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The No-No Word Files

There are so any good things happening right now that I want to document, remember and be able to look back on, but the end of the day I’m ready to curl into a ball and sleep. I’ve wondered to myself lately if I’m still a blogger because I’ve so neglected this blog in the past months. Of course I’m still a blogger because I’m certainly not sitting down to journal out our adventures and scrapbooking them away  ~ so this continues to be our book. Our slice of life.

Maggie’s become a hilarious little person these days. I’ve always thought she was a hilarious person, but her language has absolutley exploded and she doesn’t miss ANYTHING. I knew this day was coming, but the proof hit me this past week as she chirped from the back seat words that I’d rather my darling daughter not know.

We were picking Barry up from work to have a lunch date (sushi!!!!!) and I stopped to get gas at the most crowded gas station in the world. As I was trying to manuver the Element out of the gas station, with the bike rack attached on the back, to make the 1 mile drive down a hill to Barry, we were cut off by a truck. I was frustrated….


Me: That truck is causing problems.

Maggie: That truck causing problems, Mama?

Me: Yep, that big, white truck. We need to go that way.

I then successfully got out of the gas station parking lot but had to make a quick turn, but was cut off by another car.

Me (under my breath): Sh*t balls.

Maggie: That sh*t balls, Mama? That truck sh*t balls?

Me: Yes, Mags. That truck sh*t balls.

What else can you do? I tried to act like it was okay for her to be saying that in hopes that she’ll forget.  I haven’t heard her say it again, but the girl has mind of a steel trap and I’m wondering if it will come back to bite me. Ah, sh*t balls.

There are so many other eloquent examples of Maggie’s language, but this was one where I realized that I need to watch myself.

Maggie has also caught onto the fact that books hold stories and she can ‘read’ them herself. We keep finding her curled up in various places reading and almost nothing makes me feel more proud and happy; I’ve got a child that loves to read!!! Yahooooo!!! We’ve started a semi-regular routine of going to the library to check out books. We’ve been going to story time since she was about 6 months old, but now she has a whole new understanding of the place now that we ‘take books home.’

[I’m cutting this short because Maggie has just arrived at my side announcing that it’s time to Face Time with Thomas and she’s quite persistent, so I’m going to go see what Thomas is up to…their ‘conversations’ are always funny.]

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The Random Files

RACING

We pulled out of our driveway last Sunday morning at roughly 5 a.m. to make it to Seattle to watch Barry’s 6:30 start of his race. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go – me carrying Maggie around in the backpack while we watched the swimming, biking and running; however, she surprised me with how much she loved watching all the action. The night before she had helped Barry clean his bike and lay out all his gear, which meant that she was well versed in what he’d need for each portion of the race. 

When he transitioned from his bike to the run, she was very worried that he might not change into his running shoes and when we saw him at the finish line, she immediately checked his feet to make sure he had the right shoes on. She’s quite the little boss-hog. Not sure where she gets it from….must be Barry. 

Barry did great at this olympic-distance race, as usual. He’s so humble and would never tell you all the hard work he puts into training, but I’m here to tell you that most mornings he is up by 5:30 and off working out.  It became especially inspiring to me durning my first trimester, when I wouldn’t have traded a million dollars for a few extra hours/minutes/seconds of sleep. 

And by the way, isn’t he hunky? 

OUTSIDE ACTIVITIES & PICTURES

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be 80 degrees and when I heard that I instantly checked our popsicle supply ~ worry not, we’re good to go. All joking aside, it is supposed to warm up tomorrow and I can hardly contain myself. We’re going to meet up with some friends and I’ve already set out the cooler, sun screen and towels.

(Really gross side note: I have a bit of a rash and was talking to Lara about it today and we wondered if it was heat rash. Wouldn’t that be AWFUL if I got heat rash in 60 degree weather. I would equal a TOTAL Weather Wimp if that were true. I think I must have eaten something weird, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.  Sorry to share my rash with you. Gross. )

I feel energized again in terms of taking pictures, but recently came to the realization that I have almost zero photos of me. I need to get better at handing the camera off to people or even setting up the self-timer for some shots with Maggie. Right after I had Maggie I read a compelling article about The Invisible Parent – the one who usually takes the pictures – and how children often don’t have pictures of themselves with that parent. For the first year of Maggie’s life I worked really hard to get an image of us together at least once a month, even if it was posed, and I have totally slacked off since.  This is my declaration of trying to take more pictures of us together…and letting go of the image in my brain that I hope the photographer will get. Just having images should be enough. 

CAN YOU FIND ME?

CAMPING

We’re finally going camping in a few weeks. We’ve been putting it off – sadly I’m not sure that we went at all last summer – and now we’ve actually got some time on the calendar. I’m excited, but after setting up the tent in the backyard, I’ve determined that any excitement that I have is superseded by Maggie’s. I went to run some errands last weekend and came back to find that Barry and Mags had set up the tent. As I walked through the door, I could hear Maggie yelling, “Mama! Mama! I working in here! I working in here!” 

By the time her frazzled head stuck out I was doubled over in laughter. The sweet little Nugget was so excited to have the tent up that she was literally bouncing off the walls. I really don’t know why we’ve waited so long, since we love camping so much. The last time we went, Maggie was 3 months old. Geesh. 

 

 

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Two Ends of It

Last Sunday we were returning home from an exciting weekend away with some of our friends and brief visits with both my and Barry’s parents. It was exciting because we were finally revealing the news that I’m pregnant and Maggie’s going to be a big sister! B2, as we’ve been calling the little bean in my belly, is due to join us at the end of January 2013.

We stopped by my grandparent’s house on the way home to share with them the news and everything went as planned. [Another post I’ll have to write down people’s reactions to Maggie’s dress. Such a fun way to share with people!] We ended up having dinner and dessert with them out in their patio and we all watched as Maggie bounced off the walls going from one activity to another.

But that night, or more specifically, early the next morning, Maggie woke up puking. We thought that perhaps she’d had some bad food and after we cleaned ourselves up – and the second pile of puke that arrived – we fell back asleep. But the next day didn’t bring any respite. In fact, it got worse. Puke and diarrhea coupled with a nasty fever. Barry went to work and Maggie and I hunkerd down on the couch, me taking her temp, giving her medicine, changing diapers, and hoping she’d keep some fluids in.

She didn’t.

That evening she had her second febrile seizure after not being able to keep any medicine in her system to maintain her temperature. Thankfully Barry was home for this and he was the calm in the center of the storm. I later told him that I did him a favor by NOT having a heart attack as he held Maggie and I cried and cried trying to talk soothing words to our baby.

Almost immediately after her siezure, which lasted the longest minute or two in my life, we drove to an urgent care facility near our house. After being there for about an hour and discovering Maggie had a temperature of 103, they sent us to the ER in Everett, a scary 30 minute car ride away.

The doctors in the ER gave Maggie some anti-nausea meds and some tylenol (not oral) to maintain her fever. Within an hour she was running around the room and hopping between us as we made sure she sipped down the juice that they’d given us. We headed home without a diagnosis since Mags had a ‘normal’ exam and this left us with the false hope that perhaps this was just a blip on the radar.

The next day was much worse than the previous days – tons of puke and diarrhea coupled with a fever that just would not break, even with tylenol that was given non-orally. It seemed like that’s how the next few days went. My mom came down and we worked hard to get Maggie to take sips of coconut water, gatorade and anything liquid. We celebrated two sips. We acted like popsicles were the best thing in the world. Maggie could have cared less, she felt like total shit. It was awful.

By Wednesday night things hadn’t changed and I reached my limit – I could handle puke and diarrhea until the cows some home. I can even celebrate tiny sips of coconut water for a dehydrated baby, but I knew that I could not handle seeing another febrile seizure. The only way for Maggie not to have another one was to get her fever under control and it appeared that the fever was only going to go down she could take Ibuprofen orally.

After some more puke and a high temperature, we went to Seatttle Children’s Hospital. I never, ever want to go there again, but the service and the facility was amazing. We were there for roughly 3.5 hours and by the time we left, we again had no real diagnosis as to why Maggie had a fever, severe puke and diarrhea. I can’t bring myself to go into details about some of the tests they ran, but there were tears shed and I’m sure it was horrifying for Maggie at times.

Although they didn’t send us home with a diagnosis, they did send us home with some of that glorious anti-nausea meds that Maggie was given in the ER on Monday night. The anti-nausea medicine was fantastic in that it allowed her tummy to be tricked into keeping liquids and medicine down and not puking it up right away.

And eventually that dang fever subsided.

And eventually she kept liquids down.

And eventually they came back up again.

And so on and so forth.

Little by little, our girl with a firecracker of a personality has been creeping and fighting her way back to her sassy self. I’ve felt myself getting back in to the routine of simple reminders and she’s back to attempting to bargain her way out of things she doesn’t like to do.

Today, a week after we were galavanting our way down the I-5 corridor spreading the good news about our growing family, I feel like we care so much more. We care about the littlest things – fresh water, regular poops, actual tears, playing a card game for the millionth time – and some pretty big things too – immune systems, medicine, sleep cycles, our families, and our ability to help nurse our baby back to health.

As I type this Maggie is blowing bubbles off our back stoop. Some how she has decided that after each bubble blow, she needs to clean off the wand. I think that might have something to do with the fact that she dipped the wand into the dirt while we weren’t looking…..