Warning: survival mode only

It is good to be home again. I'm so grateful that I was able to get the help that I needed so quickly this time. Loma Linda hospital is WONDERFUL.

Although I feel a lot better than before, I still am mildly nauseated. I have a feeding tube that runs 24/7 and I have a PICC line (and IV) so I can hydrated myself with a bag of fluids every night. so my 2 problems now are:
1. I'm WEAK. (Laying in a hospital bed starving probably contributed)
2. I'm hypersalivating. This is something I do every pregnancy for a month or 2. The trouble is that I can't swallow it or I vomit, and if I spit much of it out I get very dehydrated (I'm dependent on only 1 bag of IV fluids to hydrate me per day) so I am left with trying to hold large amounts of saliva in my mouth (I know-- gross!). This makes communication very difficult especially with my little ladies who don't understand my sign language. It is frustrating, but this too will pass. Anyway, if somebody out there wants to communicate with me, do me a favor and email instead of calling : )

My mom is here helping out until I get stronger and more able to manage life. My little girls seem to be handling everything ok since Steve was home for most of the time I was in the hospital (good planning on our part). I am on "survival mode only" though. You won't be seeing any cute hairdos on my girls any time soon, if you come to my house you are likely to find a disaster area. Anything that I can let slide...I will. One day at a time.

She's Home!

...feeding tube and all:)

One More Day

Hopefully Cambrie will come home tomorrow (Tuesday). I'll spare the details of all her complications and just say that though there are several setbacks in her condition, this pregnancy is being handled much more efficiently that the previous two

"Nother Update

I'm sure when I'm walking down the hallway to visit Cambrie that all the nurses glare at me and think, "So that's the inconsiderate husband who wanted more kids and who put his wife through this living he..." Actually, this pregnancy couldn't have been planned any better. Knowing the circumstances of Cambrie's health condition during pregnancy, the Loma Linda doctors are the ONLY doctors that we've found that are willing to render the appropriate treatment. Who knows if we'll have any more since we'll be moving in 2 years to a place with less access to medical care compared to LLU--who knows?

Cambrie's tentative discharge date from the hospital is this upcoming Monday. For those that are still reading on and interested, she had to first start off with about a 1/2 cup of nutrients a day until she was stabilized. She's finally reached that threshold yesterday where she gets enough nutrients to limit her vomiting to a minimum (still constantly nauseous but it's tolerable--relatively speaking), but at least the feeding tube is helping her out tremendously! She's doing fairly well and so long as the feeding tube doesn't have any complications she'll continue to be doing well enough.

Her mom's coming down to help with the kids starting next week; even still, Cambrie will be pretty weak to play or interact much with our kidlets. For those living near us, if you have time so your kids could interact/play with ours it would be the biggest help to our family.

For those interested, here's some photos of our Christmas break

Cambrie Update

Cambrie got her feeding tube in yesterday afternoon. It should take about 2 days or so for her to go from vomiting uncontrollably to having a semi-normal pregnancy (fingers crossed...and arms folded). The major warning that the GI doctor gave her was to not throw up for the rest of the day post-op or there would be serious complications. Well, when she came to after the surgery, that's all she was doing. Try throwing up without being able to use your stomach muscles and having open abdominal wounds--not fun. Anyway, sparing all the gruesome details, just know it was a long night. Hopefully this hurdle for her won't take as long as Lydia's and Kiera's complications.

It's a good thing they're worth it!

Cambrie update:
Here we go again! Right on schedule almost to a tea. Cambrie's logged a time table how her previous 2 pregancies went and this one is nearly similar to the day.

For the past 2 days it's gotten worse where even a sip of water will make her vomit--say nothing about food. The doctors told her to come in since her ketones are dangerously high

She's currently staying the night at the hospital getting juiced up on IVs (D5LR). Her 1st 2 pregnancies they spent a lot of time experimenting on different drugs to stop her uncontrollable vomiting and then resorted to TPN or a feeding tube. As of right now, they're just going to cut to the chase and will most likely give her the feeding tube--perhaps that will get her nausea more controlled faster.

I'll keep you updated

No preschool for us....

In the past 6 months or so we've been debating on the subject of preschool. Virtually ALL of Kiera's little friends are in preschool (or will be soon). Neither Steve nor myself nor any of our siblings attended preschool and we all turned out great (at least I think so).

I was going to participate in a preschool co-op type thing but it ended up falling through. I looked at some of the expensive preschools around but I couldn't justify them:

1. Kiera is doing fine academically (she can read simple sentences).

2. I feel like she is doing fine socially.

So because of mainly financial reasons I had decided not to put Kiera in preschool. However, I recently became absolutely sure of my decision of not doing preschool EVER for any of my kids. Why? Because of a book I recently read. "Hold On to Your Kids". This is more of a philosophy book than a parenting book and it comes with my highest of highest recommendation. This book has ABSOLUTELY changed the way I look at life an parenting (unlike the other 10 parenting books that I've read that have nothing more than good tips).

Ever heard of kids who feel like the worst punishment is to have their parents be disappointed in them? This book explains how that is possible....along with lots of other stuff.

Thank you so much Lindy for recommending this book to me. It really has changed me. I'm just so glad I read it so early in my parenting life.

December Happenings

December is a lovely month. I did succeed in waiting until the day after thanksgiving to put up our Christmas decorations although it was difficult. The girls absolutely love the decorations and the lights. Kiera is particularly fond of the Cinderella ornament and Lydia likes the "Nack" ornament (snack) which is a little white box ornament that I frequently fill with fishy crackers.
We have a family tradition of dancing together as a family to a Shedaisy Christmas song with all the lights turned off except Christmas lights. They both shriek with excitement when we turn on the music. Kiera understands the concept of Santa and it is nice to have leverage of santa only giving presents to good girls. This is such a fun a magical time of year. I love it.

For those of you who have not heard yet: we are expecting baby #3! We are very excited and just a little nervous. Kiera told me several times the 2 weeks proceeding us finding out that we were pregnant, "mommy-- there is a baby in your tummy!" Amazing how children can be so intuitive. According to Kiera this baby is a girl.....but Steve is really hoping for a boy.
We are as prepared as we possibly could be for this pregnancy so here goes nothing!

A Child's Prayer

With all the turmoil happening in the world, we asked Kiera to offer a special bedtime prayer...this is what we got (click on the link to view it better:)

Darn cute pictures and hillarious story

Sorry for those of you who already read this on fb, but I had to but it on my blog too since it is so funny: On Thursday we were at Disneyland and I had to take Keira to use the potty. As we went in the stall and I shut the stall door Kiera said "Please keep your arms and legs inside of the ride at all times". I laughed out loud and so did the person in the stall next to me. No, she has never said that before. The potty at Disneyland is a pretty crazy ride.

A need for higher altitude

Lydia cracks me up. That little lady is S-P-U-N-K-Y and quite the opposite of her older sister who is timid about everything new. This week we went to a mcdonalds playplace and Lydia climbed right up inside. Kiera has NEVER gone inside one because she's too chicken. But, watching Lydia's example she went a few feet into it before getting nervous and coming back out to observe Lydia from a safe distance. the same thing happened with bubble bath: Kiera was too chicken until Lydia demonstrated that it was ok.



For the past 2 weeks when I can't find my girls I'll frequently find them in the garage in the car climing around. I still haven't been able to catch it on "film" (we don't have film anymore!) but Lydia frequently will stand on the bottom of the steering wheel and hold on to the top of it and rock back and forth. It is soooo cute because she is about the same size as the wheel.
I'm frequently finding Lydia on table tops and other random places where she is not supposed to be. She knows how to get a stool and take it to where she wants to climb up. So, I can't even leave knives on the kitchen counter top. No injuries...yet.

Powerful video

Anyone who felt ungrateful has now been humbled.

Kiera's birthday and visit from Gronemans

2 Cute ladies with Erica

My brother Chad and his wife Erica came to visit us this weekend. We had lots of fun doing local things like visiting the park and feeding ducks. Their little Emmy is about Lydias age so it was fun to see them interact.





We took Chad and Erica to our local VA hospital duck ponds to feed ducks. But my girls also enjoy playing on the stairs (jumping down them with daddy)

I used to bring old stale bread to feed ducks, but now I bring perfectly good bread...because it also feeds little ladies (although neither of my girls will eat plain bread UNLESS it is duck food).






Kiera's 3rd Birthday!

Here is a picture of Steve and I blowing out Kiera's candles since she REFUSED to do so. I think the anticipation and pressure of it all got to the poor little lady

But after everyone (Grandma and Grandpa, Drew and Erika, Chad and Erica) went to the other room she decided to be happy after all and eat one of the frosting flowers from her cake (yuck!)


This picture was taken the day before her birthday. She wanted to sit on the countertop all day and look at her cake and tell me about how she was going to blow on the candles. She was so excited! Oh well!

Entertaining children (long blog)

I have to put a preface on this blog: I am writing this mostly for my own benefit. I realize that there are people out there who are WAY better or more knowledgeable at this stuff than me. I'm only recently figuring it out so I'm solidifying it in my own mind by blogging it.

Background: Trying to play with my children has been, up until recently, very difficult for me. It just seemed like our toys were boring..I was bored of them and so were my girls. They had mastered things like shape sorters and puzzles, and I couldn't stand having the princesses go to the ball and dance more than 10 times a day; although if you ask Kiera what she wants to do that is exactly what she'll say.

I'm embarrassed to say that I learned how to play with my children by reading a book. There's a book called Playful parenting: a bold new way to nurture close connections, solve behavior problems, and encourage children's confidence by Lawrence J. Cohen. (by the way I highly recommend it). I'm going to list a few things that I've learned from this book. I feel like what I've learned from this book will create 100x more fun than $100 worth of the latest and greatest toys. This is geared towards the 2-3 year-old child (since that is where Kiera is at) but the book has PLENTY of good info for older children too.

1.The best way to help your child to be confidence is to lose a little dignity yourself. Pretend to not be very good at something and ask them to show you how it is done (put pants on your arms), fall off your chair multiple times and let them laugh at you. For those of you who watch Sesame Street--think Mr. Noodle.

2. Play pretend and let the child be a dominant role and you act out some of the problems they might have (they are the nurse giving the shot and you are crying and begging not to have to get it).

3. When you play the part of the bad guy or monster be a little scary and a lot incompetent (the villain who keeps tripping or who brought a bubble gun instead of a real gun).

4. Give a child a toy that can be used for multiple purposes (like a box). Princesses have a very limited purpose

5. Hours of half-hearted interaction with children are not nearly as good as short spurts of fun play. Set aside 10 minutes twice a day for "special time" and do everything you can to help your child/children laugh and have fun in that 10 minutes. Afterwords they will be much happier and less needy/clingy.

6. WRESTLE with your children (including girls--it builds confidence). By this I mean play games of power and USUALLY let them win. Examples:

*pillow fights-- "I'll bet you can hit my tummy with this pillow before I hit yours!"
*Try to hold your child and have them try to get away, "You'll never get away from me!"
*Have them try to get past you. Boast about how they'll never get by you and then act surprised when they achieve it.
*Give them clues like spread your legs far apart so that they can go under, stoop low so that they can go over you. Act astonished every time. Help them learn how to trick you "look over there-- an elephant!"
*Don't tickle them. They feel out of control and many times don't like it. Instead, just poke them and back off until they stop laughing or you can just threaten to tickle.
*Arm wrestle-- let them use one finger and win.
*after losing a wrestling match, end the game by admitting your loss. “I’m so tired you’ll have to carry me to the couch!” “oh man, I lost! I’m going to sulk all day!”

7. Boys need games of "connection":

*Play "love gun"-- while they are playing war suddenly declare that they shot you with a love gun and now you love them more than anything (and then act that out)
*Use any excuse to be emotionally close, “ouch that must hurt”
*Fall over dead on top of them,
*Hide behind them if there is an enemy nearby,
*Play a game of faithful army buddy who saves his injured friend.

8. Think of what your child is having trouble with (potty training, crying when being dropped off at nursery, fear of bees, etc) and play games related to those problems: pretend dolls have potty training accidents, act out going to nursery--only YOU are being dropped off by your child. Play the game a few times and have your reaction to nursery be different every time but the child comforts you in all situations. (This can also be played with dolls, princess or superheros for that matter)

9. Have your child pretend to be a bee and you be scared to death of being stung. Then YOU be the bee and try to get your child (be an incompetent bee: run in to walls or pretend you forgot your stinger).

And now, some game/fun ideas:

*Make silly rules: no giggling, blinking, etc.. Fuss when a rule is broken.
*For 10 mins let your child make all of the rules and punishments.
*Pretend something they are already eating is yours and pretend to be mad each time they take a bite.
*Sock game- everyone wears socks and has to crawl on the floor and try to get everyone Else's socks off.
*Thumb wars, arm wrestle, leg wrestle
*Play school. Have them teach stuffed animals things you want them to learn: teach the doll about crossing the street.
*When pushing them on the swing pretend that the swing knocks you down or they kick you. "you'd better not do that again!"
*Let your child pretend to put YOU in a time-out.

.....this blog could go on and on, but I'll stop there. The main point: The most fun to be had with your children involves no toys whatsoever. Feel free to add your own 2 cents on the subject.

Fun with Grandma Groneman

Grandma Groneman (aka mom to me) came to visit from Utah for a week. She came down because my sister Breanna (aka buff) who has been living with us graduated from nursing school and will be moving up to Utah tomorrow. Congrats to Buff for getting your LVN!

Grandma took me N' the ladies to San Diego Zoo. It was a huge hit with my kidlets. Thanks Grandma!




Lastly, we went to Disneyland (of course). It is even more magical than normal at Christmas time (yes it is Christmas time in Disneyland right now).


This picture of Lydia with sleeping beauty was caught right before Lydia tried to stick the cracker down the front of sleeping beauty's dress. You can see the plan in her eyes in the picture.