Quck update

Just a quick update on Haley. She's unfortunately still in the hospital, but we're hoping today is the day she will get to come home. The poor girl has so much fluid in her lungs that her oxygen levels aren't where they need to be, so the doctors and nurses are doing what they can to try to clear her lungs and help her to breathe better so she can come home. She has not been a fan of all of the X-rays and blood work, and neither are we. It's heartbreaking to see your little one so scared because she doesn't understand.

Haley is exhausted. If you've ever spent any time in the hospital, you know that it's not a very restful place. The nurses come in often to take blood, perform breathing treatments, and check her oxygen. I will be glad to get her home in her own bed soon.

Despite all the poking and prodding, we did manage to get a few smiles out of her yesterday. We got to unhook her from the machines and go for a walk in the halls and play with some toys and that cheered her up. And since it was her birthday yesterday, my husband went out and brought her back a cupcake and some Disney Princess nail polish and she got to have her nails painted, which is a treat we usually save for special occasions. It was nice to get a glimpse of the happy girl that we've missed over the past few days

I hope you'll excuse me while I am in and out over the next week or so while I tend to Haley and (hopefully today!) bring her home from the hospital. We have been planning her birthday party for this next weekend and with all of the events lately, I'm so glad we decided to plan it then rather than this past weekend. I'll be sharing some details from her party eventually once things calm down. I can't wait to bring her home and celebrate Haley turning 3 and being healthy again.

The worst birthday present

Tomorrow is Haley's 3rd birthday, and she will be spending it in the hospital.

Earlier in the week, Haley came down with a bug that was a combination fever and cough. Her fever finally broke after 2 days of being miserable, but the cough just hung on and became worse. My normally energetic, happy girl turned lethargic, weepy and somber, and it was so saddening to watch. After keeping her hydrated and giving her what meds we could, we decided last night to make a doctor's appointment for her this morning and promised her if she was brave through her checkup, we would take her to ride the merry-go-round (her favorite thing.)

At 8:45am, we sat in the doctor's office waiting our turn, expecting to hear that it was just a bug that was going around. They went through the normal barrage of tests, and Haley was uncharacteristically good through all of it, even with the finger prick and the nose and throat swabs. Strep, negative. Flu, negative. Oxygen level, low. Too low. Due to her cough and low oxygen, the doctor decided that she probably had pneumonia, but they wouldn't be able to tell without a chest x-ray. They tried several breathing treatments to help her levels, but they each failed to bring her level up to where it needed to be. After 2 1/2 exhausting hours at the pediatrician, they made the decision to call an ambulance to take her to the hospital because she needed to be put on oxygen immediately.

After doing a chest X-ray, she came back negative for pneumonia, but since all of her symptoms point to pneumonia, that's what she's being treated for. While pneumonia is certainly treatable, the feeling of helplessness that you feel when you know that your child is sick and there's nothing you can do to heal her is horrible. As a parent you always want to make it better but this time, mommy's kiss can't heal the boo boo. Poor Haley kept crying and asking to be "all done" but instead of  taking her on a trip to ride the merry-go-round and get a cookie, she was taken to a hospital and hooked her up to some machines to stay overnight in a bed that isn't hers. She will most likely have to stay there all day tomorrow as well, but we're praying otherwise.

My husband is staying with Haley at the hospital tonight since she's a Daddy's girl and also because Connor needs to sleep in his own bed. I've done what I can to distract myself but all I see are the boxes of unopened birthday presents and the pile of birthday cards on the table without a happy, healthy girl to open them tomorrow. We're praying and believing that she'll heal up quickly so she can be home for her birthday tomorrow and if you're the praying kind, we would appreciate your prayers as well.

What do you get when you cross a toddler with a purple crayon?

A big purple mess, that's what.

I was home with my 2-year-old on Monday and Tuesday. She came down with a stomach bug, which we discovered on our way to work when she decided to share the entire contents of her chocolate milk bottle all over her car seat. If there's one thing I can't handle, it's vomit. ESPECIALLY in the car.

I'll spare you the details, but I immediately drove her home and plunked her in the bath tub. Since I knew there would be more of the same, I began making a pile of soiled clothes in a basket in the living room to wash later and avoid doing 20 loads of laundry. The McCaffreys are helping to save the planet one load of laundry at a time! This turned out to be a good strategy, as my 2-month-old decided that he didn't want to be left out and proceeded to blow out his diaper, consequently earning himself a bath as well.

The clothing pile grew.

Throughout the day I added messy clothes, carseat covers, changing pads, and couch cushion covers to the basket. After both kids were in bed, I took the laundry pile to the washing machine and dumped it all in. There was no way I was sorting everything into piles of Lights and Darks. There was only 1 pile: Gross. I set the machine to wash everything on cold and when the cycle was done, tossed it all in the dryer. I went to bed that night hoping for a full night's sleep, free of any bodily fluids.  

The next day my daughter woke up her happy, energetic self again. While I was rejoicing in the end of  the Great Stomach Bug of 2011, my husband walked into the kitchen with some interesting news.

"The dryer is blue."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"It's blue! The dryer is blue and purple, and I found THIS in the washer." Holding up a badly mangled blue violet crayon. "You need to be more careful with what you put in the wash."

Yes, because my idea of fun is to toss a purple crayon into the washer with a load of soiled clothes and then spend the next morning trying to scrape wax off my clothes and the drum of the dryer. I like to live on the edge like that. It's not for everyone.

Needless to say, I discovered that Haley, in the midst of her supposed sickness, found enough energy to hide a crayon in the basket of dirty laundry on the floor as she was coloring the previous afternoon. Of course, since the clothes were all puke-y and covered in other grossness, I didn't bother to sift through them.

Did you know you can get out crayon stains with WD-40 and dish detergent? Me either. Until yesterday.

The Strawberry Sea Monster

My husband hasn't been feeling well for the past 2 days. This is a bad thing because one, who wants to feel junky anyway? and two, he turns into a 5 year-old boy when he's sick. He lays around on the couch most of the time and when he does get up, he shuffles around the house all sad and mopey like Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Sick Pat happens whenever he has any kind of illness. This can range from the flu to coughing a couple of times one day. Luckily, we've discovered the Strawberry Sea Monster.

When we were first dating, there was a day when Pat started feeling a little sick. To do his part to battle oncoming sickness, he decided to go to the grocery store to find something to help boost his immunities. The conversation went something like this:


Me: "Did you find something to help your cold?"
Pat: "Yeah, I got a 'Strawberry C Monster'"
Me: *blank stare*
Pat: "What, have you had it before? Is it gross?"
Me: "That just seems like a weird name."
Pat: "I think it's a good name, it reflects how it attacks your sickness with vitamin C."
Me: "I wish you could see what I'm imagining right now."


Thanks to the wonders of Paint, now you can.

What sickness wouldn't flee from the Strawberry Sea Monster? The 3 eyes, the furrowed unibrow, the pointy horns....probably the only thing that works against this beast is the fact that his name is lacking intimidation. Maybe that works out in his favor though. The sickness is all, "Psh, why should I be afraid of something with the word "strawberry" in it?" and then BAM! Complete eradication.

Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the Strawberry Sea Monster is actually a drink. And it's spelled "C Monster" instead of "Sea Monster."

I know, you were imagining a giant pink monster with a unibrow too, weren't you?

Oh what a weekend

Baby girl was sick this weekend with a 100 degree temperature and who-knows-what. This is what we did all day:

Snuggled on the couch and watched lots of Dora the Explorer and Spongebob (I had to stay glued to the couch with her or else she'd cry, needless to say the "Backpack" song was stuck in my head all day)...

Read "Baby Animals" about 20 times. She should be a pro at what sounds baby animals make after that marathon...

Typed on the keyboard her Yaya and Papa Bear gave her...

And blew lots of "bub-o's." Look, I got a smile!

Sick of being sick

This is what our life has been full of for the past few months. Medicine droppers. As you can see, we've started quite an impressive collection of different shapes, colors, and sizes of droppers to give Haley medicine. It began with an ear infection and it all went downhill from there.

We first noticed something wasn't quite right with our daughter when she became unusually whiny. She's a very happy baby, even when she's sick, so it was extremely unusual that she began whining as much as she did. Me being the parent that shrugs most things off as just having a "bad day" decided that she was just tired. My husband, who is quite the opposite (he made me ask the pediatrician if Haley's hiccups were normal when she was a newborn) talked me into taking her in for a check up. It turns out that my poor, newly minted 1-year old had a double ear infection.

Haley had never had an ear infection before, so I knew it was only a matter of time until they found her, especially with the history that my husband had as a child - multiple ear infections, 8 sets of tubes, and several surgeries. No worries though, they'd give her some medicine and everything would heal up I thought. A week and one antibiotic later, we were back to visit Haley's pediatrician only to find out that both ears were still infected. Fast forward 4 more antibiotics, an allergy medication, several bad diaper rashes, 3 shots, and a partridge in a pear tree later and my poor baby still has yet to shake the double ear infections, and now she has pneumonia from all of the drainage. This poor girl can't catch a break.

To her credit, she is a trooper and she handles things better than I would if I had a double ear infection, allergies, and pneumonia at the same time. It amazes me how much such a little person can put up with and still keep a smile on her face. I just hope she doesn't have to put up with it much longer. She has an appointment with a specialist on Monday to look at her ears and decide whether or not she needs to get tubes put in. At this point, I just want whatever will make her feel and hear normally again. I just wish it hadn't come to tubes, even if thousands of other children across the world have been in her same tiny shoes.