Moving Right Along ...

It has been a week full of ups and downs mostly due to illnesses and post-surgery recovery.   Alyssa has been suffering with a pretty bad cold/cough which has managed to find its way to both mommy and, unfortunately, Madison.

Alyssa is slowly improving and I am able to help her through the nights with cough/cold meds to suppress the coughing.   However, Madison is not released to have any medications other than what was given her for the surgery recovery.  This has been hard on all of us, but mostly Madison.

Today is early on day 11 of recovery, we have found the official bump in the road and last night Madison was miserable.  It is hard for mommy to determine if it is the coughing that is making her so upset or if it is her throat. I gave in and dosed her with Tylenol with Codeine around 11 pm last night and she slept the rest of the night through after a very bad panic episode with coughing, gagging and crying.

Alyssa is off to a birthday party at a bounce and play business today.   Madison is not released to be active enough to attend; however, mommy will take Madison to the gift opening, pizza and cake part of the party after the other kids are done bouncing ... better than nothing, right??!!!

Daddy had to leave us for work on Thursday and will be home on Sunday evening and mommy is very hopeful for a chance to sleep a little then.

Days 5 & 6 Post Surgery

Yesterday and today have been a little harder for Madison in her recovery.   Mommy missed a nighttime dose of the pain meds and she ended up waking up early in the morning quite upset, crying with a painful throat.   Once the meds were back on board, she was doing much better.

This morning it happened again, despite the pain meds.  She was running a temperature of 102.4 F and after the medications were given, it came down and stayed around 101 for the day.  Her eating is okay, she is still trying at every meal, but today it was more of a struggle for her.

Hopefully in another day we will be onto the next phase of good days until the expected onset of days 9-10 which the next anticipated bad days ahead of us.  

Tomorrow Alyssa will go to school and Madison is sad that she will not be going ... but at the time she is concerned that the kids would tease her about her voice, so she is okay staying home.

We will see what tomorrow brings us ... :)

NFC Playoffs ... and ... We are Going to the Super Bowl!!!!

Today we had the family over to watch our Greenbay Packers play football for the NFC Title and the right to play in the Super Bowl ... even Madison perked up while the family was here visiting, although it was a bit hard to keep her from getting overly excited with Grandpa around!

Needless to say ... The Packers did it and we have another family date for the Super Bowl in two weeks!!!  Go Pack Go!!!

Two Days After Surgery

Madison has been doing GREAT considering she just had surgery.  Mommy has been waking her up every four hours to give her pain medication, so our first two nights have been really good.   Our plan is waking her up for one more night and then trying a dose of pain meds right at bedtime and seeing how long she makes it.  Tomorrow we will dose pain meds in the morning and wait to see how long before she asks for it.   She made it today the full four hours between doses and said she still felt good, which is an improvement from yesterday when she knew right away when four hours had ended.  We are also giving her an antibiotic twice a day at bedtime and wake up time.  

Madison is eating very well for so soon post-op.  Very, very proud of out little girl.

Alyssa is being a great helper and sister making sure Madison is feeling okay and looking after her.

They made a little snuggle area on the floor and like to watch movies together there when Madison is feeling tired.

Tonsillectomy, Adenoidectomy & Skin Tag Removal

Today was the big day for Madison's surgery.   Mommy and daddy woke up extra early to get ourselves ready to leave for the hospital and girls' day started early as well, being woken up at 6:00 a.m.   Grandma arrived shortly after 6:00 and mommy, daddy and Madison left for the hospital about 6:30 a.m.

We arrived at Patient Registration at 7:00 a.m. to finished paperwork and get Madison's patient bracelet ID.   We had a wait in the same day surgery waiting room of about 25 minutes before there was a room open and ready for Madison.

Mommy and Madison went back to the pre-surgery room to get Madison ready for surgery.  Daddy joined us a little later after more paperwork was completed.

We met with the many doctors and nurses all who explained their part of the surgery completely to us.  Dr. Ayre also got to write his initials next to Madison's ear to mark the skin tag that would be removed during her surgery today.   Madison thought that was fun.

Finally it was time for mommy and Madison  to leave with the nurses to go to the operating room.  Madison thought mommy looked "ridiculous" in her scrubs and hat ... mommy thought Madison looked equally silly.

Mommy stayed with Madison while they administered the anesthesia.  Madison handled everything with a smile and lots of good manners.  The nurses thought she had been given a sedative (which she hadn't) because she was so calm about everything.

Dr. Ayre came out about one later and told us that everything had went really well and that Madison was in the recovery room.   We joined her about 30 minutes after that.  She was doing great but looked really relieved to see mommy and daddy standing in her room.   She readily opened her mouth to show us that her tonsils were gone though.

She had a little bit of a rough spell until her pain medication was dosed and then she was all smiles once again, enjoying an orange Popsicle.

We were released two hours later and so far so good, but we definitely using the pain medication for a few days.   :)

Swimming Lessons!

Last week the girls started the winter sessions at Foss Swimming School with a new instructor to them, Chad!  Chad is our first male instructor and so far so good ... the girls really seem to respond well to him and he seems to know how to have fun and yet still command attention from the kids, something the girls really need to stay focused.

Today was our second lesson with Chad.  There are two other young boys in the class with Alyss and Madison. They are working hard to learning proper swimming strokes by rotating their arms all the way around.

A favorite reward to the kids during class is a jumping high five with their instructor ... the pictures are a little blurry due to the action, but it shows they do not fear jumping into the pool!

Madison:

Alyssa:

Unfortunately, we will miss lessons next week as that is the day of Madison's upcoming surgery.   They will be excited to get back into the water as soon as Madison is healthy again!

Dance Recital at Oak Terrace Retirement Community

Today mommy and the girls jumped in Hello Kitty and headed to Mankato to participate in an abbreviated encore of their informal Christmas dance show at a local retirement community.  The girls did great and were not shy in the least.  They performed Lion King and Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

The girls also participated in a little warm up stretching to show the residents how they warm up before dancing and they also demonstrated all the dance positions they have learned so far!

They had a wonderful time and the residents seemed to enjoy seeing the kids dance, they clapped and smiled anyway!  :)

A Little Sisterly Bonding ... Over Max & Ruby

Just hanging out today keeping warm in the house and the girls were enjoying an episode of Max & Ruby ... just had to take a couple pictures of them cuddling ... :)

Welcome 2011 ... Happy New Year!

Since daddy had to leave for work on the 1st, we had a fairly low-key but very family New Year's Eve.  I have been looking at many of our friend's New Years pictures and I am feeling a bit torn about the fact that it NEVER occurred to me once that the girls needed to see midnight ... although so many other children their age and younger I am seeing in party hats and ringing in the New Year.   For us, we like our sleep and mommy doesn't enjoy a follow up day of cranky girls due to lack of sleep ... so we did it our way and the girls were in bed and sleeping by 8 pm ... they are only five and I know there will be many more New Years Eves in their futures that they will be awake for, so this year, they slept and we had fun afternoon to make up for our quiet evening.

We started our morning in the usual fashion but today included cupcake making with the girls.  We got made and baked and the plan was to decorate them after our afternoon outing, which the girls knew nothing about.  We made pink confetti cupcakes and had pink frosting and sprinkles waiting to be added later.  The girls are getting much better at cracking eggs, no broken shells for the crunch effect in these cupcakes!

Despite the weather, which was cold and calling for rain of all things ... the four of us headed to Southdale to finally see a viewing of "Tangled", which is Disney's newest movie about Rapunzel.  The girls have been wanting to see this for so long now and we thought it was a great way to end 2010 for them.   Apparently so did a theater FULL of other parents ... but all was good and the girls loved the movie and mommy and daddy shed a few tears ... darn it Disney!  The girls were so excited to be at the theater they actually screamed with excitement when they heard me ask for four tickets to TANGLED ... the male at the ticket counter just giggled at them.

After the movie, mommy and daddy made a quick pit stop at Crave to pick up some Mexican sushi rolls for our New Year's Eve dinner ... at home.   The rain had found its way to us and it was actually sleeting pretty bad.   It took us quite a while to drive home due to the sleet freezing continually to our windshield, but we finally arrived home and got down to business decorating our cupcakes.   We made the girls dinner consisting of requested cheese and butter sandwiches, raspberries and, of course ... a CUPCAKE.  Mommy and daddy sat down to enjoy a glass of wine and our sushi.   It was nice, it was quiet, it was our little New Year's.

Thinking ahead to what 2011 will hold for our family is exciting ... we have our 10 year wedding anniversary, the girls will turn 6 and they will start kindergarten ... a whole new big and exciting chapter to their little lives ... and our first family trip to Sweden in the works ... 2011 already promises much excitement!