It is What it is

Yesterday I was scheduled to have my gallbladder removed at an outpatient surgical center across the street from the hospital. Check in at 8:00am, check out around 1:00pm...awesome, I can handle that.

So they do the surgery and as I'm waking up I hear the surgeon telling me the surgery went just fine, then something about the hospital and your husband went over to register you as an inpatient.

Um, what?

During the surgery they discovered that the ultrasound I had a couple of weeks ago missed a stone that had escaped from my gallbladder and lodged itself in my common bile duct. So they admitted me to the hospital and have me scheduled for another procedure in about two hours to go in and remove the stray stone. Fortunately it doesn't require an additional surgery; they'll use a scope to go down through my stomach and into my small intestine then up the bile duct to snatch the stone.

I'm hoping they'll let me head home after I wake up from the anesthesia rather than having to spend another night here. I think I had someone waking me up about every hour or two all night last night to give meds or take vital signs, so I'm sure I'll feel better after a good night's sleep at home. When a lab tech came and woke me up at 4:30am to draw blood I almost kicked him.

I'm feeling pretty good right now, definitely still a little sore, but I'm not needing any heavy-duty pain killers at this point. Right now we're just waiting for them to come get me for the next procedure. We'll update once I'm back home and everything has been taken care of.

Clara's First Pigtails

Clara's hair is getting pretty long, so I suggested to Kristin that we try pigtails on Clara today. I think you'll agree that they were a total success. Moving beyond the sprout out the top of the head, the pigtails make her look like such a big little girl.

Grandma's here? That's not Grandma!

Debbie is here! Most men don't cheer when there mother-in-law comes to town, then again, most men don't have Debbie as their mother-in-law. I always look forward to her visits as she is a huge help around the house, lots of fun to talk to, and always willing to watch my crazy TV shows (Ace of Cakes) and play strange board games (Settlers of Catan). She planned her trip months ago and providence lined it up so she would be here for Kristin's gallbladder removal.

Cute story from Debbie's first day here. Debbie's flight got in at 6am. We chatted on the way home from the airport, then she crashed in the guest room to recover from the red-eye. A little while later, Kristin, Clara, and I were playing downstairs when we heard Debbie stirring. "Guess who is upstairs? It's Grandma," Kristin and I said to Clara. Clara ran to the stairs, looking up in eager anticipation. Clara looked past Debbie, dragging me upstairs once Debbie came down. She went to the guest room, looking around for something. It then dawned on me: Clara was looking for her other Grandma who had been her last weekend, Sabrina!

I chuckled as I realized how confused Clara must be. Too many Grandmas!

Barrette Fun

This evening we bathed Clara a little early and put her in her pjs. To pass the time, we broke out Clara's collection of hair clips, do-dads, and barrettes, and put as many as possible in her hair. She was a good sport, even picking up a barrette and, with a grunt, telling us to put it in her hair.

Problem Solver

One of Clara's aptitudes that exhibited itself quite early is the engineer in her. I still recall watching her sit in front of the baby gate, pulling on the bottom of the gate, knowing that it had to come out of the socket to open. We purchased a table and four stools from Ikea that have proved ample tools for wrecking havoc around the house. My favorite is when she tries to use the stools to climb over the back of the couch.

This morning as we lounged around the house before church, Clara took one of her blue stools over to the door we have in our second-floor living room to solve the current great mystery: how do I get the door open so I can look outside. Needless to say, Mother was quite concerned and reprimanded her, not before taking a few pictures for posterity.

Thankfully she was unable to unlock the door. The handles in our house she mastered months ago. Her inability to open the locks is our last hope!

How many times have YOU changed your shirt today?

I'm at three and could probably use one more.

The intended title of this post was "Musings of the Human Kleenex," but the events leading up to my third clean shirt of the day changed that quickly. Let me explain.

Early Monday morning Clara started showing signs of an impending cold: coughing, sneezing, runny nose. She also had a very low-grade fever. No big deal, right?

Fast forward to Wednesday evening just before bed. Her cold symptoms were getting worse and she seemed suddenly warmer than she had been, so I took her temperature. 105 degrees. I took it again to make sure. 105 degrees. Okay. After some Tylenol and a call to our pediatrician's after-hours line, we decided to wait and see how her fever responded and to make an appointment to have her seen today. Her fever went down to about 102 degrees with the medication, but the cough was worse. She didn't sleep more than about 30 minutes at any one stretch all night. Needless to say she was half-dazed all day today.

So where do all the shirt changes come in to play? Let's see...change number one occured this morning when I got out of bed, so that one was all me. Change number two was thanks to Clara; why use the Kleenex Mom has in her hand when her shirt is so much handier? Change number three was also thanks to Clara. And this was the most special of all.

We arrived at the pediatrician's office and were waiting in line to check in. All of a sudden Clara starts having a serious coughing fit; her eyes were watering, her face was red, and I just knew we were about to see some of her lunch again. I caught a bit in my hand and my shirt caught the rest. One of the nurses heard the coughing and came out with an emesis basin, showed us to the bathroom to clean up, and checked us in without a stop in the waiting room. Nothing better than sitting for an hour and a half in the doctor's office with a nasty wet shirt.

The upside? It looks like she just has a virus, so no antibiotics. She seems to be the kind of kid who just spikes high fevers in response to certain viruses. So we're dosing the Tylenol and Motrin and hoping that she'll sleep better tonight. And that I'll sleep better too. I'm pretty tired.

And because I can never leave a post without completely unrelated photographic evidence of my child's cuteness, here are a couple of pictures from Easter:

Trying out her first Peeps with Daddy.


Checking out her Easter basket.


Giving the Easter Bunny a hug.

Evel Knievel say what?

My child has no fear. If given the opportunity she'll run off from us in public to go explore on her own without ever looking back to see if we're following. She thinks she can walk down the stairs without help. She'll walk up to groups of strange children and try to join in their fun, even though none of them want a small toddler hanging around.

And I've discovered yet another venue for her to live out her daredevil ways: the playground. A couple of weeks ago Bonnie and I took the kids out for a walk and we stopped at a small playground nearby. Michael went down the slide a few times on his belly, feet-first. Quite appropriate for a sixteen-month-old. After a couple of false starts, Clara climbed up the steps of the play structure, crawled over to the (full size) slide, and without pausing threw herself down head-first. And then did it over and over and over. There was another little girl just a few days younger than Clara playing there as well, and she wasn't so sure about the slide. She would approach it, look over the edge, then back away. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Then she would let her mom help her sit and slide down. If ever this little girl was in the way when Clara was ready for another nose-dive down the slide, Clara would just kind of push her aside.

Ugh. I have one of those kids.