More important notice.

Because I am bored at work.

The fact that I am going to Montana a few days before I am laid off has not escaped me.

Play Date for Penny

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A couple of weedends ago Penny, Nathaniel and I went to her new friend Dora's house. I hung out with her mom, Jill and Nathaniel got to play with Nicholas, Dora's 6 year old brother. Nick enjoys Bakugan and Legos just like Nathaniel. Penny and Dora had a great time playing and checking each other out. They both love, love books. Dora is such a little cutie pie and I can't wait for our next get together because I know that they really had lot of fun together and Jill is just such a nice and wonderful person. Thanks for having us over Jill!!

Wordless Wedsnesday

Go Dillon

Please pray for an uneventful surgery for Dillon and a quick recovery. He is have his g-tube placed today God willing. This will be huge for him!

HAPPY ST. PATTY'S DAY

Who Was St. Patrick?

"St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is one of Christianity's most widely known figures. But for all his celebrity, his life remains somewhat of a mystery. Many of the stories traditionally associated with St. Patrick, including the famous account of his banishing all the snakes from Ireland, are false, the products of hundreds of years of exaggerated storytelling.

Taken Prisoner By Irish Raiders

It is known that St. Patrick was born in Britain to wealthy parents near the end of the fourth century. He is believed to have died on March 17, around 460 A.D. . . ."

You can read the whole story by clicking on the title or here.

AND YOU CAN TAKE THE IRISH QUIZ HERE. It doesn't test how Irish you are, just how much you know about Ireland. :)

Blankies for Babies

I have wanted to post on this for some time now. Jaxson's mother Lacey, who has so much on her plate already, wants to comfort other children that may be going through a rough stretch of medical concerns with her blankets. I think it is so wonderful that she wants to donate her time and materials for this. I personally know a mother (and her kid) that has benefitted from Lacey's thoughtfulness.

So if you think your child would like a blanket or you know a child that might need a blanket spread the word. You can also go onto this site and donate. Every $ counts and it helps to offset Lacey's expense of materials so she can get more blankets out there!!

I won another award!!

Thanks to Joanie I now have another award. I guess you get this for having a good attitude or some crap like that. You know, "When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade."

So, I would like to hand this out to a few people I know that just have a swell attitude about life, even though there have a been a few bumps in the road of life.

Melissa from Having fun at home with Master Dillon.

Lacey from Jaxson's fight.

Jessica from Raising Joey.

Cammie at The Helflin Family.

Michelle at The Zoromski Chronicles.

Erin from Adelynn's Journey.

And Rene at Life with My Special Ks.

Now the recipients can pass this on to as many or as few blogs as they want, maximum of 10! You will need to link to the other person's blog. Lacey, for the love of all that is good. We will figure this out together ok! and then you need to comment on their blog so that they know to come find this award.

Congratulations winners!!

Museum Visits

Nathaniel, Penny, and myself have been taking advantage of our CT Museum pass. For a yearly membership fee, we have access to several musuems across the country. We have been to the Lutz serveral times. Penny really gets engaged even though she is not yet walkin; however it is not too big so I don't feel that she gets overstimulated or anything.



Here is Penny checking out the model cow with working udders!!



Now she is constructing her own farmyard.



Nathaniel brought Penny "under" into the yellow submarine that they have there. She loves that thing.


I think Penny could stay at the helm (is that what they call it on a submarine?) and press buttons all day! One button plays The Beatles "Yellow Submarine."

So much to catch up on

So I have not disappeared off the face of the planet. I apologize for being away for so long, but there has been so much to do. This week I have started a bathroom remodel project.




Not that I want to complain or anything, but why, why can't anything be easy. This wall paper backing is NOT coming off easy in any way. I have tried to commit about an hour every day after work to scraping the paper off the wall, but I can't even get one tiny wall done in an hour. Please excuse my giant butt!! But, hey, I have a wonderful little helper. For now, we are going to paint the walls. Color is TBA, and I want to change out the vanity top and the sink. It has seen better days.

The glaze has been literally popping off the sink bowl. It is a creepy noise when you are on the toilet and then you hear this noise like chipping glass. You can't see it in this picture, but there are spots where you see the cobalt metal that is rusting.

My Miserable Little Girl

That little girl was the most desperate, miserable little baby I have ever seen tonight. Part of me wished I could provide her comfort, the other part wanted to pass this off as possibly the onset of the terrible twos. Scott and I were unable to put her down for a nap until closer to 3:00pm. On it's own, that should not have been enough for the meltdown that ensued. She woke herself up around 5pm. At the time she woke up I considered that a plus. Penelope is a much crankier baby when she is woken up by an external source. Scott brought her downstairs and we both took turns trying to calm her down. Scott went to make dinner and I cuddled with her on the couch. Any move I made elicited screams and cries from that little girl.

Then dinner time came. Typically, when Penny sees the highchair, we get big smiles out of her. However tonight there was only a lukewarm reception. I was able to buckle her in without resistance. Then. The food was served. I do not believe I have ever heard her scream and cry as loudly and for as long as tonight. Every attempt to feed her brought more screaming. I took her out of the highchair and had her sit in my lap a bit. She calmed down, but just. I admit I was a little tired of her behavior so I put her on the floor. There. She had such an awesome temper tantrum. She rolled around on the ground. She sreamed; she flailed around; she breathed in and out so fast I thought she was hyperventilating. I tried to ignore her and go back to my dinner. After I said, "Welcome to the terrible twos," Nathaniel was a little amused since he knew she was still only one year old. Of course he had to correct me.

We tried to put her back in the high chair and feed her yogurt to replace the offending spaghetti and sauce I had attempted to poison her with earlier (any one who has ever fed my daughter knows that marina sauce can never do wrong, she would eat absolutely anything if it has tomato sauce on it.) Even the yogurt upset her so badly. In between bites we couln't tell if she was holding her mouth in agony or trying to sign "eat," but we kind of gathered it was the former. Oh the horror!!

Scott and I finally blamed her very unusual behavior to her molars that may be coming in. Being a little tired and cranky would possibly be enough to put her over the edge when the severe mouth pain began to come in. Penny had been grabbing at her ears and her mouth all weekend, and I have been wondering about the 2 year molars. So we gave her some Tylenol and put her to bed with a bottle. I do hope that she feels better tomorrow. Poor baby!!!

Can you believe that it is March already

Gees, wasn't Christmas, like, a few weeks ago? Between running around to complete tasks for Nathaniel's Cubscout Den, working full-time, Penelope's appointments, Scott becoming ill, play dates for the children, and of course making time for myself, this year is already flying by. Pretty soon I will be looking forward to the Easter bunny. I do hope Penny will understand a little more about Easter bunnies this year than last.

Mostly, I am not that frustrated by her self-paced development. But I have to be honest and admit that there are those things that I miss. She is 21 months and she has not uttered "mama" or even attempted to sign it. She uses about four signs routinely now, why can't mama be one of them if she cannot form the sounds with her mouth? And don't get me wrong, she is doing wonderfully and I am very proud of where she is today. But I still wish she would say my name!!!!

Today I took her to the Lutz Museum, a children's museum in Manchester, CT that I have loved since I was a child. How proud I was when Penny initiated one-handed walking throughout the museum. How dare I cramp her style by making her unable to point at the things she wanted as she ambled over!!? She was such an adorable cutie-pie strutting her stuff all throughout the museum while I followed. I know that she is mostly crawling as she investigates the exhibits, but as I keep telling her, "If you want to check those out so badly, you can figure out how to walk on your own!" Does this display of encouragement border neglect? Her glares back at me paint the picture that she knows my opinion on the matter, but she remains steady on her course to complete these achievements on her own time. And what else can a mother expect, or accept?

SSSSssssssammy Pictures

www.flickr.com maxiak's Sammy the snake photoset

Question and Answer for Sammy

I admit I kind of left you hanging on this snake thing. Life has gotten in the way a little. Lol. Let's see, Renee does this all the time in her Q&A series. Oh she makes blogging look so easy!

Does Penny like the snake? I think that she does. Every time we take the snake out so that she can get used to us, Penny gets really excited and of course she wants to reach out and grab Sammy. I hope soon we will able to let Sammy's face get up really close to Penny's skin and we will see how that goes. Penny also loves to point at Sammy's tank and say "ah Da," when Penelope is getting changed.

How long is Sammy? It is tough to tell because she is always coiling, but my educated guess would be that she is close to a yard. Most milk snakes can grow up to 6 feet on average.

Does he eat lizards? This is a very astute question. Nathaniel was hoping that we could keep both Larry the Lizard and Sammy the Snake in the same tank. This thought has initiated many macabre conversations about the outcome of such living situations by me and Scott. We don't think that a snake as docile as Sammy would eat a lizard as large as Larry (a desert plaited lizard, medium sized). We feel that if the two reptiles had a showdown that Larry would win. Sammy does enjoy eating mice and we will be feeding HER one mouse a week. Scott hopes to get her to accept previously frozen mice that we can store in the freezer. I am not really excited about the warming up process but youu can't expect a girl to eat a cold mouse can you? I would rather go to the pet store weekly and buy a live one. We went to the store weekly for the crickets for Larry. And I guess the mouse is cheaper then 50 crickets too.

uggghhhhh...I'll stick with my dog and cat...lol Not really a question, but I will throw it out there that I am highly allergic to dogs and moderately allergic to cats. Scott and I owned a cat for a little while and we gave him away when I became pregnant with Penny so that I wouldn't have to take unnecessary medication while pregnant. We do miss Mack the Cat, but then we began to think about how much we enjoy our brand new living room furniture that we bought in his absence and we really don't want the new furniture all scratched up.

MO, when did you all decide to become CRAZY? You can thank Scott for that. He asked me today if I liked the snake. Although I do think she is very cute, I told him I kind of liked the $90 more than the snake, but we own her now so it is what it is.

Look for future posts about all the times Sammy escapes from her enclosure.

Another Penny Montage

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Hospital Pictures

Penny is ready to go at 6 AM. I don't think she knew quite what she was in for at this time.







I had to leave her behind after she was put under from the gas mask. It is never easy to leave her with strangers but the nurse made me feel so comfortable.

Additional MRI post

This is not Penny's heart but gives an idea what the MRI looked like.
I was really blown away by the detail that the MRI showed. I can go through some of the things that Dr. S was looking at in this scan, because she was awesome enough to take Scott and I into a little room after the scan and walk us through the pictures. It was just really incredible. Since the scan is captured in three dimensions, there would often be 2 images on the screen. The images would be the same on both sides and then with a couple of mouse clicks to rotate the axis on one side, the other picture would coincide by bringing up the picture of a different cross view. Just really crazy stuff.

I was told by Dr. S that she checked out the size of Penny's right ventricle. One of the components of ToF is right ventricular hypertrophy. This is basically an enlargement of the muscle on the right ventricle. The reason for the enlargement is that this pumping chamber has to work so hard to get the blood where it needs to go if the pulmonary valve is defective or nonexistent,. When you work out a muscle it gets bigger, right? When Penelope had her repair surgery in December of 2007, the surgeon actually cut away some of the muscle tissue because it was getting a little out of control! Excess muscle tissue puts a strain on everything. It was a relief to know that the RV (right ventricle) was in fine shape because it means that the donor valve and conduit (donor artery or homograph) are working as they should be. There were no signs that her body was laying down calcium on the tissues. Also, the scan was able to measure the flow of the blood through the valve. Just amazing! It showed that the flow out of her RV was 20 ml per second (I am guessing second was the measurement of time here) and her back flow was barely over a ml. Some back flow is going to happen, I have been told. You just can't perfectly recreate God's system here. But 1 to 2 ml is something that anyone can live with.

This MRI scan was initiated because Dr. S could not get a good read on the condition of her branch pulomary arteries from the cardio echocardiograms. We were able to see in the images the large "patch" put in by the surgeon to funnel the blood out of her RV and into the donor valve. In a normal heart, the valve is partially inside the heart, like an exit door. From the valve, we could see the nicely sized conduit that was then connected to her branch pulmonary arteries. The arteries both measured a wonderful 7.3 cm or so. This is an ideal size for her and is actually close to the mean for children of her size. (well, compared to the data that has been collected). This was just wonderful news to hear!!! We do not have to go back to see Dr. S until November as long as there is nothing that concerns her from the scan. Dr. S still needs to take the time to review all the data she got from the imaging this morning, but she did not anticipate any surprises.

When Penny and I first got into the MRI department at 6:30, my baby girl was still pretty happy and sociable. We did have to wait until close to 8 am before I was able to take her into the receiving room. As I said previously, I had to quickly get her into her johnnies and then I was asked to follow the anesthesiologist into the imaging room. I had to sit her down on the bed and hold her while he put the gas mask on her face. After about one minute or so of her struggling to get the mask off, she had breathed enough of the gas to make her seem out. I know my daughter and I knew that she was not out just yet so I held onto her as the dr. turned away with the mask. When she began to talk again, he turned right back around and said "oh, I guess she isn't there yet!" So he masked her again and after another minute she was finally O-U-T. But she was so funny, even out like that, she managed to hold her leg up and then bring her foot close to her face. The 4 of us in the room thought that was soo cute.

A little after 10 am we were finally told that she was done and we would be able to see her "in a few minutes." About another twenty minutes later, we were told that it wouldn't be much longer now (I love how hospital time is so much longer than real time. 5 hospital minutes = 1 real time hour) As we were heading back to see her, following the sound of her cries, the anesthesiologist muttered something along the lines that they don't need that IV anymore anyway. As Scott and I looked to her wrist we noticed a good amount of blood. The bad baby that she is had pulled out the IV as soon as she could. But oh was she mad. I hate those scratchy cries from the dried out throat. They also needed to take peripheral blood pressures on all 4 extremities. This was a pretty impossible task considering her thrashing around and how upset she was, but the nurse did her best.

Soon I will post the few pictures I took of our event today. I am just so glad that it is done with!

The bad news is we didn't learn anything new

That is because I already knew that there was nothing wrong with her. The MRI was a long process. We got there at 6:30 as requested but nothing happened until just before 8 am when they asked me to bring her into the area where I could change her into the johnnies. Then I took her into the MRI room so fast I didn't get a chance to take a picture of her in the hospital garb. Here is a video of her just before they finally came out to get her, clearly she was tired and cranky from hunger.

Wordless Wednesday