I Love Valentine's Day Stories

I hope that everyone who had a good V-Day will blog about it! I love hearing stories of sweethearts doing nice things for each other. I'm glad we have a day set aside to make sure we express our love to the people who matter most to us.

Here's my story! Amazingly, I had a great Valentine's Day, even though the kids have been sick and today I got pretty sick too. It was tons better than last year, when I spent it alone, thinking of Jeff, who was trying to survive his first few days of Boot Camp. Before he left, he gave me beautiful wooden roses that would last forever, but it just wasn't the same as being together.

This year, I was amazed at how thoughtful he was. On Saturday I got sick and felt pretty yucky all day long. Jeff got breakfast. He made lunch (a delicious appetizer platter!) and even made dinner. He changed poopy diapers and watched both sick kiddos so I could take a nap. The next day he surprised me with a box of truffles. And it was a big surprise because when we were dating, in a moment of temporary insanity, I told him I didn't especially prefer chocolates as a gift. That has since been cleared up. :) After he gave me the original box, he went and got something else and came back with his hands behind his back and said "Valentine's Day chocolates should not be homogenous." I knew that meant more were on the way! He gave me a bag of white chocolate (YUM!!) and peanut butter truffles. Yay! I am set, chocolate-wise for a while! And I decided to take the wrappers from all the truffles and mod podge the box they came in. Hey, the wrappers were pretty, and I love boxes.

I tried to take my turn and give him a day of rest and his favorite food yesterday, but since I was still pretty sick, I didn't make it too far in my plan. I made heart shaped pancakes for breakfast, which were fun. But I didn't get to make his favorite dinner. We're trying for that again tonight (it's Monday now).

This morning, though, he surprised me with another breakfast, since the one he had originally wanted to get Saturday morning couldn't be had since businesses were closed due to the snow storm. (giggle) But the kindest thing he has done for me was this morning.

Both kids have been having a really hard time sleeping due to congestion and just overall yuckiness. Katelyn woke up at midnight, super clogged. I tried to suck her nose out, but the gunk was so deep, that I just couldn't get it. I tried pose after pose, but she could never get comfortable enough to sleep for more than a few minutes. At about 5:00 (yes, I had been up since 12!) Jeff realized I wasn't in bed, and came out and offered to watch Katelyn so I could go back to bed. This is a really big sacrifice for Jeff, because he's putting in crazy long hours at work, and is running behind on sleep already. That really made me feel loved. I got two blissful hours of sleep, then got up and sent him back to bed.

I am married to a wonderful man, who places others before himself, takes good care of his family, and makes me feel like I am the most important, beautiful, talented, intelligent woman in the whole world. I sure love him.

What's your Valentine's story this year?

Katelyn's First Ambulance Ride

Ugh. What a day. Jeffy was sick yesterday--fever and cough--but I didn't expect that it would get too bad or that Katelyn would get it. Jeffy's been sick multiple times since Kate's birth, and I've managed to keep her from getting it. Not this time.

This morning at about 1:40, I hear Katelyn start to cough and choke and sputter. (Thank goodness for super mommy hearing--Iheard her through closed doors and walls!) I shot out of bed and went and got her. She was burning up. I took her to the family room and gave her some tylenol. A few minutes later, she started gagging and choking again, like her body was reacting to an up-chuck response, but without . Some bright yellow gooey stuff came out all over her pjs. I thought maybe it was just the medicine had upset her stomach, but the medicine was pink. I knew this wasn't good. I got on the phone with our clinic's nurse triage line, and did a quick google search on yellow gooey puke. I learned that it was probably bile, which isn't necessarily a big deal, but when it happens in infants, it can be. FINALLY the nurse called me back after an hour, and after asking me a series of stupid questions, recommended I take her to the ER. Duh. I was going to give them 10 more minutes to call me back, then I was just going to go.

This was now a little after 3:00 am. I woke up Jeff to make sure that he understood that I was leaving and he was in charge of Jeffy's care. I headed over to the hospital, where the check-in nurse told me she served in the military for 20 years and next time to just come and not bother to call. Ok by me! We got Kate checked in, and the doctor came in to see her. I told him what had been going on, and he got this really confused look on his face. I thought "great, he has no idea what's going on or what to do." I showed him the yellow all over Katelyn's pjs and he thought that maybe the green of her pjs had changed the color of the spit up. I said, no, it was that color when it came out. He left, and I wondered what the morning was going to hold for us.

He came back in and said he wanted to transfer me to the Medical University of South Carolina, where there is a Childrens Hospital. I liked that idea, because the staff at a children's place is much better trained in dealing with babies than staff at regular ERs. The doc said yellow bilious vomit can be a sign that something is wrong with the intestines and if something proved wrong with Katelyn, that she would need surgery. Aahh! Heart-stopping moment for me there.

They were calling an ambulance to come get us, and meanwhile, they tried to give Katelyn an IV. This is exactly what I'm talking about. Stupid ER nurses were rough with her, had a hard time getting the IV set up and I just wanted to scream at them to leave my baby alone and get the heck out of the room! There is no worse feeling than watching your baby as she's poked again and again, screaming her head off, and every now and then calms down enough to look at you with a look of betrayal. "How can you let them hurt me like this?" Oh, it just breaks my heart. I had a feeling they were going to have to redo the IV at the Childrens Hospital anyway. (I was right.)

Katelyn was strapped to her carseat which was strapped to a bed, and we went in the ambulance for the half hour ride to MUSC. Thankfully, Katelyn slept the whole way there. I was so grateful. Poor little one was so exhausted from being poked and prodded and I was glad she was able to get a little sleep. It was now about 4:30 am.

The nice thing about being transferred is that the new hospital is expecting you and you don't have to wait to get checked in. I liked that part, and I was glad to be in the hands of people who would be more gentle and efficient with Katelyn.

She got her vital signs checked, then we went and got an ultrasound of her tummy. They were looking for which means that the intestine is funneling in on itself. She was pretty calm for this and they were able to get some clear pictures. Everything looked ok, and we went back to our room to await the next step. At 8:00 we went to get x-rays of her. They laid her down, gave her some weird drink and took x-ray pictures as it went through her system. This was looking for abnormal twists in the intestines that could cause an obstruction. This looked good too. No surgery! Thank goodness. So she was diagnosed with gastroenteritis--flu of the intestines. We were given the ok to come home.

Oh, kind of funny side note. As we getting ready to check out, a lady comes in and says they're conducting a study on the rotavirus vaccine, and wonder if they can have a stool sample of Katelyn's for the study. I was like, "you want her poop?" and they did, so I said ok. Then they gave me a $25 gift card to Walmart for participating in the study. So I gave them a dirty diaper and they gave me a gift card. I'll take that trade anytime! :)

Anways, back to the story. Unfortunately, Jeff had to drag a sick Jeffy out of the house to come get us, since we hadn't driven there. It had been dark when we got there, so I was of no help to him getting there. He got there in about 45 minutes, and it took us a lot longer than that to get home. We got totally lost. It was my first introduction to downtown Charleston, and under better circumstances, I would have enjoyed it very much. Thankfully, both Jeffy and Kate fell asleep on our crazy ride home.

So we got home, and I thought the worst was over. Then Jeffy started throwing up, which he hadn't done yet. This is the first time I have had both kids at their worst on the same day. Usually it's one or two days apart. Ugh. It's been a long day.

Jeff missed work today, which means he'll have to play catch up. Things are pretty intense at work right now and I feel bad that he's now behind. I was supposed to teach the Relief Society lesson on Sunday and was really excited, but now I need to stay home to take care of all my sickies. Tonight was the ward talent show, but that's been cancelled because we're getting snow. (Snow?! In South Carolina?! What is going on?!!) So we'll get to go to that when its' rescheduled at least.

So it's been a hard day for everyone, but mostly I just feel bad for my two sick babies. I think there might be something else going on with Jeffy too, so maybe we'll end up back in the hospital. I hope not, but it never hurts to be prepared for the worst.

Happy Valentine's Day! All you guys who are going out to celebrate, send a happy thought my way in hopes that we'll still have a good day, though stuck at home. :)

Even with the hard days like this, I wouldn't trade my current life for anything. Welcome to mommyhood.

Druggie!

So it turns out my hair loss wasn't just post-partum. My blood tests came back to reveal that my thyroid has basically shut down, and is not producing the hormones it should. Which explains the hair loss, weight gain, extreme fatigue, depression, muscle aches, joint pains, brittle finger nails, and always feeling cold. Who knew those were all related?

So here I am, gearing up to watch my diet and take hormone replacement pills for the rest of my life. It may not seem life much to the outsider, but to me, it's very different. I always saw myself as a very healthy person whose only malady was imperfect eyesight. And I always saw the necessity of taking pills everyday a sign of old age! Well, not like elderly old age, just grown up old age, I guess. And now that I've joined their ranks, I guess I'm really an adult.

So I'm off to take my synthroid and avoid foods that interfere with the absorption of iodine. Yay for being a grown up.

Birthday Cakes

I thought I wasn't going to have a birthday cake this year. I ended up with three! Jeff hasn't been feeling very well, and since Jeffy and Katelyn aren't capable of making one, I figured I was on my own. So I bought a small white one for myself the morning of my birthday. Jeff came home for lunch that day and we had some then. Well, maybe just I had some.

Then while we were out, my great visiting teacher brought over a german chocolate cake! Yum!! It was so good. Jeff usually doesn't like german chocolate, but even he loved this one. It was a great surprise!

Then the day after (I guess Jeff had been planning to celebrate that day, but forgot to tell me :)) I got to go on a craft spending spree with my birthday money, and Jeff watched the kids. I came home to another cake! Jeff experimented and made a Mint Brownie Cake. The cake itself was made of Andes Mint brownies, with a cream cheese frosting made minty by crushed mint Oreos, topped with Andes Mint drizzle and halved mint oreos.. It was yummy! But the best part was the effort by my sweetheart. He put a lot of work into it and very emphatically told me never to buy myself a birthday cake again. Hee hee.