for reals

Good news. Bear's little puking incident at school seems to be directly related to a carrot  rather than the stomach flu. When brad skidded to a stop in front of little hawks,   bear strolled outside without a care in the world. My presence surprised him, and he was a bit annoyed we had changed his afternoon social plans. Finally we were able to focus Weston's attention on the fact that he threw up at school. To my concerned questioning,  wes replied with a detailed account: he received 4 carrots for snack. He ate the first one and it tasted good. He ate the second one and it tasted good. He ate the third one and it was so gross, so he took a drink of milk and the next thing you know, puke on the table. His tummy did not hurt at all. Except he does want a fruit roll up. Why is mom crying again?  Does she think no one likes her?

Ok. Glad you are back to your adorable spitfire self bear.

That afternoon,  bear rode in the combine with brad, rammed around the house, and otherwise resumed normal activities.  Hallelujah.  Because while Weston was demonstrating his health,  ayla sorta went downhill.

She immediately fell asleep upon arrival at home. Baby  blue attempted a little lunch, and played minimally with her big bro. When we picked maxer up from school, I dropped the boys off to farm and ran into meijer for cupcakes prescription and some lunch/farming necessites. during that trip, aylas head felt a bit warm and she was cuddling in my arms while we were trying to check out. Trying to ignore the scariness of such an occurrence,  I returned home and warmed up sup and proceeded through the night with low expectations for the daughters activity level.

Eventually,  I got all the adorables settled. Aylaroo in our bed and the brothers on a big nest on our floor. I think we all needed the comfort of closeness after that beginning to the week. Babes were exhausted and sleep came quick for them all. Bradley came in from the fiels and after a quick supper, we both joined the cuties asleep in our room. I shared my concerns about aylas potential fever that afternoon and asked brad to feel her forehead.  It was warm. Our discharge instructions included the order to head to the nearest er if the little darlings fever went above 101. Not really thinking I could withstand another sleepless night visiting hospitals , I just untucked the little girl a little and passed out.

Around 3:30 I awoke a little anxiously to note aylas warm forehead. I woke brad and we had a conference in the kitchen.  Since little lovie ws sleeping so soundly,  we decided to allow her some uninterrupted sleep. In the morning, ayla was such a big girl and took her yucky aspirin all on her own.  we got Maxwell off to school and returned home.

Sister spent the morning coloring pics and playing ponies. Her fever seemed very very minimal.  Around lunchtime I took her temp to find the thermometer reading in the 99's. about every hour and a half I checked it again to find it climbing. Just before we got max from school she reached 101.8. Shoot. I called upon fellow soccer mom and neighbor kerri to keep the boys while I whisked the prinpress to yet another hospital.

We were met by dr Altman,  the dad of one of Maxwell's classmats. Felt so good to have an advocate wanting to get ayla jo better without being unnecessarily invasive.  we awaited the results of dr altmans conversation with devos anxiously.  2 hours after  we were admitted to zeelands er, we were discharged for devos again.

Ayla cried. I cried.

Wanting my baby girl to just get better no matter what it took, I frantically repacked, tried to assemble some school stuff for my boys and give grandma some instructions. Knowing what lay ahead of us was very disheartening.  Another night of pokes and panic sounded so gross.

We checked in. Again.  We got our badges. Again.  We changed the scared cupcake into tiger jams. Again.

The dr was super nice about explaining the need for another dosage of the ivig. The nurses were very kind about starting an iv, but it still was so painful for my daughter and for me and brad as she writhed in pain and fear screaming mommy. Two tries later, an iv was ready. Then another nurse drew blood from another hole in Aylaroo's arm.  She kept telling us she wanted to go home. Please. So thankful brad was working his superhero status by being strong and gentle,  comforting his pregnant and hormonal wife as well as his frightened and sick daughter.

By the time ayla jo was hooked to her iv, back in bed and hooked up to all sorts of things it was about time for her aspirin dosage of 3.25 aspirin.  These are just a tiny bit bitter, but of course baby was opposed to having anything forced into her mouth at that point. She was exhausted and beyond reasoning. That really makes me upset to see her so disoriented and agitated.   having brad beside me helped with perspective.  Our concerns are way less severe than most of the other families here.

This time around, cupcake slept through lots of her vitals. There are definite advantages for having an darling beyond tired. Brad was similarly spent. I was pretty worked up and concerned and woke at every beep when her blood pressure got to high, and creack of the door handle when the nurses came in to check on Aylaroo.

Her 6am aspirin dosage was brads and my alarm.  There was no falling asleep again for the parents,  but the little girl slept quite soundly til almost 9. Sweet girl. she was much more sociable to the drs, many of them had seen her earlier in the week and commented on her marked improvement.  Little girl showed them one of her ponies even, but was unwilling to to dig anymore from her purse. So the plan was made to repeat the earlier observation period of 24 hrs since the completion of her ivig. That brings us to tomorrow morn.sigh.

In the meantime,  we have had some new adventures since lovey is feeling a dash better. We actually just returned from a long wagon rid all over the the hospital.  The weather is gorgeous,  so we even explored the courtyard.  next we ventured to the 11th floor playroom to get our paint on. Ayla found a beautiful dress up gown and was extremely reluctant to remove her frock and leave. Prinpress cried and carried on and stopped onky to ask if we were going home. We managed to get out of there without stealing any dress up gear and snuggle in our room again for a diego viewing while we await the brother's arrival.