16 months and st. patty's day.

i feel like this blog is benjamin button...i am going in reverse order of how things happened, but that is just the way it is today.  back in early march, emme turned 16 months old.  16 months is a funny milestone for me because that is how old i was when my parents had my little brother.  it's so crazy to try to imagine what our lives would be like if we were bringing home a sibling right now.  clearly, that was not in the plan for our lives at this current juncture, but it's fun imagining nonetheless.
what can i say about emme at 16 months?  everything really just keeps getting better and better, if that's even possible.  other than the chronic ear infection(s), ek is a healthy, happy toddler.  she is busy and extremely curious all the time.  her language is taking off which makes life easier for all of us.  i have lost count of all the words she says - writing this after the fact, i can say that her speech is even better after the tubes.  she loves to make animal sounds.  she loves books.  she wants to be outside as much as possible.  she adores her swing.  she loves bath time with dada (mostly because he encourages as much splashing as possible).  her daily reports at school frequently touch on her great sense of rhythm and her infatuation with anything in the sky.  e's relationship with our pets is a great source of happiness for me...she is so gentle with them and calls them each by name.  she gets so excited to see the dogs when we get home from school in the afternoon.  as the intense animal lover i am, i am so glad that she delights in our furry family members as much as i do.  and they seem to love her too, with the possible exception of pippa the cat, who can only sometimes be bothered to tolerate any of our affections.  she is a great sleeper and a great eater, when i can admit it to myself.  i am such an obnoxious worrier that i will occasionally convince myself that she's finicky, even though i know she is far from it.  she weighs about 22 pounds and is getting tall.  her head is still ginormous.  she is still missing her two outer front teeth, but is getting her lower canines, bringing total teeth up to 12!  her hair is wispy and curly and getting blonder...i am not sure where the blondness or the curls come from, but her hair texture is definitely that of kk and her daddy.  emmeline can be a total ham and is happiest when she can dictate the agenda, but everyone is paying attention to her.  she loves the park and i have a feeling we will be spending a great number of hours on slides.  not surprisingly, her stubborn streak continues to make an appearance and, as one of her teachers so eloquently put it, "she's got a little sass in her".  she is not the most graceful child - sadly for her, she may take after her mother in this arena, although i'm optimistic that the tubes will help in this department too.  she is still rather cautious, but that is just fine with me.  i am STILL nursing her...once a day, in the mornings.  i keep trying to break it off, but i just can't say no.  sigh.  eventually, i will wean this baby.  i never thought i would be an extended breastfeeder - one year seemed like a very reasonable goal to me....anyway...i can't say that i mind it, honestly.  it's been a wonderful thing and i feel so lucky to have had such an easy time with it.  i imagine it won't be long before it's over - too brief in the grand scheme of things.
i could go on and on.  i love this little mosquito so much.  she is a hoot, and clearly the best thing that's ever happened to us.  below are lots of pictures we took over the course of st. patty's day weekend.  that was a little later than her official 16 months, but i had been saving this dress (an adorable gift from kerry anne) and we loved taking all these pictures of her on our new deck and in the bluebonnets.  we also had a delicious traditional irish lunch on st. patty's day that mike prepared - corned beef, cabbage, soda bread, etc.  it was delicious, and i don't like any of those dishes.
and now for the embarrassing onslaught of pictures...

visiting big joe.

nearly a month ago, in mid-to-late march, kk and emme and i took a trip to minneapolis to visit big joe.  joe has been living in minnesota for nearly 8 years now, and he is moving back to louisiana after he finishes school this may.  embarrassingly, i had never been up there to visit him (a wedding, two moves, graduate school, and a baby are my excuses...), so we decided it was now or never.  plus, it's my goal to visit all fifty states, so i needed to knock minnesota off my list!
we expected to have a good time, but i don't think any of us were prepared for how much fun we actually had.  emme was a trooper, despite her ongoing ear infection.  she barely napped and was up until nearly 10 every night...and she remained in a great mood throughout the whole trip.  i will try to tell the story of the weekend with the inundation of pictures i took.  as an aside, this trip made me really really appreciate our typical family photographer, justin.  i am just too distractible to take great pictures, i think.  so....lots of pics that are overexposed, somewhat blurry, etc.  alas...at least i took pictures!

so, the trip out was super easy.  we flew out early thursday, with a connection in denver.  emme LOVES planes - she points to every airplane that flies overhead and can hear them and starts looking for them to show us.  because of this love, being in airports and on an actual plane were super thrilling events for her (i don't know that she remembers her earlier flights to florida and jamaica).  she would fall asleep on kk sometime in the midst of take-off and slept through each flight.  awesome.

big joe was at the airport to pick us up and he went right for emme.  it took her a minute to figure out that he was cool, but by the time we left lunch, they were old pals.  we dropped off our gear at the hotel, had lunch at a really yummy place (one of those hippie austin places, according to my brother), then we hit the mall of america.  

i am not a shopper.  i do not enjoy malls as a general rule.  this is why i look like a hobo most days, but i digress.  the mall of america is like a destination.  it's insane - it's probably bigger than vatican city.  it's also super fun, albeit a little overwhelming.  when you walk in, there is a giant aquarium that you can go into.  we didn't, but emme did really like the fish they had out in big tanks.  

next, we hit up the carousel.  all of us rode, and we strapped emme to a big chicken, with me standing right by her, of course.  she was not so sure about it at first, but i think she ended up enjoying the ride.  big joe, who is not an amusement park goer, thought it was kind of scary too.  

 next, we rode a little train.  kk sat this one out, but emme and big joe and i rode together.  e's favorite part was waiting to see kk waving around the bend.

 we also put her on an age-appropriate ride that she really loved.  she would get nervous when she couldn't see us, but then light up again when the ride carried her into our view.  hilarious.

 friday morning, we hit up the university.  i took zero pictures, but it's a beautiful campus and if minneapolis didn't have demon winters, i could probably live there.  joe met with one of his professors, so mom and emme and i got treats for everyone at the bookstore.  after that, we drove over to lake calhoun.  minneapolis has gorgeous lakes everywhere - it's like town lake in every neighborhood.  i'm convinced we would be in much better shape (and our dogs would be much better leash-trained) if we had this easy access to lakes and trails....
i was so touched by how hands-on joe was with emme the whole time.  he was constantly pointing things out to her and taking her on little walks to explore various sights.  she loved the attention.

 this was really funny - i tried to get a picture of mom, joe, and ek on this bridge.  there are like 5 shots of her being distracted and not paying attention, and then there's this one of mom and joe just sitting there because she took off.  her intense need to explore was a theme for the whole weekend.

 after the lake, we headed to st. paul to the museum of natural history.  there was a dinosaur exhibit and lots of hands-on science fun.  i am not sure who had more fun - emme or joe.  she was enthralled with the "dinos" and she especially loved this exhibit on air streams.  there were also bubbles and musical instruments for her to delight in.

 after st. paul, we ended up back at the mall of america for dinner.  emme was SUPER busy while we were there and was waving at all the other patrons.  she did manage to sit still for salmon and veggies, but this kid is not about being still for very long.

saturday, mom and emme and i went back to the mall for a little while before joe picked us up there.  he had some work to finish up and we were ready, so we shuttled over.  when he picked us up, we took a little drive to minnehaha falls.  this is just this gorgeous park and waterfall in the middle of the city.  very cool.

next, we trekked out to the zoo.  the weather had been a little overcast that morning, but by the time we got to the zoo, it was gloriously sunny.  we rented strollers for emme everywhere we went (i was not about lugging the bob through airports and everywhere else), which worked out really nicely for us to stash all our gear.  we all loved the zoo.  it's really nice and well-kept.  it was tremendously crowded, what with it being a beautiful saturday afternoon, but we had a blast anyway.  we saw a huge grizzly bear taking a bath, impalas very close up, a baboon with a pacifier in its mouth, lots of baby monkeys, fish, tigers, and all kinds of other animals.  

 for our final outing, we headed out to the wilds, joe's country club.  my brother is a big golfer - has been his entire life - and the wilds has been his club basically since moving to minnesota.  he even won the club championship tournament there a couple years ago.  anyway...we got out there right around sunset.  emme fell asleep and stayed napping in the car for a little while, so joe and i got to chip a few balls on the practice area while we waited for her to get up.  we headed into the clubhouse for a little dinner and got to meet a few of joe's buddies who were hanging out after a round.  then we walked around outside and enjoyed the winding down of the day before heading back to our hotel.

our flight out was at 6:15 sunday morning (i am a crazy person, but i also like early flights because they are more likely to be on time), so we had planned to take the shuttle to the airport at 5.  joe showed up at the hotel (to his credit, he told us he would be there, but we didn't believe anyone would wake up at that hour if they didn't have to) as we were preparing to load up in to the shuttle, so he was able to taxi us to the airport and say goodbye.
all in all, an awesome trip.  we were non-stop, but not exhausted at the end.  joe and i got along amazingly well (we are both very opinionated and this can lead to heated debates when we're in close proximity for long periods of time).  emme had a blast.

fantastic park adventure go!

ek is loving the park these days. she especially loves a good slide/swing. we hosted the family gaunt the last weekend of march and decided a park day was in order, considering we are in those magical 3 weeks where the heat doesn't ruin life. merritt and i both nerd out over camera equipment and showed up with some serious firepower to document the event. i'm positive we looked like complete jack@sses next to the other parents with point 'n shoots. awesome. emme was all about sliding and eating rocks. reid was all about his new work boots and a yellow shovel. it's crazy how we can sit around and just watch the little ones play for hours. so entertaining. i think we will do the park again this weekend.

recent drama.

the weeks are flying by WAY faster than i can even begin to record them all. i have lots of fun, awesome stuff to write about, but figured i would get my quick trauma post out of the way first. also, i have at least a month worth of pictures sitting on various memory cards and personal computers (i.e. not my work computer, on which i currently type while on a conference call (shhhh)) and would like to add some of those to my posts.


so, the last couple of weeks have brought a little bit of drama our way. in hindsight, everything has worked out just fine and we have been remarkably fortunate . but, for posterity, i write.

last friday (or two fridays ago, who's counting) - march 30th - we had some friends in town to visit. they arrived mid-day friday, so i was going to pick emme up and then meet them at our house so we could head to an early-ish dinner. i left work exuberant - it was a glorious day, it was friday, and i'd just wrapped up about 74 things at work that had been hanging over my head. fabulous. i get emme from her class, gather all her gear (seriously, how much gear can someone her size accumulate?) - cloth diapers, dirty clothes, nap mat, lunch box - and load her and said gear in to the car. i drive to the exit and turn on my left turn signal, just as i do every other day. there was a decent amount of traffic, so i waited for a little bit and then saw an opening to my left, after a large grey car. i looked to the right to make sure i was clear (i was), so i glanced left again as the grey car was passing me, then i began to drive forward while looking right again. i turn my head back to face forward and i am driving directly in to a motorcyclist. i slam on the brakes as he tumbles off his bike and the motorcycle slides into the far lane. i'm stunned at this point; i reverse quickly, crank up the ac for emme, roll down windows, and fly out the car to see the guy. thankfully, he was wearing a helmet and there was a witness right there who had already gotten to him before i did. the driver was already moving around and the witness was on the phone with the police. i knelt down to try to attend to the guy - encourage him not to move, etc. - and he looks at me and says "i need for you to get the f--- away from me right now". this is when i lost it - i went back to my car and was shaking and flipping out, trying to hold it together. within seconds, the guy was walking to the sidewalk and smoking a cigarette, so i was happy to see he seemed mostly ok, physically. the police showed up within minutes, as did EMS. the guy refused medical attention, and his bike was not majorly impacted. the police were the nicest team of guys ever - they were super professional, compassionate, and thorough. they decided not to issue a ticket to either of us, which was kind of amazing. the accident was my fault, but since it seemed likely that the motorcyclist was tailgating and i was completely flipped out already, i think they decided writing me a ticket was unnecessary.

anyway, all things considered, this was not a bad accident. i have never been in a car accident before, and i am not anxious to get into another one, ever. i have NO idea, still, how it could have happened - i have gone over and over the whole series of events again and again. i am such a careful driver - i drive TOO defensively sometimes, according to justin - especially with emme in the car. so many things could have been so much worse with this whole thing, though, so i am just very grateful everything worked out the way it did, if it had to happen. he could have not been wearing a helmet, he could have crashed off his bike in to oncoming traffic, he could have rolled onto my car and somehow injured emme. it just could have been way, way bad. as my brother says, there is no margin of error with a motorcycle, so we were both very very lucky. my insurance is handling everything, and i am hopeful that he is back to 100%.



so that was the kick-off to that weekend. i'll summarize the fun stuff from that weekend later. on to this past weekend - easter!

we had a flight to florida early saturday morning. we were going to meet my parents for a few days and celebrate easter on the beach. i love the beach. thursday night, the night we were supposed to be packing, etc., i came down with fever of 102 (i never get sick, other than when i got the plague back in november). i literally could barely move - i got emme to bed and then just wrapped myself in blankets on the couch, feeling absolutely miserable. i was in bed before 9 and my fever broke at some point in the night, though i was not 100% on friday. i picked ek up on friday afternoon and she was fine. coughing and snotty, but that's par for the course with our daycare-going kiddo. we also had an appointment with her ENT to look at her ears and he said she looked fantastic. she struggled a tiny bit going to bed that night because her congestion makes it hard for her to breathe while sucking her thumb. but, she did go down, and jb and i finished packing and house prep before i finally had to go lie down around 9 or 9:30. within seconds of my head hitting the pillow, the cries started. justin gave her a few minutes to see if she would calm herself down, but to no avail. he went in and rocked her for a while, but she freaked out again right when she went back in to her crib. he rocked her again, same situation. i went in and rocked her, same thing. finally, around 10:30 or so, i told justin it was time to just shut it down. with our flight being super early the next morning, i figured it was fine to let her sleep with us - any sleep was better than the back-and-forth to her bedroom all night. i held her on my chest, mostly upright, for about 30 minutes, hoping to let all the phlegm drain. i could feel her relax and fall asleep, so i gingerly rolled her to the side on to our mattress. she immediately rolled on to her tummy and began crying hysterically, then she threw up all over our bed. i got her up and brought her in to the bathroom while justin worked to start cleaning up our bed. at this point, it's 11 or 11:30 and she now has a crazy high fever (started right when she puked). great news. we headed to the couch, where emme and i spent the remainder of the night, her sleeping fitfully, me not sleeping much at all.

the flights to florida were uneventful - she is such a great little traveler. i kept her medicated with ibuprofen, which kept her fever at bay all day. saturday night, her fever got high again, but i just kept her medicated, thinking it was probably something viral since she didn't seem to have any other symptoms. easter morning, we woke up and her fever was too high to go to church - i didn't want her exposed to all those other people, nor did i want them exposed to her. justin stayed home with her, and we went back to pick them up before heading to brunch at my aunt and uncle's house. i took her temp then and it was 104.2 - very high for the morning, but still responding to the ibuprofen. the rest of sunday was pretty low key - she took a nap, but was in good spirits and acting completely normal.

sunday night, around 11 or so, i think, she woke me up and i picked her up and brought her in to bed with me and justin. her body was pretty cold - i was initially excited about that, thinking the fever had finally broken, but then i noticed she was shivering and her lips were purple. i wrapped her up next to me and kept trying to warm her up, but she kept shaking. i was starting to get flipped out and wondering what to do, so i handed her to justin while i tried to find the number for my insurance's ask-a-nurse number. she threw up phlegm all over justin and me, so we got her cleaned up and back on to my lap, covered in blankets. my first reaction was that she was having a febrile seizure, but it lasted SO long, and she was responsive to us throughout the whole episode. i got a nurse on the phone and told her everything that was happening and she said we needed to bring emme to the ER. so, i went and got my parents up and we grabbed what we could think of to grab (i'm pretty sure this consisted of a diaper and my insurance card). by the time we were driving, her temp had started to climb again (as the nurse had told me it would) and she wasn't shaking anymore. we got to the emergency room, got admitted, and ended up in a little room. mom and dad had to stay outside, so we texted them updates.

the nursing staff at the hospital was very nice. they took emme's temp and it was 105.4 - she has definitely never been that hot. they gave her motrin and a tylenol suppository and then began the battery of tests: heart rate, blood pressure, catheter for urinalysis, and blood draw. that was the worst - they tried to get the hep lock into her hand, but her veins were too tiny and they kept missing. they finally got it in to her foot/ankle. ouch. justin and i had to hold her down for each thing and just watch the big tears rolling down her cheeks. not fun. somewhere in the midst of all of this, we saw the doctor on call, dr. woolf. he was super nice, but also a bit stymied by our girl. her ears and throat looked good, her lungs sounded fine. he said that when the blood work came back, he would expect to see white blood cell counts around 15,000 (normal is 6,000-11,000), and then he would prescribe an antibiotic. based on that, he was hopeful that we could avoid a chest x-ray. 15 minutes later or so, the x-ray tech came by requesting to take emme for a chest x-ray. we were confused, based on what dr. woolf had just told us, but were informed that her wbc count was much higher than anticipated, so we needed the x-ray. a baby chest x-ray is not a fun procedure...they basically strap her in to a plastic tube that looks like a medieval torture device. poor bean. during the walk back to the room, dr. woolf told us that her wbc count was 35,000. later, when he came back to our room after getting all her test results, we learned that there was still no obvious source of infection that would be causing SUCH a high fever. he was very sweet with her - his suggestions were that she could have pneumonia that just wasn't presenting on the chest x-ray yet, or strep that he couldn't see yet, partially treated meningitis, or just something else. he brought up meningitis and said he could do a spinal tap, but then offered all the reasons why that wasn't really necessary and it probably wasn't meningitis (she was not lethargic, could move her head and neck, was drinking and eating a little). so, she got rocephin through her hep lock and a prescription for zithromax, and we were dismissed, with instructions to head to the pediatrician in the morning. we got about 3 hours of sleep and then headed to the pediatrician. he said she was fine...diagnosed a bacterial infection of unknown origin and said to keep giving her motrin and let her do whatever she felt like doing (swim, play on the beach, etc.). he also told me i didn't need to be concerned about meningitis or leukemia/lymphoma (i heard high wbc count and of course my mind went crazy). by monday afternoon, she was fever free and definitely on the up and up.

so, again, we were super lucky. i am bummed that 80% of our vacation was occupied by a sick bebe and very little sleep, but so so so thankful that she is just fine. her iron count was sort of low, according to the pediatrician, so we see our doctor on monday for a re-test and a potential therapeutic prescription for iron for her. all things considered, a scary ordeal, but we escaped relatively unscathed.