13 months

Sibyl is 13 months old! She is a handful now that she is mobile. She gets into everything and most of the time only wants to read books. She says "Mama" almost exclusively, it seems. She also signs "more," "please," and "all done." And she has a great sense of humor.

I left this past Monday for Pennsylvania so I could defend my dissertation. I was anxious about flying into State College so I gave myself an extra day, just in case it snowed. I rehearsed the presentation several times on Tuesday and wandered the town reliving fond memories. It has all come and gone so quickly, compared to the years of writing and preparing data! The actual defense was fun, in a manner of speaking. I flew home Wednesday evening, after defending in the morning.

My mom helped Evan with the girls while I was gone and she spent a lot of time explaining to Iris about the PhD and the dissertation. So when I talked to Iris on Thursday morning she said, "I'm so proud of you, Mommy, that you got your PhD!" Granddad sent me flowers and my boss got me some champagne. I still don't quite feel like I'm done -- especially since I do have some revisions to make.

Flowers from Granddad 

 Iris is doing well -- she has finally recovered from her pneumonia and is SO full of energy.

hospital update

We've been in the hospital since Tuesday evening and were transferred to the ICU on Saturday. Iris has RSV with pneumonia. The pneumonia spread from her right lung to her left lung, which was why we had to go to the ICU. 

We've managed to get Sibyl care covered so that I can be with Iris at the hospital during the day and Evan sleeps at the hospital at night. We are pretty sure that we've also developed RSV. I have had a low grade fever the last two nights, and I can only assume Evan has the same considering the sleepless nights spent in the room with Iris. I've been very worried that Sibyl is also going to get sick since she's so young,  but she hasn't shown any signs of illness so far, aside from some snotty nose in the morning. 

As far as medications go, we started her on amoxicillin for the pneumonia but it wasn't working so we switched her to an antibiotic called unasyn, which seems to have had the intended effect. We also started giving her atrovent and pulmozyme to help break up the mucus in her lungs. 

When I got to the hospital this morning Evan said she had requested mac and cheese for breakfast. She also requested mac and cheese for dinner. We got her two orders of mac and cheese for dinner and she ate almost both of them. 

Mac & cheese!

She spent several hours on regular "wall oxygen" rather than on the CPAP machine today and was starting to jump on the bed. She also tried climbing off the bed one or two times. She is definitely feeling better.

CPAP mask = no fun, lots of TV

During the afternoon trial on "wall oxygen" she was at 4 LPM. They usually are willing to send us home when she gets down to 1 LPM of oxygen. (For reference, she usually sleeps with 1/4 LPM of oxygen and doesn't need any oxygen at all while awake). 

Managing a hospital stay as parents of two children has proven to be quite a feat but we've had an outpouring of support from all over the place, all of which we really, really appreciate.