I'm 4!

That's what Emma said when she came in our room this morning - "I'm Four!"

Four years ago after being on bedrest in the hospital and then back and forth to the hospital for daily tests, the Doctor decided that we'd ALL had enough; and at 37 weeks and 2 days into my pregnancy, it was finally time. We knew Emma was breech from all of the bio-physical profiles I had had done in the past few weeks, so they planned for a C-section. After getting the older kids settled for the evening, Mike came to the hospital and it wasn't long before Emma was born!

Welcome to the world Emma!


I'm 1 ............................................. and I'm 2!

Then Three............ and now I'm four!

Samantha's new room

I'm finally posting photos of Samantha's new room. Its not quite done yet - as we still need to rehang her trophy shelves and the watercolor pictures we have. We also have bright pink "sheer" type curtains to create a "partition" in her room.

The colors were chosen by her with my guidance, and I'm glad I convinced her to let us put the turquoise in the corner I see down the hall.

From the door looking in, and then down the wall with the door, looking to the left-hand corner:


From the left-hand corner, looking to the wall with the door and from behind the bed, looking to the bathroom door:


And then there's her closet. I love that its bright pink, even the ceiling, because it contrasts well with the white modular ELFA closet that we have:

6.9%

This was Emma's A1C at her quarterly Endocrinologist appointment today! That's a pretty good reading and equates to an average blood sugar readings of 145. I'm pretty happy with that, especially since it was down 0.2% since last quarter. The bad part of that is that a lot of this is because of the number of lows we've been experiencing. The good news is that we aren't experiencing as many as we were but we're still experiencing them, and Emma doesn't feel them any differently than other readings, so we don't catch them as quickly as we'd like. I'd be fine with a higher A1C if it meant fewer lows.

The other positive news is that her endocrinologist has agreed to approve a Continuous Glucose Monitor for us. This will enable us to see what her blood sugar is doing without sticking her finger as much. And hopefully we'll be able to start catching the lows before they get too low.

There are 3 CGMSs on the market these days. We've piloted one before (the Minimed Guardian) but there are 2 others on the market that we haven't tried yet so I'm not sure which one I'd like to get. The Navigator was hyped as the most accurate of the three, with readings being only 7 minutes behind blood sugar readings. But the size of the transmitter worn on the body is pretty big and I'm not sure we want to do that yet. The third one - the Dexcom - is used by a lot of people happily and others hate it - I think you either love it or hate it and not much in between. So, I'm not sure what we'll choose between the three but I think we'll try the other two and then decide which one we want.

I'm not sure what kind of insurance battle we'll have. Some people get immediate approval for CGMSs. Others have to fight and appeal and others are just flat out refused. The endocrinologist thinks that having a good A1C (6.9% is pretty good) will make it tough for us, but weeks and weeks of documented low readings and zero awareness of lows should help. So, our amount of documentation will be very helpful.

It's just cold!

No other way to explain it - its just cold.

Its been warm-cold-warm-cold for a few weeks now. We got about 2" of snow last week, topped off with sleet and ice, which just made it dangerous and not fun. Mike took the kids up to Ski Liberty to go snow tubing, so at least they got to take advantage of the snow.

Samantha has a birthday party at the local pottery place - the girls all painted mugs and they were all cute.

Two days later, we started redecorating Samantha's room. We had a painter come in and repaint the walls and woodwork - they are now bright shades of teal and pink. I'm holding off on pictures waiting for some new bed lifts to lift her new bedframe off the floor. She has new bed linens from Pottery Barn Teen and soon we'll be hanging bright pink curtains across the middle of the room.

Mike and the kids of course were happy with the results of the Super Bowl. I had told them up front that they weren't staying up until the end, but then the game was close and I didn't have the heart to make them go to bed - so they got to see the exciting ending to the game!

I don't know why the first of the year always feels so busy - perhaps its because Christmas is barely over and I need to plan for Samantha's birthday and by the time I'm done with that, I need to plan for Emma's birthday, which is in about 2 weeks. For lack of a better idea, we'll be having her party at McDonalds where they can play in the play room and then have Happy Meals and cake! Sounds like a party to me!

Is it Spring yet?