Looking forward to Fall!

This heat is just crazy. I am more than ready for some Fall weather and Football! I just don’t even want to take Mallory outside in this heat and I’m getting tired of being inside all the time! I’m looking to get a jogging stroller sometime in the next couple months so when it does cool down we might can go for some treks on the Greenway after work.

I'm also more than ready for Football to start back and for Junior League to get going again, I feel like i've been gone from it forever, so Sept is our first meeting again after Summer break!

We had a good weekend. I cleaned out my part of our Master Bedroom Closet which wasn’t exactly fun but needed to be done. Bean was great, I just sat her in her bouncer in the bathroom with me and she was happy as could be just sitting there! I made a huge pile to donate for the Junior League Rummage sale in Nov, boxed up other things that don’t fit at the moment and just overall made more room in the closet. Now I need to do the same with Ben’s stuff but he needs to be present for that to happen!

Here's Bean helping sort through clothes!



Ben helped out with Jakes Day at the Daviess Co Fish and Game Club on Saturday morning. It’s something the National Wild Turkey Federation does to get kids out in the outdoors and learn to shoot guns and bows in a safe environment. We hadn’t been to the Fish and Game Club before so Ben took me back out there on Sunday. Really neat place to camp, fish, hike, etc so memberships are cheap, so I think we are going to join so we have a quick place to go camping without having to go too far since it doesn’t look like the camper is going to sell anytime soon! Even though I thought I was done with camping after living in our camper for a month while Mallory was in the NICU, I’m about ready to do some camping again.

We also got Bean all set up to sleep in her big crib now. We did put it in our room, neither of us are quite ready to put her in her own room yet. We also got the full angel care monitor set up and so far so good, I've been really happy with it. There was one beeping issue when she wasn't in her bed that was annoying, but thankfully a friend on my preemie board knew the fix, so we are all good to go!

Aunt Sue came up to spend a little time with Bean on Saturday afternoon and then Saturday night we actually ventured out to Olive Garden. I didn’t want to arrive until 8 pm though after the rush because I still don’t want her to be in close proximity to random people but we were immediately able to be seated and had a nice dinner out for once. Didn’t hear a peep out of Bean, she slept most of the time.

I also dug out Mallory's leg warmers that Aunt Sue had gotten for us at one of the showers....so cute, I must buy more!! Ben thinks they are stupid, but I like them : )



Finished up Week 4 of my Couch 2 5K plan today at the gym, 5 more weeks of training left and then off to the Elkton 5K and the Susan B Komen 5K Race for the Cure in Evansville. Hopefully by the time I wrap up my training it will be cool enough to do some runs outside because 3 Miles on the treadmill get’s boring and once I wrap up 5K training, take several weeks to work on the 3 mile distance it’s off to 10K training!

I also got Mallory's photo session set up for the afternoon of Aug 23rd, so I can't wait, should be fun!!

Have a good week everyone!!

Happy Baby!

Mallory is such a happy baby! She's really beginning to smile and coo a lot more, I'm going to try to get it on video soon and post it. It still cracks me up when she tries to cram her entire hand in her mouth!

Bean keeps right on gaining weight well, she's up to 11 lb 9 oz on my home scale this morning, so that's another 1/2 pounds since last Friday!!

We are in the process of booking her for some professional photos since we have yet to do any. I can't wait to get them done. It will be set up to be taken sometime in August.

We will be transferring her to her big crib this weekend, she's really outgrowing her infant sleeper on the pack and play and this way we can set up her Angel Care monitor properly as well.

Also on the agenda for the weekend is cleaning out our Master Bedroom closet....that will probably require several glasses of wine afterwards! Yuck. Oh well, tons of stuff that needs to be donated or packed up until I can fit into it again.

Don't forget, and I'm not going to let you, but I need sponsorship for my Susan B Komen Race for the Cure on Sept 25th. I already have 1 donation, so be sure to click on the logo on the right to donate securely online!

My 5K training is going well. In the middle of week 4 at the moment and all is going well so far!

Happy 40th Birthday to our cousin Amy today! Wish we could be there to celebrate with you but I know you guys will have a ball....hope Scott enjoys the Gin Juleps!

New Bean pictures!

Busy Weeked! Grandma Lilly, Baptism and More!

Wow! We had a busy weekend but good weekend!

We made the trek to Perryville to visit Grandma Lilly in the nursing home which is the first time she's gotten to see her. She loved it! You could tell it really made her day! Here's a couple pictures from our visit with Grandma!




Yes, dogs are allowed in the nursing home as well, which is good since it was only like a million degrees out this weekend. Tucker got to visit Grandma too!

Then we headed back to Sikeston where Bud was to make his famous fried chicken for everyone and some family friends. Paula and Dwayne, Nena and Bron and Pastor and Joyce joined the rest of us for a nice evening. It was so great to see Nena and finally meet her fiance Bron! Of course everyone loved meeting Mallory for the first time!

Sunday we took turns going to church and then Ben and I ventured to the outlet mall. Bass for him some new khakis and polos and then I hit the Carter's outlet....oh my....I could spend A LOT of money in there! She has TONS of 3 month clothes, so we should be good through the rest of this perhaps never ending summer, but she doesn't have as many Fall clothes so I got her tons of cute stuff AND a Halloween outfit. I couldn't resist. She will be a cow and it's adorable but I'll save it until Halloween for everyone else.

At 2 we had her private baptism at the church. It was nice and other than Bud, Susan and Micah we also celebrated with Paula, Dwayne, Nena, Nathan, Elizabeth, Parker and Joyce. It was perfect, other than the fact that I was so HOT, but Mallory did good, we had her decked out in a cute little white dress with pink flowers that one of Memaw's friends had given us. It was a beautiful ceremony and I think we all felt blessed. Here are some pictures from the Baptism that Elizabeth graciously took for me!







Today we had to go to the doctor so she could get weighed and her Zantac prescription be updated to reflect her weight. According to their scales this am she's up to 11 pounds 6 ounces! That's 5 oz in about 3 days! I'm going to weigh her again tonight and see what I get at home as well....either way she's growing like crazy and her prescription def needed to be upped so we are at 1 ml twice a day instead of just 1/2 a ml twice a day.

One other quick rave for the day is our Kid Co Pea Pod. I'd been eying them since before she was born and finally broke down and ordered one....in GREEN of course! It's basically a pop up travel crib/tent/thingy. It's great to carry anywhere and she can sleep in it if we are traveling or just play in it. I like it for home because I can have her on the floor and put her in it and not worry about Tucker walking on her. He leaves her along but he still doesn't seem to realize that she is something that he can't step on, it's like he just forgets, so until she's bigger, the Pea Pod will work well. I think Ben's initial response was that's dumb we wont use it, but I beg to differ and I'm already using it. Used it this weekend so she could lay/play on the floor without the barrage of dogs being able to get to her in Sikeston. (there were 4 running around this weekend counting Tucker.)

Here's Ben in her pod!

11 Pounds!

11 Pounds!

11 Pounds 1 oz to be exact, but Bean is over the 11 pound mark!! She’s still got just shy of 2 weeks to go before her 4 month appointment! Go Bean Go!!

Ben has been gone this entire week to MN and with all his night meetings last week it’s like he’s been gone for 2 weeks, I’m SO ready for him to be back!! Mallory isn’t a difficult baby but just having an extra set of hands or for him to watch her while I take a bath or fix her bottles for the next day is handy! Plus we just miss him!

We are heading to Sikeston on Saturday via Perryville where Grandma Lilly is at so we can take Mallory to see her and get a 4 generations picture on that side of the family! Then we will spend the rest of the weekend in Sikeston and have a private baptism with just immediate family and sponsors.

For any of you who have been procrastinating on ordering prints from Mallory’s shutterfly accout, they have a promotion where you can get 75 prints free, just pay shipping. I will try to upload pictures from the visit with Grandma Lilly and her Baptism as soon as I can Sunday afternoon because the promo ends at midnight on Sunday, but you can go and use the promo code: FACEBOOK75 at checkout and they will be free! No excuses not to have tons of pictures of Mallory, LOL! Of course you can use that for your own pictures as well ; )

I finished the Laura Bush autobiography and really like it! Highly recommended for those republican friends….and there’s really not but a couple instances where she tries to clear up a few things, so it’s more about her background, growing up in TX, what she did as a first lady etc. I found it very interesting. Up next will either be Eat, Pray, Love or the Chelsea Handler book which should be hilarious.

C25K training is going well. Should wrap up week 3 tomorrow, just 6 more weeks of training! Don’t forget, I’d appreciate it if you would sponsor me in the Komen Race for the Cure!

Here’s a few pictures of Mallory from the past few days!

Totally Wire Free!

Well, today is the day that I’ve been looking forward to but dreading all at the same time! We got the call that Mallory no longer needs her monitor….not that she’s ever had any major episodes anyway, but especially since we got the OK to just use it at night when she’s sleeping, it’s been less of a pain and more of a nice reassurance.

We have the Angel Care Monitor that also works on the same premise to notify you if they aren’t breathing after a certain amount of time but that will require us to move her to her big crib instead of the infant sleeper we have her in now and I’m not sure I’m ready for that transition…..I’d prefer to keep her in the room with us at night until she is 6 months old.

Perhaps the crib can move to the bedroom…..I’m sure Ben will love making that move!

I finished up Week 2 of my Couch 2 5K training and will be working on cramming in all of Week 3 on Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning. Oh well, as long as I get it all in that’s all that matters!

Looks like we will be headed to Sikeston on Saturday so Mallory can be baptized in a small private ceremony at Susan and Bud’s house. I’m still not keen on getting her in and around large crowds and the doctors actually say church is the worst because everyone wants to come up and touch them and all those people crammed into one room is just a germ haven. So, it will probably be next spring before Mallory makes her way to church, they like you to give preemies a year, and then it should be better and her immune system more tolerant.

So, don’t be overly offended if I request that you use hand sanitizer prior to touching her or if I am running behind you spraying Lysol, welcome to my world. Thankfully summertime is typically less “germy” than the winter months, so I’ll be even more adamant then on the hand sanitizer and Lysol.

Here’s a few more pictures of Mallory!

Happy Birthday Ben!

Mallory seemed to have a good past several days at Mrs Carole's, I really think this will be a good place for her. Her crabbiness has waned, so I'm not sure if perhaps some of her teeth were moving around a little or what, but she's acting more like her normal little self now!

I weighed her Friday morning and she's now up to 10 lb 7.5 oz! She's gaining well and has well passed all the Newborn outfits and has moved right into the 0-3 and 3 month stuff!

Saturday was Ben's first birthday as a daddy! He turned 34. We gave him his cards (Mallory got him one too!) early Saturday morning and then we packed up to head to Elkton for his birthday dinner with my family. He had requested Mom's famous chocolate homemade ice cream for his birthday. So this was to be the first night that we've spent the night away from home with Mallory, so it took a little more packing than normal, but not too bad.

Ben got beer, brauts and chocolate ice cream, so he was a happy boy and Mallory did well in the cradle that was mine as a baby that mom had set up in the bedroom we sleep in. I didn't even know until now that my Granddaddy Caughlin made that cradle for me when I was born and shipped it from California to Kentucky. Amazing the things you learn after the fact. Either way, she slept fine, I think I felt the need to get up and check on her quite a bit since she wasn't snuggled in her little infant sleeper like at home, but she did fine.

This was also the first trip with me, Tucker and Mallory all in the same vehicle. We got this guard thing to put up that keeps Tucker in the back of the SUV, I put his bed back there and he did fine and that way there was no way he could jump back and forth through the seats, so it all worked just fine.

Ben drove separate to Mom and Dad's because he had to catch a flight to SD so he could then drive into MN to where he has training this next week. So he left Elkton around 8 am and then Mallory and I headed back around 11:30 so I could go to a friends baby shower here in Owensboro.

I finished up "The Devil Wears Prada" audio book, which I really enjoyed and now I've moved onto the Laura Bush autobiography. I didn't realize that her twin daughters were 5 weeks early and also spent time in the NICU when born. Just seems like preemies pop up all over the place now. Even Laura, who was an only child, would have had 2 brothers and a sister, but all 3 were born 2-3 months early and in the late 40's early 50's, none of them lived for more than several days. Amazing that dad as a little 4 pounder himself in 1949 in rural Arkansas was able to make it and thrive! Makes you realize some things are just meant to be!! It's also funny that the picture of dad as a baby that Mom has up with all our other baby pictures, well, Mallory looks just like dad! Obviously those Caughlin genes run strong! Ben may have his hands full with 2 strong women in the house if she picks up that Caughlin personality as well!

So all is well and we will count down the days until Friday when Ben gets back from MN!

Oh yeah, I finally found a cleaning lady who doesn't think I live too far out and she starts on Wednesday. Hopefully she will work out well!!

Here's a few pictures of Bean from the past couple days!

Running for Nena!

Since I'm getting back into running and on week 2 of my 5K training plan I've now devised a short term goal on my way to the Music City 1/2 marathon, the Evansville Susan B Komen 5K on Sept 25.

I've chosen this race for 2 reasons, first it fit nicely a couple weeks after the end of the 5K training program and most importantly, it's something I feel like I can do to help.

Some of you may or may not know our family friend Nena Lorenz, who is my age, was diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year and is currently undergoing chemo to shrink the cancer before surgery. She's an amazing trooper and will beat this with class and dignity! Nena was one of my bridesmaids in our wedding and essentially the sister Ben never had. Her brother Nathan is Ben's best friend and their families have been friends since before Ben and Nathan were born. Thankfully she has an amazing family and support system!

I asked Nena if she cared that I do the race in honor of her and of course she was happy that I do so. She said she'd even crack the virtual whip and keep me on my training schedule!

Nena is keeping a blog with her journey through this and if you are interested in learning more about this amazing girl, you can visit her site at www.lorenzstrong.com. She's a fitness nut so running a race fits right in with her!

So I'm running the race and raising money with Nena as my muse, so if you would like to support me, support Nena or someone that you've known that's had breast cancer, feel free to click on the Komen Race for the Cure Logo to the side of my blog or here to make a donation. $5, $10, $25, whatever you can to help. My listed goal is $250 but I hope to do much more than that. Thanks in advance for whatever you can donate!

I'll keep everyone up to date on my training and meeting our fund raising goal!

Training is going well by the way. I'm doing the Couch to 5K plan, C25K, and I'm on week 2 of 9 and so far so good. It's going better than I thought it would since I haven't so much as ran in months between pregnancy, hospital bed rest and then the whole having a baby thing! We should be good to go for the 25th!

On the home front, things are good as well. I'm seriously wondering if Mallory is teething. She's showing a lot of the symptoms, so who knows, I guess when a tooth pops out we will know! Babies can cut teeth that early, so who knows.

We had a relaxing weekend at home, Ben went to Louisville on Saturday for the Quality Deer Management Expo and somehow came home with no purchases other than lunch, parking and the fee to enter the expo. Although he did inform me that he wants a bow, so the money will get spent regardless!

Mallory is doing great other than a tad crabby from this whole apparent teething thing. She's smiling more and I've even caught her laughing a time or two which is THE CUTEST THING EVER! I can't wait to catch it on camera and video but just haven't been able to yet.

Here's a few pictures from the past several days, and Aunt Sue, the pink polka dot top and white 2 tiered skirt picture is just for you ; )

Shades and Scales

I guess I’m a sucker for cute stuff for Bean. After having her at the pool briefly the other day, I decided she needs some sunglasses. I had bought a pair at Target, but they were still too big and didn’t stay on her face. So with some help from Google I found Baby Banz. Guess that’s a take off Ray Banz, but whatever. So they have these super cute retro style glasses for babies that have the soft neoprene type fabric that wraps them around their head and Velcros into place….so of course, I had to have them for her. They came in on Thursday and I think she looks pretty darn cute in them if I do say so myself!





I’m also tired of not knowing exactly what she weighs. Trying to subtract from the house bathroom scale and then trying to convert 10th of pounds into ounces, well it was driving me nuts and I wasn’t going to take her to the pedi every few weeks to see how much she weighs, so I found a scale on sale on Amazon. It also came in on Thursday and we got it set up quickly and determined that she now weighs 10 pounds ½ ounce! And no crazy subtraction and division was required to figure it out. Now I can weigh her once a week and just make sure she is gaining well, which hasn’t been an issue, but the NICU spoils you in finding out how much they weigh every day, so I just want to know and now I can!

Now for my next iphone app rave. Since we’ve already established I’m a book nerd and will hope that Mallory will enjoy reading as much as I did as a kid, and even Ben read a lot as a kid….I recall stories about him reading his families entire encyclopedia collection, which is probably why he’s such a vat of useful and useless knowledge. I’ve found the app Tales 2 Go. Basically is audio books for kids but instead of having to buy each book/story individually you get a free month subscription and then if you like it it’s $24 a year for their entire collection of books and it’s broken down into age groups. It really doesn’t claim to start until 3 years, but I figure it can’t hurt to play them for Mallory while driving down the road and since the Edge has the sync system with my iphone, it goes right through the speakers. So far we’ve listened to some of Aesop’s fables and a book about frogs playing soccer, but it’s much more tolerable than say, Sponge Bob. So far I really like it, and I really like the fables, stuff that kids probably don’t get much exposure too anymore. It played the one about the crow who wanted the water in the bottom of the pitcher but couldn’t get to it so he put all the rocks in the pitcher and brought the water up to him. Totally forgot about that one, I love books with “morale of the story is”. Can’t wait to read her all my Serendipity books from when I was a kid and I still have them all and they are in great shape!

Mom's been watching Bean yesterday and today since she can't start full time at the new sitter's until next week, so I think they've been having fun doing some bonding time. I find it funny how Ben's mom likes to fix things I like and mom likes to fix things Ben likes....Mom brought all the stuff with her to make Salmon Croquets, Black Eyed peas and Fried Squash. I like all that, but that is very much a BEN meal!

I wrapped up Day 2 of the first week of my Couch 2 5K program at the gym today over lunch and came to a couple realizations:
1. I need to order more Sweaty Bands. I forgot mine today and had to resort to the crappy ones from Target that I keep in my gym bag as backups. About 30 seconds into my workout I quickly realized how much it is worth the $15 to have a hair band that does not slip and stays on my head when I'm working out. Will be buying a couple more so this dreadful experience never has to happen again.
2. Running is a lot like riding a bike. For the most part I'm in horrible shape but although my endurance is crap, half of running is form and breathing technique and after running off and on for 15 years now, those 2 things you just never forget, so thankfully the endurance can be regained as I continue on my plan to get my butt across the finish line of the Nashville 1/2 Marathon in April.
3. I love my SPI Belt. I had bought myself one around Christmas when I ordered one for my friend Mary Ruth who also runs. I've heard people on the running forums rave about them, basically they are little bitty streatchy pouches that are on a belt you wear around your hips/waist. Think fanny pack but much sleaker and smaller, specifically for runners/walkers that doesn't bounce and you can fit an iphone, cash, key and that would be about it. I've yet to use mine until today and I love it. My iphone was shocking the crap out of me via the treadmill some how so I went to my gym bag, got it out, stuck my phone in it, snaped in on my hips and carried on. It never budged, the ear phone cords were perfectly long enough to reach from my rear to my ears with just enough slack to move around without cathing your arm in your cords. How did I ever live without it??

Most of you know my husband and know that weight has never been a problem for him, unless you consider not really ever being able to GAIN weight as a problem. Apparenlty there is some "get fit" program at Whayne Supply and they are encouraging everyone to wear a pedometer and try to get in their recommended daily amount of steps to maintain their weight, or lose some if that is their desire. Ben said for his height and weight he should take 8,000 some odd steps a day for maintaining his current weight. So, if you talk to Ben, be sure to ask him how many steps he walked today, although I seriously think if he only took 2 steps per day he would probably maintain his weight!

Have a great weekend and here's a few other Mallory pictures from the past couple days:

Bean's first day at the new sitter...

I dropped off Bean this morning at the new sitter with a feeling that things will go well here. Carole is her name and I just get a good feeling about this place. I like the way it’s set up, I like the way she keeps Mallory away from the other kids, how she really seems to enjoy what she does, how organized she is with everything and the fact that she’s kept a preemie before who was even earlier than Mallory.

Mallory seemed to do well with her, like she can really tell me if she didn't, but she seems happy! Carole said she did great, only cried when she was hungry our had a wet/dirty diaper. She said she interacted well with her, cooing, smiling, etc. She said she was amazed she was so interactive as early as she was. She's much more on target for her actual age as opposed to her adjusted age. Ben's going to go with me tomorrow morning to drop her off so he can meet Carole and see the place as well. I think this will be a good fit.


I like to keep up with how much Mallory weighs and since our home scale isn’t terribly accurate with weighing yourself and then adding her and subtracting the difference, I ordered a baby/toddler scale today. Now I can be confident in her weight gain and really know how much she is weighing. I think it should be in on Friday and I’m anxious to get to try it out. The NICU totally spoils you in seeing how much she weighs every day! I don’t have any desire to weigh her every day, but once a week would be nice.

I put one of her newborn outfits on her this morning and it is considerably more snug than it has been in the past. I think it isn’t going to be much longer and she’s going to be fully in the 0-3 month clothes that she has. I still need to box up her preemie clothes and ship them to the Intermediate Nursery at Kosairs so the babies without clothes can have something to wear. I’m guessing she’s right at the 10 pound range now!!

I’ve got a new iphone app to rave about. I downloaded it right before I ended up in the hospital and then never got to use it and now that life is getting back to normal I’m getting to truly utilize it. This app is called the Grocery Gadget. I’m all about planning my meals ahead of time (when possible) and only making one trip to the grocery per week. I HATE grocery shopping. Typically I have some Franklin Covey weekly meal planner pages that I use and do like but I get annoyed at half the time not having a pen, having to cross stuff off the piece of paper, or forgetting the piece of paper entirely….you get the picture. The Grocery Gadget has an interface on your home/laptop computer, just a webpage, where you can go in and plug in the items you need what area of the grocery it’s in, because I am ANAL about making sure things are listed in the way to get to them in the store so I don’t have to backtrack and waste MORE time in the grocery, and then it automatically syncs to your grocery gadget app on your iphone and voila, there’s your list at your finger tips. You check them off as you buy them, it lists them by categories that YOU make and determine and I love it! It does a lot of other nifty things that I haven’t really figured out fully yet but item, isle and check mark capability works for me!! Now if Ben just had an iphone because I could add it to his phone, make a list on the computer, sync it to his phone and it would automatically show up on his phone…..maybe one day. I love list management software!! You can also use it for lists for things at Lowes, Target, etc. It’s not just for groceries.

Finally got to get back to the gym today after not getting to go for the past 2 weeks. Did a quick 30 minute workout to get the muscles used to moving again and then plan to start C25K tomorrow....anxious to see how that goes. Got another couple chapters further in my audio book The Devil Wears Prada....how happy am I that I don't live and work in NYC! Sure it's a fiction book, but still, it can't be that far off. Not where I want to be!

Family, 4th of July and 3 Months Old!

Well, we've had a very busy past week!

We've found a new sitter who keeps infants away from all the other kids and she only has one infant with Mallory and just 2 other kids and can never have more than 6 at any time. She is a licensed KY home care provider. I feel pretty good about this one. She's a little further out of the way, but still not bad. The only down side is I have to pick Mallory up by 5, but she's only about 10 minutes or so from the office, so hopefully it shouldn't be any big deal.

Scott, Amy, Blake and Eli all came Wednesday evening to stay through the Holiday. It was great to see them and although we didn't do anything too terribly exciting, but we had a nice relaxing visit. We spent some time in the local park, did a little shopping, shot some fireworks, went down to Mom and Dads to go swimming at the Country Club and showed Eli dad's tractors. It was a good visit. Bud and Susan came back over on Saturday, so we all had some good time to visit.

We celebrated Bean's first 4th of July in Elkton. We all treked down there so Blake could go swimming, the boys did some shooting, Eli got to see the tractors and Bean got to wear her swimsuit and basically dip her toes in the pool. Mom came with us to the pool so after Mallory's 5 minutes in the pool she could take her back to the house while the rest of us swam. The water was pretty chilly, so she didn't seem to like it much and we really just got her feet wet, but it was a photo opp never the less. We then cooked out at Mom and Dads and enjoyed the evening before heading back to Utica so Ben and Blake could shoot off the rest of the fireworks.

Today Bean is 3 months old! Seems crazy that she is already 3 months old. I went through her milestone check list and she has successfully hit every milestone that should be met by the end of 2 months. She's just started some of the cooing and making the ah and ooh sounds, but she did start right before the end of 2 months. So far she seems fairly on target.

Amy brought Bean a bumbo seat and she's such a cutie pie sitting in it. I've got some pictures of her sitting in it and she looks just like Ben in those pictures. Who knows, she looks a little like all of us at times! I guess she's just a good mix!

This week is also the week I start my Couch 2 5K plan again. I spent the month of June working out 3-4 times a week for 40 minutes each to help build endurance back. Granted the past 2 weeks haven't involved much if any exercise, but I'm pretty confident I'm ready to start the C25K. I will have to go slow, but I'm starting it and that's all that matters. It's a 9 week program working your way up to running a 5K (3.1 miles) by the end of that period. I'm ready to get running again and in another couple of months Bean will be big enough to go in the jogging stroller and it will be cool enough for her to go out with me.

Here's some more pictures from the weekend and there's more that I've uploaded to her shutterfly site for you to see.

Finally Home, with a 9 lb 2 oz baby in fact!

Sorry for not posting for the past couple days while we made our trip BACK to the hospital. Needless to say I was exhausted after staying up all night long Thursday night in the ER, having and Ambulance ride from hell to Louisville (that I will explain later) and then me coming down with my own cold/sinus infection that has made me feel like crap, and since Mallory was doing ok other than being a little congested, I failed to update the blog or really notify too many people as to what was going on.

I’ll try to be brief but here’s the basics:
We got home Thursday night from Kosairs around 8:30 pm. By the time we fed her and put her in bed her congestion seemed to be getting considerably worse, although acting normal, no freak out episodes like the Friday night before, so we got to thinking it must be something in the house and decided to make a frantic trip to Walmart to get some kind of filter and other stuff, so we loaded us all up in the suv and headed into town. I went on and called the Dr’s office and talked to the nurse since the blue bulb didn’t seem to be really helping suck out much of the congestion and she said if you really think it’s worse, go to the ER so they can check her out.

So we decided just to be safe we’d go by, I figured they’d suction her out a little and we’d be on our way, because otherwise she was looking and acting fine. So they brought us back fairly quickly since they knew our history (so nice to be recognized in the ER, sigh) and her O2 sats were high 90’s, no temp, and her congestion seemed much better since we left the house. They went on and did chest xrays again because I really think that’s all Owensboro’s Hospital knows how to do and they were then showing up with some pneumonia in one of her lungs. Now after the fact, it had probably been there all week and was on the down hill side of being a concern but because of that, it got us an automatic transfer, since apparently unless you have a broken bone or are having a baby, Owensboro is fairly useless. I tried to get them to send us to St Mary’s in Evansville which is only 1 hr away as opposed to 2, but they wouldn’t take us since we just got released from Kosairs. They also didn’t want us to drive the 2 hours, we had to go by Ambulance, AGAIN.

At this point it is like 3 in the morning, I just told Ben to go home and get some sleep so one of us would have some and that I’d go in the Ambulance again and he could come to Louisville once he got up and our stuff packed. The Ambulance finally arrived around 5 am and they were the most unprofessional ambulance team I’ve ever seen…..and they were out of Hopkinsville, so that probably says it all because all the one’s I’ve dealt with this year out of Owensboro have been great.

They crazy woman driving the ambulance didn’t even know how to get to Louisville from Owensboro, I mean she didn’t even know which way to turn out of the hospital parking lot. All I wanted to do was sleep during the ride since there was no real issue with Mallory but I ended up having to be the guide to the ambulance company to get to Louisville. I had to give her turn by turn directions all the way to the hospital. She had some piece of crap gps and she didn’t even know the street address of the hospital , which I did, so as she is trying to drive the ambulance and plug in the data to the gps I basically took it out of her hand so she could keep us out of the ditch and plugged in the address. Then she was fiddling with it again and lost the address I plugged in. At this point I just gave up and told her how to go and resigned myself to the fact I was getting no sleep.

You would also think that they would fill up with gas prior to a patient pick up. I mean, I know we were not in any life threatening situation, thank goodness because I would not have trusted these 2 for anything, but seriously, we had to stop for gas, not cool in my opinion. She was also blaring country music so even in the few places where I felt like I could sleep, I couldn’t because the music was so loud and I know she was doing it just to piss me off because I don’t think you could have put two people more like oil and water together. I was in total bitch, over protective, no sleep momma mode and she could tell I was appalled at everything they were and were not doing.

I could swear the guy who was in the back with Mallory had fallen asleep because I called back there to see what her O2 sats were and the driver had to like yell at him to get him to respond. Like I say, it was just the ride from hell and I was never so glad to get out of the ambulance.

Once we got to Kosairs everyone was helpful again and they gave her more antibiotics, but again, all her vitals were good, she sounded good, her O2 levels were good so they went on and admitted us just to keep an eye on her basically since they sent us all the way back over from Owensboro, AGAIN.

Mom was supposed to come up on Friday to stay with Mallory while I got some work done but since we weren’t home now she came up to Louisville to stay with us so I could basically get some sleep because I felt horrible and with no sleep, well it wasn’t helping matters any. So mom arrived around 11:30 and I tried to just sleep as much as I could that afternoon.

There wasn’t much for them to really do for Mallory because the pneumonia that was showing up had apparently been there and she was already recovering from it, she didn’t need oxygen, she didn’t need fluids because she was eating good again, so they had an IV lock on her so they could give her the antibiotic once a day through that, but otherwise, we were just crashing in the hospital for a couple days to double and triple check that everything was a ok.

We were still worried that perhaps some dust or dog hair in the house was the problem since it seemed like she got worse when we got home. So Mom and Aunt Sharon went to our house on Saturday and did some serious spring cleaning. It wasn’t that the house was that bad, they typical dusting and vacuuming had been done, but with being in the hospital so much this year, no DEEP cleaning had been done in preparation for Mallory to come home, so they did an amazing job, moved furniture, cleaned things that I probably would have forgotten about for years to come, so that way she was in the best environment we could offer.

Thankfully later on we had a good talk with several of the doctors and they reassured us that what Mallory has/had isn’t allergies, they just don’t develop them this young, so that there really shouldn’t be any issues with Tucker at this point. She could develop allergies later, but that’s not what this is.

We could have been able to go home Saturday but since we had just gotten there and they made us come back to Kosairs from Owensboro they decided to keep us until Sunday. She had her first gas pain episode Saturday night which kept her up and crying from like 9 pm to about 2:30 am. Not sure what finally helped her, but we finally got to sleep around 2:30. And of course, since we knew we were getting released on Sunday, the Doctor that was the one who could actually give the nurses the ok to release us took forever to come around, so it was 2:30 in the afternoon before we even saw her. But regardless, we got home around 4 or so on Sunday and Susan was on her way over from Sikeston so she could help clean up what Mom and Aunt Sharon couldn’t get to and then to keep Mallory for me while I worked this week so she could recover fully.

So, the past couple days has gone well. We went to the pediatrician Monday morning for a follow up from the hospital dismissal and Bean is up to 9 pounds 2 oz, so somehow although she didn’t eat much in the hospital, she has gained some since her appointment on the 9th. Thankfully she continues to sound good and seems to be back to her normal self and has her normal appetite back. I think Susan is enjoying having her to herself and getting to enjoy some Grammy/Mallory time while I’ve set up my office in the camper so I can concentrate on work but yet just be a few steps away from the house, so it’s working out very well.

Looking forward to Wednesday night with Scott, Amy and the kids come over from Kansas to stay for the long Holiday weekend!

Sorry that ended up being a way longer explanation of everything that has gone on since Thursday night, but now everyone knows it all!

There's an IV on my head!

Last night wasn't very peaceful....since she's finally gotten some food in her tummy and knows she's hungry but we don't want to let her eat as much as she normally does makes for a fairly fussy baby.

I got 2 more ounces down her at 10 and then another 2 at midnight. She still wouldn't settle down and go to sleep so the nurses gave her 3 oz around 2:30 in the am. She did spit some of that up, not all of it by any means but I did have to get up and change her out of her gown.

Got her up this am and fed her 2 oz and then had a coughing spell and spit all that up, so she still acted hungry so we went with another 2 and it came back up too with another coughing spell. I think like more of us she is more flemy/congested in the am and all the coughing brought breakfast right back up. So we let her sleep for a while and I fed her again around 10 and I just gave her 1 oz and she kept that down fine, no coughing spells.

Even with the lovely diaper foot, her iv in her foot still worked its way out so they called to have the "iv team" to come in and give her another new iv. In the meantime I fed her again 2 oz and of course just as I was finishing up the iv team came in....great I thought, screaming and kicking will for sure make her throw back up what I just fed her....amazingly enough she has a little spit up but not the vomiting of her entire stomach, so we were good to go.

They couldn't find another good vein in her arm or leg so they had to move to her head, which looks awful but gets the job done. I drew a flower on it to make it a little less scary and more girly! She doesn't seem to care that she has what looks to be an antenna coming out of her head!




I fed her again around 3 and she took another 2 oz no problems, so I'll probably up her a little more next time.

We do get moved to a regular room today and they came in and said good news we are heading up to the 7th floor and so I immediatly called Ben and told him and then as soon as I hung up the nurses phone rang and nope, for whatever reason, we no longer have that room, seriously it went from her telling me to getting that call in all of 3 mintues. Oh well, so we wait longer to move to a regular room. Good Grief.

I bought Mallory a puppet, or more like I bought myself a puppet to play with Mallory, not real sure what to think of it, but it seems to amuse her some....i've named it 'birdy.' Here's a picture of birdy and Mallory.




They did come back fairly quickly and got us a room on the 5th floor, so we are all moved in there. By the time we got settled in it was time to feed Mallory again and she was HUNGRY this time. I was only going to try to give her maybe 3 oz but she was starving and took 4. I'd say about 1 oz came back up in a coughing fit 15 mintues or so after she finished eating, but it was by no means all of it. Now she's just snoozing away.

As long as everything goes well it looks like we will be able to go home tomorrow, hopefully but I'm not going be set that we will either. I know I'm tired and ready to get back to our routine at home.

I think I'm going to have to find a different sitter though, I think she just has too many of her own kids and then a couple more that she watches that is just too many germs for bean.....so back to square one. Oh what I wouldn't do for a nice Amish girl who would come to the house....not going to find that in Owensboro though.

Fingers crossed her feedings continue to stay down and we get to come home tomorrow.

Diaper Foot

Diaper Foot: off patent use of a baby's diaper to pad the iv when located in the foot.



This is what we came back too last night after the iv that they put in her in Owensboro worked its way out.....a diaper on my childs foot. It helps them from knocking it around but somewhat alarming to see for the first time!

After not keeping any of her feedings down yesterday and having a conversation with my mother in law about Ben and Micah becoming sensitive to cows milk and having to switch over to soy milk that I thought who knows, perhaps some of her issues are due to a milk sensitivity....that can cause congestion, reflux, etc.

So after this mornings feeding with the Neosure that we use at home coming right back up about 2 minutes after she sucked it down I talked with the nurse and Nurse Practitioner about Ben having to be on soy and perhaps we should try that. They were fairly adament that they didn't think that was the problem and the Speech Therapist was going to come by at noon to feed her.

She had been fed numerous times in the NICU by a speech therapist and by the end was deemed a normal swollower. I know that's not the technical name for it, but she didn't have anymore eating issues basically. I also went through my theory with the speech therapist and she didn't think soy was the answer until.......Mallory succeeded in throwing it all up back on her about 2 minutes after she was finished eating. At that point she thought maybe trying soy wasn't such a bad idea!

She said she didn't need a swollow study, she ate fine, but they might want to do a reflux test where they drink that gross barium stuff and then do the xrays to see if and where it's refluxing, but if the soy worked, they may not need that.

So, with the spit up problems she was having they decided not to to move her to a regular room today.

They finally agreed to go get me some soy formula because at this point what could it hurt, so at 2 pm I fed her again, just 1 oz of soy formula to see how that worked.

1 oz down and it stayed down.

4 pm we fed 1 1/2 oz. She ate it and it stayed down.

7 pm we fed 2 oz and she ate all of it and it stayed down.

Hmmm, perhaps we are on to something here.

Who knows, but if soy is staying in her then we will go with that!

She's feeling much better today and now that she actually has some food in her tummy you can tell she's even more active

Here's a couple more pictures from today!

Happy Fathers Day and Hospital Update

As some of you know, we ended up back in the hospital with Mallory yesterday. As hard as I tried to make sure her cold didn't develop any further by having the Dr check on her Friday morning, it didn't help.

She was crying around 4:30 am Sat morning to be feed and after changing her diaper and getting her bottle ready, once I sat her up I could tell she wasn't acting right and when she didn't snap out of it I got Ben up and we went quickly to the er. I think what was happening is that she was so congested that she couldn't really breathe deep enough and her blood oxygen SATs were dropping and her color was off and just basically couldn't catch her breath. But because she was breathing, which is good, her apnea monitor was of no help or alert because it doesn't test O2 sats, it was just me knowing something was amiss.

I really think the Owensboro hospital is good for little more than stabilizing and sending you elsewhere, at least as it pertains to kids, but with them transfering us back to Kosairs in Louisville, at least I know we are in good hands.

So, dejaveu once again, we are strapped into to ambulance and are heading to Louisville. I give Ben a list of things we need and he goes home to pack and then meets us back at the hospital. Thankfully once they got some O2 on her in Owensboro she was looking some better. They did a chest xray and didn't see pnumonia and tested for rsv which came back negative.

She is all settled into the picu and is looking much better this am. She's had some Brady/dsat episodes, but overall is doing good. She's had a couple more xrays and there's a little cloudiness in part of one of her lungs, it's still not pnumonia yet either but they are treating her with antibiotics to help it from going into full blown pnumonia. They have the good sucking mechanisims here to clean out her mucus and no wonder the bulb was of little help, it's really thick and deep.

If she continues to do well this morning we will be moved to a regular room and out of the picu.

She looks so much better today and is moving around a bit so I'm sure she is feeling better.

We slept on the pullouts in the room with her last night, I was so tired from no sleep Friday night that I coulda slept anywhere and from all that nicu time I have basically trained my brain to know when to ignore the alarms that don't matter and only wake when the true alarms that mean something go off, so I slept fairly well. Ben on the otherhand I'm sure will be finding alternate sleeping arrangements tonight!

So keep the prayers coming, she's doing better but I want my happy baby back!

Here's the picture the nurses did for Ben for fathers day and of bean in her bed.







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