Let's go fly a kite

Months ago when we were all experiencing some serious cabin fever, the girls BEGGED me to fly kites with them. (It didn't help that I had bought each of them a $1 kite from Wal-mart.) I insisted that we wait until there was no more snow. And it wasn't too cold. And it wasn't TOO windy.

When I finally ran out of excuses, we gathered the kids and their kites up and drove to the church's field. And boy, am I glad we did.

Bekah took her Barbie kite on its maiden voyage into the wild blue yonder.

Bekah concentrates on keeping her kite in the sky.

Analee running to keep her Ariel kite up.

And tries out some unconventional kite-flying stances.

Despite her dislike of the grass, Miriam attempts to escape from the stroller.

When the front didn't work, she tried to go out the back.

Seth flies the pretty pink Barbie kite.

Recent past

And just to overshadow the happiness and cuteness of the previous post, here are some pictures my dad shot the day Miri had her surgery. ('Cause you can never have too many posts link back to any "Miri's procedure" post. I'm going for a record.)

A drugged out Miri resting on Grandma Scott. After the surgery, I had to go to my parents' house to pick up the big girls who had spent the night at their house.

Me reading to Bekah, Miri and Ana before packing up to go home. I had planned on taking all of them with me, but my parents kindly insisted on keeping Ana so that I could spend the day alone with Miri once I had shipped Bekah off to kindergarten.

After Miri's tube went missing, all we could do was pray that her tear ducts would stay open so we wouldn't have to repeat anything we've already endured. Since then, I've witnessed one day when her left eye was a little crusty and runny. I was afraid that things had closed up again. However, her eyes since then have seemed to be clear. We'll keep watching and waiting and hoping and praying.

Easter, Easter and more Easter

Because the girls can't have enough sugar (Bekah has nearly finished off her stash of trick her treat candy!), we attended no less than three Easter egg hunts this weekend. Count 'em, folks.

#1 The Ucon hunt
Bekah brought home a flier from school advertising this one. It was quite the adventure since we had to find parking at or around Simmons Park, hike all the way back to the west entrance of the park and then find an open spot on the edge of the field on the east side of the park. After the countdown, the girls scurried out and filled their baskets. By the time the deluge of children swept down from the west side of the park, we were finished.

Analee finding eggs in the field at Simmons Park.

Rebekah taking her pick from the Easter egg cache in the middle of the field.

Ucon likes to recycle their eggs, so we found an empty dugout to sit down in and empty the candy into our baskets. Along the way, I spotted two kids who were holding near-empty baskets and looking a little forlorn. I asked them if they had arrived late. They told them that they had. So I asked the girls if they could share some eggs with the boy and girl. Neither Bekah nor Ana hesitated; they immediately grabbed several eggs from their baskets and placed them in the girl's and boy's baskets. I'm not ashamed to admit it ... I was a very proud mama.

#2 The Grover hunt
For the past several years, the glorious Aunt Rachel has taken it upon herself to host a hunt for the wee ones. And since Grandpa Dennis' birthday is so close to Easter this year, we combined the celebrations and had one giant bonanza complete with pizza, an egg hunt, playing with Buddy, skinning elbows on trees, cake and ice cream.

Grandma Susan holding Miriam while Miriam holds a plastic egg and drops a jelly bean.

Seth helping Bekah play the "ocarina whistle" she found while egg hunting.

#3 The Scott hunt
Yesterday after church (where Ana gave her very first talk in Primary), we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Scott's house where we dined on ham and found more eggs. We also played a repetitive game of button, button (for Bekah and Ana's sake), a game of charades (in which Bekah and Ana acted everything out) and made easter baskets (well, Bekah and Ana did).

Analee and Rebekah finishing off the egg hunt while Grandma Scott supervises.

Bekah climbing the swing set while Ana swings.

Bekah and Ana play on the slide while Cousin Bennet watches.

To see more pictures of egg huntin' (and some funny expressions Seth pulls while giving underdogs), click here.

Miri-ism #1

I know, I know. The kid's 1. She doesn't talk (besides "Mama," "Dada," and a few animal sounds). But perhaps an -ism can apply not only to words but also to actions? Sure it can! This is my blog, dangit! (To be said in a Picard-esque voice:) Make it so!

Note: Miriam has been reluctant to even try walking. She's taken a few occasional steps here and there, but mostly she resorts to crawling and cruising around the furniture.

Today after loading dishes, Andrea closed the door to the dishwasher. Miriam, who had been leaning on the door and exploring the contents of the dishwasher, was suddenly standing on her own in the middle of the kitchen.

Andrea: Miriam! Look at you! You're standing all by yourself!
Miriam: Slowly looks down at her feet and legs. When it dawns on her exactly what she's doing, she teeters, totters and topples onto her bum.

Ana the artist

Yesterday Analee drew pictures of (most of) the family. Maybe it's because she has an older sister who models behaviors for her, but Ana draws and writes much better than I would expect from a not-even-4-year-old girl.

Ana made sure to point out that I have a heart-shaped mouth.

(Each of these is a separate piece of paper, but I scanned them and made a composite image.)

Bekahism #39

Bekah had been invited to a birthday party at a restaurant. As Andrea was dropping her off, she reminded Bekah that she had gone to the restaurant once before with her cousins. Bekah tried to remember ...

Bekah: Was it when I was four? 'Cause 5-year-olds don't remember when they were four. That's the weird thing about 5-year-olds.

Miri's 12-month checkup UPDATE

Who knew a 12-month checkup warranted an update?

Yesterday when I got home from chauffeur duties (picking Ana up from preschool, taking Bekah to dance, shopping and picking up Bekah from dance), I noticed that we had a message on our answering machine. I called the pediatrician's office back as they had asked and heard some surprising news. Apparently when the lab ran Miri's blood to check for lead poisoning (because our house was built in 1972), they saw that she's somewhat anemic.

What I don't understand is why that didn't crop up after the hospital's blood test from our recent ER visit. But hey ... maybe the hospital wasn't looking for that?

Anyway, it's a good thing Miriam is such a champ at taking medicine (unlike her eldest sister who always threw it up). We'll be supplementing her diet with iron for the next 30 days and then take her back in to the pediatrician's office to see if it's helping her.

Miri's 12-month checkup

Lucky girl! Miri got to see two doctors in one day! The first was the aforementioned ophthalmologist (DANG! I'm getting so good at spelling that one! I did it on the first try!). The second was the pediatrician. Miriam got more immunizations yesterday (poor girl can't catch a break ... she's getting poked and prodded by everyone, it seems) and her 1-year checkup. Here's how she measured up:

MIRIAM (12.5 months)
Height: 29.75 inches (75th percentile)
Weight: 19 pounds, 5 ounces (20th percentile)
Head circumference: 18.5 inches (93rd percentile)

She still is shrimpy (but if you've seen her at mealtime, you KNOW she's not underfed ... she wolfs down everything in sight), but long and big-headed (as per Grover tradition). I'm still amazed she HAS head circumference percentile.

And because all good parents constantly compare and contrast their children, here are the other girls' stats from about the same time:

ANALEE (13 months)
Height: 30.25 inches (70th percentile)
Weight: 20 pounds, 15 ounces (35th percentile)
Head circumference: I don't have the exact numbers, but it was completely off the charts.

REBEKAH (12 months)
Height: 28 inches (25th percentile)
Weight: 18 pounds, 9 ounces (10th percentile)
Head circumference: See Ana's.

Miri's procedure, Part V (or "The case of the missing plug")

Since the last chapter of the "Miri's Procedure" chronicles, she has been doing fine. No fever. No ER trips. No middle-of-the-night awakenings. We figured we were in the clear until Miri's 6-week post-op checkup when she would have the punctal plug and tube removed from her left eye.

Miri just had a plug on the bottom since her upper tear duct is obstructed by bone.

However, somewhere along the line, Miri took care of the plug herself.

I'm not sure when, how or where the plug and tube went missing, but I do know that when I pulled her lower lid down Sunday to have a peek at the plug, it seemed to be missing. I called the ophthalmologist's office yesterday, and we went in to see the doctor today.

The good news: Even though Miri somehow got her grubby fingers on that tiny plug and pulled it out early, her eyes appear to be just fine. As long as we can keep her sinus-infection free for the next month or so, she should be in the clear. (A sinus infection would cause inflammation that could close up her lower ducts again.)

The bad news: I have no idea where that plug and tube are. Did she ingest it after yanking it from her eye? Is it hiding in her bedding somewhere? Have the big girls found it and used it as an accessory for their Barbies?

We may never know.

Toothless

Bekah's had a loose tooth for ... let's see ... probably months now. I swear, this was the slowest loosening tooth ever. And in the meantime, she was evolving into a shark--a permanent tooth had sprouted up behind her loose tooth.

Although I told Seth that it couldn't be THAT bizarre (after all, I remember my bottom permanent teeth doing the same thing), he was skeptical at best. Finally I decided that it couldn't hurt to call the dentist's office.

The nice lady on the other end of the phone assured me that it wasn't uncommon for that to happen, but she did recommend that Bekah see the dentist because sometimes when the permanent tooth comes up behind, it makes it difficult for the baby tooth to come out.

Bekah was as happy as a clam as we went to the office. "I might get a tooth pulled!" I didn't tell her what that would entail (blood, pain, etc.) just in case it didn't have to come out today.

But the dentist deemed both front teeth worthy of extraction. So Bekah endured the numbing goop. (See how dentistry savvy I am so know such a technical term?) And then the needle came. She squirmed. She cried. She asked for it to stop. When the dentist came in and started moving the baby teeth around, Bekah could still feel it, so the needle came out again. "Not the needle again!" Bekah shrieked. This time around, it took a little more work to keep her still in the chair.

In the end, she survived the trip and came out better for it. Not only did she get to keep her baby teeth and a packet of gauze, but she also got a balloon, a ring and a snazzy tooth-shaped container to put her baby teeth in (one of which she has already lost).

The gaping holes where her teeth used to be. ::Shiver:: Honestly, I don't know how you do it, Jon (my older brother who is a dentist, for those of you who don't know). Even though she's my beautiful daughter, I REALLY don't like looking at those pits in her gums. Kinda gross.

Minus two baby teeth, but plus one permanent tooth. We hope it moves up where it's supposed to go.

Despite her sobbing at the dentist's office, she's all smiles now.

Doing better

I'm happy to report that Miriam has been without a fever for a whole 72 hours now. She's definitely on the mend. However, somewhere along the way, we discovered that she had cut another tooth on the bottom. I wonder what could have distracted us from noticing that ...

Here's a picture to illustrate how happy she's been:

While I was making broccoli cheese soup yesterday, Miriam crawled into the drawer under the oven and played with the pots, pans and spoons that were in there. Why were there spoons in the drawer, you ask? Bekah had been asked to put away all the pots and pans she had gotten out for her "band" the previos day, and apparently she put the "drumsticks" away with the "drums."

Miri's procedure, Part IV

This post isn't actually another step in the procedure. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to call it another update of Part III. But a four-hour trip to the ER deserves its own Roman numeral, don't you agree?

Remember Miri's temperature of 104.6? I thought we had reached the upper limit of her fever at that point. However, the following early morning (Saturday at 3 a.m.), she woke up again with a high fever. Our thermometer read 105. We called the ophthalmologist who asked if she showed any signs of seizing. We told him she wasn't. We gave her more ibuprofen, a sponge bath and finally a full-body lukewarm bath. That brought her temp down to somewhere around 101. We put her back to bed.

The next morning, she acted better and felt less fevered. She had her usual morning nap, and when she woke up, Seth retrieved her from the crib. She felt horrendously warm again, so we checked her temp and immediately packed up the kids, dropped the big girls off at Grandma Susan's house and rushed to the ER. Miri's temperature was 106.

Considering our last ER experience, I figured we were in for a long wait. But after we told the receptionist what Miri's temperature was, we went almost straight to triage and then back to see a nurse and the doctor. The Motrin they gave her brought her temperature down, but the doctor was (rightly) concerned with the height of her fever and number of times it had spiked in the last couple of days. He ordered a chest x-ray, a blood test and a blood culture.

The nurse and I hold Miri still on the bed while another nurse takes an x-ray.

When the results came back, the doctor was confident that Miriam did not have meningitis, which was the worst-case scenario. He and our ophthalmologist agreed that the fever had probably been caused by an infection that had been already present and "stirred up" during the surgery. (Which makes sense since we had to postpone the surgery in the first place due to Miri's sickness.)

The doctor ordered IV antibiotics, and 45 minutes later, we finally left the hospital.

Seth holding Miriam while she checks out her IV.

Gratefully, we all slept through the night last night. And although Miriam still had a fever of 100.5 this morning, the acetaminophen brought it down and and she started acting like her cute self. We'll keep praying for her, but we really think (and hope) that the worst of this is behind us.

Miri's procedure, Part III UPDATE

I figured the day after the surgery (yesterday) would be the worst. Apparently I was wrong.

Miriam had a bit of a fever yesterday, so I took her to a 24-hour care facility since she woke up from her very long afternoon nap after our ophthalmologist's and pediatrician's offices were both closed. The doctor there looked in her ears and mouth and listened to her lungs. He reported that everything looked good and that it's not unusual for babies to get fevers post-op.

Then this morning at 1:30, we awoke to Miri's screams. Seth responded more quickly than I, so he lifted Miri out of her crib and exclaimed, "She's burning up!" I gave her ibuprofen, and Seth and I debated whether one of us should take her to the ER. Instead, we decided to try and lower her temp (104.6°) ourselves by stripping her and putting in a lukewarm bath.

The bath was torturous for everyone involved. Miri screamed like a banshee. I cried. Seth asked if I needed to leave. Then Seth gave Miriam a priesthood blessing of healing. We kept her in the bath a little longer, and then we took her out, dressed her in just a diaper and onesie, and checked her temperature again. We're not exactly sure what it was (we need a new thermometer--her temp ranged from 98 to 101°, according to it), but it had definitely gone down.

I held her for a while in the rocking chair as she snuggled in my arms. The poor girl was exhausted from all the screaming, bathing and fever-having. Eventually, I put her back in bed and she slept until 7 a.m. Remarkably, she didn't have a fever when Seth brought her in to nurse this morning. However, she has one now, so she's been medicated all day, and we're going to go to the ophthalmologist's (INTERRUPTION: That's the first time I've spelled that word correctly without having to use the spell check/suggestions!) office to get an antibiotic later on this afternoon.

Right at this moment, she's acting a little more like herself, but most of the morning she laid around and didn't show much of an interest in anything. We hope she can bounce back to being our sweet, happy little girl soon.

Miri, two days post-op. The bruises have darkened, and she's not as perky. The only thing she's shown much interest in is the camera lens (notice the blobby thumb in the foreground on the left side).

MIri's procedure, Part III (or "The end?")

I'm happy to report that Miriam is alive and well ... um, at least in the process of getting well from her surgery yesterday. I was much calmer this time around since we had already had the dress rehearsal. The anesthesiologist gave her lungs a green light, so the nurses took her back to the operating room as scheduled at 7 a.m.

Miriam hanging out on the baby hospital bed. We kept her entertained with her book and monkey before the surgery.

She also did a bit of exploring before being taken back.

When the doctor was finished, he came out to talk to us. Apparently our kid is even more screwed up than we thought. They couldn't put the tubes in the upper and lower ducts to make a loop because her upper ducts are obstructed by bone that never opened up the way it was supposed to. So, as far as I understand it, the doctor was able to probe through the bone on the right eye in the upper duct, and we put a tube and plug through the lower duct on the left eye.

After that, I don't know anything the doctor said. Miriam had woken up in recovery, and the nurse handed her to me so I could comfort her. I heard something about her possibly needing more surgery later to correct the left eye, but maybe not because some people live whole and happy lives with their upper duct(s) obstructed. I wasn't trying to ignore the man, but I was too wrapped up in caring for my baby.

She was inconsolable and incredibly doped up at first, which is a weird combination. She would squirm and cry, then snooze on my shoulder only to wake up again to squirm and cry some more. After the nurse gave her two different forms of painkiller (IV and oral), she settled down.

Miriam sad and hurting after surgery. She had a drippy, bloody nose for the rest of the day.

Miriam dozing after surgery. Since she hadn't eaten anything that morning, I tried nursing her after surgery; her nose was too stuffy to stay latched on, so we had the nurse fill her sippy cup with apple juice. During her non-dozing moments, she would take a drink from the cup before falling asleep again.

I brought her home, and she slept until about 3 p.m. Then she acted more or less like her cute little self. I could tell she was getting tired after dinner, but I didn't want her napping that late, so we kept her up until 7 p.m., fed her, and put her down for the night.

She woke up this morning at 5:30 crying and with a little bit of a fever. With more ibuprofen and some cuddling and Cosby, she settled down but didn't go back to sleep until her regular morning nap time.

Today was an ordinary day except for the looks I got from people in Winco (I swear, people ... I don't beat my 1-year-old) and Miri falling asleep in my arms while I was visiting teaching.

We'll go back to the ophthalmologist's office to remove the tube in the left eye's lower duct in 6-8 weeks. This time, I won't be too preoccupied to ask the doctor some questions about what happened and what happens next.

Miri, one day post-op. She's swollen and bruised, but she's still smiling (and eating, if any of those crumbs did, in fact, make it into her mouth).

Miriam is 1

Yesterday we celebrated Miriam's first birthday with an ocean-themed party. We wanted to make sure that we made it a night to remember, so we flew out to the coast and rented a yacht big enough to accommodate all 100 of our closest friends and family members. The glass-blowing classes I've taken turned out to be very useful since I wanted to have custom-made centerpieces that reflect different types of oceanic life. The sea turtles proved to be the most difficult to create. I also made a seafood buffet complete with caviar. Miri delved into the seven-tier cake (one tier for each of the seas). The trained dolphins did a marvelous job of using bike horns to play "Happy Birthday" so that we could sing along.

All right, so the above paragraph is all one huge lie. Wait ... that last sentence is a lie. Because the first six words were true.

We did, in fact, celebrate Miriam's birthday yesterday by going to church, letting her take a nap when we got home, eating dinner together and then having the grandparents over for presents and cupcakes. Behold!

Analee and Rebekah help Miriam open her presents while Grandma Susan and Grandpa Dennis watch. (Grandpa had shoulder surgery two weeks ago, hence the sling.) I had to keep retrieving Miri and putting her back in front of the presents; she was too interested in saying hello to everybody.

Analee helping Miriam try on her princess bath towel that Grandma Scott made. Miriam wasn't too interested in wearing the towel. Ana, on the other hand, pranced and swayed in it all night.

Miriam sucking on the bottom of her cupcake. She held this pose for five minutes. Notice the big smear of frosting on her tray along with the drops of dried wax from her candle. Seth had to yank it out of the way when she reached for the flame.

The face of a happy one-year-old who loved her cupcake.

Grandma Scott holding a now clean and undressed Miriam while she plays with the English/Spanish radio she got from Seth and me.

To see more pictures, click here.

Miriam is scheduled to have her one-year checkup this Wednesday, but I have to reschedule it because she's also scheduled to have her tear duct intubation the same day. So I'll post her weight and height later.

Miriam knows how to say "bye" (and wave), "oo ah" (what a monkey says), "getcha" (which is accompanied by her opening and closing her fists to demonstrate that she wants you to tickle her) and "mom" (which she says if she wants anybody, not just me). She cruises all along the furniture, and she has taken a few steps on her own, but usually she chickens out when we encourage her to walk and crawls instead. She has been able to climb up the stairs for some time now, but in the last few days she has figured out how to go down the stairs as well. She has the most incredibly ticklish feet. Miriam loves to tell people what a fish says (done by pushing the lips together and pulling them apart quickly to make a popping sound) and amuses herself by clicking her tongue on the roof of her mouth.

She's a sweet, mellow little girl who loves her sisters, parents, grandparents and other family members. She also loves her jungle animal blankie and sleeps with it every night; we often find corners of it wet from where she has sucked on it.