Catching Up

I really must get better at blogging. I go too long inbetween and have too many good stories I have forgotten. My goal after school starts will be to get better at being regular about posting.

Well, we spent $3,000 on our mini-van last week. I can't say much more about that without getting really annoyed.

The kids and I went to Willmar last weekend and stayed with the Poss family. It went really well for the most part. My friends from high school, Matt and Joanna Schrupp, came out to the lake and launched their new speed boat, so I got to water ski which once was a passion of mine. Now I do it once a year and pay for about 2 months with major lower back pain. But it is worth it. Kind of. My 3 oldest kids tried to water ski, Imani got really close. It was fun.

Here are the kids from last summer with Grandpa Poss.

Here is Akila this summer.


Here is Zeke at the parade counting his candy.

Imani is fishing, the Poss house is in the background.
Hezekiah is fishing. We caught nothing, but it was fun.


Imani, Hezekiah, Zeke and Emily (neighbor girl) having a bonfire.

We went on Thursday evening so we could go to the 4th of July parade in Spicer and we were staying until Sunday. On Saturday morning, shortly after breakfast, Akila came to sit on my lap. This is a constant challenge for me. She always wants to sit on my lap, for a couple of reasons. One, she just likes to and wants to be close. I had been really struggling with this because she seems too old to be on my lap ALL THE TIME. I of course am OK with that sometimes with all of my kids, but with Akila, it is ALL THE TIME. And she does not sit still. When I remind myself that developmentally, she is closer to being between a three and four year old, I am more calm about her being on my lap.

She also wants to sit on my lap because of her issues with sitting on certain types of chairs. She definitely has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) tendencies. I have to put silverware in her bowls or on her plates, they cannot touch the table. She won't use the last spoon in the flatware tray, etc. I can't keep up with her quirks most of the time.

Anyway, she was sitting on my lap and stayed there for a long time. I finally realized that she wasn't feeling well, when I figured out that she had been really quiet and had not had any issues with anger for quite awhile. Sure enough, by noon she was vomiting.

I can't remember how much I have blogged about her vomiting, but it generally happens every 3 or 4 months and it can get quite bad. This one was her worst episode to date. Thankfully, she never misses the toilet or the bucket. What a blessing. She spent the rest of the day in the basement watching TV between vomiting sessions. She handles it really well, amazingly!!! Usually, once it is bedtime and she falls asleep, she doesn't get up to vomit but will still be vomiting the next day sometimes. Usually, if she is still vomiting the next day, that is when we will end up in the ER due to dehydration and need an IV.

Around 2 am, when I was up with her as she vomited, there was some blood mixed in with the vomit and also green vomit coming up (two of the things they say to watch for). Sorry for the graphics. This entire bout of vomiting, was also the most severe, it seemed quite painful for her and she was heaving a lot. Around 5 am, I almost left with her to go into the local hospital. She fell back asleep and I didn't.

When she gets like this, I have tried everything in the book to help her stop vomiting. We only do the little sips of water, popsicle, pop, whatever the dr.'s have recommended we try. A tiny sip makes her heave uncontrollably. Her Pediatician and I have talked about seeing a Gastro specialist, but I have been putting it off. Oops.

I just don't like the idea of needing another Dr. We have a zillion. Just last week, she saw an Endocrinologist for the first time because of her Turner Syndrome. We are going to start her on daily growth hormone injections sometime soon. Girls with TS have an average adult height of 4 ft 8 inches. With growth hormones, they can get an extra 8 inches. The side effects are minimal so we're going to give it a try. So she has a Pediatrician, a Developmental Pediatrician, a Cardiologist, a Psychologist, a Neuro-Psychologist, an Endocrinologist, and now a Gastrologist (or whatever they're called). We have an appt in August to see the gastro Dr.

When we got back in town on Sunday, we ended up having to go to the ER and get an IV. She gets so dehydrated, hadn't urinated in over 24 hours (you're suppose to take them in after 8-12 hours of no urination, but I always push it as sometimes we are able to recover).

So, it was a weird ending to a great mini-vacation. We love the Poss family and are blessed that they let us visit them.