Monday, January 25, 2016

Pictures

We played tag about a month and a half ago in the front yard,
but most of the pictures turned out super blurry. So
here's a good one of Baker.
 
Last summer we signed the girls up for a running club.
I wasn't too happy about the price, but we committed and they had fun
during the practices.  We only went to one meet, but we didn't sign the
girls up for any competition, so they were just there for the group photo.
But during the season, they had a color run that the whole family was invited
to participate in.

 Here's how everyone looked before the race.
 There were tables set up to get yourself covered in chalk before the race started,
and it took some convincing of all the kids to actually do it.


 Baker and I waited halfway through the race for everyone to come by.
Here's how Daddy & Grayson showed up.
 Scout wouldn't smile after the race was over.
But she really had a great time.
She turned out to be an excellent runner.
I'd probably sign them up for it again this year if it wasn't such a
huge time sucker....


 We planned ahead and had some garbage bags ready for the car ride home.

Obviously I need to take more pictures of everyone, and upload some from my phone.

Thursday, January 21, 2016

More on Poppy

We've now had Poppy home with us for two whole months! 
And she hasn't had to be admitted for anything,
which is big cause for celebration, I think.
She has had a few setbacks, like needing a blood transfusion in
December, but it went well and we haven't noticed any complications.
And one of these days she is supposed to start weekly iron infusions
(iron through an IV) so she shouldn't need another transfusion, but
we are still waiting for the call that said everything is set and here's when
she needs to come in, but we haven't had that call yet.
It's pretty frustrating, because her iron count keeps dropping and if she doesn't get
an infusion in the next week, I think she'll need another blood transfusion.
Which we were really hoping to avoid.

We also have a new home care nurse.  I was sad to see the last one go - she
was great.  And my first experience with our new one was less than
stellar, but when she came yesterday, I liked her more.  So maybe we 
were both having a bit of an off day that first visit.
The home care nurse comes once a week to do a blood draw and
to change the dressing on Poppy's broviac line.
It's nice that I don't need to do that - I am willing to if we are told
by our insurance company or whoever makes that decision, and
I feel confident that I can do it if it was an emergency situation,
but I am very thankful that I don't have to for now.
It's nice to just be the one to keep Poppy preoccupied and be on
binky duty.  She is really good at keeping still and being
happy whenever she's had a home care visit, so I mainly just 
keep her arms away from her chest when needed & pop the binky back in.

She has also started physical therapy.  We have two different places helping her.
One is through the school district.  Because of her vision problems,
she qualifies for a vision teacher to come out twice a month and help
her learn things.  We've only had one visit, and it was mainly an 
introductory thing.  But her other PT is through the hospital.
She has an irregularly shaped head, so she qualifies to have some visits for a few months.
The goal is to help her with muscle control so she can be mobile
and have her head reshape so we can avoid needing a helmet.
That lady was great.  And Poppy tolerated the work very well.
Although she starts to cry anytime I start to put her in the positions
I was asked to work with her with - even before I do anything else, just getting
her ready.  So I still do it, but we are slowly building up.

We had a great Christmas break - and pretty much finished remodeling the kitchen.
I took some pictures, so hopefully soon I will get them up on here.
I LOVE it.  The kitchen feels so different and I feel really good when I go in there.
And I have more of a desire to keep it clean and nice.