** There are lots of pictures in this post. Hang tight! **
Looking at my last entry, I am almost slapped my own face. Wow. It was for Christmas. Ahk. Sorta feeling like a bad person. Let's just say, life has been busy? Lame excuse or what?
Really, I felt like I started this blog to keep friends and family updated on Piper's health, and I suppose her health is doing really well... there isn't as much to talk about ;)
But really, life has been busy! I promise. Just to get it out of the way, health wise, Piper has been great. No health worries whatsoever. She had her blood taken in February and her neutrophils are still around 0.2, which is almost nothing. The hematology team at BCCH isn't too worried. We will have a cardio and heme check up for Piper on May 3rd. Piper will get her usual echo and ECG and then she'll get some blood work done. Really, it will be a pretty straight forward check-up.
We are hoping to see that in her heart, there has been a shrinking of the
muscle bundles that were present last time. We want them to either shrink (and eventually disappear) or to grow at the same rate as her heart (and also, eventually disappear). I do really feel, even if this echo doesn't look all that promising, that everything from this point on will move so slow. They aren't going to do anything drastic, just keep watching it. I am fairly positive they will send us home and either see us again in six or 12 months.
As for her blood and
autoimmune neutropenia, we are hoping to see it also slowly disappear in the next little while. The hematology team has always said that it tends to go away around 2 years old, and Piper will be 10 days shy of 2 at her next visit. Again, I have a feeling they are going to just keep an eye on it, as it's nothing too serious, and wait for it to go away. She has been able to cope through flu season and has fought off some serious colds, too. I am not too worried in that regard, but I would like to see what happens with this... I kinda don't want to even think about it anymore, even though it hardly ever effects our day to day lives.
Otherwise, Piper is a happy toddler, content to play on her own and with others and is a pretty good eater (though she would be happy to survive on cheese, yogourt and fruit for the rest of her life). She is trying lots of words, some in english, some in alien-speak, but we can communicate pretty well. She still uses her signs for lots of things, but has dropped some, like "cat" because she can pretty much say it now. Right now, her favourite things are:
- playing with her baby doll, and all it's accessories (oh my goodness! It's so cute)
- reading books, anywhere and everywhere
- getting a hold of anyones cell phone and figuring it out (within minutes she'll have the thing reconfigured... promise)
- trying to dress herself, or just pulling clothes out of her drawers and layering them on her head
- trying on shoes. Anybodies shoes.
- drawing with felts or pens (she has an incredible grip on that writing utensil, putting most first graders to shame!)
- eating breakfast with Daddy
- pestering the cat (she still loves the cat so much, and I even think the cat is slightly warming to her... slightly.
- riding in the car, and singing her own songs.
- pointing out things on the road: "dog, car, wow!"
We are amazed every day. Yup. Every single day. She is turning into such a great little kid. Oh man. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point ;)
In other news, Matt got a great new job, at a place in Surrey that makes stainless steel bakery equipment (I know, sounds random!). But the best part of the job is that he is in the shop about 50% of the time and on the road 50% of the time, fixing equipment all over the place, from North Van to Chilliwack. He loves the diversity and all the new people and especially something new. His employers seem really great, and so far, has been the best change for him. Seriously. He got part of his soul back. He starts at 8am, which is so awesome for our family. We can sometimes all have breakfast together! And he can even call and chat throughout the day when he is on a long drive.
I remember when he first saw the add on craigslist, he said, mouth hanging open, "this is my dream job". And it really does seem to be. Not the bakery equipment part, but the fact that he gets to trouble shoot and fix all sorts of crazy things, and then he gets to build things from scratch and meet new people and gets paid to drive around! He gets excited for work now. Such a good change for us all.
I have been working some more, too, and now send Piper to a friends daycare on Fridays, so I can have the whole day to myself to
work, work, work. This has also been a good change for us, and I feel less stressed throughout the week. Things are starting to pick up and I feel as though I am going to shift my focus in the next little bit to bring in more families and kids. We'll see how it goes. It's kind of just an abstract thought right now, but I feel the winds of change a comin'! In a really good way. And nothing too crazy, don't worry.
But I really did want to share some of holiday pictures with you! In January, we went to Florida and the Caribbean for 2 weeks. It was amazing, as you can imagine. The trip of a lifetime.
In Florida, we went to Disneyworld (just Matt and I - even though we got rained on for a bit, it was so worth it!) for a day, and then lots of beach time as a family. We visited a few parts of West Palm beach, and generally took it really easy. We stayed with the family that I used to nanny for and it was such a nice time to just relax and take in a new place.
And here are photos from our Caribbean adventures. We stayed on our friends family boat, so we went with our good friends Sarah and Micheal (and their 2 year old boy), and Sarah's parents (who's boat it is). A very fun gang!
We hung around the British Virgin Islands and went to lots of different places. I can't tell you them all, but we got snorkel (first time ever!) and see lots of awesome sea creatures. We ate some local food and saw some awesome landmarks. We spent lots of time on the beach, or hiking or even a little bit of shopping. We went in the water every day, and went through so much sunscreen and still got burnt a little.
Piper did so awesome. She was a natural on the boat and was eventually brave enough to wander around on the bow even during mid-sail. It was such a perfect time to travel with her. I can't comment on all of these photos because they all have a story, but hopefully you'll get a bit of a taste of what our trip was like.
