Back to the Grind

We are currently driving down to my parents for Easter. This will be Abby’s first ride back where I do not expect her to nap the whole time. We shall see how it goes. It is back to being busy, busy, busy. In the past 2 weeks I have been to D.C., started school, and started clinical; and that was just in the last week.  The week prior was spent healing from that awful disease: Hand, Foot, Mouth, which has completely resolved, thankfully. That was horrible. Abby has been doing good, she is still doing baby things: shoving food in her mouth, playing by spreading her toys across the whole living room, napping, and pooping (more pooping than I would like).

Our St. Patrick’s day was good and low key. Andrew’s family was originally supposed to come out to visit, but with our house being contaminated, decided they had best visit another time. I had fun dressing Abby up in her green and shamrock pigtails. I know that I am biased but I thought that she looked ridiculously cute with her pigtails. I also got the 4 St. Paddy’s day cupcakes from Nadia Cupcakes in Maple Grove. I have a hard time avoiding that store every time I run errands in Maple Grove, and it does not help that they post pictures of their amazing cupcakes on Facebook, which ends up on my news-feed.  There was no way I was going to miss the stout beer cupcake or the Baileys Irish Cream cupcake. They did not disappoint, even Andrew liked them, and he doesn't have a sweet tooth. If you have never been to Nadia’s; I suggest you make a special trip to Maple Grove just for it.

Well, I survived my first airport/airplane trip ALL ON MY OWN. If any of you know me, you know how nervous I was about this. You know, I had to go to the counter, check my bags, go through security, and find the gate all on my own….I know, this is hard stuff. I was even more thrown off when Andrew told me that I had to look at the departure schedule as the gate can randomly change….seriously, this was nerve racking. What if I got stopped at security for the random search or what if I missed my plane. I would be a crying mess all by myself and people would look at me funny. But it all went well, my gate did not change, at least on the first flight, and I made it to my destination. D.C. was fun, I got to see some awesome fellow Nurse Practitioner peeps! I also learned how to suture and take off toenails. Hopefully I will get to use these mad skills at my clinical site. Actually, I hope I never have to take a nail off, that is seriously so gross.  I also passed my standardized patient test, so I guess they think I am competent enough to continue on.  My flight back was less nerve racking, but I did almost miss my plane because I spent a little too much time at the bar….airport bars are fun. I was happy to get home and see my little family! I got a big smile from Abby in the morning. She was along with Andrew when he picked me up from the Airport at 11pm, but I think she was in a delusional sleep and had no clue what was going on. She did not even wake up when moving her from the car seat to her crib. She must have had a busy weekend with her dad and Grandparents.

My one complaint about airplanes….RECLINING SEATS. I understand that people want to sleep on a plane. Fine. It’s a 2 hour plane ride to D.C., you can sleep with your seat up. We are all cramped in coach. I do not appreciate people reclining their seat back and taking up 5 precious inches of my 7 in foot room. All I wanted to do was jam my knees into the back of their seat. But being the passive aggressive person I am, I just had an angry conversation about this in my head. This happened on both plane rides, as soon as it was allowed the seat in front of me came flying back to take my precious foot space. I hate reclining seats.

So as I said Abby has been doing good. She is a poopy mess though. She finished her course of antibiotics, and I’m pretty sure that the antibiotics wiped out her good gut bacteria. So we are in the process of trying to replace it, through yogurt. Its getting better. We also have been avoiding food that begins with “P.” My preceptor pediatrician taught me that foods that being with P=poop. So poor, poopy Abby has not been getting her favorite peaches. She’ll survive. Hopefully her blowouts subside soon, they  are gross, I miss her solid poos. Besides the poop issues, she is happy as ever. Here are some pictures from St. Paddy's day for proof.

She loves to play in her car seat and figured out she can crawl into it. She has only done it once.

 She had trouble remembering how to get back under that handle.

And... the face plant. The reason she has probably not crawled back into it.

Well Abby is still sleeping…its only been an hour, I do not expect this to last. We have a ways to go. I should probably get some homework done. HAPPY EASTER!!!

Bad things come in 3's

Well, it has not been a great week in the Delvaux household. It is true what they say, "bad things do come in 3's." For us this week it has been: Abby getting sick, myself catching the same disease, my getting notice that my clinical site is a 1.5 hour drive, and it's snowing again. Wait, that's 4. What's that saying that bad things come in 3's or 7's, gosh I hope 3 more bad things do not happen in the next couple days, maybe I'll take out the snowing again part. I like snow, I like snow, I like snow. I can't do it, I'm sooo over snow. So I guess that makes 4 bad things this week. Let's just hope it stays at 4.

So as I mentioned Abby was sick in the last post, fever and slight runny nose. I thought, "oh, just another common cold virus, she's in daycare, she's bound to get these things." Well I was right, it was a virus, just not the virus I had though. Sunday morning, she was still off her game. Still had fevers, irritable, and clingy. I tried feeding her that morning, and she just would not have any of it. Then I noticed that she was drooling, she never drools. While she was screaming, I took a peak in her mouth. It looked horrible, white, pussy, blisters. NOT GOOD. So, off we went to the Urgent Care. Lucky for us, her pediatrician office has urgent care hours on Sunday. The Doctor looked in her ears, they looked slightly suspicious, but not enough to warrant all her symptoms, then she looked in her throat, her face looked horrified. She quickly determined that was the source of infection. A rapid strep was done, which was negative. Strep throat is pretty uncommon in kids less than 2, but I actually would've preferred that to the actual diagnosis. Her white blood cell count was elevated, and since she did not have any rash, she thought it may be bacterial and put her on antibiotics, and was told to continue to give small frequent feeding of anything she would take. So we went back home. She continued to not eat or drink, and then it happened....she got the rash. Tiny little blister filled bumps began to erupt on her butt, her hands, her feet, and her face. There it was....Hand, Foot, Mouth disease. Poor thing, she was miserable until Tuesday. She has since recovered, and is back to her normal self, shoveling food into her mouth, pulling her car out from it's "parking space" by the fireplace to walk, and smiling. I missed my smiling baby those couple days. So, she got better, but spent the week at home to not spread it at daycare. We talked to her daycare, and they stated that there had been a case of Hand, Foot, Mouth that previous Friday, so yup, that's where she got it. I'm sure it won't be the only thing she catches from there. Some of you may say, "did you stop the antibiotics?" Antibiotics do not do anything against viruses. No, we did not, because lucky Abby, also has a raging ear infection evident at her 9 month check up on Wednesday, so she will continue her antibiotics. Other than that, she was a healthy, happy 9 month old.

So as Abby was getting better, I noticed a tiny red bump on the sole of my foot on Monday. "Oh, great I thought, I have it too." Well, I did not have a sore throat or fever, so I shook it off and thought, well maybe it's just a little Athletes foot or something. Tuesday day rolls around, and now I have a scratchy throat. It just escalated from there. I never got a fever, but I felt fatigued, my throat looked atrocious, and then the rash came. The literature states that adults who get the disease tend to get it milder, guess I was one of the "rare" ones who got a "worst case scenario. " Lucky me. Wednesday night consisted of me crying the whole night because my hands and feet were intensely itchy. Nothing helped but shoving my hands into ice cold water to numb the pain. Thursday morning, Andrew told me to go into Urgent Care to get "something." I'm sure he did not appreciate my crying the whole night, even though I was on the couch. But being the stellar husband he is, worked from home that day and took care of Abby. I went to the Doctor and came back with Hydroxyzine for the itching and a steroid burst. I took the steroid and 2 pills of Hydroxyzine to knock me out. I slept for 3 hours. I woke up with tolerable itching, and was on the mend. So as of today, I am better, no itching, my hands and feet are just sore. So beside looking like I have leprosy, I am back to normal. It was a rough couple days, and I do not wish this disease on anyone.

Thanks to this disease, Andrew's family decided not to visit this weekend. We were looking forward to them coming and catching up, but I cannot blame them in the least. It was rough having one kid with this. I couldn't imagine if both their kids caught it. I would also feel horrible, knowing they caught the disease from our house. So, we will have to plan another time for them to visit. Maybe when it is warm, and we can take the kids somewhere, like the Children's museum or the Zoo. Until then, I will work on decontaminating our house. I am also not sure how Andrew has not caught this, maybe he had it as a child or maybe he's just lucky. Either way, I hope he does not get it.

So, I got word this week that my next clinical site is in Sandstone, MN. I was excited to hear that I got a site and quickly Google mapped where Sandstone, MN is. I found it. I also had to enlarge the map 3 times to even see where Minneapolis was. Oh joy, my commute to this clinical site will be 1.5 hours each way. It's 87 miles from my house. Joy. Apparently someone in the Georgetown clinical placement office can not do their job very well. Lets just say, I am less than pleased. Here is to hoping this clinical site is AWESOME, and the commute will be worth it.

Its snowing.....I hate snow, when its supposed to be spring. I'm over it. Bring on the 60 degree weather, so I can take Abby outside and let her little toes touch the soft green grass. I have a feeling  I may have to wait awhile longer as their is another snowstorm expected for Monday.

9 1/2 months, I think that is pretty gosh darn good, that is for breastfeeding. Recently Abby has discovered her teeth can bite. She bit me a couple times in  the past, but the past couple days she has decided that she needs her little vampire fangs to extract milk. I do not know why she thinks this, but I'm done. It hurts. I thought that I may miss it, I may loose that bond with her, but as I was bottle feeding her today it dawned on me that we will always have that bond. She's my daughter, and we will never loose that mother/daughter bond. My mom and I have it, and she hasn't breastfed me in 28 years. Andrew and Abby have a bond and he does not have boobs. So, yes, I am done. Besides I'm pretty sure she like bananas, peaches, and any other food we give her now better anyways.

So, that has been our awful week. Here's to a better weekend. I leave for DC on Thursday  for school. It will be my first time traveling alone. To say I'm nervous is an understatement. Maybe I should have paid more attention to what Andrew was doing when we traveled instead of just following, but if unaccompanied minors can do it, I'm sure this 28 year old can as well. Besides, it can't be any worse than this week. Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Changing her diaper and putting her clothes back on it probably the worst thing you can do to her. So she gets to go sans pants a lot. 

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 Just chillin' in the laundry.

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 Felling much better!

Big Smiles :)

Peek-A-Boo

I'm so excited! This will be my first post from my brand new tablet/computer. It is a HP ENVY, and it is pretty awesome, so far. It comes as a tablet which detaches from the keyboard and runs on Windows 8. Since it runs more than our IPAD, I should be able to use it for school, which I am very excited about since my old computer is 5 years old, is starting to run slow, and I have to elevate it on multiple coasters so that it does not overheat in 3 minutes. This tablet seems to be pretty awesome so far, but it has only been 2 days.  

So I have to also start this post by stating that last week my unit 4A MICU lost a very influential man, Steve Suess. Today we celebrated his life, which I'm sure he enjoyed watching from above. Steve was a great man. He was full of wisdom from his many life journeys; from the Coast Guard to doing dive search and rescue to tracking polar bears in the Arctic for National Geographic. Steve had pretty much done it all. He was a passionate nurse and an excellent resource for all nurses. He treated everyone equally. He taught me many things as a nurse and as a person. We were talking one time about hiking up in the north shore, and how I was scared to do it because I'm afraid bears might eat me. He laughed, and said that the bears shouldn't be my biggest worry, that the moose's were way more vicious and would kill me much faster if I encountered one. So...thanks to Steve I am now even more afraid to go camping in the north shore, because now I will probably be killed by a moose and then scavenged and eaten by a bear. Awesome. But, really, I will miss Steve, and all the things he had left to teach me and others. I can honestly say my life was better knowing Steve. 

I wish I would have been able to stay out later today to celebrate Steve's life but Abby is sick, and not just a little runny nose, nope, she is miserable. Fever to 103, and only down to 101 with Tylenol and Motrin. I always feel so bad for her when she is sick. She can't tell me what's wrong and just wants to be cuddled until the meds kick in and she's all giddy and high. Hopefully a good nights sleep will help. 

The meds have kicked in.

She thought it was great to bounce her snacks around and watch them spill out across the floor. 

I was able to clean up Abby's disaster closet, which I was pretty proud of. Everything is now organized and put away. My new project for the week is sewing a dress. Yes, I said sewing. I came 

across a Pinterest post of a XXL t-shirt being turned into a cute dress, and thought, "hey I can do that." I'm sure my project will turn out exactly as the Pinterest picture....insert sarcasm...but at least it will give me something to do. I have also been picking up some shifts at work, gotta pay for this new tablet somehow.

Other Abby happenings include; walking across the room with her car some more, throwing food on the floor for Dexter while she is eating, putting rings on the stack-able ring thing, and playing peek a boo. Playing peek a boo was her "new" thing this week. She began throwing her blanket over her head and then pulling it off. She has a huge smile and giggles when she does it. Andrew and I proceeded to smile and giggle back at her, so she keeps right on doing it. Its cute! We also got her a toothbrush for her 2 small teeth. I'm pretty sure everything is ridiculously cuter when it is baby sized.  

A mama brush, a papa brush, and a baby brush.

We needed some pictures of Abby and Dexter for Abby's daycare as they are having pet month. It is really difficult to get a decent picture of the both of them together, usually one of them has a stupid look on their face. I thought a lick picture would be cute and easier to get, and I, being the awesome parent I am, had a solution to get this picture. I put butter on Abby's face for Dexter to lick off. I figured butter wouldn't hurt Abby and Dexter loves butter, thus the above picture. I think it worked pretty good. 

Dexter wondering if there is residual butter left on her.

She loves this toy. And is pretty good at putting the balls in.

Abby's thoughts, "hmmm...maybe this slipper should go in here too."

Yes, yes it should.

 Where's Abby?

 "Peek-A-Boo"

Well, Andrew is out and about for a bachelor party, and I do not expect him home until the morning. Which means I get a nice relaxing night to myself; just me, my captain and diet coke, and a little Justin Timberlake on SNL. Hopefully Abby sleeps this sickness off and we don't end up with another ear infection. 

I'm Free, for 3 weeks.

I'm done!! That is with my cumulative exam and paper. I did well and expect A's in both classes, which I feel pretty good about. 2 semesters to go, well really not semesters, I'm not sure what exactly to call them, but I will be done end of October. It seems so far away but so close!! It has only been 2 days since I was done with school and I am already starting to think what am I gonna do with all this free time I have? Not that I have a ton of time before my next classes start (3 weeks) but it is a well deserved break. It feels weird going from  studying, going to clinicals (which is working but not getting paid), actual working, doing house stuff, and taking care of Andrew...oh wait I mean Abby, to doing no school stuff. I'm not going to lie, this Grad school stuff is hard, hopefully it pays off. I really loved going clinicals; the whole diagnosing, prescribing, and educating patients is challenging and rewarding, I love it! I also learned this semester that Pediatrics can be fun. My favorite kid this semester was the brother who stuck rocks in his twin brothers ear. His fathers response to the kid when he found out that he stuck rocks in both ears, "This is the last time I tell you, We do not stick ANYTHING into any holes on your body or your brothers."The things that both the kids and parents say are just hilarious at times. I'm hoping that I enjoy working with adults this semester as much as I loved working with kids. Oh and the kid with rocks in his ears, you guessed it he had to go get them surgically removed. His brother did feel pretty bad about it.

For my reward for finishing this semester, Andrew and I went out to eat at Oceanaire. If you live or ever visit Minneapolis I suggest eating here. Their fish and raw oysters are amazing. I cannot attest to the seafood, because as I like to say, "If it turns red, I'm dead," but Andrew had the Crab Cakes and said they were the best he has ever had. Oceanaire is a little pricy, but well worth it. We went for restaurant week this time, which is also awesome. A 3 course meal for $30/plate, when an appetizer usually costs $30, sign me up. Abby had a great time, not coming with us, and had a nice little play date with her friend Harper. I do not think they actually played and shared toys together, but none the less I think they had fun looking at each other. Thanks to the Helleen's for watching Abby for us! I also have to thank Andrew, 1 because he told me I should thank him in this blog for being such an awesome husband, and 2 he really is an awesome husband. He puts up with my crazy anxiety during school and still manages to love me, so for that I thank him.

So what am I going to do with all my free time. I guess I could try to pick up some more shifts as work, but that is work, so I'll think about that some more. My big project is cleaning up Abby's closest. It is a disaster. It is where we shove all off her stuff that takes up space. I like to be organized, so this closest bothers me every-time I open it, and my only solution to it this far was to just close the door and try to forget about it. But its time, I will defeat it.

Abby had been doing Abby things...crawling, picking up every little thing on the floor that should have been cleaned up and then putting it in her mouth, you know the normal baby things. Here are a couple pictures from this past week.

Poor Dexter, Abby thinks that all of his toys should be hers, and he just lets her take them.

I think she gets blonder every day.

She loves walking back and forth  across the living room, and who wouldn't want to do that in their underwear.

Just checking out the book collection. And yes, she proceeded to take out all the books.

Here is the progression of how she throws stuff on the floor.

She thinks she cute every time, I can't argue with her on it either.

We finally childproofed our kitchen, but decided to give her one drawer. It is the one with all the dish towels. It is a daily occurrence that she pulls them all out. I also put a few Easter eggs in the drawer, just to make it a little more exciting than just dish towels. She loves it!

Just looking cute, and poor Dexter in the background. Don't worry, he still gets lots of attention.