4/9/11 – Kicking off Easter

Today started off VERY early for us, especially for a Saturday! We were actually successful at getting the whole house up and ready and out the door a little after 8:30 this morning. We were heading off for our first Easter celebration of the year…a big Easter egg hunt at a local indoor park. It was for kids 2-5, so really fair, and Olivia had so much fun. There weren’t a ton of kids, so she ended up with A LOT of eggs (which means lots of candy for MOM). After the hunt, we changed out of our Easter best and into play clothes so she could run around the play area for a while, and ware herself out of course. Amelia was quite jealous that she couldn’t join in all of the festivities, but she sure enjoyed all of the fun things to look at!

Olivia seems good as new today. Christian was not back to 100%, but I feel like I am, so maybe tomorrow he will be. This little bug sure did a number on our household, that’s all I know! We managed to get both of the girls to take a nap at the same time for a while today, so we both actually got some chores done. Christian’s friend stopped over so Christian could help do some work on his car. I got a couple loads of laundry done and paid some bills…you know, the fun stuff.

After naps we all just hung out. Amelia was quite crabby all day. Probably a mix of teething, her shots yesterday and Olivia pushing her over all day long getting to her. Olivia was absolutely out of control today, other than when we were out playing this morning. She is SO GOOD when we are out and about, but when we’re home, she just cannot leave Amelia alone. It’s beyond frustrating and we just don’t know what to do anymore. Grrrrr

We managed to get the girls to bed a little earlier than usual tonight. Amelia was so crabby, we just skipped baths all together and put them to bed. I waltzed out to the living room all amped up to spend some time with Christian, only to find him snoring away on the couch. So, here I am, updating my blog instead. What a life we live!

Here are some pics from our adventures this morning!

4/8/11 – Long Day

Today was a long day. I was feeling MUCH better…not 100%, but I felt like I was actually alive today, so that’s a big deal.

The morning started off early with a trip to the clinic for the girls. Amelia had her weight check and vaccinations today, and Olivia had her ER follow up because she’s just not quite getting better. Which was made evident by her throwing up in the waiting room of the clinic. Fun stuff.

Amelia did well with her shots, she wasn’t a fan, but she was consolable. Olivia was very worried about her, which was nice to see. She just kept throwing (literally) toys at her, trying to cheer her up. What a sister. She did only weight in at 14.72lbs though. Only up .72 since last month. She’s dropped down to the 2% for weight…BUT, she has FINALLY doubled her birth weight!!! YAY, it only took 8+ months! The doctor said he’s still not too concerned…as long as she keeps gaining, and doesn’t lose, he can live with it. He basically said it’s a 50/50 shot in the dark, either she’s genetically small, or she’s not taking in enough calories. He said to either meet with a breastfeeding doctor to discuss things and have her weighed, or just get a good food scale to weigh her before and after feedings to see how much she’s taking in. So, we’ll have to decide how we want to proceed there.

Olivia’s appointment went well. The after talking with the doctor, he said it’s most likely a stomach virus, that just has to make its way out of her system. He said there is a small chance its strep throat, and a smaller change it’s a urinary tract infection. So, just in case, they tested for those too. The tests eventually came back negative, so stomach bug it is. Hopefully it won’t be much longer.

After the appointments, we made our way home to relax the rest of the day. Olivia took a nice long nap, but of course, Amelia pretty much refused to take one at all. So, there wasn’t really any down time going on today. I really could have used it, especially when I got the “OT Text” from Christian in the afternoon. Olivia was a little difficult today, but not as bad as she has been, so at least I had that going for me.

Christian finally got home a little after 6:30, only to announce that he was suddenly feeling very ill. Oh joy, apparently it’s his turn to live through that hell! He pretty much took to the couch, and I continued trying to entertain the girls. We finally got them to bed after what seemed like the longest day ever, and we both passed out right away. We have a pretty busy weekend ahead of us, so hopefully we’re all feeling better tomorrow!

Here are a few cute pics of Amelia today. I love the one of her double-fisting her mum-mums…don’t mess with her!

4/7/11 – Holy Hell

Yes, I used THAT word in my title, because that is where I spent the day.

I had a long night…a very long night. Amelia was up a few times, but after last night that was to be expected. She ended up eating again around 3:30, and kept that down, so we are pretty convinced her episode last night was food related. What was NOT to be expected was me getting sicker and sicker as the night went on. I started feeling ill last night when Amelia threw up, but I thought it was just a reaction to her being sick. Well, by the time I woke up this morning, I knew that was not the case. My stomach was so upset, and I was in a lot of pain. It wasn’t a turning kind of upset stomach, just pain.

I thought if I just got up, got ready and got going I would feel better. And, tomorrow is my day off, so I really couldn’t let my work sit for two days. Amelia hadn’t shown any more signs of being ill, so we chalked that up to too much to eat at dinner, and figured the girls would do OK at “daycare”. I dropped them off and was on my way to work like usual…and ALMOST made it before I had to pull over on the side of the road. Sick, sick, sick. It quickly became apparent that I wasn’t going to make it through the day. I stopped into work, and worked the most time sensitive stuff I had. After a couple hours I just couldn’t take it anymore, and headed home. I passed out as soon as I arrived home, and basically slept from 10:30AM until 5:00PM. It was wonderful, and much needed. Christian and the girls arrived home shortly later. At this point I hadn’t eating a thing all day. I kept trying to take in water, but couldn’t really do that either…so, not looking forward to what this does to my milk supply!

Christian took Olivia outside with him to get the leaves in the backyard picked up. Because it snowed so early in the fall, and it never left, we didn’t get a chance to pick them up, so he’s been in a rush to get them up now before the grass starts to mold. Amelia was pretty good for me, which was good because I was very weak, and my body ached from my head to my toes. I ended up feeding her and we both fell asleep for a while.

Finally it was time for baths (Christian handled both of them tonight), then the whole house went to bed. I can honestly say, I have NEVER felt this way before. I mean, I had a lot of morning sickness with Amelia, but it was nothing compared to this. I sure hope it doesn’t jump to Christian now, but by the looks of it…he’s screwed. Olivia did end up throwing up a couple times this morning again, so Christian ended up making an appointment for her…I’m taking Amelia in tomorrow anyway, so we thought it best to just get her checked out too.

Here’s a picture of Olivia today…she’s deceivingly happy here!

4/6/11 – I Forgot to Knock on Wood!

I think the “all better” call yesterday was a little premature. We thought we had Olivia’s illness under control, but maybe not. She ended up throwing up a few times today. Every time she starts doing better, and we start getting her diet more on a normal track…she gets sick again! Poor thing, I wish this bug would just go away already!

The day pretty much flew by. Christian’s mom ended up calling him this morning, not only to update on Olivia, but to also vent some frustration. It seems she’s pretty much at the end of her rope with Olivia’s aggressiveness and the way she is towards Amelia. Let me tell you, I don’t blamer her. In just the few hours we’re with them in the evening it’s hard on us! So, I don’t know where things are going to go from here. She ended up making us all some dinner tonight, and we decided to talk to her about it a little bit. I’m obviously most comfortable with the girls being with her, somebody we can trust, but in the end, if it’s not the best fit for everybody involved, it’s not going to work out.

We basically told her that if she feels like she can’t handle it, she needs to just be honest about it, and we can move forward. My ideal plan in that situation would be my mom and I continue watching them on Friday’s, she could watch them one day a week, and then we’d do daycare 3 days a week. At least it would only be part-time then, and she would still get some time with them. She said she wants to give it a little more time, especially now that it’s getting nicer out. She’s hoping that getting them out and about for a while during the day will help keep Olivia more entertained, and less obsessed with Amelia. So, we’ll see what the future holds here.

After dinner, we were on our way home. We gave the girls their baths, and went about our evening as usual. I was feeding Amelia, and she stopped eating pretty quickly. It usually takes her forever to eat, so this made me a little nervous. Her head started rocking back and forth, and I noticed some milk dripping down her cheek. She hadn’t spit up for so long, this really made me worry. Next thing you know, I could hear her tummy rolling, and her throat gurgling and I knew something was going on….and yup, up came her entire dinner. I yelled for Christian and I was scared to death! She quickly recovered, but required another bath at this point. So, we got her cleaned up and relaxed, and I went back to feeding her. And up, same thing happened (but much less this time). So, we cleaned her up again, and just rocked her to sleep…she was pretty exhausted at this point, so that didn’t take long. After I put her down in the crib, we watched the video monitor for a while to see what she did. Just a few minutes later I saw her head start rolling again, and knew it was about to happen again…Christian went running in just as she threw up…again.

At this point I was very worried, and in tears. Watching my 2 year old go through this was torture enough, I couldn’t sit there and watch my 8 month go through it too! We were fairly certain she’d just had too much to eat at dinner, and was too active too soon after eating, but you just never know. We decided to keep her in bed with us so we could keep a good eye on her. NO FUN!

I did manage to snap a picture of her ONE tooth. It’s finally all the way out, and she looks very goofy with one little loner tooth.

4/5/11 – Whew, All Better!

Well, it was a pretty long night, but it ended up going better than we thought. Olivia in bed with us did not last long…she kept waking up and throwing herself all over the bed. So, Christian ended up taking her out on the couch, and they slept out there. Apparently Amelia the diva REALLY wants her own room…we did not hear a peep from her all night long. She slept right up until it was time to get up and go this morning. Man, I wish we had 3 rooms on the same level!

Olivia woke up while we were getting ready, and hung out with us. She seemed so much better already. She was running around, following us, chatting up a storm. Thank goodness. She kept asking for food and drinks, so that was a good sign. Unfortunately, we kept having to say no, which she was not a fan of. We gave her the nausea medicine, and she couldn’t have anything to drink for 20-30 minutes, but she was insistent that she get some milk (which she couldn’t have anyway, regardless). We kept saying “no, you can’t have any milk right now”, to which she would exclaim “But, I NEEEEED some milk!” Really? You NEED some milk? She has been coming up with some interesting phrases these days!

So, off we went to see if we could make it through the day. She was really excited to get over to Gramma and Bupa’s house, so that was a good sign. I loaded them up with some 7-UP, Jell-O, Applesauce, Pedialite and Popsicle’s. The doctor’s didn’t want her having any food this morning, so we were hoping she would keep the liquids down and could keep getting more throughout the day.

Work was frustrating. We just got notice that we have less than 2 weeks to get certain Contracts in place before they lose their funding. I have a few that it’s not even going to be possible, so that was really upsetting. None of us can understand why things in our office are so crazy right now. I alone have 19 Contracts going around the process right now, and 21 that I haven’t even started yet. To put that in prospective, the district people (in other areas of the state) who do what we do usually only have 2-3 at any given time, at the most. It’s just a very stressful time in our office.

Christian worked an hour of OT today, so I had some extra time to clean up around the house. Of course, the kitchen was a disaster, so I tackled that pretty hardcore. It was just kind of the usual routine…dishes, bottles, making dinner. YAY. It’s finally nice enough that we can let the dog out the backdoor and leave him out for a while now, so that’s pretty exciting! Finally, the rest of the house was home. Olivia was definitely back to her usual self…picking on Amelia, asking a million questions, refusing to listen, dancing around. Yup, that’s our girl.

After baths, it was time for bed. We put them both down in their room again, so we’ll see how it goes. Here are a couple pictures of Amelia today. It’s so funny…her hair is so light, it just sticks up all over the place, it’s not heavy enough to lay down. Olivia had the same thing going on when she was little. Both girls were cursed with my straight, fine hair. Poor things, I was really hoping they’d get the nice thick hair from dad’s side!

4/4/11 – An Unfortunate Milestone

So, today started off like any other day. Sleeping went well again, again only getting up once to eat. YAY. Both girls were completely passed out this morning when it was time to go…and still passed out when I dropped them off. Olivia continued sleeping as I got her out of the car and into my in-law’s house. This was unusual, but I didn’t think much of it.

I got to work and started off the day like usual, until I received a phone call around 8:30AM from my mother in-law. She said Olivia had just woken up, and right away threw up. I thought, maybe teeth, or maybe she was just really warm for some reason, and it would be a onetime thing. Said to just give her a little water and some dry toast, and see if that helps. Well, the phone rang again around 10:00, and Olivia had thrown up 3 more times since our phone call. She wasn’t throwing up food (she hadn’t eaten anything), just clear “liquid”. So, I thought it would be best to go get her, and bring her home for the day. So off I went.

Olivia and I settled into my bed, and she just looked exhausted beyond belief. She’d start to doze off, and them immediately pop up to throw up again. I’d never seen her do this before, and it broke my heart to watch her suffering like that. This continued all day. She didn’t say more than 5 words to me the entire day, didn’t even attempt to play with a single toy, she was like shell over her real self. I thought for sure FLU.

She threw up every 20-30 minutes, all day long. Always this clear, whitish, sticky substance. As I started googling away, I started to worry that the substance was from her lungs, and it was pneumonia. I did finally call the clinic’s CareLine and talked to a nurse. She said to give it a few hours and see if she stops throwing up and can start taking in some liquids. Well, by 4:00PM we’d gone through many PJ changes, a few loads of laundry, she was still throwing up, getting paler and paler by the minute, hadn’t eaten a single thing, was only drank a little Pedialite in the morning, hadn’t gone to the bathroom (not even a wet diaper), so I was getting really worried. I called back into the CareLine, and they suggested that we just head in to the ER at the Children’s Hospital and have her checked out.

Instantly the tears welled up. I knew this was a possibility all day, but hearing the words, and knowing that I was about to take my poor little 2-year-old to the hospital, was not something I was truly prepared to do. I started packing up a little bag, and getting us ready to head out. Christian picked us up, and we had to drop off a couple extra bottles for Amelia because she was going to stay over at my mother in-law’s while we were at the hospital, and then we were finally on our way. Just pulling up to the hospital brought me to tears…a hospital, full of sick, innocent little children, the thought of it was just too heart wrenching.

There were quite a few kids in the waiting room, but they moved pretty quickly. We were taken back, and seen almost right away. After chatting with the doctor for a while, he was confident it was just the stomach flu. He checked her over and said that for all she’d been through today, she was pretty well hydrated still. Thank goodness…my biggest fear was her needing an IV, and having to watch her go through that. They ended up giving her some nausea medication to see if it would help. Literally, within 5 minutes she popped up in bed, and started talking. She was visibly getting better and better. A short time later they brought in a popsicle to see if she could hold it down. She scarfed the whole thing down (and of course, asked for “mo peas”), so they were comfortable letting us take her home.

Our adventure home took forever at this point. It was 9:00 and we were finally leaving the hospital. Christian and I hadn’t eaten at all, so we picked something up quick to eat on our way home. Hopped on the highway, and made it about halfway home before coming up on an accident that had the entire highway shut down! So, we had to get off and venture through the mysterious side roads looking for a way to get back on on the other side of the accident. We finally got back on, and Christian dropped me off at Walgreen’s to fill Olivia’s prescription and grab some flu-recovery-essentials for tomorrow, while he picked up Amelia. We finally arrived home around 10:00, tucked Amelia in to bed, and were finally settling in for the night. We decided to have Olivia sleep with us to keep the flu germs out of the room with Amelia…we’ll see how that goes!

So, today we hit a milestone…Olivia’s first trip to the ER. Not a milestone we ever hoped to hit, but it could have been much worse, and we are very grateful for that. Now, we just hope that it’s just a 24-hour thing, and it will pass quickly…without affecting any of us, especially Amelia!

Here are some pictures of our poor girls rough day!

4/3/11 – Just Another Boring Sunday!

Today was a very boring, low-key, family day around the house. Amelia did really well again last night in the crib, just up once. I’m hoping we’ve finally turned a corner on her sleeping. My main hunch has always been that she could just sense me in the room, especially when she was in bed with me, and it would make her want to be close to me, or nurse, even if she wasn’t hungry. I mean, other things have run through my mine…her reflux acting up again; her teeth bothering her; reactions to food, or my milk; etc. But, I truly thing her attachment to me was really the issue. Now that we’re in separate rooms, and she can’t sense or smell me, she’s able to disconnect a little bit. As much as I love the sleep and the space, and having our room back, it’s still really hard. It’s funny, for so long I’ve wanted this, but now that I have it, I miss her so much, and miss all of our extra cuddles.

Once the girls were up, we really just hung out around the house all day. It was a little cooler, cloudy and rainy today, so we didn’t get a chance to go on a walk or anything. The Easter Bunny arrived at the Mall of America yesterday, so we thought maybe if we could get the girls to take a nap, we could head over and get that out of the way. Well, they were not having any part of that. It took forever to get both of them down, so, that will have to wait for another weekend.

So, we really just sat around, played, tried to protect Amelia from Olivia all day…you know, the usual. I managed to get a few loads of laundry done and put away throughout the day, but that’s really the only productive thing either of us did.

One of the sites I follow on facebook is doing a referral give away right now, and I’m dying to win this one. It’s for a ring sling, which I’ve wanted FOREVER! So, if any of my readers are on facebook, and are willing to help me out, just “like”Baby ‘Roo Slings, and leave “Ashley Hartfiel Duran sent me” as a comment on their wall. Simple as that!

Here are some pictures from today. The girls played with each other for a while (until Olivia decided she’d had enough of sharing with Amelia), Amelia has been passing out lots of slobbery kisses lately, and she got Olivia good today, and I included a picture of Amelia standing up today. You seriously cannot keep her down anymore, she LOVES to be up..the worst is IN the bathtub, that’s scary. She is definitely ready to go!

4/2/11 – My Kind of Saturday

Today was just perfect as perfect can be! We had a good night of sleep from everybody, only up once for the first time in a long time, and Olivia slept right though it! The girls even slept in until about 8:00AM! I couldn’t believe it (yes, that IS sleeping in for us now)! Christian whipped up some yummy breakfast while we girls hung out and played for a while.

After breakfast, we all quickly showered and got ready for the day. As I mentioned the other day, “Our” photographer has her Easter mini-sessions going on today, so we headed over for the girls’ shoot. They did SO great, they both cooperated so well and I really can’t wait to see these pictures. They are going to be beyond adorable!

After pictures, we headed home in hopes of nap time. I was able to feed Amelia and get her down right away, but Olivia just kept fighting her nap like crazy. I eventually just left her in there to at least “rest” even if she wasn’t going to nap. Meanwhile, it was SO beautiful outside, that Christian took the opportunity to get some work done around the house. He took down all of the Christmas lights and packed them away, and did a little cleaning up in the garage. I finally gave in and got Olivia out of bed and dressed, and we joined daddy outside for a while. She rode her bike for a little bit, and actually did really well. She can work the pedals better than we expected, but still ends up going backwards quite a bit…she’ll get it soon though. Amelia woke up from her nap, and we all headed up on a nice, long family walk with the wagon. Amelia did not know what to think about it at first, and was furious that we were making her wear a hat, but she ended up doing really well and was very interested in everything around her.

We arrived home, Christian did some final cleaning up in the garage, I fed Amelia, and we decided it would be a good night for some Chipotle. So we packed up the family and were on our way…but the line at Chipotle was seriously out the door and down the block…so we nixed that idea, and stopped in to Perkins instead. I’m so happy that we can finally get out and about as a family of 4, without Amelia causing a scene everywhere we go. Life is MUCH happier now days, that’s for sure!

After dinner, we just hung out around the house for a bit, watched some TV, played with some toys, had some treats…just a good night, at home, with each other. So, it was a wonderful Saturday, and it makes me really anxious for this warmer weather to settle in for the long run. It’s going to be great being able to get outside and have some more entertainment options for the girls! Here are some pictures of our outdoor fun!

4/1/11 – Where Did April Come From?

How is it possibly April already? I can’t believe it!! I mean, YAY for spring and the changing weather, but where does the time go? I know I say it every month, but it just shocks me over and over again!

Today was just a pretty standard day. Last night went about the same as the last few…each girl was up a couple times. I know it’s going to take some adjustment, and we just need to stick with it, but it gets hard. Last night I decided to take Amelia into our room to feed her…I kept thinking, if I’m sitting there in the rocker, feeding Amelia, and Olivia wakes up, that would HAVE to be pretty scary to see somebody sitting there in the dark. I was good though, and got up and put her back in her crib when she was done eating…YAY for not being so lazy! LOL

Work was work, just the usual. However, I did see something upsetting on the news this morning. A coupe of the state employee bills that I mentioned a while back passed the legislature…they want a 2 year pay freeze (again) for us, and want us paying more into our retirement and the state paying less. There is a chance the governor will veto these bills, but it sounds like the legislature might have enough votes on them to overrule his veto (so, it’s pretty much a guarantee these will be going into effect). Still waiting to hear on the healthcare bill though. And, it’s sounding more and more definite that we will be facing a shutdown this summer. It’s all so frustrating, and so overwhelming. We try not to really think about it, I mean, in the end there is nothing I can do to change it or stop these things from happening, but it’s scary. I mean, we have our house, two young kids, and we can’t afford for me to have all of these changes g into effect or for me to be off work without pay, let alone BOTH. I guess only time will tell what will happen though. Along those lines, Christian has still not heard anything about that job he applied for, so we’re not sure what’s going on there.

"Our" photographer contacted me yesterday. She has a mini-session special going on this weekend, and offered to photograph the girls for free as part of her special! YAY, of course I couldn't pass that up. So, I took a long lunch today and ran to get the girls’ Easter Dresses. You should have seen me in the store. I had three sets of dresses I was trying to decide between…I had each set laid out on the floor and seriously spent WAY TOO MUCH time trying to decide between them. In the end, I just picked my favorite one for Amelia, and a super cute white one to go with it for Olivia. Decisions, decisions.

After work we really just settled into the house for the night. Just the usual really. We were both pretty exhausted, so we just headed to bed as soon as the girls did. We’ll see how tonight’s sleep goes! Here is a picture of the girls hanging out in their cribs while we finished getting ready for bed…I’m guessing we’ll be walking into this scene quite often in the coming months!

3/31/11 – Thursday…Enough Said

I don’t really have anything interesting to report today. Sleep didn’t go quite as well last night. Olivia woke Amelia up shortly after putting them down. We got them back to sleep, and then Amelia was up again a short time later. I kept trying and trying to get her back to sleep, and she just wouldn’t cooperate. I finally gave in and just kept her in bed with me. I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m such a quitter! But, we’re not giving up yet. We’re getting back on the horse tonight, and sticking with it! I know we need to just be consistent about it, and they’ll get used to the arrangement, It’s just so frustrating, and exhausting, get up over and over again!

The rest of the day was pretty boring. The weather has been really iffy lately, and it looks like that is going to continue for a while. Gotta love Spring! But, this weekend should be pretty nice, so hopefully we’ll be able to get outside for a while.

Work has been going well for both of us. I approached Christian about carpooling a while back, and he really didn’t take to it. One issue is that he drives a friend of his to and from work, and the bigger issue is that he has his random, mandatory OT all the time, and that adds a little kink into it. Now, with gas prices being so out of control (and just getting higher), he actually brought it up to me again. His friend at work is supposed to be getting a car soon, so he won’t need rides any longer. So, it would just be a matter of working through the OT issues. If we carpooled, I would cancel my parking at work (to save that cost), and we would use my car (WAY better gas mileage). Friday’s are easy, either I don’t work, or I can use my mom’s parking pass and drive on the Friday I do work if there is ever a Friday issue. The rest of the week would be the issue. I researched some bus routes from my work to his work so we could maybe work around the OT issues. So, we’re starting the early planning phase of doing it. Hopefully it’s something we can actually implement. It would save us SO much money, and of course, we could erase some of our carbon footprint!

After work, it was just the usual, of course (broken record much?). Today was the 2011 baseball opener, so Olivia sported her Twins Tee for a while! YAY, go Twins! I would love to take the girls to a game this year, so hopefully we can make that happen. Here are some pictures of her showing some Minnesota Twin love!