Leah had some very special visitors today so there are more pics coming later, but here are pics from the past few days!

“Gran, what did you just do to my hair??? OMG, now you’re taking a picture?”

“Oh come on. You can’t be serious about these socks.”

Does it get any sweeter than this?

Oh. Maybe it does.

Aunti Staci, did we do it right? I threw in duck-lips and everything!

Um, hey, Leah? We’re taking a selfie here! Yawn on your own time!

“Mommy, let me just tell you…”

Always her favorite spot.

Sorry for the delay! LeahBug has been a little bit fussy the past couple of days as it is time for her four-month vaccines. We had them spread out over a few days so as not to slam her little body with so much in one huge shot, but that didn’t stop her from spiking a little fever yesterday. It was only 99.5 degrees, but I could tell she was working up a fever even when her temp was reading at 98.3 and then 98.7. Isn’t that weird? I was saying all afternoon that she felt warmer than usual. Maybe she takes after her mama and runs a low body temperature. She was fine today though, fever-wise, though she slept through most of the day. She did cough out her tube 3 different times and also yanked it off once, tape and all. Baby: 4. Repogle: 0.

In the afternoon. Leah woke up to visit with her Mama’s bestie, Auntie Z, while Mama played outside with Z’s baby RyRy. The plan had been for Gran to watch RyRy while Z visited with Leah and me, but I got a phone call this morning from the ER downstairs informing me that Ms. Gran had fallen and potentially broken her wrist. Oh no! As it turns out, yes, Gran has an impacted fracture in her wrist. They had to put her arm in some sort of torture device to straighten it out for splinting. Owwwwww.

There is a really long hallway on the way upstairs to PICU, and I always joke that I really want to roller-skate down that hallway. Many folks respond that they would probably break a bone if they tried, and I point out that if you have to fall, what better place than a hospital hallway where you’re already 50 feet from the emergency room? But dear Gran, I didn’t ask for a volunteer demonstration!! We are very glad it was just the wrist and not something bigger and more serious, but it still completely sucks and we hope it heals quickly and that they don’t need to operate. Feel better soon!!!

Auntie Z holds BabyBug for the first time!

Not too much to update, so I’ll mostly throw pictures at you. We had Gran stay with Leah on Friday so we could take a much-needed Mama Day, including a trip to the beach for our own little Tashlich, a Jewish custom performed during the High Holy Days. I can’t wait until we can bring Leah to see the ocean! She will be a great sand-castle architect. I just know it.

I spent Friday night and most of Saturday at Yom Kippur services, so I’ve been missing my BabyBug like crazy this weekend, even though I spent hours and hours with her after services yesterday. I’m running a BabyBug deficit. Need to balance that out with my sleep deficit. Today was better, though.

Like I said, there are not really any new updates for BabyBug. She’s growing, and her g-tube site is starting to look better. The tube is still clogging plenty, and she is still hacking up spitballs almost every day. Lately she has taken to coughing during her meals. It’s the oddest thing. We think perhaps she is salivating more from smelling the milk… but I’m also wondering if it’s possible that she’s experiencing reflux and some sort of muscle reflex is being triggered to make her cough or gag even though there is no connection between her stomach and her esophagus that would allow her to spit up.

In Mama news… I have my surgery a week from tomorrow. Keeping fingers crossed that it helps. 

Quite possibly the cutest SleepyBug yet.

This is what happens when our nurse puts a towel over our hair so we don’t get cold while we’re getting dressed. Hehe.

I had to tear myself away from this face yesterday morning to go to Yom Kippur services. With all of my health issues I’ve been ordered by my doc not to fast completely, but I managed to get through the holiday on one bottle of Ensure. But hey – I’ve had days where I consumed less (if you deduct calories up’n’out from calories in…) :-/

Mandy sent this photo to me while I was away. She made this dress!

Leah’s friends Jess and Wesley, who visited this past week. Who knew it was possible to get Leah to look at the camera at the same time as everyone else in the photo?

Working hard to hold our neck up to explore the tummy-time mat that  Jess and Wesley brought for her.

“OH HAI! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO!”

“Forget this! I’ll just eat my arm.”

Leah got all dressed up for a visit from her friends Linda and Eden this evening. She fell asleep pretty quickly, though, so we didn’t get a picture. 🙁 Next time!

Precious kiddo

Just a flash of cranky from Empress Baby. “Change my diaper!” “Feed me nummies!” “Flush my tube!” “Fan me with palm fronds!”

“ExCUSE me?” Our child can already raise a single eyebrow. This girl has ATTITUDE.

“You are a welcoming back from the ocean”

Tired Mommies

Mandy getting ready to rinse off seashells. She cleaned them and used them to make a little rattle for BabyBug. If we can’t bring her to the ocean we’ll bring the ocean to her!

As above, so below

Mandy’s masterpiece.

Today, Aunti Staci came to visit along with her childhood friend Sharona (above). Mama Lisa babysat for her a few times!

Later, we practiced visual tracking the 21st-century way – by taking selfies.

Never mind. THIS is the sweetest SleepyBug ever.

BabyBug can-can do the can-can. Then, she can-can have a poopsplosion, necessitating a bath and costume change.

“Tra la la, it’s my first time in a real bath tub!”

“You’re going to post this photo where? Now wait just one minute!”

“This hair! I will, I will, I WILL have my revenge!”

Humiliating hair right before it got fixed… but not before the next photo happened.

“MOMMY! This is  no better!”

Sitting up on our awesome new quilt from Kyra & Mike

Laying down on our awesome new quilt from Kyra and Mike

The tail end of a tantrum on our awesome new quilt from Kyra and Mike

It was a silver nitrate kind of day. Fine for the first half and screamy for the second half. BabyBug had to have Tylenol to help with the pain, which seemed to get worse after a couple of hours. But once the Tylenol kicked in she actually smiled a couple of times while I was holding her. Little twitchy smiles. In the transition from screaming to calm she had been practicing her teenager faces – one eyebrow raised, scowl, pout, eye roll. Her tube also clogged multiple times today and they did deep suctioning in her nose and mouth twice (where they stick a catheter down and suction out what’s accumulated there). Bunch of spit balls too.

Now the little Bug is in her crib, WIDE awake and talking / snorting to herself. Every once in a while I hear a little “aye” coming from her direction. That’s her favorite syllable. “Aye.” Perhaps she is working up to “oy vey.”

Tubeless bebe!!!!

Whew – it’s been a few days since I gave you a good update! These past few days have been largely uneventful in terms of major issues. Let’s keep it that way! Leah has had a lot of visitors “this September” (also known as the past three days). Last week she had special visits from her Grandpa Bill, her Aunti Staci and friend Kimmy, and her Gran. On Sunday, she had a visit from her friend Sharon from Mandy’s choir. Later in the day, cousins Kim and Jenna came over (after going on a wild goose chase for cornstarch for us – thank you!!!!!), and Jenna held a baby for the first time ever! Jenna even got to help give Leah a bath, comb her hair, and pick out an outfit. I’m sure Leah and Jenna will still be hearing about the visit years from now.

Yesterday, SweetBug’s alter-ego emerged after an extended absence – you can call her Ms. CrankyPants. I really can’t blame her, though. At 6AM the mean vampire nurses came in to steal her blood. (Okay, they really were not mean at all, but if you were 4 months old I’m sure you would think the same of anybody who came at you with a needle and a bunch of vials. Or maybe you still feel that way.). A little later in the morning, the surgical residents came to put silver nitrate on the new granulation tissue around the Mini button. Then, the occupational therapist came in to make Leah WORK! She had to hold her head up, grip stuff, pretend to stand up, move her neck from side to side, watch stuff with her eyes… it was exhausting. You don’t even know. So by the time our friends Marie and Donald came to meet Leah, she was suuuuuper cranky. We had all these awesome intentions of putting the kid in her hand-crocheted Minnie Mouse outfit (courtesy of another of Mandy’s choir friends), but she was not having it. Alas.

Later in the day, Grandpa Bill and Grandma Barbie came for a nice visit. Grandma and Grandpa snuggled with BabyBug while the Mamarazzi hovered and took video and pictures and Grandma Barbie tried to swat her away. It didn’t work. You can’t stop the Mamarazzi! Muahahahahaha!

It wasn’t until after my parents left that we were finally able to get the little diva into her Minnie outfit. At that point it was a matter of principle. Plus we wanted pictures. 🙂 We took pity on Leah and changed her outfit once we were done with our little photoshoot. She went from Minnie Mouse to Lady BabyBug – complete with antennae-bearing hat. We took the ladybug hat off after the second round of pictures, ’cause we’re nice like that. Baby finally knocked out in the early evening. This morning my friend and old law school classmate Beth came to visit, and pretty soon we are going to have a Very Special Visit from cousins Beth and Brian and Erin, who we haven’t seen in weeeeeeeks ’cause they were out of town. Leah misses them so, and is especially excited to see Cousin Erin and find out if she met Minnie Mouse on the Disney cruise.

The Big Deal of this week will be the meeting we have with the surgeons on Friday to discuss next steps for Leah. If you were wondering why we needed cornstarch: the doctors are having the nurses treat the Mini button site with 1:1 portions of Nystatin powder and cornstarch to keep it clean and dry, and Leah is still on oral antibiotics. They are applying silver nitrate about every other day or so. I worry about how Leah will do with major surgery when she has responded so poorly to the g-tube insertions, but I guess that’s part of why they want her to get bigger before doing a repair.

And now, you shall have pictures.

Showing off our pretty orange dress. Orange is our color. Also pink and blue and green and yellow and purple.

PolkaBaby pokes her tongue out.

Bored Polkababy is bored.

Polkababy says, “Get away from me with that suction tube!” (Or some other equally-irritating baby torture device)

Leah loves her Grandpa Bill

Three generations of pun-tastic dorks. Well, two really, but I’m going to take a leap and say Leah will take after her Mama and Grandpa in this respect.

Caption me, please!

Snuggling with Grandpa Bill. Sooner or later she will realize how much fun it is to pull that beard.

Grandpa Bill, upside down.

Our little monkey in monkeys

Did Grandpa just tell some sort of silly joke?

Mamasmiles and Babysmiles

“Hi Gran!”

Nomming on Gran’s shoulder

Sleepypie

“Oh hey guys! OMG, isn’t this dress like, totally adorable? OMG!”

Dainty little fashionista is ready for her closeup

“Bored now.”

Sweet sleepy bug gets Mommysmooches

LOOK AT THOSE FEET! BabyBug says, “Thanks for giving me your old jammies, Ruby! They are so comfy and FEEEEEET!”

High five!

Bitty bitty hand!

Mommy and BabyBug. One of Mandy’s former students bought Leah this little ladybug set (it came with a couple of other items as well). It’s too cute!!! We love it!

Showing off LadyBabyBuggie

Caption me. Please let it involve the Baby Mafia.

“Oh Mama. You had WHAT for dinner?” Oh Buggy. Probably a jar of baby food.

“What do you MEAN, I’ll have to eat that stuff someday?”

“Actually, it would be kind of cool to eat something.”

SleepyBug with her smiling daisies

Toesies

Sharon and her awesome shirt. Leah seems to like it!

“Really, you don’t say?”

Cousin Jenna holds her first baby. I love the little look on Leah’s face in the middle picture. She is such a dolly!

SmilyBug and Jenna

Bath time!

Baby gets her hair did

“Monkeys! An excellent choice, cousin Jenna!”

Kim taking a picture of me taking a video of Kim

Jenna and Kim

Grandpa and Lisa

“Minnie: The Sneak Preview,” starring Ms. CrankyPants

“Sigh. I give up.”

Kissyface

Mama and MinnieBug

Mama and Sleeping MinnieBug

MinnieBug

“Hey, who you callin’ Goofy?”

More MinnieBug

Portrait of a silly family

“OMG. Please tell me this isn’t going on the Internet.”

“OMG. First Minnie, now this.”

Lady BabyBug

“I’m the king of the world!”