Saturday, February 23, 2008

Sorry 'bout that

I guess I kind of left you hanging after last Friday. I kept meaning to post again, but forgetting to upload some of Mallory's new pictures. Unfortunately, now that I've finally remembered, I can't get the camera and computer to communicate properly. Hmm.....

Anyway, I'll try to give you a quick rundown of our last week or so.

Last Saturday, Mallory and I went down to Holland to visit Aunt Kasey (and Joshua and Miriam). Mallory and Joshua had a tough time sharing, but both enjoyed playing on the stairs. Mallory also enjoyed visiting Miriam again, she really likes babies! After naptime, we headed home, with a brief stop at Grandma Deb's to visit her and Tera.

On Wednesday, I got to help judge a sixth grade science fair in Marshall. It was actually kind of fun. There was a huge variety of topics....everything from teeth whitening to insulation to energy drinks. Mallory "got" to come with me since Jojo was at the state girls' hockey tournament with her daughter.

Since I was supposed to work all day on Thursday and all of my trusty back-ups were busy, Mallory was at a new daycare that day. I think it went okay, considering, but due to some scheduling snafu's at work, I ended up picking her up about 11:30. She came with me to Ivanhoe and hung out while I spayed a dog, then we went home.

Friday morning found Mallory and I at work together again. It was pretty slow, so we ended up leaving about 11:00. That ended up being a good thing, since she fell asleep on the way home and slept for an hour and a half once I got her in her bed.

Today, we played supermodel and had some 18 month pictures taken at WalMart. She wasn't terribly cooperative - she kept wanting to stand up, but she was too tall for the background that way. We ended up getting a couple good shots, and since I just went with their advertised offer ($5.99....gotta love it!), that was just fine. Interesting how the nice photographer lady wasn't nearly as nice once I told her I didn't want the $60 package!

Tomorrow should prove to be interesting. Billie and Paula have invited Mallory and I to go shopping (Tera's coming, as well.) Hopefully Mallory will snooze enough in the car so that she's not extraordinarily cranky....I'm taking our big stroller, just in case.

So ultimately, nothing too exciting has been going on. But, considering the excitement of my last few posts, I'm totally okay with that. Maybe next time I'll be able to share some pictures.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Third day's the charm

Finally! Mallory is back to her crazy, silly self. (insert big sigh of relief here)

This morning started a little rough. Since I wasn't exactly sure what the morning would bring, I let her sleep as long as she wanted. I heard her gabbing downstairs at about 7:30, so I went to see how she was doing. There's nothing better than a big sunshiny smile first thing in the morning! Her temp was back down to normal, so off to daycare we went. I was a little late to work, since Mallory slept so late, but that's okay.

We came home this afternoon to a big Valentine's package from Grandma and Grandpa Hanson (my mom and dad). Mallory got a fun squishy ball that had weird stretchy spikeys. She loves it! In fact, it beat out her babies for a place in bed tonight. Remember how I had mentioned that I had been sabotaged in my weight loss plans by Amy with the peanut butter hearts? Well, my mom did it this time! I had mentioned to her that I couldn't find the Brach's cherry jube jel Valentine's hearts anywhere. Well, she didn't find the Brach's, but she sent two huge bags of another brand of cherry hearts! The first thing I'm doing is breaking out the snack size ziploc bags and dividing them up into individual servings. Not very fun, I know, but otherwise I'd eat the entire freaking bag all at once!

Then, since Mallory was feeling better and Matt wasn't going to be home until later, Mallory and I met our friend Katie for supper at Perkins. Side note: being skimpy with "regular" ranch dressing on one's salad is waaayyy better than eating a "normal" amount of light ranch. Blech.

After supper, we were invited over to Katie's to see her new house. (She recently moved into town after living on her family farm all her life.) We also met Katie's aunt Eileen who's been staying with her while recuperating from surgery. If there was any question that Mallory was back to normal it was answered tonight! She was full of beans and was such a ham. What a little show-off! We watched her antics and laughed for a solid hour until it was time to go home. The only hitch came when Mallory saw Katie's little dog statue. Poor munchkin wouldn't go anywhere near it and just about cried when Katie picked her up and tried to explain that the puppy wouldn't hurt her. Guess we'll stick with the kitties for now.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that it seems the last couple days are behind us. Thank goodness. (insert second big sigh of relief)

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Doing better today

Mallory's getting back to her old self, slowly. Besides being a little cranky and clingy, she's been playing and eating well all day. Thank goodness.

Her temperature did spike again last night about 11:00 to over 105, but ibuprofen and cool compresses brought it down pretty well. She fell asleep for the night about midnight. I, however, was up every couple hours to check on her. Made for one tired momma this morning!

Today her temps been hanging out around 100 degrees. She got a couple doses of tylenol, and to play it safe, some ibuprofen before bedtime. I can definitely tell she's not 100% yet, though, because she needed to rock-a-bye for bed, and it took over half an hour before she was out enough to be laid down. Poor kid.

I didn't end up taking her in to the doctor this morning, since she was acting so much better. But, I think if even a low-grade fever is around in the morning, I'll try to get her in to make sure she doesn't need antibiotics before we face this weekend.

This does ruin our sleepover plans at Aunt Kasey's though. I'd feel absolutely horrible if either Joshua or Miriam got whatever Mallory has, so I think we'd better steer clear. I guess this stack of baby stuff in my livingroom will just have to stay there another week or so....

Thanks for checking on my munchkin! Hope you're all having a lovely, romantic Valentine's Day!

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Let's not repeat today, okay?

We ended up at the emergency room tonight. Mallory and I were hanging out on the recliner this afternoon. She woke up from dozing at about 4:30 and felt pretty hot again, so I pulled out my handy-dandy temporal thermometer and she scanned at 105.7!! I started stripping her clothes, stopped long enough to get some ibuprofen, called Matt (got voicemail) then called my mom. (Side note: I'm sure answering your cell phone at work to hear your daughter calling in tears is not a good thing....sorry 'bout that, Mom.) I put Mallory in the bathtub and was starting to run tepid water when I noticed her eyes were glazed and she was twitching. Seizure! It lasted less than a minute, but was the scariest thing I've experienced yet. Amidst a bunch of phone calls, I managed to get her temperature down under 104, Matt got home and we headed to the ER.

Now, in their defense, the ER was a pretty busy place tonight, however, I must say that I was not super impressed with the care Mallory received. Her fever was still 103.3 when we were admitted, so they gave her some more Tylenol. She had swabs for Influenza and RSV done as well as her electrolytes measured. Everything was negative / normal.

This seemed to reassure the doctor we saw, who then informed us that she had a febrile seizure (duh!), and that while scary, were usually not life-threatening and were not related to seizure disorders (like epilepsy) later. Unfortunately, once a child has a febrile seizure, it is more likely that they may have another with future fevers. That sucks.

The biggest issue we had with the visit, is that the doctor didn't seem very concerned that her fever made it up to 105+ in the first place. I mean, good grief, with a temp that high there has to be a reason. I don't even think they did a CBC or white blood cell count. Now, I'm well aware that this may be a case of having just enough information (veterinary experience) to be dangerous. However, if she is still running a fever in the morning, I'm going to take her in to see our family doctor to look for more answers.

Prayers are appreciated and I'll keep you posted!

The sickies have invaded our house

Poor Mallory woke up with a fever this morning. It also looked like she had thrown up overnight, but it didn't wake me, so she must have gone right back to sleep. She's been out of sorts all day. It's about 2:00pm right now, and she's been awake for a total of about 3 hours today. As most of you know...that is very unusual for my munchkin. Two doses of acetaminophen so far today are keeping the fever in the 100 degree range. Fortunately, no more vomiting, though. I hope it's just a 24-hour thing, since tomorrow is Valentine's Day and she needs to wear her pretty jeans!

Assuming she's feeling better, we've been invited to a sleepover at Aunt Kasey's this Friday night. Uncle Adam will be gone, so she's asked for some help. This is a good thing as I have a pile of things for baby Miriam sitting in my livingroom that I will remember to take with me this time! Hopefully, we'll be able to share some more pictures after our fun!

Oh, and my new dishwasher has arrived! I'm reading the instructions right now (yes, I actually do this...and Matt did too!) and hope to try it out this afternoon. It's a portable model, since we don't have anywhere to install an undercounter type. I'm pretty excited and will let you all know how awesome it is!

Happy birthday to Paula! There's going to be cake at Grandma Deb's house tonight to celebrate. I hope we can make it....and I hope I can get into town to get a gift!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Daddy.....

....can I have a pony?



and maybe some new shoes?


Monday, February 4, 2008

Just some random anecdotes



I suppose I'll start out by sharing some more pictures of little Miriam. Mallory and I went down to visit on Saturday. Mallory loves babies. She was so excited to "hold" Miriam. She also liked giving hugs and petting her on the head. She'd sure make a good big sister....*sigh*


I've been working on losing weight with some of my SK friends. I was having a bit of trouble with the working out. The ideal time would be first thing in the morning before Mallory is up and I go to work. However, because I know myself so well, I know that there is very little that will get me out of bed before absolutely necessary....and working out is not one of those things! So, I was trying to fit in workouts between Mallory's bedtime and when Matt got home. Lord knows how silly I look when I excercise, and I really don't feel the need to subject anyone else to that scene. Problem with this plan is that Matt has been getting home right before her bedtime, lately. So, I was pretty excited when he went to the last part of a Superbowl party Sunday night.

I got out my Dancing with the Stars workout dvd and cleared an area in the living room. I was about 2/3 of the way through the workout, when I heard his truck (those of you that know his truck, know what I mean....). He usually spends some time on the phone before coming in the house, so I figured that I'd keep going until he came in the house. A few minutes later, I still hear his truck running.....it was then that I realized that he had turned off his lights and driven back down the driveway and was watching me through the window. Argh!

Oh well, since he now has seen me in full dancing glory, I figure it's safe to workout in front of him now. Problem solved. That is, if I can get him to give up the tv for an hour each evening. And if he doesn't like it? Well, he can always join me and show me how it should be done.



Speaking of losing weight, I've been sabotaged! We had a Valentine's exchange on our board and our friends Amy and Boston sent a huge bag full of chocolate! Chocolate doesn't tempt me, chocolate doesn't tempt me, chocolate doesn't tempt me....aww, who am I kidding? I love peanut butter hearts!

Mallory would also make a good little sister. Cousin Tera came over for a couple hours Sunday night. We even managed to get a bath!

I'm heading up to a veterinary convention this weekend. My mom is coming to stay with Mallory (and Matt). This means a serious whirlwind house clean is in order. Good thing I have tomorrow off. Wish me luck!

Okay, one last picture....Grandpa, Mallory and Joshua being silly.

Friday, February 1, 2008

Introducing....


Miriam Josephine! My sister Kasey had her 2nd baby Wednesday night. She was just a little thing (the baby, not my sister....wait, that didn't come out right....) at 7 lbs 1 oz and 19 inches long. Nice dark skin and hair and itty bitty fingers and toes. Such a cutie.


Matt stayed home with Mallory last night so I could go visit. Tomorrow, Mallory and I will head down to their house to visit some more and play with big brother Joshua.