Shoe Shopping

Yesterday we took Little E shoe shopping.  Since we now have a toddler of sorts we need shoes for her feet.  For some reason I thought she had big feet.  Turns out Little Miss has small feet for her age.  Okay this is going to be interesting to find shoes for her I guess.  I was under the impression that she had big feet because all those sleep n plays were too small in the feet.  Has anyone else had that problem with the sleepers being too small in the feet too?

Well since J and I got a gift card from his folks for V day I went shopping for E with it at Carter's.  Shoes were on sale and I had a coupon.  I bought her two pairs.  First size was a 2 but I decided since her toes were at the very end a 2.5 ( 6-9 months ) would be the best fit for now and I also bought a size 3.5 (9 to 12 months)  in the same color; silver.  We'll get her sandals for summer weather when that happens later on.

Cute little bug last night decided to walk around a bit in the store to make an impression on the clerks too.  They couldn't believe how young she was and walking already.  Sad fact was that the only shoes that fit her were the crawling shoes.  Little E still isn't crawling all that well.  I'm sure she'll master that at some point.

Does anyone know when it is safe to allow the baby to sleep on their sides?  Little E keeps wanting to sleep on her side.  I keep moving her to her back and she just rolls to her side again.  Should I just let her roll to her side and let her stay that way?  She is only 7.5 months old.

You can see her new shoes up front.  Her Laura Ashley sneakers are there along with her Justin boots as well as some dress shoes, slippers and a couple of hats in her basket.  Yes I'm reading to her from the Harry Potter series right now.

7.5 Months Old

Little E is WALKING!!!

J yelled to me to get into the nursery at once.  I came flying in as fast as I could considering I'm not allowed to run this soon after surgery thinking something was wrong with the baby.

He apologized at once for not telling what it was that he needed me for with his frantic voice.  He has been working with Eilonwy for weeks now on walking.  He too was an early walker and was walking right around 8 months of age.

Wishing I had grabbed my camera.  Eilonwy took three steps on aided by hand before she dropped to the floor.  OMG we have a walker!

Time to get the baby gates and child proof the house!

I should have known she was going to walk soon  as she went from walking in two of his hands to just one handed walking last week.

She gets so excited when Daddy asks for her hands to stand up and walk with him.  I know she is going to miss him when he goes back to work next month.  Looks like he'll be doing more than that soon according to the newspaper headline too.  Now if only we can get a straight answer from his chain of command.

Hoping to do the re-enlistment thingy soon.  Wow hard to believe it is time for that already.  With the budget cuts we were delayed in coming to this duty station by a year and a half and it might be time to already say good bye to it by next year.  I'm not going to mind that too much.  Housing here is terrible if all you qualify for is a two bedroom in the enlisted quarters.

Giving Back Where We Can

I know that quite a few of us infertile bloggers have had losses.  Some of us have had given birth to a stillborn baby or early infant death and gone through the wringer washer and somehow made it out the other side.

A new friend of mine gave me a link today to a place that gave her some peace of mind when she recently lost her baby, a stillborn due to a blood clot at 37.5 weeks.  I'll share with you all now that link.  http://www.calebministries.org/memory-box.html

They provide Memory Boxes which contain a burial gown, bonnet, blanket, and an envelope for the baby's hair, a copy of "Morning Will Come", and a Blanket all wrapped in tissue paper that is acid free.

They need folks that are willing to help out by donating their time to make the gowns, money for the fabric and pattern, and so on.  Details can be found at the website.

I'm thinking that when I feel a bit more up to it giving this place some.  At our old duty station I used to make blankets for the wounded warriors.  Well babies need blankets too.

Antibiotics are Crap

I'm hopefully imagining things but I'm rather doubtful.  When I had the surgery three weeks ago I was put on three different kinds of antibiotics that were rambled off to me the night I spent in the hospital.  Something, something, cipro.  Okay at least I recognized one.

I got home and developed a bad pain when I peed.  I told the nurse.  No it wasn't the pain you get when you have a UTI.  I've had two of those.  It didn't hurt when I actually peed but rather when I finished peeing like when I used to have a uterus and my ovaries and  I'd get a nasty ovarian cyst tucked between the bladder and uterus type pain.  Still they gave me an antibiotic.  This time Cipro by itself.

Last week Friday I had the sutures taken out.  The doctor on duty at the oncology office didn't like the drainage because well it was pus.  Yes pus and it was red around the incisions.  More infection.

This time I was put on Keflex.

Five days into the Keflex I'm still producing pus and the incisions are red.  WTH

I just took a shower and was really gentle around the incisions.  I mean it isn't much pus.  I've never had an incision get infected like this before.  It isn't like it is in swamp territory either.  This is three inches above my naval.  Last surgery I had minimal drainage from the uterus being removed but that was normal and needed no antibiotics which is surprising considering that had 19 staples in it.  Three of the four incisions are red this time around.  But should I be surprised considering this is the same hospital that I saw the cockroach on the wall in the in-patient area for the MRI?  Not like Tricare gave us much choice of where to get this surgery done.

Monday: A not so Micro blog post

I'm not so sure how long this will be as I wanted to do an update.
I'm alive or at least I think so or it is the ghost of me with the grainy eyes full of pollen dust typing away at the computer posting this blog today.

Eilonwy is doing well at her Baby Led Weaning.
Tonight we are having chicken for her to grab at while we have at it with asian spiced rice and peanut thai on our plates.  Too many ingredients for her so she just gets the chicken alone.  However, we will give her a rice cake and water to go with her dinner and some yogurt as well as fruit.  Not so bland.
No more teeth as of yet, just the bottom two.
I bought her a Doidy cup and some NumNum spoons of which should arrive tomorrow.

As for my hysterectomy and salpingo-oophrectomy, so the doctor warned me the other day I was doing way too much.  K said that I'm going to have my intestines fall out the cuff or cup if I keep it up since the cuff or cup isn't fully healed yet.  She also explained that it is life threatened if that happens.  Air could get in and kill me.  Oh great.  So yes, I won't be allowed to do laundry since I have a top loader.  I can sit there and sort it but not tug on it to get it out of the washer and put it in the dryer.  No more trying to help J out around the house.  He can do it all by himself.  The Army can bite my butt.  I know they don't care about me.  I know they want my husband back to work and that is all.

The cuff or cup is the skin flap inside they have to create when a female has her reproductive organs removed.  It is the barrier that prevents the intestines from coming out of the vaginal canal as was explained to me.

Happy Valentines' Day

Just two of my most favorite beings in the world taken by my other favorite one.  Aren't they just cute together?

Hope all of you have a great Presidents' day weekend and if you have a sweetheart I hope you are enjoying your time together with one another.

Seven Months Old

Little E turned Seven Months old.

She is into everything.

She is still walking in J's hands.  I suspect next month she'll be trying to walk without his hands as for now she clings to furniture and tries to walk a bit without his support already.

She has decided she likes her push and go bike.

I realize that this toy is meant for a child that is 12 months old but as you can see she can put her feet on the ground and push off easily enough.  This is a photo of her mounting the bike.  Sometimes it is so hard to believe that she can't crawl all that well but is trying to walk on her own.

Her newest feat is that she has untied an over hand knot.  I'm not lying to you folks unless my spouse is lying to me and I have no clue why he would lie to me.  I made three cheerio necklaces for my little one.  I knotted the string on the end to hold the cheerios in place when stringing them on.  Then when finished I knotted the finished end to the first end in an over hand knot.  It was that last knot, of which was done tightly and the ribbon was grosgrain mind you, that she managed to untie!  The child is going to have to be watched closely from here on out.

I ordered another toy to aid Little E in her walking process. 

It should be here soon.  I've heard good things about it and I hope that she enjoys it well enough.  Have any of you used this toy to help with the walking of your child or a child you have taken care of?  If so did you like it?

As for my surgery healing...well it could be better.  I'm still in pain.  Seems like one of the incision sites is infected.  Today one of the incisions decided to leak pus.  I called the nurse about it to let her know.  I'll be seeing my doctor for the two week follow up later this week.

The FRG here hasn't even acknowledged that I might need help.  They know I had surgery.  The day I got home from the hospital I got an email reminding me that I had a meeting that night.  I responded back reminding them that I had major surgery and that I'd like the notes sent to me. Two weeks later nothing has been emailed to me.  No phones calls,   No visits at home.  Such a shame considering our FRG leader goes to my church and is a singer there too.  She seems friendly enough.  Her husband is in my husband's direct chain of command too.  Oh well.  Her husband would also know that we would be needing information and possibly help since J would be soon needed back at work.

On that note. ...they tried to make him go back to work.  They forced him to sign back off leave yesterday.  They made him do a new leave packet this morning.  He had to bring with him to work this morning our daughter since I have a lifting restriction of 5 pounds.  His first SGT threatened to take J's stripes.  Oh dear, yes it is that bad.  J has plenty of leave saved up.  There are no field ops going on.  There are no overseas missions going on right now.  There is nothing to prevent him taking leave especially medically necessary leave for family.  What the problems is right now I don't know.  Funny thing is that they are actually encouraging other soldiers to take leave right now.  So yeah why are they busting on my spouse?

And the Army goes rolling along.

One Week Post Surgery

I'm healing.  I know I'm healing because the incisions are itching.

I'm still bruised.  Hopefully the bruising will go away soon.

The glue is still pretty much still intact.

The muscles are still cramping up.

Motrin has become my go to pain medicine.

Today I went grocery shopping for food for Eilonwy and it was hard on my body.  I couldn't wait to get home and don some sweat pants.  J forgot to put her car seat behind the driver's seat so I had to sit upright.  That was rather painful.

But we made it through the shopping and are home without popping any of the four incisions open.  One of the incisions has decided to pucker.  It is rather disturbing to me.  My fault I guess since I am a doormat and decided to do too much the first day home.  I cooked and did laundry.  I had to put my foot down the by the fourth day and explain to my spouse that he has this leave time off so that he can nurse me and take care of the baby not so he can be babied.  Since then I've been without having to do housework which is good.  Oh I've been fending for myself for most meals still but my husband doesn't like to cook.

Here is a photo of one week past surgery of the incision sites:

bruising is better, still swollen and left side still hurts