Last Wednesday was Damion's birthday and he had relaxing birthday by spending the night at home recovering from his minor eye surgery. Yup he spent his birthday weekend with Jeff and returned home hurt. This time was not as major as last year though. He was having eye irritation and light sensitivity. After getting yelled at by his general care doctor for not going to an er earlier, he got into an eye surgeon. After 30 minutes there he came out with his eye looking better than when he went in and said that the doctor removed a piece of rust that was embedded on his eye. Its a week later and he is doing better with the occasional headache and light sensitivity, which the doc said to expect for the next bit.

Moving forward to today, Anna spent the whole day, with the minor exception of nap/relaxing time, in training pants!!!! Don't think that's exciting? Guess I should mention that she did this without having a single accident and that even includes her wearing them around town for two hours while we ran errands. See, told you it was pretty spectacular, well at least for this household.

My parenting tip to the first day of success? A “potty timer”. Oh sure, to the common person it might look like a simple kitchen timer but in this house this timer magically goes off when Anna has to go potty. Pretty remarkable timer they sell at Target, eh?!?!

A nice side effect is that Jack is showing some interest in this whole potty thing. Now granted this morning his interest was more so in unrolling the toilet paper around the living room, BUT this evening he too decided to use the little potty. Much cheering commenced after his success.

So, here's to hoping that tomorrow is just as good as today.

Since our last “meeting” here a bunch has happened here. We spent a day with Dawn and Pete at the Children's Discovery Museum in Chicago, played outside almost daily, had both kids diagnosed with “toddler diarrhea” (don't ask, ya don't wanna know), introduced Anna to a new to her camera that has brought out her inner photographer, Anna & I went bridesmaid dress shopping with Lori, Lori's mom, Laura & Grandma, and then there is tonight. A night of two firsts.

Jack went potty in the toilet for the first time ever. When this happened even Anna cheered for him, which is funny because she herself is still potty training (above mentioned illness hasn't helped with this task). Don't worry. No pictures of this first.

Anna got a new bike. After looking at five stores we ended up at the locally owned bike shop where she got so incredibly excited. I can't recall her ever getting excited about anything like this. In the stores we tried an overly branded bike that was almost the right size and she wobbled on it. At the bike shop she got on the bike and proceeded to drive around the parking lot which is slightly sloped. When Damion and I were discussing the possible purchase Anna jumped over to him and gave him a great big smile and super big hug. The salesman and I just laughed. Even though it was bedtime she got to take the bike out for a drive in the cul-de-sac. And even after the ride she was sooooo excited.

Head on over to the gallery to see the new bike adventure. Pictures from the last couple of weeks should be coming soonish. Oh and anybody in the area this coming weekend and want to watch the kids for a bit, don't be afraid to contact me......especially if it would be Friday from 7 pm to midnight :)

Let me start this post by saying I hope everybody had a wonderful Christmas and had fun ringing in the new year.

We spent Christmas morning and lunch with Adam and Nicole, spent the afternoon driving towards my parents, saw a truck flipped over due to awful weather, slowed down making the last 20 miles of the trip last 35 minutes. But we got there safely despite the icy roads and snow and precipitation and high winds. Christmas evening and the next two days were spent with my parents, siblings and their significant others. Much fun was had by all. Yes we took pictures and yes we will share but now is it is time to share the big deal that has slowed down getting the pictures to you.

On Saturday December 26^th, Anna started to show a sign of getting sick. The following Monday she was slightly fevery and just wanted to be held. At some point during the afternoon she started to have retracted breathing (stomach & throat sucked in to breathe). Since she seems to have breathing problems whenever she is sick we just kept watching her. At 11 pm when she woke again her breathing wasn't right and I took her downstairs and said to Damion and Dawn that we were taking her to the ER. No call to the doctor, straight to the ER. In the ER the second person we saw within 5 minutes of getting to the room was Jill, a respiratory specialist whom we liked and was our advocate that night. Fast forward to 2:30 am. We are told Anna would be admitted for observation and were taken to her room, which happened to be the same room Jack was in a couple of years ago with RSV.

At 7:30 am on Tuesday, Anna's doctor did his rounds and I decided that he is much too chipper that early in the morning. He said tests were negative for RSV and 60-80% of influenza strains, a radiologist would review the x-rays again to rule out pneumonia, and specimens were being sent to the state for H1N1 testing, and that we'd be in again overnight because she needed to not be dependent on oxygen through the night.

Wednesday morning the doctor confirmed it wasn't pneumonia and he thought it might be viral and due to her age could not diagnosis her with asthma but that word was sure used a lot and that based on the fact she was still dependent on oxygen she'd be in the hospital another night. After an afternoon of running around attached to her oxygen sensor but not her oxygen tubes we were optimistic about going home the next day. However the night did not start at all as planned (had to be put back on oxygen for several hours) but got better thanks to Nurse Amanda answering our bagillion questions and helping wean Anna off the oxygen.

Thursday morning when we met with the doctor we were a little unsure if Anna would be going home or not due to her numbers throughout the night. Fortunately after a bagillion questions and answers between us and the doctor we brought her home by lunch time! She is still on a couple of medicines and receiving nubulizer treatments. We have a follow up appointment on Tuesday and will learn then if she is an H1N1 statistic and also have even more questions for our favorite pediatrician.

And what about Jack? Well as you read, Dawn was visiting and being the super duper best friend that she is, she took care of Jack for us most of those three days. Damion & I took turns staying with Anna but we still tried to spend as much time as we could with Jack. I don't know if we spent enough time with him but I am soooooo grateful that Dawn was here to play trains, watch Einsteins, be told “no” several times, feed and nap Jack for us. Not having to find a new “home” for a day or hour blocks was a blessing.

This is a really long entry, so please click "Read More" to get everything all at once.  Thank you.  - The Management :)