Mendocino Weekend

We had a wonderful 4 day weekend at a house in Mendocino (town of Elk, officially) with the Biaginis and Hagels. Weather was nice and warm when we first got there and then the fog rolled in later in the weekend. Cecily, Lauren and Kaitlyn played non-stop and there was a good balance of laughter to even out the occasional temper tantrum/throw herself down on the floor/jealous rage/tears of grief over stolen toys, etc. She LOVED the beach and wanted to splash splash splash and run run run and fall face forward on the sand. She and Luca would stay at the beach all day if we would let them. She did pick up a bit of a bug at the end of the trip (or just bad car sickness from the windy roads, hard to tell for sure) but all in all a wonderful time!

Hospital Stay

Well we had quite a scare with Cecily this last week and weekend. Last Wednesday she came down with a horrible virus (later determined to be the evil Rotavirus) which led to her throwing up for hours, then getting a little better, then progressing to diarrhea, us desperate for her to keep fluids down, panicked with how weak and listless she was becoming, about 6 calls to the advice nurse, one trip to the doctors office on Thursday, taking her in to the ER on Friday night, and finally being admitted to the hospital, an IV stuck in her arm, and fluids and sugar flowing through her to rehydrate her and restore her sugars and other electrolytes. Her blood glucose level had dropped dangerously low and she was very dehydrated (although besides the weakness and odd behaviour, there were no other obvious signs of dehydration)





Needless to say we were wrecks. I was shaking so much at the ER I thought I was going to keel over. She lay there on the table almost oblivious to the IV being put into her arm. She perked up a bit after the sugar started taking effect and by the time we were upstairs in a hospital room, she was mad as hell. We were grateful in many ways to see a response from her as the unresponsiveness was downright terrifying. I requested a real bed instead of the sad hospital cribs and lay with her as Greg tried to sleep on the pull out bed. The nurses came in every few hours to check her sugar level, which had spiked up after getting a shot of dextrose and then came down nicely to a normal range by morning.





Seeing your baby in the hospital, with an IV in their arm, is nothing a parent should have to see. When Cecily would wake up and realize she was still there at the hospital she would wail in despair. It felt like my heart was being twisted. I just wanted to make it all better.





They didnt want to take out the IV until she could eat, drink, and pee sufficiently, and then we wouldnt be able to go home until she could do all that without the help of the additional fluids. The doctor came and talked to us on Sat afternoon and it looked like we could go home on Sunday morning sometime. As Cecily was starting to feel better, she became increasingly stir crazy and being confined to that room was NOT fun. The nurses were great though, and there was a playroom full of toys that we could borrow (we couldnt actually play in the playroom as Cecily's rotavirus made her a "Contact Precaution" patient) Sunday came around and they took off her IV, thankfully we were now a bit freer to move around (we walked around the halls before too, dragging the IV stand behind us). We pulled Cecily around in a Little Tikes wagon padded with pillows and took her to see the fish in the waiting room upstairs, or to the freezing cold courtyard outside where she could run around. Seeing the other children in the hospital was so sad. I was happy we had an end in sight.





The doctor came in again Sunday afternoon. He said that she looked much better and Problem #1 (the Rotavirus infection) was on the mend, moving out of her system, and she should be able to get better on her own now, without medical assistance. But as for Problem #2...the fact that her blood sugar had plummeted so low (somewhere in the 30s). This was an abnormal reaction. They proposed to do more tests which would be able to rule out a multitude of factors which may have contributed to this. These tests would require us to remain in the hospital another night and have her fast for 12 hours overnight to see what her blood sugar would do as well as a host of other things (such as hormones, electrolytes, etc.) Greg and I certainly did not want to stay there anymore and subject her to further tests and pokes and prods. However, I could not turn away and forget about it, so rather than going home only to come back again another day, we decided to stay and do the test.





It was a rough night, as her schedule had changed and she was not sleeping through the night but woke up demanding milk-which she could not have of course. We wandered up and down the halls of the hospital so that she wouldnt scream. We also watched alot of Blues Clues. They took her blood in the morning and let her eat (huge plate of scrambled eggs and alot of chocolate milk). We were discharged at noon after more consultations with doctors (including the head of Pediatric Endocrinology, the more experienced the doctor, the more nervous I felt). So now we just have to wait for the results of these tests. Most likely is that it was either a single incidence of hypoglycemia that will not recur again, or may recur again if similar conditions are present. This is something she will outgrow and normally effects toddler aged children.



For now I am happy and relieved to see my little girl happy and healthy again.

Father's Day 2008

We had a great Father's Day in Sonoma with Addison, Cara and Scott (Ceci calls him 'Cosh') and Luna, Sierra and Bill. We barbequed and made lots of delicious food and the boys played cribbage and the sand bag game. The little girls ran from the play kitchen to the sand box to the pool to the play house, having LOTS of fun. She loved wearing her new swim outfit from the aunties.

I like cake!

One of Cecily's first sentences, she will chant "I like cake" until she gets some. Here she is enjoying a chocolate cupcake at Cade Cannedy's welcoming party.

Her verbal skills are increasing every day. She is trying to put words to most everything, some are more discernable than others of course. Greg is constantly trying to get me NOT to speak in baby talk to her -as I often pronounce the words to her the way she says them, rather than pronouncing them correctly myself.

She occasionally strings two (or even three on rarer occasions) words together (such as the cake chant). And she mimics things very well such as counting -she will say "one two three..." although I think she is memorizing the order of these words rather than comprehending the actual counting concept.

As she takes on new challenges she grasps at the wonders of her new world with both joyous enthusiasm and deseparate frustration. It is this frustration, and realization that she lacks total control of the world around her, that sometimes leads to dramatic tantrums. So we have had many episodes of her flinging herself on the floor, kicking her legs, thrashing her head and screaming like she is possessed. This may all be over the fact that we presented her with a cookie broken in half, as opposed to the whole cookie which she wanted.

She has a current fascination with The Big Bad Wolf. He is present in both the Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood of course, both books we have and she loves. She is drawn to the wolf, and the pictures of him hiding behind the trees, snarling and drooling--have I made a mistake introducing her to these things at such an early age? I dont think she quite understands that the wolf is bad, only that he is important. And she quickly turns the pages to find his picture and proclaims "Wolf!"

She is still loving music and dancing and has started a new music class. Berit (her nanny) says she was the only one dancing as the teacher sang the songs. Marches to her own drum. She loves to do the Pony galloping (galloping, galloping...) dance. I need to remember to ask Berit whether Cecily made this up or if the teacher showed them how to do it. Its quite cute.

Below are pictures of her playing with her daddy. She loves to get lifted high up in the air and turned upside down. She squeals with laughter. Little dare devil.

Ceci & Addi

Cecily and Addison (Scott & Cara's little girl, now 15 months old) have been playing alot lately. Although we live an hour or so apart, we often travel up to their place in Sonoma on the weekends or they come down to see us in the City so we all can visit. It is great to have them spend time together as we are all such great friends. It will be fun to see them grow up together.

Here are some pictures of Ceci and Addi in Sonoma on Mother's Day playing the baby pool and being cool in their shades, and in SF at the playground and relaxing with their milk watching Blue's Clues.



~Cool with Shades~

~On the swings at Koret's Children's Playground~

SoCal Trip

We traveled down south for the week before Memorial Day to visit family and friends. It was wonderful to have Ceci visit with my family, I only wish she could see her grandma and grandpa (and auntie and uncle) more often! She loved seeing all the peacocks of which we have so many in Palos Verdes. The corgis chased her around, (mostly Rascal chasing with Zena barking). It was very hot in the beginning of the trip and we took her down to the beach and she had a great time playing with the sand crabs filling up the bucket with water and pouring it out, watching it soak into the sand. I think she could have done this all day! Mid week we went down to San Diego and visited with the Cousinos and saw their new baby Samantha and Cecily played with Brook (now 4). Below are highlights from the trip.

Going with Grandma to see the horses down Rainbow Ridge Rd

***Frolicking at the Beach***

***With Auntie Kathleen***

***With Cheryl, Brook, and Baby Samantha***

***At the San Diego Zoo***