Ben and Heather Birthdays -- 35 & 30

We didn't plan anything grand for our birthdays this year, but I did take over all the night feedings and let Ben sleep in.  Then I surprised Ben to 35 post-its around the house, each telling a reason why I love him.  It took him over a month to find all 35 post-its so I consider that a success.  We went to Costco and surprised him with a Tres Leches cake.  

My birthday I spent doing work on my calling in RS (which I love) and chose chocolate peanut butter cookie dough ice cream as my treat of choice.  I turned the big 3-0.  We didn't have 30 candles and we didn't have a 3 or a 0, so Ben improvised with three candles and drew in a zero.  

Unfortunately, a month before this I started feeling PPD coming on and it took full force on the 4th of July -- just four days before my birthday.  I had been put on anti-depressants to help which only made my PPD worse.  So my birthday itself was actually pretty horrible, but I definitely felt the love from family and so many friends.

Ella made me a sketchbook to help me learn how to draw.  I love it so much and it gave me a good laugh when I needed it.

Lily's 10th birthday

Lily is a decade old.  DOUBLE DIGITS.  It's a little painful.  But it's so sweet to see the person she has become.  We love our Lily more than life itself and we are so proud of the amazing example she is to those around her.

She requested breakfast at Rise Donuts (a Holly Springs treasure).

With having Ivy right before our family's birthday season, I told the kids that they weren't getting parties this year but that they could each invite a couple of kids to go and do something fun instead.  Lily wanted this monster pizza from her favorite pizza place (you have to tilt it to get it through the front door).  She had Sara and Eliza over.

I gave them each $20 to spend however they wanted at Charming Charlie.  Easiest. Birthday. Ever.  They were thrilled and spent a good hour in the store deciding what to get.

Then we went to get frozen custard after.  Poor Sara ate so much sugar that day that she ended up pretty sick the next day.  :(

Happy birthday to our gorgeous girl!

Ivy -- 2 months

Ivy teased us a little bit by making us think she was ready to sleep through the night and then she lost all interest in sleeping long stretches at a time.  Adorable little stinker.  She is still the kids' shiny new toy and loves all the attention all the time.  With all 7 of us home almost all the time, she unfortunately knows that there's always someone available to hold her.  She loves being loved and we love loving her.

Swim Team

Our neighborhood had been wishy washy about forming its own swim team for a few years before it finally became a reality this year.  It meant that neighborhood swimmers had to give up the lap lanes of one of our two pools (heaven forbid!) for 2 hours each afternoon Monday through Thursday.  But I'm so glad we finally did it because we ended up with something like 120 swimmers on our team and we ended up being bigger than any team that we competed against all season.

But I've always wanted to give my kids the opportunity to be on a swim team because it's a life saving sport and there are countless reasons why being a strong swimmer is smart and healthy.  

C3 and B20.  I love these two racers.  (Plus they both looked extra adorable in their Hammerhead swimsuits)

I didn't get to teach them to dive correctly until the day of our mock meet.  Skyler got it down so quickly and throughout the season Coach Josh had Skyler show the team how to shallow dive correctly.

We experienced all kinds of weather at our meets.  We had one where it was 110 with the heat index.  We also had one where it was 70 degrees and rainy.  But it was fun to cheer them on regardless!

I don't even know how many ribbons the kids earned this year.  It was a lot.  I was so proud of them for doing their best even though they were both pretty insecure starting out the season.

This video cracks me up because he stays under the water so long.  This was before he realized that he needed his arms to do his streamline and that it's much easier to use a chicken wing freestyle than a windmill freestyle.

Hammerhead team 2018

So I can find my kids in the future.  ;)

Skyler's Track Meet

Skyler had his second year of track and loved it once again!  This is really his thing and I'm glad we found it for him.  And he did great!  He ended up with two 2nd place ribbons, and one 3rd out of his three events.

Plus anything's more fun when you get to do it with your friends.

Cute boys!

Ivy's Hospital Visit

On May 29th, Ivy had her one month checkup visit in the morning.  The night before she had actually been fussy, and Ivy had never really been truly fussy before.  I mentioned that Ivy wasn't herself to the pediatrician and her temperature was taken and she was still in the normal range.  But fortunately the pediatrician told me that if her temperature got above 100.4 that she needed to come into the doctor before receiving any medication so that she could be checked.  Just a few hours later Ivy's temperature surpassed that.  Ben took her in that time because I had to take the other four to Lily's dance rehearsal.  Well, I had accidentally left my wallet (which I needed) in the diaper bag that Ben had at the doctor's office.  Our office is only 5 minutes away and on the way to the theater so I just thought, no problem, we'll stop by there and grab my wallet.  Little did I know what would happen.

I asked the front desk if I could go back to get my wallet or if they could bring it to me.  They went back to check which room Ben was in and when they came back they had wide eyes and told my kids to go to a side room where they could color while I went back into Ivy's room.  The pediatrician filled me in that Ivy would have to go to the ER.  Ben and I made the plan that he would take her to the ER while I took the others to Lily's rehearsal.  My parents stayed on call in case we needed them to take the kids if Ivy were to be admitted.  The kids and I got home from rehearsal at the same time that my parents pulled in.  Not long after, Ben called to say that they were being discharged.  We were all relieved.

My parents offered to take the kids that night and so we sent them off just in case.  I was up with Ivy at about 2 AM with her night feeding and her fever spiked to over 102 -- which isn't horrible for an adult or even for a kid, but for a newborn it's really dangerous.  I called our pediatrician's office, talked to a nurse, and was instructed to go back to the hospital.  I woke Ben up and off we went.

Ben dipped a binky in sugar water and put it in her mouth back and forth for almost an hour while they tried to find a vein.  They found a vein on their final attempt before resorting to putting an IV in her head.  After a spinal tap and some blood tests, the doctor decided to admit Ivy.  So we moved upstairs to a room in the pediatric wing.

Ivy's fever wasn't really changing much, even while on Tylenol.  So we had to keep her naked in a cool room to help naturally bring it down.  It goes against every maternal instinct to watch your baby shiver and not pick her up and wrap her in a blanket.  That was the hardest part of the whole hospital trip for me. 

She needed Tylenol every 4 hours in order to do anything for her fever.  Typically that meant that the first 3 hours on it she was unaffected by the medication and the fourth hour it would come down.  Then it would go back up after that one hour and we would repeat the cycle.  

We had no idea what was wrong with her and so she was tested for a bajillion things.  She had skin, blood, urine, stool, saliva, and other tests that I probably don't even remember.  Only one test came back not normal.  We found out that her liver was inflamed.  This was a problem because Tylenol is hard on the liver and so our options were to either fight the fever with Tylenol (she's too young for Motrin) and hurt her liver more, or help her liver by not giving her Tylenol.  We resorted to keeping her unwrapped and only giving her Tylenol every 6 hours instead of every 4.

I stayed with Ivy each night while Ben went home for normal sleep.  Then I would try to get a 2 or 3 hour nap when he'd come back in the morning after getting about 2 hours of combined sleep each night.

We were all really tired.

Ivy is a cuddler but I couldn't hold her while sleeping and so the only thing I could find to keep her happy and asleep while in her crib while she was feeling this miserable was to play music on my phone.  So I turned lullabies on for hours.

After a few days our team of doctors decided it must have been an unknown viral infection and that we could go home.  Her fever was stabilizing at that point and we felt confident she was getting better.

This is the one thing I really felt like I needed a picture of.  This poor baby had her hand wrapped up like this this whole time she was in the hospital to keep her IV in place.  Ripping all that tape off was painful for her.  We are thankful that Ivy recovered quickly after because Ben's parents flew into town just a few hours after we were discharged.  We were so fortunate with the timing.

Lily's Dance Recital

Lily finished another year of ballet.  She's still obsessed and is looking forward to trying pointe in two more years.

She had her recital at the Fletcher theater at the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium as usual.  We were so grateful to have been able to go because Ivy had just been discharged from the hospital 24 hours beforehand.  Lily was the second performance in a 2+ hour recital.  So when the first performance happened and the speakers were so loud, Ivy freaked out even though I had stuffed her ears with cotton.  I said a prayer outside the theater while she was crying that I would be able to watch Lily's performance even if I had to wait outside for the rest of the recital.  Ivy miraculously and instantly fell asleep and I was able to watch Lily (and the rest of the recital).  Tender mercies.

Lily's class danced to a song all about leaving the 99 to find the 1.  It was all about friendship and makes me tear up every single time I've seen it.  I love watching Lily grow in her talents.