We experienced quite the February. Both the good and the bad. Do you want the good or the bad first? The good? ok, here we go...
Jeff was home on paternity leave for 6 weeks after Adeline was born. That was a wonderful help to me as I transitioned to life with a newborn and adjusted to three children at home. It was a new policy change to get so much time off...I wish he would have gotten that much time for each of the babies!
We decided to divide and conquer...he took care of the two toddlers and I took care of the newborn. This worked for the first week or two. It gave me a chance to focus on newborn care, and Jeff a chance to spend quality time with the girls and experience motherhood in full measure. Both the good and the bad.
He took the girls to the park one morning so I could have a nap...and Rosalyn fell in a huge mud puddle. Ha ha...He had to get her all undressed before heading home!
Overall, it has been heavenly having him home, and we will all miss him greatly when he is gone all day long again at work shortly.
I celebrated my birthday a week after Adeline was born! My parents, Claire, and Jeff & Kate came up on the Sunday before to celebrate with me. We had a yummy dinner together.
I wanted a Dairy Queen ice cream cake for my birthday. I don't recall ever having one for my birthday...that was a departure from my usual cheesecake. But this time, this is what I requested and Jeff came through. It was delicious!
We played some party games together...and my favorite was our backwards Charades game...my tired brain can't think of the name right now. But it gave us a lot of laughs!
On my actual birthday, I wanted to get doughnuts at my favorite doughnut shop - Top Pot Doughnuts. I didn't want to take my newborn out anywhere so young, so this was all we did for my birthday.
This was our first adventure out as a family of 5. We didn't have all the car seats installed, so we ended up taking two cars to get there. ha!
Adeline slept through the whole experience. I love this newborn stage where they are so sleepy and you can take them anywhere easily.
We were all drooling over all the different types of doughnuts.
Yum! My birthday was complete.
Jeff gave me the new Barbara Streisand CD - "Partners" that I wanted. He also gave me some money to buy a new outfit when I'm done wearing pajamas all day long. :)
Jeff and Brielle went to our Ward Party - a hoe down! I wish I could have gone and seen these two dancing around. Brielle was so excited to wear her cowgirl hat from the dress-up closet. They gave me a demonstration when they got home of all their line dances they did. Brielle was in pure heaven dancing with Daddy! Rosalyn and I stayed home and played with play-doh. :)
Brielle takes her little dance class on Fridays. She loves it! She is in a class with all 3 year olds and they are just darling. Parents are not allowed to watch, but 3 times a year we can sit on the side and see what they do in class. We were lucky that one of the observation days was when Jeff was home on paternity leave! So we went together as a family to see her dance in her class. It was pure joy for me to watch her dance around and be so happy. I don't think I've ever seen her so happy as when we were watching her dance that day! It is such a wonderful memory for me.
She loves to practice her plie in class and at home in the kitchen. :)
February was a slow month...home together as a family, getting to know our newborn. Brielle and Rosalyn both adore her and have exceeded our expectations in their adoration of her! They are wonderful big sisters and great helpers - for a 2 and 3 year old!
Adeline gets a lot of love around here with three moms taking care of her. ha.
And now for the not so good things that happened this month...that are worth documenting.
When it rains, it pours....and we got poured on this month with all sorts of difficult health challenges!
This may seem a tedious list for you blog reader, but for my personal record I need to keep track of all that happened this month:
1. Rosalyn got a bad cold and coughed so much she threw up in the middle of the night.
2. The following day, on Sunday, Valentine's Day - she had a fever which caused a Febrile Seizure. We called 911, Firemen came and determined she needed to get to the ER, so she was taken by ambulance to the ER for evaluation for a few hours.
I got a friend to watch Brielle for the night, and sat in the emergency room with Jeff and Rosalyn...Adeline was in her car seat - 2 weeks old. It was a wild night...luckily, despite the fact that it took Rosalyn a while to get conscious again after her seizure, she had no further complications and was released to go home.
Seeing Rosalyn have a seizure was the most terrifying thing I've experienced and it haunted me for days afterwards when I would close my eyes and replay it all in my mind. I've never seen Jeff so unglued. He was holding her and we were frantic wondering what was happening and what to do. It was a experience I hope never to have again.
3. Rosalyn continued to have a fever for a few days and after going to her pediatrician again, it was determined that she might have aspirated some vomit during her seizure and so was diagnosed with Aspiration Pneumonia and given antibiotics.
4. The said antibiotics gave her such bad diarrhea as a side-effect. But she didn't have a fever after taking them.
5. The diarrhea caused a horrible diaper rash (she couldn't walk - poor little 2 year old hobbling around!)
6. The diaper rash then turned into a yeast infection of course. Because we just needed something else to medicate! blah.
Rosalyn has since recovered from the bad cold, we have to watch for signs of another seizure in the future, but otherwise she is fine, and her rash and yeast infection have cleared up.
7. Brielle caught the same cold and it knocked her out for a few days. She was up miserable at night, and horribly sick. We kept Tylenol in her and kept her fever down as much as possible. She got over it and is just now done coughing from it and fully healthy again.
8. All in the same week, I took Adeline to the pediatrician because I suspected a beginning case of thrush in her and I. I got medicine for myself and treated it and it cleared up fast because it was so early. I had it with Rosalyn...I knew the feeling this time around!
9. And then I caught the cold that the girls had. I didn't get it so bad and got over it quick, I think I must've had some immunity from it. But I was still sick for a day.
The girls were grouchy being sick and it was rough on all of us with late nights and constant cleaning. I'm very careful about spreading germs and did a lot of sanitizing...especially with a newborn around!
A week after Rosalyn's seizure, things were looking up. I decided to take the girls to the fire station and tell them thank you for taking care of Rosalyn and getting her to the ER fast.
The girls drew pictures and we wrote a thank you note and dropped it off. We were lucky that the firemen had nothing going on and were happy to let the girls climb all over the firetrucks!
I couldn't get Rosalyn to pose with the fireman that helped her. She was in happy-land running all over the fire station and climbed up into the truck without us knowing. Ha. The firemen were happy to see her acting like a normal 2 year old ... especially after seeing her unconscious from a seizure. They enjoyed talking to me and hearing about what happened in the ER. They rarely get to see what happens to a patient that they help.
I told the firemen that if we didn't keep track of Rosalyn, she would climb up the ladder and get on top of the fire truck! ha ha. Sure enough, she didn't climb to the top, but stopped and sat in the cab where we discovered her. I rounded them up and we headed home, happy to see the firemen and grateful for their service in our community.
I thought by that point, our troubles were over.
But then two days later...Adeline was in the Emergency Room herself!
8 days hospitalized....that will be another blog post in itself.
Overall, we had so many happy moments in the month of February and so many blessings and tender mercies.
But it was definitely a month for the books.
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