Play time

I think there's a control freak buried just beneath my surface. Anna's "playing" with Play-doh right now, and as I was watching her, this little voice in my head said, "Oh, she's not doing it right! Go over there and make her play the way she's SUPPOSED to." As if there's a wrong way to play with Play-doh. Thankfully, I supressed the little voice and let Anna continue on her merry, and fun-for-her, way.

She seems to be against squishing the stuff too much with her own hands. She leaves it in the little "cakes", the way it comes out of the tubs, and pretends to eat them. The dough is not allowed to touch the other colors, and she doesn't like to have it formed into shapes. Just "cakes" and, when she's feeling adventurous, "cookies", i.e. flattened cakes. *grin* Who am I to tell my kid what's fun and what's not, right?

Obviously, she's totally recovered from last week's illness. She lost a few pounds but has been eating like a hungry bear all week, so I'm positive she'll gain it back in no time.

Silvia is doing great, as well. She's growing so fast! This weekend we're going to start the process of moving her to her own bed. Up until now, she's been sleeping with us at night, but it's just getting too uncomfortable for me. She snuggles in SO close and digs at me with her little legs all night long, trying to burrow in as much as she can. Needless to say, Mommy's not getting much rest.

Silvia is actually a very good sleeper, not at all like Anna was, so I'm hoping the move to her own crib goes easily, though I do expect the process to take a week or two before she's really comfortable there. I just hope she doesn't rebel and decide to start waking up every half an hour in protest. Wish us luck!

Cute baby picture, just for fun!

A Day for Recovery... and Disinfection

Well, we are home today. Anna finally decided that maybe starting to drink again would be a good think, thank goodness, so we've spent the day trying to get our lives back into some semblance of order. She is doing SOOOOO much better, still a little weak and not 100%, but definitely not sick anymore, just recovering.

This has been an exhausting week of little sleep, lots of adrenaline and rushing around, tedious hours of waiting and cranky kids. It's a huge relief to be home again, even though there was a lot of work to do to get things back to normal. We had to go through the house and clean, wash and disinfect pretty much everything Anna's touched. Her particular virus is a tenacious bug, so we ended up going over all her toys and washing pretty much all the linens and blankets in the house. But it's all done now, everything's clean and nice, even the girls. We scrubbed them both down before their naps.

The quiet time today while they are sleeping feels a little dizzying after all the worry and frantic activity of the week. But I've got my balance back, my daughters are healthy, my hubby and I are still a great team, and generally I'm just grateful for a happy ending to this snapshot in our lives. I seriously don't know what we would have done without Mom and Terry, too, they were so wonderful, just stepped up immediately to help with Silvia while we dealt with everything going on with Anna. Thank you both SO much, I am a lucky girl to have such an amazing family!

On a down note, we did have to cancel our trip that was planned for this weekend. We were supposed to leave this morning early for Virginia to see family and go to my friend Wayne's wedding. I've known him half my life and I feel terrible to miss this big moment, but there was just no choice. Even though we're out of the hospital today, Anna's still recovering and I just would have felt terrible leaving here her even for a few days. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to see Wayne and his new bride, Rachel, sometime this summer.

And that's pretty much it right now. Kurt and I are learning that parenting is just really the practice of managed helplessness; 99% of the time there's just not a lot you can do but wait and see and be a presence of support for your child. It's a harsh reality, but for now, for this moment, it was enough, we all got through it and now we can move on to the next big thing.

Oh, good lord. What is the next big thing? These kids are enough to make a saint nervous. Here's hoping I can handle it!

The Week of Firsts

This has been a big week for Anna Banana. She had her first serious illness, her first trip to the ER and now her first hospitalization. She's been sick with a bad case of Rotavirus since last Saturday and finally, yesterday, her pediatrician reccomended that we admit her to the hospital for fluids. She was just unable to keep anything down and was refusing to drink anything, so her poor little body had begun to totally dry out. She was even crying without tears by the time we brought her in last night, poor thing.

I'm happy to say, though, that after even just a few hours on IV fluids, she was already perking up as of 9:30 last night. Kurt stayed overnight with her. I had to come home and be with Silvia, who is being so good and sweet and mild right now, a true angel in a difficult time. We're hoping to bring Anna home late today or, more likely, Friday, once they get her re-hydrated and make sure she's able to both drink and keep things down.

Kurt and I are exhausted, but so relieved that Anna's doing better. It had begun to get a bit scary, just watching her deteriorate. Holding her down, along with three nurses, while she had her IV inserted was truly awful, though, not a moment I'll soon forget.

I'll post more later, after I head back to the hospital this morning.

Cousins

Vicki and Cari came down last weekend for a visit to meet Silvia. They brought so many presents that Anna was convinced it was a birthday party... for her, of course. Because all birthdays are Anna's birthday as far as she is concerned. Vicki brought this great little game with plastic balls that Anna cannot get enough of. "Wanna play balls, mamma?" has almost (but not quite) replaced, "Wanna watch Little Einsteins, mamma?". It's a very simple game designed for small kids and Anna just giggles fit to burst every time we play.

Silvia mostly slept through the visit, but she did have a few moments of coo-ing and blinking her big blue eyes up at Cari. Cari had on a green sweater that went really well with the baby, I wonder if she planned that?
Speaking of birthdays, it's my 30th today... I'm crossing over into new territory! Kurt's got some special dinner planned that he won't tell me about and my friends and I are going out tomorrow to celebrate while mom watches the girls. I told Anna it was my birthday this morning and she said, "Happy birthday, Daddy! Time for birthday hats and birthday cake and birthday balloons. It's Daddy's birthday and Anna's birthday!"

Here's some pictures!

Cari and Silvia

Anna warms up to Vicki after the introduction of the ball game.

Kurt and I making faces at the baby.

The famous CAKE, that my friend Jen made for me for my birthday. I'd share... but I'm just not that nice.