Sleepless Nights - Part Two

Remember how I posted about the crazy high fever and how Lily ended up sleeping with us for a few nights? After 7 days of the fever, I took her in to see the doctor that Thursday the 18th. Virus. Go home and if she gets worse or the fever lasts two more days come back.

On Saturday afternoon, she woke up from her nap with a 103.9 fever. I called the nurse and she said to go in. What a night! Because she had no other symptoms other than the fever, they were pretty baffled. So we did a urine test; not fun for someone who doesn't actually control their bladder yet. Then we did a blood test; lots of tears. Finally, we did chest x-rays; LOTS of screaming. Oh, my poor baby. And it was bed time. And she was miserable. As a precaution, they gave her a shot of antibiotic. More tears. The funny thing is that after each traumatic encounter, she would babble away as if to tell us about all the horrible things they had done to her.

That night was the first relief we had all week. She slept a lot better. I gave her some more Tylenol around 3 that night, and pulled her into bed for the last time. We finally got some sleep and we all slept until almost 9 that morning. Crazy! Her fever had broke and we were Tylenol free.

We went back to the doctor on Sunday afternoon for a review of the tests and her second dose of antibiotic. Her temperature had gone back up to 101, but she was no longer acting crazy. This doc was not my favorite. After explaining to the nurse why we were there (and everything was in our electronic chart, Doc comes in and asks "What can I help you with today?" I know that it's the weekend and no one is seeing regular patients, but I saw the nurse write F/U on the check-in paper (for follow-up, people, get your mind out of the gutter.) After explaining once more, the nurse went to get the antibiotic and came back with two syringes. What!?!? Two?!? She didn't want to do two because Lily was so young. I made her look at the chart from the day before to prove we did only one shot and were anticipating only one more in the other leg. After she got her second shot we were on our way home.

From Sunday night on, everything was peachy. She was eating well and acting her normal crazy self. However, she had gotten used to waking up in the middle of the night and crawling into bed with us. I had to nip that in the bud. So when she woke up in the middle of the night on Monday night, I made her cry it out. I know, mean 'ol Mom. I turned off the baby monitor and went back to sleep. Soon enough, she tired out and fell asleep. The next morning I found she had poop in the middle of the night. Great, now I have guilt. I felt terrible. Luckily, the rest of the week went smoothly, and she hasn't really woken up since.

Except . . . last night . . . she had a bad dream. We rocked and she went back down without too much of a fit. Nothing ever came from all our testing. It was concluded that she had a virus and the fever broke over the weekend at the same time we received the antibiotic. We did find out from the new blood test that Lily's iron has dropped even more. Because she was sick, and a little picky in her eating, our regular doctor has given us two weeks to get her iron up; Doc ordered red meat. So Lily is on a high iron diet; baby oatmeal, french toast, beans, peas, roast beef, and an egg salad sort of concoction with yogurt (sounds gross but she loves it.) And that was just today's menu! Since she has been feeling better she is eating like crazy. And since she is so skinny, after she wolfs down all her meal, I continue to let her graze the rest of the day. Pray for Bug. Doc warned us that the once month iron dosage they would have to put her on is not pretty. We go back sometime after the 12th.

But for the most part she is healthy and doing great. It was wonderful to go back to church on Sunday after missing 2 weeks, even if she did get her hand slammed in the cupboard. (Just teasing! She's fine.)

How I Reduced My Energy Bill

I know this post is probably not interesting to most (if any,) but in my effort to cut our bills, I am having a blast trying to cut our energy usage while remaining comfortable. Not everyone can "do" all of these things due to time and availability. But you pay for convenience and the same holds true with the energy bill. I like to think I am going green, saving energy and being earth friendly, and while it is a nice benefit, really, I'm just looking to save some cash.

1. We got rid of the second refrigerator.
We, like many of you, had that old(er) refrigerator in the garage. It held mostly beverages in the refrigerator and the freezer section was jam packed. It was convenient, but not necessary.

I still needed the extra freezer space and we were blessed by a 5 cubic feet freezer from my parents right before Lily was born. We went back and forth as to whether we should get a bigger one, but the one given has been the perfect size. I was able to store A LOT of breast milk (which was the point of the gift) as well as other prepared and frozen food. I freeze everything! Seriously. Pasta sauce, casseroles, tortillas, breast milk (cha-ching,) meat, corn off the cob, half loaves of homemade bread, cookie dough, fruit I bought on sale, hot dogs and buns, chicken broth, and anything else I can double up on when cooking. A chest freezer is not frost free because the air doesn't circulate temperatures to keep frost from building up. This means food gets and stays cooler and will store in your freezer longer than in the refrigerator freezer. Additionally, the small freezer uses half the energy annually than the refrigerator did (240 kWh versus 480 kWh.) Bargain! Also, many energy companies will offer you a rebate if you get rid of the second refrigerator. Definitely worth looking into.

2. I stopped using my dryer.
The cloth diaper covers I use can't go in the dryer so my dad installed a handy retractable clothes line in my back yard. And because I hate turning the dryer on for half a load, I hang both the covers and the inserts up to dry. When I found that drying clothes on the line was so easy, I stopped using the dryer for most of my loads. I still use the dryer for towels; they are just too stiff otherwise. Here is sunny Southern California, there are very few days when it isn't nice enough to dry the clothes outside. And when it's rainy, I bake instead of doing laundry.

3. We cut cable.
Yes, cutting cable is a different bill that we ultimately saved money on, but not having the televisions constantly on, or the cable box running and recording shows, it cut the energy bill. Additionally, we put our large television and the receiver on a power strip with an on/off switch. Because the receiver isn't recording anything, it doesn't have to be on all the time. We simply turn the power strip on if we want to watch a movie.

4. We unplugged everything.
Anything that isn't used most of the day has become unplugged. Anything that is left plugged in, even when not in use, sucks energy. This includes the fan, the coffee pot, the hair dryer, the baby monitor receiver, the laptop, the phone chargers, and the printer. These are are many of the items that we plug in to use, and unplug when finished. Yes, it means that I can't set the timer for my coffee to be ready when I come downstairs in the morning, but as I mentioned before, you pay for convenience. Things become a habit very easily, so we are now in the habit of unplugging things when we are finished. Don't worry, we leave the lamps and alarm clocks plugged in. (Although, I am contemplating changing to a battery operated alarm clock.)

5. We installed solar screens.
This is an investment that may take a years to reap the benefits (monetarily.) We, however, think they are totally worth the money. All Star Screens installed solar screens on our master bedroom windows two years ago. It doesn't block the sun, but helps shade some of the intensity. You see them often in restaurants when they roll down the solar shades to block the sun but you can still see out. (I noticed them in Starbucks on Sunday.) When summer hit Lily's room, the heat in the late afternoon made bedtimes at 7:30 almost unbearable; the solar screen help a lot.

6. We don't run the air.
That's not completely true. We don't run the air as often. Because I am at home, I am able to open all of the doors and windows early in the morning and allow the cool air to come in. Then as it begins to heat up outside, I shut everything up and trap the cool air in. The tile downstairs helps keep it cool. We use fans a lot. I know ceiling fans aren't always the most fashionable (I've seen a lot of DIY bloggers removing them,) but they sure are functional. We have one in each of the small bedrooms, one in the family room, and two in the master. On these HOT days we had this past week (an average of 107,) we had to run the air most of the day and into the night. But when the air outside drops below 78, we throw open the windows and often stick the box fan in to suck all the cool air in. Sometimes, this doesn't happen until midnight . . . but I am awake from the heat anyway.

And finally
7. Know how much energy you are actually using.
Southern California Edison has rolled out an updated web-site that I think is pretty cool. I can see exactly how much energy I used the day before, even breaking it out by the hour. It projects my bill based upon my average daily usage, and shows me the bills for the past two years for the same time frame. I think it is really snazzy. For the past three months, we have been able to cut our bill down by 30 to 50 percent! When I quit my job, I thought it meant we would mean using more electricity during the day but the opposite has proven true. Cheers to going green and saving green!

Sleepless Nights

What a crazy 24 hours! Yesterday afternoon around 5:00 pm, Lily woke up from her nap with a pretty high fever. She was not her normal crazy (still crazy, just not the typical kind) and very very cuddly (my baby doesn't like to be cuddled.) After getting some Acetaminophen in her, the fever went down some and she hung out for a while. She went down to bed fairly easily at 7:00 pm. At 10:00 pm she woke up and started playing with Glowworm. It is pretty typical for her to wake up, press his button and fall back asleep. At 10:30 pm, I snuck in and touched her cheek to find her once again burning up. I got her up, stripped her, and gave her some more Acetaminophen. We cuddled for a little bit and I put her back down in her crib. She again played with Glowworm until 12:30 am. I, of course, am laying in my bed wide awake listening to her, and to Kevin snoring. Suddenly, she begins to shriek and stands up in her crib. I pick her up and try to comfort my hysterical baby.

Let me back up and give you a little back story about my crazy child. Lily will be a year old in just a few weeks. She has been going down to sleep like a pro since we brought her home from the hospital, and we moved her out of our room at 8 weeks. She wasn't waking, but her tossing and turning in the bassinet kept me up. She dropped the pacifier at 4 months to pick up her thumb and typically self-soothes to sleep. About a week ago, she decided she doesn't like bedtime. She screams and throws a hysterical fit when we put her to bed. I would not have a problem with letting her cry herself to sleep, except she throws such a big fit, she gags and then vomits. . . everywhere. . . multiple times. She has a crazy sensitive gag reflex.

Last Saturday, her schedule was off. We did a day trip and after getting only 30 minutes for her morning nap, she went down for her second nap early and was back up at 3:00 pm. She usually goes to bed between 7:30pm and 8:00pm depending on the afternoon nap. Knowing that she was off about an hour, when she got crabby and sleepy at 6:30 we started the bedtime routine. She was not going to have it. She threw a HUGE fit and threw up all over me, and then again all over Kevin and herself. Disgusting. After fighting for almost an hour, I relented at 7:45 and let her play by herself while Kevin and I watched a movie. You would never have guessed we had just had a meltdown. At 9:00 I put her down again. She cried some (more than she used to) but no huge fit. She passed out.

Monday night was something similar except we were on our normal routine/schedule. I ran to the store while Kevin put her down; or at least tried to. When I came home, she was asleep on his chest. She had thrown the huge fit and Kevin was afraid of the vomit. I can't really blame him. When I tried to put her in her crib, she woke up and started the hysterics. I picked her up once, calmed her down without leaving the side of the crib, and laid her back down. The crying fit started. She was ridiculous. I sat her up in bed and let her gag herself into a couple of receiving blankets Kevin kept handing me. I eventually got her to lay down while I stoked her hair. When I finally left the room she cried some, but was done with the gagging.

I thought Monday night was bad. And while there was no vomit last night, I would rather do Monday or even Saturday all over again than repeat last night.

Back to last night. . . I went back and forth trying to get her to the crib, but I swear that child was wide awake like she had just taken a nap and was powered up for the rest of the night. At 2:00 am, I let her do some crying in the crib to wear herself out, all while trying to prevent the gagging. I finally nursed her and then laid down in her room and let her fall asleep on me. She was passed out for a good 30 or 40 minutes and I tried to put her back down in the crib. No go. More hysterics. At 3:00 am, I took her to our bed. I still hadn't slept. She was so hot, but wanted to be cuddled . . . by me . . . not Kevin. Poor Kevin. He wanted to help (although that man can sleep through anything) and he wants to be able to comfort her. But to this day, I still call or text my Mom every time I get sick. It's a Mom thing. She didn't want him to hold her, but she didn't want him to leave either. She would let out this ear piercing scream if he disappeared even just to get the wash cloth to cool her down with. Ugh.

From 3:00 am to 6:30 am, I held her. A couple of times I would try to get her hot sticky little body off of me and she would wake up and scream until I pulled her close. She would get really hot and then cold and clammy. It was terrible. I was cold but didn't know if I should cover her or not. Poor little thing. At about 6:45 am she woke up screaming. It was time to start the day. I might have gotten 3 hours of sleep broken up over the whole night.

My wonderful husband got up this morning with her and let me sleep for another hour. Yay! for the sippy cup and Cheerios. He would have let me sleep longer . . . but I just laid there. Poor guy missed the Sandals Men's Breakfast this morning for me (and Lily.) It was a rough night on all of us, he probably wouldn't have been much fun at 7:30 this morning anyway. Although, he is a lot nicer than I am in the morning, little sleep or not.

We all went back to bed for the morning nap which lasted 3 hours. Here's hoping the afternoon one is nice and long as well.

Breakfast

Breakfast usually start like this; calm and collected.

We soon move to irritated and annoyed.

Followed by combative and abrasive.


Does anyone else see her father coming through?

He Can Fly, He Can Fly!

Well . . . he flew!

As a gift Kevin received a 40 minute flying lesson out of Van Nuys. On Sunday, he redeemed his voucher and we took to the skies in a little Cessna. No training, no simulator, just buckle up and take off. The pilot, Michael, gave Kevin the run down of where everything was located, told him to steer on the ground with his feet and before I knew it we were given clearance to take off.

Kevin did a wonderful job and the view was spectacular. It wasn't the clearest of days, but considering we had thunder and lightening that morning, we were simply grateful the storm had moved on. We flew over the Hollywood Hills and the Hollywood sign; which neither of us had actually seen before. We flew over Marina Del Rey, and then up (technically west along) the coast; Venice, Santa Monica, and Malibu. We saw the big blue screen and Universal Studios, Mel Gibson's home, and UCLA. I would have been happy with just the air tour, but Michael let Kevin do most of the flying.

Where I was in the back was actually nice and breezy; not too hot.

Marina Del Rey

The coast

The first thing Kevin said when he got out . . . "It's hot up there."

Kevin's flight log now has 0.8 hours in it. . . only 39.2 more until he can get his license.

We had a great time. That might have been one of our most unique dates, but what an experience. So much fun!!