At it again....

Hallie woke up at 5:10 this morning. We brought her into bed with us in hopes she would go back to sleep (no such luck) so when Derrick's alarm went off at 5:45, her took her downstairs with him and graciously allowed me to sleep, since I had been up with Tucker throughout the night. I think next time I'll just get up with her. Derrick left her in front of the tv when he left for work, with a piece of bread. About 15 minutes later, I started smelling something really sweet, so I got up to check on her and this is what I found. She had gotten into the cupboard (had to climb up on a bar stool to get into it), found some Kool-Aid, opened about 20 packets and dumped them on the floor. Then as if that wasn't enough, she dumped out the rest of the trail mix and poured water all over it. My poor carpet! It now has m&m stains that I am still trying to get out. At least she didn't poor the water on the Kool-Aid!

On a positive note, her intestines seem to be working much better. Come to find out, she was officially diagnosed with an ileus, which basically means the intestines just stop working. Normally it happens after anesthesia, when they don't work for a little while until it wears off. They think hers was caused by some sort of virus. But things seem to be working better and she gets to start back on a regular diet today. YEAH!!!!!!!!!

But Mommy, the doctor made a mistake

What a challenge the last few days have been! It is so much easier to take food away from a baby than a 3 year old! I couldn't let her leave my side yesterday or disaster struck! She would start to walk away from me and I would ask her where she was going. The first time it was to get chips. The second time it was to get wheat thins. The third was for a cheese stick. I think she thought I wanted her to eat something healthier, so she kept giving me new suggestions. I must have told her 25 times that the doctor wanted to help her belly get better, so she said to drink lots and lots and not eat anything. She looked at me finally and told me the doctor was wrong. She really meant to say eat lots and lots and don't drink anything (which for those that know Hallie is saying a lot if she is willing to give up her milk). Later she started listing all of the foods she likes, hoping I would let her eat just one. And the real heart breaker was when she asked me how she was supposed to get big if she can't eat. Can you tell that I use that line on her a lot? Not fun to have it turned back around on me!

It was really hard because Carson was not at all sensitive to the fact that she couldn't eat and kept walking in front of her with whatever he was snacking on. I talked to him multiple times and told him that I knew he had to eat, but that he needed to stay in the kitchen, away from Hallie while eating. I finally called a friend to come and get him when I left Hallie in her room to go switch my laundry and grab something for Carson to eat. In the 2 minutes I was downstairs, she raided my bathroom, spilled hot pink nail polish all over my beige carpet, opened up my bottle of hair spray and poured it on the carpet, then took the tube of toothpaste and used it to paint her vanity table with. Then while I was trying to clean it up, she went downstairs and found a bag of wheat thins and shoved some in her mouth. Thank goodness I caught her before she really chewed them up and had a chance to swallow them.

The good news is that her belly doesn't seem to be bothering her as much, so she is now on a soft food diet until Tuesday, when we can hopefully get another x-ray and tests to see if she is all better! Today should be a little easier because of that, which will be nice considering Derrick had to work yesterday and today, so I am on my own.

Close call....

After 2 years of not having Hallie's intestines be in the forefront of my worries, they have surfaced again. Hallie has been compaining of a belly ache for a little over 2 weeks. At first I thought it was a virus, then I was concerned about her intestines, but things seemed to be moving normally, so I stopped stressing over it and figured I would give it time. It comes and goes at radom intervals. There were a few days she didn't complain at all and other days it was at different times, sometimes morning, sometimes night. It didn't seem to occur if she needed to use the bathroom, or if she had just eaten something. It was just really random. On to pof that, she has suddenly decided that she needs a lot more sleep. Before this started, she would take a nap every 3-4 days. By bedtime, she would be really cross, but we could make it to bedtime without a nap. Lately, it gets dark and she goes to get her pj's on-- usually around 5:00! Yesterday she took a nap at 4:30, woke up at 7:00 and was back in bed by 8:00. The other night she fell asleep at 6:30 and was down for the night. On top of all of that, she hasn't eaten dinner in 4-5 days.

So needless to say, I was getting pretty worried. She woke up crying this morning at 5:30 and I decided that enough was enough and took her to the doctor this morning. Let me tell you, it made me miss Salt Lake so much! It is so hard to be away from her doctor that knows her inside and out and all of her little eccentricities. It is also frustrating to not have a lab and radiology department in the office. What would have normally taken me a few hours, took me most of the day! Luckily, her Salt Lake doctor's office consulted with me and gave me an idea of where to start and what they would check to begin with. At her Reno doctor, they tested her for strep, thought about a urinary tract infection but couldn't get a sample from her, and finally decided to take her off of all milk products for the weekend. If you know Hallie, you know this is HUGE for her. She LOVES her milk and goes through about 2 gallons a week by herself. Plus it is a major source of calories for her and helps regulate her intestines, so this was pretty big for me. I finally convinced them to do an x-ray just to make me happy (thank you Melissa at Dr. Schmidt's for steering me that direction!) We headed over to the hospital and had her x-ray (which she had to go and do by herself because they wouldn't let me in with Tucker) and I left thinking that maybe I had totally over-reacted-- I mean here I am concerned about intestinal blockages and whether her recent growth spurt is pulling on her staples and scar tissue and her doctor is talking about lactose intolerance!

After I went to the store and bought Lactaid for Hallie and picked Carson up from school, I got a phone call from her doctor with her x-ray results. It is never a good thing when they track you down on your cell phone! Anyways, there is no obstruction at this point, but her intestines have slowed down-- probably due to a virus-- and she has what is basically a backing up that she is having a hard time getting rid of. It is not solid and so is not considered a blockage, but we do need to get rid of it as soon as possible so that it doesn't become one. She is on a liquid diet for the weekend (it's going to be a long weekend!) and hopefully that speeds things up. We will follow up on Tuesday if she is still having pain.

When I think what could have happened if I had waited until after the long weekend to take her in, it makes me sick to my stomach-- or if I hadn't have insisted on an x-ray just to be safe. It's been a while since her intestines have given me this big of a scare! And at the same time it is very eery to have these feelings that I know something is wrong and something big, even before there are enough symptoms for them to make an accurate diagnosis. She wasn't running a fever today and already by tonight she is feeling warm. I am very grateful to have these instincts when it comes to her, but it is a little unnerving to think what might happen if I didn't listen to them!

All in all, we are very grateful that we caught this soon enough and pray that a liquid diet is going to be enough to fix the problem. And it makes me realize how blessed we have been to have had almost 2 years in between intestinal problems. I was starting to take for granted that she was doing so well and now I am very appreciative of the progress she has made!

New Years

We went to some friends house for New Years. There were SO many kids! I think there were almost as many kids as there were adults. We had a lot of fun-- tons of good food, the kids ran around like crazy kids and enjoyed the bounce house in the garage, the guys played Guitar Hero and the women talked! We celebrated New Years on Eastern Standard Time because we just weren't brave enough to try to keep that many little kids up later than that! I think Carson is the oldest of all of the kids that night. Anyways, it was lots of fun and we are very grateful to Marcus and Lindsey for hosting us!

Christmas

A few pics from Christmas. The second one is of my nephew that was born while we were out there and my niece born the day before Tucker. We took pictures of all 4 2008 babies in our family, but ours didn't turn out, so if any one has a good one (Cody) please send it to me!

My cousin was a reindeer wrangler this holiday season, so we took the kids to see the reindeer. Comet and Blitzen were out the night that we were there and it was COLD! My kids were afraid of them and wouldn't let them get any closer, even though my cousin kept herding them our direction, but they had a great time!

Nativity

We did a nativity at our extended family Christmas party. Carson was the wiseman, Hallie was the angel, and Tucker was baby Jesus, of course. It was really fun and the kids enjoyed themselves a lot.