My date with my Kate

Cutie! She doesn't know how adorable she is...which just makes her more adorable!



Kate found a "truffula tree"!! *Think Lorax : )

 Tonight, I took Kate out on a date. She is so busy with school and volleyball, I feel like she is being dropped off and picked up from place to place, and eating in between.... with not much time to connect. Aside from the issue of time, Kate is a bit more difficult for me to connect with because her personality is different than mine, so it takes a little effort to get her attention.
My sweet, sweet girl likes her time by herself (though she wants to know where each member with the family is at all times); she only needs a few good friends rather than a bunch of giggling girls in her life; she doesn't feel the need to use many words or express herself, but when she does it is almost always profound or thought-out; she is loyal and believes in fairness and justice; and she is full of love to give but must be in the mood for hugs or bonding. I basically just described Walter! : )

Anyway, I miss my Kate, so I knew we needed alone time. I drove to Sweet Embellishments, a dessert place in our neighborhood that has yummy cupcakes and fun board games out for customers to play, if they'd like. We got there at 6:58pm, and they close at 7:00pm! What?!
We ended up shopping for a, well, I can't bring myself to type the word yet alone embarrass her with my sharing it. It rhymes with straw. Eeekkk! Can you believe it?! I seriously had tears in my eyes.
My goodness, when I had the twins, those first months and years were nothing short of a marathon of exhaustion, vomit, diapers, tears, toys everywhere, double-everything, exhaustion, messes, exhaustion. I would go through my days just hoping that the time would pass and my two babies would grow. Now, I am mourning the days and milestones that come and go so quickly.
How in the world can my baby girl need a straw?!
Mmmm, how I love my Kate.
*Kate loves this song.                                            

{An update on Elizabeth- oh man, we are in some trouble. Her labs from Monday show that her counts are even lower than the 3 week low she's had. Sigh. This includes white count, red cell count, hemoglobin, hematocrit, absolute neutrohpil count.... just a lot of important stuff!
Most upsetting today, though, was learning that her Prealbumin (a hepatic protein that is used to assess the severity of illness resulting from malnutrition in patients who are critically ill or suffer from chronic disease) is even lower than when we left the hospital. It should be higher than it was then because TPN and Lipids help her nutritional status, so knowing that it hasn't gotten into normal range and is in fact even lower than it was when it was starting to climb during her hospitalization, makes me feel sick. Tomorrow we see her GI to talk about what we're going to do now.
She seems better today in terms of the nausea and headache that she had after her transfusion, but she has been extra tired and shaky. She got exhausted just getting dressed today....most likely because she is anemic and still not getting enough fluids in.
Hoping for a better day tomorrow. Please continue to pray; I cannot express enough how much we need prayer for her body to get stronger and for her counts to go up.