Hospitals and Hand-Me-Downs

Hospitals

Today did not start out as planned. Then again, what day with an infant ever really goes as planned??

Last night I set my alarm for 7am. This is the first time I have set an alarm to actually wake me up since Ella Grace was born.  I had planned on being up and ready to see Sean by 8am. I knew I would be nursing Ella Grace somewhere near 7 so the alarm was more of a "hey it's 7" alarm than "hey it's time to get your booty moving" alarm. Well, apparently when my alarm went off I hit off instead of snooze and since Ella had nursed at 6am she wasn't awake at 7, so we slept. We slept until Sean called at 8am and woke me up. I woke quickly but thought, "ok, I can still be out of here fast-ish and see Sean before his procedure." I threw some clothes on, packed the diaper bag, got Ella Grace out of the swing where she was sleeping. I un-swaddled her and changed her diaper. At this point it was 8:20. Ella Grace was awake and wanted to nurse. Lucky for me, this past week or so she she become much more efficient in her nursing so this didn't stress me that much. While nursing, Sean called again. They were taking him to his surgery now. "What?? Now?? Why??" I was trying to remain calm but it wasn't working so well. Sean's mom was nearly there at this point and was able to talk to the doctor and see Sean before his procedure. That at least gave me some comfort. He didn't go under without seeing the face of a loved one.

Ella Grace and I got to the hospital around 9:45 and by 10:20 Dr.S was out talking to us. The lump on Sean's neck wasn't a lymph-node, but a nasty looking cyst. He had cut it out and cleaned up the area surrounding it to avoid further infection. He had attempted to locate a lymph-node near by, but was unsuccessful. He no longer feels like we were dealing with Lymphoma, but wants Sean  to follow up with either a hematologist or an infectious disease doctor. Something is causing Sean's health problems, and he feels strongly that he needs to see someone who will pull all the pieces together and hopefully help us out. Hopefully giving us that much needed break I wrote of yesterday.

Sean is now home. He is tired and sore, but stubbornly trying to do work.

Hand-Me-Downs

 As many of my readers know I have been babysitting for a special family with triplet girls for a while now. Before Ella Grace, I was their Saturday sitter. I was there every Saturday to help with whatever needed helping. Birthday parties, Girl Scout field trips, packing for vacation, school shopping, cleaning out the girls clothes. As you can probably imagine, that last item yields quite a bit of clothing that no longer fits or the girls simply don't like and won't wear. For several years, their mom participated in local consignment events, but that was more work than it was worth, so this season, she is cleaning out the storage closet and getting all those clothes out of the house. Now, although there are little to no baby clothes yet, there are oodles of cute clothes 2T and up so I talked to my mom and she agreed to store whatever I wanted to keep for Ella Grace. I also called my good friend Ashley to come and see if there was anything she would like for her little K bug.  K bug is 3 so there was quite a bit that Ashley could and would use. We spent a couple of hours on Sunday going through clothes and a couple more hours on Thursday. Ashley walked away with BAGS of clothing to last K bug for quite some time. She is a single parent, and works hard. But as we all know, kids are expensive. These clothes are a real blessing and budget saver for her. The great thing about Ashley taking these is that she can pass them along to me for Ella Grace!

If you have clothing that your children have out grown, take a moment to think about the people in your life. Is there anyone who you could bless?? Understandably, most won't have as much to give away as the mother triplets, but every little bit helps. If you don't know anyone personally, how about donating to a women's and children's shelter? Or your local Red Cross? I'm not a fan of donations to Goodwill as then people have to buy the clothing. I would much rather simply gift them to an individual or an organization.