Friday, October 24, 2008

Can Elmo actually grow up?

So last night Baby Girl and I went to see the new Elmo stageshow, "When Elmo Grows Up". Now I was certainly of the belief that Elmo is a monster who will perpetually remain at around 4 years old, but hey, I guess we all grow up at some point. I'm still waiting to, of course.

I was really looking forward to the show because #1 - Lilly's best-friend, The Boy Next Door, was going with his parents and I knew they two of them would be thrilled to see each other and #2 - it was Lilly's first show like that and I really wanted to see her reaction. Other than that, I pretty much figured watching this show would probably send me into a diabetic shock at some point. Ah, the things we do for our kids!

We got to the show about twenty minutes before start time, which gave us plenty of time to find Baby Girl's BFF. When she spotted him, she yelled his name over and over until we got to them. The love each other as much as a pair of two-year-olds are capable of. I fear he is her Dawson to his Joey. We will have to separate them sometime around puberty. After visiting with him and his parents for a little while we made our way for the obligatory visit to the souvenir table to get a stuffed Elmo and a little t-shirt.

The show was actually surprisingly entertaining and Baby Girl LOVED it! You know your kid is being pretty cute when other parents are ignoring their own little sweeties and laughing at the exuberance that your own tyke is showing. She stood in my lap and danced her little heiny off! She cheered at all the appropriate places and even tried singing along even though she barely talks. What a blast!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Yarn, Yarn, Yarn!

Okay so this was the subject of a recent email from a good friend and it got me thinking that I haven't written about my great love recently. I guess it's because my primary project that I'm working on right now is not particularly exciting. I'm working with acrylic yarn (I know, all the yarn-snobs out there have now totally written me off), but I'm working on a baby blanket for a cousin that I don't know particularly well and I didn't feel like shelling out a bundle on yarn for his new bundle. Sorry, got to be honest here. So, the yarn isn't great and I'm crocheting (for the sake of expediency) a tight ripple pattern. So, it's VERY repetitive, and not in a good Zen way either. Plus, I made the very foolish decision to widen the blanket, and now I'm just really sick of working on it and if I'd left it the way it should have been I would be done by now! Argh.

Better News

After doing a little research, I found out that nearly 80% of kids who have grade 1-3 renal relux outgrow it by age five. That's really good news, but she still has to be on antibugs until that happens. Also, I talked to my dad last night, and he confirmed everything the first radiologist said and also let me know that the ultrasound showed no scarring or other residual damage from her recent infection. Yeah!

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Update on Baby Girl's Insides....

Wow, have you noticed that despite the name of my blog, I seem to spend very little time actually knitting lately. Hmm, maybe I've managed to find my 12-step program after all....I do have a couple of projects going right now, I just haven't had time to work on them!

I know I promised to fill you in on Baby Girl's brithday party, but we've had a couple of other things going on the past few days and I've been just a little stressed about one of them. After Baby Girl's UTI, the follow-up includes an X-ray study of her renal system and an ultrasound. Of course, I told myself that these were just precautionary tests and that nothing was wrong with my girl other than having had a bad experience with a dirty diaper. And there was about an 80% chance that I was right. So, I packed Baby Girl up for the hospital yesterday with very few concerns except for how she would handle having these tests done to her.

The first study was the X-ray, also called a VCUG. It is not a very pleasant test for a little one (or big one, I would imagine) because they start the test by catheterizing the child and pumping the poor kid's bladder full of contrast dye. The point of the test is to check and see if any of the dye leaks back up into the ureters and then on to the kidneys. I was holding her shoulders and one of the techs was holding her legs during the study. She was such a good girl and didn't fight them at all, but she cried the whole time and I could tell how scared she was as the X-Ray machine got closer to her. You don't know how bad I was chanting in my head, "c'mon, no kidneys! No kidneys!" It was like that old game show where the contestants wanted "big money, no whammies!" Poor Baby Girl, she got a whammie! Clear as day, you could see one of her ureters on the screen. I, of course, tried to ignore it, but the radiologist confirmed it for me. My little girl has a Grade 3 Renal Reflux! It goes on a scale from 1-5, so you might be thinking, okay three, it's the middle of the road, not too bad, right? Well, that's true. If it were a four or five, we'd be scheduling her for surgery right away. Unfortunately, until I meet with a pediatric urologist, I won't know what her treatment will be. Could be surgery, could be wait and see. All of it will involve her being on low-grade antibiotics for some time, though, because if she gets another bladder infection, it's going straight up to that kidney.


UUGGGHHH! So, that's the results of the X-ray. Did I mention that there was an ultrasound, too? So, after the X-ray, she calmed down really quickly, and we went to the cafeteria to get something to eat. Then back to Radiology for her next study. She was so freaked out until she realized that this test was nowhere near as invasive as the first one. I still don't have the results of that test, but I sent both studies to my dad on DVD so he should be reading them tonight. I love that my Daddy is a Radiologist and can swoop in to save the day!

So, we have a urologist appointment for November 21, and she's going to be on antibugs for a while. Keep your fingers crossed for my little sweetie, okay?

I promise, I will post some birthday pictures soon!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

My poor little girl!

So, about two days after we got back from the Big Apple, Baby Girl started running a fever. Normally, I assume she has a virus and wait a few days before taking her to the pediatrician, but for some reason, this seemed a bit different, so I took her to the doctor on Tuesday, just the second day of fever-running. The doctor couldn't really find anything wrong with her except that her throat was a bit red. She did a strep culture, which came back negative, so she backed up my thoughts that it was just a virus and I should treat her with motrin for her fever and wait it out. Only thing was, she didn't have any of the other traditional viral symptons, snot, sneezing or coughing, just really high fevers. Also, she was crying almost constantly and wouldn't sleep anywhere except with me. So, by Friday, she wasn't doing any better and I was about to lose my mind from lack of sleep.

Back to the pediatrician's office we went. This time, we got to see Baby Girl's regular doctor and she was as baffled as I was as to what was causing my little one's suffering. Baby Girl had lost nearly a pound in the four days since we brought her in the first time, which, when you only weigh 27 pounds to start off with, is a lot! She was down around the 15th percentile for weight-to-height! Dr. C started by running a flu culture, which was negative, then she proceeded to do some bloodwork and taking a urine sample. I was able to stay in the room while they drew the blood, but just couldn't do it while they catheterized the poor kid. By this point, I was pretty much freaking out, with my mind going wild with ideas of what was wrong with her. The leading theory focused on my friend in New York who works as a port chaplain at the port of Newark. The Rev came and visited us at our hotel while we were in New York and was running a fever at the time. So, my worried mommy-brain was just convinced that Baby Girl had contracted some rare exotic disease from her Auntie Rev!

Okay, so it didn't turn out to be anything so serious as that, but it still wasn't good. Baby Girl had a UTI. No wonder the poor kid was crying so much. She was in pain! It killed me that it took a week to figure it out. The only thing worse than having a bladder infection yourself is when your child has one. I would've taken her place in a heartbeat to save her that suffering!

After a couple of days of anti-bugs, she was doing a lot better, so I've spent the last week getting her reacquainted with her own bed. That has basically sucked since she now realized that sleeping with Mommy is so much better than staying by yourself in a crib. We had to start all over teaching her that her bed is where she belongs. The first night we tried, she cried for and hour and a half before finally giving up and going to sleep. I know what you're thinking, "What kind of mean mother lets her kid cry for that long?" Trust me, I thought it pretty much constantly while we were going through it, but it's for her own good. I start out by letting her cry for 5 minutes, then going in and laying her back down. Then I add five minutes between each subsequent return. Usually, she's out by the end of the first five minutes, on a bad night she'll make it to the 10 minute stretch. Well, that night she made it well into a 30 minute stretch! The next night, she only cried for about two minutes, but she stood up in her crib for nearly 45 minutes before finally falling asleep on her feet and then falling over. Each night after that got better and two nights ago, she went to bed with no fuss and stayed in bed until 7:00am! Woo hoo! We were back to normal! Yeah, well, that got killed last night!

Hubby and I went out to dinner with another couple and when we got back, Baby Girl and Mom-in-Law were sound asleep in my bed! UGH! I tried to transfer her to the nursery, but that just wasn't happening! She "slept" with me the rest of the night. I use the term slept loosely since she tossed and turned the majority of the night. Sleeping with a toddler is nearly impossible and as a result, I am incredibly tired today and less than happy with M-i-L. I wonder how long getting her to sleep in her own bed with take tonight.....back to square one we go!

So, tomorrow I will tell you all about our second birthday party at the house and then I will be all caught up on the major events that have happened since I started getting lax in posting!

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Playing Catch-Up

Okay, I claimed in my last post that I was trying to get my life back on track and get a little less scattered. Well, that didn't happen, but I think this week will be the week! I've even finally made it to the gym, which had been a rare event over the past month (read: non-existant).


A lot has happened since I last wrote, to start off with, we went to New York for a couple of days with Baby Girl. It was a great trip, although the weather didn't totally cooperate. We always stay at the Tribeca Grand Hotel when we go, and this time was no different. We love being down there, and the first afternoon we were there, we spent the majority of the afternoon walking around Soho. There's a great yarn shop there called Purl and I suggest if you haven't been there, you should definitely stop by. Since my yarn stash is already full to the brim, thanks to a recent order from Herrschner's, I didn't buy anything, but I did go in and take a good look around and inhale the wonderful fiber-y goodness of the place. That night we decided to forgo the usual fancy New York dining (this was a kid-centric trip after all) so we ordered some pizzas and headed back to the hotel. Of course, we forgot how large a New York pizza is (even though we did order small ones), so there was plenty of pizza left to share with the door guys at the hotel. They're always super nice to us and it definitely went a long way to building continued goodwill with them.

The next day was a Thursday, and after finding a great diner for breakfast (thanks to our buddies at the Grand), we headed up to Midtown for a little shopping and even more walking. In spite of the light rain that was falling, New York is one of my all-time favorite cities for walking! We hit several men's stores because Hubby needed some black dress shoes for dinner that night. He was unsuccessful, but I found a gorgeous pair of black pumps at Cole Haan that I just had to have! I never splurge on shoes (since I can rarely find really nice ones for my honkin' big, size 11 feet), so I felt especially happy buying what are officially now the most expensive shoes in my closet. They were 25% off, though, so I can at least feel a little more satifies with the fact that I saved money, right? After being unsuccessful in our attempt to find shoes for Hubby, we made our way to Central Park for a photo session with Baby Girl and a little lunch. I know most people would be rather disgusted with our decision to feed her "street meat" aka hot dogs, but seriously, she loves them! After the park we headed over the Time Warner building, briefly, and got to see my friend, Jason, long enough to hug his neck and let him meet a sleeping Baby Girl before jumping back in a cab and heading to our hotel.

Friday was our last day in the city. Again, we decided to go kid-centric and headed to the Upper West Side to see how New York kids have fun. There is a fantastic kids' museum up there and if you live in the city or ifyou are planning on bringing a kid up there any time soon, you should really check it out. Pretty much it's an indoor playground and Baby Girl LOVED it. We had a really hard time getting her out of there. Screaming her bloody head off like we were trying to kill her! After that we headed over to the Museum of Natural History, but c'mon, it had nothing on the Dora exhibit at CMOM, so we didn't stay long, but we did get some great pictures.

So, that's our trip to NYC, it was a ton of fun and I can't wait to go again. I'm going to really enjoy watching Baby Girl's experiences up there and how her perspective changes as she does. I'll try and catch up a little bit more on the past month's events tomorrow, but for now, I'm off to work on an LSU themed baby blanket for Hubby's cousin's kid.