Day 2

After I thought about it a little, I'm wondering, is today actually post surgery day 1 and tomorrow is day 2? Regardless, the day started a little too early for me! At 2:30 this morning Emma woke up in excruciating pain. She came up to our room crying like crazy. I quickly got up and went downstairs with her to get her some pain medication. She is NOT fond of medication as you may have understood from my previous post. This Tylenol with Codeine apparently leaves a lot to be desired in the taste department. Emma hates it. Trying to reason with a 5 year old at 2:30 a.m. about taking yucky medication is pointless. Scott attempted to help, but he was getting very frustrated which was only causing the situation to get worse, so I sent him back to bed. I tried to think of every way possible to disguise the medication so she would take it. I couldn't come up with anything that I thought would work, so I didn't even try. I didn't want to waste the medicine by mixing it with something and then she still wouldn't take it. I had the medicine in a little medicine cup and at one point I said, "Okay Emma, here's the deal. I'm going to make this decision be up to you. You can either take the medicine and make the pain go away, or you can sit there and cry and continue to hurt like crazy. I'm going to go upstairs to my bed and let you do it yourself because you're a big girl and I know you can do it." I went upstairs and hid around the corner to watch her. I felt terrible for her. I could tell she wanted to do it, but she knew the taste was horrible and couldn't stand the thought of drinking it. She had her blankie with her and she was chewing on it, then she would take it out and look at the medicine cup, then put her blankie back in her mouth. She sat there for a good 5 minutes doing this. She then turned to come upstairs so I shot into my room and sat down on the end of my bed so she wouldn't know I was watching. She came to me and wanted me to hold her and I took her back downstairs and cuddled a little bit and tried to get her to calm down. FINALLY, after 1 hour, yes, you read that right, 1 HOUR later, I got her to take the medicine. I put it into a syringe (which is the way we had been giving it and she didn't like it either) and told her to do it fast and she chased it with water. I thankfully remembered, at 3:30 a.m., that Dr. Spotts had mentioned the best way to get the kids to take the medicine is to bribe them with stars and then after they get 10 stars, you buy them something. That is what worked in the end. She has 5 stars now. I'm not sure what she's going to get after 10, but I will be thrilled to death if this continues to work without a huge fight. We laid on the couch watching a Barbie DVD until 4:30 this morning. Needless to say, we were both shot today. We have been on the couch most of the day. I also decided no way was I going to let her pain get out of control again, and I'm just giving it to her every 3-4 hours around the clock as directed on the bottle. She has been comfortable most of today and she fell asleep on the couch about 2 o'clock this afternoon.

Gage walked home from school as I stood at the window watching for him. When he got to the door and opened it, a package fell out of the door. The mailman slipped one by me this afternoon. He brought the package in and we saw that it was from Grandpa and Grandma S. Gage woke Emma up in his excitement. They were thrilled to have a package to open. Alvin and the Chipmunks movie was a big hit. They each got a book and when Emma opened up a Webkinz Gage had the saddest look on his face. He put The Water Horse DVD in and said to Emma so sweetly, "Can I snuggle with one of your new Webkinz?" He said, "Mom, since Emma got a Webkinz are you going to go get one for me too?" I told him that G'ma Pipi had told me there was a card coming in the mail for Emma and she put some money in it for him too and he could buy one with that, so he was excited to hear that. Awhile back Limited Too had a special deal on Webkinz. Buy one, get one free. Emily and I bought some up to have on hand for gifts. She commented at the time that she was surprised I didn't buy a couple more, and after I thought about it, I went back to the store a couple of days later to get some more because it was a great deal. So, I told Gage if he wanted, he could go upstairs to the "hider bench" and get a Webkinz. He snuggled right up on the couch with his new pig and Emma with her new brown dog and they watched The Water Horse together. (Which, by the way, I want to tell you is a very good movie! Emma and I watched it this morning). Thank goodness he got enough sleep last night, as that could have been a very UGLY scene! I'm awaiting day 3 (or day 2) to see what it has to offer.