Vacation begins

We left for vacation at about 8:30 this morning. I had hoped to leave the house by 8, since we had to drop the dog off at the kennel, but that didn't happen. Oh well, half an hour off schedule isn't that big a deal, right? We would still get to where we were going by around 6:30. We were on our way to Frederick, Maryland, where my cousin is being married tomorrow. The morning was cool, but fairly bright and relatively sunny. We planned to picnic for lunch (and maybe for supper, too) but when we were finally ready to stop, it was still pretty chilly out and was getting pretty cloudy. Since we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, we had an indoor picnic instead. Back on the road, 20 miles outside of Cleveland, I jokingly say to Kevin that I bet it will be raining by the time we get to Pittsburgh. He has commented before that it always seems to rain when we drive through Pittsburgh. The words were just barely out of my mouth when the rain began. I didn't think it was raining all that hard in Ohio, but apparently everyone else on the road did, because the times I was able to come even close to hitting the speed limit were few and far between. I had planned to turn over driving duties to Kevin before we left the Ohio Turnpike, but Alison fell asleep and I didn't want to wake her up by stopping, so I kept on driving.

The rain got worse the further east we went. When we got on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the signs said that there was ponding water in some places. Great! Just what I want to hear. Alison woke up when we stopped to pay the toll to get on, so I decided we'd switch drivers at the first rest area. The road was getting pretty bad.....I felt the car start to hydroplane a few times....and I couldn't wait to get out of the driver's seat. Two miles before the rest area we came to a complete stop. It looked like a car had hydroplaned and gone right into the median wall. Ten minutes later we made it to the rest stop and switched places. When we got back on the road, we had a decision to make....stay on the turnpike, with all the truck traffic and construction, or head down towards Morgantown, W Va and go across I-68. We decided to head towards Morgantown. We no sooner got off the Turnpike and the traffic backed up again. We crawled along for a long time without making a whole lot of progress. Finally we got to the source of the problem. We were being routed up the off-ramp and back down the on-ramp and the going was slow because the police had to periodically let the traffic on the road we had to cross clear out a little bit. The reason for this detour? The highway was flooded! This was not the only place where water was covering the road, but I think it was some of the deepest. During this time I was in contact with my parents, who, along with my brother and his girlfriend, were getting ready to leave to meet us in Frederick for the wedding. I let them know what was going on and told them I couldn't recommend one route over the other.

At 6:30, we stopped for dinner at a Burger King. Did I mention that we were supposed to already be in Frederick by 6:30? Well were actually in Morgantown, a whopping 83 miles from the rest area where we had stopped at to change drivers. It had only taken us 3 hours to get there. We opted to actually eat inside the restaurant. We all needed some time to be out of the car, especially in light of the fact that we still had a looonnggg way to go before we were off the road for the night. We ate, Alison ran around a little bit and then we got back on the road. After another bout of torrential rain while we were eating, the rain seemed to let up a little bit.

Now we were driving through the mountains. It was really strange, but it seemed every time we went up a steep grade, the rain would be almost stopped by the time we got to the top. Then, when we went down on the other side, the rain was horrible again by the time we got to the bottom. Oh, and we also had to deal with fog as we approached the top of the steep grades, and there was a lot of wind. Throughout all this, Alison was quite the trooper. She sat back in her car seat and just read books....until it got dark, then she started to get cranky. About the time it got dark, the thunder and lightening started. To keep Alison from associating it with fireworks, we pretended to be Ernie pretending to be the Count on Sesame Street. When Ernie was "Count for the day," he would shout "Thunder!" "Lightening!" when he reached the point in his counting where the thunder and lightening would just happen for the real Count. So when the lightening flashed, we would say "Thunder!" "Lightening!" just like Ernie. It worked pretty well.

We finally made it back to I-70 and by the time we got to Clear Spring (where my aunt and uncle live) we decided to stop for gas and a diaper change. Good thing we did, because Alison would have leaked out her diaper if we hadn't. I checked in with my parents after we got back on the road and they were about 140 miles behind us....they had opted to take the Turnpike. Alison fell asleep shortly after I got off the phone, and slept for the last 45 minutes of the trip. At 9:20, nearly 13 hours after we left home for our 10 hour car trip, we pulled into the parking lot of our motel.

I could have sworn it was Tuesday.....

....but it sure seems like a Monday kind of day. Today started out just fine. I had a dentist appointment this morning to get my permanent crown and get my spring aligner adjusted. I got to the office, got settled in the chair, got the temporary crown popped off and the area around what's left of the tooth cleaned up and then the assistant tried to seat the crown....and it didn't fit. The reason? It wasn't my crown. My crown was in Sault Ste. Marie. So I got my temporary put back on and scheduled an appointment for the Monday after we get back from vacation to get the permanent crown on, since it will be in the office by Thursday, but they couldn't guarantee exactly when and we're leaving early Friday, so I couldn't do it then.

The afternoon passed quite normally. I played around on the computer for a little bit, did some knitting and then went downstairs and attacked the baskets of ironing that were waiting for me. With that done, I came back upstairs, played around on the computer a little bit more and got ready to take Alison and Bo for a walk. I could see there were some pretty dark clouds over my house, but could also see blue sky surrounding the dark clouds so I thought everything would be fine, especially since it wasn't supposed to rain here until tomorrow night. Well, we didn't even make it to the end of our street before it started pouring down rain. It didn't last long. It had stopped by the time I got Alison off my back and got her "umbrella" snapped on and got her back up on my back. We continued on our walk and I thought we were set. But alas, about 10 minutes later I was walking in another downpour. Fortunately it was in the low 80's today, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I still could have done without a second shower today. Once we got throught that, the rest of the walk was pretty nice.

We have to go out and do a little pre-vacation shopping tonight. I hope we get it all done without some kind of disaster.

I never thought I'd be so thrilled when my daughter started telling us when she has pooped. But I am. It sounds like such a silly thing, but I was practically jumping for joy yesterday when Kevin told me that Alison told him she pooped and there was really something there when he changed her diaper. It gives me hope that she will, eventually, be successful in potty training and we might escape some of the interventions that other SB kids require to make them bowel continent. And since the same nerves control the bladder, I'm encouraged that she will be bladder continent without intervention as well. Of course, only time will tell.

In other news, Kevin's company picnic was a lot of fun. There were lots of kids there and they had fun stuff for them to do. There were some clowns there making balloon animals and painting kids faces. It was a long wait, but Alison got a cat face painted on her. She looked really cute! I was kicking myself for forgetting the camera, but we did take a picture when we got home There were two moonwalks set up. One looked sort of like a carousel and was geared more towards the little kids and one was a crouching dragon that you went in throught the open mouth, climbed up the "tongue" and slid down into it's "stomach." It was geared more towards the bigger kids, though Alison did get to go in it just before they took it down. Instead of going in through the mouth, they sent her in through the other end. It was like crawling through a wind tunnel! She had been in the other moonwalk, but some bigger kids got in, too, and a couple of them fell on her and one ended up kicking her in the face. :( She was upset by it, but was even more upset when we got her out because she really wasn't hurt and really didn't want to get out! Jumping is her new favorite thing to do, so a moonwalk was the greatest thing since sliced bread for her. At dinner, we tried to get as far away from the dj's speakers as we could, but it was still way too loud and Alison got freaked out a couple of times, until we put some earplugs in. Then she was fine and happily ate chicken, mashed potatoes corn and a roll.

After dinner were the awards and after the awards were all handed out, it was time for the fireworks. Alison did not like the fireworks on the 4th of July, but we were hoping that by using earplugs it would be better. It was not. The first three that were shot off were the really loud booming ones and Alison completely freaked out. We hadn't even had a chance to sit down yet. :( I put her in Kevin's car and he got in there with her, hoping she would be all right, but before long she was hiding on the floor of the front seat. During a lull in the explosions, I grabbed her and headed for my car (and her carseat), but didn't get there fast enough. I nearly dropped Alison as she wriggled around trying to get away from the noise while I was trying to unlock the car (no keyless here). We both jumped in the front seat and I turned on her favorite CD. That helped long enough for me to hop out of the car and run to the other side and get in the back seat, pull her between the seats and plop her in her car seat so I could strap her in and we could leave. Since we don't live that far away from the plant, you could still hear the fireworks quite well at our house. Alison was not happy about that. She wanted to go see our neighbors, who were sitting outside with some friends, until she heard the boom, boom, boom. Even inside she tried to hide. Finally it was all over and she was pretty much all right, though I think she had some bad dreams involving fireworks that night because she woke up screaming a couple times. :( I think we'll probably skip the fireworks next year.

On Sunday, Alison started in the 2 year old Sunday school class. We were also there because we're "teaching" on the second Sunday of the month. She had a lot of fun and loved all the new and different toys that they have in that room. We had a good class. There were two kids who cried a little bit at first, but it didn't take long for them to settle down and get interested in playing. Sunday night was our first UMYF meeting. We're counselors again this year. We have paid babysitters for programs like that (and I am the new babysitter scheduler), so I took Alison to the nursery while Kevin headed down to the meeting. Either she had so much fun at Sunday school that morning or she knew Lillian was going to be one of the babysitters, because as soon as I put her down she ran down to the end of the hall and couldn't get the door open fast enough. She was ready to play!

The rest of this week will be spent getting ready for our big trip next week. I think we're going to have a lot of fun, and I will definitely be ready for it.

The week in review

Tuesday I had my ultrasound and mock trial. Everything looked fine on the ultrasound. The mock trial was okay, I guess. I just think that male doctors should never be allowed to say "you're going to feel a little bit of pressure" when shoving things through delicate female parts. Trust me, pressure was not what I was feeling. Because I have really retroverted uterus and Alison was born by c-section, in order to make getting the cathetar into my uterus easier at my real transfer I will be getting a stitch put in to straighten things out. Fortunately that will be done during retrieval and I will be unconcious.

On Wednesday we found out that Kevin's dad is not going to win his cancer battle. The tumor in his lung has double in size over the summer. He'll be getting chemo once a week to stretch the time he has left to 10 months, give or take, as opposed to the 4 months they gave him without it. When we visit next weekend it will probably be the last time we see him. We're wondering why they didn't keep up with treatments over the summer because someone had to have know that this would happen. Or maybe that's why they didn't keep up the treatments.

Yesterday was Alison's appointment with her new SB doctor. You can read more about it here. It really wasn't a bad appointment. It would have been even better if it had been in the morning. Let's just say we had one cranky little girl on our hands last because the 45 minutes to hour nap that she took in the car was not enough but she would not agree to going to sleep again until bedtime.

Tonight is Kevin's company picnic and awards presentation. I think it will be fun. Kevin is scheduled to give plant tours this afternoon, so we're meeting him there. There will be food and cotton candy and popcorn. And clowns making balloon animals. I'm going to have my work cut out for me keeping Alison away from that. She love balloons, but she can't have the latex ones. :( After the awards, when if gets dark, they're going to have fireworks. Alison was not to thrilled with the ones we saw on Fourth of July, terrified is the word that comes to mind, so I bought some earplugs for her in the hopes that maybe that will help. If not, we'll just come home.

We're on our way

We had our appointment with Dr. Shamma on Monday. Let me just say, nothing ever changes at that place. It's been nearly 3 years since the last time we were there and, just as before, our 1:45 appointment didn't start until well after 2:15. We didn't get finished until 3:30. Why I actually thought we might get in on time and be out in half an hour is beyond me. The longer we sat, the more frustrated Kevin, who was taking time off work, got....like there was anything I could do about it. It is not easy keeping a 2 year old occupied at the doctor's office for that long, either. We did end up letting her trot up and down the hall a few times. She went and talked to the office manager for a little bit, too....she had a radio in her office so Alison went in to "dance."

So we have our protocol. It's the same as last time, really. I was kind of hoping that I wouldn't need quite so many drugs to stim with since I've lost about 60 pounds since our last full in vitro cycle, but since I was 29 then, and I've already celebrated the 3rd anniversary of my 29th birthday now, I'm still doing 4 and 4. That's four amps in the morning (Gonal-F most likely) and 4 amps in the evening (Pergonal or Repronex). All 4 amps get mixed into one injection, but my butt still hurts just thinking about it. :( After procedure, in addition to progesterone-in-oil injections, I'll do Lovenox injections and baby aspirin again. If I get pregnant, I'll be one giant bruise by the time I'm able to stop all the meds. But before we get that far, I have to get through an ultrasound and mock transfer and a month of birth control pills. Oh, and Kevin has to get another semen analysis done. As they said, we really don't want to get to the day of retrieval and find out there's nothing there.

At least the financial load won't be quite as heavy this time. As I mentioned before, our insurance will cover about a third of the cost. Prices have increased about $1000 since we did this before, so the doctor knocked $1000 off our price. I don't know if he did it because we're repeat customers or because of everything we went through last time, but I'm not going to complain.

The doctor told us we could be ready to do the procedure in October, but since we are going to be on vacation for the last week of September, that won't work because I wouldn't be able to come in for blood work and ultrasounds to monitor the stimulation process. So we are going to do it in November. When I get my period next month (because let's face it, I'm not going to miraculously get pregnant on my own this month) I'll start birth control pills. And then we're off.....

Well, I did it

Actually, I did two things. The first thing I did was get my hopes up, the worst thing I think a woman dealing with infertility can do. After dealing with infertility for four years before finally getting pregnant with Alison, you'd think I'd know better. But some odd things happened during the "two week wait" this time, and I stupidly allowed myself to dare to hope and from there went right on in to thinking this really could be it. But AF showed herself right on time and now I have to assume that PMS will now include bouts of nausea, hot flashes, night sweats, being hungry all the time and extreme fatigue, rather than just the usual irritability, one day where I can't keep my eyes open in the afternoon and end up taking a nap on the couch and fanatical housekeeping that I normally have. Why I would even think that our circumstances would have changed enough to enable us to get pregnant the old fashioned way, I'll never know.

And this all brings me to the second thing I did. I called and made an appointment to talk to our infertility doctor about doing in vitro again. The appointment is next Monday. I'm a little bit worried that, because of everything we went through with Alison (the fact that she has SB and I/we had fetal surgery), he'll tell us we can't do in vitro again. While I can't say that I'm looking forward to going through the process (I think I'll speak to that in another entry) it would be very upsetting not to be able to at least try again. In actuality, I can't really see why we wouldn't be able to do it. Many of the FS4SB moms have gone on to have more children. One has even had twins since the surgery. At any rate, if we get the go ahead, at least this time it won't be quite so expensive. Our insurance has changed since the last time and we now have coverage for infertility. Granted it's only $2500 lifetime, which (probably) won't even cover a third of the cost, but it's better than nothing, right? So, the appointment's made and now we wait.

Just my luck :(

I went to the dentist yesterday. It was bad news/good news kind of visit. The bad news.... the reason my recently filled tooth hurts excruciatingly every time I chew something hard (which I don't do on purpose) is because I happened to bite something in just such a way that I cracked the whole darn tooth from front to back. So, guess who's getting a crown. I have one on one of my front teeth (the end result of breaking it when I was in third grade). That was pretty easy because it's right in the front of my mouth. This one will be on the second tooth from the back. Complicating matters is the fact that I have a small mouth. Oh yeah, there's also a possibility that I could end up needing a root canal on that tooth, too. I've had one of those before, too, and I really hope I won't need one again.

The good news was that my spring aligner was ready. I first got it about 8 years ago, or so, and it really did a great job closing up the gap in my front teeth (which opened up after I stopped wearing the retainer I had after braces). Then several things happened and I quit wearing it. By the time I felt like wearing it again, I couldn't get it in my mouth because it didn't fit anymore. I avoided the dentist for several years because I didn't want him yelling at me for letting all that work go down the drain. I finally went in for a check-up a few months ago and he had me bring the retainer in and sure enough, it didn't fit. He nicely agreed to take a new mold and try and refit it. Which he did. I got it back yesterday and it's already working. My teeth really hurt!! I have to wear it pretty much 24/7, except when eating and things like that. I'm still in that "Cindy Brady" phase where I lisp pretty badly, but I'm hoping I adjust to it quickly. Hopefully the gap in my teeth will be (pretty much) closed up by the time we get around to getting Christmas pictures taken this year.

Looking for a place to belong

I'm searching for a place to really belong and I don't think such a place exists.

I recently joined a mail list for families that have had fetal surgery for Spina Bifida (henceforth known as FS4SB). They are a great group of people, several of whom we met at the Fetal Surgery reunion two weekends ago, but it seems they are all dealing with things that we don't have to worry about (at least not right now, maybe not ever). There is a lot of discussion about bracing, wheelchairs, walkers and crutches, physical therapy, meds for dealing with bladder issues, and stuff like that. Today a discussion popped up about late talkers, and how many of the kids have been delayed in that area. Alison doesn't wear (and has never worn) braces and she doesn't need a wheelchair, walker or crutches. She started walking at 15 months. At this point, she hasn't needed physical therapy either, and though she may get a referral for it soon, it's to deal with her in-toeing right foot, not to strenghthen her body so she might one day be able to walk. At this point, there are no real bladder issues. Her urologist saw her last year, at 16 months, and isn't expecting to see us again until she's 3. As for talking, by 18 months she had a 60 word vocabulary and could even string together a couple of 2 and 3 word sentences. I feel that I have nothing in common with these people except that Alison has SB and we had FS4SB.

I also post on an AOL board for moms of kids born in Sept. 2002 (ok, so Alison was born in August, but she was due in September and I've been posting there since I was pregnant, before FS4SB). Again, a great group of women. It gives me an idea of what the average 2 year old should be doing. Alison just had an evaluation with Early On yesterday and, without even adjusting for prematurity, she is at a 2 year old level in all developmental areas tested, including gross motor skills. I have everything in common with these women except that Alison has SB we had FS4SB.

So I feel like I'm caught between two worlds. For the most part, we treat Alison like a regular kid because for the most part she is a regular kid. Most people who see her have no idea that she has SB. And I've actually, recently, forgotten to tell people who probably need to know (like people working in the church nursery when our nursery supervisor isn't there) because I don't think about that much anymore. But that doesn't change the fact that she does have SB. And I feel we should probably become more involved in the SB community. But at the same time, I feel guilty because we don't have to deal with what everyone else does. So I'm back to looking for a place to really belong....

Doesn't Know Her Own Strength

Alison broke her rocking chair this morning. That would be her antique, family heirloom, pass it from family member to family member when they have a baby rocking chair. I was running the sweeper in the living room and she had gone down to her bedroom. The next thing I know, she's back in the living room holding a piece of wood. It slowly dawned on me that it was a spindle of some sort. Then I realized, with a sick feeling, that it was from her rocking chair. I grabbed it and ran to her room. Yep, it was a spindle from the arm of the chair. And I have no idea how we're going to fix it because it's broken off flush with both the seat and the underside of the arm. I suspect that it may have been broken before at some point because she's only two. She's not so strong that she can just cleanly rip a spindle out of the arm of a chair, but then again she was probably pulling on it to get herself up into the chair. So now I have to see if we can somehow fix it ourselves or find someplace to take it to get it fixed. At least we aren't in any hurry to get it fixed. My older cousin is done having kids and her brother and my brother aren't married yet. It should stay in our possession for at least another year. But still......I can't believe she broke the chair!!!

Boo Boos and Band Aids

Who would have ever thought that band aids could be such a hassle. Because Alison is in the high risk category for developing a latex allergy, we limit her contact with items that contain latex (meaning we try not to let her be in contact with them at all). That means we use Curad band aids in our house, because they are latex free. Unfortunately, the last time we bought band aids the box only had one size, rather than the variety of sizes that BandAid brand comes in. Not a real big problem for big people boo boos, but for little people boo boos it's a pain in the rear.

I went in to get Alison up from her nap. I noticed there were little blood smears all over her crib sheet. After freaking out for a second, I realized they were all down where her feet had been, and that I had noticed what looked like a little blister on one of her toes the other day. Sure enough, the spot that had the blister had been bleeding. Great. Now we needed to somehow put a band aid on a very tiny toe. So with scissors in hand, I began to "size" my band aid, feeling grateful that I was working on her right foot. This is one of the only advantages to her not having any feeling in that foot. While she was sqirming around a little -- because you must squirm around when mommy needs you to sit still -- it was nothing like it would have been if she could have felt what I was doing to her toes! Of course this same lack of feeling is what let things get to the point where she needed the band aid in the first place. :( In the end, I got the stupid band aid on. Hopefully this won't happen again until someone's little piggies are a whole lot bigger.

Yesterday

Yesterday was a terrific day, weatherwise. We had blue skies, lots of sun, and it was warm. Actually, it was kind of on the hot side. I managed to get us together early and we headed off to Dow Gardens. (We bought season passes, so I'm determined to get my money's worth....yesterday's trip was break even day.) Since I didn't want to take the stroller, I figured the easiest way to get us back to the childrens' garden without losing my mind was to put Alison in her harness. That way, she could run "free" as much as she wanted and I didn't have to worry about her going off the path and falling into the pond. Then when we got to the childrens' garden all I had to do was take off the "leash" part. Along the way we stomped through a few puddles, trip-trapped over a wooden bridge, and checked out the large flower garden, or, more specifically, the huge sprinkler in the flower garden.

Once we got to the childrens' garden, Alison had a ball. We discovered the pig trough and all the watering cans they had there. Alison decided she must water stuff, so we grabbed a watering can and I filled it up for her (the water in the trough was to low for her to reach it at that point). She watered some dirt next to one of the vegetable plants, she watered the sidewalk (a lot) and she watered her feet. We even gave the big bronze pig statue a drink from the watering can, too, since he was hot an looked like he could use a drink. :) We eventually made our way over to the other side of the garden where there are three small holes in the ground that water shoots out of. Alison wasn't to interested in getting near the shots of water, but she screamed with laughter at all the other kids who were running around getting wet. We spent a long time there, and finally it was time to head back to the car so we could come home and meet daddy for lunch. The walk back took a long time, becasue someone was starting to get tired, but at least she consented to letting me carry her a little bit here and there. The puddles were still there, so we stomped through them again. It was a very fun morning. I'm really mad at myself, though, because I forgot to bring the camera with me!

Last night, Kevin's softball team played in the district tournament. They had the potential of playing in three games. We ate dinner early so he could eat before the first game. I stayed home with Alison and told him that if it looked like they were going to win the first game to let me know and we'd come for the second game, as long as it didn't rain (the clouds had rolled in shortly after 4:00 and we were expecting bad storms). They won the first game, so I packed us up and headed to the ball field. After wandering around and checking things out for a little bit, Alison finally settled down to play in the dirt and pebbles at the end of the pad of concrete that held the team bench. She was in heaven! My little girl who doesn't like to get dirty was soon covered in dirt....hands, legs, shirt, shorts, dirt everywhere. I think she played there for at least half an hour. At the bottom of the fifth inning, we headed over to the little concession stand to see what they had to offer and came back with a pretzel to share and a bottle of pop for me. Alison climbed up into her parked stroller and attempted to put the snack tray back in place by herself. Then she started asking for bites of the pretzel. Again I was kicking myself for not bringing the camera with me, because I looked over at her to see her kicked back with her foot up on the tray, knawing on a pretzel, watching what was going on in the game.

Kevin's team lost the game, and I don't think anyone was too upset about it. They had a good chance of winning the first game. They had a so-so chance of winning the second game, but there is no way they would have won the third game. I was kind of glad they lost, becasue we have things to do today that couldn't be done if he was playing double elimination softball games all day.

Yesterday was a great day.

It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Today has been absolutely gorgeous so far. It's warmer than it's been in weeks. We were able to go out and play in t-shirts and shorts this morning. I haven't let Alison out in shorts in the morning since the end of May, I think. Since we've been having to wear long pants and jackets or sweatshirts, I didn't really realize how sunny it is in our backyard in the mornings. We had to come back in and put some sunscreen on because I had forgotten all about it.

Our neighbor was off today, and with it being such a nice morning, he was getting ready to take off on his Harley while we were out playing. As soon as Alison heard the engine start, she was off in search of the "cycle." She would have loved to have gone over and climbed on, but she doesn't understand, yet, that motorcycles have hot exhaust pipes, and they don't mix well with little girls' hands. So she had to be content to walk down the driveway and the sidewalk in front of our house until "Mr. Mike" took off.

I wanted to sweep off the patio because it kind of needed it and it was bugging me. I had barely walked out of the garage with the broom when Alison came running over to "help." I think I need to seek out a toddler sized push broom. (I'm not sure it will help, though. She has her own little rake, yet when I got my big rake out to clean up the stick debris Bo left after a couple of days of chewing on sticks, she wanted to use mine instead of hers.) I was finally able to get her more interested in mowing the grass with the bubble(less) mower and the patio looks much better now.

Why does Alison keep asking for her colors (crayons or, in this case, sidewalk chalk) and then not color with them when she gets them? I'm starting to think I have the only toddler that doesn't like to color. I drew a sunshine with a smiley face in it. Then we picked up all the chalk. We sang the sunshine song a few times (You are my sunshine, that is) and then Alison gave the sunshine a kiss. She had yellow chalk on her nose when she got back up. I've got to remember to always bring the camera out with me, because that would have been such a good picture.


This afternoon we're going to go for our usual walk. We'll definitely be going back outside to play after supper, although if she plays her cards right, Alison may be able to get daddy to take her out again before supper, too. I heard the weatherman say this morning that we should be in the 80's by the end of the week. If this keeps up, we might even be able to get the pool out and get some use out of the new bathing suits that are hanging in Alison's closet waiting to be be worn.

Alison's Potty Mis-adventure

Alison hasn't really wanted to sit on the potty much lately. For that I blame her father. At bath time on the day she tinkled on the potty, we had her sitting there again while Kevin was making sure the water wasn't too hot or too cold. She stood up just as she started tinkling. Kevin does not handle these things very well, so instead of gently trying to get her to sit back down, he freaked out and shoved her down on the potty. In the process the lid kind of fell shut on her. She got a little in the potty, but the majority of it went all over her and the floor. She became hysterical (she also became hysterical early last week when she happened to tinkle on herself while getting her temperature taken). Next morning we couldn't get her near the potty.

That was two weeks ago. Until earlier this week she would not go near the potty. Then I needed someplace for her to sit while I took her cruddy outside shoes off after we had washed our hands. So I sat her on the potty and she was ok with it. Ok, she would occasionally sit on the potty, as long as the lid was down and she was fully clothed.

Today I brought the potty into the living room and she played around with it and sat on it a little, even with the lid up at one point, but still fully clothed. Tonight she kept pestering me for goldfish crackers, so I figured a little bribe was in order. I told her she could have one if she sat on the potty. Then I told her she could have one if she sat on the potty with the lid up. Then she could have one if she sat on the potty with the lid up and just a diaper. Then she got to have one if we could take the diaper off. By the time we got the diaper off, I knew she wasn't going to actually go because it was soaked, and recently so. The funny thing is that one of the times she sat down with her clothes still on she said she was tinkling. Apparently she really was. :) I think she's starting to figure out what "tinkle" means because if she hears Kevin or I going, she'll tell us that's what we're doing.

She sat on the potty again before her bath, again with the goldfish bribe. I don't even care if she goes while she's sitting on it. I just don't want her to be afraid of it anymore. Hopefully we'll soon get to the point where the goldfish bribes won't be necessary.

Alison's nose...

...is all better now. Kevin remarked the other day that it looks like her face is elongating in the nose area. I told him it isn't really, it's just that the bump and scratch aren't there anymore. He took another look and agreed that that's what it was. :)

A trip to the mall

Since we've been going through this bout of "if it's Monday, it must be raining," and because Alison loves to go outside and run around, I was looking for something to do this morning where she could run around but not be out in the wet, muddy grass and the cold temps that come after that Monday rain. So we headed to the mall.

Since my goal was to let her burn off some energy (and hopefull take a good nap this afternoon), I did not even get the stroller out of the trunk. I carried her into the mall and put her down as soon as we got through the doors. She very nicely held my hand and off we went. The only problem is that she walks really weird whenever she's holding someone's hand, almost like she's trying to take steps as big as ours or something. So we switch to plan B. She climbs up on a bench and I whip out her harness. Now we're really good to go.

I followed her lead, for the most part. We checked out some of the murals they have on display in an old jewelery store. Then we went into the video store. About halfway back they have a bunch of stuffed toys. Of course we had to check them out. The ones that captured her interest were Donkey from Shrek. Before we could head back out of the store she had to "be nice" to both of them. In Alison-speak, that means she had to pet them.

Our next stop was the Hallmark store. I didn't let us get too far in there because there's way too much breakable stuff at toddler level in Hallmark stores. She did have to "be nice" to the ceramic dog in the doorway. A graduation display in the window caught her attention so we had to check out the owl and the little bear. Before we were able to move on she kissed the window, her attempt as kissing the owl.

From Hallmark we went in and out and in and out and in and out of the shoe store. Then we ended up in a jewelry store. She tried her hardest to get behind the counter there, but I grabbed her just in time. When she started trying to climb into the chairs in front of the displays, I gently guided her out of the store.

I figured that, as long as we were there and had the time, we could go to the bookstore. Getting there was easier said than done. It took me two tries to get her out of a store that had a mannequin sitting in the window. We had to check out another mannequin and some t-shirts at Steve and Barry's. Getting her out of the instant picture machine was quite the challenge, too. We finally get to Barnes and Noble and she gets in two feet and turns around to head back out. Figures....the store I want to go in, she doesn't. Oh well, I persisted. I ended up carrying her back to the kids books because it was easier that way. We picked up 3 books (Madeline, Curious George, and Are You My Mother?) and then headed up to the check-out. To get her going in the right direction, I had Alison carry one of her books. Things were good until we got the the check-out and had to wait. Alison was all over the place. She'd manage to stand and hold my hand for about two seconds and then she was ready to go again. Were it not for her harness/leash, she'd have been out the door and on her way down the mall with heaven know how much unpaid merchadise. She is so much like her father was at that age.

From Barnes and Noble we had 10 minutes to get back to Target, pick up the cereal that was our real reason for being at the mall in the first place, and head for home. Of course Alison didn't want to cooperate at this point. She had to look at everything in every window. I finally had to pick her up and carry her. That didn't go over so well. So she got another chance to walk. That lasted about 2 seconds. I picked her up and hauled her into Target and plopped her into a cart, kicking myself for not having gone to Target when we first got there.

We were in and out of Target in 5 minutes, then on our way home to meet daddy for lunch. Alison is now sleeping peacefully (I hope). The sun is shining, the temperature is climbing and the backyard should be fit for play by the time we get done with supper tonight. And I think it will be a while before we try another one of these mall excursions. :)

Oh! My Nose!!

For the past couple of days Alison has been sporting a Marcia Brady look, the look she had in the episode where she got hit in the face with the football right before her big date with school football star (who happened to be played by the same guy who was Fredrick in "The Sound of Music"). Alison got her smashed up nose from falling face first into the coffee table. She managed to do this while trying to get down off her father's lap. Unfortunately for her, daddy had his eyes glued to the television and had no idea what she was trying to do. She wiggled down, lost her balance and went right into the edge of the table.

It's times like these when I want to throttle Kevin. I happened to be on the phone with my mom at the time. I had already dragged his attention away from the tv once so that he could keep her from falling over in a laundry basket and smashing into the table. I could see that that she was about to fall from his lap into the table, but figured that the wriggling around would catch his attention, but no. Yet if I had said anything to him about it I would have gotten the sarcastic "I know, I know."

At least the huge bump went down a little overnight. It's now about the size of a small mosquito bite. It should be completely gone in a day or so and all we'll have to do then is wait for the bruise and the scratch to go away. Between that and all the scratches and bruises on her legs, I'm almost afraid someone will think she's being beaten! I hope we get through the clumsies soon!!

She Did It!!

Last night we finally went and bought Alison a little potty. I don't know why we hadn't done it before now, but we just hadn't. I did a little rearranging in the bathroom and found a (temporary?) place for it. Last night when she came in for her bath, we had her sit on the potty for a minute while we made sure the water was ok and got out the rest of her bath stuff. Since she had had a thouroughly soaked diaper less than 20 minutes earlier, we didn't expect her to go, and she lived up to that expectation. :)

This morning I figured I'd put her on it again for a few minutes and see what happened. So we got her pants down and diaper off and onto the potty she went. I grabbed the camera to take some pictures of her "first time on the potty" (even thought it was really her second time). Apparently I timed it just right because as I was telling her to sit down (again) and trying to get her to smile I heard it! That little piddle sound. Who would have thought that she'd go in the potty on the first real try at it!

I know it's going to take some time before she really gets it. I have no idea if she even made a little connection between what she did and where she did it. I don't know if she could even feel what she was doing. We tried again before lunch and she didn't go. But that's ok. I'm just thrilled she's gone once.

Kirsten

Kirsten is a little girl who is 3 months younger than Alison. She has Spina Bifida, too, and also had fetal surgery. We stumbled across her webpage when we were looking for information about shunts/kids with shunts. Since then we've been keeping track of how she's been doing via her webpage.

When we first "met" her last February, Kirsten was 4 months old and in the hospital having her second shunt revision (that would be her third sugery). Before she was finally discharged from the hospital in April, she had two more revisions. Since then, she hasn't had any problems with her shunt.

Today there was an update to her webpage letting everyone know that she had been admitted to the hosptial again last night after two weeks of extreme fussiness and becoming increasingly lethargic throughout the day yesterday. As her mother was taking her to the clinic, she experienced her first seizure. Later last night she was vomiting and had spiked a fever.

These symptoms scream shunt infection or shunt failure. However, our SB doctor told us that sometimes kids with shunts will become symptomatic when they are sick because the illness causes excess production of cerebral spinal fluid and the shunt can't handle it. When the illness clears up, fluid levels return to normal, and the kids are no longer symptomatic. We're praying this is the case for Kirsten.

Usually it's not a problem to almost forget that there's anything wrong with Alison. When things like this happen it brings it all front and center again. We've been given every reason to expect that Alison's shunt will be problem free, but there's always that chance that something will go wrong and maybe we won't be so lucky the next time.

For now though, we'll just count our blessings that Alison is fine, keep checking for updates on how Kirsten is doing and pray that everything will be all right for her.

The "Stuff"

While we were at my parents' for Memorial Day weekend, we went to church Sunday morning. The minister was preaching about the book of Acts. One of his illustations was about a man who had been reintroduced to Christianity through reading the bible and who went to a Sunday service at a church and, because he had been reading the book of Acts at the time, was expecting to see miracles happening. When what he witnessed was a regular run-of-the-mill church service he asked the congregation "where's the stuff?!?"

After the service at my parents' church, my mom happened to be heading down to the fellowship hall behind the minister and a visiting District Superintendent and she said to the minister "'the stuff' is downstairs." Assuming she was referring to the coffee, juice, bagels and doughnuts, he nodded and agreed that, yes, it was. My mom again said "'the stuff' is downstairs." Again, he thought she was referring to the coffee and doughnuts. Finally she said to him "no, I mean 'the stuff' is downstairs. My granddaughter is downstairs." Oh. He clearly still had no real idea what my mom was talking about. He doesn't know that Alison shouldn't be able to walk. He hasn't spoken to either of my parents about Alison since before they were leaving for Nashville to be with us when we had the fetal surgery.

I don't know why I was surprised at this. Afterall, I haven't been a member of this church for nearly 10 years. But, my parents have been members for more than 25 years. I wonder if this lack of communication on the minister's part has to do with his having a certain agenda and my parents being part of the contigent who are against this agenda. I would hope not. My parents approach Alison's condition the same way we do. They are more than happy to tell anyone who wants to know anything they want to know about the surgery and how she's doing now. And a lot of the church members have asked. One lady was nearly in tears the first time she saw Alison walking. I guess I just find it strange that in more than two years, this man has never even bothered to ask. If he had, he would have known he had a great example of "the stuff" running around in the cribroom that very morning.

A Picnic

Yesterday was our annual all-church family Pig-nic. It was held at a local park. Now, I think in the 10 years that we've lived here and attended this church we've gone to this picnic once before. We always talk about going, but when the time comes, for whatever reason, we haven't gone. Last year we didn't go because it was during naptime and we didn't want Alison to skip her nap.

This year we decided to throw caution to the wind, let Alison skip her nap and go. The church provides the meat (plain or bbq pork), beverages, and table service. We were to bring a dish to share, for a couple, or two dishes for a family (we only brought one dish, since we only have a small child who shares what we eat), and a few dollars to help cover the cost of the meat. So we picked up the fixings for an easy, and rather large, taco salad when we went shopping after church, threw it together quickly when we got home and headed off to the park.

It looked like a pretty good turn out. We had two pavilions reserved and they were both pretty full. There were lots families with smaller children (pre-school and younger), and quite a few from the senior set. There were not a whole lot of families with middle and high school aged kids, much to the chagrin of one of our youth group girls. She was disappointed that there were not more kids there her age.

There was quite a variety of food, too. I let Kevin go through the line first, and he came back with a lot of several different kinds of things. I employed a different tactic. I took small spoonfuls of just about everything. Everything was really good. We both shared with Alison. There was one particular pasta salad that she loved. Neither of us got to eat much of it. :) There was a pretty large assortments of desserts, too, most of it chocolate. That's where I really ended up looking like a pig because I took two different kinds of cake and a brownie. It was my intention to share with Alison. It's not my fault she didn't want more than one bite of cake!

After we finished eating, we had singing, accompanied by a couple of the highschool boys and their guitars. And there was Alison, when she wasn't running around, front and center dancing and "directing" the music. She was also very interested in the bounce house. We actually let her get into it a couple of times, after kicking the bigger kids out so she (and the reas of the smaller kids) wouldn't get squashed. She had a ball. She was fascinated by the flower that she had painted on her arm. We wrapped things up around 3:00.

Before we headed for home, we ran out to Home Depot to pick up some new hoses and some mulch. Once back in the car, Alison was singing along with her Oscar the Grouch CD one minute and the next minute she was sound asleep. Instead of going home, and having her wake up as soon as we pulled into the garage, we drove around for another 15 or 20 minutes so she could get a little nap. Once we did finally come home, we tried to get her out of the car without waking her up, but it didn't happen. She was wide awake and ready to go for the rest of the night.

All in all, I think we had a very nice afternoon.