Mommy's little helper.

You'll not be seeing any photographic updates of the children anytime soon, oh no. So, if you're here just for that, I suggest coming back in a week or two (or a month...). Our camera has gone to the big photo development lab in the sky. How, you ask? Well, a certain four year old is quite the helper. See, Aisling is the middle child. And, as such, one of her survival techniques in this crazy family is to be the pleasing, helpful, and all around wonderful child. (Minus the crazy tantrums, but we'll just chock that up to the Irish/Italian blending). The other day she took the camera to take pictures of her room which was, of all things, CLEAN! She brought the camera back down and it was wet. Al decided (after hesitation I'm sure) to ask why the camera was wet. (Had she washed her hands and gotten it wet? Had she gotten a drink and gotten it wet?) The answer was that she had washed it. (How utterly helpful...). And how did you wash it? Al wants to know of course. (or, does he...) Did you wipe it with a baby wipe? A washcloth? Oh no, of course not. She took the camera and submerged it into a sink full of water. Of course, when one washes things, one needs soap. So, clearly the purple foaming soap is perfect for washing cameras, dontcha think? The camera left this little session cleaner, shinier, and wetter. Sadly water and digital cameras do not mix well. So, we are without our pocket sized camera. We do have a larger camera, but it's a pain to use. It is, however, dry.

updates...

We've been so super busy lately. Unfortunately, the baby came down with RSV. Both the older kids had that too, you might remember. However, in this case Siobhan had to be admitted to the hospital. She'd been sick for a little while a few weeks ago, and needed nebulizer treatments. however, then she seemed to get much better. When we went away to the hotel a few weeks ago, I came back with a pretty bad cold. The general consensus is that I probably got the RSV virus. I passed that along to Siobhan. She started with regular cold symptoms and just went down hill from there. We got into the dangerous business of counting respirations and watching for retraction while breathing. After a few days of this, with respirations at around 60 per minute and significant retraction we went to the ER (after our Dr. couldn't do anything more).

When we got there they did a chest X-ray. They lungs were pretty full. They said it definitely looked like RSV and perhaps bi-lateral bacterial pneumonia. They also had her on an O2 saturation monitor on her toe. A few times her oxygen saturation levels went into the 80's. They decided to give her some blow-by oxygen. Based on the chest X-ray they decided to treat her for bacterial pneumonia, and keep her overnight for observation. Treatment for the pneumonia was IV antibiotics. In case you were wondering, it takes four people to put an IV in a 10-month old baby! She was one strong fighter!

She was also tested for RSV, which is a terrible test involving nasal mucus.... Once we endured that we were admitted. They needed a definitive answer on the RSV because they needed to know where to put us in the pediatric wing. RSV is extremely contagious and obviously precautions needed to be taken. Sure enough, off to isolation we went....

We went up to the pediatrics wing at about 12:00 that night. The peds wing is fantastic, and the nurses were great. There was a huge institution style crib in the room, metal bars and all. Siobhan opted to sleep with me in the bed. (Who could blame her!) She stayed on the oxygen monitor all night, and ended up needing oxygen (by blow by first, and then nasal canula) for most of the night. In the morning it was clear that her stats were still not going up. We ended up staying in the hospital from Friday night until Tuesday afternoon. They were going to send us home on Monday, but Sunday night her stats were still dropping into the 80's while she slept, and she was still on the oxygen. Although they kept telling me she was okay, I really didn't want to take her home until she went one night with no oxygen. Monday night she did, and she did great. Her numbers went to about 90-92, but she was strong.

Thankfully Al's mom was able to come up and stay, and we were able to keep her home from day care the rest of the week. the first few days she needed nebulizers every four hours, but very quickly she recovered. She's doing great now!

One thing she learned in the hospital was better crawling! That girl is all over the place now. It's fantastic!

I learned that if you ever have a need to torture me, isolation would be the way to do it. Siobhan and I were stuck in the 12 X 12 room for four days. Everyone who came in had to don protective gear, and wash up as they left. When we had visitors, they had to stay in the room with us. We could not visit the playroom or anything like that. A few times I was able to leave, as one of Siobhan's Godmothers came to visit, but on the whole, it was a long boring lonely few days! I think Siobhan felt differently about it though, I think she was definitely enjoying the one on one time.

Being the dutiful blogger and scrapbooker that I am, I did, of course, take pictures of our ordeal. Enjoy. (Or not?)

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