Kids and the Stone! (Week 144/6)

Hey everyone!  Whew, what a tough tough tough week this was.  I have a good excuse! - but I'll get into it more later in the post.  Katelyn is getting bigger and bigger - she's allowing us to put her down for short periods of wakefullness while we take care of things around the house.  This means more time for me to keep the house clean - because I really am just that anal about cleanliness.  I think that's probably something that I need to work on - stop being so crazy about cleaning!

Here's Katelyn hanging out in her swing.  Tyler loved this thing!  Katelyn...not so much yet.  Lame thing is that the little birds/leaves that rotate on top get stuck once in a while and make this loud CLICK CLICK sound that startles her.  Great.

I actually got around to dressing Katelyn in a little cute outfit this past week.  She's usually in her sleep pajamas ALL day - they keep me from being scratched (mittens) and easy access for diaper changes!  I took this picture and was blown away by how much she looks like Tyler.  She seriously is Tyler in a dress at this age.

Love these shots of Will with Katelyn - she's totally looking at the camera!

Katelyn has been getting over some horrible baby acne - it's starting to get super dry and not so red (progress right?).  I'm trying to not pick at it and let it heal on its own, but it's tough - her skin is so rough!  Ahh, a sleeping Katelyn picture - love it.  Can't wait until she's on a schedule for her naps...and sleeping in her own room!

Last week we had visitors!  I love visitors - totally helps break up my day.  Here's Katelyn and my friend Nancy.  Katelyn was quite well behaved that day and had no problems with being passed around. :)

Group picture with Trina and Nancy.  Thanks for visiting girls (we missed you Mariam!)!  Please come again! :)  Lucky ducks - they all headed to Vegas for the weekend to celebrate Trina's 30th birthday!  Will actually was cool with me going ( what a wonderful husband I have!) but I couldn't imagine leaving Will to fend for himself...at least not until Katelyn is sleeping through the night which will be...

With each day that goes by, Katelyn loses more and more hair!  She is quickly on her way to becoming the Tyler-buddha-baby we had before.  I'm being optimistic: it's falling out so it'll grow back thicker and more luscious.  hehe.  Does this mean I should cut her (non-existent) eyelashes too?  Hah!

Last week was also Dress up day at Tyler's school.  One day we sent him to school with his Train Engineer hat (yes we are so imaginative).  The second day we were totally out of ideas (ok, guilty, we didn't even have time to think about it honestly) and we put Tyler in this cool bomber jacket that I had gotten from work.  (I used some work reward points at the Boeing Store).  How cool is Tyler - fighter pilot!  The jacket is still super big though (obviously).

After school on Friday, we headed to the neighboring park for some fun with some of our friends.  The boys had a great time running around and playing in the sand.  It was actually the first time that we took Katelyn out with us while we hung out with other families (I had missed everything before).  It was good being out and about.

Afterward we all headed to Soup Plantation for dinner.  Yikes - that place gets PACKED!  My experiences there have almost always been during the senior citizen dining hours of 5-6pm.  It was a different experience too, since I had to keep Katelyn happy.  Here's Tyler with his buddies Kaden and Dylan.  When Katelyn pooped, Winnie (Dylan's mom) actually offered to take her to the bathroom to change her.  WOW!  How awesome and amazing is that!! :)

Sunday Will's parents came over and we went to Outback Steakhouse for dinner.  We totally forgot to take a picture.  Kind of a weird choice of restaurant don't you think?  We only went because we had a gift certificate for $90 that we had won in a raffle at Tyler's school.  Pretty cool huh!  I had prime rib and I inhaled it.  YUM!  It's been FOREVER since I've wanted to eat prime rib...good sign that things are getting back to normal.

That night my mom came over and spent the night - she had gone to a performance at the Irvine Barclay theater and came over afterward.  Wonderful!  Will got to get some rest that night as my mom took Katelyn and held her (uhoh, encouraging bad behavior!) as they both slept in the nursery.  My mom is like the Katelyn-whisperer: Katelyn can sleep for HOURS in her arms!  I was hoping to get some good rest in but Tyler was pretty grumpy and I ended up spending the late night hours in his room.  Sigh.  Anyway, Monday was great!!  Ran errands, did grocery shopping, made a ton of yummy Chinese food.  My mom so very very very rarely spends time like this here - so this was such a treat - sniff sniff - wish she could do this more often!

Even better - I got to meet my girls for dinner for Trina's birthday and hear all about the crazy fun they had at Vegas.  Mm..dinner at Opah - 50% of the entire menu on Mondays - delicious Chilean Sea BASS!  YUM!  I needed that break!  Happy Birthday Trina!!

My dad came by after work to pick up my mom and have dinner with us.  Here he is with Katelyn- she was so knocked out.

...Fast forward to Monday night.  Here's where the unpleasantness happened.  It was about 1am and I had just put Katelyn down in her crib after nursing her.  Got into bed and... hmm... lower left back hurting... strange..REALLY hurting, no position I get into helps, oh man, hurts so bad I can't even lie there.  I'm in the bathroom wondering what the heck is going on - trying to be super quiet so I don't wake Katelyn...the pain is REALLY bad.  So bad that I actually start throwing up.  WTF?  Will is trying to figure out what's going on but I have no idea - I'm just waiting for the pain to subside but it doesn't let up...at all.  Writhing on the floor, more puking, about to pass out from the pain... 2 hours later we decide that we better head to the hospital before I actually do pass out.  Thank goodness for Trina - she came right over after we called (and it was her birthday too! sorry!) to keep an eye on Tyler (who was sleeping) while Will and I headed to the hospital ER.  Found out I had a Kidney Stone!  WTF!  Ridiculous!  I sent Will home with Katelyn (not good having  babies in hospitals).  Got some Morphine that didn't help the pain at all (that's how bad it was) and finally got some relief with a dosage of Dilaudid (the next step higher in pain med from Morphine).  A CT scan confirmed a 4mm kidney stone.  Just great.  Just great.  Called my mom and my dad drove her down to our place.  Funny thing is that I had just been thinking earlier that day that I was hoping she would be coming back soon - but never thought it would be under these circumstances!  Finally came home from the hospital around 8am - with instructions to keep my pain managed (thank you Percocet) and try to pass the stone on my own.  Lots of fluids!  Tuesday was a horrific day.  Whether it was the return of the excruciating back pain, or the intense nausea that resulted from the pain meds, I barely got off the couch.  Thank GOD my mom is so great with Katelyn - I pretty much just nursed Katelyn on the couch and tried to get some rest (really difficult and almost impossible!).  Will took my mom back home that afternoon with Tyler (so they could use the carpool lane on their way back) and Mariam came over to help with Katelyn since I was on my own.  I barely got off the couch.  Thanks Mariam for your help!  Whew - how lucky am I to have my girls nearby and able to help in these horrible emergencies!  But really, kidney stones?  Are you kidding me?  Is it really necessary for the pain to be THAT bad?  Worse than childbirth, worse than shingles.  Sigh.  Anyway, still dealing with this damn stone - and in pain as I write this!  The pain comes and goes - very sneaky - I think I'm totally fine and then later it comes back with a vengeance.  Ugh.  Urologist appointment on Monday to check things out.  On Wednesday Will's dad came over with my mom (Will's mom had a cold).  I was feeling a lot better but really tired.  My mom held onto Katelyn (they slept together all day on the couch!) and Will's dad made some crazy chinese remedies for kidney stones.  (Think a giant cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice - no sugar or anything!; sweet corn cooked with skin and the hair and drinking the water!; and pig feet with onion soup.  Yes.  Joy!).

Here's Will's dad playing with Katelyn before he left that evening.

And here's my mom with Katelyn.

Crossing my fingers that this kidney stone will just go away very soon.  I also read that if you've had it before, you're more prone to having it again.  Ahhh!  Sigh.  I'm just SPECIAL I guess.

Have a good week everyone!