Settling in at home

We went home from the hospital monday morning. Maya is still only eating from a syringe or small sips from a cup. As far as solids go she pretty much only eats bread, cheerios or crackers. Keeping her hydrated is almost a full time job - we really have to stay on top of it with the syringe.
Last night she did start taking larger amounts of pumped breastmilk from the syringe and continued doing that today. Since I'm not used to pumping I am having a hard time keeping up pumping enough for her so thank goodness I have some in the freezer from when we were at the hospital.
She still acts like she wants to nurse but just won't do it.
We are planning on leaving on friday for Wisconsin (we were originally suppose to go today), I figure if she hasn't started nursing again here by that point then a change of scenery certainly won't hurt anything.

What's goin' on

I started writing a detailed account of what is going on here right now and it was really emotionally draining to go through it all again. So I am sorry if this seems short or lacking information, at some point I will get to the whole thing.
But for now:
Maya was admitted to the hospital thursday night w/ dehydration. We are still here. She is getting better, as of yesterday afternoon she was more herself and was smiling and playing a bit. This morning they shut her IV off and we are trying to keep her hydrated to see if we can. She still will not nurse at all. She is taking small amounts of water out of a syringe and eating some bread. If we can keep her hydrated we may be able to go home and hopefully in a more comfortable and secure environment we can get her nursing again.

Playsilks

We were suppose to have friends over to dye playsilks today but had to cancel because Maya was sick. We ordered 6 of them and Alex was really disappointed about having to cancel our party so we decided to split them up and go ahead and do 3 today and save the other 3 for our rescheduled party.

If you haven't done this before it's pretty cool and super easy. I ordered the silks from Dharma Trading company, they come plain white. You dye them with Kool-Aid, vinegar and water in the microwave. For each 30x30 silk you use 3 cups hot water, 1 cup vinegar, add the silk and stir and then microwave for 30 seconds at a time stirring in between to evenly coat the silk until you see the dye moving from the liquid into the fabric. Rinse them out well and hang to dry.

You can see how the color gets absorbed out of the liquid and into the fabric:

The bright red is cherry flavor, orange....well obviously orange flavor, the bright blue is "Berry Blue" flavor, (there is a blue raspberry lemonade one that makes a more pastel blue) and this pretty coral/pink color is strawberry lemonade. (Pink lemonade makes a more true pink).

Playsilks are a lot of fun - they become so many things at our house. They turn you into a ghost, wrap "presents", become a cape or an apron or a scarf, become beautiful stepping stones on the floor to jump on, cover lamps to make colored light and become part of tents!

Downhill from there.............

Sunday was a relaxing, fun day around the house. But Maya didn't sleep well and developed a fever during the night. Yesterday her fever got worse during the day. I was having her nurse a lot all day to try and help her over whatever she had going on but she was pretty wiped out. She actually would fall asleep sitting up.

Today she was even worse during the day, she quit nursing all together to the point that I had to pump several times during the day.....this was just about all the energy she could muster for most of the day:
I just had to include this picture of Alex because he looks do darn grown up:
But I am happy to say that around supper time she started drinking some of the pumped milk out of a cup and then drand a cup of water too. Since then she has really perked up and has some energy and is happy and playing again. Her fever is down to about 99 this evening!

Almost forgot about friday

Friday morning we met some friends at the Children's Museum, went out to lunch and then went and got the oil changed. While the truck was getting the oil change we went for a walk and got an ice cream treat, and finally made a Father's Day card!

Action!

A valuable lesson about fishing

You often don't catch anything! It was Kid's free fishing day downtown on saturday. Last year Alex caught 2 right away, this year he had no such luck. He tried for a while, took a break for lunch and then tried again but no fish. He still said he had a really fun time though.

Free sunglasses:

Free Coast Guard demonstration:Free fishing:Free hotdogs: (and yes, that 3 year old attitude came free also)

There were a couple of minks that lived near the fishing area. The poor things kept running around and were totally overwhelmed with all the people there.

Random photos

I got a new camera last week so there are likely to be tons of random pictures for a while as I play with it and try to get better!

Beach again...

You'll notice there aren't many Alex beach pictures...he's a little harder to catch up with, especially since there are usually friends around. Maya liked the beach the second time too. Although she did get tired and have a hard time settling down or sleeping at all there. She also tried eating sand again.