Yep, this is the new face of my little corner on the web.

With changing the look, it changes my mood. When I posted in the old look, I always felt so dark and serious. Now I feel light and lively.

And…. it works in Firefox and IE. That’s the bestest.

So, here’s the deal. Christmas changes when you have a baby. Astonishing, no?

Last night we decorated our Christmas tree. Now, if you haven’t figured this out already, you’ve really missed something, but I am the Queen of Tradition. Change is not good, ever. Even good changes will have a tinge of something bittersweet in them. I know that’s something I really should get over, but, I try. And I fail every time.

Anyway… Change Number One. Since we’re going to Colorado for Christmas, we opted out of our usual tall, live tree for, instead, a little four footer which came in a box. Not ideal, but, ya do what ya gotta do. We weren’t going to get any tree, but this is Troy’s first Christmas and so, we changed our mind.

So we put up our little pre-lit tree (with colored lights, of course, as per tradition of my family for all of my growing up years–until they went traitor on me in high school and went with Mom’s wish for white lights ), turned on our pretty Christmas music, fixed our coffee (I’m sooo into coffee right now–A Very Bad Thing), and began to get out the ornaments.

Change Number Two. Ornaments can no longer be set out all over the floor. Little Hands think they would make good toys. That was expected, but, really, the coffee table doesn’t work anymore either. Little Legs like to stand these days.

We placed ornaments, reminisced about each one (John’s homemade paper star from when he was five, my special Crayola ornaments from my grandma, the canoe we got on our honeymoon in Alaska, a dough ornament my parents made on their first Christmas and gave us on ours, John’s ornaments that are older than me ), “helped” Troy put his first little candy cane ornament on the tree, took lots of pictures, put the angel on the top of the tree… and smiled at our pretty outcome.

Change Number Three. Christmas ornaments cannot be hung too low on the tree. When our tree is only four feet tall as it is, that’s a little hard to accomplish, but it’s a non-negotiable. I realized the importance this morning when I caught Troy with a little red train in his hands. No more playing by the tree while Mommy folds laundry nearby.

Change Number Four. People say they worry about cats climbing trees, well, let me tell you, dogs are the real culprit. Our kitty, Miss Gracie-Lazy-Bones, prefers to sit behind or under the tree, but our dear sweet doggie, Belle-the-Always-Beloved (What’s that you say? Oh, honesty is the best policy? Okay, then… it depends on the day), is another story. How can a simple dog tail do so much damage? I mean, I saw the whole thing, and it was just one little swipe of the tail, a little too close to the tree. But… I spent a little while setting upright and re-decorating the tree this morning.

So far, these have been the only real changes this year, and, yes, they are pretty inconsequential, but to the Queen of Tradition…

We sure got a kick out of the doctor who oversaw Little Man’s care this past weekend in the hospital. He was a very good doctor, very thorough and kind and very good with Littlest.

But I think he got a kick out of us as well.

While he was talking to us in our room on Saturday, he was looking down a general health sheet I had filled out when Little Man was admitted. He noticed that in the “feeding” column, I said Littlest was primarily breastfed, and ate some solids (mostly mashed or pureed veggies and fruits), but on a more experimental basis, or “just for fun.” He wondered why he is only eating “for fun” and if we have started him on rice cereal or baby oatmeal yet. We replied that he hasn’t had any cereals, but that we had just introduced solid food as he was ready, starting around his six month birthday.

Now, that is all that either of us said on the subject. That’s it. Nothing else about loving breastfeeding, nothing about cloth-diapering, nothing about co-sleeping (though perhaps a nurse had told him that Little Man had slept in the hospital bed with me rather than in the cage-looking crib they brought us to put him in?), and most certainly nothing about healthy eating or anything related to crunchy-ness. Because, I mean, honestly, we aren’t that “crunchy.” Yeah, we do believe strongly in the benefits of breastfeeding and demand-feeding, but it’s not like we’ve made it a doctrine or anything. We do some things that fall into that category, but only because it’s what works for us and it’s how the Lord has led us for our family. And I must say, I’ve become much, much less militant about any of it since real life has set in.

So, as he was leaving, Dr. W. was talking about possibly giving Littlest some banana to help with his dangerously low potassium level, and said that it might be a good idea to give him some cereal. Dr. W. is very kind and gentle and doesn’t try to push too much, so in a obvious spirit of trying to be helpful to us, he said, “And I know my wife found a box of baby cereal that was, uh…. oh what is it called? That stuff that’s so in vogue these days?…. oh, yes, isn’t it called organic? So you might be able to find some organic cereal. Because, you know, you seem like those kind of people…. the kind who might like that kind of stuff.”

We laughed to ourselves after he left, wondering where he got that from, but it just got better at his visit on Sunday morning.

He asked if we give Little Man any multivitamins, and when we said no, he said that it might be beneficial, especially due to the fact that milk does not contain vitamin D. Now I’m familiar with doctors telling mothers this, and I know that while it certainly can’t hurt, vitamin D supplements are not necessary for most babies, especially not little ones who live in the very sunny California desert. We smiled and said we’d take that into consideration, but before he left, he made another helpful little statement.

“You might even be able to find some organic vitamins.”

The wide grin on both of our faces apparently made Dr. W. laugh and he went further. “I thought health nuts like you would like to know that.”

With a smile and a wave at Littlest, he left.

“Did he just call us health nuts?” My Marine whispered.

“Yep,” I said to him as we both tried to keep from laughing too loudly. “Since, of course, health nuts eat burgers from Carl’s Jr. the first night at the hospital and have Chinese food ordered in the next night.”

Dr. W. is a very good doctor, even if his breastfeeding information is a wee bit outdated and he thinks we’re going to be concerned with getting an “organic” vitamin supplement.

I can’t thank you all enough for your prayers this weekend. At one point, I came home to shower and eat while My Marine and Little Man took a nap. I sat down for a moment and pulled up my friends page on LiveJournal and, with my regular friends’ entries and my blog feeds, saw three entries in a row asking for prayer for our baby boy. There were comments from people I don’t even know. I realize that this was not gravely life-threatening, but tears filled my eyes and I was so humbled to know that dear sisters and their families were lifting up our little family to our Heavenly Father, the Great Physician.

Little Man was released this morning from the hospital after his second set of blood results came through, showing that his potassium had reached a normal level and he was fully hydrated. They took him off the IV in the early morning, but wanted to watch him to see how he’d do. During the past two days, he has been sick every time he was off of it, and while they didn’t think it was much more than coincidence, they wanted to be sure. There are still some tests pending, and Troy still vomited seven times during the last twenty-four hours in the hospital, which is a bit concerning to the doctor. (Although to us, that is a HUGE improvement compared to the fifteen times per twenty-four hours that he had been getting sick!) We’ll be taking him to the doctor’s office at eight o’clock tomorrow morning to be checked, and until then he’s continuing to nurse and drink Pedialyte. He ate some banana tonight also (for potassium) and has nursed a few times, and he hasn’t been sick since we came home. (ETA: well, that didn’t last even till I finished typing this. Oh well…) The doctor told us it’s normal for him to have a little bit of spitting up after two weeks of intense vomiting, but he’s only done that once. He also gained back a pound of the two pounds he had lost (10% of his total body weight), although most of it is water and won’t be retained for long.

We’re very encouraged to see him playing and happy again… we missed our boy!! He started feeling better and wanting to play last night, which made keeping him still because of his IV pretty difficult. By the evening time, he was trying to bite his IV cord and we had to redo his splint because he kept pulling it off.

There were a couple incidents with one nurse in particular who wouldn’t allow us to stay with Troy when she was drawing blood, which we weren’t going to just let happen. First we were told it was “hospital policy,” then that it was just her preference, then that parents “freak out” and make it too hard for nurses to do their job, then she even said that the reason that the ER nurses have had a hard time finding a vein was because we were in the room (a very presumptuous statement!) . Sooo, we had to push the issue until they brought another nurse in who would do it with us there. We were impressed, though, later when the original head nurse came in and wasn’t irritated with us, thankfully. Overall, we had excellent care… good nurses and very attentive corpsman.

And, because we’re weird parents who like to take pictures of the “bad” times as well as the good ones…

A couple hospital pics

Feeling pretty sickie

Playing with his toy one-handed, with his trusty cup of Pedialyte beside him

Still not feeling so great, snuggling with Mommy

Starting to do a little better…. here’s the arm splint he had to wear for two and a half days to keep his arm from moving

I’m home for a sec to get clothes and my pump….

My Little Man was admitted into the hospital tonight, due to what they are calling “severe dehydration” and something (I forget the name) which means that his body has been flushed with sodium because his potassium is too low. That is caused by “malnutrition” from not holding enough nutrients down.

So we’ll be there for at least tonight. They’re running multiple tests on him to find out the cause of this two week long, very strange illness. Finally we’ve seen a doctor who is taking this seriously and recognizes that there is a real problem here.

And, praise the Lord, the corpsman was able to get the IV in this time…. the first time anyone has been able to find Little Man’s veins. We were beginning to wonder if he really even had any, ha.

Thank you for your prayers… please continue them.