A Pony Is Born

M comes out holding all her big ponies and a white washcloth. I ask her where baby pony is and she gets very upset with me and keeps gesturing to the washcloth. I ask if baby pony is just asleep in there and she gets more upset with me and sets the washcloth down. She then says "it is in the egg". Ohhhh kay, um, so the pony is in a washcloth egg, this can work I guess. So she sets this washcloth down on my computer desk and starts going "Nay, nay!" and whinnies for the pony and starts pealing back folds of the washcloth (egg). The naying and whinnying continues until the pony is finally "born from the egg". We, of course, rejoiced when baby pony was successfully born since it seemed to be a lot of work for the little one and all. Now I just have to figure out where on earth my daughter learned this to re-enact it. All the same, it about had me wetting my pants from laughter once I didn't have to play along anymore. A baby pony hatched from a washcloth egg, it doesn't get any more "Enquirer" than that!

Small Pony Ice Cream

So Melody is wanting lunch and is very attached to her My Little Ponies. She comes up to me and says her ponies are hungry. I repeat this to her to verify and she says yes and that they want ice cream. She then explains they only need a little because they are small ponies and then she sticks out her tongue and says you use your tongue to eat the ice cream. I of course praised her efforts and told her there would be no small pony ice cream eating going on and she gathered them up and comforted them. Very sad day for ponies...

New Life

Here is the ultrasound of our new baby! The nurse practioner performed the ultrasound for me because my doctor was in a delivery (The Nerve! LOL) and she just kept saying "how cute, how beautiful" and she even said, "don't let anyone tell you that isn't a baby". I watched my precious baby move it's arms and legs and wiggle and I even watched it's little heart beating. It was wonderful. Also, the baby measured out to be exactly to the day as far along as we thought. Good baby lol. We are due Feb. 17th, 2009.

The Same You Came With, You Leave With

The trip to UCLA children's hospital ended up doing us very little good outside of ruling OUT a ton of things. They ran tons of tests and came out with nothing to show for it. They did however find that she eats way to little and decided to insert a feeding tube through her nose and it was awful but needed. So at the end of the week that we stayed there, I left with the same answers I came with and an NG tube in E's nose. They set up a visiting nurse for her and I was finally able to get her a pediatrician out in town to start following her progress through. The NG has not been going well for us and they have her eating a significantly large amount through it. She is throwing up and crying all the time. So, when the tube came out last night, I didn't seek out to have it put back and instead went and saw her new pediatrician. I think he is going to find the best way to get her healthy. He showed me today her growth curve and it looked pretty stuck in the same place on the length and weight combined, but once I saw the weight alone, it was very bad. She literally has dropped to almost -10% and it has been a steady drop for quite some time. What is so frustrating is that as soon as we left the hospital and she was no longer on the i.v. fluids, her weight dropped right back down to where it had been when we arrived. So, I am just lost. They say they can't find anything wrong with her and I see a baby that refuses to nourish herself so severely that she is just not growing or developing like she should. I know that it is a little confusing for people because when they see her they think she looks great- for a six month old maybe. But then I tell them her age and that changes real quick. AHHH!!! I just want to pull my hair out. I either want answers or for her to just improve and to put this all behind us. The pictures are of her at the hospital when they were running an EEG and just with her tube in. Take care...

When a Father Faces Justice

My biological father has been arrested and extradited to my home town. He abandoned me by the age of 6 months old and never sent a single cent in my name. By the time the authorities pulled him over (while driving drunk, without a lincense, and with weed on his person), he owed $32,000 in my name alone. That is 18 uninterupted years of neglect and evading the authorities. At the time, my sister and I had already made arrangements to take in our 15 year old sister from our father because he was trying to save up enough money to go turn himself in to the authorities for this exact thing. He was living in a tent in his stepdaughter's back yard and letting his three kids just sort of stay where someone would take them in. It was bad enough for Brittney and I to step in and be the big sisters we know all-to-well how to be and get at least one of the children in a stable environment. We still have a sister over there, but she seems to be happy with her mother in a way that the one we took in can't be.
Up until this whole ordeal I was never given the truth about basically any part of their lives with my father. But I was the one to fly my sister in and drive her the 6 hours to Brittney's house so I got to hear everything. It was a hard experience for me and it unleashed some of the nastiest skeletons that existed in my own closet. It was a Pandora's Box sitting and talking with this sister just hearing about her life and the things she experienced and witnessed on a normal basis. It was just a very difficult thing to have to face.
Tomorrow is his arraignment. Tomorrow my aunt and grandmother are going to sit in the same room as him and watch him make his plea. It will be intense because my uncle who is my father's brother will also be there and it will be high tensions going around from all angles. It is not at all the kind of family reunion that anyone wishes for. The only redeeming factor involved for me is that I won't have to be there and I know my mother won't be there either. I don't want her to have to see him if she isn't ready. There are a lot of things that passed between them to have gotten married, had a baby, and divorced. I just want her protected in all this mess too because he is just not right in the head or the person she knew 25 years ago. How do you make sense of all this? I guess no one has an answer to that one...

E Update

We finally took E in to the gastro specialist yesterday and it was such a deep relief for me. Not because we got great news or were told she is fine, but because the opposite happened. I have been worrying myself to death since she was born because I could see something wasn't right with her health. She started getting smaller and smaller and not gaining the weight we knew she should and when we tried to feed her baby food, she got even worse. Her reflux is back and she can't eat baby food without it coming back up or making her sick the whole rest of the night. So yesterday I was finally able to sit down with a specialist and get her looked at and her history sorted through with her doctor. The first thing he said is that she is a failure to thrive baby and is significantly small for her age and that something is wrong. After discussing everything I told him, he has decided that there is something more than just a baby who needs to eat more going on and he will be admitting her into UCLA for three, maybe more, days to run tests. He had a lot of blood drawn to start searching through that way also. Within the next two weeks, we will be finally going toward the bottom of this. I mean, just yesterday when they weighed her, she only weighed in at 13 lbs. 2.5 oz. and she is 8 months old. I am so looking forward to getting answers or a diagnoses that will help us in getting her healthy. I have also noticed that she physically can't sit up. The only way she sits up is in your lap because she seems to have weakness in her back that even the doctor didn't like seeing. He is going to have a neurologist check her out during our hospital stay to see. I am admittedly scared but I know that whatever they find, the Lord already addressed it's existence and blessed her to heal from it. This will all work out because God is involved and I have faith in that completely. He will watch over her and guide her doctors. Please send your prayers E's way.

Comparison Time!

Okay, these pictures are of when I started my weight loss journey and now. I have lost 20 POUNDS! Of course, my next blog will make that quite ironic. Stay tuned......