stuff

Well, I've pretty much failed at keeping up my blog! Oh well. More important things have been happening. At our one month home mark (July 2nd) we were feeling good, and even a little brave about re-entering the world. We've been nowhere, seen no one, and are actually starting to like it a little! (We are really not home bodies, usually...so this has been a challenge for us!)

(ok, these are boring details, but our life for now...sorry!)

So, there we are, feeling a little brave, ready to go to a 4th of July party in a few days, and BAM. Me and the boys are sick. (well, actually, I'd been fighting a cold for weeks, with a nagging cough) Super! First Hayden and I woke up with really sore throats. H battled a fever of 102 all day. We were supposed to attend our first outing, a family bbq with some friends from church. So, I was going to stay home with Lucy and Hayden. Matt took Jack and they went to the bbq, only 30 minutes later, were in the driveway with a feverish and sleepy Jack. The next day, Matt took Hayden in for a strep test...which is miserable for kid, and of course this day they were training a new medical assistant...so needless to say, it was a lousy experience. The strep test was negative, but we weren't convinced. The next morning I went to the Dr because I could barely swallow. I had a raging case of strep. Since both boys were sporting a fever and sore throats, we (us and the dr) were fairly certain they had it too, and we were all started on Antibiotics. Then, the boys started getting these terrible mouth sores. First Jack had blisters on his lips, then white blotches on his tongue, crying that his mouth hurt. Sweet babes, couldn't really eat it hurt so bad...I did some research, called my favorite Dr. Mom, Meredith, to see if it could be related to strep and stumbled on Hand Foot Mouth Disease (not really a disease, but a virus...why do they do that? Just to scare moms??)...they fit the symptoms to a "T". Turns out, it's highly contagious for quite some time, so we needed to basically quarantine ourselves until it cleared up. So, no 4th of July party for the Keslers! By Saturday, Matt felt sick too, but he'd been downing Emergen-C like a mad man, so it only lasted about 24 hours. We prayed little Lucy wouldn't catch anything and nagged the boys not to kiss her for days. We spent the 4th with my parents (because even "diseases" can't keep them away from the grandkids), and then came home to light our $20 worth of fireworks in the driveway. Lucy and Jack slept through it all...but Hayden had a ball with our neighbor kids. It turned out to be a relaxing day and even fun (diseases and all).
I took some pictures...Lucy couldn't stop looking at the gigantic flower on her head.
Got a few cute ones of her by herself like this:
But mostly this:
and this:


So by Tuesday, the boys and me are feeling good, but, my mom is feeling lousy...a visit to the dr, she has pneumonia! We'd all been coughing for weeks, but it hit her hard. Lucy had begun coughing at night time, but we seemed to be able to keep in under control. Wednesday, Hayden crashed his bike, landed on his chin, and landed us at the ER for the first time. about 4 hours and 2 stitches later, we were home just before midnight. Thursday Lucy was coughing like crazy when she slept, so Friday morning, we took her in to see the Dr. She was having terrible fits of coughing at night, that were freaking us out a bit. And, she came to us with a long list of "respiratory illness" so we were worried she was prone to difficulty breathing. After a very fun baby chest xray (not!)...our wonderful Dr concluded that she indeed, had Pneumonia!! Poor baby girl, really didn't enjoy the baby clamshell tube the put her in for an xray! She wailed and looked at me with these broken hearted teary eyes, as if to ask me, "I trusted you! Why are you letting them do this to me?!?" but...apparently baby wailing=a good xray, because it expands the lungs fully. So, at least there's that.

We seem to be finally on our way to health. We are pretty sure that Lucy's being exposed to a whole new world of American germs, and kindly sharing her Ethiopian foster care center germs with us. Hopefully, we've now gotten that out of the way, and can just enjoy some healthy summer for a bit! We went and played at Jamison Square in the water today, just becuase we needed to GET OUT OF OUR HOUSE. We are continuing to enjoy the little miss everyday.

Lucy has started some really precious habits...she is now crawling across the room and with her little ray-of-sunshine-smile, reaching up and saying "Da-Da!" Totally makes Matt's day and melts his heart. She really loves her fun with dada. (She prefers him for fun, me for needs most of the time).

She has also started wanting to snuggle her little face right next to mine when rocking to sleep...I'm loving that! She hardly holds still for a moment all day, except when we're rocking her. So, I'll take the snuggles then! At times, it feels frusterating that it takes her 20-30 minutes of us rocking her to fall asleep. If we try to sneek her into her bed when she's drowsy but not out, she usually will wake up and want to play....she really needs us to help her get to sleep (which is apparently healthy for an internationally adopted child, but against most child sleep experts advice) . It still comes to mind nearly every time, that no matter how many episodes of us rocking her to sleep for 20 minutes, it will not make up for the 7 months she's been without a mother and father to rock and comfort her. I get teary every time I really stop to think about THAT. So, sweet girl, can have 60-90 minutes of my day, at least for now.

The boys continue to love and grow closer with Lucy. Actually , they have loved her from the moment they layed thier dirty little paws on her, SHE, however, has not reciprocated the constant flow of love and affection! She is finally coming around to it, and becoming playful with them. I'm also learning to guide thier efforts into something helpful. Jack begged me to run inside and get my camera to take his picture with his "sissy" in the van the other day...this boy has a heart of mush...he talks mushy gushy baby talk to her all day long. His sing songy voice saying "hello beautiful girl" or "sweet shugie girl" ( I call her sugar...it's his short version)....


And Hayden happily entertained her with her favorite book, while we loaded up the car today. It was so sweet!!
Life has been a little crazy, a little bit of cabin fever, but every day is peppered with wonderful sweet moments with our kiddos (and salted with ones that make us want to gouge our eyes out). I don't know why this underlining thing happens sometimes...speaking of gouging my eyes out!! argh.