old suziebeezieland

i'm a wreck. i didn't see this coming.

Claire starts Monday-Wednesday-Friday morning preschool this coming Monday.

If you need me, I'll be the woman in the school parking lot refusing to leave, drinking out of a flask, and craning my neck to see what's going on inside.

It might get ugly.

this & achoo!

Today is my parents' 48th wedding anniversary. Hooray!

I have the sneeziest cold I've ever had. Bob had it, and Claire is at the end of hers, and I think I'm in the middle of mine. And my dad has it. I haven't had a sore throat or congestion, but I had a fever and now my nose runs and I sneeze ALL DAY LONG. Achoo.

Sunday night we had our friends Kristen and Dave over for dinner, and for dessert I made my mom's cold strawberry soup, which I had never had before, and it was yummy.

I've done a bunch of genealogy stuff with my dad this past week. My head has been full of ancestors lately.

We had Claire all set to start at one preschool in September (my third choice preschool out of three we applied to, but the only one that had an opening and accepted her last spring) and were in the middle of a flurry of paperwork when our first choice preschool called out of the blue and had a last-minute cancellation and, hence, a place, so now she's going there. I'm excited because it's very nice and much closer to our house. But I don't think getting into preschool should be like getting into Harvard. 

new rug in claire's room

 These are the new FLOR tiles in Claire's room. They're called Fluffy Fuchsia Toy Poodle. :)

naturalist

Claire has been having gastrointestinal problems since this past Tuesday.  Her post-op appointment with the surgeon was Wednesday, and she said this is normal because Claire's intestines got irritated from the appendix being up behind it, and then during the surgery.  But I had hoped they'd be cleared up by now. 

She was supposed to go see her Grandma Bailey in San Diego today, and I just went ahead and "released" her to go down there, but I am anxious.  

Grandma Bailey is a nurse and has a lot of common sense, but I'm still anxious. It has been a stressful two weeks. Nothing worse than a sick kid.  

I love this girl, who, by the way, is going to be a naturalist when she grows up. I never saw a child so enamored with squirrels, birds, bugs, leaves, grass, or flowers.  She names the ants outside, and the grasshoppers, and the roly-polys, and of course the butterflies and ladybugs.  The wasps, she does not name, but keeps track of.

The hydrangeas are blooming, right under Claire's bedroom window.

A bit of the clematis I planted last year has also finally bloomed. 

48 hours

several "my tummy stings"

1 checkup

30 "does this hurt?" pokes in the abdomen

1 blood-drawing

1 ultrasound

1 CT scan

1 IV port installed

lots & lots of waiting

1 breezy, unfamiliar nightgown

1 night of no sleep at all

some IV saline & antibiotics

many "pretty, nice, can I be one when I grow up?" nurses

fun, distracting, gift-bearing relatives

a wonderful, kind surgeon whose favorite color was also yellow

some drugs & some anesthesia

1 appendectomy

1 interrupted night of sleep

1 crabby, unhappy, miserable morning

yellow tulips & a butterfly balloon & new crayons from dad

40 hours with no food or water

finally, "yay, mama" some jell-o & chicken broth & a popsicle

IV demerol

3 Disney videos

lots more waiting

1 flat-out refusal to let the nurse remove the IV port & tape

some screaming

a ride in a wheelchair

some giggling with dad

a happy-to-see-the-pets homecoming

a little chicken & risotto

some cuddling & books with mom

Tylenol with codeine

1 stuffed animal named "Meow-Meows"

a familiar bed

all within 48 hours

sleepy Claire, safe at home in bed, priceless

 

appendicitis

On Tuesday night Claire began complaining "my tummy stings," and last night she had her appendix removed.  She had full-blown appendicitis but it had not yet perforated. Her appendix had curled itself up behind her intestines, so  she did not experience the pain she normally would have from the appendicitis if it had stayed in front of the intestines, which I'm so thankful for.  This afternoon she was discharged from the hospital. 

Needless to say, it's been a wild few days.  

stinkers

four

thoughts from the great outdoors

Did I tell you our butterfly hatched last week?  Her name was "Squirmy" when she was a caterpillar, but became "Fluttery" after metamorphosis. Kind of a Saul/Paul thing.

It was very exciting.  In this photo, you'll see a remnant of the caterpillar skin, and then the crysallis, and then the Painted Lady butterfly.  The pink stuff is meconium.

She was ceremoniously taken outside after Bob got home from work. 

And then we released her into the backyard. 

She flew right away as soon as we let her out of the box -- two huge big circles over our house and up in the sky -- and then flopped down on top of our pergola for awhile to dry off and, I'm sure, catch her little butterfly breath.  Then she was off again. 

Fare thee well, Painted Lady.

Then, because we missed the butterfly, we got that Target bunny weathervane for the porch, because (as previously mentioned) we love bunnies.

And all kinds of things are growing around here.

tea for two

I love having tea parties with Claire because she thinks up such good names for tea. 

Yesterday we had "Strawberry Blueberry Cream Tea," "Sweet Sugar Honey Tea," and "Butter Tea" (which sounds like something from Harry Potter, I think).

Yum.