Princess Party at Chick-Fil-A

Starting yesterday afternoon, Anna seemed to be feeling a little better. This was great news because we had promised to take her to tonight's highly awaited Chick-Fil-A Princess Party. One of our local franchises thought it would be a good idea to throw a party that involved painting your fingernails, decorating wands, and getting your picture taken with costumed Disney Princesses. Every little girl that came dressed as a princess received a coupon for a free milkshake. On the way to the restaurant I said to Brad (in my ignorance of the appeal of princess parties), "I wonder if we will be the only people that show up in costume?" I was imagining maybe a hand full of families attending, getting weird looks from the rest of the patrons. Boy was I wrong. It was worse than being at Disneyland in June. The line for the activities wrapped all the way around the inside of the building and out the door. The employees were frantically awarding coupons. I was tempted to just leave. However, all of my children were very happy to be there in the mob. For close to two hours we surrounded ourselves with pink and purple balloons and living preschool replicas of every commercialized princess known to video. I need to add that Ben, having felt slightly left out of the pre-party excitement, decided to go as a king. Also, in an appropriate representation of the complexity of her character, Anna opted to wear, not a tiara, but a baseball cap. Go Anna.

Anna Update and Emily Picture

Today we went to the neurologist with Anna. She had been going down hill since Saturday. We determined that her shunt was working correctly but the pressure was too low. So with the help of the "Magnetic Doughnut" we raised her pressure to a normal level. When they replaced the shunt catheter during surgery, they didn't adjust the setting. We had a situation where too much fluid was draining, now that the shunt was unclogged. Over the next few days the pressure in her head should raise and we should see some improvement in the way she feels.

Emily ate her first real meal with the family on Monday. It was Meatball Soup. We had to adjust the recipe a little to accommodate her tummy, but it still tasted fine and she seemed to enjoy it.

Revision Update

Anna came out of surgery a little agitated, but she is doing fine now. We've been out of surgery and in our room for several hours. Needless to say, she has been upset about what is going on, but the doctor confirmed the shunt was partially obstructed, so it was a good choice to do the revision. We will be here overnight and should be discharged sometime on Saturday, as long as there are no complications. By then, Anna may not want to leave because she is getting to watch lots of TV and eat chocolate ice cream.

Shunt Revision

Just a note to let everyone know that Anna goes in for her shunt revision tomorrow (Friday) at 1:00. Actually, we go in at 11, but the surgery is at 1. We knew we would need a revision soon, since the shunt wasn't functioning properly, but we didn't find out until this morning that it would be tomorrow. This time around we will be able to enjoy the new Levine Children's Hospital that is part of CMC. It was under construction during our last surgery.

Easter and The Table

Ok, ok- it's the moment you've all been waiting for. What did we put on that table? Remember the poll? Remember the hype? The time has come for the great reveal.

But first.....

Here's some pictures of the children at Easter, and a little photo I like to call, "You're in trouble now."








And the winner is......

No One!

We got this nifty (free) iPod/CDplayer/Stereo thingy with greenhouse rewards points from FedEx. I think it is actually an Apple product.

Very enjoyable, and in classy Apple style.

We will remove the plastic from the cords. I promise.

Playing Nice

After drying my hair this morning, I proceeded to search for my children who had wandered to the opposite end of the house. They usually take this hair-drying-opportunity and use the white noise to cover up their most destructive projects. I was a little concerned to see the laundry room door closed, but much to my delight, I found them playing nicely together "fixing" Anna's red car. This inspired me to throw some pictures online. I am also including individual pictures of Anna and Emily in their matching flannel dresses. My mom made them in her "spare time" one weekend. Talent.

Food Allergies/Intollerance

Wow! I can't believe it's been so long since I've written anything. I was putting it off until I could get some new pictures on here, but Brad's work is busy this time of year and my free time is limited. I still plan on doing a post on some of the home projects we've done around here, and about the dresses my mom made for the girls, but those pieces of news will have to wait.

Today I took Emily to an Allergy specialist. As some of you know, Emily is allergic to milk. And soy. And peas. And turkey... After the turkey incident I decided to go see an allergy specialist instead of the gastro. Technically what we have are food protein intolerances. That means your body cannot digest the food proteins in a specific food. Peoples reactions vary in severity, but it usually includes bloody diarrhea and vomiting. Our vomiting is more along the lines of severe reflux, not projectile vomiting, but it is still a problem. The issues here are that you can become anemic from losing blood through your intestines, you suffer the discomfort of reflux/vomiting and diarrhea, and children stop eating and suffer from failure to thrive. Food intolerances are difficult to predict because you can't test for them. You have to just eat a food and see what happens. Then you put it on the good list or the bad list. You also have to hope that you never find a food to which you are so intolerant that it puts you in the hospital. That happens occasionally, and is unpredictable. The doctor said he has one child that is deathly intolerant to corn, but it never shows up on any of his blood work. Anyway, to make sure we didn't have any other true allergies (the immune system anaphylactic shock kind) we did the food allergy test today. While Emily has no severe, life threatening immune system allergies, we did test positive for peas and oranges. That means we are both allergic AND intolerant to peas. And stay away from orange juice. Otherwise it will be a guessing game with the foods. No soup for you!

This picture is a little old, but I thought it was a funny picture of Emily. We'll call it her "No peas, please!" face.