Sick Molly

 

The kids and I visited my mom this week in Florida.  Austin thought it would be a rough trip because Molly’s so active, the flights seemed like a nightmare waiting to happen.  Actually, the flights went okay—not the highlight of our lives, but not horrible.

The horrible part came once we got there.  As I walked in the door on Sunday night with Molly in my arms, she threw up everywhere and it was only downhill from there culminating in a 24 hour hospital stay on Tuesday and Wednesday for pneumonia and RSV.  The biggest problem was that my sweet little stubborn girl decided she was too sick to drink.  The ER was a less-than-amazing experience, and it was horrible watching them try four times to get an IV into her… next time I’ll try pinning her down at home and squirting water into her mouth with a medicine dropper/syringe. 

Thankfully she’s doing better now than earlier this week, but still pretty tired and sick overall.

 

In the ambulance getting transferred from the ER to a hospital that has a pediatric unit.

This is what Molly thinks of hospitals…

 

And here she was yesterday, working on catching up on her sleep.

 

Recent Pics

 

Hokie Madness

This is the outfit Tucker chose for school the other day, totally unprompted.  Austin nearly keeled over seeing Tucker’s spontaneous Virginia Tech spirit.

Valentine’s Day Party at Tucker’s School

Molly is ready to be one of the big kids!  Especially if it means she can have strawberries, marshmallows and Capri-Suns.  She positively ran around Tucker’s classroom squealing.  I’m not sure who was more enthusiastic about Tucker’s Valentine’s Day part, because Tucker also was talking about it for days beforehand! 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Today, Austin gave me a romantic cactus (I love cacti: they don’t die no matter how mean you are to them!) BUT my best Valentine’s present was being able to take the kids on our first walk together since September.

It was glorious here in the late morning; blue skies, crisp but not cold, and we found ourselves at a park we hardly ever get to.  The mallard ducks were out in force, the playground was all ours, and each person we passed on the trail by the river paused to say, “What a great day!”  I’m sure all of them had good reasons to be grateful for the beautiful weather, but I felt especially so.  The weather wasn’t just beautiful; everything was beautiful, getting to spend a morning like that.

Tomorrow will be the four week anniversary of getting off crutches, and I am still profoundly grateful for the little things I used to take for granted.  So many things have been made new for me again.  I keep having all these firsts—first shopping trip, first trip to the park, first afternoon outside, first walk.  Each first is so sweet—but also each second and third and fourth time too.  I am finding that my thankfulness is not wearing off as quickly as I might have thought.  The best of everything is getting to hold Molly and walk with her wherever I want (the result: my baby likes me again!).  Being on crutches was like a barrier between me and the world; I could think and talk but I couldn’t move.  In some ways it felt like living a virtual life.  Getting to frolic outside in the afternoons with the kids has been unexpectedly delightful, it feels like the antidote to the virtual life. 

God is so good.

Can I come?

I used to call Tucker my feral son because of the amount of time he spent outdoors.  I think I am going to have a feral daughter.  This picture is of Molly bringing Austin her coat so that she can go outside with him (he is about to leave for work).  We got a babysitter a couple weeks ago, and as we went out the door, Molly went into the pantry and got her coat and tried to follow us out.  It was so cute it was heartbreaking!

It’s not that Molly just wants to be with us; she genuinely wants to be outdoors.  Ever since she made the four-legged to two-legged transition recently, she just can’t get enough of being outside.  Her favorite still is the stroller, but she loves the swings, the tent platform/tree house (incidentally, she can climb the sloped ladder all by herself), the slides, the sandbox… really just about everything.  Of course, she is completely and utterly unreliable outside so it’s not a place we can really leave her side and do anything else (maybe that’s why she likes it so much!)

Here’s Molly all spiffed up for church:

 

And here’s Molly delighting in her mad rocking skills:

Finger Bracelet

Tucker made me a finger bracelet today.  I had no idea such things existed until he gave one to me, but I felt quite stylish and honored.