Shout-out.

This summer I (Momlissa) had the opportunity to do some food policy work for the City of Minneapolis, and given my interest and academic focus on this kind of work, it was an opportunity that I could not pass up. This meant that - rather unexpectedly - we needed part-time child care starting ASAP. It was Grandma to the rescue!

Beginning in mid-July, Judy watched the girls Monday-Wednesday, driving through rush hour traffic in the morning to get to our house by 8:30. She took the girls to their swimming lessons, kept them busy with all manner of activities, and even found time to wash whatever dishes might have been left in the sink at our house. All this and more grandmotherly love than you could ever want for the incredible price tag of ZERO dollars. In a nutshell, she saved our butts with her generosity and general awesomeness.

I'm happy to report that we were able to get her some tickets to Wicked next week, a show we know she really wanted to see. But tickets to a show do not begin to convey our gratitude for all she did for us this summer, and how much fun the girls had spending so much time with Grandma.

Our families - all sides - are a gift, and we are so glad our girls are surrounded by SO MANY people who love them, even those who occasionally feed them chicken nuggets. Ahem.

Confidential to Judy: Thanks, Mom. We love you like crazy. Enjoy the show!

Maybe They Were, Rubes.

[Ruby and Dadam are watching Masterpiece Mystery – one of Ruby’s favorite programs. A woman is crying after learning the identity of the murder victim.]

Dadam: Boy, she really seems upset. I wonder how she knew the guy.

Ruby: They must have been friends. Or maybe Facebook Friends?

Terminology.

[The family is learning about desert rock formations, courtesy of David Attenborough.]

Ruby: Hee hee . . . that rock has boobs.

Momlissa [laughing]: Ruby, in this family we say "breasts."

Ruby: Don't worry, Mom. It's just a rock - he doesn't mind.

Jumbo Gumbo

Recently I (Momlissa) turned 33, but please don't tell anyone. With the birthday came birthday presents from both my husband and my children, all of which were wonderful.

Any time there is a gift-buying occasion, Dadam takes the girls shopping and really lets them choose a gift without much interference. He'll take them to the kitchen store or Patina and guides them to areas where he knows they'll choose something I'll like.

This year Cecilia chose a little saucepan -red in color (my favorite), very tiny and very cute. The purpose of such a pot - at least as advertised - is to melt butter. It's called a JUMBO pot for melting butter. Cecilia, however, misread the tag and understood it to be a pot for GUMBO, and she thought I would love a pot specifically for making GUMBO.

Some time in the near future I'm actually going to make some gumbo and, when she's not paying attention, transfer a small amount to the new pot so I can serve my daughter the gumbo that she's hoping for.

Cecilia is such an earnest, thoughtful child that I will keep up this rouse as long as necessary, because I love the pot and her good intentions and the sweetness of it all SO MUCH.

Blame the Corn on the Cob

Recently this happened:


She was very cool about the whole thing (unlike her sister, who was always a touch dramatic about losing a tooth). She was eating some corn on the cob and then stopped to calmly say, "Something is happening." When Dadam took a look, he simply had to reach in a pluck the dangling tooth right out.

The best part of the story is the visit from the Tooth Fairy, because Ruby actually had a sleepover at Auntie Landi's house that night. We told Auntie Landi and Uncle Bill to make sure she was good and asleep before they went in to make the money/tooth swap, and we sent along the cash money, too.

As it turns out, Landi and Bill managed to lose the tooth in those 2 hours between leaving our house and bedtime, so they put a popcorn kernel in a baggie and waited until the lights were out to give it back to Ruby. Rubes was none-the-wiser and came home with dollar in hand, pleased as punch.

Last Night We Had Tofu.

Cecilia sees the table set for dinner and notices a plate of burgers.

Cecilia: Mom, are those veggie burgers or real burgers?

Momlissa: They're turkey burgers, hon.

Cecilia: Yay! Real meat!

Chicago in 6 Days

We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Chicago, seeing many of the big sites and doing lots of touristy things in a relatively short amount of time. Here is the nutshell version:

Day 1: Arrive and swim in Auntie Jenny's pool:


Day 2: Museum of Science & Industry:

Day 3: Pizza, Sears Tower, Water Taxi, Millennium Park:

(looking in the jelly bean mirror)












Day 4: Water park. No camera but lots and lots of fun. Since the girls swam every single day, here's another pool shot:
Day 5: Field Museum:


Day 6: Planetarium and Shedd Aquarium:

Bladder Up!

Many of you know that Ruby had surgery last week, though we thought we'd post this anyway for those that are interested.

Back in May Ruby was experiencing pain during urination, and there seemed to be a correlation between the fullness of her bladder and the level of discomfort she felt. Each time, when questioned about where it hurt, she pointed to both sides of her lower back (doctors call this "flank pain"). On Mother's Day night she went potty and actually cried out in pain, which prompted a call to the nurse line and then a trip to the ER (given her kidney history, the nurse felt it best not to take chances). The ER couldn't find anything wrong and told us to monitor her at home and go to the pediatrician if things persisted.

Things persisted and after an appointment with the doctor, a trip to the hospital for a bladder/kidney x-ray, Ruby was diagnosed with kidney reflux. This simply means that Ruby's urine was traveling back up the ureters (WRONG WAY!) into her kidneys, and the severity of Ruby's reflux meant she risked damage to the soft tissue of her kidneys if the problem wasn't corrected. Enter Doctor Shukla, pediatric urologist.

Doctor Shukla recommended surgery to correct the reflux, and that happened last Monday. Ruby was able to go home on Tuesday evening, though not without a Foley catheter because she was still having trouble completely emptying her bladder. I cannot overstate how much Ruby hated that catheter (can you blame her?) and she had to wait until Thursday to have it removed (shockingly, this was a job we had to perform at home). We told her we would take it out first thing on Thursday morning, so she woke us up promltly at 6AM, pee bag in hand, because she was ready to roll. And out it came.

She had a great day on Thursday, but by Thursday night she wasn't feeling well, and on Friday morning she had clearly had a setback. She had chills, was lethargic, whimpering, and couldn't get comfortable in any position. She wasn't running a fever and couldn't quite identify what was making her so uncomfortable, but her condition seemed to be worsening and while I was on the phone with Dr. Shukla's nurse, she started vomiting. I'm not sure I've ever driven down University Avenue so fast, but we made it to the ER in record time. After many tests and poking and prodding it appeared that she was simply dehydrated and a bag of IV fluids did wonders for her overall condition. We had the good fortune of being seen by Dr. Shukla who was at the hospital performing other surgeries, and he felt like she was going to be fine and we just really needed to push the fluids and peeing.

Since then Ruby's been great, continuing to improve by leaps and bounds. She lost some weight during the ordeal, and she didn't really have any extra weight to begin with, so that was visible on her tiny little body. She's eating well again and we've relaxed our food standards somewhat to get more calories/fat into her, something I think she's thoroughly enjoyed.

This experience has been a difficult one for us as parents and brought back some painful memories of her hospital experience of 2007. A child in the hospital - in pain - is frightening and awful and really makes a parent feel so helpless. And while I know the doctors and nurses are only doing their jobs, if putting a catheter in makes my daughter cry, my instinct as a parent is to leap over the bed and tackle you to the ground so that it stops her from hurting. Hospitals tend to frown on that sort of thing, so one has to suppress that urge and put on a brave face. Not easy.

I'm sure that in a few weeks much of this will seem like ancient history and Ruby will simply have another battle scar to show off to her friends when she's a teenager, but right now I still find myself hugging her hard, holding her tight, and marveling at her resilience and tenacity. Ruby is a bad-ass.

One final thought: If you have never stopped to give thanks for your healthy bladder, kidneys, and ureters, you might want to think about doing so. They really shouldn't be taken for granted.