Our Brave Little Patient

Back in September when Emma was hospitalized with her kidneys , they inserted a stent to help drain a massive blockage that she had and hopefully to assist her kidney function moving forward. Problem is... it's only a temporary solution, they really shouldn't stay in for more than 6 months. So she had to go in for surgery to have the stent removed.

This Minnie Mouse balloon outside the gift shop was bigger than Emma. She wanted to go see it. This was before she went in for surgery. She was such a little trooper today.

This is an image of a kidney with a stent like Emma's - (The long blue thing with a loop at the end)

So from here, we have to wait 2-3 weeks to see how her kidneys function on their own, and then go in for a VCUG test. Normally, the direction fluid flows in the body is downward from the kidney into the bladder. They think Emma's may be reversed, and refluxing upward from the bladder into the kidney - which will cause the kidney problems that she has had. So the VCUG will confirm that. They use dye in her system, and a radiologist watches the direction of flow through out the kidneys, bladder, ureters, etc... She went through a series of tests when she was hospitalized the last time but her kidneys were not strong enough at the time to withstand this test. So that's our next step. Then, after that, in about 6 weeks we go in for an ultrasound. Based on the results of the tests, they will determine whether we need to start looking at long term solutions, potentially involving a small procedure, or she may very well have grown out of it. Apparently it is not uncommon for this to happen in little girls, because their anatomy is so small and the 'canals' are so small... that as they grow, so do their insides and it tends to resolve itself sometimes.

Her surgery was scheduled for really early this morning, which is a good thing... They don't call to give you the time of the surgery until the night before and we were really hoping for early, because she couldn't eat or drink anything past midnight. How do you tell that to a 3 yr old? My mom came with us to the hospital. Emma needed her mommy, and I needed mine! I was probably a whole lot more nervous than she was (maybe because she didn't really know where we were going) but her track record isn't great with procedures like this. She's a tough little cookie, and she typically will make it as hard on the doctors and nurses as absolutely possible (and Mom as well) Rightfully so, considering the poor thing has endured countless catheters, IV's, blood draws, ... BUT, I must say, today went very, very well, and really smooth.

When we got there we registered, checked in, and were taken back to the prep room where she got a nice little dose of versed to calm her down. The good thing about it, was that it was in a form she could drink. Now where was that the last time when they were stickin' her with needles while she was screaming and crying her eyes out in torture?! The next half hour was pretty funny... she was a loopy little girl, and was making us laugh.

She had all of her guys with her. Lamby has been through quite a bit over the course of the last year. The other guys we accumulated just today.

Me and my sweet baby girl before she went in.

The other thing... the last time she needed anesthesia they just stuck her with a needle while she was in the middle of a panic attack. This time they were able to use something similar to a gas mask (that smelled like bubble gum) to make her go to sleep first. Again...?? Where was this last time?!

On our way in the hospital this morning she was trying to convince me to go ANYwhere but the hospital, and she said 'I no want them to take my stent out... I love my stent'

Funny since she didn't even know she had that in her until last night when Andrew told her. He asked her if she was ready to get it taken out.

So she went into surgery and everything went great, and she woke up all smiles (which isn't typical with kids waking up from anesthesia.) But she had a popsicle, and I grabbed a m&m cookie from a bakery in the hospital while we were waiting.

And because she was such a good girl... She got a bravery award to take home! (actually, I'm pretty sure she would have been able to keep it even if she wasn't so good, but I'm proud of her.)

As you can see, she wrinkled it a little bit.

Before we went in for surgery, I promised her that we could do whatever she wanted after.. and I mentioned maybe going to lunch, and she definitely didn't forget about that. A few times in her loopy state of mind she thought the doctors/nurses that were coming in and out of the room were servers at a restaurant bringing her dinner (yeah, at 7 am.) Poor thing was hungry!

 So for lunch we went to Cheeseburger in Paradise.

Drinking their Strawberry Sprite!

Emma drew this guy on the kids menu all by herself - no help at all:

And, since most of this has been about our little patient today... I wanted to get my little man on here. He was a good brother.

Daddy gave mommy a MUCH needed break tonight and took care of bath time..

Here are my little Valentines in their Valentine jammies after their bath.

(Don't worry...I don't make my big Valentine wear cute little jammies... nor would he cooperate if I tried, I'm sure.)

A Winter Wonderland Birthday Celebration

My babies turned 3 a few weeks ago... Exciting and a little bit sad at the same time. They are turning into little people. They are more fun to be around in some aspects, because we can actually have little conversations, and they say the funniest things. But I miss my little babies too.
I'm big into birthdays. I love making them special. Their birthday party was the day after their actual birthday, so of course we had to do something on their actual birthday too... right?!
When they woke up and came downstairs, they ran through the doorway of streamers.

 And then mommy decorates the night before, after they go to bed, with fun balloons, streamers, banners, etc..

(A side note on the balloons... I went the night before to get the balloons when Andrew and his parents were finishing up the kids dinner and getting them ready for bed... it was in the middle of a crazy snow storm, so maybe they had let staff go home? But I went to the florist section, picked out the balloons and the kid says 'ummm... I was never trained on how to do this... I'm really sorry'  so basically he tells me that he doesn't know how to blow up balloons with the helium tank. So, I trained him, and blew up my own balloons, tied the ribbons, showed him how to curl ribbon with scissors, how to attach the weights... It was pretty interesting. But hopefully now the next time someone needs balloons and the regular florist isn't there, he can assist. ;)

 And it has become somewhat of a tradition to have a little cake for breakfast. (I mean, I figure... they are going to ingest the sugar at some point or another during that day, so why not make it really fun and have it for breakfast, and also give them some time to burn it off?) Well, whether I can justify it or not, that's what we do! We have a little birthday celebration right when they wake up.

A mini Elmo cake

Drew was trying to figure out how many 'fingers' he is now....

I think he eventually got it. Emma has a tough time with three fingers, she can do 2 and 4 just fine, but not three. So she will either be 2 or 4 until we can figure that out I guess.

These kids are lucky... they have 4 grandparents that absolutely adore them, and 6 great grands!

And even better, on their birthday they had all four grandparents here to take them out to dinner! Andrews sister Amy also came all the way out here from San Diego for the weekend to spend their birthday with them. She barely made it... because of the snow storm we had the day she was flying in.

Emma and both of her grandma's (Mimi & YiaYia)

Drew & Aunt Amy

Trying on Mimi's cheaters

Then... the next day was the Winter Wonderland Birthday Party!!

I have had to come up with 'gender neutral' themes for their parties until they start having separate parties (if they want to) Because I'm not sure if Drew would appreciate a princess party, or Emma a race car party; right now anyway. So last year was a Western Theme party, and this year was Winter Wonderland. It's also difficult to try to plan a birthday party in the dead middle of winter where it's cold and snowy. I think you have so many more options in the summer. But anyway, we did it, and we had fun... and that's all that matters.

Winter Wonderland Dessert table

Emma assisting Papou with his camera.

Love this girl. We have very similar lives (went to college together, got married at the same time, had kids at the same time, live close to one another), and we lean on each other a lot. So grateful for her!

Everyone gets a candle in their cupcake at this party!!

Me 'n my Mama

Hot Chocolate Bar

I hope the innocent smiles on these little faces never fade away...

Playing Pin the Hat on the Polar Bear

Eventually Emma agreed to wear the blindfold but at first she got mad when we attempted to put it on her, she just wanted to walk right up to it (eyes wide open) and pin the hat on. And, because it was her birthday, we let it slide.

Drew playing catch with his new baseball glove

I'm still trying to catch up... I'm a few weeks behind, so I'll try to post a few times this week. We'll see about that. If this week is anything like last, maybe not.

January: Bike Rides and Sleigh Rides

I'm still here. Even though I've been on a hiatus from my blog lately. The last few weeks have been even more busy than usual. I feel like that's always how my blog entries start. "I've been busy," but it is true. Our big news... is that we now have two THREE year olds! What?! I can't believe it! We're using it as much to our advantage as possible "Ya know, 3 year olds don't wear diapers' or '3 year olds don't do this, and they do that..' etc... We'll see how long that works out for us. I'm going to guess not for too long.
Since I'm oh... about a month behind, I will rewind a few weeks. Before it became winter over night and we had a bunch of snow dumped on us, we were actually having a beautiful January. The kids were able to ride their bikes outside -
Emma really started to get the hang of it. They got them for Christmas, and when they were trying to ride on Christmas day, Emma would get SO frustrated every time she tried that it wound end in a meltdown. But she is doing much better!

Family dinner date night... my favorite! I love spending a Friday or Saturday night with my little family, going to dinner (having a night off from cooking) and enjoying the company of my favorites.

The kids are really into getting sprite if we go out to dinner, in 'big kid cups', or 'Brite' as they call it.

They usually like to color while we're waiting for dinner. This was Emma's drawing of a person. A smiley face with legs and arms, and notice the arms have some fingers at the end... and the smiley face has a little hair. She also attempted shoes. We thought it was pretty impressive! And, since this is sort of our 'virtual' scrapbook/memory book... I thought I'd throw it on here.

Emma and Drew like to take pictures with my iphone. So, Drew actually took those pictures of him and I. Not too bad! At least he got us both in the picture!

I found Drew in his room playing IN the diaper box....  Something about boxes, these kids LOVE them. They like getting in them, pushing and pulling each other around in them.

Andrews parents and sister came in for a long weekend for Emma and Drew's birthday. The big # 3!

(Birthday post coming next)

His parents had just made it in the day before, and then Friday it decided to become the Chicago winter we are used to and dumped several inches of snow on us!

When I got home, I bundled the munchkins up in warm snow gear and we went out to play in it! Play in the 'no' as they would say. Neither of them pronounce the 'S' at the beginning of snow for some reason.

These were actually their brand new heavy winter jackets from 'Marney' (my Nanny) that she had just sent them as part of their birthday present. So they were able to try them out right away!

I was playing around with some photo editing on a couple of these...

Em kept picking up handfuls of snow and throwing it up in the air.

Emma & Papou

Drew was so excited to sled that he literally sled out of our garage and down the driveway! You can see his tracks. He hit the ground slidin'!

Such a girl. More concerned about the snow stuck to her gloves than anything else.

Papou multitasking - pulling the sled and on his phone! He was probably trying to make sure that Amy's flight was going to get in that night. That was a close call.... She wound up getting detoured to St. Louis and had to wait there for a few hours until they felt they could get back up in the air and land in Chicago.

Drew is definitely our snow kid out of the two of them. Emma is much more hesitant when it comes to snow and sleds, etc...

Emma was ready to go inside and was cold and Drew probably could have stayed out there much longer.

We brought them inside, got into warm and cozies and had a snack.

Drew watching TV with his Papou.

We can't wait to have another good snow day to try out their new sleds and snow tubes that they got at their birthday party! They actually got a few really neat sleds and tubes... I am pretty excited about it myself. ;-)

Coming up next... The Big Birthday!

By the way... I would also like to say, that last year my resolution was to blog, and to keep it up on a somewhat usual basis to be able to keep track of what we've done through out the year and how the kids evolve, change and grow. Boom! A New Years resolution that I stuck to!! A Success.

It was really for our close family and freinds that don't live local, to be able to easily keep up with the kids, as this stage of their lives they change so quickly and do new things every day. And the last I looked we had something like 8 or 9000 page views.