Two

Last Thursday, my gigantic baby turned two. I don't mean gigantic so much as in "My tiny baby is so gigantic!" but in that he routinely dwarfs the three-year-olds we meet. He is a big, solid kid. He is also our sweet, happy goofy baby. Happy birthday baby. You're the best two-year-old in the world.



But maybe not ready for potty-training yet.

Six

My baby turned six last Tuesday. SIX.

It's hard to believe how big and capable she's gotten. And even more than her physical capabilities, she starting to develop the sort of empathy and ability to think about others that makes a parent delighted to discover they might not be raising a little sociopath after all. And despite spending pretty much all day with her for the past six months, I'm enjoying her company enough to sign up for another year of homeschooling. She's funny and creative and an excellent big sister.

That all adds up to a pretty great kid. Happy Birthday sweetheart.



I would like to note that she looks about 8 FEET LONG in this picture, which is pretty much accurate for how she's growing these days.

K's fever continued unchanged all week, worrying me no end until Friday, it magically got lower and we able to get her temperature down to normal with ibuprofen. She still has the cough that developed towards the middle of the week and needs a daily nap, but is definitely getting better. Whew.

She does have another UTI, which we found out about only because we called the doctor on Thursday. She's on a new antibiotic that she's only been on once before and loved, because it tastes good, is once a day and gave us a full three weeks before the next UTI, which is quite a record these days. So yay for that. Pretty much everything else about our interactions with the medical community has me livid though. Reasons include, in no particular order:

1. The fact that her pediatrician doesn't use the strips for dipping into urine and immediately seeing if there's an infection. No, we have to wait for the urine to get sent to the lab, which takes a minimum of three days and nothing gets prescribed if she doesn't have a fever or is in pain. It does mean, however, that the infection gets to party on in her bladder for another three days before we do anything about it.
2. Every single doctor that has said, "She should be on daily antibiotics," yet not actually prescribed them. I absolutely agree. She should be on daily antibiotics, especially if it's what the urologist thinks it is. At our last urologist visit, the nurse practitioner we were seeing noted that the urologist had written orders for daily antibiotics in K's chart, but they didn't have a phone number for a pharmacy. And yet she didn't give me the daily prescription the urologist clearly thought K should have. Everyone seems to be in agreement on the daily antibiotics issue. And yet here I stand, my hand completely full of no prescriptions. WHY CAN'T SOMEONE JUST GIVE THEM TO US ALREADY?
3. I have a special hate-on for the nurse practitioner, who gave us the antibiotic I told her over and over doesn't work, even if the lab report says the bacteria they found can be killed by it and then failed to call us back after two days of us calling repeatedly to say that it wasn't working and K was in pain. I can put up with a certain amount of distraction, and an office where I have to wait for two hours just to check in. But my child in pain is unacceptable.

*****

We spent a quiet and sleepy Father's Day. B doesn't care about it too much, which has been good for me since I haven't been up to doing much the past three years. But this year I pulled it together to at least help K get him a gift and have a low-key sort of celebration. I've made it that far at least. I'm not at the point yet where I can participate in Facebook memes or post happy reminiscences about my father, but I'm not in the mood to talk about how much I miss him. Just a sort of carefully neutral fatherless Father's Day.

Weather continuing hot and humid

Verdict of the doctor: no signs of any bacterial infections in the various orifices, probably a virus. Come back if the fever isn't gone by Friday. She took a urine sample, but K isn't having any of her normal symptoms, so I would be surprised if it were the primary cause of all this (it wouldn't shock me if there were another infection brewing, since when hasn't there been one brewing in the past nine months?).

This evening, K napped on the couch next to me and I could feel the heat radiating off of her without even touching her. The immortal UTI aside, we've been extremely lucky with our childrens' health. Neither of them has had a virus last for more than a couple days or an infection that hasn't cleared up promptly with antibiotics. A case of bronchitis as a baby has given Alec reactive airway disease, which means he gets a couple weeks of wheezing every time he gets a cold but nothing that a few nebulizer treatments won't help.

This is the longest either of them has been this sick in such a worrying way. I know it's probably a virus that she'll finally kick in the next couple days, or we'll get a call saying she does have another infection, but it's hard not to let my mind go in worrying directions the longer this goes on with no change.

Something is better than nothing, right?

1. K and I got up too early last Wednesday morning and went to the children's hospital for another attempt at a vcug. They gave her versed this time, which makes children very sleepy and mellow, and thank goodness, because K was freaking out again. I was impressed with the nurse who gave her the medication, who was the right combination of kind and tough, and managed to get K to willingly take the medicine when she was more interested in curling up in a little ball and hiding her face. The doctor had warned me that she was on the older end of children that Versed works well for, and it just doesn't work at all for some children. I held her in a rocking chair for a while, talking about her grandmother's trip to Alaska and other distracting things, until the nurse came back in and I looked down and realized her eyes were closed. Clearly working for her, thank goodness. It was all pretty easy after that, since while she wasn't really asleep, she was pretty happily zoned out. Thankfully the test went very quickly (and everything is fine, or at least, what they were testing for isn't the cause of the UTIs). K was quite amusingly goofy and wobbly for quite a while.

We couldn't get an appointment with the urologist to actually go discuss this test until August. To say I am ... unhappy with this doctor's office is putting it mildly.

2. The last day of school was last Friday, and we celebrated by getting up waaay too early to go to Hershey Park for an end-of-year celebration with our cyber school. I have to say, if you're the amusement park type, Hershey Park is a pretty good one. Lots of rides, including water rides for hot days, clean as a whistle and the extra bonus of chocolate.

The end of the school year deserves its own post for purposes of reflection on successes, failures, plans for next year and general navel-gazing. We are planning on homeschooling again next year. But meanwhile, we're enjoying the general slothfulness of the first week of summer break.

3. Both of the children were out of sorts on Friday - Alec had woken up obscenely early on Friday (a general trand last week - what the hell child?), fell asleep on the way to daycare and when I carried him in and set him down on the couch, he opened his eyes just long enough to wiggle into a more comfortable position and went back out. He was asleep again when I picked him up, and he stayed asleep when I carried him out to the car, during the twenty minutes we waited for B to get out of work and for another hour after we got home.

K, meanwhile, had had a rather fragile day and was cuddled up with the sitter when I picked her up and inclined to be tearful for no reason any of us could see. I was utterly perplexed, since she loves the sitter, until we got home and she cuddled up to me on the couch and I suddenly realized she was burning up. We took her temperature : 103. Then we stuck the thermometer under Alec's arm and got the same result.

Oh. Well, that would explain it. They were both inclined to lie around a lot yesterday, although they would both perk up with application of ibuprofen. Alec was pretty much better last night. K, poor bunny, still had a fever tonight, and will probably go into the doctor tomorrow if she's not any better tomorrow. I keep quizzing her about any possible symptom of another UTI, but so far she seems clear. It's almost certainly a virus, given her brother was sick too and her father and I aren't feeling too chipper either, but it's hard not to be paranoid when you're constantly dealing with a chronic illness.