A surprise trip the hospital

Last week on Monday I called our pediatrician about a spider bite on Anna's bottom. It wasn't healing and Anna had finally admitted after her nap that "bum hurt!" (at this point, the bite had been oozing a little brown liquid every time I changed her diaper)
The nurse who I was talking to suggested that we come in to have it checked out because what I was describing sounded like it could also be a staph infection.
We had the last appointment of the day at 5:50 pm. I thought we would go in, get some cream or some medication and be home for dinner. When we got there, the doctor confirmed that it was staph and instead of a large spider bite, it was a golf-ball sized abscess that needed to be drained at the hospital. So without going home, we went straight to Seattle Children's hospital and got checked into the Emergency room.
We were told that Anna could not eat or drink anything. The hours passed, we watched Disney movie after Disney movie, and Anna got more and more irritable. Finally, after numerous doctors had examined Anna's bum, we were told that even the Emergency room was not equipped to deal with the abscess. Anna would need to have it surgically drained under sedation. This was about midnight. Anna had been freaking out due to exhaustion for about an hour and finally collapsed on my chest, so thankfully she has no memory of being sedated. But I will remember forever them taking my sleeping child off my chest and laying her on an operating table.

Around 2:30 in the morning, we finally got our girl back. They had inserted a penrose drain in the incisions to help the abscess continue to drain over the next few days and Anna would need to remain in the hospital for another two days. We hadn't brought anything with us because we had no expectation that any hospital stay would be involved. Richard finally went home around 3:00 am while I let Anna sleep on my chest in a rocking chair in her room. Richard would come back the next morning to bring us some supplies.

Two days after our surprise trip to the emergency room, I took this picture of Anna's high chair, exactly as I left it when we went to her doctor appointment-- complete with remnants of Anna's dinner.
Anna was a miserable little girl during our two days in the hospital. She had a I.V. going through her foot, which restricted her movement to about an 8-foot radius. She also couldn't have any visitors under 10 years old, and she couldn't leave her room. So she either slept on me in the rocking chair, or she watched Toy Story (over and over and over again). She didn't sleep much at night because the nurses had to check her vitals every hour. Needless to say, we let her eat pretty much all the fruit snacks she wanted.
My mom sent this cute bouquet to cheer Anna up. Going through this experience made me miss my family and Utah more than ever. Because Richard and I had to go through this alone. There was no one to relieve us, or bring us anything, or take a shift at the hospital. Having no family around was really hard.
Anna is doing well. It turns out she did have MRSA (a resistant form of staph infection that can be especially dangerous if it is not caught soon enough). She is almost done with her antibiotics (but we have to wake her up in the middle of the night for one of her doses-- which makes her hopping mad) and she finally got the drain taken out on Monday and her wounds are healing nicely. She really was a trooper. I just hoped that she understood that everything that happened was for her good to help her get better. She is so trusting of us, and I hope she forgets everything that happened over the last week. Richard and I are still catching up on sleep, but over all, we are all recovering.

If your child ever seems to have an unexplainable "bite" somewhere, please get it checked out or at least call to talk to a nurse. I sometimes wonder if we could have avoided the whole hospital experience if we had checked out her spider bite as soon as we saw it, instead of waiting a few days.

Mexico-- there we go-ed

Richard and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary in Mexico this year in early May. This was our first trip together, alone, since Anna was born. We were both so giddy...we could stay up late, eat a restaurants without taking a diaper bag...in fact, we didn't have a diaper bag AT ALL. Wow. It was like we were dating again-- with a few extra perks we didn't have when we were dating.
We decided on Puerto Vallarta, and have decided to make that our new winter/summer/all season home...as soon as we can afford it. It is THE BEST place to go in Mexico. Fairly inexpensive and beautiful, and unlike Cancun, you actually feel like you are in Mexico.

and probably the thing we were most excited about, besides being in a sunny place on the ocean without a child for 5 days, was the food. We took as many pictures of our food as we did the scenery. I have chosen only a couple to highlight our culinary delight!

And the thing I never forget to do on any vacation...is exercise. And I always make do with what is available. On our first morning in Puerto Vallarta, I got to have my own personal Zumba lesson (I was the only one who showed up). Not only did I keep up with my instructor, but later that day some of the hotel patrons stopped me to ask me how I had picked up the dancing so quickly (Apparently I had become somewhat of the morning entertainment for those guests lounging by the pool).
There is an absolutely wretched movie entitled "The Night of the Iguana" that was made in the 1960's that was filmed in Puerto Vallarta. We tried to watch it prior to coming out here, but it was so lame that we had to turn it off. A much better movie to watch is "Predator" with Arnold Swarzenegger, which was filmed about 3 miles from where we were staying!

One of our favorite things to do was watch the Sunset at night by the beach. This was the thing Richard was most looking forward to. That, and an endless supply of Pina Coladas! I know it is not a foodie thing to say, but we love all inclusive resorts! This was our first time staying at one, and we are both converted. On our honeymoon to Maui, we brought food with us in our suitcase-- dried pasta, oatmeal packets, some beans, and we tried to save money by doing about half of our meals in our hotel room. And all of our vacations have been that way. Until now...
Our hotel was nestled right in this cove, so you couldn't see any other hotels and you could just enjoy the beautiful landscape and really feel like you were isolated at the end of the world somewhere!

one of our excursions was to a little fishing village a boatride away.
we look awesome!
I looked EXTRA awesome, so I got an extra picture!
the obligatory "take it yourself" picture that happens on all vacations! I am pretty darn good at them I think.
between the two of us, I am the much better barterer. Probably because I don't speak Spanish, so I can pretend to just not hear them and be a stubborn American, but mostly for my general apathy toward merchandise in general. I didn't need anything, and I certainly didn't need two of anything, so unless they offered me an awesome deal, I could just walk away.
Richard's weak point was Anna. He could barter great...until someone offered us something pink and cute and fit for a little girl, then Richard couldn't bear to say no. And to his credit, the dress he bought for WAY too much has become Anna's favorite dress and she wears it EVERY day.
Happy four years to us. This is hte restaurant AT our hotel. Pretty awesome that we got a great view of the sunset while we had our romantic dinner.
We felt very sophisticated and grown up. I guess when you are 30 you should feel that every once in awhile.
Richard loved this place.
The staff at the hotel was awesome. Everyone was so accomodating and nice. They made us this special dessert for our anniversary. ONe of the things I love about all-inclusive resorts...I got to order as many desserts as I wanted...at the same meal. So if I had a hard time choosing which one I wanted, I just got both, or all.
This photo of me on the horse was the last picture that we took on our vacation. Because Richard dropped the camera into the river at this point. Luckily, despite some trauma, it survived.
We knew we needed to take a vacation like this NOW, because you never know what life will bring, and after a long busy season, and rainy season, and child raising season, we both needed a break. Mexico gave us the fresh air and perspective we needed to come back and tackle real life again. But mostly, it reminded us that we love to spend time together-- a good thing to remember, especially when you are married!

Words, words, words

Anna has been talking up a storm lately, and I know that a good mom would carefully and meticulously write down every new word as they came... but I am not that kind of mom. No one ever followed me around writing down everything that I said (not that I didn't want them to, and I had plenty of good things to say)

and besides, Anna doesn't have the patience for stuff like that. Words are not coming one at a time, they are coming paragraph by paragraph. Anna could practically write a book with all the words she knows. And the book would be called "Anna's turn, run run run, its funny"

So rather than make a list of the words that Anna has been saying lately, I thought it would be easier to list the words that she doesn't say yet:

sanctimonious
unrefuted
preposterous
indubitably
parochial
clandestine
melancholy
superfluous
hydrogenated
retroactive

mythological

she says pretty much everything else, and for the most part uses them in the proper context. Except that "share" means "grab it to your body and don't let anyone else touch it"...so, we are working on that. In the meantime, Anna has decided to become a ghost writer with the pen name "Anna" (she thought it would be clever because its her name backwards...).

We love our little legolept! (a "lover of words." She also doesn't say the word legolept)

Some well deserved spousal praise

I would like to take a moment to publicly acknowledge Richard's awesomeness. And no, this isn't for his birthday, or father's day, or our anniversary...

it is because he didn't thrash me when I lost my wedding rings.

Now, I have misplaced my rings before. I have found them in the washing machine, and in pants pockets, and in the bottom of the laundry basket. But only once have I absolutely lost them without the faintest idea of where they could be. I found myself in that position a couple of weeks ago. I had checked all the usual places. I take my rings off to cook, clean, exercise, and sleep, and they have always been in logical places. Occasionally I go a day or two without wearing them, but I realized one day that it had been several days since I had seen them...and the scary part was that I couldn't remember when I last had them on, or what I was doing when I apparently took them off.

Richard often kids me about my poor memory. I can't seem to remember anything prior to 1998, and even more recent memories seem to vaporize like smoke within a couple of months, but my memory has never put anything of real value in danger (I always remember where I put Anna, for instance).

But I had really lost my rings. I searched in the logical places. I searched in the illogical places (like our compost bags, and the rest of the garbage...yuck, yuck, and double yuck!!). I practically crawled throughout our entire house, checking every place three or four times. And I prayed...REALLY prayed to find them. But as each day passed, the hope of finding them seemed to get smaller and smaller.

Eventually, I had to tell Richard. He was the one that bought them for me, after all. And their value was much more than just sentimental.... I miserably thought that Richard would never buy me another piece of jewelry again that was not from Wal-Mart or out of a Cracker Jack box! I felt that I deserved to wear plastic for the rest of my life.

Richard would have been justified in being VERY mad at me, or at least in being very very moody for a week.

But when I told him, all he said was "well, what could you do next time to make sure this doesn't happen again?"

and we brainstormed different ways I could be more meticulous about keeping track of my rings. (my mom's advice was to never take them off-- "a dirty ring is better than no ring"-- kind of sounds like Poor Richard's almanac)

I was really proud of him. He could have thrashed me. He could have berated me. He could have blamed me and vowed to never spend money on me again, but instead he acted thoughtfully and with compassion.

I DID find my rings!

They were in the sink drain of our bathroom. I had not thought to look there because we have hair traps over all the drains. As I was getting ready to both head out to Utah and throw in the towel as regards the ring, I thought to remove the trap and take a peek. There I saw two silver bands halfway down the drain, caught on an orthodontic toothbrush that had fallen into the drain months ago that I had never retrieved. I never would have seen them otherwise. I was able to get them out in just a minute or two.

Prayers work!

So, while this post is the story of how I lost and found my rings, what I really want to emphasize is how awesome my husband is. Way to go Richard. YOu could have justifiably put me in the stocks and made me wear ring pops for the rest of my life. But you didn't!

Anna videos: "Blue/Pink Anna" and "Peanut Butter Bliss"

The first video I took a couple of weeks ago. Anna is wearing the pink dress we brought her back from Mexico and which she has insisted on wearing almost every day since then. She has a definite affinity for pink which was not planted or cultivated by us. She is obsessed with colors these days. Everything is associated by its color-- even Richard and I. Depending on what I wear, I am "green mama" or "black mama."
Anna says one of her most common phrases at the end of the video-- "fig it" (fix it).

The second video is proof eternal that she is her daddy's daughter. She pounded about a half a cup of peanut butter in one sitting and would have continued had I not stopped her. She likes to eat it with a spoon.

The only picture I have...

On the first day of my vacation, my camera ran out of batteries, and I packed the wrong charger for it, so the only picture I have to commemorate my first annual girls weekend, was this picture of "Izzie."

and yes, that's a dog, not a horse (a Borzoi to be exact). And she currently makes up one half of my sister's room-mates. The other room-mate is Marco (also a Borzoi), who is immature, rebellious, and naughty. He ate half my chocolate upon arrival, unzipping my backpack and making himself at home with 3 or 4 gourmet chocolate bars that I had been saving to share with my sisters. He is even bigger than Izzie.

When I say my sister shares her home with them, she literally shares her home with them. They sleep on her bed, drink from her toilet, and help themselves to whatever food you may have unwittingly left out on the counter. In fact, my second night there, Izzie was occupying the entirety of the bed I planned to sleep in and was growling just enough to make me move to the couch.

But in their defense, they sure love my sister and she loves them. And they have been faithful and true to her through everything. And they may be a handful, but I sure felt safe when I was sleeping in the same house with them.

Girls weekend was really good. I got to see my mom and sisters, some of my best friends in the world from our time in Provo, and the ladies of the law-- the 4 women with whom I went through police academy and clerking at the court.

Richard, on the other hand, had his first full 24 hours of being solely responsible for Anna. He loved the first 18 of them...

Hopefully, girls weekend will become a yearly thing. It is always worth it to get together with women who inspire you. LIke Jane Austen. I have been getting together with her almost every night. I have seen 4 adaptations of her novels and I have 4 left to go!

Little Si revisited

A year and a half ago we hiked "Little Si" with our then 4 month old daughter. She is now a bursting 22 month old, and while the hike was just as beautiful now as it was then, our trip was a lot more "interactive" than it was the last time.

the hike included:

3 renditions of "Old McDonald had a farm"
12 (or more) recitations of "Chicka Chicka ABC" (all of then just a little different because I couldn't remember the book precicesly).
2 renditions of "Baby Beluga"
3 family wolf howlings (the Rose wolf family that is)
2 searches for bears
2 bridge crossings in crocodile territory (one there, and one on the way back!)
a couple of Anna chasings
1 caterpillar spotting and petting
and endless "I spy the color green..."

We had a great time!