Sleeping Habits

No, I'm not going to proactively apologize for my snoring; or mention how late my wife likes to stay up at night; or tell stories about how we had to kick Lizzi off the bed when Ellie was a baby sleeping next to us...

Ellie made one more foray into big-girl land this weekend.

Saturday afternoon, we uninstalled the railing from her crib, and installed the toddler side guard.

Clearly, Ellie loves the new configuration of her bed. We helped her crawl up into bed and explained that when she woke up in the morning, she could climb out and come wake us up.

Despite how much Ellie seemed to love the new bed, things didn't go well Saturday night. Mom was out late for a girls' night. Ellie woke up a couple times while she was gone and needed some comforting, but I went to bed around midnight and all was well. When Mom got home, she went in to check on Ellie and found her curled up on the floor, on top of the heating vent! She had warm pajamas on. I wouldn't think she'd be that cold. Well, the move back to bed was enough to disturb her sleep thought, and Ellie didn't get back to sleep until about 4:30 in the morning. Ugh!

Tonight has been much better, though. Ellie had a big day (church followed by Dora live on stage and dinner out). So he conked right out after her normal evening routine. Things were going well. A little squawk from the nursery... excuse me, "big girl room"... from time to time, but nothing of consequence. We thought.


Turns out that, some how, Ellie managed to roll off the bed, get oriented upside down, and then roll under the bed... and remain happily asleep!

PICU Memories

Sarahlynn posted a couple days ago on the anniversary of Ellie's heart surgery. We she mentioned it to me that night, I was amazed. It never occurred to me. I guess we're so far past it that I only think about that week in the hospital when I'm triggered by something else:

• Seeing the cutest picture of Ellie ever taken (warning, she is bandaged here, so consider constraint if you're really sensitive to blood). We sometimes keep a framed copy of this on the coffee table.
  
• Hearing the music from either her play Aquarium or the hanging star that we used to sooth her in the hospital.
• Seeing the book of song lyrics that Sarahlynn and I put together and sang over and over and over during the whole first year of her life.
• You might be surprised that seeing her scars doesn't usually trigger any hospital memories. I guess we see her shirtless enough that I'm used to it... except for the little scar on the inside of her left foot, from the "spare" IV line that they kept in throughout her stay.

Sarahlynn spent five installments recounting our stay in the hospital with Ellie two years ago. So, I'll just share my most impactful memories.

The first one was on the night before the surgery. The amazing surgeon, to whom we owe Ellie's life, came in to talk with us about what would happen the next day. He explained the procedure and some of the risks. He said something to the effect, "and I have to share with you that there is an ever so slight change the Ellie may not make it through the surgery because of complications that may arise." "What's the risk?" we asked. "On the order of 1-2%," he told us. We were openly taken aback by this answer, I guess. He repeated, "it's a very slight risk." I then explained to him that he was talking to people who had a 1 in 228 change of being in this position at all, but here we are. And he was telling us that it was 4 times more likely that Ellie would die, than that we would be in this position at all. It's not an entirely rational response, but I think we were both scared to begin with. After the fact, I admitted to Sarahlynn that I honestly believed that when we handed Ellie off to the anethesiologist, that was the last time we'd see her alive. Or worse, she'd come out of surgery, get worse, go back in, have some emergencies, battle on, and finally succumb to all the complications...

That memory will be very vivid for a long time, I think.

The Plague Cometh

I, the Plague-Carrier, have continue to infect family after family. After the trip to Wyoming, during which I put my brother-in-law in the hospital, we all returned back to Valparaiso for some time with Sarahlynn's family. Grandpa Ted had already had his 24-hour dose of flu. Over the past several days, both of Sarahlynn's sisters (and possibly a dog or two) have all gotten equally sick, and now great-grandpa is having stomach cramps!

Admittedly, there's a minutely slim chance that I haven't been the only carrier of this bug... but believing I infected dozens of sure makes me feel influenzial (sic)*.

*Ha! Did you catch both of those convenient puns:
influenzial.... influenza...
sic... sick...

A Very Pukey Christmas

I feel incredibly powerful this Christmas... I brought the plague upon two households within a less than 24 hour period of time. Friday afternoon I came home from work to start packing us up for our holiday trip. In the middle of packing, I started feeling ick. By the time we were ready to leave, I'd puked everything left in my stomach that hadn't already left another way. (Pleasant, I know!)

But, we only go out to Wyoming for Christmas once every few years, and I wasn't willing to disappoint all the Boal relatives by not bringing Ellie out for the holiday. So, Sarahlynn drove the whole way up to Valparaiso, despite the fact that the two of us combined had only accumulated one night's sleep over the course of the week. We arrived there around midnight, immediately went to bed, and were roused again at 2:45 so that we could get ready and drive to Midway airport for our 6am flight to Casper.

A still felt somewhat ick, but the vomiting (worse than I've done in YEARS) had helped clear things up.

Flights out to Wyoming were amazingly on time; Christmas Eve service was great (if a bit too late to have kept Ellie awake); and gift opening was outstanding! (Soon to come are pictures taken with our new digital camera!)

Fast forward two days...

Sarahlynn's father, in Valparaiso is puking sick. This from a man who NEVER gets sick.
Sarahlynn's been sick and is just now recovering.
My sister Anny is on the up-swing, too.
Brother-in-law Rob, though, is now hooked up to IVs in the hospital. (He has kidney disease, so when puking (etc) screws with your electrolytes, it's a good idea to have an IV to help out with that.)

Turns out that my Iowa relatives have also had the same thing. I haven't seen them since July, though, so I'll not take credit for that.

Beware of me, Plague Carrier!

The Third Amendment

Recently, the press has published stories about GW authorizing the NSA to spy on the communications of people inside the United States without explicitly going through the secret court that usually authorizes such things. We're talking specifically about communications between someone inside the US and someone outside the US. Not that this makes a difference to me. Our law enforcement system tends to be based on the principle that you can't violates someone privacy unless you have reasonable cause. (I should know. I watch all three (four for a while) Law and Order shows!)

I remember hearing various conversations on NPR about where the "constitutional" right to privacy comes from. Sure, there are things about not being forced to testify against yourself, not being tried twice for the same crime, the right to know the charges against, to be defended by an attorney, etc. But I guess there's some confusion about whether an explicit right to privacy is laid out in the Constitution.

Which brings me to the obscure little Third Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

"No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."

OK. Super. I don't want the military taking over my house. Great. Why does this even matter. Well, there's some history here, if you're interested.

I like to believe that this Amendment did, indeed, have something to say about whether or not the government (military, intelligence, Congress, anybody) has the right to just come and hang out in my home -- regardless of whether the "hanging out" is done physically or virtually by way of monitoring my communications. Maybe "without the consent of the owner" would also cover a situation in which a spy was deployed to infiltrate someone's personal life and surupticiously get information from that person.

Just a thought...

Christmas Letter Woes

Sarahlynn did a wonderful job writing and preparing our Christmas letter for this year. It's got nice things to say about all of our individual adventures this year, a top ten list, a family Christmas picture, happy wishes for everyone, all to be printed on nicely bordered paper. Well, the printing didn't get off the ground as quickly as we'd hoped because of frustrating printer problems.

Well, those printer problems have finally be rectified via the purchase of an early Christmas present... a new printer. This one (Epson CX7800) is a nice step up from the previous model (Epson CX5400). It can scan negatives and slides. It has slots for all varieties of camera memory. A USB port to connect cameras directly. Great automatic photo adjustment settings. All kinds of super features! Merry (early) Christmas to me.

Now I can print a nice print out of this to put up at work. (And boy does it make nice prints!)

Potty Training

Ellie's moved up to the 2 year-olds' classroom at school. Along with that promotion comes pottty training. We've already been working on that at home for a few months now -- in fact, Ellie really got into the idea for a while. We're in a bit of a relapse right now, because Ellie thinks it's funny, I suppose, to watch Mama or Dada race with her to the potty chair whenever she starts to grunt. Or perhaps she enjoys watching us rush to ask: "Who do you want to take you to the potty? Mama or Dada." (That would be Mom's rendition of the question. You can imagine what mine sounds like.) So, potty training is going.

It's amazing to watch some of the older kids in her class, though. Some of them wear underpants fulltime and have to button and zip their own pants after going! Impressive, in my book. It'll be nice to have Ellie out of diapers some day. I'm guessing 6-9 months out.