Recovery, day 2.

Anyone who has had any experience with toddlers knows that they can be silly. They also know that they can get tired. In fact, there's some kind of curve where the more tired the get, the more silly they get. The problem is that it's not necessarily the "fun" kind of silly. It's the "wild" kind of silly. Add no impulse control and no common sense and it can be a recipe for disaster.

We didn't have any disasters, but as a result I'm TIRED. Not simply in a "a good night's sleep will take care of this" way, but really and truly tired. I think worrying for a few weeks will do that to you. Plus, Katy seemed to think that she hadn't had surgery at all. In fact, Ryan and I were marvelling at how incredibly well she was doing. That was my mistake. I mistook her great behavior for a cue that we should actually get out and run some errands - THE DAY AFTER MAJOR SURGERY. She only took a twenty minute nap. That should have been a clue to stay home; but sometimes I think that nap is more for Mommy to rest (which is often true and was yesterday). Which one of is the parent here? Her speed seems to have increased exponentially, which combined with the wild silliness and lack of proper nap made for quite an adventure. By last night Katy was just plain done. I resolved to keep her home and as quiet as possible today (which is what I should have done yesterday, but the allure of running "just one errand" was too great).

Before we headed out for our errand we indulged in a little "dress up."

And a little wild flinging of things used to child-proof the cabinets (shouldn't they be on the cabinets?)



Katy knows that she's not allowed to touch the desk or computer. I caught her checking to see if I was looking.



Just one little touch, please?





I'll be especially cute for you....



In order to run to the Post Office I needed to remove the tutu. One step accomplished. The problem is that Katy was bound and determined to wear it, whether I helped her put it on around her waist or not.



The Post Office trip was actually delightful. As I said above, she was in that extreme silly mode and there are plenty of safe places for her to run and be wild in a military Post Office (it's essentially a huge building full of PO Boxes which leaves a lot of "hallways" for her to run down that only have one exit; which makes it easy for me to let her run and play while safely supervising from a distance). The process is a bit frustrating for us here. If you get a package they put a "slip" in your box (our boxes are really small, so essentially everything that isn't a regular envelope gets a slip). You take the slip and stand in line at a window where one of three or four people will take your slip and go to the warehouse and find your package(s). Since there are so few people taking the slips and such a large population here, coupled with the fact that many of us can't find what we need here and do a LOT of online shopping, this can be VERY time consuming; I have from time to time spent most of an hour in this line, several days in a row. Now everyone can see why I simultaneously love and hate receiving packages from home. Yesterday we received a "slip" so went to stand in line with the rest of the crowd. Katy went scampering off down one of the halls of PO Boxes to spin the dials and play. She had a crowd of people watching her and laughing, which always delights her and spurns her to be even more wild and silly. In the course of playing she found a ripped scrap of paper on the ground and was carrying it around. When it was my turn I handed the man my slip of paper. Katy, very seriously, stood on her tip-toes and handed him HER slip of paper. He made a huge deal about it to her and went to find our box. It took him MUCH longer than usual and I was beginning to get frustrated (the front of the line is close to the door outside; so you can imagine how many times I had to grab Katy and drag her back in). He finally came back with TWO boxes. One for me and a tiny one made out of card stock and scotch tape that he had taken the time in the back to make for Katy. It was so sweet that I wanted to cry. Katy's been carrying her little box around the house ever since. She was SO pleased. Now THAT is good customer service. Taking care of even the smallest customer.

Here's today's silliness. Yes, she's wearing her pajamas, a pair of fleece pants on her head and carrying a cheese grater. Plus, it's proof positive that both Ryan and I are too soft-hearted to pull the heart monitor leads off her chest. We figure they'll fall off eventually.....



We really HAVE been mostly laying on the couch and resting today (thank you, Elmo). Katy's coming down with another cold, and since getting sick for the next 8 days was a major no-no, I'm doing everything in my power to soften the blow. Plus, I'm just plain tired too!

And the envelope, please.....

Katy took a monstrous nap yesterday. So monstrous that I had to go check on her and make sure she was alive. She woke up like a child that had never had surgery. In fact, she seemed to be in a BETTER mood than normal. We still took it easy, but didn't even give her any pain killers. Apparently the pain of having the adenoids in was much worse than the pain of getting them taken out.

We were relieved that Katy was doing so well because it gave us a chance to visit with our friend Dan (of the "Musings From a Madhouse" blog). They live in Italy and he was at Ramstein for a meeting so was able to have dinner with us. We're disappointed that the rest of his crew didn't get to come up too, but we enjoyed the fact that they were able to share Dan with us for a few hours.

So, on to the big news. We had Katy's follow-up appointment this morning. He said the surgery site looked good and we were all set there. We don't need to follow up at all in that regard! I did remember to ask and he said that her adenoids were VERY large and nasty. So, in all likelihood, that's the explanation for all our woes. He also said that the ABR (hearing test) came back that she can definitely hear in her right ear (the one that was an unknown to us) and that he was positive her left ear was fine (there was an issue with the printout on that one, but he didn't think it was her hearing, just the printout - plus, we've known all along she can hear out of her left ear). So, he said that her speech delay is no longer considered hearing related. I have a feeling that technically it is, but only due to the sheer number of ear infections; but the point is, if this works and she remains relatively ear infection free, things should definitely improve. Now I also know that when she doesn't hear me she's just ignoring me! The results of the blood work won't come back until next week but we're pretty confident now that it won't find anything.

Hooray for modern medicine.

We're in "exile" for another week. I was expecting to have a sickly child for a few days. I don't know how I'm going to come up with enough entertainment for a well child who's stuck at home for a solid week.....

We're home.

We got up bright and early and took a blissfully unaware and giggling Katy to have surgery. She just thought it was fun to get to go out in her pajamas.

The doctor said the adenoid removal and tube replacement went well. We go back tomorrow morning at 9 to have a follow up and get the results of the hearing test.

This time has gone much better than the last and Katy seems to be taking the entire process better. She's upstairs sleeping off the last of the anesthesia and I have a feeling that when she wakes up she'll hardly know that anything happened.

I just wanted to let everyone know that we're home and doing fine.

On Sunday morning we loaded up and headed to Zweibrucken. It's one of the first places we visited when we moved here and has a beautiful rose garden. We didn't make it to the rose garden this time. Instead, we knew they were having a fest; and not just any fest, but a horse fest! How can you not take a little girl that loves horses to a horse fest within half an hour of the house?

This is right as we were getting out of the car. Katy took one look and knew she was
in heaven. Normally she'd be squirming to get away (or already under the fence and off running) but not this time. She leaned on that fence and just watched the horses run by.



This is what she was watching.



We headed on into town to see what else was happening. See that rapt look? There was a horse auction so there were pairs of Mommy and baby horses EVERYWHERE. We were standing by the holding pen that they came to after they'd been "shown" to the prospective buyers. The babies were frisky little things!



Off to find a place to play. I've been eyeing some push toys for a long time. Most of them here are really nice and wooden. That also means they are REALLY expensive for what they are. Considering I know it'll get broken or tossed aside quickly, I just can't justify the money. One of the carnival vendors was selling exactly what I was looking for; in a cheap plastic version. It was a hit!



It was starting to get hot so we dug around for a hat. Katy's never been good with keeping hats on. This one was different. She loved wearing this one.







On to a "goat petting" area. The problem is that the goats were frightened of everyone, so Katy couldn't only watch. We did end up buying some yummy looking goat cheese from the vendor right next door though....





Back to the horses. This time we wandered through an open area and the horses were VERY close.





The horses were simply magnificent. They were truly gorgeous and majestic. We really wanted to get Katy in close, but safely.



I must have mashed a button on my camera because the remaining pictures are very "purple."



Right after this Katy touched the horse. I had just put the camera down. She beamed and thought it was the greatest thing EVER.



We headed home just in time for nap time (we all got in a nap this time; or at least the older of us closed our eyes for a while).

In the afternoon we headed off to enjoy the glorious weather at a local pool. Sorry, no pictures this time. But, we did have a good time!

I snuck this shot in on Saturday afternoon while no one was looking; I was standing on our front porch. The reason they aren't looking at me is because they are ALL looking at Katy. Apparently they had given her a chocolate covered marshmallow and were giggling with delight as she ate it and spread it everywhere.



Katy LOVES our neighbors across the street (and they love her too). The first thing she does when I get her out of the car seat is to peer towards their porch, yell "Hi!" and wave, regardless of whether they are there or not. Since Hans is in a wheelchair (he introduced himself the other day, which was nice to have a name instead of calling him "the man across the street as we had for the past year") he spends a lot of time on the porch just watching. Hans can talk, but it's with some difficulty, so "toddler-speak" is just about at his perfect level. When he sees us coming a huge grin spreads across his face because he loves to play with Katy , make silly noises at her and try to teach her words in German.

Their son was over the other day (thus, the crowd; son, daughter-in-law and two granddaughters). He speaks great English, so Ryan got a chance to sit and really talk with our neighbors (or, at least their son) for once. He let them know that I'm signed up to take German classes this fall and the word has already traveled around the entire neighborhood. I had people approaching me yesterday (I was letting Katy play with the neighbor, as usual) and asking. Of course, what they didn't understand was that I haven't started yet but they'd still merrily chatter away to me in German after I confirmed that I was, in fact, going to take classes this fall. But, it's also renewed their interest in teaching me random vocabulary words, which is fun (we discussed the fact that she was picking "bonen," or beans from her garden - excuse my German spelling)

Fun stuff. We live in a truly great neighborhood.

I think I'll skip the shoe-box vacation. The mortality rate is pretty high in there....

Poor baby mouse. We tried.

This is my life....

So, here's a day in my life.

Ryan had a going away lunch to attend today at 11:00 for someone that I also knew. We'd RSVP'd quite some time ago, so it made sense to go, even though Katy's pre-op was scheduled for noon. We ran into the going away and tried to feed Katy a little bit. Since the food we'd pre-ordered wasn't ready we grabbed Katy some vegetables off the salad bar. No problem until she started to have welts on her face wherever the tomato and cucumber salad was touching her (she's had both tomato and cucumber before, so it was obviously something in the dressing.) I couldn't cancel her pre-op to deal with the welts so we said our goodbyes and headed off for the appointment (they went away on their own as the day wore on).

I went to check in at the front desk at the ENT. They asked why I was there. I explained that we were there for a pre-op at noon. They had no record of our appointment. They asked when the surgery was. I explained it was on Thursday. We went around and around a few times with the exact same information since the woman didn't speak a lot of English. We were shuffled off to the waiting room and quickly on to see the doctor to go over the pre-op information. As we were leaving I said, "See you on Thursday!" (See where this is going yet?). We then went downstairs to see the anesthesiologist. His receptionist had no record of our appointment either and we went around the same loop (she spoke better English though) and we confirmed that the surgery was on Thursday. I kept Katy from destroying all of the nice things in the waiting room (the receptionist kept trying to tell me there was a lovely waiting room off to the side that had toys; she just didn't understand that Katy wouldn't stay in there until I was in there too). We made it in to see the anesthesiologist. We discussed what was going to happen and he said: "So, what time do you want to schedule the surgery on Wednesday?" (that's the advantage to having a pre-verbal toddler; you get first choice since they don't understand why they can't eat). I said "None for Wednesday, please, our surgery is on Thursday." Nope, it's on Wednesday.

So, I scramble to get Ryan on the phone so he can shift his schedule to be with us and remember I need to pick up the antibiotic prescription upstairs before we go. We manage all of this and get to the car with very little incident. We made it most of the way home before Katy fell asleep. Normally I can get her upstairs and back to sleep before she notices. Not this time. So, I now have a toddler on my hands that's only slept for 10 minutes. I tried every trick in the book. No more sleep.

Off we head to the base pharmacy to fill the German doctor's prescription. We wait patiently in a small waiting room (with a tired and cranky toddler) before nicely inquiring what the delay is. Another 15 minutes later the pharmacist appears and tells me the German doctor wrote a different dosage than her current prescription and they don't stock that dosage. I was told to head to a German pharmacy. With a cranky toddler that's just an impossibility and I stand my ground. We finally settle on talking to the local pediatric clinic and getting another prescription written and filled through them with the correct dosage. So, after an hour in a tiny box of a pharmacy we're on our way. No problem, right?

I barely get a very tired Katy home and we settle down. I notice that I have a message from my sister, Ellen. It's hard for Ellen and I to connect because she's in CA and the time difference is tough for us. So, I snap on a cartoon to distract Katy so I can talk for 10 minutes. Katy's happy; I dial Ellen and start talking. Suddenly the cat comes in with a mouse. This one is alive. Katy's interested. I mange to find a piece of tupperware quick enough to throw over the mouse before either Will or Katy get another hand/paw on it. Unfortunately, I have nothing to slide underneath the tupperware. My only choice is to just put my foot on it and hold it down with my weight. Will's on one side watching and Katy's laying on the floor on the other. The mouse is the best thing that's every happened. I'm starting to have a feeling that I'm trapped until Ryan gets home from work. Katy decides she's hungry and wanders into the kitchen and scrounges for food on the floor I hadn't had time to sweep from breakfast (I can't take my foot off for fear the cat will knock it off and the mouse will scamper and hide). I'm now even more helpless as I watch my child eat "floor food," since I can't reach her to take it away, and lay on the floor to watch the show. After her snack she thankfully decides to chase the cat off by trying to jump on it. One down. Katy decides to climb the leg that I'm using to hold down the mouse holder. I almost topple and ruin the entire thing. Katy finally gets distracted and heads back to the TV. I grab the mouse (that's still alive) and get it out on the windowsill. Katy gets a proper dinner and who knows where Will went. Of course, Ryan wanders in after I've got the whole thing taken care of and under control.

Ryan took one look at me and took Katy outside for a while.

The mouse, by the way, is living in a shoe-box recuperating from a broken leg.

I think I need a few weeks in a shoe-box to recuperate.....

We've always known that Katy was a bit louder than the average child, but I guess we've grown used to it.

Recently I was out running errands with Katy in tow. It was a pretty kid-friendly place and there were other small children around that were older than Katy. There was a basket of toys and books out so I let Katy play with them and the other kids while I was taking care of whatever business I was there to conduct. Another woman came in and accidentally stepped on Katy's toe. No big deal. Unfortunately, the theatrics started. She had to yell and scream and let us all know how upset she was. So, I picked her up and brought her with me to finish what I was doing.

One of the little girls that had been playing with Katy went to her mother, tugged on her jacket and said with wide eyes: "Mommy, that baby is dying!!!"

So, now I have a gauge of how loud she really is. She sounds like she would if she was dying. I can't wait for the volume when she REALLY gets hurt for the first time.

Today we headed off for Speyer, Germany. Since Katy still isn't feeling well we weren't expecting much, but wanted to get out of the house. It was a very pretty town. When we arrived we had to pay for parking then head back to the car to put the ticket in the window (that's unusual for Germany, we usually pay afterwards) and we had parked a considerable distance from the place to pay. I sent Ryan and Katy ahead to play a little and stretch their legs while I took care of the boring "chore." It also gave me a chance to dawdle a little. Here's our first view of Speyer. The church was just beautiful.




The church had immense grounds surrounding it. This park was a "spider"



I rounded the corner and caught sight of a fountain. You know what that had to mean.... Ryan and Katy had kicked off their shoes and were enjoying the water.





With some effort we convinced Katy to move along. This was the first REALLY nice day we've had in a while. It was actually in the low 80's. Warm and sunny enough to break out the hat!



Here are some closer views of the church. It was HUGE and lovely.







I just loved this old door.





This is the front (we came from the side).





We turned our attention to the rest of town.







We meandered, bought raspberries from a local market, bread and pastries from a bakery and generally had a good time. This was another church. It was also very beautiful and was about to have a wedding inside, so we snuck in quickly to take a peek before the action started.





As we came out we spotted yet another church. They were all so pretty that it was somewhat funny to think about the fact that these two gorgeous churches we were standing in were the "hidden away" churches. They seemed like showpieces to us!



This was the view back at the "big" church as we wandered back toward the park. It was really massive.



A close-up of the door. The detail was incredible.



We decided that Katy needed to burn some energy so we headed back to the park to let her run. I snapped this picture as we looked for a suitable shot.



Now, I have to admit, we've always marveled at parents that had kids that fall asleep in their arms. Katy's always been pretty picky about where and how she falls asleep. We're generally pretty accommodating but a few weeks ago we decided that we felt somewhat "hostage" to her schedule (she's not taking a nap until about 1 in the afternoon and sleeping about an hour and a half; which makes it pretty hard to do anything with a picky sleeper) and decided that we weren't going to take it anymore. We'd make certain concessions (such as bringing a stroller) and she could sleep wherever we happened to be. Fine. We were walking along today. Katy was chattering to herself. I turn sideways just in time for her to stop talking, see her eyes close and her head plop down on Ryan's back. She hit him hard enough he asked what she was doing, He didn't believe me that she'd just fallen asleep. We decided to head home (sick babies deserve more sleep, we did make that concession). Ryan pulled her out of the backpack to carry her back to the car and she was suddenly one of those children, sleeping in his arms as we walked along. The funniest part was that she woke up as suddenly as she went to sleep. I had just looked in the rear view mirror to check on her and not 5 seconds later she was giggling and singing like she'd been awake the entire time.

So, we made it home to a gorgeous afternoon. On the way we stopped at the hardware store. Ryan had the brilliant idea that he was going to make Katy a "slip 'n slide." in our yard. We normally don't bother to put on her bathing suit, but it was just too cute so we had to.





She knows just exactly how cute she is....



So, off to make the slip 'n slide. I went to clean out the inside of my car (When we bought a nice car I told myself that it was always going to be dirty from having a toddler, I just constantly forget that it will NEVER get clean).



Katy commandeered the hose.



Unfortunately, the slip 'n slide project failed. The plastic wasn't thick enough. But, it made a great liner for our very dirty toddler pool!

Katy filling her pool.



She jumped right in.



It needs more water!!!



More water! More water!









The bakery truck came by during our play time. We don't have a bakery in town, so this is how we make do (we rarely partake, but it's fun to know it's coming every day).



Katy turned the hose on herself. She looks pretty happy.



I had actually snapped the above picture before she realized how COLD the water was.



This is her "superhero" pose. Aquagirl away!!



She started shaking the hose furiously.



Unfortunately, she also gave Daddy a good splash in the process.





Here she is trying to water the tree; from the leaves. We figure the "water goes on the roots" lesson can come later. It's a bit of an advanced concept.





For the number of times she splashed herself all day, when Daddy finally got in the act she suddenly needed protection....



What a happy girl!



On to wash the cars. Katy kept dipping her hands in the soap and wiping it all over herself. It was such a nice day that most of our neighbors were outside enjoying it too, so she attracted quite the giggling crowd.





She started offering everyone handfuls of soap bubbles.



We had a great day and really enjoyed the weather. Hopefully summer is finally here, even if it's one of the last weeks of August!