Running a fever of 102.7!

Well, I knew it was bound to happen over the holidays, and it did. Last night at around 8, Gracie started running a fever. I took her temperature with the ThermoScan set on Infant/Toddler and it registered as 102.7. I was pretty surprised, as she felt warm but not near that warm. So I thought maybe something was wrong with the ThermoScan, but it registered correctly when we tried it out on the Child/Adult setting for DD1. Anyway, I gave Gracie two droppers of Tylenol and laid her down to go to sleep for the night at about 9:30 p.m.

Now, I have to tell you that we have been trying to get her to fall asleep on her own in her own crib for the past 5 nights or so using the Ferber method of putting her down awake and progressively checking on her when she cries. This was working like a charm, until last night. On the 6th night, per Dr. Ferber, I was supposed wait 17 minutes before going in to check on her and reassure her. I did, but she cried the entire time between. So I was worried about how this was working. I went in and checked on her telling her that everything was okay, that she needed to get some sleep and told her I would see her in the morning. I then left the room closing the door behind me. I knew that this wasn't going to make her happy, and Dr. Ferber had said the same thing. That is that she might cry harder after leaving the room. She did. Shortly afterwards, say maybe 5 minutes, she fell asleep and slept through the night. So, so far so good with the Ferber method.

Back to the fever. Gracie woke up this morning with a cool forehead, but was sweaty. I think the fever broke during the night, but by 12 noon she was running a fever again. I gave her more Tylenol and then left with DD1 to go to the eye doctor, while DH fed Gracie lunch and put her down for a nap. She woke up around 3:15 feeling cool, but again sweaty. Now she's acting cranky. Her cheeks are cool, but her forehead feels a tad warm. I haven't taken her temperature yet, but I suspect she's running a low grade fever. I don't know why, but it's making her cranky and clingy.

I remember when our other DDs were little and how these fevers could come and go. I hope this is the same kind of thing, and that she'll be over this soon. Oh the joys of having a baby in the house!

Family Christmas Party #2

This is the Chrismtas party that almost didn't happen! Two weeks ago, DH talked with his sister about having his side of the family Christmas party yesterday, the 21st at our house. She was supposed to talk with her daughter and see if that would work for her and her hubbie. Well, that never happened, so we were left up in the air untiil Friday when DH called his parents who live in the same town as his sister. Turns out that my BIL fell twice. He has MS, and can't walk, and insists that his wife be the exclusive caregiver - at least this is what my MIL has told me. Anyhoo, he fell in the shower and a couple of days later fell out of his wheelchair off of the lift in the garage that they have to get him in their SUV. I guess they thought there were broken bones, but thank goodness that was not the case. She ended up having to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, and although he was okay, he did miss his weekly shot appointment at another hospital. So she had to drive him the hour or so for that a day late. But here's the real problem, I think. My SIL had surgery on her thumb about a week and half ago. Get this, NOONE told me this until yesterday as we were on our way to my in-laws to visit them. This is incredible to me. DH just happened to mention in the van on the way down that his sister was having trouble getting things done because she's in a cast. A cast! This was news to me. I didn't know about the cast or the surgery. DH's family just doesn't share information about themselves at all. It's so different than my family, where everyone knows what everyone else is doing whether you want to or not! Anyway, because of the very rough week that his SIL had, she didn't think they could come up. So we said we could come there. She didn't want people at her house, so there was an informal agreement to meet at his parents.

So, in the meantime, DH hurt his back playing basketball on Thursday. He says he doesn't know if we'll even go if his back doesn't stop hurting. Does this sound like maybe God is trying to tell us that this wasn't meant to be?! I don't know, but leave it up to him as to whether we'll go or not. He decides yesterday morning, that yes we will go. We get to his parents around 12:30. We ask about his sister. They say that don't know if she is coming or not. They'd talked to her the night before, and she didn't know yet. And they hadn't heard from her yesterday, and didn't want to bother her to find out. I just don't get this, but that's just the way this family is. Anyway, we eat lunch play with Gracie, talk a little bit, and open the few gifts that need to be opened. About 2:30, just as we are ready to pack up and leave, guess who pulls up in front in the house? Yep, his sister and BIL. So we rethink and stay until about 4:30. No problem, except Gracie had not napped at all during the day and ended up being VERY cranky. We left and came home with Gracie falling asleep in the car shortly after we pulled out of the driveway.

We didn't have the camera with us, so no pictures. Just a very strange "party".

Family Christmas Party no. 1

Saturday was my family Christmas party. My family is too big to hold the party in one person's home, so my parents started renting a place to host it a few years ago. My father has continued that tradition for the past two years since my mother died. This year was no different, but what was different was that there was a big ice storm in the midwest on Monday of last week. One of the hardest hit places was Oklahoma, where my brother and his family live. They were without power for 5 days, and sadly had to cancel coming to the party. So they weren't there, and then on Saturday the weather forecast was for 10 to 17 inches of snow to hit with blowing snow. They were calling for a blizzard warning. This scared off my sister and her family, so she and none of my nieces and nephews and their children were there for the party either. Needless to say, there was a small turnout, and in addition to that, DH and I decided we needed to leave on Saturday afternoon instead of staying overnight and coming home Sunday to beat the blowing snow. We left and our two older girls were none too happy. Gracie slept the entire way home, which was good, because the weather was really bad. DH wouldn't have been able to handle the stress of staying on the road and a screaming baby that wanted out of her carseat. So, although the party was okay, it was somewhat of a bust this year. I guess you can't expect every year to be beter than the last. This was one of those years where it wasn't. I just hope that this isn't shades of the future, where we won't have good turnouts for the party.

We also did something way different this year than in past years. As I mentioned we have a really large family. I have 4 brothers, and 2 sisters, all of which have children, children's spouses, and/or  grandchildren. So you can imagine how hard it is to maintain a gift exchange. One of my brothers has done a great job every year figuring out how to make it work, but this year with agreement from everyone we decided to cut back on gifts for each other and dontate gifts to a family that needed help. My SIL found a local family through my father's church; a mother with 9 children and one on the way. She had some bad things happen to her in the recent past, and was really down on her luck. Each of us were given a child to buy for and then we wrapped gifts at the party. My SIL was to take the gifts to church on Sunday afternoon, where the mom would pick them up later. We had quite alot of gifts for the family, and it was nice to be able to help out the family.

We still had the gift exchange for the children in our family, so noone really felt left out. But as much as I liked the idea of helping this family, I have to admit that it changed the whole feel of our family party. It wasn't a bad change, but a change.

Lastly, the other thing that was different was that we didn't get to go ice skating as part of the celebration, as we usually do. We didn't because we had to leave early, but it turns out that noone did because the city changed their rules about out-of-towners paying to skate. It was just too expensive. So that not only changed this year's party, but will change parties from now on. We'll have to figure out some other way to get together. It seems that change is in the air for our family!

This is the first of two family Christmas parties for us. The 2nd will be with DH's family this Saturday. It is at our house and is waaaay smaller. DH's family consists of the 5 of us, his mom and dad, his sister, BIL, niece and nephew-in-law. A total of 11 people. A nice size for a party at our house. We're doing chili instead of a more traditional meal. There won't be a Santa, but we will exchange gifts. It should be a fun time with Gracie around this year, and I'm looking forward to it.

3 weeks until Christmas!

Wow! Where has the time gone? It really just seems like a few weeks ago that we returned from China with Grace, and now we're looking at celebrating our first Christmas with her in our family! I remember last year around this time feeling sorry for myself, because it was obvious that we were not going to be finding out who our Gracie was before the end of the year. What a difference a year makes. Grace has been a member of our family for 4 months, as of last Friday, and is now 14  months old.

Here are few things that we've learned about her since we brought her home:

*She sleeps through the night. She rarely wakes up with night terrors anymore. Although I know this could be something that comes and goes with her, right now we're enjoying it!

*She crawls and walks with her walker. Her little legs are just not strong enough for her to walk all by herself, but she has no problem controlling the push-behind walker that she got for her birthday in October. And crawling is no problem for her. It's her main mode of transportation. She's all over the house now!

*She answers to her name. she know who Mommy is, who Daddy is, and who DD1 and DD2 are. Whenever we say "Where's xxx?", she'll look for whomever that is and stare right at them. So we know she knows her family.

*She LOVEs to give kisses! First thing in the morning, whomever goes in to get her out of bed will be treated with her version of kisses. She sucks in her bottom lip, leans over with her cheek out and wants you to kiss it! It's too darn cute!!!

*Her favorite vegetable is green beans. She also loves peas, carrots and broccoli - not the babyfood kind, but the pick it up and eat it kind. She likes fruit too, but vegetables are king with her right now!

*She can drink with a straw. We found this out last week. The first time we tried it, she had trouble figuring out what to do, but a couple of tries later, she slurped  the juice right up!

*She's almost weaned off the bottle. She takes one bottle at night and one at naptime. It's amazing to me how easy this has been so far. My other girls just did not want to give up the bottle so easily.

I know I haven't been posting very regularly, but things have been crazy. I just don't see how some of you blog everyday and still have time to work, take care of your family, clean your house, and sleep! I'll try to do better.