Laugh a Day?

It seems that Rejeanne does something to make me laugh at least once a day. Today, Lee left his computer on and Rejeanne started typing on it. So, I shut it down. As soon as I did that and it was totally off, she reached over and turned it back on! As it started coming back to life with a whirring noise, Rejie raised her hands over her head and yelled "YEEEAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then started typing again. She was very triumphant. I leaned over and shut it down again and flipped the secret Rejie-proof switch in the back to keep her from turning it on again, but apparently her single victory over the computer was enough to keep her happy and away from it for the rest of the day.

Rejie Daisy Strikes Again

Oh how I wish I had a video of this, but I don't! I love the wind and sun. It was both sunny and windy today so I decided to take Rejeanne for a walk to go visit my friend and play with her kids. Rejeanne was ready to go, she went to the door, tried to open it, walked up two steps, then crawled up the remaining four. Then she scooted on her butt through the entryway, out the main door and down the outer stairs. My friend's place has stairs too and Rejie decided stairs are for butt scootchin'. It was pretty funny to watch! She has also mastered eating with a fork without flinging her food everywhere. Today was a great day!

Yay springtime! (It's supposed to snow on Thursday :P )

Bah Humbug!

Rejeanne seems to be the Easter Scrooge! First with the egg hunt, now with this!

Thinking about hospitals

I guess sitting around in the ER last night made me really think more about when Rejeanne was in the hospital when she was 2.5 months old. That experience was really terrifying, but with no one around the first couple days but Lee and I, we found that it was easy to really be there for each other and Rejeanne. I think we have heavily depended on one another since then. It was also interesting to spend 24/7 in a hospital without being sick. I learned so much about the nurses. There was one nurse who kept coming in and raising the rails on the baby jail. Rejeanne was in this "crib" that was metal and the rails went up probably about 5 feet. That thing made me very sad. It looked like she was in prision with all these wires coming out of her. So, Lee found a bunch of magnet stuffed animals in the gift shop downstairs and we decorated it in little animals and tried to keep the rails a more normal height. It got to a point where I really dreaded the "rail nurse" coming in because I knew the first thing she would do EVERYTIME she came in would be to put up the rails as high as possible and insist we leave them like that. I assumed she just didn't want to get in trouble for some procedure breech and I just ignored her and put them down everytime she left. One night, she came in and I was standing next to the crib. I just kind of gave her a look and raised the side of it myself so I didn't have to watch her do it. She leaned against the sink and started talking to me and asking how Rejeanne was. She seemed to really care and seemed deeply concerned, more than the average nurse. I was a bit surprised by that because she was the "rail nurse". She started telling me how lucky we were to have Rejeanne and for her to be getting better from the beta strep. She had a son in the early 80's who had died from what Rejeanne had because medicine then wasn't as good as medicine now. She checked the other rail to make sure it was latched and left the room. It was then that I realized she was just very protective of our baby because of what had happened to hers, that's why just kept securing the rails. That experience really made me wonder how many other things I misinterpret. I really just thought she was trying to "obey the rules" and annoying me in the process when really she was just thinking of her son and her loss and doing everything she could to do her job of caring for my daughter. Many of the nurses there shared themselves with me. I was definitely not expecting that. It seemed like many of them would find some down time and just kind of come hang out for a few minutes with us and tried to get one of us at least to go home for a little while. They talked about their kids and their lives and they all cared so much about Rejeanne's pain from the medicine IV. I'm thankful that nurses like that take care of the babies. I've never really had nurses like that in my hospital times (though I'm not a very good patient, which may be part of it). I guess the little ER stint has got me thinking about that period of time. Rejeanne being so sick was really hard for me but everyone who came to check on her really made it better. Not just the nurses, but Lee's family too. I was surprised how they were there for her (and us) constantly. I guess that is normal behavior in families, but I just don't have expectations like that I suppose. I even have a real soft spot for Liz' friend Marilyn because she came to see Rejeanne in the hospital and check on us after she somehow heard about it. I guess news travels among nurses!

I guess I should end this thing by being so very thankful that Rejeanne is a very lucky girl who hit the 8% chance of outgrowing her reflux all on her own. She is a very strong girl and one of the greatest joys in my life. I'm so happy to be her mom.

Spring Fever?

Rejeanne rang in Spring with a Spring Fever. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with her, just the fever. It eventually got up to 104, so we went to the ER. The ER in Vermillion is pretty cool. There's no wait. So, after waiting for Rejeanne to pee for about an hour, the bag leaked and the nurse got a whoppin' ONE DROP of urine. We're pretty sure it is a bladder infection in any case. She's got antibiotics yet again and seems to be finally perking up today. Poor Lee though! Since Rejeanne is the Super Duper Daddy's Girl, if I get anywhere near her when she is sick she just screams and cries for Lee. So, Lee and Rejeanne haven't gotten more than 4 hours of sleep a day for the last two days. Now that she is perking up, she ran and gave me a kiss this morning and took a nap for me finally. Lee and Rejie are both napping now. I love them both so much. I'm really glad that we live at a time when there is antibiotics! It would be really terrifying to see if my baby could fight off something like that alone without them. It's so easy to take modern medicine for granted.

In any case, I think she is on the mend :)

Last Day of Winter

Here's some pics from the last day of winter! We went to the Vermillion River and then went for a short drive to Yankton to check out Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River. I'm still shocked by how big the resulting lake actually is. I couldn't even see the end of it!

In commemoration of the end of Winter, here's a couple photos (and yes, those are GEESE):

Rejeanne is a pretty good dancer. This one is mostly the spinning, but she usually has some bouncing too. You should definitely notice that when the song says "Kiss Me," she will usually come over and kiss my leg. She's going to be awesome at Simon Says one day. For the record, she is sporting her "hanging around the house all day" look.

As for the fetus, it's doing pretty good! It kicks all the time and is pretty nocturnal. I'm getting my one chance to find out its sex on April 7th. I'm dying to know because I don't like surprises!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I wish it wasn't so close to Easter this year! Anyways, we've already done something Easter-ish:

On Saturday, we took Rejeanne to the Easter Egg Hunt at the retirement home. For some reason, the retirement home is where all the kid fun happens in this town! The big kids hunted outside and the little kids hunted inside. Usually, Rejeanne would be wild and ready from all the kids and excitement, but not on Hunt Day. She hid her face under her hood and refused to even be set down to walk around. We did find an egg that was up high and Lee took her over to it. She reached a hand out and grabbed it. She loves that egg very much, but she didn't want anything to do with the actual egg hunt. This nursing home did have a really big dog, a very clean fish tank and a bunch of birds. Rejeanne called the fish "dog dog", so I guess dog just means "non-human" as she also calls birds "dog dog".

Anyways, here's Emo Rejie with her fabulous egg.

I have the BEST 8 year old daughter on the planet!! Seriously! She's been telling me for a couple of days that she sent me a surprise. I got the box today and she sent me AVOCADOS!!! How she remembered that I adore avocados and had intended to snag some from the trees in her backyard, I'll never know. She remembered though! Crimson is so sweet! I also got a really cute note with a countdown until her spring break and some Girl Scout cookies we bought from her. I really miss the C-Monkey. I can't wait until April 5th!

Well, I've decided to send people a blog link so I don't have to mess with Photobucket anymore. Especially since my mom can't seem to get photobucket to happen on her computer. I figure everyone should be able to see a blog. So, if you are looking to read about what my kids are doing on a daily basis, you have come to the right spot.

Crimson is playing softball this year instead of baseball. She's having fun but really wants to win a game! We miss her tons! She'll be out here in early April for her Spring Break. I'm hoping it doesn't snow but I think Crimson is hoping that it does!

Rejeanne is Ms. Crazy-Face as always. Look for bizarre stories, photos and videos in the near future. She does a lot of stuff worth mentioning!