The Good, the Bad and the Funny

Hi from crazy-haired me.

I am using K's computer right now, so no GBF banner.

Same thing though.

The Good: Abby and Ainsley are feeling better. The rock vacated Ainsley's body. Adison has less than a week left of school. I have been sleeping better, more sleep = happy Danna. I have the most amazing community of peeps ever, seriously. Oh, I also have some fun photos that I am going to share tomorrow for InstaFriday.

The Bad: Ainsley swalled a ROCK, seriously. This rock business feels like it has taken up most of my week. I am still coughing and not feeling quite 100%.

The Funny:

1. Me: Lee how many times do I have to ask something before you will listen?

Lee: About four.

Yep, that sounds about right for the day.

Kinda makes for a long day.

2. Since Abby is feeling better I have been seeing glimpses of my baby again {you know, versus seeing her super angry alter ego, "Screaming Banshee"}

Abby even did her Fancy Dance today.

Enjoy.

{Please ignore my "singing"}



It was a tearful morning

My baby is now 18 months old.

I know that I have requested it before, but can we PLEASE pretend that 18 months = baby and not toddler?

Thank you very much.

Abby's 15 month appointment was an abysmal affair.

She cried and cried and cried.

It broke my mama heart into a gazillion pieces.

Today there were a lot of tears too.

She HATES going to the doctor.

Hates it.

Every single stinkin' minute of it.

I feel really awful for our doctor.

Luckily he doesn't take it personally.

He even said so...and it's not his first time mentioning it...I really hope that means that a lot of his patients cry the entire time.

Right?

My girl is now 21 lbs 11oz.

She is in the 10th - 25%, but on the chart she was a tiny bit above the 10th %.

Yep, my baby is a tiny dancer.

She is now 32 inches tall.

50th to 75th %, right there in the middle.

She has a typical large noggin like my other girls, although hers is the smallest.

75th - 90th %.

Her umbilical hernia is getting smaller.

Yay!
Everything else looks amazing.

She is developmentally right on track and doing great.

Then came the part where he asked about her being sick the last couple of weeks.

After hearing her symptoms he decided that it would be a good idea to clean out her ears so that he could get a better look.

It was torture.

The first ear she kicked and screamed and was attempted to flail her arms all over the place.

It took the doctor, a nurse and myself to hold her down.

For the second ear she put up a bit of a fight, but not as much.

{Let me tell ya, it feels absolutely awful to have to do this. Knowing that it is necessary and helps eases the guilt, but ugh, mama needed some cuddle time with her afterwards.}

Luckily her ears look fine.

After that came time for her vaccines.

Ugh, yep.

She got shots.

She again cried and cried.

I wanted to cry with her.

Now she is sleeping.

I hope that when she wakes up she is feeling okay.

It's just hard since she was JUST starting to feel and act better, that this could mean more not feeling good for her.

Sigh.

Remember this photo from a couple of weeks ago?
I am praying that she doesn't feel this bad for a long time.

While there, one of our wonderful nurses gave Ainsley a talkin' to about not eating rocks.

I may or may not have cracked a grin when this happened.

Ainsley looked properly instructed and repentant.

Let's just hoped that it actually worked.

**fingers crossed**

P.S. after her appointment and getting her down for a nap, I totally needed to rest.

Lee and I laid in my room and watched a movie.

Taking the kids to appointments wears me out.



Rock watch 2011 & bargaining with the tooth fairy

Rock watch 2011 is officially OVER!
Yahoo and Yippee!

I had been feeding Lee A LOT of fruit the last couple of days to really get her intestines working.

After lunch {with even more fruit} Lee declared that she needed to use the restroom.

This is a bit graphic, but I writing it out so we can remember all the embarrassing details for when she is older.

She was sitting on the little potty and really pushing hard.
At one point she was holding on to my leg and said,

Mama, the rock is stuck in my butt.

I was hoping that meant that the rock was really coming out, but I wasn't betting on it.

After she was done I got out the handy dandy plastic knife so I could begin my joyous task of searching through her poop.

*gagging*

It was gross.

At one point I *thought* that I could feel the rock and then couldn't, it was frustrating.

Then as I was going through the last bit of it I felt something hard.

Could this really be it?

Well, I can't think of anything else that would be this hard.

Don't getting your hopes up.

But it could be.

Huzzah! It's the rock.

I used some toilet paper to clean it off and then washed it, A LOT.

Lee was really excited and was squealing with delight.

I was super excited too!

My little girl is a-okay and there is no longer the fear of surgery!

Praise the Lord.

K and I decided to keep the rock, you know, to tease her about it when she is a teenager and brings a boy home to meet us.

Ha ha!

++++++++++++++

Adison lost a tooth while at my in-law's house the night before we headed out for vacation.

A little while after the tooth came out she lost it, but didn't seem even remotely upset or concerned.

I then proceeded to forget about the tooth all together.

I assumed that Adison did too.

That is until yesterday on the car ride home from school.

Mom, I am going to write the tooth fairy a letter.

Really, what are you going to say to her?

Well, I am going to ask her if I give her a quarter and a penny if she will give me one of my old teeth back.

Huh, what do you want to do with your old tooth?

I don't know, I just think it would be neat to get it back.

This entire conversation cracked me up.

I could tell by her tone that she had really put a lot of thought into this idea.

She never ended up writing the letter, but this story makes me smile.



Rock watch 2011 & other stuff

Here I sit.

Waiting for my darling, angelic three year old to have to use the restroom so I can sift through the debris to see if her hubby, Mr. Heart-Shaped-Rock has made his re-appearance.

{Waiting for her to poop to see if the rock has shown up.}

It was as my friend Jennifer said:

She really took the two become one to heart.

Ha!

Here I sit, feeling really uncomfortable with any and all options right now.

Sigh.

We will have to wait and see.

Have a mentioned a time or a thousand that I am REALLY impatient.

It's even worse if the health/safety of one of my kids is involved.

Abby has her 18 month check up on Thursday and I am going to talk with our pediatrician again about this situation.

I really do trust him implicitly, I just don't trust the rock in her stomach.

Bleh, thinking about it weirds me out.

{p.s. I totally want to get a picture of her xray, I wonder if her dr's office has the film...}

By the way, HOW is Abigail 18 months!?!?!?!?!

I did NOT give her permission to grow up so quickly!

Speaking of Princess Abby-kins, she is FINALLY starting to feel better.

Last night after K got home she was smiley and happy and giggly again.

It was like having Abby back.

Although the joy was short lived because her evil tempered alter ego that I affectionately call "Screaming Banshee" made an appearance again.

Sigh.

I feel really bad for her, homegirl is just not happy.

Not that I can blame her, I would be too if I was being attacked by mucus.

Adison is READY for school to be over.

I am READY for school to be over.

It's time.

We were talking on our way to her school this morning about the fact that she will be done next week.

Next week!

Yes!

There have been some really sweet moments with my girls lately.

{you know, when they're NOT fighting}

Abby and Ainsley have been having fun playing and laughing.

Adison is simply precious with Abby, she has a special love for her baby sister.

Adison's concern about Ainsley and her tummy melted me.

It's nice to have these quiet little snapshot moments to savor and enjoy.

Thanks everyone for you love and support and prayers with our little Lee, it means the world to K and I.



We could use some prayers

UPDATE:
I spoke with Lee's doctor.
He had spoken with the ped gastrointerologist who said that they would wait 6 weeks with the rock sitting in her stomach before scoping her to remove it.
Our dr said that if it hasn't passed with in the next week or two that we would repeat the x-ray.
So we wait and pray.
Thank you so much everyone!!!
xoxo, me

+++++++++

Since I wrote the last post I have heard back from the doctor's office.

They recommended that we had an x-ray done to check out the situation.

So we headed over to the hospital to get it done.

After the x-ray {which Ainsley handled amazingly well} I asked the x-ray tech if I could take a peek at the x-ray.

There it was, her little heart shaped rock sitting there in her stomach.

The x-ray tech and the radiologist both agreed that the rock needed to come out.

The fact that it was still in her stomach meant that it was too big to pass through.

She said that she was going to call my pediatrician right then so I could wait to talk with him as well.

Lee's doctor wanted to know how big the rock was, it was measured at 2.3 cm.

They normally recommend doing surgery on anything larger than 2 cm but our doctor wanted to call a pediatric gastrointerologist to consult with.

Our pediatrician felt like we might not need to do the procedure done though.

He said that there are kind of risks with everything right now.

We could wait and see if she could pass it, which she could probably do, but there is a chance of it getting stuck in her small intestine.

If she happens to throw it up then there is a risk of it getting stuck in her esophagus.

She could also have a procedure done to remove it.

If we go with that option though, there isn't a surgeon in our city that could do it so we would have to head over to Kansas City {an hour and a half away} to get it done.

Right now none of the options seem like great options.

So we wait for our pediatrician to call us back.

Have I mentioned how impatient I am?

Hello Monday, I think I liked Sunday better

Sunday started off like most Sundays do.

Child wrangling, feeding, playing, reading, house cleaning...you know, the usual.

Then something funny happened that I *kinda* feel bad about.

I sent Ainsley in to wake up K.

Somewhere along the way she found a ducky suction cup that goes with the bath toy bag.

She thought it would be funny to put it on Daddy.

So while I am in there she tried on his arm and back, it doesn't stick.

Then...

Then I have the BRILLIANT idea to stick it to his forehead.

I start giggling because it looked hysterical.

Lee then tries to pull it off of K's head.

He starts making this weird shrieking, protesting noise and then said that it hurt.

So I helped Lee get it off.

She then promptly puts it back on his head and repeats the whole pulling process which again garnered the shrieking, protesting noise.

Which of course results in my laughing, because seriously, it was funny.

It was then that K said something along the lines of:

You guys, please don't do that again. You know that is going to cause a big purple mark on my head.

Which of course resulted in Ainsley and I laughing again.

Only, I didn't laugh to long because when I looked this is what I saw.

Okay, so now I feel AWFUL!

Simply awful.

I profusely apologized.

He told me to prepare for retribution.

He mentioned sticking it on the middle of my forehead.

Uh oh.

I have a confession to make.

I could not restrain from hysterically laughing for about an hour afterwards.

I do feel really bad about it...but...it makes me laugh too.

What doest that say about me?
Never mind, please don't answer that.

After that fiasco we met up with my dad, step-mom and step-brother for lunch.

We had a really nice time.

It's nice to catch up and chat.

We then headed home where I attempted to take a nap while K watched the kiddos.

Only to be interrupted by a screaming child who could only be soothed by mama {I totally love it} and my hacking cough which just refuses to acknowledge the eviction notice I served it.

Sigh.

After finally dragging my weary self out of bed I tackled some more laundry.

This is such an issue.

I then joined K on the back porch where he was grilling up some of our yummy Farmer's Market goodness.

Yum.

We used the chicken on a delicious salad that we put together using more FM finds.

{We seriously ate the majority of that asparagus.}

While outside Lee found a rock {that was heart shaped} and declared that she was going to marry it.

She is obsessed with getting married.

I don't know why.

Oh well, I hope that she and Mr. Heart-Shaped-Rock are very happy together.

Update:

Not an hour after writing this, Ainsley swallowed the rock.

Why?
Well, that folks is the million dollar question.

I am waiting to hear back from the doctor's office.

Sigh.

++++++++++

P.S. To all the amazing peeps that commented on my posts this weekend, THANK YOU!

Thank you for your love and support.

Thank you to those who shared your stories too.

I know how hard that is and I am grateful.

This community is amazing.



It's more than a label

There are times when my miscarriages seem to be such a part of me that they are a label.

My name is Danna.

I am 30 years old.

I have brown hair and hazel eyes.

I have 3 beautiful children.

I have had 6 miscarriages.

I have to remind myself sometimes that there was so much pain, hope and sadness surrounding my precious angel babies.

Just as I am more than a label, more than stats so are they.

My babies.

My children that I once carried in my womb.

They were my hope for the future.

They were living beings with a heartbeat.

I think that as a way to separate myself, a way to continue living that I have built a wall around myself.

This wall helped me to survive it.
To retain a part of myself that was floundering and crumbling away.

I carried these children.

My body sustained them.

My heart loved them.

My soul yearns for them.

I know that they are being taken care of.

I wish though that I could take a peak at them.

To see what they look like.

To hold their hands, stroke their cheeks and smooth their hair.

I want to mother my children.

I want to tell them how much I love them.

I want them to know that they mean the world to me.

I remember after losing my babies that they harsh reality would set in that people would eventually forget.

I am the one with the memories.

I am the one that is reminded of them.

My heart is the one that won't forget.