Blueberries for Sal

After Audrey's headcold had me discouraged and worried the past week over her refusal of food and seeming to be getting food stuck in her throat, some rough nights digesting, I was thinking oh my goodness, please no, not again with the stricturing. But she's been feeling much better and then, today, she got really excited in the store when I went to buy some blueberries for her, I know how much she loves them (we've been enjoying some classic children's stories she was given for Christmas by my mother, and Audrey really loves the one called "Blueberries for Sal") and so she's been particularly enthusastic about blueberries lately, but imagine my joy when we got home and she ate about 30 of them. I need to say that again in big bold capital letters.  SHE ATE ABOUT THIRTY WHOLE BLUEBERRIES JUST NOW, YIPPEEE!!!  It's the most by far she has eaten before of something that chunky. She is still very cautious and chews a long time, as she should, but oh my word, that is just huge exciting news for me to share with you guys!!

My heart had been sinking more and more every time I offered her food and she shook her head. This change is so exciting! I think she must swell or have spasms in her esophagus when she is sick, when she gagged on the tiny bits of cookie she ate last week I thought it might be all over for the home track. I didn't want to tell anyone after the wonderful respite of good news we've had, but now I am so so relieved to report the change!

I'm also excited to report that I will be traveling a lot in the next few weeks... this weekend I travel to Oregon to see my grandmother who is recovering after a massive stroke, plus my parents, paternal grandmother, aunt and cousins.  I am really looking forward to seeing everyone.  It will be a little strange to fly from Massachusetts across the country, right over Utah where my children and husband will wave at the sky, and back again to Massachusetts where we've now passed the six month mark since we have been here for Audrey's specialized treatment.  ANNNND  I've been afraid of something going wrong, (it always seems to!) but we actually have tickets to return to my family in Utah on February 11th!!!  We are going to try traveling out and back again for her dilations as needed, but for the moment she is doing well enough that her doctors think she can travel home.  Uh oh, I said the h word.  (Remember,  in the NICU the nurses believed that was bad luck, and used the word picnic instead!)  OKAY OKAY, so I don't really believe in the superstition, but just the same, I think it's healthy not to count on it too hard until we are actually on that plane touching down in Utah.

Gingerbread

My beloved maternal grandmother just suffered a massive stroke.  She and grandpa were resting together on the couch in their home after a cup of tea, and when he awoke and discovered he could not rouse her.  Within hours, my paternal grandmother was also hospitalized with a bad infection in her leg.  

This was a hard day.  I was supposed to go see them for three weeks last summer during June, and instead Audrey was hospitalized for the entire month of June with a life threatening tear in her esophagus, and there has been of course no chance since then because we had to treat the scar tissue so quickly with the surgery to save her from closing off entirely, and a continuous battle ever since. I feel so frustrated. Thank goodness that they know I love them. I just wish I could SEE them and talk to them and make myself useful in the situation.

So, in a moment of mild madness I wrote this on my facebook page: 

What do you do when you are frustratingly stuck on one edge of the continent, where your medically fragile baby has been coughing all day with a bug (yet being an extra cute handful, dragging you all over the house), while both of your cherished grandmothers have been hospitalized in the past day on the opposite edge of the continent, and your husband and other four children are still nine states away? I'll tell you what you do. You christen the clean kitchen by baking Soft & Chewy Ginger Snap Cookies. And you consider the really important questions such as, is it better to use butter or shortening, and should I use Grandma's or Brer Rabbit Full Flavor Molasses. And you realize you probably went a liiiiittle overkill buying both kinds, considering the recipe takes 1/4 cup. And you let the baby empty all the cupboards in the kitchen, and you consume clumps of raw cookie dough and say to yourself "I'm gonna lose weight this year!" because hey, that's how we roll. 

 http://baking.food.com/recipe/gingersnaps-soft-chewy-234707

There are few things that a Michael Jackson dance party with your one year old can't fix.  Add cookie dough, and you're sure to beat it.  Just beat it.

Hospital Curtains

When you've spent a lot of time in a hospital, and particularly if you care about art, you start to notice certain details. Some of you might remember my photo of the curtain fabric from the Primary Children's Hospital mother's room last year, and the laugh I had over that design choice. Well, here's a pic of the Boston Children's Hospital curtains in the PACU, Post Anesthesia Care Unit, where Audrey and I have spent many many hours after her procedures, in a room with many patients recovering from surgery, in little areas separated only by these curtains. Look closely. Do you see what I see? :) I thought it was a clever design as industrial fabrics go in a children's hospital.

Wild Week in Review

Monday, I hurriedly packed five people from their 3-month stay in Massachusetts, also managing squirrely kids while Justin worked several hours and then we ate a hurried lunch, loaded the car and kids and went most of the way to NY for the airport, spent the night in hotel and had a blast playing in the pool until our teeth chattered, then

Tuesday morning we drove to LaGuardia and said a sweet farewell, then I drove home the 3.5 hours, went grocery shopping, and had to stay up after midnight to take care of getting Audrey as much milk as possible before the cutoff hour for the anesthesia rules, because the next morning

Wednesday we drove 1.5 hours each way to Boston Children's for her dilation and scope (in case you missed it, her throat has finally stayed open--HALLELUJAH--and they are talking about us taking a "picnic" to Utah maybe early February, remember we NICU grads never say the H word beforehand, it's bad luck), her procedure finished up in the middle of rush hour traffic so I went to see my friends at the Yawkey house to wait it out and get caught up on the news of all the long term patients I've grown to love, then drove home with the heat turned off in the car and chewing strong peppermint gum to help stay awake, to arrive around 10:30 pm, needing to get up

Thursday and start deep cleaning up the house (finally clearing the dishes from Monday's lunch then moving on to three months of accumulated evidence of five active and creative children), plus clean out the minivan and return it to Enterprise where I met the sweet wonderful lady from church who took me to her house and lent me her extra car for as long as I need it the next few weeks, then I filled it with gas and drove 3 hrs to Rhode Island and back to pick up a specialized prescription for Audrey, got home and started organizing some of the piles of things that need to be sorted until I could no longer stay awake, around 1:30am because

Friday I needed to get the whole house clean (thankfully baby girl took a nice long nap) in time for the owner's realtor to show the house at 3pm, at which point I dutifully vacated (at 2:59) and went to watch the ocean waves and eat a treat of eggplant fries and clam chowda. If you had seen the house last night (think post-apocalypse), and could see it tonight, you would all fall OVER I tell you, it is shining and sparkling that much. In fact, just to show my solidarity with your oohing and ahhing, I think I'll fall over too. And stay there for a few hours.