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Sunday, May 20, 2012

4 Internet Recipes I Love

Quick and Easy Pizza Sauce - I'm all for keeping it simple, and this recipe requires no cooking and makes enough to freeze for at least one other pizza night.

Curried Chickpea Salad - A great dish for taking to potlucks or keeping in the fridge for lunches. And it comes together easily and fairly quickly.

Roasted Tomato Basil Pesto Pasta - My favorite vegan pasta dish so far. I love, love, love caprese salad so stinking much, and I sure am missing it these days. This dish steps in to fill the summertime basil/tomato gap for me.

Southwest Quinoa Salad - Another good one for potlucks and lunches. It's 100% healthy and full of yummy Southwestern flavor.


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Saturday, May 19, 2012

Veda's Hospital Stay

Poor Veda. She's had a rough time lately.

Remember that fun visit to the Adventure Science Center/Planetarium from the last post? Well, apparently Veda picked up a nasty souvenir while we were there... the stomach bug.

She started throwing up at my mom's house on Sunday night when we were there for Mother's Day. She seemed to improve on Monday and enjoyed a Pedialyte popsicle and some Gatorade. Having kept those down, I moved her up to the soy milk she was requesting. And then the puking resumed. On Tuesday morning she threw up again. All morning I offered her water, Pedialyte popsicles, Gatorade, juice, and Pedialyte. She refused it all. And in between crying every time I tried to hand her a cup, she was nodding off while sitting up - very not normal for She Who Does Not Sleep. She also hadn't peed since she woke up.


I once heard an NPR interview with a book-writing doctor who said that people tend to be either minimalists or maximalists when it comes to medical care. When it comes to my children, I'm the poster mom for maximalist, so I called the pediatrician around lunch time to see if they had any directions for me. The nurse suggested I make an appointment "just in case there's something else going on." So I did. After dropping Linus off with Granny, Veda and I set off for her appointment.

The pediatrician gave Veda a dissolvable Zofran tablet to help with her nausea and brought in a popsicle to see if Veda would take it. No go. I must have asked her to eat it twenty times. Then the decision was made to send her to Children's to hook her up to some IV fluids since she "looked a little dry". Finally, little Veda had the first of what would be many finger sticks to check her glucose (a low glucose would have meant transport by ambulance).

We waited in the ER waiting room for what seemed like a looong time. Then when we finally made it back to a room we waited for a looooooooooooong time on the doctor, on test results from her being catheterized (awake and without anesthesia!) to test for a UTI, on blood work results, and on results from an x-ray searching for an intestinal blockage. And the whole time Veda was either completely still or crying. Every time I looked at her, she looked worse. By this point I was getting a little scared and impatient.The x-ray and urine tests were normal, but her blood work showed that she was experiencing "moderate to severe" dehydration. Finally the IV was started and the ER doctor announced that she would be staying overnight.

With a hefty dose of fluids being pumped into her, Veda went from looking pretty haggard to noticeably puffy. Glucose sticks showed wild fluctuations from a low of 42 to a high of 171. Between sharing a stiff hospital bed and being woken frequently for vitals, IV checks, and glucose sticks, neither of us slept much that night.

By the next day, Veda was much perkier. The IV was turned off to see if she would take in fluids on her own, but she still wasn't eating or, much more importantly, drinking. She was, however, bored, so when my mom came by to let me go down to the cafeteria, I also stopped by the gift shop to pick up a couple of toys. The winner? Magnetic paper dolls. We eased many hours of hospital boredom with the "ladies" and their outfits. The "ladies" couldn't convince Veda to drink, though, so we stayed another night and she went back on the IV.

It was another miserable night of much of the same, though minus the glucose sticks (thank goodness).

The next day she was acting more like herself and asking for breakfast. And.... DRINKING! Woot! After drinking some soy milk and water and picking at her lunch, she got the okay to go home. What a relief. She's more or less back to her normal self, though I'm afraid she may have a permanent aversion to all things medical. Linus and I did catch a lesser version of the virus, but we're all on the road to recovery.

Here are a couple of photos I took on her last day in the hospital with a little point-and-shoot.



Also, a special thank you to the grandparents. We wouldn't have made it without them. My in-laws graciously kept Linus and even took Mimi to the groomer. My mother came to the hospital so that I could do stuff like take a shower and go to the cafeteria. So glad that if this had to happen, it happened while we were close to family.


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Monday, May 14, 2012

Snapshots of Cute Stuff 5/14/12

First up, scribbling at the table. Giant pen + tiny girl = extra cuteness.


Linus is a really intense scribbler.

Next, some backyard yoga shots. Now that my wrist is getting more functional and I can actually put my weight on it (yippee!), I decided to try a few yoga poses while the kids were playing in the backyard. Linus was happy to carry on with his "special trucks" in the sandbox, but Veda just had to try it out, too. Disclaimer: since she's potty training (again), she was just in her training pants. Forgive me for being Polly Prude, but we all know the Internet pervs are out there, so I photoshopped a little yoga wear for her.

Downward Dog!

Tree Pose
Finally, some photos from our weekend excursion to Nashville's Adventure Science Center. Several months ago, I bought the kids a nightlight that projects an image of planets and stars on the ceiling. They've gotten pretty enthusiastic about the night sky since then and love to tell me when they see the moon in the sky during the day and ask me to turn the light off in their room so they can see "planets and stars!". We took them to the decidedly disappointing planetarium in Knoxville, and then we started looking for other planetariums in the region that we could visit. The planetarium we visited this weekend at the Adventure Science Center was great and we saw a great program about how big the universe is. Before the show started, we wandered around the ASC... a bit too old for us, and pretty crowded... but we took a few photos...


"This doesn't look like Buddy on Dinosaur Train..." 
Linus and Daddy operating the ball diggy thing 

Who's that new student?
One thing I don't have a photo of is our new question...

WHAT'S THAT?

I must answer that question a couple hundred times a day now... sometimes about the same object several times in a row. It's an exciting cognitive development. Bet we can all guess what question is coming next...

This has been Snapshots of Cute Stuff.
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Thursday, May 3, 2012

Snapshots of Cute Stuff 5/3/2012

From the Easter egg hunt at Nana's house... three weeks after Easter.


"Open, Nana!"




This year's egg hunt was much more like an actual egg hunt than last year. Veda was on a mission. Hence, the tongue.

Future Veda, you may be wondering why you're carrying a beach ball around while you're hunting eggs. Answer: you
and your brother carry random stuff around all the time. You're like little squirrels hoarding things away. Everything eventually ends up in your bed. Every couple of days I have to go through your bed to clean out all of the objects/toys/books.

Linus was a little slower to get excited about hunting eggs. But then he did.
"I found eggs..."

"I really found eggs!"

She's got spunk.

They both do this look.

Love that little boy hair.

How sweet is this little man?

The look on Veda's face when she heard there were still more eggs hiding.


Now a couple of cuddly couch photos

Waking up from a nap/having a snack


Melt.

And now a few fun yard photos

Linus has a new love for lawn mowers... pushing his lawn mower, watching his dad mow the yard, pointing out the neighbors' lawn mowers... Veda is content to watch him play with our bubble lawn mower. She understands that it's a special toy for Linus and always lets him have it. Linus looks pretty Zen, no?

But sometimes it does require inspection by two technicians.

Linus throwing open the shutters of the new playhouse's window. This very cute playhouse will have to have its own post.

Veda hard at work in the sandbox.

This has been Snapshots of Cute Stuff.
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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

PBB Breakfast Sandwiches


What You'll Need:
  • Whole wheat English muffins (1 per person)
  • Bananas (1/2 of one banana per person)
  • Peanut butter
  • Agave nectar or honey
What You Do:
  1. Toast the English muffins.
  2. While you're waiting on the English muffins, slice each banana half into thirds length-wise.
  3. Spread peanut butter on one half of the muffin.
  4. Top the peanut butter with the banana slices.
  5. Drizzle agave nectar over the banana slices and top with the other half of the English muffin.
That's it! Yummy, nutritious, sure to keep you full until lunch (or snack) time, and portable. We love these around here.
This is what happened when I said, "I need to take a pictures of our sandwiches." Also, she asked for her own camera the other day. Also also, how grown up does she look here?

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