Thirty

This is a big birthday year for Marc since today he hits the big THREE-ZERO. He is pretty darn special to me and certainly worth celebrating! He is my best friend and a wonderful dad and I am so glad he is in my life.

Happy 30th birthday Marc!

I have a little surprise planned for Marc this weekend and am looking forward to some quiet time alone with him. My parents are coming to stay with the kids for a night while we are away. We are probably most looking forward to sleeping all the way through the night without Marc's pager going off and without needing to stick a pacifier back in little Miss's mouth. Can't wait!!!

Lemon Garlic Tilapia

Since I have been sick this week I wanted to do something easy for dinner last night that wasn't take-out (since we ordered out pizza the night before). We received a gift card at Christmas to a meat and seafood store from one of the local doctors. Last year we used our gift card to get a box of steaks for free but this year we paid $10 more and got a box of 18 tilapia fillets! I had no idea the box would come with that many so I decided I was going to have to start trying out some new tilapia recipes. I usually use this recipe when I make tilapia but last night I tried a new recipe and it was oh so good. I think Marc and I both liked it better. I have a few more recipes to try in the coming months that I am excited about. I found the recipes on allrecipes.com. I did make a few changes to this one and have included those in the recipe below.

(photo from allrecipes.com)

Lemon Garlic Tilapia

Ingredients:
4 tilapia fillets
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 1/2 tablespoons of Italian parsley, finely chopped
seasoned salt and pepper to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Rinse tilapia fillets under cool water, and pat dry with paper towels. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Place fillets in baking dish (my fillets were still a little frozen so I left them in the fridge in the baking dish after they were rinsed and seasoned to finish thawing for a few hours. I have heard rinsing and salting them ahead of time helps take out the "fishy" taste as well).
4. Saute chopped garlic and parsley in butter and olive oil.
5. Pour lemon juice over fillets, then drizzle butter/EVOO mixture on top.
4. Bake in preheated oven until the fish is white and flakes when pulled apart with a fork, about 15-20 minutes.

We ate ours with some green beans and baked sweet potatoes loaded with all the good stuff. :) Yummy!

Round Two

Is it spring yet??? Winter is miserable for our household. Having your children in daycare (and one who sucks all the germs off his thumb at daycare) and being health care workers just seems to be a recipe for disaster. So, Eli stayed home most of last week recovering from being in the hospital and then I sent him back to daycare on Thursday. He did great on Thursday and was really excited to be back. Too bad it didn't last long!

Marc was working much of the weekend so the kids and I were just hanging out at home. On Sunday, Eli woke up with a runny nose and a low grade fever. He was also pulling on one of his ears and sticking his finger in that ear so I checked his ears at home with the otoscope. That eardrum was red and swollen so we started him on an antibiotic that day thinking he had just gotten an ear infection from being so sick the week before (snotty noses have always led to ear infections for Eli).

That night I became very congested myself. By one in the morning I knew I had the flu. It was full on body aches, chills, 102 fever, runny nose, the works. I felt like I was not going to live to see daylight. Dramatic? No, this was the real deal and I certainly did get my flu shot this year to prevent this very thing from happening! Then, Eli woke up with his teeth chattering and a 103 fever so I figured he also had what I had. We went and got swabbed for the flu. Mine came back positive and Eli's was negative. So we made another trip to the pharmacy to stock up on Tamiflu for the whole family. Marc, Eli, and Hailey were going to take a prophylactic dose to try to avoid getting it from me (we are still wondering if Eli had it even though his test came back negative). Marc says we now look like we run a pharmacy ourselves.

So, here we are hanging out at home. I am thankful that I was able to send Hailey to daycare to keep her away from us. She has enough close contact with me when she nurses in the morning and at night, so the less time she is around me right now the better! I am really praying she doesn't get this. Flu in babies less than six months is just not good. She didn't tolerate the Tamiflu very well last night so hopefully tonight will be better.

Eli is loving all this TV time. We watched PBS all morning yesterday and then Toy Story and Finding Nemo on the Disney channel in the afternoon. I am feeling better today and have been able to play more with him so we limited TV this morning to Sesame Street which is a favorite for sure.

"See mom, it's Elmo!"

Eli really only likes to watch Elmo on Sesame Street so the entire time leading up to "Elmo's World" he used his couch as a climbing wall and slide. Looks like he is feeling more himself. I sure hope it lasts. :)

We cleared our coffee table of its accessories as soon as Eli began pulling up a year ago so I now find myself sitting on it a lot to fold clothes and stuff. Eli likes to sit on it and read books and unfold all the clothes that I fold. :)

Well, hopefully this will be our last "sick" post for awhile. I'm sure my office is wondering if I am ever going to work a full week again!

Bonding

I can't tell you how much I adore seeing these two interact together. With each passing week Hailey notices Eli more and more, and he is really enjoying that! He tries to make her smile and laugh and loves playing with her. Tonight I let them both sit in the rocking chair and told Eli to show Hailey some books. He loved it. He pointed to things and talked to her about the book. He loves her so much. I was having a hard time holding back the tears behind the camera. :)

Eli is a big fan of these snowman pajamas (so much that he is requesting to wear them EVERY night) and goes and gets Hailey's matching PJs and requests that I put them on her as well. Ha!

How blessed I feel to be their mommy!

This picture below cracks me up. (Hailey's bow ended up being too small so I changed it before I took the pictures above in case you are observant!). Eli kept grabbing Hailey's thumb and pulling it out of her mouth and saying "no mouth." I couldn't figure out why he was doing that until I realized that I have started telling Eli to take his thumb out of his mouth when I find him sucking it endlessly throughout the day. He decided it was his turn to boss somebody around! :)

My mom left today after staying with us for a week. She was such a huge help while Eli was in the hospital and then again when Hailey got sick and needed to miss day care this week. She ended up staying here longer than she had planned because of the snow and road conditions in Arkansas but we were so thankful to have her!

Eli is saying "Tanks Nana" in this picture. :)

Home Sweet Home

Eli is now home! He was discharged on Sunday morning after three very long nights on the pediatric floor. He had a great day at home with my mom today and will hopefully be heading back to school on Wednesday. He loves school SO much that I know he can't wait to get back to be with all his little buddies.

I currently can't find the cord to our old camera so I will have to add our last day of hospital pictures whenever it shows up. Here is a story for you instead...

Marc decided to stay with Eli on Saturday night so that I could head home to spend some time with Hailey and get a good night of rest. I stayed at the hospital to help Marc get Eli to bed before I headed home. We had the hardest time getting him to sleep that night. He was no longer on his oxygen and starting to feel more like himself. He was jumping up and down on the hospital bed and being SO crazy. Eli had watched video after video after video for 3 days straight since he couldn't get out of bed so I think once he finally started feeling better he had a lot to make up for! He really does not watch much TV at home and never watches any at school so this was a big change for him. Sesame Street Kid's Favorite Country Songs is by far his favorite video that we have and we probably watched it 10-15 times this past weekend in the hospital. We could tell this was getting to be a problem by Saturday when he started having melt downs if we didn't put the Elmo DVD on. Then, at 5 am on Sunday morning Marc said that Eli suddenly woke up out of his sleep and sat straight up in bed. He then pointed to the TV, looked at Marc, and said "Elmo???" Ha! Marc told him they were not going to watch Elmo at 5 am and to put his head back on his pillow. Elmo is now temporarily hidden in our house until Eli gets back in a routine and isn't requesting to watch Elmo every hour. :)

We are so glad to have our sweet boy back home. Our house certainly seemed empty without him. We are thankful for all of our family and friends who have been praying for him over the past few days. Eli literally went from needing 1.5 liters of oxygen to none in less than 30 minutes and we feel that everyone's prayers were a big part of that! THANK YOU!!!

Such a Trooper

Poor Eli has been so sick this past week. It all started last Sunday when we had some friends over for dinner and he started vomiting and developed a fever. I thought it would resolve in a day like all the other stomach viruses we had been seeing in clinic but his fever just worsened the next day along with lots of runny nose and coughing. Eli has had his share of colds but this one was SO much worse.

I really thought by Tuesday that he had the seasonal flu. I decided to take him to the doctor on Tuesday morning (in the blizzard!) to make sure everything looked ok. His ears, throat, and lungs all checked out clean so we returned home to wait the viral bug out. Wednesday, things worsened and by Thursday it was clear he had developed some respiratory distress. By this time his viral culture had returned and we knew we were dealing with human metapneumo virus (sp?) which Marc told me is a virus similar to RSV. Marc took him back to the doctor later Thursday afternoon and with his oxygen levels staying consistently at 85% it was decided it would be best to have him in the hospital. His chest x-ray shows that he has a pneumonia consistent with the particular virus he has and unfortunately not one that can get better with antibiotics.

I stayed with him Thursday night and most of today while Marc stayed home with Hailey. He is pretty miserable with all these tubes attached and he is just not feeling himself. Although he had some good moments today, I know that he is not ready to go home yet. He is requiring 1.5 liters of supplemental oxygen through a nasal cannula for his oxygen level to stay at 92-94%. Hopefully, tomorrow we will make some progress weaning that down because the small progress he made today was lost and he is now back to where he started the morning at.

He was excited about these new toys sent from family. I brought them out early this evening when he was feeling a little better and he did play some with his new puzzle and Elmo phone.
Marc brought Eli some new clothes to put on today and I thought his "I'm the Boss" shirt was more than appropriate given the circumstances. Today, I have let Eli watch TV nearly all day long including his Elmo video four times and I was super excited he wanted cookies for lunch since he was finally willing to eat something. Today what Eli says goes! :)

So that brings us to tonight. Eli is sleeping sound now that his fever has broken. I temporarily have his IV pump and telemetry happy enough that they are not beeping at me. It is time again to pump for the umpteenth time. Hailey is home asleep under Nana's care. And Marc is fulfilling a moonlighting shift in a nearby ER he committed to a while ago when he wishes he were here with us. All day I have continually been reminding myself that none of this is out of God's control and care. He is so good even in times of stress and we have plenty to be thankful for.

Two things in particular that I have thought about today. First, I have been so thankful for my nursing education. This seems odd to me because any other time it has just been something I do because it is my job. It certainly cost a pretty penny and I may not use it full-time for much longer, but I have been so thankful this week for knowing what is going on with Eli. I feel like I have been able to be his advocate many times over the past few days and for that I am thankful. Second, I have been thinking about all the parents who have children with chronic diseases that live my past 48 hours for months and years. I have a new level of empathy for those moms and dads. It is heartbreaking watching your children hurt when there is little you can do to fix their hurt.

So, for tonight, you can pray for a good night of sleep for Eli, Mommy, Daddy, Hailey, and Nana. Enough said. :) Tomorrow, you can pray that Eli will be able to maintain his oxygen saturation on room air without the aid of oxygen so that we can disconnect him from these tubes and go home!

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

Matthew 6:26

Busy with Three

This past weekend Marc and I babysat for some friends who were busy packing to head to Mali, Africa this week. They have a little girl who is five months older than Hailey. This family will be going with us to Africa next year for the fellowship and we consider them some of our dearest friends! We are going to miss them over the next six weeks.

Overall, I think Marc and I handled three pretty well, but I should probably fess up and say that all three of them were never awake at the same time. :) I enjoyed taking some pictures of Gracie while Eli and Hailey were napping. She is such a happy and easy going baby.

Gracie has some WILD hair these days. :)

We spent the rest of Saturday running some errands and then went out for some Mexican food. Eli was being quite difficult at dinner. He was really trying Marc's patience when he grabbed his glass of water and dumped it on the table. Yikes! There were two families with older children (all boys) sitting at the table behind us and one mom told the other mom that that ("that" being my Eli most certainly acting his terrible two age) was the reason she decided she didn't want to try for a girl. Ha! Thanks ma'am for the encouragement while we were mopping up our table and enjoying our water soaked chips. Well, you take the good with the bad I guess. :)

He doesn't look ornery now, does he???

Hailey decided she was better off staying put in her carrier and she thankfully stayed dry there. :)

Well, if you are like us and many others in the country, you are SNOWED in. Enjoy the snow day and stay warm!!!