a new routine

Miss Lily and I have started a new routine. She goes to bed a little bit later than Morgan so I read to Lily separately from her sister. Usually, Lily and I sit in the living room and read together on the couch. It never fails she gets distracted by whatever her daddy is watching on TV. A few nights ago a new idea popped in my brain. I hesitated about it at first because I thought Lily would want more than what she was about to experience, but I decided to try it anyway. My idea was for Lily and I to cuddle up in my bed for our story time. This is when I thought she might want to stay in my bed, which she never does, but with Lily sometimes I give her an inch and she takes a mile!
So I tried it anyway. I said, "Lily, lets go read in mommy's bed"
Lily: "Okay, Mommy, put on your jammies"
Me: "okay Lily"
I put on my jammies, we crawled into my bed and cuddled while reading. She loved it! The same event has happened every night since then and I love it! When we finish reading I take her to her bed and her daddy comes in to say prayers.
It's a perfect ending to the day!!!

Miss Morgan

My past few posts have been about Lily so it's time for a post about Miss Morgan. Now days Morgan is getting through the house via walking while holding on to everything...Couches, chairs, walls, cabinets, tables, anything she can grab a hold of, she uses it to maneuver around. She has a very sweet disposition, cute as a button, with hair hanging in her eyes, that I try to keep in a "pebbles" style, until she pulls out her hair band. She is very good about playing by herself, however, she is, also, very interested in what Lily is doing. Many, many times during the day I have to mediate the "toy snatching" that goes on between the two. They both steal from each other, but Lily is in her "mine" stage, still, and it never fails Morgan will be playing with a toy, minding her own business, when Lily comes over and steals it out of her hands. Poor Morgan will scream as if she is saying, "No, sissy, don't, why did you do that???" Sometimes, though, Morgan has such a death grip on the toy, Lily is unsuccessful in the stealing of the toy. I chuckle inside because then Lily leaves her be when she realizes Morgan is not "giving in" to her.
As I stated before Morgan has a sweet disposition. She will come up to Lily or I while we are playing and lay her head on us. She loves to place her forehead on my forehead so we can see directly into each other's eyes. As a baby, she did this when she started to get sleepy, now she does it when she knows someone is going to give her kisses.
She blows kisses & waves at strangers, she returns my smiles when I look at her through the rear view mirror, she loves chocolate milk and eats a ton of fruit. Morgan says a few words now... hi, bye, mommy, lily (yeye), puppy, dadda, ball, belly (baye). She loves to dance and will do it anywhere, anytime! (like her momma!)
She lets out a little scream & giant smile when she hears her daddy unlock the front door and walk down the hallway.
She is an absolute doll & I can't wait to watch her grow up. It will happen too fast I know.

with the good comes the bad

Last week ,Frank and I had to rush Lily to the emergency room. She had an abscess on her bottom which needed to be drained. Let me back up... last Tuesday night I took Lily to the Acute Kids Care for an abscess on her bottom. The Pediatric Doctor, also named "Lily", lanced the abscess (which was horribly painful for my Lily) and wrote a prescription for an antibiotic. We came home with Lily running a 102 temp. The next day we followed up with our Pediatrician. She drained it some more and told us to continue draining, warm compresses, and warm sudsy baths, but if Lily continued to run a fever bring her back the next day. Guess what? Lily was still running a fever and the infection was spreading. Every time I drained the abscess a ton of infection came out and the whole process was traumatizing for Lily and I both. So we went back to our Doctor and she sent us straight to Dallas Children's Hospital. We checked in to the ER and waited for the Pediatric Surgeon to see us. I couldn't feed Lily anything to drink or eat because there was a possibility she was going to have surgery later in the evening. During the waiting time in the ER we had three different diagnosis, plans/opinions. Finally, when we saw our Pediatric Surgeon he said, "Surgery and IV antibiotics, you should go home in a couple of days"
Wow!!! Here we are in the ER, Frank and I trying to wrap our heads around our baby, "going to sleep"? We just couldn't believe it.
The nurses came in to install Lily's IV. TRAUMATIC!!! I remind you Lily has nothing to eat or drink. She was dehydrated and the nurses took three tries before getting it right. So here is our sweet baby lying on the bed, hands & body wrapped in a tight blanket so she can't move around, all the while screaming because she is in pain and flat pissed. Again....TRAUMATIC!!!
Surgery went perfectly fine. Literally it took 5 minutes. The recovery process was longer than the surgery. When Lily woke up she asked for her shoes and juice. We gladly accommodated her! Our nurse brought in a DVD player with Thomas the Train DVDs and in no time at all Lily was up dancing to the theme music. Frank and I were very relieved! Lily and I were escorted to our room and were pretty much in quarantine.
Aunt Lisa was so nice to bring us dinner on Thursday & Friday night and Frank spent most of the Saturday with us at the hospital. Miss Morgan was at home being taken care of by Frank's mom and my mom which came in from OK to help out. I knew Morgan was in great hands so that was one thing for me NOT to worry about.
Lily had a dose of IV antibiotic every 6 hours and Tylenol & Motrin when needed. I haven't mentioned during surgery Lily was given an incision with two draining tubes coming out of her bottom. The dirty diaper thing was very difficult to deal with and I will spare you any details.
We spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday night in the hospital. I will always remember room 670, yellow & blue painted walls, with a strange, upside down, painted hot air balloon on one of the ceiling tiles. Weird? The nurses were very sweet to Lily. They brought her stickers, bubbles, and a little stuffed frog. The "child life" services, also, brought Lily toys, bubbles, DVDs, stickers, crayons & coloring books to occupy her time. What a relief, because remember we came to the ER with nothing but the clothes on our back and a diaper bag.
On Sunday, the Surgeon came in, took Lily's drainage tubes out, gave me directions for future cleaning of the wound, and gave us our walking papers!!!
We came home to tell Grandma Suzy, "Thank you, I love you, and Bye, bye!"
Then later that evening Frank's family came over for dinner. I know it sounds crazy having people over just after getting home from the hospital, but the company took our mind off of all the hospital stuff. We enjoyed steak, egg plant rattitoue (sp?), salad, and Sangria.
As of today you would never know Lily had been in the hospital for 4 days. Except for her name bracelet which is on her ankle. She will not let me get close to it to cut it off. It's like it's her battle scar. I might have to sneak in her room and cut it off if she doesn't give in shortly! But other than that you would never guess she was in the hospital. She is back to being my sweet, spicy, caring, independent, curious, loving, active, smart little girl!