002-04:00

Yeah, yeah, pics to come, I promise.

I had to get another KUB of Emma's belly today to make sure she was CLEAN (yesterday was a not-so-fun poop day and today's enema produced bright green results-ick) but she is clean so I know now that we have a clean system to work with using our new bag/foley cath enemas. Yay! Thanks to Bridgette for helping me out so much, over LIVE voice-to -voice Internet chatting from AUSTRALIA! How cool is that? I love talking to her and listening to her speak with her Aussie accent LOL

But the topic of this post, the look, well I saw it today in the radiology waiting room. My friend Denise and her daughter Jayden (Emma's age) and her newborn son (born 6/5) were in there. I admit I haven't called her since her baby was born (did send her a text) but things with Emma have been out of control and I knew if she needed something, she would call. She was nursing and when she lifted up her head when I called her name, my heart broke into a thousand pieces. She had the look of "something is wrong with my baby" all over her face and I knew, I just knew something was wrong. And she started crying and I was crying and Emma and Jayden were digging through my purse looking for snacks....oblivious to what was going on. Their focus were on the teddy grahams in the bottom of the purse.

Her son wasn't gaining a whole lot of weight and he was there for the THIRD NEWBORN SCREENING b/c the first one came back with a high chloride reading and they went to repeat it and it got contaminated so she was back, again, trying to get this test done. A dumb*ss nurse told her last week that a high chloride level and him not gaining weight was a sure sign of CF. WTH??!!! You don't tell a new mom this as she is walking out the door! A doctor tells you this folks! Oh, and they wanted to test him for anemia b/c he was so pale and high chloride levels also go hand in hand with anemia(mom and dad are so very tanned). And like all of us do, she got on the Internet and started researching, starting freaking out and started to wonder if her baby boy would ever crawl, walk, talk, go to school.....

In-between sobs she said that she could handle the anemia, but not the CF. She was frustrated that the test would take 2 weeks to come back but scared about finding out the results. All I could do is listen, feed her daughter snacks and offer my love, my prayers and my help if she needed it. I didn't know what to say but I knew I didn't need to say anything at all.

She asked me how I handled everything with Emma (she met me about a week after Emma got out of the NICU) and wondered if I hated God for giving me Emma with all of her "ticks". And I was honest with her....I told her I did hate God at first. Why me? Why us? We did everything right but still......why did you bestow upon us a baby with no butt hole (Becca F will find humor in this). And I told her how sick I was about "God doesn't give you more than you can handle blah blah blah"). And from people telling me this with "normal" babies....I about ate them alive. It's like we were being punished or this was some trial we had to go through for God. But then I read a different story about the Saints in heaven deciding who Emma would go to.....and he chose us because WE COULD CARE FOR HER. He knew that we had patience when other people would not have, He knew we had the open-mindedness to try other things that others would not have thought of, He knew we would travel halfway across the United States for a wonderful surgeon to finally fix our daughter where other parents might not have had the money,the time or the insurance to get her there and finally God knew that we would love her, do whatever it took, no matter the costs, to make Emma ours. When I look at it this way, Emma is indeed, hand-picked by God to be given to us and no one else because we could care for her in the way she needed to be cared for. Maybe Denise listened, maybe not but I wanted her to know that whatever happens, your faith and love always pulls you through, somehow, all the time. God gives us our children for a reason, a reason we may not be able to understand at first.

If Emma didn't have the "whole no butt no poop thing going on", I would have never crossed paths with my wonderful girlfriends and their "no butt-hole" kids as well and quite frankly, my life would be dull without them and their constant support. I love them all to pieces and wish we lived on the same street to go get some margaritas on those hard days.

Realistically, everything is probably fine and it's probably just anemia. But until she knows for sure, time is at a standstill. Please pray and keep her in your thoughts

Happy Birthday Emma Rose!!!!

2008-06-24T09:43:00.005-04:00

Happy birthday my sweet baby girl!!! We had ANOTHER party for Emma on Sunday with Aidan and Gabriella....ice cream and cupcakes! I have more pics to post but today we have 2 doctor appts and we have no food so today will be a busy day :)

Hope you enjoy being 2 Em! Love, Mommy

Just a sneak peek

2008-06-21T21:35:00.003-04:00

It was a beautiful party.....I am beat so here is a pic until I can post tomorrow :) I just totally loved her party girl dress!

Two years ago tonight.....

2008-06-20T21:39:00.002-04:00

About this exact time two years ago, my water broke and I went into labor. I remember laying in bed and then getting all ticked off thinking I was peeing myself again until I got to the bathroom and everything came pouring out. I was a little surprised b/c I still had 5 weeks to go, but hey, she was ready and I couldn't wait to be a mommy. I remember how the mood all changed when I got my midwife on the phone and told her the good news and then I added..."it feels like water is gushing out of me". She calmly asked if it got worse when I stood up and of course, it did. Dead silence on the other line. All she said was to leave NOW, don't even pack a bag unless it is ready. No time to get a snack or feed the cat, just get in the car and drive.

Lucky for us, it was 10pm, no body on the road. I remember listening my Third Day CD, listening to my favorite song on that CD (My Offering) and being perfectly calm. I knew I and Emma were in God's hands then and I had nothing to fear. I started to "hypnobirth" myself into another state of being and simply focus on my daughter being born.

Tomorrow (2:55am), she will have been on this earth for 2 years. Tomorrow is her 2nd Birthday party. Tomorrow we celebrate another year that we got to spend with her and watched in amazement of how far she has truly come...,

I've been tagged!

2008-06-18T07:37:00.005-04:00

Ok, Toni tagged me LOL so I hope I am doing this right.....

Here's how it works: Use the first letter of your first name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things - nothing made up. You can not use your own name for the boy/girl names.

1. What is your name? Laura

2. A 4 letter word: Leaf

3. A vehicle: Laredo

4. A city: Lewis Center, OH

5. A boy's name: Lance

6. A girl's name: Leah

7. Dessert: Lemon Cheesecake

8. An occupation: Lawyer

9. Something you wear: Longjohns

10. A celebrity: LeAnn Womack

11. Food: Lucky Charms

12. Something found in a bathroom: Lipstick

13. Reason for being late: Lost

14. Something you shout: Look out!

15. An animal: Lepoard

16. A body part: Lips

17. Word to describe yourself: Loving

I tag Kristin and Amber :)

Happy Father's Day

2008-06-15T21:48:00.002-04:00

Good day here- breakfast, nap, steak for lunch, pool, playing with daddy, dinner, and BED. Got the rash GONE, still doing 1x babylax/enema combo and she stays CLEAN so her butt can heal-YAY YAY YAY!

Her party is Saturday so we are getting ready for that and Sunday is a mini-party at the pool with her friends in the neighborhood-cupcakes and of course, playing in the pool which she LOVES!

Oh, and my drama yesterday....I go to take out the trash and I hear all this commotion going on down the road....birds going nuts and I know they are after a cat. Sure enough, I round the corner and the birds are dive-bombing the CCC orange cat who has a BIRD IN ITS MOUTH. All I had on me was the empty recycling bag which I proceed to bat the cat with so he will drop the bird. And he did.....by then, the CCC 3 other cats were on me, trying to get the bird and now I also have the birds trying to get me! I somehow managed to get the bird in the recycling bag, shoo off the cats and the birds by then left me alone. A few hours later, I finally get a call from the wildlife rehab lady and I happily dropped off the bird at her home down near the beach. It looks like the wing is broken but she is confident the bird will be ok.

Our cat was going nutso b/c I had the bird in a box in our 1/2 bath downstairs and he perched outside this door for about 4 hours-the bird was mighty ticked about being in the box.

Keep in your prayers for our friends in the midwest. Chad and I used to live in Iowa and I worked in Iowa City. It unreal that the road I used to drive on is underwater-we knew it was bad but we saw the photos on the news tonight and it about broke my heart. Our new house is going to be built smack dab in the middle of a floodplain (which is most of VA Beach/Chesapeake) and backs up to a lake. I think I will be calling our agent about flood insurance tomorrow.

Now a happier post

2008-06-11T20:41:00.007-04:00

Ok, enough about butt creams and burns and poop.....here is a movie of Emma helping me unload the groceries Monday. She can't hardly wait for me to finish unloading the car so we can start this fun game. She actually takes the bags that I drop off at the front door and while I am making another trip out to the car, she is dragging bags into the kitchen for me.

I am bad about the bags-I have a ton already and she has seen me throw enough away to know where they go LOL!

Yesterday was picture day at JcPenny.....they always do such a good job considering my kid has never gone in there with a smile on her face until yesterday! Finally finally finally she didn't have a freak out attack right when they start snapping away. I will post them once I get the pics back in two weeks. But this is the dress she wore; I had one from TCP picked out but when I had her in this outfit for Chad's B-Day, I got so many complements on it that I swapped out dresses. She'll wear her pink dress on her B-Day in two weeks. And yes, for non-big Wal-Mart trips, I usually take my trusty green recycle-able bags but I was doing some major shopping on Monday and honestly, forgot to grab the bags. Blame it on the 100 degree heat :)

The office that shall not be named

2008-06-11T20:25:00.002-04:00

It's almost like they don't want us to come in :) Yesterday, the butt burn still wasn't gone (and appeared to be spreading) so I called the above office in the title, who called me back and said to add Milk of Magnesia to the mix. Okay, a little strange, but I'll do it. Today, the butt burn looked the same, if not even WORSE. It makes your stomach turn looking at it and its gotta hurt like hell for her. I call the office, AGAIN, got the nurse who I don't really like (long drawn out story there) who said, don't used MOM, get some Maalox, pour into a bowl, skim off the top layer, mix in with triple paste and apply. I told her Emma's bottom was looking really really bad and that perhaps we should come in to make sure there is no infection. No, no no, we see this all the time, blah blah blah, keep changing the diaper, oatmeal bath, open air, ect. They said coming in would do nothing and they would still tell me the same thing. #^$^^^#^% But then I INSISTED that if by Friday morning, if there wasn't any marked improvement, that I was coming in, period, even though they don't do clinic on Friday, which she said was fine, we are always the exception there. WTH? Don't you want to see this horrible rash that the LT is causing my poor baby pain? Now, I could call my pedi who would get us in ASAP, however, I would fear she would pass out seeing this rash and call child protective services on me. Plus, the surgery people probably see this rash more often with colostomy take-downs, ect and probably have a tad more experience. I guess I will be waiting and seeing....I reduced her laxative dosage tonight, gave it to her 3 hours later than normal so hope for the best!

In our diaper cream arsenal, we have the following:

Ilex
Calmoseptiene
Triple Paste (the actual 1lb JAR)
Balmex
Petroleum Jelly
Cornstarch Powder
Neosporin with pain relief
Milk of Magnesia
Maalox
Aquafor
and good ol fashion baby powder

11 things people, ELEVEN different things, not to mention the hundreds of combos you can use to paste on the keister. There are probably some of you out there that haven't even heard of ilex or calmoseptiene and let me tell ya, they are about 10 bucks a pop for a 2oz tube!

What we are using today/tomorrow:
1/4 tube ilex (skin protectant)
1/3 tube neosporin (antibacterial and pain relief)
3 tablespoons of Maalox, cherry flavored
A good helping of triple paste
and cornstarch to thicken things up
-Mix all together in a disposable bowl and apply apply apply

If this doesn't work, I don't know what I am going to do!!

A better weekend

2008-06-08T20:07:00.002-04:00

It seems like when Chad goes out of town, all hell breaks loose around here :) I did manage to get Emma cleaned out by Saturday morning-tons of poop just waiting to come out. And today was a poop explosion in the crib so I would say the new laxative dose is working LOL. And no smearing of poop so her butt burn is almost gone. I may not need to get the silvedine afterall but that sounds like something good to keep on hand for emergencies.

Emma spent yesterday afternoon with her cousins and had a blast but I was there too so no break for me. Today, she went back over to her Nana's house (cousins still there) and I got 2 hours of alone time without her. Spent at the pool, trying to even out my tan. It's hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk, and perhaps a side of bacon.

I used to love laying out all afternoon. While I was working in Iowa, I used to get all of my running done, laundry done and put away, worked-out, got the grocery shopping done all on Saturday (I was up by 7 since I woke up at 5am during the week). That way, on Sunday (in the summer), I would sleep in, could go to Panera and drink loads of coffee, read the paper for an hour, come home and go lay by the pool all afternoon. It was so wonderful and relaxing and I read oh so many books. Flash-forward 4 years later: I got up at 6:30, made pancakes, tried to read the paper without my daughter taking pieces from me and going after the cat with them, gulped down my 1 cup of coffee and spent the morning cleaning up poop from the night before. But when I got to the pool, I just couldn't relax. I didn't have Emma to talk to and watch her enjoy the water and after about an hour, I packed up and went home. The laziness has lost its luster and the fact it was about 105 degrees (with the heat index of 110) outside. I came home, took a nice long shower, read another chapter or 2 in my book and went to pick up Emma. I think secretly I miss her when she isn't around-come to think of it, I am going to be sad when she starts going to preschool :( Its like I want the break from her, and when I get it, I am wondering how long is it until I get her back.

Chad is home (gone since Thursday) so I am sticking him on kid duty tonight. Hey, if you get to sleep by yourself, without a baby waking you up at odd hours, then you are so getting up to check on any crying coming out of her room.

I ought to make him change her tomorrow morning but I won't be mean :)

Meet Lacy

2008-06-07T21:10:00.003-04:00

My parents held out not even three months. Our dog Daisy went to doggie heaven in March and we had her for 15 years. Daisy was a black lab who is missed very much. And what do my parents do? They search CL looking for a dog, and not just any dog, a lab. And yes, they found Lacy who happens to be a black lab. They love Lacy already-even if she already chewed the squeaker out of 2 toys. Good dog!

It's been a "crappy" week

2008-06-06T20:50:00.003-04:00

My moods are directly related to Emma's pooping pattern. If she is cleaning out every morning and clean the rest of the day, I am a happy camper. If she is not pooping great....well I am about as cranky as they come. I swear that even with the barium out of her system, it is still wrecking havoc with it. Dr.Levitt wanted an xray of her belly today to make sure she did indeed pass all the "special juice" from Monday, which she has. However, her lower part of her colon is full of poop and it isn't going to come out on its own. He wanted me to do an enema today, and if it didn't look so hot, another one tomorrow before re-starting her laxatives. Well the enema DID NOT GOOD WELL today-yeah, poop pieces came out but nothing dramatic so tomorrow morning I'll do it all over again, as well as 2 more saline enemas later on in the day before the LT tomorrow night.

*Sigh* She is pissed that she is backed up AND to top things off, b/c she is backed up and now is pooping constantly, her butt burn will turn your stomach. I have been trying everything on the market, and finally got even more cream today- triple paste. This has worked well, acutally it worked fast! Within 2 hours, 50% of the redness was gone. I slathered her up tonight and hope for the best. I am not expecting poop in the morning since she didn't take any LT today or for the fact that she has eaten 1 lunchable junior, 1/2 of my starbucks iced coffee (caffiene is a laxative people), 1.5 graham crackers and about 4 tiny pieces of a turkey dog, topped off with about 1 tablespoon of cheese. So if you do the math; what goes in=what comes out.....she isn't going to have a lot anyway. She did drink more today than yesterday so it's better than nothing right?

I tend to isolate myself when this is going on- it takes all of my energy to focus on cleaning the kid out that I really have little left to give. I missed taking her to the pool today with her friend b/c I wasn't sure if the poop would stay in her diaper so why risk it? Tomorrow we are supposed to go to the park but if there is no poop, we probably will not be going :( I just learn to accept these things and once we get back on track, we will be fine. She'll have another xray on Monday to make sure she is cleaned out as well as a trip to her local surgeon to get some silvadine butt cream to see if it can help with the burning from the LT.

Well, its 9 and I am wiped out. Better sleep while I can ;)

We "thought" it was good news....

2008-06-05T10:45:00.002-04:00

So our GI doc just called and said that the barium swallow did look good. There is no stricture but HOWEVER, he said there is some "indentation on the upper part of the esophagus" but very mild. He said he really studied the films and compared them to the ones in 9/07, 1/08 and this recent one and there is a difference from the one taken 9 months ago.

Blah, so at some point in the future, she'll need to go back to the OR for a dilation. Dr.Kobak said for now, she is fine and we won't even repeat the study until December at the earliest and March at the latest. Unless she starts choking a lot or starts vomiting again, he isn't rushing to take her back to the OR. He said to probably plan on it early spring. I trust him on this and he has always been pro "whatever I want" but reassured me that this is something to monitor and not worry about.

Dang it- but what can I do? She is "supposed" to grow out of the dilations eventually, i.e. Dr.Kobak said once she is in grade school, he doesn't suspect the need for any more OR face time (so he hopes). He said the first few years are tough but get better over time. Yeah, like the whole VACTERLS thing is supposed to magically get easier once they hit the age of 2 LOL!

Speaking of the girl, she is trying to wake up from a nap so I better run!

Just please be over!

2008-06-04T17:35:00.002-04:00

Blah, you know the day is going to be bad when your kid is "barking" in her crib at 4am 'cause she hears dogs barking outside....well after that she never really did go back to sleep-which is making for a longggggg day.

I had to go to our urgent care facility today b/c I have been having some unexplained right-sided abdominal pain for almost 3 weeks now....my GYN said everything was fine there and told me to go have someone else check the rest of me out (this was last week). Well, after a bunch of blood work and a KUB later (ha-ha), the doc still doesn't know what is causing the pain. Not the kidneys, not the gallbladder, not the appendix, no tumor, no constipation (he asked if I had used any laxatives lately and I was silently laughing to myself that I use them for my kid all the time. There is a possibility that its a very small deep abdominal hernia (which he doubts) or I pulled a abdominal muscle jogging and that would cause severe stabbing pain. Wrote out a script for NSAID (which I didn't get filled) and said if its still there next week, they will do a CT scan to see what is going on. Lovely. Took almost 4 hours and I had Emma, with no nap, screaming most of the time.

Then this afternoon, while I feel like crap, she:

-finds a bag of cat treats on the table, uses her stool to perch up and grab them, proceeds to shake all over the floor while I am using the bathroom.

-takes her shredded cheese I gave her in a bowl, and with my back turned switching the laundry, shakes the cheese all over the living room floor AFTER I had just vacuumed.

-ran upstairs to look for walgreens form for my calmoseptine I needed to reorder, come back down and she had GONE INTO THE TRASH and took out the bag of chips that were reduced to crumbs and had them all over the kitchen floor. Vacuum comes back out.

-3 major meltdowns over dolly and lovey. After the poop explosion this morning, dolly dolls and lovies had bits of poop over them so I decided to wash them all at once. BIG FREAKING MISTAKE b/c she went cuckobananas. Once they were out of the wash, she got to have 1 doll and 1 soaking wet lovie while I dried the other 2. I tried to distract her by putting her in the pool, but she got mad once she was in the water, chucked all the toys out of the pool and I had enough. She proceeded to scream on the floor for about 20 minutes until I stuck in the barney DVD.

Oh, and don't let me forget to say that her horrible rash is back-but it looks like yeast so I will be adding yet another layer of cream to our routine tonight. I have a feeling the barium from Monday is backing her up so we will be getting a KUB for kicks tomorrow to send up to Dr.Levitt for his take on things.

For not napping, she shows no signs of slowing down. I can't put her to bed yet because our 5 sets of sheets are currently in the dryer- the sheet I just put on last night, you guess it, in the dryer too. She has gone through about 5 sets of sheets in less than 10 days. Unbelievable. I should be happy she is having blow outs but seriously, I hate with a passion, putting on sheets for her bed/crib. The $&$*# bumper is still on and it is such a pain to get the mattress out of the crib (and then the cat and kid will try to lay in the middle of the mattress while I attempt to put the sheets on) and then trying to get the mattress back in the crib is a whole ordeal.

I am in a b@tchy mood right now, and it's Chad's Bday, and I didn't go to lunch b/c I felt bad and from the way our house looks right now, you would never tell that our cleaning lady ( a patient) was just here 3 days ago. It never ends around here :) Drinks for everyone today!

Good News!

2008-06-03T17:04:00.007-04:00

Yeah, she was looking at the "special juice" in the cup, just for her.....

NO STRICTURE!!!! Our upper GI came along with all the usual dramas but Jeff, the PA was amazing as always (this is our 7th or 8th upper GI since birth and he has done every one of them) and we finally got a nurse who LISTEN to my needs before the test-amazing right?

For those of you who read this and have been spared the "TE" part of VACTERLS, you lie your kid down on this table and the lovely machine above will come down and "hover" over your child, taking real-time pictures of your baby swallowing chalky-apple flavored barium. Emma is positioned on her side first and then on her back. To the left of this machine, you can "see" the action happening. Thankfully for us, it's not a full upper GI per se, we just have to get her to swallow enough barium to coat the esophagus, look at the site of the anastamosis to make sure that all looks good and we are DONE. Don't need to follow it down into the tummy or small bowel.

For about a 10 minute test once it's started, it's about $600 that is billed to the insurance company-and we get about 2-3 a year-ugh right?

I will have to call her GI doc tomorrow to get verbal confirmation but thank God we don't have to take her back to the OR anytime soon-we need to catch a break.

What is normal-part 2

2008-06-01T20:13:00.003-04:00

Is it normal for you to be riding in your carseat with your dolly-doll and lovies on your head....probably not but you do it anyway!

What is normal?

2008-06-01T11:45:00.002-04:00

I have been reading a lot of blogs lately about "normalcy" and the lack of it once you have a child born with a spectrum of birth defects. What's frustrating about the whole pony show is really there is no end in sight. Maybe I am being cynical here but some of the things our kids will manage for the rest of their lives. Yes, some things will be very "normal" for them and no one will blink. Other things will be different to outsiders, but very "normal" for them. Here are some things that are "normal" for us at the moment......

.......I have babylax in my purse, one in my jewelry box (my emergency spare), a box downstairs, a box upstairs and another box at my MIL's house. Oh yes and my SIL has one too stashed with some of Emma's diapers that she doesn't know about.

......I buy massive amounts of laxatives, online, b/c they are cheaper to buy in bulk. We use about 3 bottles per month, more than most people use I assure you.

.........we have MULTIPLE bottles of KY jelly stored in our house and it's not being used for THAT purpose LOL

........we have solid metal rods in a pretty basket that sits on our kitchen counter that you must stick up her be-hind- these are not something that you want to roast marshmallows on. People, grab the skewers please.

......we have more money invested in diaper creams than wine (or any other alcohol for that matter) and for a fact, we have more variety of diaper creams than our local pharmacy carries.

...... we go to at least 2 docs per month that ends with -ologist or -regon or -ist. Depending on the month, sometimes more, sometimes less. We have yet to have a month go by since she was born that has been "appointment free" nor do I see it coming anytime soon.

.......Emma's medical file(s) take up more room than our last 5 years worth of tax returns.

Bizzaro in most "normal" worlds, but for us, these are things we have come to accept into our lives. What gets us through is knowing that there are other people like us out there that also have some of the same things stashed away in their homes. That's comforting to me and lets me know that I am not alone.

Water

2008-05-31T18:31:00.005-04:00

*sigh* We were supposed to go to our patient's (Brenda Doody-sorry if you are reading this) bbq tonight but Chad has a horrible migraine and is laying in bed and Emma is.....well Emma is having all sorts of random tantrums today, the most recent one was over her hat not fitting on her head the right day. Pretty much if she isn't sleeping, she is whiny, cranky and pissed off at the world for some reason or another. Long sob story short, once again we are stuck at home and for once, I am mad that we can't go do something "adult fun" 'cause of our kid, her moods and her very early bedtime. *sigh*

Anyway, during one of her saner moments, she went outside with Daddy to water the plants-right afterwards she had a huge hissy about coming inside but now she is watching Barney and seems to be ok for the moment.

The neighbors cat is also in a funk today-probably 'cause she is wearing a coat of fur and it feels like 95 degrees out!

Tomorrow we are going out to lunch for daddy's b-day and I am hoping that she'll take a good nap and be in a better mood tomorrow. We are going to Surfrider, a local seafood joint around here that had fresh seafood and really good desserts-yumm-0! Tomorrow we will get to do something FUN, hopefully sans drama that seems to be the highlight of the week.

3 months post-op!

2008-05-28T17:55:00.003-04:00

Has it been that long? Has it been that long since Emma got a million-dollar rear by the best pediatric colorectal surgeon in the world? Has it been that long since Chad and I were puking non-stop in a children's hospital in Ohio, wishing that it would stop so we could care for our daughter? Has it been that long since I have eaten a meal on the bathroom floor so my child would not see me eating? Yes indeedy it is the magical 3 month mark today! Today "officially" can sit however she wants, ride on her toys however she wants and straddle mommy's hip without mommy worrying about stitches coming out.

I blinked and the time flew by. We will see Dr.Levitt in September for a 6 month check to make sure things look good and then after that, who knows! It still floors me that I will never ever ever ever ever have to worry about if her butt was done correctly. Dr.Levitt has no idea how much of a change we saw in Emma once he fixed her up. I can never seem to thank him enough. Seriously folks, she came back from Ohio a totally different girl, minus one less girly part too. It kinda SUCKS being in constant pain for almost a year and not being able to tell anybody that it hurts to poop, hurts to sleep, hurts to sit. After all we went through to get her there, I would do it all over again and again. Happy 3 month post op day Em! Have fun sitting in whateverwhich way your heart desires!

Our weekend

2008-05-27T20:28:00.007-04:00

We had a good Memorial Day weekend. Saturday we went to the Pungo Strawberry Festival (yes, our evil cat is named Pungo) and had some good bbq, strawberries and funnel cakes. Yum-Yum-Yum. Emma wanted to walk (not ride in style) so most of the time we were holding her hand so she could check out everything. We left by 4pm-she was getting hot and cranky so we high-tailed it out of there, strapped her in the stroller where she proceeded to SCREAM at the top of her lungs down the road until we got to the car. And the cops directing traffic decided they were going to look at her to see what the fuss was all about and that just ticked her off even more! I guess she had a good time until the very end-oh and Dolly-Doll went with us too :)

Funnel cakes are YUM-O!

And then came Sunday.....we went up to see my in-laws and nieces who were camping at Cherrystone on Virginia's eastern shore (its the part of Virginia that is on the Del-Mar-VA peninsula) and that day was a freakin' disaster. We risked going sans nap in hopes she would sleep in the car. Nah, that didn't happen. I tried to get her to sleep in the stroller and she screamed Da-Da at the top of her lungs for about 1/2 hour (Da-Da took the kids paddle boating) so then she was tired and pissed off. Finally, we tried to feed her lunch and she threw her plate of hotdogs and cheese on the ground. Then I had enough- off with Da-Da she went in the motorhome to take a nap in the bedroom. She snoozed about an hour until my niece screamed to Nana about Emma sleeping with her stuffed bear. Ugh-kids and their lovies/bears :) We took them all to the pool-that was the only part of the day that no one was whining or crying. A couple more meltdowns from Emma, a quick dinner and then Chad and I had enough for the day.

Pool with Daddy

Oh yes, the cart came with us too.....

Monday was pretty uneventful. I took her to our pool later that afternoon in her crab float that she wouldn't let me stick her in last year and we cooked some chicken and corn for dinner. I like no-drama days.......sometimes we need a break from our little drama queen.

What do you say.....

2008-05-23T20:58:00.002-04:00

What do you say when a person asks how old your child is, you tell them, and then they say.......ohhhh, she is so tiny or wow, she is small for her age or my all-time favorite.....really, she is as big as my_____(fill in the blank with 9-month old, 18-month old, pet dog, etc).

I don't know why this bothers me so much. I always feel like I have to apologize for her being small by saying that she was born 6 weeks early or she has a bunch of medical issues or my whole family is small, blah blah blah. I always feel guilty afterwards, and I never have a snappy come back when people say these things and secretly wonder if I am starving my child. Chad told me tonight to say "at least she isn't going to end up fat" b/c most of the people who make these comments are usually overweight LOL. I think when they comment on her size, I think I am going to just simply say thanks and move on without the whole guilt trip thing tagging behind me. I don't get in a huff when people ask me my age, I tell them, and they say "really, you like me teenage daughter" or "are you really that old, you look so young?"

Emma doesn't realize it now, but when she is 16 (and still is "small for her age"), she will be the envy of all her girlfriends because none of them will be a size 00 or be able to borrow any of Emma's clothes. *sigh* I wish I was a 00 LOL!

@$#%^#$ Barney!

2008-05-20T16:47:00.003-04:00

I wouldn't know about the tornado warning that is out b/c BARNEY has been playing nonstop this afternoon on the TV! When I go to switch it back to the weather (and since the sky is black and its HAILING I wanna know what is going on), she throws the tantrum of the tantrums and screams, kicks, takes out her ponytails and whines.....baaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy (aka barney). I just got these DVDS yesterday and she loves them.

Barney......Emma's new best friend. She is now playing on her back, stickering her lovey.

Been a slower than a turtle week

2008-05-18T19:47:00.006-04:00

Nothing major going on this week except for flying poop on Friday afternoon. Emma started having some "smearing" going on and finally I decided I needed to give her a "micro-enema" aka Babylax b/c there was a blob of poop somewhere in there waiting to come out. For the first time ever (and I have done quite a few of these over the course of the past year), poop literally came flying out of her bottom, all over me and all over the carpet. It was a mess but there was a ton of poop just waiting to get out. Ugh-who knows what she ate that caused her to back up but I upped her laxative on Friday night and that seemed to have helped. Except today was a cheese day (cheese for a snack at the park, cheese with lunch and pizza for dinner). I pray to the poop lords tonight b/c this could potentially be a loaded diaper tomorrow am or she will be backed up the wazzoo and I'll have to repeat what I did on Friday. Gotta love the IA thing LOL.

And after all the poopiness, she went down for a nap and I got to see a lovely box turtle roam into our backyard (patio). Who knows how he got in but I took him back to our neighborhood pond instead of waiting for the cats to get him.

Today was fun b/c Aidan, Gabriella and Emma went to the park right up the road from our house this morning. Aidan is 20 months, Gabriella is 18 months and Emma is 23 months. They play together pretty well if you consider it "playing together" at all. They all want to do their own thing but stayed still long enough for Aidan's mom to take some pictures. Emma can finally do the slide by herself but when she does, she goes down feet first on her tummy. Crazy kid!

We also finalized the building plans for our new house today! Scott (Chad's BIL) is going to be building our house (he is going to be like the project manager and subcontract the rest out to his crew) and we nailed down how we wanted the kitchen/bedrooms/porch. It will be a beautiful house with LOTS AND LOTS of storage, which we DO NOT HAVE. Photos to come once they start doing all the fun stuff!

Happy Mothers' Day from my potty!

2008-05-11T13:52:00.002-04:00

Taken with Daddy's I-Phone....at least she is getting the idea LOL!

Fun at Chesapeake City Park

2008-05-10T21:01:00.006-04:00

Me-Mom and Pop-Pop AND Aunt Amanda came down for the day. The weather was pretty crummy here (cold and that ever so annoying misty rain) so we axed plans going to the beach and wound up at the local park instead. Emma got to play on the swings with my dad and then go on the slide with my mom and sister. "Sliding" is still a new thing for Emma- she got on one Thursday with my friend's kids but I had to hold on to her the whole time. Today she wanted to go on by herself-she must have been trying to show off to everyone. She had a blast sliding and afterwards, we walked around the park (with her shopping cart of course) until it started to rain and then we got outta there. A slight meltdown as we were leaving but she got over it quick (thank goodness for grandmom and auntie in the backseat for distraction)!

Walking up with some help.....

Counting down.......

And she is off! Nothing like sliding down on your back to make you go faster!

GI update

2008-05-07T20:39:00.002-04:00

Monday was our 4 month appt (since the last one) with Dr.Kobak in GI. We saw him in mid-January before our trip to Cincy. I went into the whole drama from our visit with Dr.Kuhn in December (when she wanted to do the redo, AGAIN and stick in a colostomy) on why we went to Cincy, blah blah blah and how I will never ever regret doing what I did. He could tell I was still pretty bitter about how things went down and said you have to do what YOU think is best for your child, no matter what a doctor tells you. And once I showed him her new butt, he was really impressed-he said it was night and day compared to what it was before. I think is silently grateful that he really doesn't have to manage this end. And I told him about the amount of LT she is on (2.5ml) and he said if you have to go up, don't be surprised and since it's plant-based, don't worry about getting "dependent" on it. Pretty much he told me that if Cincy is following up with her, whatever they say goes 'cause they are the butt Gods as we know them. He is happy she is off the Miralax and said don't stress about potty training-it'll happen when it happens.

Now on the GI front. We have been off the Prevacid since December of 2006 (she was 6 months old) and our past upper GI studies have shown no sign of reflux. The last study done in January of 2008 showed no narrowing in her esophagus and no reflux. I was thinking we were off the hook for awhile. WRONGO. He wants another upper GI done early next month to check for reflux and to make sure the esophagus is growing with her body and not stricturing down. She has grown 3 inches and gained 3 lbs since we saw him in January and b/c of this growth sprut, he wants to check. And then we will do another upper GI in December to end the year. If this one looks good and the one in December looks good, we should only have to have this done 2x in 2009 and once in 2010. After that, she'll be 5 and that will pretty much be the end of that test unless she starts gagging/refluxing. We have been having the UGI done 3x a year since birth so you figure Emma would be a pro at this by now......

Can I tell you all how much I HATE HATE this test? It's really quite horrible having to strap you down on a table, in a dark room, with 2 huge machines and making you drink a nasty white liquid while they turn you sideways on a table. The one in January was the worst yet-the nurse should have been shot (I should have stashed a gun in the diaper bag LOL) so this time around, I am having child life there and if I get the same nurse, I am going to politely ask for a new one. The nurse shall be 1-giving out stickers before the test 2-not shoving the bottle/cup in her mouth when I have two good hands to do that 3-not bitch about how tired she is and how she is so far behind ect. Not too much to ask for right?

We go Monday June 2nd at 7:30am, the first one of the day. Lovely start to the week. If there is some narrowing at the site of her inital repair, he might leave it alone and see how the December UGI looks. However, when we were in the same boat last year (UGI 12/06 and then 5/07) there was MAJOR stricturing and they did the dilation under GA in June. It's not a bad procedure but it still an all morning affair with Same Day Surgery and the whole sedation/recovery thing. Blah! I will only think happy thoughts for this :) In retrospect, Dr.Kuhn did an amazing job with the TE/EA repair-we honestly have not had the problems other kids have had (no reflux/tearing/dilations monthly) and her scar is hardly noticable. She did great with that, not so great with the butt thing.

Off to watch the American Idol boot-off! Toodles!

Shop Girl

2008-05-04T19:51:00.004-04:00

The grocery cart is a new thing. Two weeks ago I had a reunion of sorts with the people I did research with almost 10 years ago (has it really been that long?) and I needed something to occupy Emma's time at my friend's house. She really loved this cart she has at her Nana's house so I went to Toys-R-Us and got her one.

Took it up to Salisbury with me and I kid you not, she pushed this thing around for about 3.5 hours. It was great and I was able to enjoy some chit-chat without Emma getting into everthing at her SO NOT childproof house LOL. Then went to my parents house up in Baltimore where she played with it some more. Last night, I figured I let her take her cart with her for a walk and so she did with her lovies/stuffed animals in tow. And this morning, well she went to Lowes pushing this cart around the garden center (we were there at 9 so it wasn't too crowded yet). The girl LOVES LOVES LOVES this cart! She places different things in it daily and everything has got to be just right or she dumps everything out and starts all over again.

Feeding the cats

2008-05-03T21:19:00.003-04:00

Two posts in a row about the cats-we live oh-such-an-exciting life LOL!
The neighbor who lives across our court has six cats (yes I know what you all are thinking) but only four of them are indoor/outdoor cats. It just so happens that one of her cats looks very similar to Pungo. We gave this cat a name-the orange cat because all of her cats names are.....KITTY. ALL OF THEM. Very strange indeed but they are nice cats unlike our psycho one and the neighbors are very nice.
Apparently when we trotted off to Cincinnati, the cats went through some sort of withdrawal from not seeing Emma and I everyday and when we got back, they were always in our backyard. Well, just two of them, the orange cat and the "little cat". Ingenious names right? The little cat has stopped climbing under the fence but however, the orange cat thinks he lives here.
Partly why the orange cat never leaves is that one day he came by, meowing at our screen door just as I was giving Pungo a treat (he is good now and then). I figured, I will give the orange cat a treat too, he looks like he needs one. Well, 2 canisters of Whisker Lickins later, we are still feeding the orange cat 2-3x daily when he starts meowing at our door. And this cat never meows for anyone else but us and has the most softest, quietest meow I have ever heard coming from such a large cat. Enjoy the clip of our daughter feeding BOTH cats their treats :)

Meet Pungo, quite possibly the world's meanest cat

2008-05-01T20:41:00.003-04:00

I don't think I have introduced the cat...his name is Pungo, named after the town down here that has THE BEST BLACKBERRIES EVER-I just thought it was a cool name. We got Pungo almost 4 years ago in Iowa. It was during a tornado warning-we saw a sign on the side of the road "Kittens for Sale" and ended up at this lady's house. She only had 2 left, a black one who was attempting to pry a french fry out of her toddler's hand and this itty bitty orange one who was watching Wheel Of Forturne on the TV.....we just had to have the orange one. Mind you when we asked how the lady had all those horrible scratches on her arm, they were from this little 2.1lb orange kitten. Who knew right? After rushing home to try to outrun the bad weather (and we got in just in the nick of time), Pungo began his new life in our home.

Sure he looks cute and has the longest whiskers I have ever seen on a cat but trust me, he is the meanest cat you'll ever meet. That is all I will say for now....he has never bit or swatted at Emma and so far in her life, she has thrown keys/sippy cups/binkys/balls/heavy toys/random bits of food at him/on him/in his face/on his tail and he has never made a move towards her. I thought the end would come when I caught her putting about a dozen stickers on the cat but even then, he laid there and got "stickered". I think somehow, the cat knows that he'll end up in the wild if he ever made a move for her and he has it pretty darn good here.

Comments away!

2008-04-30T20:58:00.002-04:00

Geessh, I should have got the comments enabled right from the start LOL......

The girl still is anti-fruit veggies and oddly enough, didn't want any mac and cheese for dinner tonight so it was chix nuggets AGAIN along with some gluten-free corn bread (we were over Nana's house where gluten is a no-no). Tomorrow morning-I am going to sneak in those prunes into her oatmeal and I will be crossing my fingers that she'll go for it :)

It's been a long day-was up late chatting with the other IA moms after chatting with Dr.Breech for an hour. I am so grateful and honored to have had Dr.Breech repair Emma's vagina-if my local doc here would have done it, she would have taken out the entire septum and quite possibly could have damaged both cervixes in the process. I thank God everyday for the skills he has given those surgeons in Cincy-I can't tell people enough about them!

American Idol is on so I am going to find out who is getting the boot tonight-

Arrgggh...

2008-04-29T12:36:00.001-04:00

Ok, the other layout didn't work....can anyone see the comments link now?

Changing the layout

2008-04-29T12:26:00.002-04:00

Little did I know that I previously selected a layout that didn't "let you" leave comments....so I am going to try out this one and see how this works :)

Emma is going through a AFV phase....anti-fruit and veggies. I just bought a book called The Sneaky Chef to give me some ideas of how to incorporate more nature's goodness into her meals. Its so frustrating to get this kid to eat anything else besides carbs and dairy-ugh! Hopefully its just a phase b/c strawberry and blueberrry season is almost here locally and I am ready to make some fruit pies!

Fun Friday at the pool and beach!

2008-04-27T21:05:00.005-04:00

Friday was Emma's last day of swim class with the infant program. We got to go last year (9 months old) where she SCREAMED for the entire 30 minute class. It was horrible to say the least and I dreaded going each week. Nobody could touch her and nobody dared to talk to her because that made her scream louder. She also cried for the entire way back home, which is a good 30 minute drive from Great Neck to Kempsville. Fast-forward 1 year later...you still couldn't touch her during class but at least this time around, other people could at least talk/look at her when she was in the pool. Finally on Friday, Emma let someone ACTUALLY HOLD HER after class was over. Most of the time, there are 6-8 other kids and their moms in the pool so it gets pretty loud and crazy in there. Friday there were only 2 other babies so things were quiet in the pool. Emma actually laughed and smiled a few times. What a difference a year makes!

Afterwards, we went to Mahi-Mahs down at the beach for lunch with Nana and Pappy and then for a fun run on the boardwalk. The weather was perfect-not too sunny and a nice breeze to keep us cool. I promised myself that I would take her to the beach more this year and so far, we have been 4 times and it's not even summer yet :) She was a mad-lovey-running girl on the boardwalk and she had a blast not being in her stroller for a change.

Going to B-more

2008-04-17T20:38:00.003-04:00

We haven't been to my parents house since Christmas so Emma and I are going home this weekend for some facetime with me-mom and pa-pa and auntie too.

Things have been quiet in a since around here. We got GREAT new from Emma's last Xray of her tummy-Dr.Levitt said her Xray was CLEAN and whatever amount of laxative she was on to keep with it because it looks perfect. Dr.Kuhn saw her Monday (6 weeks post op) and said things look so much better :) I will keep my comments to myself about the whole "colostomy or Cincinnati" thing.....some days I am so bitter about the whole ordeal that it brings me to tears knowing I put my daughter through unimaginable pain for almost a year. I will always, always be forever grateful that Cincinnati came into our lives when they did. The doctors are AMAZING and I can't say thank you enough to all of them who have touched our lives. Next week we will be at our "final dilator" size of a 15 and then we can start to taper down how often we stick her. Emma will see Dr.Kobak in May (GI), Dr.Curry in June (well-check), Dr.Kuhn in July, Dr.Levitt in September and Dr.Lall-Trail (Ophthamology) in November and finally Dr. Proud in December (Genetics). After this year, most of these docs will be down from a 2-3x a year visit to 1x a year! Whoo-woo! They say with VACTERS the first 2 years are the hardest and things then start to level out. Lord willing Chad and I need a break from spending our entire summers in hospitals :)

And we are probably done with Emma's OT/PT. Her last eval showed her just about on par with everything except speech. But within the past 2 weeks, she started gabbering up a storm and I have a feeling that when the speech person comes out here next month, they are going to give me the "crazy mama look". She doesn't repeat words as much as I would like but she is trying her little heart out to talk to us. Swim class ends next week and I am thinking about enrolling her in the Gymboree class in May for some toddler time!

New Emma Pic!

2008-04-06T16:32:00.007-04:00

Emma and her boyfriend, Aiden, taking a ride in his "car"!

Happy birthday to the mama!

2008-03-26T13:22:00.003-04:00

Yup, turned 31 today-Yikes! My parents sent me a "cake" of flowers which I thought was pretty darn cool. I haven't seen something like this before and the candles were included in the box-but I don't think I am going to be lighting candles anytime soon LOL

Went to Red Robin for lunch 'cause they give you a free burger if you sign up for their birthday club. I also have a coupon for Cold Stone Creamery too so after we go to the pedi's office for an ear check, we are off to get ice cream. Nothing like having a birthday to sabbatoge the diet right?

And the birds are sticking with the nest on our front door. It's grown in size since my last post and I guess the birds are okay with us opening and closing the front door.

Gotta run-diaper change on Em and then we are out the door!

the crazy birds

2008-03-21T11:23:00.004-04:00

Oh yeah-we have a pair of birds living in the Easter wreath on our front door. My mom made it for us last year and we didn't have any residents until this week. The other day, I thought I heard pecking on our front door. Then I just dismissed it as too little sleep and I was hearing things. Yesterday though, I heard the knocking again and I look out the peep hole and sure enough, some big 'ol bird is staring back at me with nesting material in its beak.

And he/she kept flying back and forth from the door to the woods, bringing stuff back. And then another bird flew up, the other half, and started to peck on the door. Fun times right? I looked up the bird and it's a Carolina Wren: http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/677/_/Carolina_Wren.aspx

The cat is going nuts because the birds and flying back and forth and he is perched up on the couch just looking out the window waiting.....

Could the virus really be gone?

2008-03-18T19:13:00.002-04:00

Ugh-she puked 2x on Sunday (one all over and in her favorite toddler play table toy that will end up in the garbage) and once yesterday all over our living room floor but today....NO PUKE! It's been over 24 hours since her last episode and we haven't gone that long yet since being off the anti-puking meds.

Yikes- I was beginning to think she has something really wrong with her (mind going crazy with ideas) but it is just a really really nasty virus that I don't want to see again anytime soon. I Lysoled our entire house to kill the little buggers so now our house smells like the hospital but at least it is clean :)

It's been challenging for us since Emma and I have been home. She gets frustrated pretty easily and when she doesn't get her way or we don't understand WHAT she wants, it's tantrum city. She also has started hitting herself on the forehead when she gets like this which is disturbing to us. She has her group PT class on Thursday so I will ask one of them what is going on with her. The hospital social worker said it will be a "transition" from the hospital to home and once her normal routine is back into place, things will calm down. She's like a time bomb now so I am hoping this transition thing happens sooner than later.

I will upload some pictures tomorrow but now it's time to put the sleeping girl to bed-she missed a nap today and she is finally snoozing her on the floor-

Home Sweet Home!

2008-03-15T20:08:00.002-04:00

After a 3 hour delay at the airport due to fog, we FINALLY made it back home today, 20 days after we left.

It has been an eventful week- Emma started vomtting on Wednesday morning and by Friday, we ended up in the ER all day getting her re-hydrated. It was a monster of a stomach bug and they ended up giving her Zofran to stop the vomiting. That is the anti-nausea drug prescribed typically for chemo patients-it was pretty bad. On top of that, the doctor found that she had an ear infection that was partially causing her to be sick (poor kid)! After a round of antibiotics and 2 IV bolus of fluids later, we were on our way home to back. Emma slept from 1pm on Friday to 6:00am today-she was feeling so lousy and I was so relieved that the drugs enabled her to catch up on her rest. She is on Augmentin until the end of next week to clear up the infection.

The good thing about Friday is Dr.Levitt said everything looked great-dilation went GREAT and we are not due back to Ohio until September for a check-up.

We missed out on going to the aquarium and children's museum but hopefully we will hit those places next time.

Blah, I feel sick now so I am going to bed!

Still here.....

2008-03-12T20:33:00.003-04:00

I feel like we have been living here at the RMH for weeks-I am ready to get out and go home! We spent all day Saturday and Sunday holed up here b/c of the snow and Emma spent the weekend pushing the shopping cart all over the house. It's a HUGE house with 2 floors so she had plenty of room to run.

Monday we ventured out, went to the mall, got some new flip-flops from JCrew and mascarra from Sephora (which I LOVE LOVE LOVE this store) and a pretty dress for Emma at Macy's.

Tuesday we went down to Kentucky to visit my friend Amber and her daughter, Kyleigh. Ky also has VACTERS and it was such a blast to finally hang out with them in person. Amber is a fantastic photographer and took some amazing pictures of Emma. This is her blog where they are posted http://the-family-schmidt.blogspot.com/ God has put amazing strength into both of these ladies- Amber inspires me to do more and give more. She and a group of others started a non-for-profit organization that you can read about more on her blog. When she sleeps I have no idea!

Wednesday, today, my daughter starts puking at 2 am and didn't stop until close to 9. My parents are here, and they got us some pedilyte to calm things down and stuck around here until we woke up from a 2 hour nap. Then we did something fun- we went to the zoo! I got some cools pics of the animals but I got a really good one of Emma here hanging out in her stroller.

I love how blue her eyes look in this picture. She wasn't all too interested in the animals but she had fun nontheless running around the park. Then we hung out at the RMH where I attempted to insert my SD card into the slot on my laptop AND IT DIDNT GO IN. You want to know why? It's because somehow, sometime ago (prior to last week), my darling daughter shoved not only a dime into the slot but a penny too!!!! I about had a meltdown and was about to plunk the computer down on the floor when thankfully my dad came in the room and got the penny out (I had somehow manged to get the dime out with my fingernail file). What a day! Anyway, I hope everyone has a great rest of the week and keep your fingers crossed that Dr.Levitt gives us the okay to leave here on Saturday!

We are at the RMH!

2008-03-08T10:52:00.003-05:00

First it was going to be Monday, then Sunday and then Dr. Levitt came by yesterday and said Saturday is the day- let Emma eat and be discharged! And so we ate some egss and hashbrowns by 7am and had some JUICE finally. Emma didn't skip a beat and thank GOD she didn't reject the food or drink from being without for the past 12 days. And wouldn't you know....a blizzard hits Cincy and dumps over a foot of snow on us. RMH came and picked us up, got us all settled in and now we are relaxing-Emma is sleeping finally at 8:30 and I can update and check emails. What a day! I tomorrow is going to be hanging out day...wait, we have been hanging out since like, last Saturday. Emma has never been in the snow before so if it warms up, I will have to bundle her up and let her play in the snow for about 5 minutes :)

We are planning a trip to KY to see Amber and Kyleigh on Tuesday so Ky and Emma can finally meet and have a playdate. Wednesday my parents are here so we'll be doing some fun tourist stuff until Friday. It feels FANSTASTIC to be out of the hospital and to think I can sleep in a real bed, in a bedroom without monitors, nurses or the sounds of dinging alarms in the middle of the night. Bliss I tell ya!

i think tomorrow is the day

2008-03-04T19:19:00.004-05:00

Tomorrow is the day we find out if Emma needs to go back to the OR to have some more stitches put in-Dr. Levitt will take a really good look at her behind and decide if she gets to go on the schedule for Thursday. Good news is he came in today and took a look ( I of course was not here, I was e-a-t-i-n-g downstairs) but said things look fantastic. I am keeping fingers and toes crossed that maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to leave the hospital later on this week. If she goes back to the OR, we'll be here until next Monday :(

Great news- we got in at the Ronald McDonald House across the street which is AWESOME. I had a different picture of what it was going to be like and I was so WRONG. For us to stay, its' $20 a night and includes breakfast and dinner provided by volunteers. They have a pantry the size of our condo with anything you could imagine is in there. There are also 8 freezers/fridges. Two are help yourselves- if there are leftovers from any meals, you are welcome to take them. Our room is at the end of the hall, upstairs and is quite nice.

Here are some pics of Emma- the first is her out of surgery, the second is her looking at her leads and the last one is her playing, having fun.

Sorry for the delay!

2008-02-29T20:40:00.002-05:00

Emma got out of surgery around 2:00pm yesterday and it went great! Dr. Breech removed a large amount of the septum dividing the vagina and informed us that she has 2 cervixes and 2 hemi-uteri, which is not uncommon with girls born with anorectal malformations. We have nothing to worry about now until she hits puberty and then she'll undergo another round of testing here.
Dr. Levitt then began his part of the surgery. It was sadly a real mess down there. Her anus was about a size 6 hegar and needs to be a 16. This is the link to show you what we use to "dilate" her with. The 2nd rod from the left is a 5/6. She is now the 2nd to last size, a 15/16. It is jaw dropping to imagine she was able to poop at all. That is how bad the scar tissue was. We also found out that the rectum was never completely separated from her vagina, which caused it to migrate north each time. Bottom line is she had 2 surgeries prior that were not done 100% correctly. Dr. Levitt said he almost had to go through her abdomen to access the rectum, something you would do for people born with a cloaca.
I have some mixed feelings towards our home surgeon-the damage that was done almost caused Emma to lose all chances of having bowel control and caused irreversible psychological damage, not to mention PAIN over the course of the past 18 months. People want us to sue for damages; we are planning to put the whole thing behind us and move on. Dr. Levitt will handle Emma's care from here on out. We have no reason to go back to Dr. Kuhn expect for an emergency. Dr. Levitt can manage things from here with periodic updates, xrays and pictures.

Emma is doing FANTASTIC today-she is on a very low dose of morphine and is sleeping now. She was standing up in her crib earlier just talking away and trying to pull out the 6 or so tubes she's got running into right now. Once the narcotics are gone, the 3 leads, the pulse ox, the extra IV line, the blood pressure cuff and the heart rate monitor will be gone. She'll have her PICC line with the TPN going through that until discharge and she'll have her catheter for a few more days.

Well, I better go get ready for bed and sleep while I can. Rounds begin at 6am and I want to be awake for them to ask some questions!

Still in surgery

2008-02-28T12:46:00.002-05:00

They started around 10:30ish and it will probably be another hour or two before Dr.Levitt is finished. There is a lot of scar tissue everywhere so it is taking some time to rebuild her anus as well as dividing the wall that was still shared by her anus and vagina. Emma did great with the cleanout and both of us have FINALLY stopped puking long enough to rest for a bit. Once Emma is out, she will be in the PACU for 1-2 hours before coming back up here. I will post later on this afternoon on how the rest of her sugery went

The cleanout is almost done

2008-02-27T20:48:00.002-05:00

Again, it's been a long day with the PICC insertion and the NG tube placement. Not fun for Emma and she is almost cleaned out and ready for tomorrow. I will post more later but I have picked up a nasty stomach bug since we got here and I have been puking all afternoon among other things so I am going to wrap this up. Prayers for us, Emma and our surgeons who will be taking our baby away from us tomorrow to get her better!

We are in Cincy!

2008-02-26T20:43:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update- it has been a looonnnggg day today. Ultrasound of the kidneys/bladder looks good. Contrast enema didn't go too well and they had trouble getting the cath in to do the test but they got it done and we'll know the results of that and the sacrum xray tomorrow when we meet with Dr.Levitt.

Tomorrow is also going to be a very, very long day with the PICC line insertion and admission followed by the 12 hour bowel prep. Ugh but it has to be done to minimize the risk of infection and helps protect her new heiny hole Dr.L is making her. Once we get admitted and things calm down, I will post our room and phone info here.

Almost Cincy Bound!

2008-02-24T13:31:00.002-05:00

In less than 24 hours, we will be in Ohio and on our way to Cincinnati! I can't begin to describe how excited we are to FINALLY have the best surgeons in the WORLD to work on Emma. It'll be a rough week for Emma but 1 rough week compared to the rest of her life......well we can handle the rough week with pain meds and distractions. Once we are in Cincy, I will try and post daily to let everyone know how she is doing.

Well I am off to finish packing Emma's stuff up now that the last load of laundry is finished. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as tomorrow is our big travel day!

Umm do you think she should be playing with that?

2008-01-29T17:53:00.001-05:00

I am in the shower and Emma escapes from our bathroom. Chad was upstairs and the baby gate was closed so I yell from the shower to make sure he is watching her. Turn off water, wait for reply. Clean and dressed, Emma waltzes into our bedroom with an empty square candy tin (no lid) and she is having a ball shaking it up and down because it's making noise- like the sound of coins in a metal can noise. I take the can from her and in it are 3 pennies! PENNIES?! Are you out of your mind daddy?!!!?? She not only can choke on them, but her anus isn't big enough to pass the penny through!!!! The LAST thing we need is a penny impacted in my daughter's colon a month out from surgery. Daddy replaces the pennies with big square plastic paper clips-I guess this was a better alternative but come on, she has other things to play with!

Good news from Dr.Kobak-esophagus DOES NOT LOOK STRICTURED! Yippee!!!! We have a follow up appointment in May but for now, no surgical dilation. He also said it didn't look like there was any reflux present either so she continues to be reflux medicine free. Obviously if she starts puking/burping a lot/choking on a daily basis, we'll have to do another upper GI but I am relieved that something is going right for her this year.

We also had our quartly evaluation with our infant program-Emma still qualifies for services because some of her gross/fine motor skills still aren't up to par. Her hand stuff is only at a 13-14 month old level. Since she only crawled for about 3 months, she doesn't like holding/grasping a lot in her hands, like crayons, spoons,blocks and this is part of the late crawling start and lack of it. We will have to work on the texture thing some more with her. She also doesn't imatate sounds or point to things in a book and tell me what it is. Our classes will work on that so next Thursday, we are back to 1x a week down at the beach doing our OT work :) It really helped this past fall and got her walking earlier and eating better. And best of all, it's FREE through the city of Virginia Beach. Love it!!!!

All in all, not a bad Monday

2008-01-28T18:49:00.001-05:00

We got off to a great start today. Our annual upper GI was today. Out of the house by 6:45 am, at CHKD by 7:30, first one to sign in and then....we waited. 8:30 came and went and I asked when was she going to be taken back for the upper gi. 8:45-finally but wait.....more waiting this time outside the room the test was going to be done. 9:15 they call us in and the nurse tells me to put Emma on the table so we can get started because they are a little behind. Okay...but are you ready to start? She said yes, the doc is in the next room. Emma on the table, 5 minutes later, Emma hysterical, (the nurse was out of the room by then), no doc and now I am ticked. I picked Emma up and she came back in to ask why I was holding her. Well DUH obviously you weren't ready, she is upset and now we might have to reschedule if she doesn't calm down. Finally, the doc comes in and I ask AGAIN, are you ready? I want to see the barium flavored juice in the sippy cup and the Xray machine turned on. Once I saw all of this done to my satisfaction, then I laid Emma back down (they strap you to a board) and the test began. And she screamed, and puked, and choked and would not take the cup. Barium is all of me, all in Emma's hair and I am silently begging to her to please, please just take 1 or 2 really good sips so we can see if your esophagus is getting smaller. 35 minutes later, we are done and then it was off to see Dr.Kuhn and proceded to wait some more. We didn't get home until after 11am so our morning was gone.

Good news, it's not, well at least from what I can tell and the radiology tech in the room reading it as the test is going on. I will have to call Dr.Kobak tomorrow to make sure that everything looks okay. If there is some narrowing and depending on how much, he'll either wait and do this again next year or we'll be in the OR doing an dilation later on in the spring.

Just to see you smile

2008-01-26T19:36:00.000-05:00

I love Emma's smile. It feels so good to finally see her smiling, laughing and enjoying life. Today she was a crazy pony-tailed girl, running around in the play area of the mall having a great time. I want her to remember these days, not the days full of medical procedures, not the hospital stays and not the scary loud machines running tests.
Today was one of those days I wished we had more often.

I want her to have as much fun as humanly possible because she missed out on having fun for such a long time. She and I cried so much during her first year of life that I feel obligated to give her days like these as much as I can. She deserves to be happy, to be pain-free, to simply be a kid.

The lot

2008-01-25T18:02:00.000-05:00

As if we needed anymore stress in our lives, we talked to a realtor last week about buying a new home, since our little condo isn't big enough for us anymore. It's a great time to buy and we finally are making enough money to afford a real house.

Last Saturday, at my SIL house, her husband said why not have him build our house (he is a builder/fencer/you name it) and buy one of their lots.....well it looks like Scott is building us a house on a very nice lot out in Chesapeake. We haven't gotten approval for the loan yet since our taxes are not done but we are going to get a contract out on the lot and hopefully start building in the spring. The lot is HUGE with a view of a lake from the "second floor". You can't find lots like this down here anymore for the cost he is selling us. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it works out for us. The action won't really start until after we get back from Ohio and the house will probably start going up later on in the spring. We haven't decided if we are going to rent/sell the condo until spring so we can see what the demand is going to be for selling/renting in our area. Selling isn't happening now and neither is renting but it's winter here so maybe this spring things will pick up!

The waiting game....

2008-01-25T14:39:00.000-05:00

Still no word from Cincy when we need to be there. I am almost getting slightly annoyed by this fact since her surgery date is 1 month from Monday. Chad is on my be-hind about getting a date and hopefully the email I sent today will do the trick.

Blogging

2008-01-06T22:14:00.000-05:00

I should be sleeping or trying to get to sleep before Emma wakes up. I finally realized I need to stop writing so many emails about what is going on and just blog it and whoever wants to can stay updated.

With Emma's upcoming surgery in Cicny, I want to keep everyone posted on our doings and happenings between now and then. I "should" have internet access there so I can update about the surgery but we shall see.....