Rachel Callahan

My Thoughts as the Day Continued. . .

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories Just My Luck, On a more serious note. . .

OK – so I think I was way too brave in my last post, saying I’m not worried about having surgery.

I really AM NOT worried about the actual surgery, or the hospital or needles or anesthesia or throwing up in the recovery room and on the ride home. That I can handle. But, today as I have pondered the full effects of this upcoming event, I have gotten very “un-looking-forward-to” the recovery time AFTER the surgery.

And I have a lot of questions.

Like, how long until I’ll be able to pick Ali up? How long will I have to stay in the hospital? How long will I have to be on pain meds that make me puke my guts up unless I’m also on anti-nausea meds that make me black out? And therefore a) not be able to care for Ali, and b) have to have someone with me?

And on and on.

Also, I’m not too happy about having yet another body part removed. I just had a foot bone removed two years ago. At this rate, how many years until I have no parts left?!?!

And why is my body seemingly so much more fragile than Chris’?? In our 7 1/2 years of marriage, I remember Chris going to the doctor ONCE. And this will be my FOURTH SURGERY, not even considering my countless visits to the doctor.

Although, for the record, Chris says my C-Section doesn’t count, because that was his doing as much as mine – I was just the one that had to have the baby removed.

Obviously I am very happy that Chris is so healthy (especially since he’s 5 1/2 years older than me – good thing that I picked a healthy old man!!), I just wish I were as healthy as him!

Anyway, am I falling apart prematurely? Am I going to be a fake hipped, dentured, arthritis-achin’, backbone-fused old lady at the young age of 45??

OK – I know this may either sound like a whiner blog or it may sound like I’m joking and taking all of this too lightly.

I think I actually feel somewhere in between.

Results, and some of the lighter details of my trips to the doctor

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories I embarrass myself just for your amusement., Just My Luck, Utter Silliness

I went in this morning for my sonogram (for those of you who are behind on reading my blog, I AM NOT pregnant!! Read here and here to get caught up), and the sonogram tech said that I definitely had a lot of gallstones, and she showed them to me.

I just got off of the phone with the nurse a few minutes ago, and she said that as soon as the doctor got in, she was going to have him refer me to a surgeon, and she would set an appointment for me. Then the turnaround to surgery was usually within a week, so I would probably be having surgery next week to remove my gall bladder, or at latest by the next week.

So thank you ALL so much for your prayers for a conclusive answer, as this certainly is one!! I am just so relieved that it is something easy to diagnose AND fix. And I’m ok with having surgery – I’ve had four surgeries in my life with no complications (except for my previously mentioned puking from pain meds), so I’m not too worried about doing it again.

Now that the medical update is out of the way, here are a few of the interesting things that I saw while at the doctor’s office lately:

So I went to the doctor on Friday. I walk into the nine floor building, and see three elevators and two button panels.

This button panel was on the far left side:
…which meant that there were two elevators in between it and its elevator.
Then THIS button was on the other side:
. . .and who knows how you were supposed to access the elevator on the left, if you so chose it.

So of course, I figured it best to press both buttons and see which arrived first.

The elevator I got on sounded like a groaning monster. It was quite creaky and a bit shaky. And it liked to stop at random floors. Where no one was waiting.

Then the elevator I took when I left was all sheeted down in drop cloths, and it stopped at all NINE floors for no apparent reason.

Luckily, as I was leaving the building, I saw an elevator repairman walking in. He had his work cut out for him with the “failevators”.

Back to my visit. Since the ER doc thought I had gallstones, he sent me to a gastroenterologist. When I walked in my room, there were two tubes of lubricating jelly sitting on a paper towel, at which time I had my own little Thankful Friday for the fact that I was having upper GI issues.

I had plenty of time to sit and ponder life while waiting on the doctor, and so I studied the big 3-D poster on the wall of the entire digestive system, from the throat to the, well you know where it all ends. Anyway, on this poster, they had illustrated everything that could go wrong anywhere in your digestive system. I counted, and the poor guy in the illustration had 21 ailments. Reflux, cirrhosis of the liver, gallstones, several varieties of cancers, ulcers, diverticulitis, crohn’s disease, and internal AND external hemorrhoids.

I bet he was one miserable fellow!!

And so, one out of twenty-one ailments isn’t so bad. Right?

A View from the Other Side of the Trip

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories The Blissfulness of Life, Toddlers: The Experience

This post is by a guest contributor – Gramamma!! Mom asked if she could write a blog about Ali’s stay last weekend while Chris and I were in Atlanta on our date/football trip, and of course I loved the idea of having a guest writer, so here it is! I think she should consider becoming a blogger. What do you think?

For those of you wondering how Ali and Grandmama’s weekend played out, we also had fun – not quite the adventure of mommy and daddy’s weekend – but fun.

Friday was errand day since I had to take Nick to work. I hated that Ali had to spend so much time in the car, but I did get to experience how much she has learned recently and the connections she is making. After dropping Nick at work, we stopped at the Walgreens in Pelham. As I opened the back door of the car to free her from the car seat, I heard her naming the letters of “photo” from the side of the building – I was impressed. As we were returning to the parking lot, I hear a train approaching (Walgreens is right next to the train track). I point to the crossing and tell Ali to watch for the choo choo train.

As the train gets closer and the horn gets louder, she climbs up me crying in terror, but keeps her eyes on the crossing. Once the engine passes and the horn is fading in the distance, she raises up to watch the train pass. Then in a sweet little voice full of awe and adoration, she said, “Thomas!!”. I didn’t even know she knew about Thomas the train.

We saw another train during our errands and heard several others and each time, with that same voice of adoration, she would say, “Thomas!!”. But there was no more fear.

Thomas definitely has celebrity status.

During our car ride, Ali thought I said the word “beach” and decided that I wanted to hear about her recent beach trip. So I got the whole scoop in an 18 month old vocabulary – “Beach Papa!! Pool!! Ocean!!”.

We went to lunch at Dales in Vestavia with Mammaw . Ali was completely fascinated with the small pack of crayons given to her by the waiter. Not with coloring, but dumping the 4 crayons out of the box and then carefully returning them one by one.

If practice makes perfect, she is now an expert at packing a crayon box.

Of course after the meal, we had to sit on the edge of the fountain so that Ali could kick her feet in the water. Ali did “big kicks” and “big splashes”, and Mammaw got quite wet from Ali’s achievements.

A Labor Day sale at the plant nursery gave us a good excuse (well, we needed a good excuse to tell Nick) to stop after spending over an hour in Friday rush hour traffic. I freed Ali from the car seat and she immediately begged, “Walk!! Walk!!”. So hand-in-hand, or more appropriately hand-around-finger, we strolled into the nursery. We were quickly greeted by a nursery employee with “Is there something I can do for you?”, at which I answered “We are just looking around. What time do you close?”. He checked his watch and said, “5:30 and it is now 5:40”.

Now what?

Looking down at Ali, I asked her if she was ready to go back to the car. Her quick answer was a resounding “uh uh” with definitive head shaking. I explained to the worker how she had suffered so long in the car and needed to walk. So he let us stay a little longer, acknowledging that not all their customers had left yet. Ali, ready for some fun or being mischievous (not sure which), began a game of “hide and find”. I say “hide and find” because she did both the hiding and the finding. While I was looking at plants, she would run down a row of plants until she thought I couldn’t see her. In a moment, she would come running back out and look at me like “Here I am, bet you couldn’t find me!” Then off she would run again down the very same isle.

This game entertained her until we reached the rose bushes. The “pretty flowers” mesmerized her. The only problem was that she wanted to pick the “pretty flowers”. I couldn’t make her understand the nursery owner would not be pleased with her picking the “pretty flowers” off the bushes he was trying to sell. She was flitting from bush to bush, first smelling the flower and then trying to pick it. I finally scooped her up and distanced ourselves from the roses before letting her “walk” again. We finally weaved our way out through sprinklers spraying us, past little pools and other pretties in the store. Someone had to unlock the door to let us out – we were the last to leave.

Once arriving home, we stopped at the chicken pen to gather eggs. I let Ali take the eggs out of the nest and hand them to me. Our eggs are shades of green, pink and brown. I guess she didn’t recognize them as eggs, because when she talked to Pop on the phone that night, I told her to tell Pop what the chickens gave us, and she said, “Balls!!!”.
The next morning I made eggs to go with our “bis-it-it-it-it” (Pop always makes her biscuits when she spends the night). I let her pick out which eggs to cook and let her watch me crack the eggs and cook them. Now she knows that chickens give us eggs.

Saturday we played “outsi” and in her baby pool. It was a good day. She now uses the phrase “all done” for more than just that she has had enough to eat. I could be reading her a book and all of a sudden she’d say, “all done”, slide out of my lap and be onto another interests. Or I could be singing a song for the 15th time (because she keeps saying “again”) and in the middle of the song say “all done” and expect me to stop.

This weekend she would even tell me which song she wanted me to sing. Of course I didn’t get the full title, i.e. “Bible” for the B-I-B-L-E song, and “beep, beep” for “The Horn went beep, beep, beep”, and a few others. I helped her with “Head and Shoulders, knees and toes” for the first time this weekend and she would just giggle and giggle. She would stoop down to do “knees and toes” and end up on her bottom still touching knees and toes.

Saturday morning, with Ali in my lap, I read Rachel’s blog about she and Chris’ Greek evening of dinner and entertainment. At Chris’ picture with napkins covering his eyes, I told Ali, “ Look, Daddy is playing peep-pie with Ali”. Then I would scroll up to the previous photo of Daddy clothed in napkins and say “Boo!”. Back to napkins over the eyes “peep-pie” and up to previous picture, “boo”. Of course Ali wanted Daddy to play “peep-pie” over and over and over and over. Every time I closed Rachel’s blog, she would beg, “Daddy peep-pie!!!”. I think after about 100 peep-pies, I said, “all done Daddy peep-pie”.

Needless to say, “Ganmama” enjoyed her weekend playing with Ali.

A Shameless "All-Pictures-Of-Our-Child" Blog – A Day in Tuscaloosa.

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories Football and I have a Complicated Relationship, I would NEVER take too many pictures. . ., Toddlers: The Experience

We sold our tickets this week and just came for the day to hang out so that we could bring Ali to soak up some atmosphere. Which means getting to T-Town (1 1/2 hr drive) at a generous 9am (generous because Chris used to want to get here before daybreak. Thank goodness for Ali!!).

Why not go to the game, you ask? Well, for one, you have to pay full price for a ticket for ALL children, even if you’re taking an infant in. And for two, Ali would LOVE it for the first, eh, 10 minutes. Then she would be bored and squirmy. Oh yeah – and for three, the game would end approximately 2.5 hours after her bedtime, plus the 2+ hours of getting home in the traffic. . . well, you get the picture.

We’re not that brave. Maybe in a couple of years.

So here are pics from our day:
Ali in her new gear: a Cheerleading uniform.
Unfortunately, it DOES just say “Bama”, instead of Alabama. As I have blogged about (and have since gotten teased about – ahem, Deidre), this is obviously not my preference, when buying a cheerleading outfit in the size of 2T, options are limited. And it is cute.Ali was completely enamored by all of the inflatable Big Al’s. Every time she would see one, she would run towards it and say, “see ephant!! see ephant!!”
. . . ESPECIALLY when she found this one that was her size:
She rode “up high” and went on a walk with Daddy to socialize with all of the tailgating neighbors. . .
What amazed me the most is how happy she was just to sit in a “big girl chair”. She sat in her chair for at least 30 minutes without getting up several times throughout the day. I can’t believe how all of a sudden she is “ok” with being still! She found things to entertain her while sitting, but she really had no interest in getting up and running around (for the most part). Granted, we may have worn her out on our long walk, but still. . . .

She loved the “hot fishies” that Miss Debbie made. They had some sort of spicy seasoning on them, but she’s got her Daddy’s tastebuds, so it didn’t bother her.
She liked shaking them. I was proud of this picture. Look how all of the goldfish are up in the air. . . uh huh. I’m that good. OK. Lucky. ;)
Watching football on TV and clapping. . .
Sharing juice with Mommy. . .
Just kidding!! Or as she says, “TEASE!!!”
She reallllly loved playing with cousin Eli’s football. . .
Spiking it:
Holding it:
. . . and laying on it. She got sleepy, laid her head on the football, and said “ni ni. . . “
. . . at which point I was able to take her inside the building that we park outside of and she took a 2.5 hour nap – while I sat across the room from her and read and worked on this blog and others.

Oh – and one bonus picture of JC and Eli! See – it wasn’t ALL about Ali. . .
Isn’t he the cutest? Eli, that is. :)

The Reason I’m a City Girl.

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories I embarrass myself just for your amusement., I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Utter Silliness

While I was growing up, Mom and Dad’s dream was to live in the country. I was always a bit trepidatious about this dream.

After all, there are no malls in the country. And it takes too long to get places.

And I like going places. Quickly.

I am quite happy that they have achieved their dream, and it is very fun to visit their dream. Oh yes, and I’m especially thankful that their dream is only 20 minutes away. That is nice. And actually convenient, country though it may be!!

Also, their dream is an absolute playground for Ali. She completely adores picking and eating tomatoes and blueberries off the vine, getting eggs out from under the chickens, and running around and getting dirty to her heart’s content.

I went out to Mom and Dad’s today to pick Ali up. She was still napping when I got there, and so I was hanging out and visiting with Mom.

I happened to look outside and see that one of their chickens was loose. This isn’t good. Chickens often “disappear” in the country, thanks to dogs and hawks and who knows what else.

Mom was elbow deep in making Muscadine Jelly (for those of you who aren’t countrified, jelly is not one of those things you can stop in the middle of), so it was up to me to save the day.

Mom: “Which one is it?”
Me: “I don’t know. She’s black.”
Mom: “Oh – that’s Larry, Moe or Curly. They’re easy to catch. Just go out there and throw some bread and she’ll go right back into the cage.”

(editor’s note: Larry, Moe, and Curly are all female chickens. All of their chickens ended up getting male names before their gender could be determined, and they all ended up being female. The weird part about this is that Mom WANTED all females. Apparently she was trying out some Chicken-Reverse-Psychology. Which works, by the way.)

Me: “How do they get out of the cage?”
Mom: “Oh, they fly out.”

Something about this setup seems predestined to have problems.

So, with a dose of over-confidence, I head down to do a roundup. Here is the rest of the story in pictures:

The jailbreaker:
The (hopeful) end to the mission:The jailbreaker bait:The extremely steep hill that I had to climb down to get to the jailbreaker:My ever-appropriate shoes for said climbing:
Although jailbreaker was more than willing to go back TOWARDS the pen, she and I made about 5 laps of “chase” AROUND the pen. Not as willing to go in as Mom said. At least for me.
The eager onlookers:
The evil accomplice that tried to escape every time I opened the pen in attempt to get jailbreaker inside:
Evil Accomplice got “nudged” with my foot back into the pen several times. No chickens were harmed in the shooting of this blog.

SUCCESS!!!
Then, as soon as I FINISHED climbing the steep hill back to the house, I looked back, just in time to see this happen:
I go in, tell Mom that I’ve got to go back down and need more bread.
Mom: “Why?”
Me: “As soon as I got to the top of the hill, she flew out again.”
Mom: “Really? That’s strange.”
Me (to myself only): “She’s a bird. She flies. That’s strange?????”
Mom: “Well if you have trouble with her again, just pick her up. If you reach for her, she hunkers down and lets you pick her up.”

Let me assure you, although she may let MOM pick her up, she wasn’t so excited about me doing it.

The second chasing and penning of jailbreaker took about 4 times longer than the first. In fact, it took so long that Mom finished her Muscadine Jelly and walked down to help me. Or to make sure that I wasn’t harming her chickens. But I had JUST managed to FINALLY pick jailbreaker up and “gently” drop her back into the coop.

Oh yes, and my injury from the whole escapade:
See, I told you I don’t keep my toenails painted.

Who eats or drinks before 10am?

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories Just My Luck, The Art Medium of the 21st Century: Toenail Art., Utter Silliness

Thank you all SO much for your kind words and prayers!!!

Weeeeell, I went to the doctor this morning, met with the doctor, he agreed it sounded like gall stones, then said, “let’s ultrasound it and see! . . . oh – you haven’t happened to eat or drink anything this morning, have you?”

Of course, being that I am a normal human being, and the fact it was 10am, I had in fact done both.

“I’m sorry – you’ll have to come back next week. You can’t eat or drink six hours before an ultrasound of your gall bladder, because any food or drink makes it shrink up.”

Would have been nice to have found out during my half an hour conversation with the appointment scheduler yesterday.

So I made another appointment, Monday at 9am, and then it will take a day or two to know the results after that. So sometime next week I should have an answer.

Hopefully.

And until then, I will hope it doesn’t strike again!

Oh – and if it is gall stones, I am positive that Chris will want to keep them. He’ll add them to his collection of body parts: Ali’s belly button, and the bone that came out of my foot.

When he asked my surgeon for my foot bone before my second foot surgery, the surgeon said “Hmm. . . I’ll have to check the current hospital policy on removing body parts from the hospital.” But sure enough, after my surgery, Dr. K proudly delivered my foot bone to Chris, sealed in a plastic vial!! I have to admit, it was nice to get to see the evil little bone (that was actually much bigger than I expected) that had given me 13 months of pain, two surgeries, and 10 weeks on crutches.

Chris’ body part collection should have been a part of my quirks post!! Apparently Chris caught his uncle’s love for toenails, but took it to a whole new level.

But at least he’s not making Christmas presents out of them.

Yet.

An Incoherent Rendering of the Day

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories Just My Luck, On a more serious note. . .

Wow. So it’s been an interesting day. I’m finally getting recovered from it enough to start to feel inspired to blog again (blogspired??), but still feeling a bit incoherent, so bear with me.

I get up at 7 each morning, to have time to take a shower, have some bible study, and maybe work a bit before Ali gets up between 8 and 9 (I know, go ahead and give me icy glares – I can feel them coming through the computer monitor now). I woke up on my own (or maybe with a bit of help from Oreo) at 6:50. Ali was already awake, moaning.

I noticed that my stomach mildly hurt way up high. Or maybe my chest hurt way down low. Couldn’t tell and didn’t care – Ali never moans – had to get in there and check her fever.

So I head in there, and sure enough she’s pretty hot. I expected it to be a lot worse than yesterday, but thankfully it was just 101.5 – about the same.

Nevertheless, I was preparing to ignore all of your helpful advice and take her to the doctor anyway – she has just seemed so miserable. I gave her Ibuprofen (because she is just absolutely and completely unglued when she has a fever), and brought her downstairs to give her some breakfast.

Her Ibuprofen kicked in pretty quickly, and I was amazed at how fast she became her happy, bubbly self. However, while I was fixing her breakfast, my stomach started hurting REALLY badly. I trudged through the pain and gave her pancakes, but while she was eating, it became unbearable. I don’t usually let pain get to me, and if it’s bad I just get really quiet and still to cope with it. But this was not that sort of pain. It was roll around in the floor moaning type of pain, all while trying every angle to find some way to relieve it type of pain.

Luckily, although Ali seems quite bright most of the time, she is apparently not smart enough to pick up on the “badness” of hurt when Mommy is rolling around and moaning. I had told her “Mommy hurts!” as explanation of why I couldn’t get her something that she asked for, and she sing-songingly repeated to herself, “Mommy Hurts!! Eat Cakes!!! Mommy Hurts!! Eat Cakes!!!”

I pushed through it for about 20 minutes as it just got worse and worse, along with feeling very feverish, nausea, etc. I finally called Chris. I could barely talk it was so awful. He immediately headed home, and decided from my tone of voice that he was going to take me straight to the ER rather than the doctor.

He loaded us both up and we head to Brookwood – yes, this is my THIRD visit of the year. I am really pricey to upkeep!!

A few hours, a bit of blood work, repeating my story half a dozen times, and lots of waiting and pained times in between, and the doctor finally tells me that, whatever was bothering me was not life threatening, and it is his job to make sure of that. However, to get a full diagnosis of what IS wrong with me, I needed to make an appointment with a specialist.

Nice, Huh??

He did give me his guess, which after a bit of internet research and talking to a few folks seems like the most logical conclusion: gall stones.

I actually was able to get an appointment tomorrow morning (miracle of miracles!!) with the recommended specialist, so we’ll hopefully find out for sure then.

Mr. ER Doc also gave me a prescription for pain pills in the meanwhile. He actually said that “gall stones are not one of those things that are an emergency; if they bother you for a month or so, you may want to get your gall bladder removed, but I would give it some time.” Are you kidding me?? I literally COULD NOT FUNCTION when I was in the worst pain. And apparently, gall stone pain can come and go at will, and hit just as quickly as it did this morning at any time. Not sure I can take that chance for a month.

I wasn’t too excited about filling my prescription. First of all, I don’t handle pain pills well. More accurately, they make me puke my guts up. I MUST take Phenergan with them, and the two combined literally make me black out while standing up.

Secondly, he prescribed me Vicodin. Now, any of you who watch House are surely gasping in horror. Yes, Vicodin is basically the co-star of the show. It is what Dr. House is helplessly and hopelessly addicted to. Due to the show, it has always seemed like a super scary drug. But Chris told me that we should fill it, because a) it might not make me throw up like hydrocodone (yeah right), and b) maybe it treats pain specially for my stomach. So I agreed.

I totally expected some super secret super pricy co-pay for it – I mean, for crying out loud, it is the co-star of the biggest drama on TV!! Surely it is arrogant enough about that to charge a lot for itself.

Imagine my surprise when I went to pick it up and it was $4!! That immediately made it lose some of it’s scariness. Then I take a look at the generic name on the label: Hydrocodone!!! It’s the SAME STUFF AS ALL THE OTHER PAIN MEDS!!

This immediately got my brain spinning:

  1. Did they pick the Vicodin brand name for House to be addicted to because it sounds so menacing?
  2. How does the pharmaceutical company that makes the actual brand name feel about their stardom?? I mean, surely it can’t HELP sales. Or at least legal sales, which I am assuming (hoping) is the only way they get money out of it.
  3. Dr. House’s addiction all of a sudden seems much less dangerous and serious now that I know he’s just hooked on Hydrocodone. Not that I would know if that is an easy addiction to break or not – it’s not even an easy pill for me to keep down!!

So anyway. To conclude. The pain lessened greatly right before we left the hospital, and aside from a lot of soreness, I have been relatively pain-free all day (although a bit incoherent, which doesn’t make sense because I’m pretty sure that they didn’t give me anything for pain at the hospital, and I haven’t taken anything on my own).

Ali was a perfect little angel at the hospital, stayed in her stroller the whole time (She and Daddy took a lot of strolls around the ER and waiting room), and after he suggested it the first time, she kept saying to Daddy over and over, “Pray Mommy again!!” and she and Daddy would pray for me.

Mom took Ali to spend the night with them when we got home, and Ali hasn’t had a fever again since this morning (and so I ended up, albeit involuntarily, taking all of your advice after all!!). I go to the specialist in the morning, and my main prayer request is for a clear diagnosis, whatever that may be. I hate the vague, “It could be this. . . give it a MONTH and see what happens” type of response.

I’ll keep you posted!

It’s Thankful Thursday!

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories Thankful Thursday

It’s Thursday again!!! Time to consider what you’re thankful for and link it in!

As I said in my originating post, I’m going to focus on being thankful for the age that Ali is at (in order to start that habit before her next birthday – the big T-W-O). So here’s mine:

Reason #372 that the age between 1 and 2 is AWESOME!!!

We were eating our breakfast of shared pancakes the other day, and I ate my last one while she still had some on her tray.

Ali looked at my plate, troubled.

Ali: “Mommy’s cakes all gone”.
Me: “Yes, Mommy’s cakes all gone.”
Ali: “Ali’s cakes!!” (pointing at her own pancakes)
Me: “Yes, those are Ali’s cakes!!”
Ali: (looking back and forth): “Mommy’s cakes all gone. . . Ali’s cakes!. . . Mommy’s cakes all gone. . .Ali’s cakes!!. . .Mommy’s cakes all gone. . .”

The lightbulb goes off, and she picks up one of her pancakes and puts it in my mouth and says “Cake for Mommy!!”.

I do love this age.

I am so thankful that she is kind, generous, thoughtful, and more than willing to share. And, most importantly, that she hasn’t learned the word “MINE!!!!” yet!

What are you thankful for today?

Link it in using Mr. Linky if you want to write it on your blog, or leave it in a comment on this one!! I can’t wait to read what you are thankful for this week!

a "huts" day

Posted on Posted by Rachel Callahan Categories Toddlers: The Experience

Ali has been a bit down today because, as she has been telling me all day, “mouf huts”. Also, to confuse the matter, a “tummy huts”, a couple “nose huts”, and a few “head huts” thrown in for good measure.

Ali is not one to cry wolf with the “hut” claim. Well, except for when she hurts her arm doing something and so gets a kiss on it, then she wants a kiss on her head too, so she says “head huts”.

Also, to further prove her “huts”, she had a 100.3 fever at naptime (just a couple of hours after some tylenol for all of her hurts), and a 101.3 fever after naptime. Not good.

Oh, and her first ever throw up incident at lunch. It certainly seemed like a choke-throw-up, but she’s literally never thrown up, since the cottage cheesy days of infanthood, so no matter the cause, it was strange.

Needless to say, this has all made her rather sad today. So when she woke up from her nap and asked me “paint piggies?”, I wholeheartedly agreed. She hadn’t asked again since her first toenail painting, and, what better time than when she’s moving rather sluggishly anyway? Obviously, she knows what it takes to make a girl feel better: primping and shopping (which we had done earlier in the day)!!!

I explained the rules again about sitting still and no touching until they’re dry, and she followed them very well. She was still quite mesmerized when I finished her toes, so I offered to paint her fingernails too. She looked at me with wonder and said, “paint fingers??”. Because she’s certainly never seen Mommy’s fingernails painted.

So I told her again that she would have to be VERY still. I started on the first one, and she said “PAINT MOUF????” and puckered up. I laughed. AND simultaneously made a mental note: Fingernail Polish MUST stay out of reach.

However, she seemed to recoup some of her energy and started wiggling around and turning all which-a-ways, which only allowed us to get two fingernails painted:
But hey – at this rate, we can have all of her nails painted by Church on Sunday!! Maybe.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure we’ll be taking a trip to the doctor in the morning. The nurse said that I should bring her in, since 101.3 (while on Tylenol) is higher than it should be for teething. She doesn’t have any other symptoms, and so I’m dreading going in.

Reason #1: I am pretty sure that my doctor doesn’t work on Thursdays.

Reason #2: Last time she had an unexplainable fever, my doctor also wasn’t there, and one of her partners had us come back three times in a week, gave her two different shots for two different things, had the nurses do catheters on two different days (which included the most 15 miserable moments of mine and Ali’s life while she couldn’t get it to work right), multiple diagnoses, and he finally admitted that he didn’t know what was wrong with her.

So. Mommies out there: What do you do when your toddler only has a fever? Is it worth taking them in? Any tips on how to make the visit more directed and pointed?

Ugh. I’m not looking forward to tomorrow. I’m just hoping my doctor has changed her schedule to Thursdays since we last went in.

p.s. – Our shopping trip today was for fall clothes at Children’s Place today – they are having a really good sale on fall stuff. We got all kinds of cute stuff!! So if you’re looking to get ahead of the curve and buy a few things at a time in preparation for fall, I suggest going to C.P. this week!