Hannah's 4th Birthday

Hannah just turned 4 years old March 10th. We had a birthday party for her at Demen's Landing Park in St. Petersburg on Sunday, the 9th. Lots of her friends showed up, which was really great since all her previous birthday parties have been mostly adults. Here's pictures:

Mini Baby Shower & Goodbye CVT Class of 2008

February 27th was the last day of "didactic" (classroom) courses for my program (Non-Invasive Cardiovascular Technology). The rest of my class started full-time externship (32 hours a week) the following week. They will all do externship for the next six months and graduate in September this year. I, however, will start my six month full-time externship when I come back from maternity leave (6 weeks after Audrey's birth) and graduate with the night class next February.


To celebrate our last day of class, we had a huge pot-luck party. We had to take finals in the midst of the party but it made the day very fun and laid-back. Our class is known throughout the school for being loud. Not just our term of CVT - all the CVT classes are loud and enthusiastic! At the last graduation, CVT was the smallest group but still the loudest. My classmate, Elvin, coined our catch phrase that explains this: "CVT has heart!" Teachers from other programs came to join our party. The food was great, the company was fun and they threw in a mini baby shower for me.

Kristy, Yenny, Tiffany, Viviana, Nikki, Scott, Beth, Booker, Lydia, Me, Stephanie, Carlos

Robbin, Nykky, Elvin, Ms. Taylor











Lydia and Beth were definitely the instigators of the baby shower. My classmates (and teacher)got me cute outfits for Audrey, diapers, bath sets, burp cloths, etc and even the double umbrella stroller we wanted/needed (Thank you, Scott, Lydia and Ms. Taylor!). Lydia planned games and Beth made an awesome diaper cake.

Home Again

Kyle's been doing well. He's off the IV fluids and as long as he's awake, he's off the oxygen and monitors, too. He's only on a minimum amount of oxygen when he's asleep. He has to be off the oxygen for 24 hours without problems before they will release him but he's been in good spirits. Below is a really short video of Kyle dancing.

Looking Better

Kyle's been doing well. He's off the IV fluids and as long as he's awake, he's off the oxygen and monitors, too. He's only on a minimum amount of oxygen when he's asleep. He has to be off the oxygen for 24 hours without problems before they will release him but he's been in good spirits. Below is a really short video of Kyle dancing.

Back at the Hospital

At the pediatrician's orders, we brought Kyle to the emergency room at All Children's Hospital Thursday around 1pm. At around 9:30pm, they admitted him.

He's negative for RSV and for pneumonia but his respiratory rate is very high and labored and his oxygen saturation levels are very low. He appears to have just gotten a common cold and his lungs just can't handle it. He has a 5 month old roomate with the same signs and symptoms.

He's on 2 liters of constant oxygen through a cannula and he's getting nebulizer treatments of Albuterol every 2 hours (which makes his heart rate pretty high). He's also getting Tylenol periodically (just for comfort - he doesn't have a fever) and antibiotics for a slight ear infection.

Currently, he's getting a LOT of sleep in between pokes and prods from nurses and techs. When he's awake, he's a little spaced out and not his lively self but at least he's not as miserable as he was before they put him on the oxygen.

Crawling Little Man (with video)

Kyle's quite the active crawler ever since Christmas/New Year's vacation. He's gotten to be very quick and he loves exploring. Quite a drastic jump in his physical development.

Here's a video clip of him crawling:

(Notice: he bypasses the toy laid out for him and goes straight for the TV remote!)

Kyle also likes singing now. If you sing, "morning bells are ringing, morning bells are ringing", he'll sing "ding dang dong, ding dang dong", he'll do a shortcut version of "head and shoulders knees and toes" ("head should-toes") and he tries to sing "twinkle, twinkle, little star" but usually just sings "tinkle tinkle tinkle" and "upabof" (up above). He does do a quick version of the motions that go with "head and shoulders knees and toes" but a lot of the time he just does head or toes. I'll try to get a video of him doing that

Pregnancy Update

Well, we're still debating on the middle name for Audrey (Grace is sounding nice) but she's growing at a steady rate and she seems very healthy. We passed the milestone marker (for us) of 27 weeks and are now at 29 weeks. She moves around a lot and has a very powerful kick. She seems to like caffeine, though. Anyone who knows me knows I am NOT a coffee drinker but for the last couple of months I've been addicted to iced coffees. I know that it's not good to have caffeine during pregancy but what can I say? she wants it!

Here's a picture of the little girl herself...

and here's one of the "baby bump"...