Frijoles

Before I got pregnant with Lily, my main source of information about pregnancy was the stuff I'd seen on TV and in movies: women with dramatic mood swings and strange, middle-of-the-night cravings for things like pistachio yogurt topped with hot peppers that they just had to have right this minute. Once I got pregnant, I realized that none of that stuff really applied to me. While I did have a couple of food aversions (most notably to sausage), I never had any of those "get this particular food in my belly right this minute" cravings. My one and only craving during my entire pregnancy was a pretty strong love for refried beans. I ate them a lot. A lot. I bought them in bulk at Costco and would make dinners such as "bean burritos with a side of beans." I've always been someone who enjoyed refried beans, but certainly never to the degree I did while pregnant.

Lily is a pretty adventurous eater, and is willing to try just about anything I put in front of her. There are things she doesn't like (Mandarin oranges) and things she likes a lot (pasta). But when it comes to Lily's absolute favorite food, there's no contest. Hands down, without a doubt, it's refried beans. That kid loves her frijoles.

If we're eating them, she'll flail her arms around to get our attention and demand we give her a bite:


When we give her bites, she gobbles them up as fast as she can, usually saying, "Mmm! Mmm!" as she swallows:


She'll eat as many as we're willing to give her, then smile happily at her luck.


So the question is, did my consumption of so many beans during pregnancy cause Lily's love of refried beans? Or did Lily's love of refried beans cause me to eat so many when pregnant?

Helping Out

Last night Jason and JJ went out on the patio with some starter trays and planted a bunch of vegetable seeds. Lily wanted in on the action, so I went outside and let her "help" them while I strung up some twinkle lights on the patio.


Turns out Lily isn't *quite* ready to be a great gardener, so I brought her inside with me while I got dinner ready. Unfortunately, she still wanted to be outside with Jason and JJ.


She stood up at the back door, staring out at them and occasionally banging on the glass and yelling, "Dada! Dada!" to get Jason's attention. Poor thing. Fortunately, she likes to "help" in the kitchen just as much as she likes to "help" in the yard, so she came in to assist with dinner preparations.


Apparently she anticipated a lot of leftovers.

Television

I've been pretty lucky so far with Lily when it comes to TV: she hasn't been interested in it at all. Lately, though, she's starting to show a little interest at what's on, particularly if JJ is watching cartoons. I understand that, to some extent, TV is going to be an inevitable part of her life. As such, I decided I needed to find some shows that would be good for her to watch if/when she wants to have something on while playing.

I learned two important things in my quest for good children's programming:

1. There are a lot of terrible kids' shows out there.
2. There are also some really fantastic kids' shows out there.

The terrible kids' shows shall go unnamed, but I will make mention of my favorites, which are all (perhaps not surprisingly) on PBS.

Far and away, my favorite show is Super Why. It's about a group of kids (and one pig) in StoryBrook Village, a land located behind the shelves of the library. The kids moonlight as a band of superheroes called "The Super Readers."


When the Super Readers face a problem in life, they adjourn to the Book Club, where they find the answer to their problem within a book. Each of them has a different super power (alphabet power, word power, spelling power, and the power to read). It is adorable, educational, and fosters a love of words and reading. Where can you go wrong? I've set it to record on my DVR every day so I've got a backlog of episodes saved and can play one any time I choose.

And honorable mentions go out to my other favorite PBS shows: Martha Speaks (Lily loves this one because the main character is a family dog), Dinosaur Train, and Sid the Science Kid.

Ideally Lily won't watch much TV. However, I know it's not something we can avoid completely, so it's great to know that when she does want to watch something, we can satisfy that desire with shows that are smart and commercial-free. (Studies show the commercial-free aspect is actually incredibly important for small kids, who are very susceptible to advertising and unable to differentiate between commercials and regular programming.) Thank goodness PBS is successfully filling that void with a number of offerings.

It's Official

Last summer, after Jason and I had been dating for a while, I introduced him to Lily. She was instantly smitten.



Not too much longer after that, Lily met Jason's son JJ and was pretty crazy about him from the start as well.


As time has passed, the bond has grown stronger.





I think it's safe to say that Lily truly loves Jason and JJ.



Yesterday, I got Lily dressed up in her prettiest dress.


We loaded into the car with Jason and JJ.


And we all headed down to the courthouse and made it official.


We're a family now.

Hoop Dreams

One nice feature of our new house is that it has a basketball hoop in the driveway. Shortly after we moved in, I got a basketball and a new net for the hoop. While Gampy was in town, he got it all set up for JJ, who has spent many hours at the hoop since then.

Today was a truly gorgeous day -- it was sunny and in the upper-60s -- so when Jason and JJ went out to play horse this evening, I scooped Lily up and went outside to watch. In doing so, I learned something new about Lily: she loves basketball. She was watching JJ and Jason get warmed up, flashing them huge smiles and laughing each time they'd make a shot. When JJ passed the ball to me and I took a couple of one-handed shots (I was holding her on my hip with the other hand), she went crazy. We tried to teach her some fundamentals. For example, she loves to play catch with little balls or soft blocks inside, so we thought maybe she'd want to toss the basketball. However, when Jason would hand it to her she would just smile and hold onto it, unwilling to let it out of her clutches.


Who knew Lily would be a sports enthusiast?

Who's the Fairest of Them All?

After moving into this house, I noticed that it was taking Lily a lot longer to fall asleep when I put her down for naps. Instead of going right to sleep like she used to, she would babble for a long time after being put down. She was still going to sleep quickly at night, but would be in there talking for long periods of time during the day before finally nodding off. At first I thought maybe it was adjusting to the new room that was causing it. Then I wondered if maybe the time change was messing with her sleep cycle. Jason and I also talked about how at around one year old, kids often change their sleep cycle to sleep less during the day.

The actual answer was none of those things. The actual answer stems from the fact that Lily's new bedroom has mirrored closet doors, and Lily's crib is on the wall across the room from the closet. She was taking a long time to fall asleep at naptime because instead of napping, she was standing or sitting up in her crib and chatting with herself in the mirror. It wasn't affecting her nighttime routine at all because at night it's too dark in there for her to see herself in the mirror.

I figured this out after sneaking up on her while she was supposed to be napping. I caught her in the act: she was standing up, staring into the mirror and grinning at herself, babbling away with some story only she (and her mirror friend) could understand. To test my theory, I tried pushing the closet door open when putting her down so that it was no longer visible from her crib. Lo and behold, she fell asleep immediately.

Peekaboo

When I sat down to make this post, I was trying to think of what pithy things I could say about this series of pictures.

Then I realized that the pictures speak for themselves.

RSV Update

Today was Lily's first follow-up appointment with her regular pediatrician. He was amazed at how different she looked and sounded from Friday. There's no more wheezing or crackling in her lungs, her color is back, her energy is up, and she's playful again. When he unzipped her pajamas to listen to her chest, she thought he was trying to tickle her, so she threw her arms up in the air and stuck out her belly as far as she could to enable the process. Sadly for her, there were no tickles forthcoming.

The result of the appointment was that we can turn down her oxygen a little, but can't take her off of it, even during waking times. I was hoping she could be downgraded to just using it when sleeping, but I won't be discouraged. Any progress is good.

On the way out the door, the receptionist waved goodbye to us, so Lily waved bye-bye to her, the other receptionist, and all the patients in the lobby, then blew them all a few kisses for good measure. That's my girl. Here's a shot of her smiling to let me know the oxygen can't keep her down:


On a related note, today I went and saw my doctor and was told I've contracted Lily's RSV. It's much milder and less dangerous in adults, but still a bummer. Hopefully we'll all be feeling healthy by the end of next week in time for the wedding.

The RSV Story

For the past few weeks, Lily has had an off and on cough. Nothing major, just a little cough. Two and a half weeks ago, the cough was accompanied by a fever. I took her to the pediatrician, who diagnosed an ear infection and started her on ten days of antibiotics. The same day she finished her antibiotics (a Sunday), she showed signs of pink eye (which had been going around her daycare). We went back to the pediatrician the next day, and the pediatrician said the ear infection had gone away and the signs of pink eye were almost nonexistent. We got some antibiotic eye drops and went on our way thinking all was well.

Fast forward to Thursday night. Lily, who is usually a fantastic sleeper and never wakes up during the night, woke up three times with a little cough and some mild diarrhea. Nothing serious and her breathing was normal. Friday morning her spirits were good and she seemed fine, so I took her to daycare and went to work. About an hour and a half after I dropped her off at daycare, her teacher called and said Lily was having trouble breathing and was acting semi-lethargic. I went straight to daycare and got her, making a call to the pediatrician on the way to let them know I was bringing Lily in immediately.

We got to the pediatrician's office at about 9:30, and they checked her blood oxygen level. It was low (mid-80s), so they whisked us back and started trying different things. They gave her albuterol (a drug used on asthmatics that increases airflow to the lungs), but there was no change. They put her on oxygen, then gave her more albuterol, then more oxygen. Nothing worked. After three hours of efforts there, her doctor called an ambulance and sent us to the pediatric E.R. at the UNM hospital. Jason arrived at the pediatrician's office just in time to give me a hug, tell me it was going to be ok, and follow me to the hospital.

By this point Lily's oxygen saturation would drop into the low-80s if they took her off oxygen. She was also running a low fever. They were giving her large amounts of oxygen. She was tired, refused to eat, and was cranky and a bit lethargic. In the emergency room she was started on antibiotics (the ear infection looked like it was coming back) and Tylenol for the fever. They did a viral swab, took x-rays, and ran some bloodwork. They knew they wanted to officially admit her, but the pediatric wing was full, so we had to just wait around in the E.R. until a bed was available. Meanwhile, she was getting dehydrated, but when they tried to start an IV, her veins wouldn't support it. They told us to give her a bottle. She drank about four ounces of it, then promptly threw it all up. At that point she had a full face oxygen mask on, so she vomited into her mask. It was quite an ordeal. Eventually she was cleaned up and successfully given an IV for fluids, and we were transferred to the general pediatric wing at about nine or ten Friday night. While we were still in the E.R., Emily and Thomas had brought dinner and my car to the hospital, so once Lily was settled in Jason stayed with her while I went home, took care of the dogs, got cleaned up, took a nap, and got toiletries and clothes for Jason.

Saturday was a bad day. Lily just wanted to sleep it off on me, but her cough was pretty bad. They started talking to me and Jason about possible permanent damage to her lungs (most likely in the form of asthma). Here's Lily, trying to get a little rest that day:


Saturday night was pretty bad. Lily's cough was getting worse and worse, and the doctor talked privately with Jason about the possibility of intubation. I went home a bit after eleven to let the dogs in and get some sleep while Jason stayed up overnight with Lily. We were anticipating that Sunday would be a terrible day, and Jason knew he'd have to leave the hospital to get JJ and wouldn't be able to come back, so I was bracing myself for a long day.

I got back to the hospital at 7:30 Sunday morning. I walked in and Jason and Lily both looked up at me. Jason looked like absolute hell, but Lily looked slightly better. She'd stayed up all night coughing and coughing, but it did her a world of good. She was able to cough enough to clear out her lungs a bit. Here she is on Sunday, feeling well enough to sit up and read a book in her crib.


She started taking bottles again a little better, so with a full belly and lungs that were starting to work a little better, she mostly just wanted to sleep. Jason shared that feeling.


Late Sunday morning the doctors came around and deemed her progress "miraculous." They couldn't believe the improvement. They turned her oxygen off to see what would happen, and she did ok. Not great or normal, but ok.

As such, we were released Sunday afternoon. We've got an oxygen tank for Lily, so she has to wear a nasal cannula at all times (it's especially important when she sleeps). She needs a lot of monitoring and help sleeping, because the cough can still keep her awake a bit. Fortunately, my saintly parents arrived into town Sunday night to help. At bedtime Sunday night, it was my mom who sat up in the rocker with Lily, keeping her upright so she could stave off the cough enough to fall asleep.


We're looking at one to two weeks of after care that includes home oxygen, and there's still a chance for permanent damage from all of this, but we are optimistic. She is a very strong, robust girl, I'm hopeful that her spunky spirit will help her heal faster.