Living Life Through Pictures

I evidently live my live through pictures......very large sized pictures.  I have run out of my alloted free space in Picasa, hence my lack of picture posts.  This problem will be getting fixed soon so I can continue to live my life through pictures.

I thought since the blog is having a sabbatical from pictures, I would write about some new Amelia tricks.

Shrug her shoulders - up - down - up - down

Furrow her brow into a 'serious' look

Blow kisses.....sort of.....more like put her hand up to her mouth and lick her hand

Fill her hands full of food and then smash it into her hair

Lean over in her high chair and wait until you lean over too, then laugh

Kiss daddy with a little chomp....working towards the closed kiss

Bang and dig through cupboards

Still has her little light, but is really starting to rock out with it

Her laugh has changed to a belly laugh

Shake her head no

Nod her head yes

Go limp like a noodle when she doesn't want to do something

Push things......like the kitchen chair.....as far as she can

Bounce so hard she is almost jumping

And my favorite, randomly come and give you hugs

Results

Today I got a call from the endocrinologist and she let me know that all the tests Amelia had on Sunday turned out normal!!!!  She said the low blood sugar was in fact a result of the fasting over night and reassured me there are no underlying issues that caused the episode!  Amelia also no longer has to have her blood sugar taken in the morning!  

Thank you God for protecting our little girl! Amen.

Thank you for all of your prayers and support during this scary time for us.  We truly appreciate it.

God is in Control

Yesterday......its a day to be remembered.  Not for how wonderful or special it was, but more for its fear and realities you just can't control.   It started at 7:37 am, bright and early.  Amelia kind of 'cried out' and I heard her move around a bit.  I waited to see if she would fall asleep again, but by 7:45, she cried a little more and I decided I would get up with her and let Patrick sleep.   I got her up and she would take a few steps and just kind of loose her balance an plop over.  Not totally abnormal, but she just didn't seem herself...she cried a little and we ended up sitting in the hallway between her room and the bathroom, her head in my lap and falling asleep.  I decided to put her in bed with Patrick - which is completely unlike me and us for that matter.  We don't really do the co-sleeping thing, but I just did it because at the time it just seemed right. 

30 min later, Patrick gets up with Amelia.  She continues to be soooo tired, she just lays on the floor whenever she can.   Why is she so tired?  Well, I guess lets put her in her own bed for a bit. 

30 min later, Patrick gets Amelia up from her bed because he was getting worried.  She is STILL soooo tired.  But now when ever we try to get her to stand, she collapses to the floor practically asleep.  You try and sit her up, she falls over.  Something is seriously wrong with this child.

What do we do?!  I didn't want to go to urgent care and sit for 3 hrs and have nothing accomplished with this lethargic baby girl.  Luckily, Minneapolis has wonderful pediatric hospitals, so we decided to go to Children's Hospital.  Trying to keep Amelia awake on the way down was quite a challenge, especially since we didn't know if she should sleep or not.  It was such a long ride.

We get to the emergency room and we go through the same basic story multiple times, for the doctor and nurses.  They have us do the sitting thing and standing thing and she once again, she collapses and falls to the side.  They agree, something is definitely wrong.  The nurse has to get an IV into Amelia's hand.  She was so brave and let them.  Multiple blood samples later, they do a 'quick blood sugar' test.  Her number is 52.  Its supposed to be 100.  So the initial diagnosis is low blood sugar.

The other blood tests are sent to the lab and we wait to see what they come back with.  Her blood sugar is lower than the quick one and comes back as 46.   As a scale - 60 is considered low.  Thankfully all the other tests came back normal.  So they give Amelia a glucose shot to get her blood sugar level to go up.  And they also decide to give her an IV because she was also dehydrated.  

Time really just didn't seem normal, it went incredibly fast and yet so insanely slow, so after a while....maybe an hour, they checked the blood sugar level again and it was up to 92 - much much better.

The IV drip was going for a good hour to hour an a half.   It sounded like the low blood sugar was the diagnosis.  The ER doctor needed to call the endocrinologist to make sure all was good.   She wanted more tests, which for our little pumpkin....meant more pokes and prods.   But once they were all done with those we were finally able to go home after 6 hours.

So what's next?  Well, its a 90% chance that Amelia has ketonic hypoglycemia.  If this is the case, we need to give Amelia a complex carbohydrate snack before bed.  The reason for the drop in blood sugar is due to the long fast (aka sleeping).  We also have to take her blood sugar level each morning...more pokes - bummer.  This morning it was 84, so that was I think pretty good.  The ER doc said that typically these episodes don't usually happen repeatedly, so hopefully that is the case for our girl.
But, we still have results that need to come back.  So next Wednesday, we have a follow-up with the endocrinologist to get test results back and provide Amelia's blood sugar.

Out of control is pretty much a nutshell of how I feel.  But God is.  He is bigger than me, than Patrick and Amelia.  So prayers will be my method in this situation.  Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and lifting up Amelia in your prayers.  We will continue to keep you up to date with Amelia's happenings.   Amelia was her normal self today, which we are so incredibly grateful.

What a Nap!

Last weekend we got Amelia up from a nap.  She must have really enjoyed it....as an indication from her hair!

 

Dear God....

We returned home tonight from a great weekend (will post on that later), but the night just seemed to be turning into 'one of those nights.'  So far this was our night....

a cry at everything Amelia - (wailing),

dogs excited to be home from the kennel,

a spilled glass of milk,

stop dogs from drinking milk,

start cleaning up the milk,

burn first grilled cheese - start next one,

stop dogs from drinking milk again,

continue cleaning up spilled milk,

dogs don't stop - outside they go,

start chicken noodle soup,

2nd burnt grilled cheese - start the next one (note to self: DON'T BURN),

(while pointing) - 'uh, uh, uh, uh' - Amelia supper isn't ready yet, you'll have to wait,

fill up cup of milk again (make sure lid is on) give to Amelia,

cut up 1st burnt grilled cheese for Amelia and give to her - yum supper,

finally - 3rd grilled cheese - not burnt - lucky Patrick!

get Amelia her soup, Patrick his soup, me my soup. 

The eating part of supper.....relatively non-eventful, with the exception of Joey howling like she was dying because she was stuck outside and Indie barking like it was a new favorite toy because we failed to put his bark collar on while pushing him outside so he didn't make a bigger mess of the spilled milk.

Ahh, breath. 

But it continued like this......

Off to take Amelia's bath.....

I was getting her room ready for bed and Patrick was getting the bath and Amelia ready

we always strip her down to her diaper and then take it off last minute before putting her in her tub.

So it went a little something like this.....

"Help, help, Kathy get a rag, hurry! Oh NO!"

I run in there

Patrick is holding Amelia,

Little dark thing drops from her to the floor....

"She pooped, She pooped!"

Patrick goes to set Amelia down to help manage the situation....

Amelia manages to step right in the poop

"Oh NOOO!" 

Amelia gets picked up again.

I run to get wipes

Wipe her feet, wipe her rear.

"Amelia, you had a hidden turd wedge"

Amelia gets plopped into the tub

Wipe up the poop on the floor.

Finish Amelia's bath.

Off to bed she goes.

Dear God - Please help us get through the rest of this week.  Amen

Yes, that dark thing is the poo

Iowa State Fair

A couple of weeks ago we went to visit Uncle James, Aunt Jenna, Olivia and Auntie Amber in their new place and to go to the Iowa State Fair!

Aunt Amber with Amelia

We went to the kids section of the fair, which was the first time I had ever been there.  I was really impressed - how fun for little kids.  I was at first worried Amelia would be too young, but she got right in there and made sure she did everything!

First you had to get an apron

Then you had to get a hat on - they were huge!

And then you had to pick up a basket to collect stuff in.  Amelia insisted that she was going to carry her basket and wanted no help!

Amelia and Olivia with their baskets

Once they had their baskets they had to go 'pick' vegetables.  Amelia really liked onions and tomatoes.

The lines were pretty long and we of course didn't help because we were rather slow, which was ok, since we were soaking it all in and enjoying ourselves (and we had short legs).  At one point, we had to wait in line, but from Amelia's view - that was not necessary - she snuck through and went in front of all the people in line before us!  We had to quick grab her before she got too far!

Amelia carrying her basket.

Uncle James pushing Olivia on a tractor

After getting vegetables, you walked around and picked different stuff up at all these little stations along the path.  I think this one was wool.

Amelia holding her wool.   She let daddy hold her basket for a while since it was getting heavy.

The moms trailing behind with the strollers!

Daddy and Amelia on the cow

Uncle James and Olivia tried the cow out too!

After going to all the stations, you would turn your produce in for money.  This is Amelia holding on very tightly to her money.  She was able to 'buy' some raisins, which we found out are a favorite during the Michigan trip.  She was thrilled!

A picture of all of us

After the kids section, we went to see the babies of the fair.  These were the ducks.

Amelia really liked looking at the animals and she would point and say 'da'

Daddy and Amelia looking at the lambs

These are baby ostriches - I had never seen them before, so I had to take a picture

Go Hawks!

Who can resist these girls?!

While at the fair we ran into Uncle Mark, Auntie Mel, Paige and Alaina.  So we spent some time hanging out together.

Some deep conversations between Alaina and Unkie

Amelia with Auntie Amber's sunglasses on!

I love this picture of Alaina.  She is so cute with her cow hat!

Go Hawks!  Take 2

Once again the girls are following each other around!

This was pretty funny, it didn't matter who it was, Daddy or Uncle James, if one of the girls was on their lap, the other one had to join.

Uncle James' turn!  Both of the girls love books.

And back to Daddy they go!

Olivia has this little rocker and Amelia had so much fun climbing into the chair!