Collage

I made a collage using picasa and I really like the way it turned out. I used the pics we had taken back in October, right after Hannah was born. I think she was eight days old....I already don't remember exactly. Thank goodness for my iphone, yes, she was eight days old.

Everyone else

There are still people at our house who aren't Hannah, even if the blog hasn't reflected that recently.

Natalie is doing great at school. She's getting past the point where reading is a chore and seems to be enjoying it more. She's really enjoying the snow we've gotten recently. She LOVES snow! She's quite the little outdoors person. She doesn't seem to mind when its super hot or super cold....guess she got that trait from Daddy cause I sure am an indoor kinda gal! Natalie is also excited about Valentine's day. She's already got plans to make V-day cookies using the cookie cutters Mema and Papa gave her for Christmas. I never really know what to do for v-day cause they both want to get a box of v-day cards at the store, but since we don't have a whole class of kids to give them to then we just have 80 trillion cards floating about the house for the next month. Oh well, at least they're cheap! : )

Mason....well....he's Mason. Still working on the whole potty training thing, but now that I think of it he's only had a couple accidents since I've been back from the hospital which is a marked improvement. He's been interested lately in learning letter sounds, so we've been working on that. We were watching coverage of the Barrett-Jackson collector car auction the other day and he asked what the car that was on the tv just then was. It happened to be a 68 Camaro, which I told him. Then he walked around talking about 68 Camaro this and that for quite awhile. There's something funny about a 3 year old talking about classic cars. Also he's been taking apart the booster seat with his screw driver. I saw him doing it the other day, but I thought he was putting it back together....turns out his was taking it apart. So Andy put the arm back on the chair and then a few hours later it was back on the floor with the screwdriver sitting next to it. So Mason put it back together that time and now he's left it. He's a funny guy.

Andy semi recently acquired a new (to him) truck to tinker with since the frame on his brown truck is nearly rusted through. So he's been spending some spare time playing with that. I'm never quite sure what he's up to with that cause I don't speak car-ese, but I try to listen and pick up some info along the way.

And then there's me....what am I doing....it seems like I'm awfully busy but its with boring mom stuff like a zillion appointments and and household chores and paying bills...nothing too exciting. Lydia and I recently started a workout plan(ish) together. It's not much of a plan, but she and I are trying to work out on our own throughout the week and then together once a week with a weigh in. The thinking being that if we do it together maybe we'll each have more success.

So that's it in a nutshell.

Hospital stay

Boy did that turn out to be a way longer stay than we'd anticipated. Turns out that her U.T.I was caused by an antibiotic resistant bacteria called pseudomonas. They don't really know how she might have picked it up. It's kind of an uncommon cause of UTIs, not unheard of, but not very common. She (and I) had to stay at the hospital for the entire ten days of antibiotic treatment because there isn't an oral medication to treat it, only IV. When children her age get a UTI they check the renal system for problems. So they did a renal ultrasound and a voiding cystourethrogram, where they use contrast dye to look and see if there is urine backing up the ureters. They found that she has grade III vesicoureteral reflux on the left side, which means that she is, in fact, backing pee up into the ureters and the renal pelvis. Hopefully it'll be something she grows out of, but until then she is on prophylactic antibiotics.

We've been very thankful for friends who've made dinners both for me while I was staying at the hospital with Hannah and for Andy and the kids at home. It's also been a blessing that Andy has a job that easily allows him to be off for ten days to be with the kids without a lot of hoop jumping and paper work and taking sick days. And I've been extra thankful for mom's knowledge of all this peds nursing. It helped me keep on top of things at the hospital when I knew something wasn't quite right, but didn't know what was right.

In non hospital related news its snowing, and very lovely. We had to go to a doctor's appointment for Hannah today, and we had to head down just as the snow was starting to collect on the roads. We had quite a scare on the highway when a semi passed us on the left and then decided to come into our lane without regard for the fact that we were there. I'm glad to be home and not out there driving, and that I don't have any place to be the next several days. It's much easier to enjoy the snow when I don't have to drive in it. : )

Hannah....

So, we find ourselves in the hospital with Hannah again...she woke up Wednesday night/early Thursday morning to eat and she felt warm, so we checked her temp (always a less than pleasant experience in and of itself.) She had a temp of 101.8, so we called the Dr's answering service since they drill it into ones head to call for infants with a temp over like....100. So the health connections nurse said to bring her to the E.R, so we did, certainly not thinking we'd be admitted. Well, guess what! We were wrong. Turns out she has a urinary tract infection, which puzzles me exceedingly, and a respiratory infection (i.e cold). So, to be honest, I'm not sure why they didn't give her a prescription for oral antibiotics and have us follow up with her regular pediatrician but they didn't. So she's admitted at Stormont getting IV antibiotics and waiting for cultures to come back....again...familiar situation eh? Results should be back early, early a.m Saturday so hopefully they'll cut us loose this weekend. I wish I'd just given her the tylenol, managed the fever myself overnight and called the peds office in the a.m, but I didn't.....I did what they told me to do and now we're paying for it, quite literally. I can't imagine the the treatment plan would have been remotely the same if I'd just gone to the office.

Christmas and other merriment!

Well, we all made it through the holidays in one piece. After all the busyness and people around its kind of weird to be back to regular life. We had a great time with everyone and were glad Mema and Papa could come up and spend the holidays with us. We had a relaxing couple weeks of doing a whole lot of nothing, which was great! No appointments or schedule or worrying about school stuff, it was nice to have a couple weeks "off" and some extra hands to help with little people. : ) It snowed the day before Christmas, and it stuck on the ground just long enough to make a giant snow man. Mason even got out and helped roll the snow around, and he really doesn't like the cold. I think this was the biggest snowman I've ever participated in making. I think it was probably six feet tall.

K-dad installed our reverse osmosis filter in the kitchen so we now have clean water right out of the tap rather than having to filter it through a filter pitcher, which is a little tedious. Every time I turn it on I'm so thankful to not have to remember to filter water all the time.

Natalie started piano lessons today. She seems pretty excited and did a good job. Hopefully that excitement will translate into good practice habits.

Mason is doing his usual kid stuff. Not really much going on with him right now. Although it's hard to believe he'll be four in a couple months.

Hannah has realized in the last couple days that she can have her eyes open, and NOT cry. Thank goodness. It seemed like for the first couple months if her eyes were open she was crying most of the time, needless to say it was tiring. I'm very excited about the happy awake time.