Surfacing from sick week

So, after almost three years of being home with the girls from China, we finally had a sick kid this week. Aside from the frequent fevers that both E and A get (during which they don't seem sick as long as we keep the fever in check with Advil or Tylenol), neither one had ever been sick. At least not sick as in vomiting.. they've had colds in the past.

Well, this week E caught some type of stomach bug that involved abdominal pain (cramps probably, but it's hard to say since she just laid around whining and saying her "tummy hurts") and vomiting. She had it for about 4 days, so I consider myself lucky that she only threw up four times. The first time she threw up was kind of funny... it was a huge surprise to her (having never thrown up before in her almost four years) and she actually laughed after it happened. The novelty wore off though.. for both of us. After the first time though, she was pretty good about alerting us to the fact that she was about to be sick, and so we didn't have a lot of clean-up to deal with. I know, I know, this is more information that you wanted, right? Okay, moving on from this lovely topic...

Yesterday, A, B and I went to a shower for a friend who recently adopted a baby from Ethiopia. (Dot stayed home with E, to avoid passing sicko germs to everyone else). Well, it turns out that the shower was a surprise joint-shower for my friend and for us (actually B). What a nice surprise. We had a really great time - there was lots of food and I actually had a chance to visit a bit with friends, even given that I was on my own with two kids in tow. And, in a few weeks, we will be getting a play house that has been ordered as a shower gift. The girls are going to love it every bit as much as B will, I think. I showed them a picture of it and they are pretty psyched. :-) Of course, I didn't have a camera along with me at the shower, so I don't have any pictures to show you.

Yesterday was also B's second birthday. So we sang 'happy birthday' and blew out candles on a cake at the shower, and then did it all over again at home (so E and DoT could participate). I got a few pictures at the home rendition. Here they are...

(All three kids helped blow out the candles.)

While E was home sick, I pulled out my knitting thinking I could get back to it. (It's probably been at least a year since I last did any knitting.) E decided she wanted to knit too. Here she is with her work...

I'm thinking she did better than I did...

Notice the dropped stitch and the broken needle. *Sigh* Clearly I have some remedial work to do.

Well, that's it for now. Hope you are enjoying this spring and everything around you is coming alive. If you have any tips for effort-free-gardening (particularly for a garden that has been neglected for years) please, please leave me a comment. :-) (Comments on other topics are also welcome!)

K...

Welcome Spring!

So, the weather is now starting to warm up and we've been trying to get outside and enjoy it. A few days ago, DoT took the kids to one of the parks near our house and they amused themselves by running up and down the hill. Well the girls ran up and down (oh yeah, and screamed, they're into that these days), B mostly just amused himself by watching them. :-)



Oh yes, and as evidenced by this video, my absence meant no one was thinking about how impossible grass stains are to get out of pants. :-) Fortunately, the grass hasn't yet started turning green so it was mostly just mud... that I'm hoping will come out easier than grass stains would ...

Finally, on Wednesday DoT and I took B and A to the Children's Hospital for the morning. B had three appointments (at 9:30 a.m., 11:00 a.m., and 11:30 a.m. so we figured we throw in a trip to a clinic and some bloodwork for A while we were there. What a fun morning. While in the past A has handled blood draws amazingly well, Wednesday was an exception. Talk about screaming. I felt sorry for all the parents with kids in the waiting room while A was in having her blood taken. Try telling a kid it isn't going to hurt while they're listening to a screaming, sobbing, almost hysterical kid going through it right at that moment just on the other side of what must be a paper-thin door. Anyhow, we all survived it. The blood A had taken is going to the USA for some genetic testing, which we won't have the results of for 6 to 8 weeks.

B had his first speech therapy appointment. He's doing really well. The doctor was quite impressed with him, and especially happy at what a little parrot he is. It makes it really easy when he happily tries to say whatever you say to him. According to the findings of this visit, B currently uses b, p, t, d, m, n, w, s, k, g, and is starting to use h. He also is using simple words and some combinations he's learned (e.g., thank you; bye bye; how are you? (which sounds more like howyoo); and double, double (OK, he's not saying that yet, but he's heard it enough I'm sure he'll be ordering for us soon). Then after his appointment with the speech pathologist, he had a hearing test (where he finally 'aced' a test), and a visit to the Ear, Nose and Throat doc. There is some fluid in his ears, but given his good hearing test, they don't think tubes in his ears are needed - at least not at this point. He'll be followed every six months by both the Ear, Nose and Throat doc, and the speech pathologist.

No fevers for either girl right now, but I'm just waiting now for the next one for A. We have been given the option of putting A on anti-seizure meds to keep her from having another seizure; but we're not sure whether or not we'll do it. Dot and I are of different opinions on this, and while we all know that my opinion is the one that truly matters, the fact that DoT doesn't agree has me second-guessing myself somewhat. We'll probably wait until after at least the next fever has come and gone before we make a decision.

Finally, I'll end this post with a couple of pics. The first one shows how we travel the neighbourhood in style. (The hands are over the eyes because they all thought it was too sunny. Huh. No such thing, in my opinion.) The second one was taken the evening of Easter, following our egg hunt (we were too busy all day to get to it!)