Wronged At Walmart

At the risk of sounding like a child tattling on someone who cut in the lunch line, I just HAVE to share what happened to Ty and I in Walmart Saturday night. But before I do I'd like to share a few tips to avoid this EVER happening to you. 1. Avoid Utah all together. Honestly, I realized this could happen anywhere, but many Utahans act in person the same way they drive: Completely inconsiderate with a serious ME attitude. (I hear this is only the case between Salt Lake and Provo - and believe that could easily be true, so I guess avoid the salt lake-provo area ;-)) 2. If that isn't possible, as in our case, DON'T EVER go to Walmart on a Saturday night. 3. And finally if you really MUST go to Walmart for that last minuted Sunday dinner item or Saturday night ice cream, NEVER EVER EVER EVER go to the Walmart in Orem. In fact it would probably be a good idea to drive a few extra miles to the Lindon or Springville Walmart WHENEVER you need to go to Walmart because the Orem Walmart is possibly the worst Walmart I've ever encountered (that's a whole other story though).

By the time we got what we needed and headed to the register at Walmart Saturday night, it was already eight thirty. Less than half the lanes were open. The lines were HORRENDOUS. Lily was SOOO tired. And Crystal was grumpy. So we made our way to a center lane that seemed to have the shortest line. Our spot in line landed us right next to the $5 DVD bin. The people in front of us, the people in front of them, and Ty and I were perusing through the movies as we waited in line.

Ty stayed standing behind the cart and would push it forward as the line moved. When it got to a point where the line had moved everyone but us away from the bin, Ty pushed the cart forward leaving about a 2-3 foot gap between the cart and the lady standing in line in front of us. We were still looking through them hoping it would help the time pass (it had already been 5-10 minutes) when a college student in a handicap electric cart (with 4 of his friends in tow) squeezed the nose of his cart in front of us. Ty and I just stood there jaws dropped staring at them but they refused to even look our way- even after Ty pushed the cart right up behind the electric cart they were using. The kids cart didn't even fit in the gap Ty had left, but as soon as the lady (who used to be right in front of us) moved forward he drove his cart completely in front of us! All 5 people didn't even look back.

I tried very hard not to be upset and tried desperately to believe they really had no idea what they had done. I thought well maybe the kid on the electric cart really didn't feel well and needed to get home, or that maybe somehow it really didn't look like we were in line. So I looked at the people behind us in line. They were - of course - digging through the DVD bin... in about the exact same spot we had been when this happened to us ... with - shockingly enough - the same gap between them and us. I stepped out of line to get a different view of the situation. Unfortunately it didn't make me feel any better. They definitely looked like they were in line. And if I thought it were questionable, they were close enough to the line that I wouldn't DARE get in front of them without asking if they were in line first. So it was true. These five students had really just pulled in front of a young family with 2 small GRUMPY children (who does that?!?! REALLY!?!?!).

We'd already been in line for a good 10 minutes and it didn't look like they had a lot of stuff anyway, so I calmed myself down thinking that it was only going to take 2-3 more minutes TOPS and it wasn't going to kill us to just wait it out (Which was really hard by the way. Its one thing when you get cut off when driving, then the car is gone in seconds and you move on. But standing in a long line at the store, we just had to sit there and stare at them for another 10 minutes... or more. Yes that's right ... more than 10 minutes.

As it turns out (once it was their turn) most of the stuff being bought belonged to 3 girls in the group. They rang it up as one transaction, but then wanted to use 3 different debit cards. So the cashier had to figure out what the 1/3 of the total was and the girls began sliding their cards. REALLY? (At this point Lily had decided she'd had enough and was SCREAMING in her carseat. Ty had taken Crystal elsewhere because she was NOT going to stand in line any longer!) The first girl paid and the second girl's card wouldn't work on the machine, so the cashier took it to run it on his end. As he was sliding the card he dropped it behind the keyboard and down into the neck of the stand. SERIOUSLY? THIS CAN'T REALLY BE HAPPENING? The cashier couldn't reach his hand down far enough to get it. Neither could anyone else in the group and yes they ALL tried. Even the "sickly" one in the handicap electric cart who didn't seem handicap or sickly at all as it turns out - NOT EVEN A LIMP! He went and sat back in his cart while the others figured out what to do. (This made me feel more upset because I couldn't blame it on him not feeling well and needing to go home anymore).

This is when I heard his friend ask him (remember Lily was screaming still) if it was worth it leaning his head over to point in our direction. I heard him respond something about the line ... I don't know what he said exactly. I was too shocked at the fact that they had indeed known what they had done, but had been above standing in line like the rest of us and waiting their turn! Wow! Again I will say it: REALLY?!?!?

Well after about five more minutes and some squeezing hands through different opening in the register, one of the girl's finally managed to get the card out. The second and then third girl paid. Then the other two bought what they had in two different transactions and it was finally our turn - 5 transactions later than it really should have been (Lily still NOT happy!)! It was like having FIVE people cut in front of us in an already LONG line!

From the moment it happened I realized it wasn't going to do any good to feel anger towards them when it was just making me feel horrible. I'm sure they left the store without giving the situation another thought. My hurt feelings weren't going to affect their lives in any way, just mine and mine alone. So yes I have told you my story of how I was once greatly wronged at Walmart. And yes it has made me feel much much better (I don't know why ... but ... well ... it has ... lol). Now I just hope next time it happens I will handle it with a better Christ-like attitude and avoid the bad feelings all together.

Sleep?!?! Who needs sleep? Not Lily...Or so she thinks!

Okay, so I have gotten extremely far behind on my blogging. I've been struggling keeping up with the housework lately let alone having time to blog! The girls have been keeping me on my toes and Lily has been especially clingy lately. She's gotten to the age where she likes to play with her toys by herself, BUT I have to be sitting right there next to her while she does it. Why? I have no idea, but I remember Crystal going through the same phase. Lily also hasn't been sleeping well the past few weeks. She wakes up around 2-3 am and screams and throws fits till 5 am. Ty and I have been tag teaming so we've both been losing sleep (not that anyone in the house can sleep with her screaming like that) Ty has been Superdad and gets up with the kids in the morning after long nights with Lily while I sleep in. But sleeping longer doesn't really seem to make up for the lost hours at night. I wish we could get her to understand that a dark room means its time to sleep, NOT time to play! She'll figure it out eventually though. But until then we have decided we need to separate the girls so they don't keep waking each other up.

This is how we've decided most nights are panning out these days:

Crystal makes whining noises in her sleep (she's done this since we brought her home from the hospital. Super noisy sleeper). The noise eventually wakes Lily. Lily thinks it must be time to wake up and play. Mommy/Daddy goes in to give Lily her binky/comfort her/ tell her to go back to sleep. Mommy/Daddy goes back to bed. Two minutes later Lily begins to SCREAM because she doesn't want to sleep, she wants to play. After 5 minutes of screaming, Crystal is finally awoken to the banshee noises coming from Lily's crib (Crystal is a VERY deep sleeper, but even she can't sleep through Lily's screaming). Mommy/Daddy goes back into the room to comfort Lily and try to lull her to sleep. Screaming continues. Lily joins Mommy and Daddy in their bed (this worked for a few days but not anymore). Screaming continues. Lily is put downstairs in the living room to scream at her hearts content. Screaming continues for a good 15-30 minutes. Daddy goes to give Lily her binky and comfort her. Lily calms down. She spends the rest of the night between Mommy and Daddy in bed. Mommy and Daddy don't sleep very well. THIS MUST END.

So we are moving in a month to a different apartment that has three bedrooms. We are hoping she will sleep better without having Crystal in the room waking her up at night. This isn't the only reason we are moving though. The owner of our duplex doesn't care for it well. After 4 leaks in the roof over the winter, the owner finally replaced the roof but refuses to check for mold in the ceiling/walls. Immediately following the roof replacement, the kitchen began flooding from the foundation. Instead of fixing the yard which is the cause of the problem, they chose to run the water to the neighbors side of the duplex. In my mind its just delaying the inevitable instead of solving the problem but whatever. The bathroom has needed work done on it since we moved in, but NOTHING has been done. We are tired of our pleas being left on deaf ears. So we will move. We LOVE our neighbors! We LOVE the location. We LOVE having our own backyard and not having people above or below us. But we have decided its worth giving it all up to have slightly more decent living conditions. The new apartment will have people above us and I hope they LOVE children because they will be hearing some screaming now and then... especially when doomsday comes. And I'm not talking about the end of the world people ... okay well I guess it depends on who you ask. To Crystal it might be the end. She's on her last binky and when it breaks/gets lost, she will have to be ALL grown up and start sleeping without it. YES that's right my 2 1/2 year old still has a binky. We are working on it...

Third time's a Charm!

When I was 7 months pregnant with Lily, Ty and I decided to attempt potty training Crystal in hopes that we wouldn't have 2 kids in diapers - not to mention the money we'd save. So I googled (side note: (I know how much you love my side notes :D) Chrome Browser's spell check doesn't think "googled" is a word; I think it should) "potty training" to see what I came up with. Nothing. Okay so there was something - TOO MUCH of something actually. SO I read article after article, they all had COMPLETELY different strategies ... most of which told me I was going to ruin my child's life if I trained her before she was 3 years old! Really? Ruin her life? I was potty trained at 2 years old. My life wasn't ruined. I don't remember being traumatized by the experience at all... okay okay ... I don't remember the experience at all, but it obviously didn't ruin my life.

Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed and had NO idea what I was doing. Naturally I turned to my mom. Her response was, "Well I don't know how I did it. All I remember is it took lots of patience." Okay well patience is not my strong suit, but I was sure the prospect of no more diapers would help me through it. I still had no set strategy on HOW to do it though. So I thought about the stuff I had read. ALL of them agreed that Pull Ups were useless, so I went and bought LOTS AND LOTS of underwear for her. Some said to make it a party, so I made cupcakes, wrapped her underwear like a present, bought her a potty chair, bought stickers and printed a potty chart, bought treats to bribe her with :D, and I thought I was good to go!

The big day came! She opened the underwear, threw away her diapers (okay pretended to throw away her diapers ... those cost $ you know!), put on her underwear and celebrated with a cupcake! Then the day went down hill from there... it was a nightmare ... she was upset because that underwear was NOT holding her pee and she was getting all wet! And why sit on the chair with a hole in it ... that's not comfy! The one time she did pee in the potty chair, we were so excited for her that we scared her and she almost cried ... lol ... it didn't go well. We were also putting her in a diaper during naps and at night because - well frankly - we were stupid and didn't know what we were doing ... lol.

So the next day, Crystal just simply DIDN'T pee. She held her pee till naptime when we put a diaper on and then again till bedime. REALLY?!? Now I'm thinking ... she's ready to be potty trained if she can hold it THAT LONG, so what am I doing wrong?!?! We went on like this for 5 days with very little success, in fact she was just getting worse, refusing to wear underwear at all, just peeing everywhere and walking away like nothing happened, AND there was NO way she was gonna sit on that chair ANYMORE! So we decided we were obviously doing something wrong and thought we'd better stop before we did ruin her life like the articles said we would ... lol.

A month or two later, just before Lily was born we thought we'd try it one more time. She was 2 now and could communicate with us TONS better than before so we thought she might pick up on it better. Lets just say it didn't work as well as we'd hoped. I think we only lasted 1 day before we gave up (this was more our lack of motivation ... remember I was nearly 9 months pregnant and not only emotional but tired). She was as stubborn as ever about it. At this point she knew what we wanted her to do, but she just didn't have any interest in doing it.

So fast forward 6 months to a few weeks ago. Ty's cousin, Emily, posts on Facebook that her 2 year old is potty trained and it only took 3 days! When I read this I WANTED her secret more than anything! You have to realize that at this point I had decided it might be easier just to teach Crystal how to change her own diaper that to teach her to use the toilet... LOL! This is what Emily sent me: 3 Day Potty Training. She said not only had she had success with it, but she knew other people who had done it too. I had nothing to lose. So I read the book, and though it was similar to what we had tried in the past, it pointed out several vital things we had been doing VERY wrong!

This was IT! NO going back! Third times a charm right!?!?! So we started out again... I bought more underwear (I thought she'd wear it if it had her favorite disney characters, mickey and minnie, on them), I bought more treats, and finally I set aside 3 days for JUST her and no distractions!

Day 1:She 'threw away' the diapers ... again. We put on her Minnie underwear after a small fight and a successful chocolate cupcake distraction ;D. And that was it! We reminded her hundreds of times to tell us if she needed to go and watched her EVER SO CLOSELY so we could get her to the toilet in time! The only accident she had all day was at naptime.

Night 1: A Nightmare for ALL of us. 6 pairs of underwear. 5 pj bottoms. 4 sets of sheets. (I'm just glad she's in a toddler bed with a crib mattress so it wasn't too hard to change and clean up!)

Day 2: 2 partial accidents (She stopped it as soon as she realized what was happening). She did have a full on accident during her nap again...

Night 2: I thought we had a breakthrough when she CALLED for me so she could go potty after I put her in bed. She was still dry at 4 am but was very wet when I woke her in the morning.

Day 3: She wore the same pair of underwear ALL day long! She even stayed dry during her nap but she only slept for 20 minutes so I don't know that it counted. lol. We even started relaxing on following her around and watching her every moment because she was getting so good at letting us know when she needed to go!

Night 3: Had to change the sheets 2 times. Once @ 1am. Once in the morning.

Today we are feeling pretty confident that she is day trained. We were out all day today and didn't have any accidents! We are however concerned about her inability to stay dry while sleeping. She still doesn't wake up when she needs to go, she just sleeps through it till its too late. I'm feeling very much against putting a diaper or pull up on her because I don't want her to start holding it till she has a diaper on like she was before. I think we are going to give the nighttime training another week or so and see how she does. I'm hoping as she gets used to going to the bathroom during the day that she'll start remembering while asleep that its not okay to just go whenever she wants anymore.

I can't tell you how happy I am that this 3 day program was so successful. I would suggest it to ANYONE who's thinking about potty training a child soon. The author of the book suggests 22 months is the perfect age to begin training (it is a lot of work and you go through a lot of underwear in 3 days but to have NO diapers at 22 months! Wouldn't that be wonderful!?!:D). I wish more than anything that we had had this book the first time we tried training her, it would have saved us all quite a bit of stress and frustration - not to mention $ on diapers :D!

WHAT A WONDERFUL FEELING!!!

Just thought I'd post a quick update. I don't have any pictures off my camera right now. I've been a slacker lately. My parents came to visit over conference weekend, and I don't think I took 1 picture!

First and foremost I want to mention: WE ARE ALL HEALTHY!!!! FINALLY!!!!! Ty had the worst time kicking the RSV we passed around to each other, but I think its safe to say that he's healthy again. The rest of us have felt better for a few weeks now. I'm praying we can stay this way for a while because I just can't handle any more sickness in my house at the moment!

Ty has been working long and hard on creating a cell phone app for a company in Washington. I don't think I'm allowed to post any details on what it is (wouldn't want anyone getting to it first ... hehe). I think he has enjoyed doing something that pushes his limits. Its been a month of "It's gonna work!" "It's not working." "Now its gonna work!" "Its not working." "I got this part to work!" "I can't get the next part to work." "I think I figured it out!" "WHY ISN'T IT WORKING!?!?!" Then the best part, "IT WORKS!" I have been so proud of him for sticking to it and working through it even though it didn't come together as easily as he thought it would. Ty is notorious for turning around and walking away when something stresses him out, so I'm ashamed to say I was surprised when he just kept plugging away at it. It has become his baby and I think he is quite proud of it! He and his dad are going to be flying to Washington next week to show the company what he has finished! Wish him luck; this could be really good for us! :D

I had another birthday ... sad I know ... 27 ... I just can't believe I'm 27! I don't feel like I'm 27. And I don't know how its possible that I'm 27, when I know my parents are only in their 30's, aren't they? When did all this happen? I'm afraid my life is going to be half over before I catch up with it! Time is flying by way too fast! I had a great birthday despite it all! Ty surprised me with a DQ ice cream cake... though we both agreed it didn't have nearly enough frosting on it ... lol... but it was great. I think Ty took a picture or two but I'll have to post them another day (pictures tend to make my "short posts" take hours to complete ... lol).

Crystal did help us end my birthday on a high note by coloring on the carpet with permanent marker. After several different cleaning products and a lot of scrubbing the marker had faded quite a bit, but we could still see it. BUT the day after we had given up getting it out, we noticed the marker was completely gone. I don't know if the stain remover we used bleached the carpet or what but the marker is gone! We aren't gonna complain! :D

Crystal has taken more interest in coloring and drawing lately (obviously from the paragraph above ...lol). Hopefully she has learned to just do it in coloring books and on paper! Its so fun to watch her work. She gets down close to the paper like she's creating a MASTER PIECE. When she's done its usually just lines and colored in circles, but to her its all sorts of different things! She shows me "letters" and "dogs" and "horses" and "pigs" .... she can go on and on about the things she draws!

She also LOVES Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (don't know if I've mentioned that recently). She can say "MICKEY MOUSE" clear as day! She can also name all of the other characters, "GOOKY," "DAISY," "DONAD," "MINNIE," and "PUTO." We are still working on our alphabet. She is getting better at it, but we still have a long ways to go. She has a leapfrog video on the letters and their sounds that she loves to watch. In the video it says "B says buh... buh, buh, buh..." (it does it to a rhythm), so now when she sees a "B" she says, "Mommy look its a 'buh... buh, buh, buh...'" At least I know she's picking up on some of it ... hehe. We are also still working on counting to 10. For some odd reason she tends to count by even numbers ... lol ... not sure why but we are working on it.

Tomorrow we are potty training AGAIN! This time its for good ... I think ... lol ... I mean ... THIS IS IT! lol. Please pray for me to have patience because I love Crystal and I really want her to survive this ... lol.

Lily is 5 1/2 months now and still has yet to roll over (she really hates her tummy time...). But she sits up really well now (unless she gets too excited, then she tends to fall over...lol). We did have a scare on Friday when she fell head first off my bed. I know I know I'm the worst mother ever! I had her sitting up on the bed. Because she usually falls backwards onto a pillow and since she doesn't (nor has she ever tried to) roll over, I wasn't too concerned about leaving her there. I do have to admit that a small voice in the back of my head said not to leave her there, but I was just running downstairs to grab a few things and I was going to be right back up. Not to mention SHE DOESN'T ROLL, so why not leave her there.

I was on my way back up the stairs when I heard a THUD. I knew immediately it was Lily, and I didn't hear any crying afterwards. I dropped everything in my arms and ran! She was lying on the floor, holding her breath in a cry. I was so glad she was alive I started crying too! It was pretty traumatic. Less than a minute later she was laughing and smiling and enjoying all the extra attention!

Afterwards we decided she had to have fallen on her stomach and pushed herself (with her feet) head first off the bed. I was so thankful she didn't have a concussion or worse. It took Ty (and my parents) 2 days to convince me she was okay!

She is also getting really good at grabbing at things and putting them in her mouth. She also LOVES it when Crystal pays attention to her. She follows Crystal all around the room with her eyes hoping she'll look her way! Crystal has also taken more interest in Lily lately, now that Lily will play with toys (okay by "play" I really mean "eat" .. lol). Lily's absolute favorite toy is still her Johnny Jumper! She can be entertained for a good hour in her jumper, especially if Crystal plays with her by swinging her and helping her jump!

Lily's First Rice Cereal and so much more! :D

We fed Crystal her first rice cereal when she was 3 months old. She was just ready for it! She had already learned to drink from a straw at 2 months and was wanting our food when we'd eat! She also held her head up really well at that age and had mostly lost the reflex that pushed food out of her mouth.

Lily on the other hand has taken I bit longer to show those signs. In fact she still pushes most of the food out of her mouth. But since she is already 5 months old, I decided it was probably time give the girl some REAL food (if you consider rice cereal real food ... lol). So (on St. Patrick's Day :D) we pulled the rice cereal out and gave it a try! Crystal was VERY excited that we were going to FINALLY feed the baby (I wonder if she thinks we starve her ... lol), and she was very helpful!

Lily was pretty excited about whatever it was I had put in front of her!

Crystal was just dying to help!

I was a little nervous about letting Crystal feed her because I didn't want her to shove the spoon in too fast or too far! But she wanted to help so much!

And I was EXTREMELY proud of how gentle she was!

She held the spoon just inside her mouth and waited patiently while Lily figured out

how to get it off!

I would have to say she thought it was pretty good!

It was LOTS of hard work though!

Especially when trying to get it down her throat and not spitting it out all over herself!

St. Patrick's Day

I decided at 10:30 the night before that we should celebrate St. Patrick's Day, so I grabbed two of the girls' onsies and used fabric markers to draw a four leaf clover on them so they could be festive! At snack time Crystal got to have green cookies! She didn't really notice that they were green... just that they were yummy!

Random Pictures

Crystal helping Lily play with her toys. This isn't usually what happens. Usually Crystal is taking the toys away saying, "MY TOY, MY TOY!" Even though she hasn't seen them since she was under 1 yr old! They are toys I had packed away as baby toys! I have no idea why she thinks they are hers.... I guess maybe she can still remember playing with them.

Lily getting an nebulizer treatment. Thank goodness she doesn't

need them anymore! In fact we took the machine back to the doctor's yesterday

so there's no going back now! :D

I don't remember why but Crystal was mad at us for something... lol ... I just couldn't get over the 'angry' look on her face (the picture doesn't really do it justice).

Lily LOVES her johnny jumper!

Crystal LOVES to help her sister jump and swing in it!

One of the few moments she spends on her tummy. She doesn't like it and I don't like making her sad.... so ... she's just never going to rollover I guess. And crawling is going to take longer too. Sigh. But she CAN sit up ...hehe... so at least she's progressing somewhere!

Sitting with Papa Gordon eating popcorn. If I remember right she had just had ice cream too. But she was sick and Papa was going to give her ANYTHING she wanted!

Who am I kidding... Papa would give her anything even if she wasn't sick ;-).

Oh yeah and I almost forgot to mention... in all the hustle and bustle in and out of the doctor's office, I talked the nurse into doing her well check stats. So we didn't really get a so called "well check" visit, but I figured at our follow up after the hospital, he would have told us if there was anything he noticed to be seriously wrong with her. We are going in tomorrow just to get her 4 month shots and she's already 5 months old. That is going to set ALL her shots back a whole month, which I don't like because I really believe vaccinations are important especially since she apparently catches EVERYTHING she comes in contact with! But I'm sure she'll be just fine :D.

Anyway for the fun part:

Weight: 15 lbs 12 oz!!!!! 75%ile I know she's crazy chubby right?!?!?! lol.

Height: 24 inches 25 %ile

Head: 39.6 cm 10%

She is even chubbier than Crystal was at this age! I really can't believe her massive thunder thighs! And super chubby CHEEKS!!!! Its extremely hard to believe she was only 5 lbs 7 oz when she was born! I look at pictures of her as a newborn and can't believe she was ever that tiny! THEY GROW TOO FAST!!!!!!!!!!!

SICK AGAIN!?!?!?!?!

WARNING: This is a pretty detailed description of the past week! I wanted to have it for my record so sorry its so long.

So its been one thing after another for us this flu/cold season. Lily got croup the end of January and she had just recovered from it when I got the flu. I started feeling better, but then Crystal came down with a massive cough and sore throat and fever, so we took her to the doctor and he thought she had the flu. The next day I was sick again, Ty still wasn't feeling well from his last illness and this one got him too, and Lily was starting to cough again. SO I had HAD it with sickness and I called my mom and asked her if they would come get us and take us to Idaho Falls. I just knew getting out of the cooped up house would help! And sure enough after a week we were all feeling TONS better. Crystal's cough was completely gone and Lily's was mostly gone too! I was feeling 100% by the next week. We stayed at my parent's for 2 weeks and were healthy when we left (though we had managed to give it to both my mom and my dad ... :-( sorry). We left for Utah on Saturday afternoon, spent the night at our house in Provo, and Sunday morning we drove to Orangeville to visit my Grandpa. That night while she was sleeping, Crystal started coughing HORRIBLY! Worse that it had EVER been. My dad was so worried about her he practically slept in her room that night. Monday we drove back to Provo where my parents dropped me off and headed back to Idaho Falls. At some point during the week Lily's cough came back too, but we had been through this so much this winter that I really wasn't concerned about it.

Ty was STILL sick from his illness that started a month before, Crystal's cough was TERRIBLE, and by Friday Lily's cold was so bad she was having a hard time coughing and her regular wheeze was more intense! I was the only HEALTHY person in the family! That entire week I spent CLEANING AND CLEANING AND CLEANING! I DEEP DEEP cleaned EVERY room in the house (which by the way only took 2 days to completely destroy this week ... lol). I cleaned ALL the bedding and blankets too. My plan was to continue week by week to deep clean one room a day until all the sickness was GONE! I was going to continue to clean all bedding and blankets and sanitize toys and everything EVERY week till we all got better!

Friday night I made Ty track someone down to help him give both the girls a blessing. Lily's wheeze had me extremely concerned at that point and Crystal's cough was painful to listen too. Over the weekend Lily's wheeze continued to worsen and her entire little body would move as she breathed in and out. I was still hoping her blessing would somehow miraculously heal her ailment and we wouldn't have to go to the doctor. The reason for this was because I KNEW that there was only 1 thing the doctor could do that would be different than what we were already doing: hospitalize her! It was something I was so petrified of I wanted to pretend that if I didn't take her into the doctor, she wouldn't be sick enough to need it.

Every time I prayed for her to get better or wondered why the blessing wasn't "working," I would remember a particular Sunday when I was in high school and my mom had woke up with a tremendous earache. She was in severe pain, but she didn't want to go to the doctor on a Sunday so she asked my dad for a blessing that the pain would subside. Not long after her blessing, the pain in her ear intensified to a point where she couldn't wait any longer and my dad took her to the doctor. When the doctor looked in her ear, he commented that it was SO infected she was lucky it hadn't ruptured. I remember her later telling me that she was really upset on the way to the doctor because she had had faith that the Lord could heal her, but her pain grew worse instead of better. She realized later that the Lord KNEW she could be healed by getting the medication her ear required. Had her pain not grown worse that day, she would have waited till Monday to see a doctor and potentially have damaged her ear permanently.

As you can imagine, this wasn't the answer to my prayers I wanted, so I continually pushed it aside. I was still sure for some odd reason that by not taking her to the doctor I was "saving" her from being sick enough for the hospital ... I know it seems really strange, but I obviously wasn't thinking clearly!

Well miraculously we made it to Monday without her ever turning blue or anything else that would have rushed us to the Emergency Room. She was supposed to have a well check Thursday, so we called Monday and asked to move the appointment up to that day. We also asked if they would look at Crystal too since she seemed to have the same illness.

(Random Side Story: Crystal in the waiting room)In the waiting room at the office Crystal started crying about something which sent her into a horrible coughing fit. At which point they asked us to put a mask on her ... lol ... I looked at them like they were crazy! I understand their concern but she's TWO YEARS OLD! There was NO way in this world we were going to get her to put a face mask on! This made me super uncomfortable and I wanted to leave just so they'd stop judging (okay just the one lady at the desk who wasn't all that nice anyway... lol ... but still ... it felt like everyone)!

(K back to the trauma! Oh but first just another random note ... Lily weight in at over 15 lbs! lol) Anyway, when the doctor walked in our room he heard Lily's wheeze and said, "I'm 100% sure that's RSV..." The worst letters in the alphabet to a mother with an infant... at least this mother! Then he looked at her chart and the next thing he said is something else a mother never wants to hear about her child, "If we can't get her oxygen levels up I'm afraid we are going to have to admit her to the hospital." He must have seen terror in my eyes because he took the monitor and tried to get another oxygen reading. He said maybe it just wasn't a good reading, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get a reading over 82% and most the time it was in the 70's. I think he must have known that I needed to take it all in for a minute because he moved on to Crystal without deciding anything concrete. He checked Crystal's ears and said on top of RSV she also had an ear infection. But he felt that her RSV would clear itself up and gave us an antibiotic for her ear. Then it was time to go back to Lily. He checked everything else and checked her oxygen again, but it was still bad. He gave her a neb treatment hoping it would help but 15 minutes after the treatment her O2 levels had actually dropped (mostly cuz she was sleeping). There was nothing else he could do from the office and told us she needed to be admitted to the hospital at least overnight. And Crystal wasn't going to be allowed in the hospital because not only is it RSV season but she actually had RSV.

So after nearly 2 hrs at the doctor's office, we left trying to figure out how everything was going to work out. I wanted Ty to come with me to the hospital at least to get settled in mostly because I was still completely horrified that my baby was so sick. But he had work in 30 minutes AND we had no one to watch Crystal. Its times like these when we realize how few people we know in Provo. The people we do know have small children or are older and we didn't want Crystal giving anyone RSV! I finally called the older neighbor couple next door and explained our situation. And they had no problem watching Crystal for us. In fact when we got home, he helped Ty give Lily another blessing before we headed to the hospital.

It took us an hour but we finally made it to the hospital (which by the way is only 5 minutes from our house). I was in a panic because it was taking us so long to get there, but Ty was mostly just mad that the doctor thought Lily needed the hospital! He was sure she wasn't THAT sick. Before they put oxygen on her, they did this HORRIBLE procedure where they stick a tube up her nose to the back of her throat to suck the mucus out of her throat and airway. We waited in the treatment room while they prepared a room for us. When they finally put us in a room and she had a crib to lay in, I left with Ty to go get a few things to stay overnight (you'd think i would have done that already since it took an hour to get there, but I was in a sick panic and wasn't thinking about that).

Ty took Crystal with him to work and I went back to the hospital. The doctor came in to check on her (which really was nice of him because the nurse told me he wouldn't be coming by because doctors only come once a day and he had already made his rounds that day). We talked about how she was doing and what needed to happen for her to go home. This is when he learned how completely horrible our insurance was and that we really needed the stay to be as short as possible! He spent a good half hour to an hour talking to me about alternative things we could do to avoid a long hospital stay. When he left he had decided to 1. change her stay to 'observation' instead of 'inpatient.' (I have no idea what that means but its supposed to be cheaper - didn't do us much good because we just found out they still charged us for an 'inpatient' stay), 2. let us take her home on oxygen instead of weening her beforehand, and 3. have us go to the hospital for outpatient suctioning as long as she didn't need it more than 2 times a day. So the Respitory Theropist (RT) came in around 11:30 to suction her and asked me what we were looking for before they'd let her go home. I told him that if she didn't need suctioned too much then they'd let us go home ... I didn't see him the rest of the night! lol! Don't worry I'm sure if her O2, or breaths/minute were bad he would have come and checked on her, but otherwise he was going to leave her alone.

It was so SCARY seeing her with wires attached to her.

I was afraid to pick her up at first,

but when the doctor came in that night, he assured me it was okay. :D

This picture looks sad but she's actually feeling better at this point and smiling

occasionally for me (we hadn't seen smiles in a few days so it was great)!

(Another side story: Lily's Roommate) Around 2:30 in the morning the pediatric floor ran out of rooms and had to double some patients up. A two month old boy who also had RSV was put in our room. I felt bad that they made his mom get up and change rooms in the middle of the night (not only change rooms but the side of the room they were on was quite a bit smaller than Lily's side so it was quite cramped), but at the same time I was glad it wasn't me who had to move (I'm horrible I know!). I asked her about it later and she said she was already up with him so she wasn't too upset about the move. He was admitted around the same time as Lily, and seemed to be in the same condition as her by the next morning. They didn't have insurance at all, so she was as anxious as I was to get out of there. Her doctor had told her he wouldn't discharge her son till he had gone 6 HRS without oxygen. They tried all day Tuesday, but he insisted on being on 1/16 - 1/32 ltrs of oxygen which btw is such a small dose that the little ball on the regulator wasn't even floating. When she found out we were going home with oxygen she asked her doctor about it, but the RT (thank goodness we had a different RT) insisted he needed suctioned too often to be discharged (I say thank goodness because Lily was wheezing MUCH more than he was, but our RT only suctioned her if she absolutely NEEDED it). When I left around 4:30, it had been decided that he needed to stay at least one more night. I really hope they got to go home the next day oxygen FREE! She lived a good 20 minutes from the hospital and had at least 3 if not 4 little ones at home, so I just hope they were able to go home without having to make the trips back that we did. The hospital was also working hard to get them on Medicaid. Hopefully they were successful and this wonderful family won't have the weight of such a bill on their shoulders! Our bill for 1 day was completely outrageous, I would have hated to have to pay for 2 days!

The morning shift RT came in around 7 to suction her but (thank goodness) I had just fed her so she decided to wait till just before her next feeding to avoid being thrown up on. When the doctor made his rounds, Lily had only been suctioned once and been given 1 neb treatment which didn't seem to help. He said he'd come by around lunch time and we'd decide if she could be discharged. The RT just gave her a neb treatment the next time around saying she was going to need suctioned but that it could wait a bit longer. And the neb treatment actually helped more than the 2 times before. Around 2 the doctor just called the nurse and told her to go ahead and discharge us with a prescription for oxygen and the outpatient suction clinic as needed! I was so GLAD we weren't going to have to pay outrageously for another night at the hospital, but at the same time I was nervous about taking her home and not having the monitors to stare at to reassure me that she was okay.

Just before we headed home. She was happy and smiling again!

(Yet one more side story: Mommy's night at the hospital) So Lily had slept most of the day and evening and suddenly perked right up around 10:30 - 11:00 at night, so going to sleep wasn't really an option (I wish I got a picture of the 2 of us sitting in the rocking chair that night but it was easier said than done...lol). Around 11:30 she was suctioned out, and I fed her before putting her down for the night. By then it was probably almost 1 in the morning. I laid down in my chair (that pulled out to make a bed), but it took me a while to unwind from the day's events. It didn't help that every time her monitor would beep or she stirred at all, I would get up to check on her. I finally fell asleep around 2:20 (last time I looked at the clock before I fell asleep) and at exactly 2:30 two or three nurses came in the room and started moving things around near the bed by the door (it was a double room). One nurse came over to my side and said they ran out of rooms and had to start doubling up. Since RSV is super contagious (so much so that they didn't come in the room without mask, gloves, and a plastic gown type thing over them), they could only double us up with another child with RSV. So as I mentioned before, the rest of the night there was a 2 month old boy and his worried mommy in the room with us (side note to the side story: this 2 mo old boy weighed MORE than Lily! He was 16 lbs and looked more like a 6 mo old). So now I'm back in bed and every time his or her monitor went off I would sit up to make sure it wasn't her. And any time one of them cried I checked to make sure it wasn't her. I gave up at one point and tried to read the Ensign (perfect thing to put me right to sleep ... not because its boring ... just cuz I hear the apostle's voice in my head as I read and we all know they are so calming its hard not to give in to sleep :D). It was 4:45 when I finally fell asleep and Lily woke me at 5:45 to eat! It was SO hard to get up because I had finally relaxed but she wouldn't relent... sooooo I got up and fed her. At that point the mommy next to me was up for the day and the bathroom was on my side so I didn't want her to feel like she needed to stay on her side just because I was sleeping. Needless to say I got 1 hour of sleep! I actually felt pretty good after being up for a bit and got some reading in before the doctor came in to see me.

Well when we left the hospital, I felt like I had a nice buzz (and really probably shouldn't have been driving... but somebody had to get us home and Lily wasn't going to do it ... lol). Don't worry we made it home just fine, but the rest of the night was VERY VERY VERY difficult with 2 sick kids when I was sick also (yes RSV got us all... I started feeling sick Monday). At exactly 8, I gave Crystal Benadryl (doctor prescribed... don't worry I wasn't drugging my child to get her to sleep ... lol) and put her to bed! I fed Lily one last time and even though she had just woke up from a late nap, she was asleep by 9.... and SO WAS I!

But unfortunately, from 9 till 12:30 when Ty got home and came to bed, I dreamt about wires, tubes and monitors and needed to watch them to keep Lily safe. I would wake up and stare at both clocks in the room thinking they meant something important about Lily's condition. I kept thinking as soon as Ty got home, he could take over and watch them for me and I could sleep (yes I know I was delirious... must have been stress induced). I was still worried about her after Ty got home and woke him up to check on her several times that night. In fact I MADE him get up and take her in to get suctioned early the next morning (k well early for us ... lol).

Lily happily home!

She did pretty well the whole day but towards evening her wheezing had me worried. I was going to go get her suctioned at 9 just before bed so hopefully I could sleep without worrying so much (also so Crystal would be asleep and the neighbor wouldn't have to do a lot of 'watching'). But I called the suction clinic at the hospital and she had almost a 2 hr wait! Apparently every other parent with an RSV child had the same idea as I did ... lol. Instead we waited till Ty was home so we didn't get to sleep till around 2 in the morning ... ugh ... another long night!

Thursday morning brought us great news though! We had an appointment with the doctor (crystal still wouldn't wear a face mask ... I tried I promise!). He suctioned her out for us and then gave us a tube to manually suction ourselves so we wouldn't have to spend $200 a day for the hospital to do it. He also thought she could go without oxygen anymore (we did a trial run while at the office and she did great!). Even after the suctioning she was still pretty wheezy so the doctor tried another neb treatment, and it did WONDERS for her! The past few days we have completely weened her from oxygen (the doc told us we might as well use the rest of the oxygen we already paid for), and no longer have to suction her nose (thank goodness because she HATES it as you can imagine). She has about 2 neb treatments a day to help with the wheezing, but even her wheezing is almost non-existent! YAY! Today (Saturday) she is actually the healthiest person in the house and happier than she's been in a while! Crystal is just behind her on the healthy scale. Her nose hasn't run all day (you think that's not a big deal but seriously it was horrible and she's had it for SO long!), and she didn't have any coughing fits!

Unfortunately, Ty and I are NOT feeling ANY better yet! Ty has had a horrible cough for over a month now! Lately it seems to just keep getting worse instead of better! I on the other hand felt fine till Monday and was thankful the week before that I was healthy so I could try to sanitize the house and get this sickness OUT, but it finally caught up with me and now I'm struggling to find energy to continue cleaning... but I REFUSE to let this hit us again! Not only have I once again cleaned all the bedding and blankets and sanitized the toys, but there is now hand sanitizer in every room in the house! Everyone (meaning Ty ... lol) has been instructed to use it every time he .... well blinks pretty much ... and Crystal and I have been as well! Now that Lily is feeling better we are concerned about giving it back to her, so pray that we get better quickly!

Ty's Birthday

Ty's birthday was last week. The day before his birthday my parents who were kind enough to drive me to Provo from Idaho Falls that weekend, took us to lunch at Red Lobster. It was SUPER nice of them to take us to such a nice place even if it was his birthday (lets just say my dad may have owed me one anyway ... lol)! We had a great time visiting with my parents before they had to leave for Idaho Falls again.

Then on Tuesday, his birthday, for lunch we had WONDERFUL Red Lobster leftovers, but for dinner, he forwarded calls to his phone for a quick dinner at his favorite fast food place (the Taco Time on University Pkwy and yes it does matter which Taco Time... the other one has NO cherry coke! The nerve of them!). Then we went back with him to work and had cake and HOMEMADE ice cream. It was just a little celebration but we had fun and I hope he enjoyed it.

He sadly had no presents to open because he wanted a Rip Stick and found one on super super sale just before his birthday. My parents got him a helmet to go with it (he probably needs it ... lol). Ty's parents bought him his present when he was in IF for President's Day Weekend... he got running shoes ... now his dad is never going to give up trying to get him to run a marathon with him ... lol. I was going to get him something from the girls but on his birthday he used his gift card and MY gift card to barnes&noble to buy a book that by the way isn't really helping him because I think he gave up what he was trying to do. So I decided it was his present from the girls too... lol.

K so I'm not that great at decorating cakes ... lol ... its supposed to be two different sized layers but the top layer wasn't quite small enough to be able to tell.

Ty blowing out his candles!

Crystal helping him!