The Season of Lights

This weekend officially kicked off Bella's favorite season, you know, the one with all the lights.

On Saturday night we headed over to the Overland Park Aboretum, where for two weekends a year they do a light and luminary display

 The weather was just right for bundling up and walking a 1.5 mile lighted trail.

 Bella seemed to enjoy the trip, and we lucked out by going right at dusk to beat the crowds.  If you are in the area, it is definitely something to see.

St. Louis Day 2

 Day 2 was the reason we were in St. Louis, and that was to attend my cousin's wedding and reception.

We had time that morning to run to a nearby mall.  Can you believe this was actually the first time Bella had been in a mall?  Not shopping.....just in a mall.  And it didn't go very well.  We were only able to get through 2 stores before Bella was fussing so much we had to leave.

I had decided that it would probably be in our best interest if Bella stayed back at the hotel with Jesse to take a nap instead of attending the actual wedding ceremony.  She was able to get in a 45 minute nap and was wide awake by the time we made it back to the hotel.  We had 3 hours to kill between the wedding and the reception, so all the extending family was supposed to be up in the parents of the bride's hotel room, for drinks and appetizers.  Bella was not having it, and wasn't happy regardless of being held, being feed, being able to lay out on a mat, etc.  So Jesse and I went back to our room to trouble shoot Bella's condition.  We knew she was basically teething again, seemed to be hungry all the time, and probably a little constipated (I know you all wanted to know that last part).  We also knew the reception was not going to go well, but at 6:25pm we headed off to give it a try anyways.

 I forgot to mention that at one point earlier that day Bella coughed/choked on her meal and popped all the blood vessels around her eyes, so she basically looked like she had been beaten up.
Bella actually did well at the reception.  She wasn't happy, can you tell?  But she did let us hold her for two hours as we had cocktails and dinner.  We were hoping she would make it long enough so we could dance with her, but unfortunately she broke down and was ready to go at 8:30pm (dancing hadn't started yet).

So as soon as Jesse took his last bite of dinner, and I mean literally, we whisked her off and headed back to the hotel.  She went to bed fairly easily, but had a horrible night's sleep, waking up and fussing again and again.  The next morning she was also very irritable, so we were very excited for our 4 hour drive home.  She of course did not sleep, even though she desperately needed to, but made it most of the trip in a content mood.
We have still been teething since we made it home, but we seem to be getting better (I'm currently knocking on wood), and thinking that this won't turn into the horrible coughing episode we had last time.

St. Louis Day 1

This past weekend we took a trip down I-70 to St. Louis.  Both Jesse and I had been there as children, but didn't really remember being there.  And this was our first real road trip to another town with Bella.  Yes we travel all the time to Nebraska, so the duration wasn't longer than we have done before.  But the whole staying in a hotel with her was a little different.

We started off our afternoon with a trip to the St. Louis Arch.  It was a great day for late November.  If you have never done the arch before, you ride up in this tiny white pods.  Bella thought this was great and laughed the whole way up.

 My sister came along with us, as her husband, David, watched Bella's cart.  Something about him being afraid of heights.

 Of course every time we tried to get a picture of Bella laughing, she would put her arm in front of her face.

 Once you get up top, its pretty crowded and they have all these little windows to look through.

 Bella loved being up there, although I really have no idea why.

 That evening we headed downtown to a recommended Mexican restaurant.  It worked out really well, as they gave us this huge booth and Bella could lay down beside us.  If you can see, Bella's legs are behind me.

 And we ended the night with our first taste of Gelato.  Bella really liked it!  I'm guessing the cold gets to her though, as she will normally only eat about 10 bites of ice cream, custard, gelato, and then she is done.

It was a great day.  Bella liked being out while it was dark out and all the lights of downtown.  It's not often we take her out during the night.  Usually it's too late and during the winter it's too cold.  Hopefully we can get out more with her this year.  Especially during the Christmas light season.

Well Day 2 will be coming up tomorrow, it was a completely different day from the first.

Micky Mouse's Birthday

Thursday was Mickey Mouse's Birthday and Bella's preschool class celebrated by making Mickey ears and having a parade.  I just had to post this picture, since Bella actually had her head up.

Rehab Clinic

We did have an interesting time at our rehab clinic appointment a couple of weeks ago.
The clinics at Children's Mercy are always long.  If it isn't a really long wait because of the number of people, then it's just a long wait because everything seems to take forever.  But needless to say an appointment that would take a normal person less than an hour can take us up to 4 hours.  And I am not exaggerating.  And this appointment was one of them.
In the waiting room there were two other families.  One of the families had 3 young girls with them.  Right at the start the mom started asking me questions about Bella's cart and if I minded answering questions about Bella herself.  I didn't mind, and in fact I would rather have people ask me questions about Bella.   I don't mind talking about what makes Bella - Bella.  The hard part for me is when I'm not with Bella and people ask me if I have any kids. And ask how old they are.  I will say I have a three year old.  And then they go on and on about what a three year old is like.  How it might be worse than the terrible twos, how they hold such interesting conversations, and run around everywhere.  I usually don't want to insult them, so I just nod my head and smile.  Not really saying anything to add to their conversation, but also not saying that my child can't do any of those things.
As we were still waiting in the room, the 3 little girls came over.  They were also very curious about Bella and asking questions.  Again the mother asked if I minded.  The first question was "Why is she like that?"  To which I answered that she was born that way.  Then she asked me "How was she born?"  To which I laughed and said I would let her mom cover that one.  They touched her cart and her hair, claiming she had beautiful curly hair.  It's always interesting to see how kids react to Bella.  I think in general most kids are curious and I think it's good to let them be curious and ask questions.  The more they know about things now, the less likely they will be scared or prejudice later in life.

See Below

Appropriate titles for this post could be:

We're Pathetic
I hate when it gets dark outside before you get home from work
Too tired to get anything done

I'm not going to talk about how we aren't getting sleep anymore and how Bella is up all the time, because this week we have actually been doing okay in that department.  In fact last night Bella pretty much slept through the night.
So how do you explain the fact that nothing is getting done around our house, because as soon as we get Bella put down for bed, we usually turn to each other and complain about how exhausted we are, and then decide to go to bed ourselves.  And sometimes that is as early as 7:30pm.  Yes, I know, that's why we are pathetic.  And our house is one huge mess because of it.  I don't know if I can blame it on the time change, but it's really hard to convince myself to do anything once the sun has gone down.  And since it's down before I get home, well then, that might explain the huge messes in every room, and the piles of laundry that need to get done.
Well I always have my Friday's to get things done around the house.  Except this Friday Bella and I will be running around to different appointments.  And then her therapists called from Children's TLC and they want Bella to come stay with them that evening for a Parents Night Out.  So Jesse and I will get to go out for a dinner date, or maybe some shopping on the Plaza.  And maybe just maybe, stay up past 8pm!!

Busy Catching Up on Sleep

Things are slowly getting better around our house.  Bella is still coughing, but it's not very often during the day, and at night we are still getting up 2 or 3 times, but the duration of coughing has lessoned.  So I take that as progress.

Of course I had to come down with a cold this weekend, so I'm not doing so great.  We are all busy trying to catch up on sleep.  In fact Bella slept from 3pm on Saturday afternoon till 9am the next morning.  That's one tired child!

Coughing

So today Jesse has decided to stay home with Bella.  It's been a toss up as to whether we should keep her home from school or not this week.  The nights have been horrible, but the days aren't quite as bad.  Yesterday she did end up going to school, and since I didn't hear from the teachers the day must have gone alright.  But when Jesse picked her up from daycare last night, she didn't want to eat and fell asleep in his lap.  She proceeded to take a two hour nap, and when she woke up, she still didn't want dinner, or even anything to drink.
Just to show you what our typical nights have been lately - last night:

Bella went to bed around 9pm (a little later due to the extra nap)
1am Bella wakes up coughing, her coughing is so bad that it goes on forever and for minutes at a time I am pretty sure she can't really take a good breath.  We had her swabbed for whooping cough at the doctors, even though they didn't think it sounded like she had it.  If she did have it, we would find out today.
1:15am we get Bella back asleep
1:20am back up with coughing fits again
1:25am Bella is sleeping again
1:35am back up with coughing fits
1:45am Bella is sleeping agin
2:00am back up coughing again - which at this point you start getting mad and asking why she can't be allowed to just sleep
2:15am Bella is sleeping
2:30am back up coughing AGAIN, and of course each time we wake up coughing Bella is more upset, which makes the coughing worse
2:45am Bella is sleeping
3:30am back up again coughing
3:40am sleeping again
*and when I say sleeping again all these times I only mean Bella, it takes Jesse and I a little longer to actually fall asleep.  Most of the night we are actually up and listening for the coughing to start again.
5:30am coughing and crying and fussing
6:00am Jesse decided to stay home from work and take Bella downstairs and see if she is finally hungry
6:15am Bella does not want to eat or drink
6:30am Bella falls asleep on dad's lap on the couch

Yep, that's what we have been dealing with for the past 4 or 5 weeks.  And we literally have made no improvements, so it's hard to say just how much longer we are going to have to deal with this.

The Devil is working overtime

Its the first post from dad (jesse) on this site.  In the past I've tried to stay away and let Kristen do her postings, but I feel like I've had enough and need to vent.  You may wonder why I chose that title, and I hope by the time you finish reading this post you'll understand.  It's hard enough being a parent to a 3 year old child that can't hold their head up, can't sit up on their own, can't crawl, can't walk, can't feed themselves, can't give themselves a drink, and most importantly can't communicate.  If we could just choose one of them, I think both Kristen and I feel communication is the most important.

As I sit here this morning at 545 before I go into work, I have reached the breaking point.  If you have read any of Kristen's previous posts about Bella being sick, that's the main reason why I'm writing this.  The one Positive that Kristen and I have held onto all along was that Bella has been a relatively healthy baby, and now toddler.  But over the past 5 weeks now... I've lost count and quite honestly don't give a damn anymore... Bella has been waking up 2-5 times each night coughing.  As of yesterday, the doctor cleared Bella of being sick with anything.  So what does that mean, well it means there is no end in sight.  For whatever reason Bella decides that she needs to cough (we think its teething related and all of the excess spit) but since she cant communicate, we get to spend the remainder of our lives guessing. So we just have to deal with it now as there are no meds that we can give her to curb this.  We had tried giving her some breathing treatments, but that clearly isn't working either, since its really not a virus infecting her lungs.  So will this continue for as long as Bella teethes?  Hopefully not since she still has over half a  mouth to go.

So I'm just pissed... and since I don't have anyone to be pissed at, I get to be pissed at God.  Not because he put Bella in our hands to take care of her (which definitely hasn't been easy)... but pissed because he is constantly testing all of us and it seems to me like he's pushing the limits.  What I try to understand is why he makes Bella suffer.  All she needs and wants is a full nights sleep or nap for that matter, but it's constantly interrupted by coughing spells.  We won't get into the lack of sleep Kristen and I have, having to work, and having to take care of Bella (full time job, and then some)... I've given up on that.

Some of you may say that God is not testing us or causing this to happen... to that I say B.S... Put yourself in our shoes for just one F'n day, and I'll let you make your own decision.  We (Kristen) takes Bella to her yearly check ups / clinics and there is never anything new to report on her progress... talk about a Debbie Downer.  The grandparents are always positive about Bella (mainly cause I think they try to keep our spirits up)... but it's becoming harder and harder to believe them.  We saw a pediatric specialist when Bella was young, and I asked him to be honest with us and tell us the worst thing to expect.  He told us that if Bella didn't walk or talk by the age of two, then she never would.  I thought that was kind of harsh, but nonetheless, he gave me his honest opinion for which I asked... and unfortunately I'm starting to believe him.  What I try not to think about too much is what Bella will be like in another couple years, when she's bigger and even harder to manage, but with all of the same issues listed above.

What the F did we do?  Was I really that bad of a person all of my life to deserve this?  I feel bad for being so mad right now, as I know others have it hard to and there are plenty of things to be thankful for... but for once, I would like something Bella related to go our way... some sign of progress, some sign of hope... cause mine is all used up and God hasn't really answered my prayers.  And you may say that God works in mysterious ways and you don't always see the answers right in front of you.... that couldn't be more right on, cause I haven't seen S#%$.

I could ramble on, but I best get to work... Sorry God for throwing you under the bus, but I'm not very happy with you right now.
Jesse

Typical

Well it seems last night for the short time we were outside was the last we will see of Bella the pirate.  She was coughing again last night and this morning, and I started getting a sore throat, coming down with a cold.  So Bella did not go to school today.  I say this is typical, because anytime I buy/make something for a special occasion, it usually never happens.  I think I should learn from this and start believing in last minute options.

Of course now that it's almost noon, we seem to be just fine (Bella anyways).   I also talked to her teacher this morning who told me she had a cough for three weeks, and Jesse himself has had a cold/cough for weeks.  I guess it's just something going around right now, a cold that doesn't want to leave.  I can't wait till the time I can sleep through the night again.  I think I have forgotten what that is like.