the kiddos and i ventured out to kohls the other day since i had a $10 gift card and we needed to get some fall clothes for caleb. i have to say up front that this outing was particularly chaotic. my double stroller’s wheel is about to fall off and it made for difficult maneuvering in the store. plus kohls loves having narrow aisles which made my struggles with the stroller even more challenging.
of course there is never silence and time to really think things through while shopping because i am talking to caleb about everything and nothing, making sure emmry doesn’t pull anything off of the shelves as we drive by, making sure caleb is with us at all times, and soothing ansley because of course this is happening during her nap time. by the time we left the store emmry had pulled out her hair bows and rubberbands and lost her baby. ansley had finally fallen asleep with a blanket over her carrier. and caleb was being his normal full of energy self.
i was thankful to pull in the driveway and have a calmer rest of my day. once i got everyone into the house it was time for me to get ansley out of her car seat. i lifted the blanket and she was grinning ear to ear with wide smiling eyes and holding a pair of size 4, which happens to be caleb’s size, navy blue athletic pants. (i actually bought a pair of these for caleb in gray.) i am not sure how she got a hold of these in the first place. secondly i don’t know how she got them into her seat with her without me noticing. it was just quite the sight to see my klepto baby holding onto these pants all wadded up with the biggest grin you have ever seen!
needless to say a return to kohls is in our future. (sorry kohls!)
so, friday night (i know it’s monday) we had quite an evening. just as we were putting the kids down for bed, Kristie says to me, “do you think Ansley feels warm?” since our entire family had, by this point, gotten the flu i knew where this was going. we took her temperature and it was 101, so my aunt Melanie was still helping out and she stayed with the older kids while Kristie and I took Ansley down to the pediatric urgent care.
once there, the nurse practitioner was not comfortable making a diagnosis because of Ansley’s age. she called ahead to St. John’s and sent us to the ER.
at the ER, the doctor said they would run cultures for flu and RSV but we had to be prepared if they were negative so they would go ahead and do a urine and blood sample. that meant i had to watch and try to console my 3 week old daughter while a nurse inserted a catheter in her to get urine, then a needle and a catheter into Ansley’s hand to draw the blood. i’m not sure if anything is as painful as listening to your new baby cry while they are getting blood taken. it was heart breaking. they left the IV catheter in so they wouldn’t have to insert another if she was admitted.
the good news is, shortly after that the cultures came back and she has the flu. this is good news simply because if she had not had the flu, that meant she would have been admitted with either RSV or they would have admitted her and tested for numerous other things including spinal meningitis. that test is done by a spinal tap. i did not want to watch that.
so thank you to those of you who were praying on friday. Ansley’s fever has not really been an issue since then and she is sleeping pretty well. we have to watch, because she does get stuffy and breathing is yucky at night sometimes. over all, we think she’s going to make it!
yesterday, i took ansley to get her 1 week checkup at our pediatrician’s office. if you remember she was 7 lbs 4 0z and 20 inches long, so far our smallest baby. (when we left the hospital ansley weighed in at 7 lbs.) at 10 days old she weighed 8 lbs 3 oz and had already grown at inch and measured at 21 inches long. isn’t it crazy that in just 10 short days she gained a pound and grew an inch? needless to say that the milk is in and she is benefiting from it. i guess that is the whole point of the 1 week check up anyway, to see if there is weight gain and by golly there is. 
in case you don’t know, i nursed caleb until he was 10 months old and i nursed emmry during my pregnancy with ansley until she was almost 11 months old. so to be quite honest i was feeling unexcited about nursing baby #3. this is something i never felt before because i LOVE nursing and of course all of the benefits it gives to my sweet babies. plus formula is so expensive!!! anyway i nervously admitted my feelings about this to andy one evening. i selfishly felt like i just got done nursing and i wasn’t ready to commit to this for another year. (actually i figured out in the 5 years, this friday, we have been married, i have been pregnant and/or nursing for 4 years of it minus 4 months!) he reassured me that i wouldn’t feel like that when i got our sweet baby in my arms – but i wasn’t so convinced. however, he was right! i never even thought twice about it … i wanted out of surgery and to the recovery room so that i could nurse and begin bonding with ansley. it really is an amazing thing to be able to do for your baby. God is Good!(keep on growing ansley… but not too fast!) kristie
here are some highlights for us over the last few days…
- 9:26am, February 1st, 2008. Ansley Lorene King is born by cesarean
- Ansley has dark hair and looks like me!!
- friday afternoon Caleb and Emmry meet Ansley for the first time. Emmry is very curious while Caleb is not so sure, until Emmry is interested
- saturday, after Caleb is loving on Ansley, he then decides that he doesn’t want her to come home because she’s going to slobber on his toys
- while leaving on the same day, Caleb sees his friend Lucas Tran. Caleb tells him, “Lucas, i have a little sister. her name is Ansley. can you say Ansley?”
- seeing our family and friends meet Ansley for the first time
- Qdoba is right down the street, and so is Fortels
- we got a room switch today to a much bigger room (i think it’s twice the size of the old room!
- naps for mom
even with all the excitement, it will be nice to go home tomorrow and sleep in our own bed, eat in our own kitchen, and be a family. we have lots of good help coming in the next couple weeks, so Kristie should be able to relax and concentrate on taking care of Ansley without the distractions of cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc.
thanks to everyone who came by to see us. there are more pictures up on Flickr.
oh yeah, it’s monday. you kind of lose track when you have to stay this long. here’s a recap of the last couple days…
Ansley is eating every four hours over night, which is good. the rest of the time she lays there and looks very cute! my family was in town until yesterday, so they visited a few times. my dad was camera happy. he is always so proud of his grandchildren! Kristie’s mom and grandma came in yesterday and Kristie’s dad is staying with the kids. He has been a big help. it’s fun to see how excited our parents get about the kids. we’ve had lots of friends come to visit. we took pictures of all of them and i’ll have those up on Flickr soon so you can download your picture.
Caleb didn’t know what to do with Ansley at first. all that talk while she was in mommy’s tummy about how much he loved the baby, when she’s actually here he doesn’t want anything to do with her. that is until he saw how much Emmry liked her. Emmry loves the new baby. when she got here kristie was holding her and she looked in the bassinet and started pointing and saying “be-be” (that’s her word for baby right now). kristie asked her if she wanted to see the baby and she nodded her head “yes”. After that, Caleb said “i want to hold the baby”, so he held her for a while. i’ve got pictures of that too. very sweet.
Grandpa, Caleb and Emmry just walked in so i’m going to go. have a good day!
