The Big One

Today Hallie turned one.

She began her celebration with a lovely breakfast of chicken and vegetable stew mixed with butter and pear/pineapple medley (please don't ask...I am sure that, when she's older and she reads this blog she's going to be horrified by the food combos to which we subjected her). She followed this up with a session of practicing "pull to stand" that ended with a quick dive off of the couch. Happily, I caught her on the first bounce. Unhappily, this involved a small amount of crying that resulted from shock, breaking her fall with her arms, and a short skid along the carpet. No one was hurt, but I made a mental note to practice my own dive and rescue techniques so that I'd be a quicker responder to such events which, alas, will probably become ever more frequent in the upcoming days.

This afternoon, Hallie was honored by a visit from Aunt Ellen, who is Hallie's first friend. Ellen is the first nurse that we all got to meet in the Labor and Delivery suite to which Sharon was rushed (careening into walls, doors, and us) a year and a day ago today. Ellen's prediction when she said, "Ladies, we are going to get to know each very well this summer" was totally on target. Anyway, Hallie shares all of her important milestones with Ellen, and today was no exception.

Here's Hallie ripping into her gifts from Ellen. She found the paper intensely exciting and apparently quite flavorful.



Maybe her high fiber diet is the reason we are getting to change so many interesting diapers these days?

Aunt Ellen and Hallie had a very long, very serious birthday talk, to which Hallie responded with many high-pitched "ays" and "ahs."



Then we all went off to More Than Just Ice Cream for lunch. Hallie was very well behaved and crunched away on her Trader Joes veggie sticks and had some bottle while we partook in salads and such, saving lots of room for the purpose of this visit: long ago, back when Hallie weighed considerably less than two pounds, Ellen had promised that she would take Hallie out for chocolate ice cream on her first birthday.

Here's Hallie digging into her very first sundae:



Truth be told, right now we think that Hallie enjoys fruit flavors above everything else, and to our horror, she liked the low fat peach frozen yogurt the best. But she got to sample lots of different flavors--chocolate marshmallow, mint chip, cinnamon bun, and coffee and liked all but the last of the ice creams.

This little exercise of feeding Hallie did, however, involve the use of many spoons. This was not because our girl is a stickler for avoiding double dipping but because she takes very seriously the fact that these spoons are of the "take and toss" variety. She is especially fond of the "toss" bit and this is what the floor looked like after our little adventure:



Needless to say, we tipped well.

Later on today, we had dinner with a subset of the commune. Ethan, unfortunately, was a bit under the weather so he and Josh could not attend, so we got together with Mark, Vanessa, and Karina for a short meal and birthday cake. Karina and Hallie had a blast hanging out with one another.



Karina was very emotional about her best friend turning one. At one point, she reached over and gave Hallie a huge hug and kiss. Hallie was a bit stunned but took the headlock Karina placed on her in stride:



Like Ellen, Karina also gave our girl a birthday talk:



This was followed by a long 'girls only' conversation that we found absolutely hilarious.



Then we brought out the cake, which was dedicated to both Hallie and Olivia:



Hallie helped us blow out the candle:



Then she got down and dirty with the cake, which not only was delicious but has secret moisturizing capacities:



A good time was had by all and Hallie especially enjoyed her post-cake, pre-bedtime bath.

The First Birthday Has Arrived

It is officially one year (and almost two hours) since Hallie Rose's and Olivia Skye's birth.

We are very much filled with emotion tonight (and have been all month, and will be for the rest of June). A year ago tonight, we were just embarking on the NICU rollercoaster. We had only the vaguest idea what this meant. About a half hour from now, a year ago, Sharon and I, accompanied by her family (who drove back from NJ to Philly at midnight when it became clear that delivery was imminent) went down from Labor and Delivery, where we had lived for not quite a week, to the ICN at Pennsylvania Hospital to see our daughters.

Tonight, we brought Hallie back to the ICN for a visit. It was a bittersweet occasion. One of Hallie's primaries, Corinne, was in charge tonight, just as she had been a year ago tonight. She had been thinking about us and on the verge of writing us an email when we walked in the door.

The first person to greet us this evening was David, surprisingly one of the very very few nurses who never had Hallie as a patient. David is hilarious and we always enjoyed his presence when we spent our many, many nights holed up in East and South last year. Anyway, David was thrilled to see Hallie: while he had never taken care of her officially, he did have the dubious pleasure of being the one to administer chest compressions to her on her first-month birthday last year. He is extremely glad to have never had to repeat this experience and to see how big and strong she is today.

He was not the only one who thought that Hallie was getting to be a big girl. This is not only because most of the ICN folks remember her back when she and Olivia were the size of 20 ounce coke bottles and fit into the palms of their hands. Rather, Hallie really has put on a bunch of weight since last week....as of Thursday, she is 7125 grams, or 15 lbs. 11.5 ounces, which is a more than 4 ounce gain from the previous week. She is also eating like a champ and has finished a record FOUR whole baby food jars in the past couple of days. Plus, she had a few veggie sticks from Trader Joe's (a tastier version of the melt in your mouth gerber snacks, we think), and she did nicely with them. Maybe some day we'll actually work through the stash of baby food that we amassed months ago when we were desperately trying to find something that Hallie would like to eat. Hallie also has acquired quite a bit more leg and arm chub and carrying her around is actually becoming an experience that leads to sore muscles.

In any event, here's a series of photos of Hallie with Katie (a respiratory therapist who had the pleasure (NOT!) of intubating and reintubating Hallie many times, and who always had a soft spot for our little girl):



We also saw Nicole, who is going to get to share that birthday cake with our kiddo at long last this coming Sunday, who loved up our little girl:





And Hallie also got to spend some quality time in the arms Dr. June Wallison, one of the neonatologists:




If Hallie looks blurry in some of these photos, it is because our image stabilization cannot compensate for our bundle of joy, who is a body in perpetual motion. This may detract from our photography (and our sleep), but all in all, we're pretty happy with how much joy and energy courses through Hallie Rose's body.

The rest of the week will be spent in various birthday preparations. We will have dinner with our commune tomorrow night in honor of our girls' birth, and will spend Sunday celebrating Hallie's first birthday. Most of the past weekend was devoted to preparations for this event, and I suspect that the next few days will be as well.

Throughout all of this, we are still searching for the right way to memorialize Olivia (can there be a right way to do this? We are not the only ones who have experienced this searing pain and loss, and I think that all of us parents of surviving twins, and all of us who have ever lost a baby fumble through this, hoping to find something appropriate to say or do, but in the end, nothing really makes us feel better or makes something that is so wrong feel right. Anyway, we will do the best we can and hope that someday we can figure out a way of coming to peace with things and, most importantly, a way of explaining to Hallie about her beginnings and about her sister and why her birth is a momentous and joyous occasion for us but also one that is inevitably bittersweet.

One Year Ago...

One year ago this past evening, around 10pm, right after finishing dinner with Mark, Vanessa, Josh, Nancie, Karina, and Ethan, we headed to Pennsylvania Hospital. Sharon hadn't been feeling at all well for a couple of days and had a miserable lower back ache and a bunch of other somewhat worrisome symptoms.

After parking Vanessa's car and heading up to Labor and Delivery's Emergency Room, we remarked (quite foolishly) that we'd be home in an hour.

Little did we know that for the next 100 or so hours, everyone in our circle of friends and family would be praying--not least of all me, who would not and could not spend the night alone with Sharon in L&D for fear that delivery was imminent and that I wouldn't be able to handle it--for Sharon to hold onto the babies and for the babies to grow, grow, grow. And that for the next almost 3 weeks we'd be living moment to moment praying for PDAs to close, infections to clear, IVHs to resolve and for both of them to defy the rule of the NICU rollercoaster by doing better than anyone ever expected a 23 weeker to do. And that for the months after that, we'd be staging vigils by Hallie's isolette, praying for her lungs to recover, for her to breathe on her own, for her not to need steroids, for her to be able to get off the vent with just some steroids, for her never to need chest compressions ever again, etc etc.

In other words, since this time last year, we've been living in the trenches and I think that both of us are so shell shocked and have such post traumatic stress disorder that we have no idea about how to live anymore. We're always in crisis mode, and when there is no crisis, we tend to invent one. Crisis is a way of life. How sad.

This is obviously an emotional time of the year for us and I imagine it always will be. As much as we are thrilled that Hallie's birthday is so soon approaching, there is this quite understandable, lingering bittersweet taste in our mouths. Hallie's birthday was not the joyous and momentous occasion that we had both imagined. And Hallie's birthday will always be Olivia's birthday and, while we are both grateful to have had Olivia in our lives, we had her with us for far too short of a period of time. While watching Hallie grow and become more of a charming and feisty little person is in itself a wonderful experience, it too is tinged with sadness because it reminds us how we never got the chance to do that with Olivia Skye.

Hallie is blissfully unaware of all of this, at least as far as we can tell. We are not sure how or when we will tell her the story of her arrival or share with her our feelings of love and sorrow about her sister, but for the meantime, while we talk to her about Olivia, we are pretty sure that she has no idea what we are saying. She is too busy doing her thing, which involves a lot of work on motor skills (spoken as a parent of a child in Early Intervention).

Here's a few shots of Hallie from yesterday.

Her biggest fascination, in terms of her physical environment, right now is exploring hallways, doorways, and other places of entrance and egress:




While we are all for exploration, the baby gates are now bought and will be up tomorrow!

Hallie has also been busy pulling herself up in her crib. I came in to find her like this yesterday:



And last evening, she had a great time grooving to the sound of the Mummers (a Philly tradition: they are groups of men in string bands who sport flamboyant costumes and who organize elaborately choreographed dances that they present on New Years Day in a major parade. They practice all year long for this in halls and warehouses in South Philly, which is where we live). A local park (three blocks away) has organized a series of Tuesday night events for kids, and we brought Hallie, who had a wonderful time. She enjoyed the music, the dancing, and the company of lots of other kids:




And, finally, Hallie enjoyed sporting her new toothy grin. We think that her smile is the most beautiful smile in the whole world, and so I'll close this post with this image:

Yo, Baby!

Hallie is a very busy baby these days; she is obviously feeling much better (even though she is teething, has a cold, a runny nose, was running a fever and has the runs....sorry if this is too much information, but the thing that I am wondering is what in the world she'd be like if she were a hundred percent well).

Anyway, yesterday we started our day off with Hallie showing me her lovely new teeth (bottom front and center). They are doubling in size every day, going from tiny but sharp nubbins to cute little baby sized mounds (that she hones to a razor edge on diet coke and iced tea cans and bottles):



After playing for a while with her toys in the living room, we relocated to Hallie's bedroom where she gave us a very good lesson in why babyproofing needs to happen NOW:





Hallie can now get anywhere and do most everything. In addition to having access to the stuff we store on her soon-to-be-former changing table, she loves to try to pull herself up on burp cloths, plastic liners of diaper pails, and her flexible elephant hamper. I think she'll figure out pretty soon that the couch is a better option, but I hate to think about the bumps and bruises she's going to get learning those lessons.

Happily, there were no bumps and bruises yesterday; just one smiling baby.

In the afternoon, she went out to play in the waterpark the commune set up in front of our house and Mark, Vanessa, and Karina's:



And in the evening, we all went over to Mark and Vanessa's to have dinner (more on this later). Hallie had a ton of fun playing with Benjamin and Adam (two of our neighbors', Barbara and Chris', three boys) and Karina and all of Karina's toys. She especially enjoyed walking behind Karina's Little Tykes ride on:




And if all of that wasn't enough, here's the really important news: Hallie had a banner eating day. For the first time in a long time, she took in something approximating her caloric requirements (around 700 calories a day, at least). But significantly, less of it was administered in the form of 'dream fed' (essentially feeding her in her sleep) bottles and more of it happened in the daytime hours when she was awake and actively seeking her bottle. And, even more significant, not all of those calories were pediasure, either. She ate, drum roll please, a WHOLE container of Yo Baby! yogurt (frozen, and supercharged with added Carnation Instant Breakfast) and she did so happily. We froze the yogurt because Hallie loves frozen food and she kept going after it like a champ and demonstrated none of her typical gag reflex action. We are hoping that this starts a trend around here, but even if it doesn't, we had a very good eating day (and unsurprisingly, the mommies' stress level was far reduced) yesterday.

So, for your viewing pleasure, I present the final moments of Hallie's second frozen yogurt meal last night:

Yo Baby/Food, Glorious Food!

And, for the record, she did keep it all down! Sharon was right about this one and I was being too overly cautious when I thought that she needed to stop feeding Hallie before the container was absolutely empty.

Pull to Stand!!!!

Alas, I have no pictures of this one, but HALLIE PULLED HERSELF UP BY HERSELF TODAY.

We had just gotten back from hanging out at a neighborhood cafe with Aunt Renee. Hallie was super duper tired but, at the same time, oddly energized. She's had a pretty good couple of days with minimal vomiting and lots and lots of teething (I swear that she's getting six to eight teeth at once. She has a prodigious amount of snot and drool and this would be quite comical except for the fact that she has this nagging and really painful seeming wet cough). Anyway, I had planted her in the living room on the carpet to crawl around and play with her numerous toys and was pouring myself a soda. I had turned away from her for perhaps thirty seconds to one minute and when I turned back, she was standing and holding onto her Fisher Price Little Peoples Bus. I was amazed and thrilled. I could have run upstairs and found the camera but this seemed rather inprudent. Instead, I spotted Hallie as she held on and explored the world from her new, independent vantage point.

On top of this (and probably related to it), Hallie is increasingly good at crawling. Now, you can leave her in one place and two minutes later find her halfway across the room. We have an IKEA bookshelf in her room that is set up sort of tic-tac toe board style (with individual cubbies; please don't ask me what the ersatz Swedish name of this product is because I am certain that I never knew it). Hallie's onesies, pants, socks, shirts, towels, etc are in wicker bins that slide into
each of the cubbies. This morning she crawled over to her pants bin and began to pull it out. I immediately planted her back in the middle of her rug (perhaps five feet or so away) and a minute later she was one bin over trying to pull out the nasal canula stored in the pulse ox carry bag (I guess he misses her beloved cannula!). Everything is now new and exciting to our little girl and this is thrilling to watch and somehow vaguely terrifying. But we're much more thrilled than terrified.

On the weight issue: she's put back all the weight she lost and so she's back where she was three or four weeks ago. She's also a bunch taller (27 inches or so). We're not at all unhappy about the weight because, frankly, we thought that she was going to be in the 14 lb something range and she weighed in at 15 lbs. 7.3 ounces. So there's still some hope for her being over 16 lbs by her birthday. This does not by any means put her on the actual growth chart, but at least it would keep her around the 25th percentile of the corrected chart.

Hallie does seem more enthusiastic about food these days, though it's still a relatively low level of enthusiasm that she is exhibiting. She likes frozen food above all else (she most certainly does not need Lean Cuisines, though the occasional quart of Haagen Dazs seems like a good choice to us!). We've been freezing baby yogurt (Stonyfield farm brand) with added Carnation Instant Breakfast and Pediasure so that we can feed her this by spoon at least once a day, if not three.

We also met with our new Speech Therapist, Kristi, this week. We're hoping that she's able to make feeding Hallie while she's awake and coaxing consonants like "b", "M", and "L" out of her much easier.

That's all for now and I'll try to get soem pics up tomorrow!

Leaving Las Vegas

It was a crazy idea to begin with, and one that had a lot of risk attached to it: Sharon and I were going to take a vacation and leave Hallie with Aunt Laura and the cousins and Grammy, who would watch her during the day when Aunt Laura and Uncle Bryan were off in school teaching and the big cousins were off in school learning and the little cousins were off in daycare playing. Somehow, we had lulled ourselves into believing that Hallie would not only be fine, but that the break would do her good, too.

Our friends were impressed---they hadn't even left their full term babies for a week for a vacation before said babies were a year old. In some cases, they waited until the kids were off to college before vacationing. Not us: we were intrepid. Plus, we really needed the break.

Needless to say, we STILL really need the break. Our seven days of debauchery in Vegas became a two-day whirlwind tour. Thankfully, we did manage to jam a lot in during those two days and thankfully almost none of this involved gambling. It was bad enough to lose the cost of the vacation itself; we really weren't there long enough to recoup gambling debts in the long run. (For the record, I lost 15 dollars on slots and roulette; Sharon won 10 dollars at blackjack).

From the start, things were a bit dicey (so to speak) with this vacation. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 8 am. We got to the airport in plenty of time and were not concerned about having to rush; indeed, we were more concerned that Josh, Nancie, and Ethan would make their flight since they left their house later than they should have and their plane took off a half hour ahead of our scheduled departure. Indeed, the morning had a bit of an Amazing Race quality to it---we were neck and neck on 95 and arrived at the parking valet within minutes of one another, raced each other back to the airport to check in, etc. Josh and Nancie made their plane -- but only just. We were thrilled to hear this.

Less thrilling was the fact that our plane had mechanical difficulties. We waited and waited and then they announced that the plane needed a part that had to be flown in from Atlanta and that we would take off at 12:30pm at the latest. Since this was Air Tran and since we're talking about contemporary US flying practices, where snack foods and comfort items have been replaced by multiple stopovers (I guess so you can buy your own food) that take you in directions that make no sense to anyone but the airline, we were supposed to fly through Atlanta to Vegas. A delay meant that we'd miss our connection, the airline could not promise to get us on the next connecting flight out, and that would have gotten us into Vegas at 9pm, instead of noon. As it turns out, time was more of the essence than we had thought, but even without that hindsight, missing an entire day seemed wrong. Air Tran was less than cooperative in terms of trying to get us on another flight (READ: they were awful to deal with and miserable and I will try to avoid them, especially since now we have to wrangle a refund out of them). To make a long story short, we ended up cancelling that flight (with a promise of a full refund, not a refund of 100 dollars to person, which is what they now have given me!) and we rebooked a direct flight on Southwest, which was a pleasure to fly. Our new time of arrival: 2pm. We were still going to lose the amazing race, but at least not as badly as we thought!

However, before we could make our way over to the Southwest gates (and pass through terminal after terminal, while singing the Royskopp tune from the Geico Caveman Commercial, we had to retrieve our bags from Air Tran.

This was no easy feat. The counterperson at the gate had taken our baggage claims (and all other information linking us to the flight. The counterperson told us to go down to the baggage claim and that our bags would be there in fifteen minutes. We raced around the airport while singing the Royskopp tune and actually believed our bags would be there waiting for us. We were so, so wrong. We waited and waited: no bags. We went to the very helpful Air Tran baggage claim worker (the only worker we found helpful, as it turns out) and she looked us up. It was as if we were had never existed---computer records on us vanished. Our identities as erstwhile potential Air Tran passengers vaporized. There was no us, there were no bags. We began to panic. We had checked most everything (at least I was wearing shorts!) and our new flight took off in an hour and a half and no one that the baggage claim lady called was willing to help. Others got their bags, but not us.

Our stress level was mounting.

Fortunately, before I could bust a major vein in my body, the baggage claim lady found someone willing to go out there and get our bags and retrieve them. Fifteen more minutes passed, but at least we had our bags.

The Amazing Race could resume. We careened our way through the airport, lugging heavy bags and wheely suitcases (remember: we had packed for seven days. For me, this means seven days of pool reading material and not just shorts and shirts and the like. Sharon, alas, ended up lugging the reading material bag. My apologies!) Amazingly, the security line was short and cooperative and we made it to the gate with a few minutes to spare. Of course, we had "C" tickets, so we got crappy seats, but at least we were on our way.

We arrived in Vegas to this lovely lush skyline:



This was my first time in Vegas, and as a former New Yorker who loves Europe, I am happy to report that I was not in the least offended by the post modern nature of this town. Indeed, I found it intriguing: who could have imagined building an oasis in the middle of the desert that serves as a timecapsule for our conception of "culture" (Roman Palazzos, the Eiffel Tower, the NY skyline), danger (pirates, wild tigers and lions and bears, OH MY!), and decadence and excess (bachelor parties with shots, frat house life at its finest, gambling and free booze) and mixes them all together in a kitschy way that actually works. Yes, it's fake, but in the most fun possible sense.

Then again, what the hell do I know: I only spent 60 hours in Vegas and the last five were panic filled. But I get ahead of our story.

Anyway, we were pleased to find that Treasure Island's rooms were spacious and comfy (though I'd have loved more time in this bed):



And after dropping our stuff, even though we suffered (and still do) from a chronic lack of sleep, we began to take in the excitement of our vacation. Dinner was spent at Kahunaville---a Hawai'in themed tiki bar type place with pretty decent food and a raucous evening environment. This is Sharon partying at the bar on Wednesday night:



And here's one of Josh doing a "bottle shot." He also danced with a lovely bride-to-be while very pregnant Nancie was upstairs with their 18 month old, Ethan. Way to go, Josh! (Actually, Josh was very well behaved and really, what happens in Vegas does need to stay in Vegas):



In addition to time by the lovely pool, the four of us plus Ethan had breakfast in Paris; saw some lions and tigers resting in their oh so contrived habitats, ate an In-N-Out burger (Sharon likes Five Guys burgers better but prefers the fries at In-N-Out), went to a couple of cheesy casinos, and visited a nature preserve at Flamingo:



It was beautiful, albeit quite hot, out and everyone, including the turtles, enjoyed basking in the sun:



We were thrilled to see a family of ducks. Notice there are two little ducklings in the picture; a third had swum off and was enjoying its newfound independence:



Looking at the little ducklings really made us miss Hallie. We were calling home all the time to see how she was and managed to skype with her once. She had a runny nose but we were aware of no other problems so we continued to enjoy our time in Vegas.

Here's a picture of us at the nature preserve that proves that we actually did manage to get to Vegas:



And here's a nice shot of Nancie, Josh, and Ethan. We hope that we can manage to take a family vacation with Hallie and stage this sort of shot at some time in the future:



But, as it turns out, all was not well in the land of New Jersey. Hallie was actually getting pretty sick and had been snuffly, vomiting, and unable or unwilling to eat since at least some time on Tuesday. Aunt Laura performed feats of heroism that involved staying up all night and feeding Hallie around the clock to make up for the fact that she ate a whole 1.5 ounces on Wednesday during the day, but by some time on Thursday, the situation had taken a turn for the worse. Aunt Laura let us know what was up in the middle of the day on Thursday, and we kept the communication channels open, but while we were out enjoying dinner at a wonderful Thai restaurant (Lotus of Siam, I believe it is called) off the beaten track (in a strip mall, actually, and apparently in an Asian area of Vegas because the other things in the mall were two other Asian restaurants, an Asian massage parlor and a karaoke bar), Hallie was melting down.

This ended up being the last site we took in while in Vegas. It's a picture of the stratosphere taken from a 7-11 parking lot (where we stopped to buy milk for Ethan and Karina, who had just arrived in town with Mark and Vanessa):



Mark, Vanessa, and Karina were only able to join us for a few days, but were very excited about it. The prospect of hanging out and partying in Vegas literally had Karina dancing on the table.



They should not have been so excited. As soon as they got there, while we were getting them a bite to eat in the deli, we got a call from Aunt Laura. Hallie was running a fever, was unable to eat, was getting dehydrated and was miserable. They had not told us this earlier, but she had been impossible to put down the night before and had to be driven all over town for hours. She slept fitfully in her carseat. She was no longer our happy sweet girl who never cries, but a sick little baby who was inconsolable.

We asked them to take her to CHOP in Philly, which is about 45 minutes to an hour away. It was three am in NJ and Aunt Laura needed to be up for a fieldtrip with her first grade class in the morning, Jan couldn't make the drive to Philadelphia and offered to take Hallie to Shore Memorial--a hospital that is not known for its high standard of pediatric care even if some CHOP doctors rotate through there. This wasn't okay with us, so we called my best friend, Aunt Renee, who got into the car with her partner, Kim, and they drove to pick up Hallie and Jan and Jan's car and drive them all to CHOP. Meanwhile, Vanessa got on the phone with Southwest Airlines and rebooked us (SWest was great--a note from CHOP was all they needed to waive any rebooking fees) and we packed up all of our stuff. Josh drove us to the airport at 4am for our 6am flight and by 4pm the next day, we were back in Philly.

Sharon did get some artsy shots in from the airplane, but it was not the same as taking pictures in Vegas:





By the time we got back home, Hallie had been released from the hospital. Her diagnosis was an acute Upper Respiratory Infection, but it was viral so antibiotics wouldn't be of any use. We just needed to keep her hydrated, get as much food into her as possible and wait it out.

As it turns out, there was little in the way of waiting it out at home. She was relatively okay on Saturday, but by Sunday had gotten worse. She was possibly working on an ear infection. And on top of everything else, she started to have diarrhea. Did I also mention she was teething? This conglomerate of symptoms had us at her pediatrician's office on Monday. Monday was also a day of chronic vomiting: we put food in her and she projectile vomited it back at us. This went on until Tuesday, and she was clearly getting sicker. To make a long story short, on Tuesday evening we ended up back in the ER, where Hallie conveniently bumped us ahead of about 25 other sick kids (most with similar symptoms) by vomiting three times in the short span of time we were awaiting a room. Her inability to keep down even 5 ml of pedialyte administered by syringe combined with no wet diapers and lots of runny poop ended up getting her hospitalized and on an IV in the extended care unit. It was there that we learned the trick of cutting her formula (pediasure) with pedialyte to help keep it down and using chocolate syrup as the base through which to administer her zantac and prilosec. This is Hallie with her hershey's syrup moustache:



To make what is now an excruciating long story only somewhat shorter, we were finally sprung from the EDECU at CHOP on Thursday afternoon. Hallie did OK on Friday, managed to projectile vomit directly at me twice and pee on me once before 9am yesterday, and is seeming to be on the mend. She even was back to her playful smiley self by yesterday afternoon:





Yesterday, our friend Kat came to help out with Hallie and assist her moms in getting the house in order (it was a total mess since we dropped our bags and ran, and had tons of laundry to do and things to organize). Here, Hallie is happily hanging out with Kat, and if you look really closely, you'll see that Hallie is pointing to her very first two teeth.



Later on, I'll try to get a shot of the scars said teeth have left on my finger!

Anyway, this post is certainly long enough, so I will end here. Let's hope for a less dramatic week ahead. Happy Memorial Day everyone!

Ten Grand...or We've Been Tagged...

Not our Vegas winnings, alas... (we'll have a separate post on this one)...but our response to being tagged by Laura over at Adventures in Juggling.

The goal of this meme is to focus on the here and now, so here we go:

1 and 2. Hallie's breathtaking smile and delightful squeal.



Even when she's sick (which alas she is right now), she's a happy baby who enjoys smiling. I just love it when I walk in the room and she sees me; she smiles from ear to ear and coos and, if we're lucky, she lets out this great squeal. No matter what other nonsense we've faced in any given day, this smile and squeal combo lifts our moods.

3. Our neighbors. We're raising Hallie in a sort of commune/harem (the guys like to think of it this way) with our friends Mark and Vanessa (parents of gorgeous Karina) and Josh and Nancy (parents of handsome Ethan, soon to be a big brother). We eat at one another's houses two to four times a week, and the kids have come to think of themselves as belonging with the others; it's very cute to see them reach out to hug and kiss each other when they haven't seen each other in a while. We even tried to vacation communally; more on this later too (have I piqued your curiousity yet?).

4. Friends who come to our rescue. We couldn't make it without them. Our network has been and is spectacular. This is what got us through Sharon's pre-term labor, the super early delivery, our NICU days, losing Olivia, our vigil for Hallie, our hibernation at home during RSV season, and, most recently, this past weekend. More on this later (yet again), but let's give a huge shout out to Renee and Kim, in addition to the aforementioned commune/harem members to coming to our (and Hallie's) aid this past 72 hours or so. Of course our family is always there for us, and we don't take that for granted at all and certainly appreciate it, but it's nice to know that there are those in this world who are not related to us who care enough to go that extra mile (or even 100 miles) to help us out when we really need them.

5. Our Simmons Beauty Rest pillow top queen sized bed. We love it and miss it and want to visit it again soon.

6. Whole Foods Market. I love being within walking distance of it and Hallie likes the bright colors and fresh smells. So what if they take our Whole Paycheck?

7. Sony Cyber Shot DSC T-100 Camera.



This is our new digital that replaces the battery-eating, space-taking Canon that we used to use. Much clearer pictures, teensy-weensy profile, fast connection and downloading to our computers, and cheaper battery costs. Who could ask for much more?

8. Pediasure Strawberry and Vanilla. This one we're conflicted about but it has saved our butts the past few days. It's super sweet smelling with a cloying, lingering aroma and is super sticky to the touch and costs a total fortune but at least Hallie will sort of willingly eat it while awake. And it's 30 calories an ounce. Neither of us is thrilled with serving her so much sugar, but the alternatives being what they are, we're happy that Pediasure is out there for us to use.

9. Our garden (in particular, Nan's Rose Bush).



We have a small brick garden in the back of our house with two raised beds and room for a table, four chairs, a grill, and a bunch of free standing pots. Even though the space is minimal, I've been able to do a lot with it. Right now, in addition to the famous rosebush, we have a lilac bush--a purple Muscovite variety (that I put in two years ago; it will hopefully bear flowers next season); two clematis; three grape vines (native Concord Grapes) that are threatening to overtake everything); two blueberry bushes; two tomato plants (I finally caved in and limited the numbers under pressure from Sharon who finds them unsightly in late summer); a slew of herbs--basil, mint, oregano and thyme that overwintered in our recently warmer climate, lavender, and sage (rosemary fails to thrive in my care or I'd have a nice song in there somewhere); a hydrangea bush; and numerous flowers (pansies, impatiens, wildflowers, etc). Years ago, someone planted boston ivy in the garden and it's lovely because it grows super quickly each spring to create a canopy that provides an illusion of privacy and dies off in the fall so that we get some winter sunlight in the back. I love our garden.



10. Gold Peak Diet Iced Tea. This brand (marketed and bottled by Coca Cola and only recently, it seems, growing increasingly available) rocks. It's the best tasting bottled iced tea I've ever had (and I've been known to drink a lot of iced tea in my time, though this pales in comparison to my diet coke (aka 'bubbly') consumption. Is it utterly ridiculous to pay between 1.35 and 1.69 a bottle for a beverage I can make myself? Absolutely. Is it worth it on a hot day when you have no time to make a pot of tea and cool it off sufficiently? Absolutely. Anyway, this tea had me and Vanessa trolling the 'net for someone who might sell it to us by the case. We didn't find anyone out there willing to do that, but we did buy some nifty 2-for-1 coupons on Ebay that should satisfy our habit for about a week.