Just not any better…

She isn’t getting any better and I just don’t know what to do to help her besides follow the doctor’s orders which are plenty of rest, lots of liquids, and Advil.  Despite fevers being high they do respond quickly to meds.  Within about the first 45 minutes of taking Advil she may play somewhat.  But that’s about it.  She slept all night and morning and afternoon today.  Just now up.  She’s drinking enough and some days she eats a little too.  She does keep complaining about the wrong ear though and I can’t figure out why. 

Well I am trying to fix us some mac and cheese to see if Lola will eat a little.  Keep praying please!  

Surrendered to Sickness (Revised)

Lola’s last day of school was last Thursday and she very ready to see her friends and teachers.  She was so happy.  I tried to explain that it was her last day and she kept saying “Bye-Bye Teachers!”

Pictures of Lola on the last day of school.  I held back tears all day.  We just love her teachers, friends, and school.

    

Lola’s first day of school and second day of school (second day was red t-shirt day):

 

Isn’t that crazy the difference.  She was just a baby back then.  Now I remember why I was so nervous.  Oh what a difference a school year makes…

Well when I picked her up from school she seemed unusually tired and fussy.  By the time we got home she was falling apart and wanted to be rocked.  We haven’t rocked in months, so I decided to and she went straight to sleep and then the fever hit.  She cried about her ears hurting so we got in to see the doctor the following day. 

  Doctor said it was ear infections and put Lola on a new antibiotic that luckily she had no reaction to, but unluckily it wasn’t helping at all. 

Ever since then we have literally lived in the rocker with Clay being our faithful servant trying to help both of us.  She slept, cried, and ran fever since then. Her fever got as high as 105.5.  Lisa S. really helped me figure out what the best thing to do for Lola was since her son, Blake, had such terrible ear infections.  With no relief, on Wednesday we went back exhausted.   A different doctor in the practice saw her and he suggested we really go ahead and clean out her ears (irrigated them- the water method) so he could really see how infected her ears were.  It was insane and I felt so bad for Lola.  But I will say, immediately after she seemed more comfortable.  One ear still had a bad infection so we went ahead and gave her the Rocephin shot and stayed 30 minutes to ensure there was no reaction and praise the Lord- none.  She slept most of the time in the office once they had checked out her ears.  Only woke up to the prick of the shot and screamed then went back to sleep.  When we got home she slept till 9:15 p.m. then woke up seeming to feel much better.  She ate and played for along time before wanting to go to bed.  This morning she has ran fever and slept a lot but around 11:30 she perked back up- ate, played, colored, finally got a much, much needed bath and is still playing- now with her blocks.  SOOOO finally we seem to be on the road to wellness!  Here’s what our week looked like:

Here’s us after the second doctor appt: See the bloody cotton ball?  The procedure made her ears bleed.  :(  No exaggeration when I say we were literally in this rocker for a week.  She made me stay there even to sleep at night.

She occasionally drifted over to daddy’s lap, but she mainly just wanted him to sit on the couch so she could see him.  Poor Clay he was so bored- and his birthday was Sunday and it just wasn’t much of a birthday. I did manage to make him some homemade Italian soup for dinner and his parents dropped of Maggiano’s for lunch and my mom added a pie to the mix!  :)  I did manage to pull of a great birthday surprise gift for him which made the night more exciting.

 

I took so many pictures with my phone due to rocking chair boredom.

She is sleeping on me like this. I never seen Lola sleep so much. 

One morning I managed to get her to sleep on the couch without me and I cleaned like a mad women.  It was a great two hour break.

Before she got real bad we took her to get a snow cone to help keep her drinking.  Once she got worse, Clay would just bring them home to the both of us.

 

  

Looks pretty miserable huh? 

 

But today we finally have some relief!

Awe- clean, soft hair, no smells of throw-up and clothes are stain-free from any medicines.  Nice to see her wanting to play and eat.

Still has weak eyes, but this is a major turn around.  :)

Thanks to family and friends for praying for her!  We look forward to joining the rest of the world soon!

Update: So this was a fluke or something. I figured with this kind of improvement she would be up and running in full swing by this weekend. Nope- today (Friday) was worse than the last day and a half.  I don’t know what is going on.  I did notice her back teeth are coming in so maybe that’s part of the cause.  With every tooth she cut, she ran a fever and slept quite a bit more.  She keeps complaining about the left side of her face (where teeth are coming in) and it’s the right ear with the infection still… so makes me think they are really bothering her.  They don’t seem red or infected, so maybe just painful.  Please keep praying for Lola to return to good health.  Ready to enjoy some outdoors!

How should I title this??

I was in bed over two hours ago looking forward to letting my head hit the pillow and being sound asleep- and then I got to thinking about work and stayed up for two hours planning out some important details.  Here I am now.  Man- I am too wide awake and there goes getting a few hours of extra sleep.  Money or sleep?  So hard to choose.  Looks like money won, and now blogging.  

SC:

Confession.

Sometimes in the middle of the day I will spontaneously hold Lola and rock her just because a part of me actually misses it.  Not very often since I rocked as much as humanly possible Lola’s first two years of life, but the snuggle time was so sweet.  I can’t remember the last time I rocked Lola to sleep.  So weird.  When I pick her up, I always immediately notice she is lacking a diaper and she just seems so old wearing her cute little panties.  Courtesy of Gram (Debbie), we now have super cute Baby Gap panties to add to our growing collection.  All this panty shopping is making me think I need to up the cuteness of my own panties! :) 

Lola typically gets time-out when she is throwing a fit or not listening which tends to be very successful for her.  She will apologize a million times and makes me (or Clay) feel so guilty because whatever she did, didn’t call for “sorry” that many times so I always have to say “I know you are sorry and I appreciate that.  Sorry means you are going to try really hard not to do it again, but you also have to sit in time-out for doing it.”  Then once the timer goes off she always gives hugs and I tell her I love her and go play.  What a great thing to be kid.  Really amazing.  Do kids know this? 

But when Lola doesn’t get time-out, occasionally she gets a spanking.  I don’t think spankings work really well with her and now when she gets a spanking (which means a quick pop of the thigh) she will tell us “Tat hurt Momma.”  Hahaha.  It’s funny and not funny.  I always say “Spankings are suppose to hurt a little, but you are okay.  You need to be a good listener.”  Then in some jibber jabber she will tell me she would rather sit in time-out.  Hehehehe.  That girl is a character.  She told Clay the other day that “tat hurt daddy” and he totally fell for it… he said sorry and gave her a kiss and told her to go play.  Sucka…

Did anyone see last week’s Modern Family?  Hilarious.  I just love this show.  It really makes me laugh out loud.  But it was about her (wife) being bad cop and him (husband) being good cop.  They tried to switch roles and they were awful at the other role and happily switched back.  At first glance I feel like we fit those roles, but after thinking about it- I think we have a good balance.  Clay’s definitely laid back, but he likes Lola to listen to us both and cares about her attitude.  I like our balance.  Lola seems to appreciate the rules and things we try to teach her.  The other day, nap time was a bit of a struggle (normally not too bad at nap time) and I told her, “Lola, I know you are really tired, but you need to relax and give in and after you sleep for awhile you will wake up and be so happy.”  She laid down in her bed and I rubbed her back and she fell asleep quite quickly after that.  Two hours later (a long time for her) she woke up jibber jabbering away trying to get me to come to her and get her out of bed… so I go in there and she is beaming with happiness.  She gives me a big hug and says “Tank cho (thank you) Momma” and I asked her for what and she says for “night-night.”   Awe.  Isn’t that adorable?  See kids do like structure and do realize we sometimes actually know what is best for them.

Really enjoying age 2.  Looking forward to her at every age, even “terrible twos.”

“Everydoby clean up, clean up.  Everydoby clean up, clean up.”  Lola sings that terribly fast and loud with the letters as written while picking up her toys now.  I don’t know which is cuter- her singing that song or actually picking up her toys.  Her room stays cleaner and I still need to show pictures of the rearrangement!

Totally going to bed now! :)

Nat

So hard to say good-bye…

Lola’s “school”  (Parent’s Day Out) is officially over this week.  So sad.  She really loves it and it’s been a great break in the week for me to get my CFA work done and sneak in Target trips alone.

She seems to learn so much when she is there and always comes home with such a happy heart.  Her 3 teachers are wonderful.  Just wonderful.

Since we love them so much we decided to make something out of love… We picked a scripture for each teacher and wrote special notes… here’s how their gifts turned out…  Black lettering is stamped on and colored lettering is hand embroidered.

Still can’t believe she has already been through a year of her class.  :)  Where does the time go? 

Sister Silliness

It was always so much fun having a little sister seven years younger.  She was my birthday present as she was born just a couple hours before my 7th birthday.  I loved her from the moment she was born.  Needless to say, I raised her.  Haha- just kidding- but mom did a great job making me think I did.  Something I am so grateful about for my mom, because I feel confident in having more children and how to go about teaching them to love each other.  Lord, please don’t let me eat my words there. 

Anyways, I would dress her up all the time and take her pictures. Can you imagine all the film I went through! Haha… Here’s one:

Can you see Kebby in Lola now?  They do resemble each other.

As we got older we would both do photo shoots of each other. 

Apparently, embarrassingly enough, we haven’t outgrown this…

Messing around with manual setting while Kebby dolls up her face…

A little 80’s anyone?  :)

Kebby high on sisterly love… bauhahahahaha.  We opted for fake eyelashes…

I like the silly ones!

If I do say so myself, I am loving my blonde.  Jennifer Guthrie did a great job and thanks to my mom for paying!  It was so nice and long overdue!  Love blondes.

I love this one of Kebby…

Considering we were on mom’s property- she wanders out to find us.  Does the word wander make her sound like an old lady who is lost… hahaha.  She took over the camera for a minute…

Yep.  Kebby really regretted the eyeliner.  Oh well.  Next time we will dress like Gaga.  Does anyone have a fire crackling bra and undies we can borrow?

Run, Run…

 

Here’s my fake eyelashes- now every time I do my mascara I think I can get them looking good- I guess I quickly got use to longer lashes!

My beautiful sis- inside and out…

scroll down for even better laughs…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laughing all the way through these. We are so gay. Clay is so embarrassed.  He really needed siblings to loosen him up. 

Trying to flip my hair…

Don’t be offended.  And sorry if you are.  It’s tradition Kebby and I always take pictures flipping off the camera! ;) All for fun.

Love this:

“A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost .”

Proud as Pete (or as a Mom)

Seriously guys. 

Let me just brag and brag for a moment. 

Lola is amazing. 

I feel like I can take no credit for her transition to diapers to panties. 

It’s all her. 

Lola is just a rock star.

Last weekend she just started using the potty every time and we both quickly realized this was for real- the time is now!  She’d ask for a diaper when she had to go poo-poo, then back to pull-ups when she was done, which pull-ups quickly turned into panties since she never wet them!  Then after a few days becoming a pro, she started using the pottty every time, even pooping on it!  (Which is amazing not having poop diapers in my garage anymore especially with the summer heat!)  Now we nap in panties, go out in errands in them, and wear them all day at home.  Only diapers now are used at bedtime.  She goes potty before bedtime but still isn’t always dry in the morning.  I bought training panties at Hannah Anderson that are sooo super comfy and soft but they have extra lining so we can use those at night time soon.  I hope the box I have of diapers is my last and luckily I bought only nighttime diapers.   

I love walking down the hall and seeing her using the potty by herself.  Cracks me up.  And sometimes while she is handling her business on the potty she tells me to “close er eyes!”  Haha!  She looks so cute in her panties, and I am addicted!  She does get annoyed if you ask her if she needs to go potty more than once or twice- and gives a rude “No!”  So independent.  Glad she is confident in her own potty-ing skills.    Pictures soon. :)

Rearranged Lola’s room a bit, so I need to post pics.  I think she likes it better and it feels cleaner.  I was tired of walking into her room and seeing her kitchen under the window all messy.  She seemed pleased too.  She was a big help making it “prettier.”

    Goodness.  Clay and I love her! (I don’t think Clay realizes how lucky we are with the ease of potty training! Of course, it’s God’s grace since sleeping has been a different issue!  Thank you Lord.  Sincerely, thank you!) 

Oh little panties…

Well the craziest thing has happened this week.  Lola is completely sold on using a potty now.  I couldn’t find her this morning and didn’t hear her, so as I walked down the hall to look for her and out of the corner of my eye, I got a peak of her sitting on the potty tee-teeing!  She’s a pro! So we have been in pull-ups this week with great success.  Time for panties! The only weird thing is, she asked for a diaper when she feels the need to go poo-poo.  Yes, I just used the word poo-poo on my blog.  Gross.  So I am working on that part.  But at least she knows not to go in her pull-up, or as we call them- panties. This is amazing.  God is being good to me since she is a difficult sleeper. I’ll take it Lord! Thanks!

I have her some Elmo panties, but she doesn’t like wearing them and they seem to small.  So I have been looking at super cute and comfy big girl panties…

Here’s what I have found. 

BabyGap never really fails.  Look at the classic days of the week panties.  (I even want a pair of these!)  These are a must, aren’t they?

And Carters makes a cute set too: So colorful!

Next 3 are all BabyGap:

 

These cute colored ones are Old Navy:

 

And Hannah Anderson has some cutes ones, but my guess would be there’s are the most comfortable and well made because that’s how that store rolls.

I am super excited to transition out of diapers and the cost of diapers.  I have noticed that potty training has seem to cut back the bottom scratching problem. 

Can’t wait to see how the rest of the week turns out. Fingers crossed.