Tyrant and the Yappers.

Today it was a gift from God sort of day. It began overcast with the sun peeking through the wandering clouds, all day. The Boog and I got up soon after Mr K left for work.
Let me just tell you how our girl sleeps nowadays. We put her in the sleep sack to keep her warm, as the SwaddleMe wraps are useless. The kid breaks loose in a manner resembling The Hulk breaking loose from chains around his torso. She pops open the Velcro and kicks her way free in less than ten minutes of being swaddled. So no more swaddle, just the sleep sack. As of about three weeks ago, A learned to roll over from back to belly and now realizes just how much she loves sleeping on her belly.  Anyhow, we change, feed, and dress our innocent little cherub for bed, Daddy gets her to sleep, and lays her on her back in her crib. The soothie is either in her mouth or next to her head, depending on whether or not she's spit it out like an outlaw expelling spittle into a spittoon. Two minutes later she's on her belly, arms tucked up under her chest and her head facing her right shoulder with drool (when is she not drooling?) pooling on her sheet. This is how she sleeps from about nine or ten at night until anywhere from four to eight in the morning.
So back to our day- it is around three thirty and the wind has conveniently booted the clouds off for a bit and that big nuclear reactor in the sky is shining down warmly on us. Squirrels are arguing, birds are playing tag, and my yappers are yelling about it all. Even the demon spawn cat is out on a leash to enjoy fresh air.  I decide to tackle the weeds that are beginning to pop up in the rocks. This is not so simple when you are no longer *just* a pregnant woman. Now you are a mom, with a Two Foot tyrant who, because she sleeps so darn well at night, doesn't want to nap and make it easy for you garden. This little chore has turned into dragging out a playpen, finding an appropriate hat, dressing Boog in layers to combat the wind cutting through them all and making sure she is right there so I can multitask without losing the rest of my marbles (HA! who am I kidding? I know they're long gone!).

*Sigh* Domestic bliss. Baby chattering away discovering spitting, the dogs frolicking, the demon spawn cat is eating grass. As soon as my fingers touch the first sproutlings of weeds my butt starts singing a silly little ditty from YouTube. I scramble for my phone from my back pocket, and answer before it goes to voicemail. It's the mister, giving me a courtesy call to let me know he is getting done with work. I get off the phone in time to see the clouds come back, the wind is picking up, the cat escaped his harness, the dogs are about to eat the fence, and A chooses to tell me "Mommy, I would prefer to go indoors now, i am getting chilled" but to anyone other than me all it sounds like is this: waw-wa-WAAAA-Spit-gurgle-gurg-sputter-roar!!
So go me! I got one weed sproutling pulled! Not bad for an hour's worth of work setting up the yard and all the paraphernalia for baby watching (her watching me as I attempt to garden-she is the supervisor you know).
And so ends my glorious day from God. Ten minutes of lovely sunshine!

Counting to ten...million? Nope, not calming.

Well, not really, but you get the idea. I have been trying to find out from insurance if certain doctors are covered and keep getting the run around from all the doctors and the insurance people and cannot get a straight answer out of the lot of them so, in my ever oh-so-patient (snorting laughter by reader inserted here) way, I get to be the one who digs through the mass of information and interpret if these guys are covered at all, if so, how much is our copay, and all that jazz.
Phew that was one heck of a run-on sentence.
As I sit here, the merciful gods of babydom have blessed me with She -Who -Rolls choosing to nap today so I can work on phone calls. I also am enjoying my never ending supply of coffee.
More to come later.
Oh, I get to drive to an appointment an hour and a half away from home for a second opinion. Why, you might ask? Because I am a sadist! Really though it is because when Boog's chances of requiring surgery to repair her diaphragm are very high, I want to make sure she is well taken care of and that two different doctors in two parts of the state agree on her care without ever talking to each other about it. Me worrisome? I prefer to call it being "mommy."

Lazy Monday.

I was awoken this morning as is typical in this house. I hear a noise, feel a breath on my face, a bit of drool...Then the bed shifts. I crack my eyes open, blinking hard against this odd brightness outside.  I first stretch then see my daughter hovering over me, with r K holding her there. Still confused and half asleep I wonder why he has the overhead light on in the middle of the night. Hmmm I turn my head and see... SUNLIGHT! Glorious bright yellow happy sunny light outside. YAY!
My daughter's sunny smile and the bright sun outside just added to the sweet way my husband woke me up.
I had a nice day. I got my phone calls taken care of, despite A's best efforts to derail those plans.
Now it's dinnertime and Mr K just got home. Goodnight all.

From Boog's beginning until now.

     Boog was due in late November 2010. At a check-up, the doctor noticed she seemed to not have grown at all since the last ultrasound. He was worried my placenta had begun to deteriorate, so he sent me to the hospital for an induction. I was at 37 weeks gestation, considered full term, and we were a go. They began the induction that night, around 5 pm. I began pushing 24 hours later. After four hours of pushing, I had to have an emergency c-section. A was not making any progress. Forty more minutes passed and she was born at 9:40 pm. She was 7lbs2.5oz, 19.5 inches long and had a head full of hair.
     I'm a little hazy about the next hour in recovery, but they rolled me in to see her at 11 pm where she was hooked up to heart monitors and oxygen sensors. The next morning the pediatrician came to talk to us, told us our brand new baby girl was born with a hole in her heart and pneumonia  in her right lung. We get confirmation that the hole is minor, and she gets treated for the pneumonia, has a bout of jaundice while in the NICU, and is released from the hospital at nine days old.
     At one month old, I noticed her head was a bit flat in back and brought her to the ped (as are most first time moms I was a tad over cautious) where he said the shape would be fine in time but the size was small, after checking her again at two months old, it was still small, so we get her head checked out and it has no physical issues. Next step is to have the neurologist check her out and make sure nothing else is wrong and she is just going at her own pace. Also at one month old, she gets to meet the cardiologist for her heart where he confirms it is a small ventricular septal defect that we will watch that will likely never need surgery. While at this appointment he takes a chest x-ray as is routine. All is well.
     We take her back to the cardiologist for a check of her heart and everything goes as expected, she is growing well despite hovering around the 15th percentile. At the end, her doc says she's great but oh, there is something we need to talk to you about. He shows us the x-ray from her first visit and the one from that days. There is a noticeable shadow on her lung from one month old. The current one has show even more shadow that the one from four months before, and her cardio wants a radiologist to look at the films.  The radiologist does, and lets the ped know she should have her chest further examined. She then gets a CT scan and we are referred to a pediatric surgeon. We take A to the consult. She is diagnosed with a Right side congenital diaphragmatic hernia. Her surgeon wants to see her again in three months to assess her condition.

After getting home, I do some research and find out that her condition is common yet not so common. How can that be, you might ask? Well, simple. CDH (congenital diaphragmatic hernia) occurs in about 1 in 2500 babies.  That is the common part. The rare part is that approximately 50% of babies born with CDH don't make it. Of the remaining half, the majority of those (90% or so) babies have complications of a varying range. So A has a CDH. Her is on the right and looks to be towards the back. The good news and what makes her relatively rare is that she has not been impeded in any way by this. Yay!

http://www.cdhsupport.org/cdh.php
I found this site last night and it's very educational.


So, there we have it. That is the story of our Two Foot Tyrant.

How we came to this life

I was a born and bred Southern girl, and grew up where hurricanes are common and seafood is cheaper than pork. Parental influence helped me develop a love of reading very early and it continued on long into adulthood. My mother directed me to an online book club and I subsequently met my future brother-in-law.
He introduced me to Mr. K., we talked over the Internet, then on the phone, and finally we met in person. It was a very fast romance. I moved 16 hours north within the week, we became engaged a month later and married the month after that. Just after our one year wedding anniversary, we found out we were expecting our first rug-rat.
Mr. K. was born in the far north of the continental US, where he lived until he joined the military right out of high school. He served 6 years then left to pursue a civilian life and moved around the Midwest a few times before settling in our current home.
It has now been two years and four months since moving here. My how my life has changed! I love it, despite all the roller coaster events we've been through since A was born.

Introductions

First up is A, also known and Boog, Booger, Superbaby (more on that later), and Tyrant. As of this post she is 5 and a half months old, has had an adventurous life of travels and doctors appointments sprinkled with giggles, chewing on dogs, and staring at the cat.

Next is Mr. K. He's my other half, the electronics, garage, car, and household handyman. He works full time out side the home and is in full playful Daddy mode when he is home.

Lastly, there is me:I am T, aka Mommy, Trophy Wife, and Betic. I'm a stay at home mom, co-ceo of this household, Boog's personal shopper, cook, maid, laundress, dog walker, and entertainment.

We are currently from the Midwest, but I began life down South, while my husband grew up about an hour from the Canadian border.

Stay tuned, more to come after Tyrant is taken care of in the morning.