Playing a little catch up! LOL

So August has come and gone so quickly. Alot happened in August (always does).


I can NOT  believe that my girls just turned 5!!! Where does the time go?! I remember like it was yesterday, coming home from the hospital after quiting my job to be with my little preemies, saying "oh I have 5 YEARS with them!". Now it is like WHAT that was NOT 5 years........ How could it be..... It went to fast...... Go back I need more time!!!! I have absolutely LOVED being home with them!! I would not trade anything to do it ALL over again. (I dont have birthday pictures on the computer yet but I will upload shortly)

Ok so if you cant tell the 5 year mark means alot!!! My baby girls have started school and I am possibly going back to work (if I find the right job). First the girls going to school has been something I have cried over off and on for the past yr. It just does not seem right that my babies are in school. They are too little! It feels like the beginning of the end. My girls will be in school most of the yr until they turn 18 and move out or go to college! I hate the thought of it.... It is making me tear up now thinking about it. (I know this may sound stupid but its how I feel. ;)) I wish I could home school them but I really want them to have the interaction w other kids too. The good thing is they seem to really like the school, teachers and kids so far. Only day 2 but so far it seems to be going good. Jay is usually my little go getter and doesn't care where I leave her but she said that she cried during nap time yesterday bc she missed me.. My poor little sweet girl. And Kay is usually the one to cling to us crying not wanting us to leave. But she has adjusted very quickly this time. This am she was mad that I walked them in. She wanted me to just drop her off at the door. So she walked ahead of us. Lol!

Secondly on this 5 year mark the job thing. I am really hoping that I can go to work for my Dads business (he makes interior shutters). That way maybe I can have a little flexibility for the girls. I don't want to get an 8-5 job where we have to pay for childcare, there is no flexibility for me to take off if they are sick or have an activity, or that I cant take them to work or work from home on occasion. So I hope things will pan out where I can work for him. Also my mom and step dad own a fence business and now that my brother and sister are older my mom is hoping to get an "outside" job. If she can find one than she ask me to help them w her secretary work for their business. So I am really praying that things will work out somehow so I have a flexible schedule. I never realized, until having the girls, that businesses are not very "family" friendly like alot claim to be. *****to true working parents please take NO offense. Some people have to work and others love to work (I have never loved a "job" enough, my love has been being at home with my girls. it has been the only "job" I have LOVED), this is just my opinion.*****  I have always told DH that I did NOT have kids for someone else (daycare, grandparents, etc) to raise them. Hopefully something will work out soon before DH wants me to start looking for something other than w my dads business or helping my mom.

On another note I received an email I have been waiting on...... The girls tried out on August 20th for the Troupe Dance Team at the dance studio they have been taking from for almost 3yrs now. Troupe compete, they perform in shows, they travel (the girls wont this yr but in the next few yrs they will), and they perform the BIG production numbers at the recitals. So I have been waiting for that email to come letting me know if they made it or not................. THEY DID!!!!! Wooohooooo!!!!! We are so proud and excited for them! They are excited they get to dance with the big kids now. LOL! I cant wait to see what doors this will open for them as they get older.


 

 Dance Pictures from 2010

  

Making some Changes

So I have been really tired of the state that our house is staying in lately (well for awhile now.). I decided that I was gonna change it and I was NOT doing it alone. So I have made the girls & I little chore charts. For me if it is not wrote down then it probably is not gonna happen. If I write it down I usually get better results! LOL!

I have worked very hard to figure out the best way for the girls to understand where their things go. I even went and bought a shelf for the little baskets to help. Everything has a place and they know it but now to reinforce it and make it routine and normal.

 

The girls chores are very easy here is the chart I have made them:

The x's are the days they do the certain chore. They both have their own laundry day where they can help me do their laundry from washing, drying, folding and putting away. At the end of the week they will get a treat (money, dollar store, etc.) for doing the chores. I have also made it clear that they have to start keeping their toys cleaned up and taken care of. I hope that this habit will be well established by their bday. I have told them that if that cant take care of their stuff then their bday things will stay packed up until they learn. I hate to do that but it gets really overwhelming for me to do everything for 4ppl with no help. They have gotten bad recently about just where every they are standing to drop trash, toys, whatever and just leave it! I am not ok with that. They are almost 5 years old and they know where things belong.

My chore chartS are a little more advance unfortunately! LOL!

  

(from left to right: my daily chart, laundry, then flylady)

Daily Chart: My daily chart has what days I will "deep" clean each area of the house as well as daily things to do. Bathrooms, vacuuming, dusting, sweeping and mopping are the "deep" cleaning things I want accomplished weekly. Then things like making beds, unload and loading the dishwasher, going through the mail, etc are daily things I want done. 

 Laundry Chart: I saw an email from Fly Lady ( I will talk about this in a min) the other day that made me go ah ha... The lady has 4 or 5 kids. She said that with all that laundry it was very overwhelming and she thought it was best to do all of it at once. Well that only made it worse. She realized that the best way to go about it was have a day for every load. Each child had their own basket and day for laundry. They also strip their bed on their laundry day.

Laundry is very overwhelming for me as well.  I have always gotten it done but then it never makes its way out of the basket. Then we have to dig through baskets or the couch to find what we are looking for. So I have made one chart that is for laundry. What day I

do what laundry. The girls each have their own side of their closet and now a basket as well (instead of the one to share.).  I hope that doing 1 or 2 smaller loads of laundry a day will help. Plus everything will get washed more often (ex. sheets, towels and wash rags, etc).

Flylady: First let me explain Flylady is a website (http://flylady.com/) that sends you daily assignments for around the house. She picks an area of the house each week. Then you have one assignment each day. They are really very easy things and don't usually take long to accomplish (her motto is in 15min you can do anything). And she also gives you one habit to do everyday for the whole month so that you can make it part of your routine. She also has a reminder on the emails for daily things that you should do. For example: swish and swipe, getting dressed from head to toe including shoes, and more.

So this months habit is Laundry-one load a day! This weeks area is the Kitchen. I highly recommend it to ppl. It really helps you establish a good daily habit and to get things done that you don't do on a daily basis.

So I have my daily reminders printed from Flylady and then my things to do for the week in the kitchen.

So this is what my Frig looks like now:

But I am totally ok with that bc I am ready to get this CHAOS under control. Until we make these things a habit I will do it!! Hopefully before long it will be habit and we want need the charts.

Please share what you have found helps you and your family to stay organized.  

Part 2 BIRTHDAYS BIRTHDAYS BIRTHDAYS!!!!

This post is gonna be a happy and fun post!!

So around here August is a wild and crazy month!! We have sooooooo many birthdays. Every weekend has at least one party in it. So we start the month out with a friends little girls (Lulu) birthday. We have been best friends for several yrs and now the girls (lulu, Kay and Jay) are best friends. Lu will be 5 this Thursday!! Man how the time flies! Her party is on Saturday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LULU!!!

Friday August 5th..... Hmmmmmm there is something going on that day..... Think..... think...... Oh yeah now I remember it is MY 28th!!!

No big plans at this point. We may head to the rodeo or to the local aquarium for member night. We will see.

The 14th we are having the BIG family birthday party with my moms family. Because other than mine, little bro, and the girls we have several others in the family w birthdays in the month of Aug. They live 2hrs from us and instead of us going down or them coming up just about every weekend we do one big party for everyone.

The 15th is my little brothers 10th birthday *yes I said he is 10! LOL

The 23rd is SFs, a little boy that we met him and his parents in NICU, birthday.

The 27th is a VERY busy day!!!!

We have the girls 5th BIRTHDAY PARTY at park here in town.

It is J & Ms, the twin boys that live right down the road from us whom we also met in NICU, birthday and BIRTHDAY PARTY.

(Yes we have 2 parties in one day!!! LOL)

Then to finish the month up..........

August 30th is our sweet baby girls 5th BIRTHDAY!!!!

I can not believe our little babies are gonna be 5! Where did the time go?!

They are starting Pre-K Sept 6th!!!! Oh my goodness!!!!!!



Man I love those BEAUTIFUL GIRLS!!!!!

So August is full of BIRTHDAYS BIRTHDAYS AND THEN SOME MORE BIRTHDAYS!!!!

Part 1 The rollercoaster

This is post 1 of 2 for today. I dont want this wild and crazy post to be in with a good post about this month. So hold on for the ride........ LOL!

So yesterday I check the mailbox and guess what is there.......... A letter from insurance where the hospital is billing for Kay's stay. Seriously!!! Insurance approved one day so far in PICU and I am not sure on the others yet. I called the insurance company and explained what had happened and ask what steps I needed to take. The lady was very nice. She told me that I needed to speak with the billing department at the hospital or wait for the eob and then get in touch with insurance and explain again.

I not only want the hospital to NOT bill our insurance for this but I want them to do something. I dont know what if anything can be done further. I called the hospital, after being transferred 4xs and explaining everytime, I finally spoke with a Nursing assist over the childrens er. She took down the info and said that her boss or someone higher would be contacting me.

I'm really not sure what to say to these ppl. I want them to understand my child was in icu bc they SCREWED up not bc she was that sick when we came in. I thought that there were procedures in place already that 2ppl had to check off on med. So does that mean 2 ppl messed up? If so then what can they do to fix it where it doesnt happen again. Unfortunely most medicines are based on a one dose fits all. Which I really dont like. There are exceptions to the rules. Kay is almost 5 and weighs 24lbs (after losing around 4lbs during this).  If you look at the directions on medicine bottles she fits in weight wise for a 2yr old. So did the PA base her dose on her age? Bc apparently no one had looked at her chart to see that she only weighed 11.6kilos and not 20kilos like most kids probably are at almost 5.

So how do I explain to the person that calls me back that they need to have something in affect were this doesnt happen to another child? How far do I push? Do I just make a complaint and hope that something is done? I do know that I am going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that this bill is not placed on us. We might have had to stay over night due to her not drinking and her dehydration but not in ICU for sure!!!

 I keep telling N our little girl could have died bc of this mistake!!! If we had walked out of the room for just a min or if I had been preoccupied and not noticed she would have! They did not have her hooked up on monitors so they would not have known. It was just by the grace of God that I was there and realized. I thought (and hoped) that after leaving the NICU (I will write about that in another post)we would never have to go through that again. It is the scariest thing watching a room fill in seconds to try to help your chid breath.

Nothing can explain the fear of seeing your childs lifeless body lying there in front of you. Just the thought of what happened to Kay makes me want to cry, scream, & to tear into the ppl that did this.
When we were in the hospital I kept my cool and my mouth shut (all but once) I guess bc my mind was just wrapped up in making sure she was ok. Now that we are finally making progress in her being on the uphill of this it is hitting hard. I know that ppl make mistakes, no one is perfect, but we trusted them to know what they were doing in taking care of our child. So what happened?

On a positive note Kay is doing so much better!!!! She is finally to a point where she is sleeping most the night and not needing so much meds during the day. We only had one minor melt down yesterday and so far none today. She is starting to pick up on her eating, although we are still trying to stay with easily chewed and shallowed food. (there has been alot of pasta around here!!)

This has been such a rollercoaster and I cant wait for it to end.

Ok so I am gonna get off my soapbox for now. Just pray that the right words come to me when I finally talk to someone about all of this. And I will post as soon as I hear something.

First Post/SURGERY NIGHTMARE

I have been wanting to start a blog but this is not exactly what I thought my first post would be about.

This past week has been a really long hard rollercoaster that I am praying is over. Last Wednesday Kay had to have her tonsils and adnoids removed bc of lots of strep throat and snoring. It all seemed routine. No big deal give her some silly medicine (which I have to say she was VERY silly), take her back 15-20min surgery, 15-20min recovery. Sounds simple right?! Yeah no it was all fine until after the dr called and said it went well and they would have her back to us within the next 20min. Well after 30+ min still no sign of her nor anyone telling us what is going on. Finally an aid came and got me and took me to her. The nurse said that she was beginning to move around but not waking up. I try talking to her and rubbing her back trying to get her to open her eyes. Then I notice that she is having some apnea (stopping breathing) and mentioned it to the nurse. She says yeah I noticed it to, does she do it at home? I said occasionally but not like this. We get back into the recovery room with her and she continued to have apnea. I said something to our nurse and she blows it off that it is just anthesia. We finally get her to woke up enough to start trying her on some fluids. She drank a little sprite and ate a little bite of popsicle. Apparently that is enough for them to release us. As N is signing the discharge papers she started throwing up. The nurse continued on with her business and sent us home.

Wednesday night was HORRIBLE! It took us an hour an a half plus just to get medicine down. Then fluids got harder and harder to get down her. By Thursday am I didnt know what to do. She would just sit w her mouth up drooling everywhere. If I did manage to force any fluids down they came back up within min. So I am beginning to realize that we just need to get back to the hospital w her. This is where the NIGHTMARE really begins.

I call N and tell him to get home we need to go to the er w Kay. I called my step mom C and ask her to keep Jay while we are gone. We get to the er and we both are determined they are not throwing us to the wolves this time. They are gonna make sure she is taking fluids by mouth before we leave. We get into a room and a really nice Physicians asst (PA) comes in. She tells us that since she hasnt had pain med since the night before she wants to do pain med, nausea med and iv fluids then after all that has kicked in she would come in and examine her. She also said before she would let us go home someone would have to watch her drink fluids or eat a popsicle. We were thrilled that they were gonna do something and also impressed w the attitude of the PA. The nurse comes and says that she is gonna start the iv, give her morphine, and lofran for nausea. She gets it all done and tells us she would be back to check on her in a few min. She turned the lights off and we sat quietly so she could rest. I'm playing angry birds on my phone and noticed that Kay is very restless and making a funny noise (i recognized it from the night before). I laid my hand on her and she is not breathing. I told N, "I think we need a nurse." He ask why. I said she is holding her breath. He gets to the door and looking for a nurse. I yelled, "It dont matter who is out there get someone now she is NOT breathing!!" He yells that we need someone bc she isnt breathing. A nurse comes running and tossing her around trying to get her to come out of it. The nurse said ok she is breathing. I said no watch her. She then quit again (later this nurse says that it was a 15-20sec apnea) and turned blue, so she starts hollaring I need a dr and respirtory!! That little er room was filled in sec! It sent us chillin with flashbacks watching our babies stop breathing and turning blue! I had hoped I would NEVER see one of our girls go through something like this again. They were bagging her and doing everything they could to get her to wake up and breath. When the dr walked in he said "awe she is a tiny tot!" He ask the nurses if she had been given morphine and how much. They told him. He then ask, "does she weigh 20kilos?" N and I looked at each other and then the nurses looked at us. We said, "no 11.6kilo." (she had just been weighed) The dr then proceeds to go off on the PA. At this point Im not real sure what was being said bc I was worried about Kay. What we did get out of the whole conversation is that she (Kay) had been given an overdose of morphine. I ask the dr about it and he said that it was a very generous dose but it was an amt that she could have but over time not all at once. They were able to get Kay awake and breathing but the respiratory therapist & I had to sit at the end of her bed poking, tickling or whatever to keep her awake and breathing. Everytime she would go to sleep she would quit breathing. They put in a tube they call a "nasal trumpet" to open up her airway through her nose. Finally it seemed like she was coming out of it. She was looking at us and I wasnt having to poke her near as much. Then it went straight downhill. She wouldnt respond to anything. It was like she was in a coma. The respiratory therapist tried everything- nothing. The dr came in w a smelly stick and said, "watch this I'll wake her up!"-nothing. He worked probably 5min with no response. He looked at me and said, "she was a hard patient to begin with now she is really pissing me off!" He told us he was going to get a drug to reverse the effects of the morphine. We said, "ok, how long does it take to work." He said "maybe 30sec. And she is going to be very upset!" Boy was he right! It no longer hit her veins and she was trying to jump off the bed SCREAMING!!! It took 4 of us to try to hold her down. We finally got her calmed down some and she seemed to be coming down off the high she was on. The reason I say high is because....She had been making some weird movements so I ask the dr and he said "honestly she is high".  They let us know after the first spell that we would be there overnight.

They finally got us a room in PICU. After we got up there we were talking w the NP and DR and they ask about giving her a very small dose of morphine. So they could keep her pain under control and that they had the reversal med sitting bed side. We agreed very hesitantly for the time being. They then ask other than her being overdosed down stairs is there anything else....... REALLY!!! Someone finally admitted what had happened to our baby. So they gave her the smallest dose they could (a NICU dose really). After 4hrs she woke up screaming!!! Lookin right at me or dh screaming "I want mommy/daddy!!!" Our poor baby was so messed up on drugs she didnt have a clue!!! She would look at us with this far away stare and scream then hit us. That is just not our child..... And there was nothing we could do.

Thurs night/Friday morning-Around 1am she got a dose of the morphine and it seemed to hold very well. By the next morning she still had not had anymore. We decided that we wanted to not do morphine unless it was 100% necessary. We were finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel when she woke up and began talking to us. She was telling us what was on tv and she needed to potty. We were so excited!! She still was having some fits when she needed to potty but they were very controllable and short lived. At one point N had stepped out of the room and she let me know she needed to potty. She cried alot but it wasnt unusual. I had a nurse aid to come in and help me get her on and off the potty. Well as I got her back into the bed the nurse came in and ask if everything was ok. I said yes she just needed to potty, I got it. N's step dad and cousin came in to see her and I went out to eat lunch. We came back in the room and we knew something happened. The nurse, as she is walking away from me and out of the room, informs us that she had to give her morphine. I ask why and said it would have been nice for her to let us know before she did it! Come to find out Ns step dad had helped her potty, so that explains why she got upset. I did everything I could to avoid that nurse. Later in the day my mom came to visit Kay. She ask the nurse why they were doing morpine (i wont go into the whole story) and she, the nurse, then proceeds to get rude with my mom about it. The nurse then looks at me and says "I wouldnt have give it to her if we had not agreed the next time she got irriate she would get it." I said, "you knew that she was getting mad when she needed to potty and you did it anyway. You could have called me and told me what was going on. I was just in the hallway eating.I wasnt gone long." She said, "no she has been doing this for the past 30-45min!" I said, "excuse me I have been gone maybe 15min and she wasnt doing it when I left!" The conversation continued for another min then she left. The dr came in not 2min after she left. I told her what had happened and that I was not happy. I also explained that she had been 10hrs without and had just been awake and talking. She said that she would take morphine off the orders so that nurses could not just come in and shot her up w it without even evaluating the situation. We discussed that they would do a tylenol suppistory (sorry not sure on sp) and if it got to bad phenital (it is a milder narcotic) would be a one at a time dosage as needed. Of course 4 hrs after the morphine she woke up screaming and hitting. After 35+min of 4 adults fighting to hold her down so she would not get hurt we finally got the nurse in there (mind you 6-8nurses were sitting right outside her room and could hear her. plus 3 of us went out there trying to get someone to help.). Of course she wants to walk in w the phenital in her hand. I said is there not something else we can do. She said either the med or tie her to the bed. Are you serious?! So I very unwillingly agreed to the phenital. N made it very clear this was a one time only thing. After this we were done w phenital as well. About an hour an a half to two hours later she started coming out of it in a rage! It didnt last long and from that point we said tylenol. Also that morning they did and xray bc she had a pretty bad oxygen drop. They found that she had aspirated alot of blood and her lungs were full of fluid. The night shift nurse helped us alot that night. She was in the room everytime Kay woke up. But the fits were not bad that night. Kay also weaned herself off the oxygen mask.

I had prayed to wake up and see my beautiful little girls eyes again. Saturday morning that is just what happened!!!!!! It was the most awesome thing to wake up and look and see her looking at me! The drs came and said that hopefully we would be able to move to a room in the afternoon. We were finally moving our way out of there. They did another xray to see if there was any change. There was no change but it did turn into pnuemonia. We had the absolute best PICU nurse that day and then they moved us to the best floor nurse that afternoon. Samantha, our floor nurse, was AWESOME!!! She did everything she could to make Kay comfortable and happy. She showed us the little outdoor play area they had that Kay could ride in a wagon to. That first wagon ride and trip to the play area was AWESOME!!! We came back and Samantha said, "she looks like a different kid now!". We were finally able to get her to start taking her med by mouth and drinking tiny drops of juice. It just got better from there. Sunday and Monday we had another great nurse Jennifer. She was sooooo good to Kay and gave us advice and helped us to get her moving forward.

Finally the best morning (Monday) came (other than our baby girl waking up) when they said we would be going home!!!!! Jennifer was wonderful helping me get things together and helping to make sure the fluids were going in well.

It was and still is WONDERFUL to have all 4 of us home again! We missed Jay so much. Poor thing was such a trooper bouncing around place to place (im pretty sure it wasnt that bad bc she was being spoiled by grandparents, lol) .

Yesterday I took Kay to her pediatrician for a check up after the horrible experience. They said that she was looking good and her lungs sound pretty clear. So now it is just finishing the antibotics and keeping her drinking.

After I had time at home to sit and think about everything that happened it just REALLY made me mad! What were they thinking?! It started off wrong with the nurse sending us home the day of surgery knowing that she was having apnea and throwing up. Then we get to er and they overdose her. Then we ge to PICU and they wanted to keep giving her the morphine. We are still thinking about what steps we need to take in all this. Do you we speak w someone higher up and let them know how they let a patient down? Do we not do anything? Do we sue? We could have lost our child bc of someones careless mistake.  It has diffently made us think.

It also makes us sick thinking about how this has affected her. Our poor baby is sooooo traumatized by all of this. She wakes up screaming in pain then fear of what is gonna happen. I know this will eventually get better but going through it is AWFUL!!!

Sorry this was so long but I need it off my chest. We are more than willing to read comments and your thoughts. I promise I will have a post that is good talking about THE SIMS FAMILY LIFE soon!