Yesterday was my 24th birthday and it was a great day! First of all, it was a Sunday which means neither of us had to work. WOOT!! Secondly, it was Stake Conference, which means we didn't have regular church. Normally we would go to Stake Conference, but Jilly has been struggling with getting her canine teeth lately, and we'd had a rough couple of days, so we opted to stay home, rather than try to take her to a 2 hour long meeting. It was very nice for all of us to sleep in until about 10am. Steve got up with Jilly and got her breakfast, while I snoozed for a few more minutes. He made me yummy eggs for breakfast and we pretty much just hung out, watching the Olympics.
Jilly went down for her nap in the afternoon, I took one as well, while Steve caught up on his Xbox. Later, Steve made me yummy BBQ chicken and roasted cheesy potatoes, then we headed over to my mom's for a birthday party. My brother's 18th bday was last Wednesday, mine Sunday, Steve's is Thursday, and my sister's boyfriend's bday is Friday, so we had 4 birthdays within 9 days to celebrate! My mom got a YUMMY ooey-gooey chocolate cake from Whole Foods, and it was delish!! The gifts were all perfect. My mom & Paul paid for a Costco membership for me and got Steve an Old Navy gift card. My aunt Juliet gave us some money for a date, plus free overnight babysitting for Jilly so we can totally enjoy the date. Katie & Andy got us Heroes, Season 1 on DVD. SWEET!! We hung out and just relaxed, chatted and played. Very nice evening for everyone!
It was a nice, low-key, relaxing birthday, just perfect! I'm rather happy to be 24. It sounds much more grown up and a little less ridiculous to be married and have a kid at 24, than it did at 22. ;-) So yay for me!!!
Monday, August 11, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Chatty Chatty!
We have yet another person in our home that can't seem to stop talking. I know it's pretty shocking that Steve and I, quiet-as-church-mice individuals that we are, would have a chatty child, but it's true.
Jilly has really started talking, and can't seem to stop!!! It's wonderful!!!
She's been trying to talk for awhile, but making very little sense. It seems like in the past couple weeks, she's really taken off and is learning new words everyday. Here is a list of the words she says, both the actual word and the way she says it, if it's different:
Mama
Dada
Hello (ah-woh)
Byebye
Thank you (gehnk-oo)
Shoe (soo <-- usually in response to telling her to put on her shoes so we can go outside)
Go (GO! <-- seriously, it's an exclamation, usually in response to you saying "Ready, Set")
Baby (bay-bee, though I don't know that she understands the meaning of this one yet, she can just copy us when we say it)
Look (oook, accompanied by guestures of pointing, usually when at the zoo)
I Love You (i luh oo, this is still a work in progress even though I'm counting it here)
Book
No <--shocking, eh?
More (Moh, usually when handing us her sippy cup, asking for more juice)
Yay
Ball (also said as an exclamation, most often as she throws the ball)
Bed (beh)
Jilly (well, sorta. She says both "DA!" when looking at pictures of herself and "jih-ee" or "lell-ee" but it's not super clear yet)
She actually doesn't say Please or Yes, but she does know how to nod her head, so she gets the point across. But we are continuing to work on Please. It's an important one.
Her very latest achievements, which probably are the best, other than Mama, Daddy & I Love You:
Katie (two variations: Kay-ee or Kay-kay, VERY adorable)
Grandpa (gamp-ah, also very adorable)
She's getting closer on Granny, but not quite there yet.
Those are all the words I can think of right now. There are more, I'm sure, but you'll have to either wait for me to post them, or come visit us and see for yourself!
Another achievement of hers, she no longer uses a bottle! This was actually SUPER easy. One morning she never drank from her bottle, so I never gave it back to her. This has had a downside however. She no longer drinks milk. We've tried it in a sippy cup over and over again, and even tried to give her the bottle, but she staunchly refuses it. Lucky for us, she LOVES yogurt and cheese, so she still gets her dairy. I've heard from other moms, that is normal and she'll get over it in a few weeks. Until then, we'll let her be. But we are very lucky because she LOVES fruit, seriously would eat it all day long if we let her, to the exclusion of all other foods. Her favorites are: grapes, bananas, and blueberries, but she'll eat raspberries, melons, strawberries, etc. Also, she will drink cold water, so we don't have to give her juice all the time. We mix her juice with water anyway, but I still don't like loading her up on it. And since she'll take cold water, we give it to her. She eats pretty much anything we do and loves to feed herself. She is most excited when getting into her highchair or going outside.
We've been having a fairly busy but quite fun summer! I haven't had much time to blog between work, Primary and social events. We've gone to the Zoo another time with my family and best friend Regan. We went to a BBQ at Forest Park. Jilly and I have gone to a few Playgroups, with our church friends, including a carnival at Mukilteo Libraary last week. All have been super fun. Other than that, pretty much hanging out with our friends and each other, having a good time.
Summer is great!
Jilly has really started talking, and can't seem to stop!!! It's wonderful!!!
She's been trying to talk for awhile, but making very little sense. It seems like in the past couple weeks, she's really taken off and is learning new words everyday. Here is a list of the words she says, both the actual word and the way she says it, if it's different:
Mama
Dada
Hello (ah-woh)
Byebye
Thank you (gehnk-oo)
Shoe (soo <-- usually in response to telling her to put on her shoes so we can go outside)
Go (GO! <-- seriously, it's an exclamation, usually in response to you saying "Ready, Set")
Baby (bay-bee, though I don't know that she understands the meaning of this one yet, she can just copy us when we say it)
Look (oook, accompanied by guestures of pointing, usually when at the zoo)
I Love You (i luh oo, this is still a work in progress even though I'm counting it here)
Book
No <--shocking, eh?
More (Moh, usually when handing us her sippy cup, asking for more juice)
Yay
Ball (also said as an exclamation, most often as she throws the ball)
Bed (beh)
Jilly (well, sorta. She says both "DA!" when looking at pictures of herself and "jih-ee" or "lell-ee" but it's not super clear yet)
She actually doesn't say Please or Yes, but she does know how to nod her head, so she gets the point across. But we are continuing to work on Please. It's an important one.
Her very latest achievements, which probably are the best, other than Mama, Daddy & I Love You:
Katie (two variations: Kay-ee or Kay-kay, VERY adorable)
Grandpa (gamp-ah, also very adorable)
She's getting closer on Granny, but not quite there yet.
Those are all the words I can think of right now. There are more, I'm sure, but you'll have to either wait for me to post them, or come visit us and see for yourself!
Another achievement of hers, she no longer uses a bottle! This was actually SUPER easy. One morning she never drank from her bottle, so I never gave it back to her. This has had a downside however. She no longer drinks milk. We've tried it in a sippy cup over and over again, and even tried to give her the bottle, but she staunchly refuses it. Lucky for us, she LOVES yogurt and cheese, so she still gets her dairy. I've heard from other moms, that is normal and she'll get over it in a few weeks. Until then, we'll let her be. But we are very lucky because she LOVES fruit, seriously would eat it all day long if we let her, to the exclusion of all other foods. Her favorites are: grapes, bananas, and blueberries, but she'll eat raspberries, melons, strawberries, etc. Also, she will drink cold water, so we don't have to give her juice all the time. We mix her juice with water anyway, but I still don't like loading her up on it. And since she'll take cold water, we give it to her. She eats pretty much anything we do and loves to feed herself. She is most excited when getting into her highchair or going outside.
We've been having a fairly busy but quite fun summer! I haven't had much time to blog between work, Primary and social events. We've gone to the Zoo another time with my family and best friend Regan. We went to a BBQ at Forest Park. Jilly and I have gone to a few Playgroups, with our church friends, including a carnival at Mukilteo Libraary last week. All have been super fun. Other than that, pretty much hanging out with our friends and each other, having a good time.
Summer is great!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
The 4th of July! 11 days later...
I never posted about the 4th of July! Oh dear! Well, I was waiting to get my pictures off the camera and resize them. Which for me, can take weeks. So this is only 11 days after the fact. Not too bad...
Our 4th of July was a blast! It was the first 4th of July that Steve and I have been married for, where we BOTH had the day off. I also work that day, and most holidays he has off, so it was quite a treat for us to get to spend the entire day together. We all slept in late. I'm talking like 10am late. It was niiiiiice. Then we got up, cleaned a bit, and Jilly and I took off for my work to pick up my check. We cruised around Kenmore Air for a bit, then went home. Before we'd left, Steve had asked me why I put her in the pink elephant tank top and shorts, instead of something red, white and blue. I replied, because she didn't have anything very patriotic. She has a red shirt with cherries on it (pink, yellow and orange cherries) but she wore that for Canada Day, so it was dirty. Well, conveniently, on the way home from Kenmore, we pass by Old Navy! So we stopped and found a VERY cute white tank top, with silver stars and the words in red "I'm Independent." HA! I also scored some SUPER cute denim bubble shorts. I only spent $11 on a very cute outfit. Dug it.
After we got home, it was time for Jilly to scoot off for a nap, and Steve went grocery shopping. You may be wondering why on earth I would find grocery shopping worthy of a blog post. The answer is: because we hardly do it! We have developed bad habits of eating a lot of fast food or freezer/convenient food like Hot Pockets. We recently decided we were going to start eating healthier and cooking dinner every night. We even meal planned and wrote out a big giant list of all the things Steve had to buy. He ended up being gone for like 3 hours, I think? It was loooooong and there was TONS of food!! While he was gone, I heard this knock at the door. I was surprised to find Steve's co-worker Patricia and her boyfriend Sean on the porch! Well, hello! I knew Steve had invited them up, but I hadn't heard if they were coming or not. Hahaha. Apparently, they had called Steve to figure out which apartment was ours. He did call me to tell me, but he called while I was answering the door, so I got no warning. No big deal, they came in, we had a good time hanging out until Steve got home. When he did make it home, we spent another 45 minutes maybe of putting away all the food we'd just bought. Our cupboards, counters, fridge and freezer were F-U-L-L!!! It was a lovely sight. During this process, Jilly became fascinated with our shopping bags. I invested ($0.99 each) in the Safeway cloth re-usable bags, and trust me on this, they are the BEST EVER! They hold so much more stuff than those wimpy plastic bags, they are way easier to carry (much longer handles), which is important when you have a toddler who likes stairs and you live in an upstairs apartment. Plus, then you don't have all those pesky plastic bags floating around. Anyway, commercial over now. So Jilly was playing with the bags, putting them on her head and such. I decided it would be funny to do this...
She actually was quite amused. Patricia started lifting her up and Jilly was bewildered but excited by it. (That's 26 1/2 lbs of Jilly in there! Told ya these bags were awesome!)
She really did have a good time.
We kept hanging out while I made Fudge Sundae Dessert and Steve made him famous salsa (again, major thanks to Trey for the recipie). I kinda rushed the Fudge Sundae Dessert, which I learned you can't really do. So it never froze entirely, but it was still super yummy. Once we were all ready, we all headed over to some friends' from church for a BBQ and fireworks. It was like 8:30 when we finally showed up. Their kids were there, and their grandkids, plus some others from church. We had a BLAST!! There was good food, good fireworks, and good fun with everyone. Jilly had such a good time. She got into the sidewalk chalk (you'll notice it all over her hands) and got made when I took it away from her. But what was I supposed to do? Let her keep eating it? I don't think so! I may be a laidback mama at time, but I'm not that laidback. ;-) Anyway, I practically had the night off, because Patricia hung out with Jilly most of the night! It was nice.
Here are the two of them together, with the food table behind them.
Once the fireworks got going, it was really fun. Some of them were quite loud, the whistling ones and such!
At one point, Jilly started running around imitating the whistling ones. But mostly she had a great time watching. Patricia held her for lots of them, I held her for some.
We were lucky, because she didn't try to run out to them, but she wasn't scared either. She LOVED them!
There were tons of really cool ones, like the big up-in-the-sky types. It was really fun, but I didn't get any pictures of those.
I told ya, she had a great time. She would clap and cheer at the end of each one, driving the rest of us into giggles at her enthusiasm. It was a ball to watch!
After it was all over, we finally headed home, about 11pm. It was time for bed for Jilly and I thought for us too. But we ended up staying up until about 2:30am with Sean and Patricia! That did not make for a happy Aimee when I had to get up at 4:30am for work the next morning. But all in all, we had a great time!!
Stay tuned, more to come about our past week. :-)
Our 4th of July was a blast! It was the first 4th of July that Steve and I have been married for, where we BOTH had the day off. I also work that day, and most holidays he has off, so it was quite a treat for us to get to spend the entire day together. We all slept in late. I'm talking like 10am late. It was niiiiiice. Then we got up, cleaned a bit, and Jilly and I took off for my work to pick up my check. We cruised around Kenmore Air for a bit, then went home. Before we'd left, Steve had asked me why I put her in the pink elephant tank top and shorts, instead of something red, white and blue. I replied, because she didn't have anything very patriotic. She has a red shirt with cherries on it (pink, yellow and orange cherries) but she wore that for Canada Day, so it was dirty. Well, conveniently, on the way home from Kenmore, we pass by Old Navy! So we stopped and found a VERY cute white tank top, with silver stars and the words in red "I'm Independent." HA! I also scored some SUPER cute denim bubble shorts. I only spent $11 on a very cute outfit. Dug it.
After we got home, it was time for Jilly to scoot off for a nap, and Steve went grocery shopping. You may be wondering why on earth I would find grocery shopping worthy of a blog post. The answer is: because we hardly do it! We have developed bad habits of eating a lot of fast food or freezer/convenient food like Hot Pockets. We recently decided we were going to start eating healthier and cooking dinner every night. We even meal planned and wrote out a big giant list of all the things Steve had to buy. He ended up being gone for like 3 hours, I think? It was loooooong and there was TONS of food!! While he was gone, I heard this knock at the door. I was surprised to find Steve's co-worker Patricia and her boyfriend Sean on the porch! Well, hello! I knew Steve had invited them up, but I hadn't heard if they were coming or not. Hahaha. Apparently, they had called Steve to figure out which apartment was ours. He did call me to tell me, but he called while I was answering the door, so I got no warning. No big deal, they came in, we had a good time hanging out until Steve got home. When he did make it home, we spent another 45 minutes maybe of putting away all the food we'd just bought. Our cupboards, counters, fridge and freezer were F-U-L-L!!! It was a lovely sight. During this process, Jilly became fascinated with our shopping bags. I invested ($0.99 each) in the Safeway cloth re-usable bags, and trust me on this, they are the BEST EVER! They hold so much more stuff than those wimpy plastic bags, they are way easier to carry (much longer handles), which is important when you have a toddler who likes stairs and you live in an upstairs apartment. Plus, then you don't have all those pesky plastic bags floating around. Anyway, commercial over now. So Jilly was playing with the bags, putting them on her head and such. I decided it would be funny to do this...
She actually was quite amused. Patricia started lifting her up and Jilly was bewildered but excited by it. (That's 26 1/2 lbs of Jilly in there! Told ya these bags were awesome!)
She really did have a good time.
We kept hanging out while I made Fudge Sundae Dessert and Steve made him famous salsa (again, major thanks to Trey for the recipie). I kinda rushed the Fudge Sundae Dessert, which I learned you can't really do. So it never froze entirely, but it was still super yummy. Once we were all ready, we all headed over to some friends' from church for a BBQ and fireworks. It was like 8:30 when we finally showed up. Their kids were there, and their grandkids, plus some others from church. We had a BLAST!! There was good food, good fireworks, and good fun with everyone. Jilly had such a good time. She got into the sidewalk chalk (you'll notice it all over her hands) and got made when I took it away from her. But what was I supposed to do? Let her keep eating it? I don't think so! I may be a laidback mama at time, but I'm not that laidback. ;-) Anyway, I practically had the night off, because Patricia hung out with Jilly most of the night! It was nice.
Here are the two of them together, with the food table behind them.
Once the fireworks got going, it was really fun. Some of them were quite loud, the whistling ones and such!
At one point, Jilly started running around imitating the whistling ones. But mostly she had a great time watching. Patricia held her for lots of them, I held her for some.
We were lucky, because she didn't try to run out to them, but she wasn't scared either. She LOVED them!
There were tons of really cool ones, like the big up-in-the-sky types. It was really fun, but I didn't get any pictures of those.
I told ya, she had a great time. She would clap and cheer at the end of each one, driving the rest of us into giggles at her enthusiasm. It was a ball to watch!
After it was all over, we finally headed home, about 11pm. It was time for bed for Jilly and I thought for us too. But we ended up staying up until about 2:30am with Sean and Patricia! That did not make for a happy Aimee when I had to get up at 4:30am for work the next morning. But all in all, we had a great time!!
Stay tuned, more to come about our past week. :-)
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
We're going to the Zoo!
A few weeks ago, we went to Woodland Park Zoo with our playgroup from Church. I'd been looking forward to the Zoo trip, since I heard about it, in March, I think. Seriously, I was SOOOOOO excited to take Jilly to the Zoo. We actually took her back in April, but we didn't have tons of time, so I was excited to go again, and this time with more friends and little kids. I even drove Steve to work, so that I could have the car and everything. It was a thrilling day.
When we first arrived, we stuck together, but the group broke up the longer the day went on. I actually had to leave before I wanted to, because Steve had this strange idea that once he was off work, I needed to pick him up. Nonsense if you ask me, but hey, that's what a wife does, right? Anyway, back to the story. The first stop was the African Savanna area.
Zebras
A Giraffe eating. You could actually pay $5 to feed the giraffe yourself, but it wasn't worth it to an 18 month old. ;-)
Lions, you can see the heads of both a male and female.
Hippopotamus! I love this picture for some reason. The hippo is all flopped there, with it's stubby little arm hanging out.
Hippo in the water
Then we saw the elephants! I couldn't get the best angle on them for a picture.
But we got to see one inside, getting a bath, which was fun.
Here are some of the friends we were with:
This was Jilly's favorite part- The orangutan! I didn't get a picture of that specific orangutan, but there was one who was sitting right against the glass. I let Jilly out of the stroller, to see up close. I sat with my back to the glass, while she faced me and the orangutan. She would look over at her, gasp, look back at me to make sure I was watching, gasp again and look back. She did this over and over again. It was the most I saw her respond to any of the animals.
The tapir, with a couple more friends of ours.
This was how Jilly spent most of the day. I call it Captive But Happy; fitting for a Zoo trip, eh?
On the way to lunch, we went past the tiger. He was so far back, I couldn't get the best picture, but hey, it's a tiger and you can see it.
We also passed the sloth bears.
At lunch, Jilly was so thrilled to be out of her stroller, that she kept being super cheesy. This is pretty much the standard grin anytime she sees a camera. :-)
After lunch, we went past the pudu. It's a tiny little deer like animal. Like seriously, it was less than 1 1/2' tall, maybe 2' long. Tiny, but very cute.
Then we saw flamingoes!! They're a new exhibit at the Zoo and were quite neat.
Closer up with the 'mingoes.
Proof that Jilly and I were both there at the same time. Plus, pink birds. How can you go wrong?
Another picture of friends with us. :-)
The last thing we did was visit the Day/Night Exhibits which are indoor. We weren't allowed to take strollers in. This was when/where I discovered I needed a leash. Jilly kept running from exit to exit, away from me.
We had a fabulous time at the zoo and can't wait to go another time!! Hooray!
When we first arrived, we stuck together, but the group broke up the longer the day went on. I actually had to leave before I wanted to, because Steve had this strange idea that once he was off work, I needed to pick him up. Nonsense if you ask me, but hey, that's what a wife does, right? Anyway, back to the story. The first stop was the African Savanna area.
Zebras
A Giraffe eating. You could actually pay $5 to feed the giraffe yourself, but it wasn't worth it to an 18 month old. ;-)
Lions, you can see the heads of both a male and female.
Hippopotamus! I love this picture for some reason. The hippo is all flopped there, with it's stubby little arm hanging out.
Hippo in the water
Then we saw the elephants! I couldn't get the best angle on them for a picture.
But we got to see one inside, getting a bath, which was fun.
Here are some of the friends we were with:
This was Jilly's favorite part- The orangutan! I didn't get a picture of that specific orangutan, but there was one who was sitting right against the glass. I let Jilly out of the stroller, to see up close. I sat with my back to the glass, while she faced me and the orangutan. She would look over at her, gasp, look back at me to make sure I was watching, gasp again and look back. She did this over and over again. It was the most I saw her respond to any of the animals.
The tapir, with a couple more friends of ours.
This was how Jilly spent most of the day. I call it Captive But Happy; fitting for a Zoo trip, eh?
On the way to lunch, we went past the tiger. He was so far back, I couldn't get the best picture, but hey, it's a tiger and you can see it.
We also passed the sloth bears.
At lunch, Jilly was so thrilled to be out of her stroller, that she kept being super cheesy. This is pretty much the standard grin anytime she sees a camera. :-)
After lunch, we went past the pudu. It's a tiny little deer like animal. Like seriously, it was less than 1 1/2' tall, maybe 2' long. Tiny, but very cute.
Then we saw flamingoes!! They're a new exhibit at the Zoo and were quite neat.
Closer up with the 'mingoes.
Proof that Jilly and I were both there at the same time. Plus, pink birds. How can you go wrong?
Another picture of friends with us. :-)
The last thing we did was visit the Day/Night Exhibits which are indoor. We weren't allowed to take strollers in. This was when/where I discovered I needed a leash. Jilly kept running from exit to exit, away from me.
We had a fabulous time at the zoo and can't wait to go another time!! Hooray!
Graduation!
Yeah, yeah, this is a few weeks late. Will it make you feel better if I tell you I've had the pictures uploaded into a blog draft for over 2 weeks and just haven't filled it in yet? No? Well, too bad then. ;-)
On Friday the 13th of June, my little brother Andy graduated from high school! He is now a full-fledged graduate of Edmonds-Woodway High School. Rock on Andy!
The ceremony was outside, at the Edmonds Stadium.
But of course, it being Washington in June, it was FREEZING COLD! Not to mention, we were sitting on the side the wind was coming from. We were all huddled under blankets, trying to keep warm, during the 2 1/2 hour ceremony, on concrete bleachers.
During his teacher's speech, Andy got a shout-out. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of "Live your dreams, like Andy Christensen who changes his hair color as often as his mood." ;-) Sure, there was another kid mentioned in the same sentence, but he wasn't as important as Andy. Anyway, it made us all howl in laughter.
After the ceremony, we gathered and took all the requisite family photos with the grad. It's hard to believe all three of us have graduated from high school! We're like adults now. Creeeeeeepy....
Jilly especially was thrilled for Uncle Andy. She also really dug wearing her monkey leash. After our trip to the zoo (more to come on that), I realized a leash was desperately needed. Luckily, she loves the thing and tries to play with it all the time. Everyone that saw her wearing it had to comment how much they wish they'd had one for their kids (mostly grandmas said this) and what a good idea it was. It's certainly a favorite around here!
Congratulations Andy! Way to go!
Now, because of his graduation, our Auntie Karen came down from Edmonton, Alberta. She got to spend lots of time with Jilly, who she hadn't seen since October! Auntie Karen helped give Jilly a bath, which she loved.
The watering can is her new favorite water toy. She loves touching the water as it pours out. :-)
And then this is just a fun picture. Jilly has never been into her pacifier. As a newborn, she couldn't keep it in her mouth, so we all just gave up. Well, I still have a few laying around in her toy box and such. She now finds them fascinating and loves to chew on them and play with them. So here's the cutie, smiling with her plug. :-)
On Friday the 13th of June, my little brother Andy graduated from high school! He is now a full-fledged graduate of Edmonds-Woodway High School. Rock on Andy!
The ceremony was outside, at the Edmonds Stadium.
But of course, it being Washington in June, it was FREEZING COLD! Not to mention, we were sitting on the side the wind was coming from. We were all huddled under blankets, trying to keep warm, during the 2 1/2 hour ceremony, on concrete bleachers.
During his teacher's speech, Andy got a shout-out. I can't remember the exact quote, but it was something along the lines of "Live your dreams, like Andy Christensen who changes his hair color as often as his mood." ;-) Sure, there was another kid mentioned in the same sentence, but he wasn't as important as Andy. Anyway, it made us all howl in laughter.
After the ceremony, we gathered and took all the requisite family photos with the grad. It's hard to believe all three of us have graduated from high school! We're like adults now. Creeeeeeepy....
Jilly especially was thrilled for Uncle Andy. She also really dug wearing her monkey leash. After our trip to the zoo (more to come on that), I realized a leash was desperately needed. Luckily, she loves the thing and tries to play with it all the time. Everyone that saw her wearing it had to comment how much they wish they'd had one for their kids (mostly grandmas said this) and what a good idea it was. It's certainly a favorite around here!
Congratulations Andy! Way to go!
Now, because of his graduation, our Auntie Karen came down from Edmonton, Alberta. She got to spend lots of time with Jilly, who she hadn't seen since October! Auntie Karen helped give Jilly a bath, which she loved.
The watering can is her new favorite water toy. She loves touching the water as it pours out. :-)
And then this is just a fun picture. Jilly has never been into her pacifier. As a newborn, she couldn't keep it in her mouth, so we all just gave up. Well, I still have a few laying around in her toy box and such. She now finds them fascinating and loves to chew on them and play with them. So here's the cutie, smiling with her plug. :-)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
No longer Patchy...
I am no longer having to use my eye patch very much! In fact, I haven't used it in a couple days. I still definitely have to tape my eye shut at night, because it dries out (as I found out Saturday morning), but my eye isn't quite as sensitive to the light. Hooray! I finished my steroids course Monday morning, so now I'm just down to the anti-virals for a couple more days. I saw the doctor last Friday for a follow-up and he said that it should resolve itself, but there's no way to tell how long it might take. To be honest, I haven't seen much of a change. I guess I'm getting used to not being able to taste very well. I keep telling Steve that now is the time to load up our food with spices. As some of you may know, I am a WUSS when it comes to spicy food. Like I order 1 star at Thai restaurants. Well, now I could easily kick it up to a 3 star, because half my tongue doesn't work! And actually, the numbness moved just a little, so the taste is skewed again.
I've been doing fairly well with it all, but I had my moments on Saturday when all I wanted to do was just whine and whine about all the annoying things about Bell's Palsy. My main complaints center around my lack of taste (eating is just miserable and infuriating without taste) and my inability to do silly little things like say my own name well or spit out toothpaste. After having a good long growl, I felt better and I've regained my normally sunny 'tude. ;-) I've pretty much come to accept this as part of my life. Last night, I started equating it with pregnancy. When I was pregnant, I couldn't fathom that there would be a time in my life when my body wouldn't be ruled by this foreign power. I just got used to all the funky issues and pretty much figured they'd last forever, even though people assured me they wouldn't. Well, they eventually did all resolve. That's kind of how I'm feeling right now about my face. It's annoying and frustrating, but I'm getting used to it and can figure out how to live my life with it. I might as well plan on it sticking around forever, since it could be months until it's resolved, but with any luck it will go away at some point. So that's kinda where I'm at with it all right now.
Now, the good stuff...
Jilly is as cute and adorable as ever, except that she all of a sudden got super clingy this week. Seriously, I don't get it. She's always been so independent, not really wanting to be held much, etc, like since she was 4-6 weeks old! But these past few days, she's been following me around constantly, grabbing onto my legs, trying to crawl into my lap at every turn! I love the cuddling, but sometimes, I'd just like to use the bathroom without a toddler inviting herself in! Hehehe.
She's also drastically improved her climbing skills. She can now scale both of our couches, from various angles. And does it TONS. I can't do much on the couch without her joining in. Silly Beans. She has been pulling her changing pad into her crib and sitting on it too. She fishes it off the dresser, gets it in the crib, then is pleased as punch to play around, just chilling on it. Weird kid, but hey, she enjoys it! ;-)
Running is starting in our house. She still can't do it great, but she's trying. When we go outside, she hates holding our hands, preferring to walk completely by herself. (Clingy inside, independent outside, I guess.) Jilly has visited a couple parks lately and absolutely LOVES the swings and slides. She will climb up the slides, from the bottom, ignoring the fact that other kids are coming down, if we let her. (We don't. ;-)) Here are a picture or two, as well as a video, to show you her utter delight.
It was crazy hot this past weekend, here in the Emerald City. Jilly got to go in the little pool at Granny & Grandpa's on Saturday evening and had a thrilling time doing so. We'll be having fun there for sure, this summer! Between that and our own pool at our complex, I think we'll be able to stay cool. Which reminds me: if you're in the area and need to cool off, we're allowed to have guests at the pool. Lemme know if you wanna come over!!!
One last thing. On Sunday, Jilly totally caught us by surprise by announcing, loudly, several times in a row, "AMEN!" at the end of all the prayers during Church. It was super cute and encouraging, because we've been trying to work with her on folding her arms lately. You can imagine how well that goes over with her. So it was nice to see that even though she wasn't doing exactly what we wanted, she was still getting something out of it. Not to mention, she made her daddy proud by saying "Ah-men" not "Ay-men". Latin-speaking Daddy was quite pleased. :-)
That's about all I have time for right now, because I have a clingy, tired Beanie Girl that needs a bottle and bed! Stay tuned for next week, when we cut off the bottle. Should be exciting....
I've been doing fairly well with it all, but I had my moments on Saturday when all I wanted to do was just whine and whine about all the annoying things about Bell's Palsy. My main complaints center around my lack of taste (eating is just miserable and infuriating without taste) and my inability to do silly little things like say my own name well or spit out toothpaste. After having a good long growl, I felt better and I've regained my normally sunny 'tude. ;-) I've pretty much come to accept this as part of my life. Last night, I started equating it with pregnancy. When I was pregnant, I couldn't fathom that there would be a time in my life when my body wouldn't be ruled by this foreign power. I just got used to all the funky issues and pretty much figured they'd last forever, even though people assured me they wouldn't. Well, they eventually did all resolve. That's kind of how I'm feeling right now about my face. It's annoying and frustrating, but I'm getting used to it and can figure out how to live my life with it. I might as well plan on it sticking around forever, since it could be months until it's resolved, but with any luck it will go away at some point. So that's kinda where I'm at with it all right now.
Now, the good stuff...
Jilly is as cute and adorable as ever, except that she all of a sudden got super clingy this week. Seriously, I don't get it. She's always been so independent, not really wanting to be held much, etc, like since she was 4-6 weeks old! But these past few days, she's been following me around constantly, grabbing onto my legs, trying to crawl into my lap at every turn! I love the cuddling, but sometimes, I'd just like to use the bathroom without a toddler inviting herself in! Hehehe.
She's also drastically improved her climbing skills. She can now scale both of our couches, from various angles. And does it TONS. I can't do much on the couch without her joining in. Silly Beans. She has been pulling her changing pad into her crib and sitting on it too. She fishes it off the dresser, gets it in the crib, then is pleased as punch to play around, just chilling on it. Weird kid, but hey, she enjoys it! ;-)
Running is starting in our house. She still can't do it great, but she's trying. When we go outside, she hates holding our hands, preferring to walk completely by herself. (Clingy inside, independent outside, I guess.) Jilly has visited a couple parks lately and absolutely LOVES the swings and slides. She will climb up the slides, from the bottom, ignoring the fact that other kids are coming down, if we let her. (We don't. ;-)) Here are a picture or two, as well as a video, to show you her utter delight.
It was crazy hot this past weekend, here in the Emerald City. Jilly got to go in the little pool at Granny & Grandpa's on Saturday evening and had a thrilling time doing so. We'll be having fun there for sure, this summer! Between that and our own pool at our complex, I think we'll be able to stay cool. Which reminds me: if you're in the area and need to cool off, we're allowed to have guests at the pool. Lemme know if you wanna come over!!!
One last thing. On Sunday, Jilly totally caught us by surprise by announcing, loudly, several times in a row, "AMEN!" at the end of all the prayers during Church. It was super cute and encouraging, because we've been trying to work with her on folding her arms lately. You can imagine how well that goes over with her. So it was nice to see that even though she wasn't doing exactly what we wanted, she was still getting something out of it. Not to mention, she made her daddy proud by saying "Ah-men" not "Ay-men". Latin-speaking Daddy was quite pleased. :-)
That's about all I have time for right now, because I have a clingy, tired Beanie Girl that needs a bottle and bed! Stay tuned for next week, when we cut off the bottle. Should be exciting....
Friday, June 27, 2008
Is your face twitching or are you just happy to see me?
This has taken me forever to post, most because it’s turned into a bit of a long story and I haven’t had that much time to be online. So I’ve been writing it on my palm pilot and finally transferred it to here.
Last Friday, I woke up and noticed my tongue felt weird. My sense of taste was off. Not just the flavor of anything I ate, but the texture as well. Later that day, I noticed my right eye started twitching. Saturday it got worse, and I was whining and whining to my co-workers about it, because I could hardly taste the food I was eating, and with your sense of taste that degraded, everything just gets kinda nasty. Plus, I really love eating and food. So I was just slightly bitter about Dr. Pepper suddenly being nasty to me. Grrrr. Guess, I still am. Anyway, Sunday and Monday it improved a little. It was finally on Sunday that I realized my tongue was actually numb on the right side, a patch in the middle of the tongue. The tip of the tongue and the left side worked, but the right side, not so much. Monday it was about the same.
I mentioned it to my mom when I took her out for her birthday lunch Monday and she said it sound like Bell's Palsy. Oh great. While I was at work, I WebMD'd it to find out more and it sounded like what I had but not as severe, because I didn't have any paralysis. Well, two minutes later, I started laughing and joking around and realized my right lower lip wasn't responding the way it should. Surprise! Paralysis!! Ergh. I called my mom and the way home and described it to her (it's only apparent when I smile, and especially laugh). She recommended I call the on-call doctor and get free advice (versus waiting til the morning and only getting a nurse). The doctor figured it was probably Bell's Palsy, but was worried that it would be something worse and told me to go to the ER that night, not wait for the clinic to open. Aw man!! Here's the first thought running through my head: "I don't have insurance! I can't afford this!!!" I told the doctor and she sympathized, but just couldn't advise me to do anything but go. Keep in mind, this is all on my way home, i.e. in my car, i.e. not with Steve. So I walk in the door, a couple minutes later, crying because I'm freaked out about everything that goes along with an ER visit to rule out a stroke! I tell him what's going on, I call my mom to tell her we're coming to drop off Jilly and we go. While we're at her house, I call the doctor again to ask which hospital I should go to. The local one (Stevens) that her practice is associated with, or Swedish in Seattle, where she used to work, my mom does work (she remembered the doctor from there) and I've had all my major stuff (surgery, giving birth). She recommended Swedish, so off to Seattle we went!!!
At this point, I'm pretty darn sure I'm not having a stroke, because nothing is sudden. So I'm starting to stress about having a CT scan or MRI and how much this is all going to cost, etc etc. Steve was so awesome. He was completely calm, told me to stop worrying about money, because there was nothing we could do about it and my health was way more important. Then he started cracking jokes and cheering me up. Just what I needed. I knew there was a reason I married that guy. We ended up driving around the First Hill area for probably longer than we needed to, because I kept telling Steve to turn somewhere and then it would be a stupid way to go. It probably took us an extra 10 minutes to park. He kept saying he wasn’t going to listen to me anymore (even though I knew where the ER entrance was, and he didn’t) but he kept doing it. I kept cracking jokes, when I realized I’d messed up, about why the heck he was listening to someone who just had a stroke. ;-) We finally checked in to the ER at 9:45pm. I was triaged and registered by 10:45pm, but then just had to wait until they can take me back. It's just before midnight when they take me back. I'm so glad my mom said just to have Jilly spend the night and she'd bring her home in the morning. What a load off my mind! I can’t imagine having done all that with a bitter, cranky, exhausted, independent, refuses-to-sleep-anywhere-but-in-her-carseat-or-crib toddler.
Once I was taken back to the room, they hooked me up to the monitors (PulseOx and BP). Originally when I was triaged, I noticed my BP was high for me: 114/86. When I got hooked up in the back, it had gone down just a tad, like 110/80. But otherwise I was doing fine. My symptoms hadn't changed since they'd gotten worse earlier that night. The nurse came in to check on me and told us the doctor would be in as soon as he could.
I'm not sure how long we waited but it was around 12:30am when he came in. Dr. Nicholson interviewed me about my symptoms and why I'd come in. When I was telling him about what I thought, he asked if we'd looked up Bell's Palsy online. I told him I'd done a little reading but not much. He then asked if we knew the difference between central 7th something something and peripheral mumbo jumbo. We kind of stared at him blankly, and quickly said, "No! That's why we're here!" At this point, it felt like he was asking, as if to assert his authority as The Doctor and almost scold me for reading online. But the more we talked, I realized that he was really just trying to gauge how much we knew, so he could best explain it.
He started to have me do different things to figure out exactly what was going on. I smiled, closed my eyes and raised my eyebrows. I could only manage one of those three things normally. My right eye couldn't close quite all the way; which I hadn't actually realized until we got to the hospital and tried it. My smile was definitely crooked. But I could raise my eyebrows symmetrically. The doctor showed us that meant it was my Peripheral 7th Facial Nerve, not my Central 7th Facial Nerve that was affected. Apparently that was a good thing. He then performed the rest of the physical exam. After finishing and finding nothing else affected, he told me they were going to run my urine sample, make sure I wasn't pregnant (which I'm not!), then he'd come back.
So we were back to waiting. It was past 1am and we were both really tired. I started joking around and asked Steve to compare the ER exam room to the L & D Triage room we'd been put in when I was pregnant with Jillian. Steve voted the ER room, because it was more comfortable for him. I kinda preferred the L & D Triage room, because it was private and you could look out the glass doors right out at the Nurses' Station, vs being closed away in this tiny room, I'm sharing with another patient (with just a curtain separating us) and not knowing where the nurse or doctor was. That was pretty much how we weedled away the time.
The doctor came back once more, and talked to us about the medications he was putting me on. He said that if you start steroids and anti-virals (about 40% of cases are related to herpes, I have HS1, i.e. cold sores) within 24-48 hours, then it improves the amount of function you get back. I was slightly bummed, because I knew it had been 4 days since my symptoms started. But! He said that since my major symptom (the paralysis) didn’t start until just a few hours before that, that he considered it within 24 hours. He told me, most people wouldn’t have picked up on the tongue numbness and eye twitching as early as I did. I felt a little better at that. But I also find it a bit hard to believe someone wouldn’t notice their tongue being all messed up! Oh well. Then more waiting. The nurse came in with my first medication, which I took right there, as well as the written prescriptions, but we had to wait for the second one to arrive from the pharmacy. We were really tired, and starting to lose the will to joke around. We started whining about how tired we were and getting impatient. But overall we both held up well. I was just so grateful that my mom could watch Jilly and offered to keep her all night. It would have been an utter nightmare with a cranky, exhausted toddler who refuses to fall asleep in anyone's arms.
The nurse came with my final medication as well as an eye patch, to prevent my eye from drying out over night since it wouldn't close. After being assured we understood the After-Care instructions, she let us go home. Praise be for that blessed moment! As we walked to our car, 4 hours after we had left it, Steve called his work, leaving a voicemail that he would not be coming in Tuesday. We finally made it home around 2:20am and had collapsed into bed, including sexy eye patch, by 2:45 or 3am.
Tuesday was spent running errands, picking up prescriptions at different pharmacies, taking my sister to the doctor and setting up my own appointment, picking up Jilly, then going to work. The new program offered at Wal-Mart, Target, and Fred Meyer, of $4 generic prescriptions saved me so much money! It could have cost me over $60 for just one of them, so you can only imagine how relieved I was to use the program. I also got a new eye patch, a cool black pirate looking one for during the day. The one from the hospital had three pieces: a gauze pad to close the eye, a metal colander looking cover, and an elastic band to hold it all together. It works fine at night (when it stays on) but during the day it really irritates my eye. The black one doesn’t tough my eye, so it protects it from the light, when it’s too bright, but doesn’t prevent the eye from opening.
Now, it’s Friday and things haven’t improved tons, but at least I know it’s being treated. I’m learning to live with it, but it is getting more annoying. My right eye can’t squint or close without artificial help. It’s still watering a lot, but I felt it starting to get dry last night, so I had to put the eye lubricant in earlier in the evening. I can’t open my mouth all that wide, so eating can be a hassle. And even though the tongue numbness improved from Saturday, it’s still there, and food is still not as pleasing as it should be. Dr. Pepper is still gross, which is probably the greatest travesty in the whole matter. I can’t close the right corner of my mouth either, so now I’m drooling more. Oh joy. And drinking and eating need to be done carefully, so as not to spill and dribble all over myself. I started twitching a little again, like in the center of my upper and lower lips, and below my right eye, but it’s only on occasion. I can feel more of the paralysis in my face, like above my upper lip and below my eye. My cheek feels a bit weird from not being used like it normally is. But my face isn’t actually numb. Nor is it drooping. So it’s still not noticeable until I tried to close my eyes or smile. I can feel it when I talk, but no one can really tell. There are a couple random things though. Because my mouth has trouble closing completely (you know, other than my typical constant chattiness ;-)), it’s hard to spit, like when I’m brushing my teeth, as well as take my pills, and actually say my own name when I answer the phone at work. Hehehe. Oh well. Like I said, no one else can really tell. It’s mostly my own impatience with it. I have been quite blessed throughout this thing, my mom was able keep Jilly all night and call in a generic prescription for me. My major facial function hasn’t been affected and I’m not droopy at all. And I didn’t have to have the imaging tests at the ER that could have made my bill skyrocket. I’m sure this will all work out fine. I have a follow up appointment with the doctor at my regular office this afternoon. After that happens, I’ll post about what they say, plus I’ll see if I can get a picture or two to show off the sexiness that is Bell’s Palsy. Until then, my loyal followers, adieu!
Last Friday, I woke up and noticed my tongue felt weird. My sense of taste was off. Not just the flavor of anything I ate, but the texture as well. Later that day, I noticed my right eye started twitching. Saturday it got worse, and I was whining and whining to my co-workers about it, because I could hardly taste the food I was eating, and with your sense of taste that degraded, everything just gets kinda nasty. Plus, I really love eating and food. So I was just slightly bitter about Dr. Pepper suddenly being nasty to me. Grrrr. Guess, I still am. Anyway, Sunday and Monday it improved a little. It was finally on Sunday that I realized my tongue was actually numb on the right side, a patch in the middle of the tongue. The tip of the tongue and the left side worked, but the right side, not so much. Monday it was about the same.
I mentioned it to my mom when I took her out for her birthday lunch Monday and she said it sound like Bell's Palsy. Oh great. While I was at work, I WebMD'd it to find out more and it sounded like what I had but not as severe, because I didn't have any paralysis. Well, two minutes later, I started laughing and joking around and realized my right lower lip wasn't responding the way it should. Surprise! Paralysis!! Ergh. I called my mom and the way home and described it to her (it's only apparent when I smile, and especially laugh). She recommended I call the on-call doctor and get free advice (versus waiting til the morning and only getting a nurse). The doctor figured it was probably Bell's Palsy, but was worried that it would be something worse and told me to go to the ER that night, not wait for the clinic to open. Aw man!! Here's the first thought running through my head: "I don't have insurance! I can't afford this!!!" I told the doctor and she sympathized, but just couldn't advise me to do anything but go. Keep in mind, this is all on my way home, i.e. in my car, i.e. not with Steve. So I walk in the door, a couple minutes later, crying because I'm freaked out about everything that goes along with an ER visit to rule out a stroke! I tell him what's going on, I call my mom to tell her we're coming to drop off Jilly and we go. While we're at her house, I call the doctor again to ask which hospital I should go to. The local one (Stevens) that her practice is associated with, or Swedish in Seattle, where she used to work, my mom does work (she remembered the doctor from there) and I've had all my major stuff (surgery, giving birth). She recommended Swedish, so off to Seattle we went!!!
At this point, I'm pretty darn sure I'm not having a stroke, because nothing is sudden. So I'm starting to stress about having a CT scan or MRI and how much this is all going to cost, etc etc. Steve was so awesome. He was completely calm, told me to stop worrying about money, because there was nothing we could do about it and my health was way more important. Then he started cracking jokes and cheering me up. Just what I needed. I knew there was a reason I married that guy. We ended up driving around the First Hill area for probably longer than we needed to, because I kept telling Steve to turn somewhere and then it would be a stupid way to go. It probably took us an extra 10 minutes to park. He kept saying he wasn’t going to listen to me anymore (even though I knew where the ER entrance was, and he didn’t) but he kept doing it. I kept cracking jokes, when I realized I’d messed up, about why the heck he was listening to someone who just had a stroke. ;-) We finally checked in to the ER at 9:45pm. I was triaged and registered by 10:45pm, but then just had to wait until they can take me back. It's just before midnight when they take me back. I'm so glad my mom said just to have Jilly spend the night and she'd bring her home in the morning. What a load off my mind! I can’t imagine having done all that with a bitter, cranky, exhausted, independent, refuses-to-sleep-anywhere-but-in-her-carseat-or-crib toddler.
Once I was taken back to the room, they hooked me up to the monitors (PulseOx and BP). Originally when I was triaged, I noticed my BP was high for me: 114/86. When I got hooked up in the back, it had gone down just a tad, like 110/80. But otherwise I was doing fine. My symptoms hadn't changed since they'd gotten worse earlier that night. The nurse came in to check on me and told us the doctor would be in as soon as he could.
I'm not sure how long we waited but it was around 12:30am when he came in. Dr. Nicholson interviewed me about my symptoms and why I'd come in. When I was telling him about what I thought, he asked if we'd looked up Bell's Palsy online. I told him I'd done a little reading but not much. He then asked if we knew the difference between central 7th something something and peripheral mumbo jumbo. We kind of stared at him blankly, and quickly said, "No! That's why we're here!" At this point, it felt like he was asking, as if to assert his authority as The Doctor and almost scold me for reading online. But the more we talked, I realized that he was really just trying to gauge how much we knew, so he could best explain it.
He started to have me do different things to figure out exactly what was going on. I smiled, closed my eyes and raised my eyebrows. I could only manage one of those three things normally. My right eye couldn't close quite all the way; which I hadn't actually realized until we got to the hospital and tried it. My smile was definitely crooked. But I could raise my eyebrows symmetrically. The doctor showed us that meant it was my Peripheral 7th Facial Nerve, not my Central 7th Facial Nerve that was affected. Apparently that was a good thing. He then performed the rest of the physical exam. After finishing and finding nothing else affected, he told me they were going to run my urine sample, make sure I wasn't pregnant (which I'm not!), then he'd come back.
So we were back to waiting. It was past 1am and we were both really tired. I started joking around and asked Steve to compare the ER exam room to the L & D Triage room we'd been put in when I was pregnant with Jillian. Steve voted the ER room, because it was more comfortable for him. I kinda preferred the L & D Triage room, because it was private and you could look out the glass doors right out at the Nurses' Station, vs being closed away in this tiny room, I'm sharing with another patient (with just a curtain separating us) and not knowing where the nurse or doctor was. That was pretty much how we weedled away the time.
The doctor came back once more, and talked to us about the medications he was putting me on. He said that if you start steroids and anti-virals (about 40% of cases are related to herpes, I have HS1, i.e. cold sores) within 24-48 hours, then it improves the amount of function you get back. I was slightly bummed, because I knew it had been 4 days since my symptoms started. But! He said that since my major symptom (the paralysis) didn’t start until just a few hours before that, that he considered it within 24 hours. He told me, most people wouldn’t have picked up on the tongue numbness and eye twitching as early as I did. I felt a little better at that. But I also find it a bit hard to believe someone wouldn’t notice their tongue being all messed up! Oh well. Then more waiting. The nurse came in with my first medication, which I took right there, as well as the written prescriptions, but we had to wait for the second one to arrive from the pharmacy. We were really tired, and starting to lose the will to joke around. We started whining about how tired we were and getting impatient. But overall we both held up well. I was just so grateful that my mom could watch Jilly and offered to keep her all night. It would have been an utter nightmare with a cranky, exhausted toddler who refuses to fall asleep in anyone's arms.
The nurse came with my final medication as well as an eye patch, to prevent my eye from drying out over night since it wouldn't close. After being assured we understood the After-Care instructions, she let us go home. Praise be for that blessed moment! As we walked to our car, 4 hours after we had left it, Steve called his work, leaving a voicemail that he would not be coming in Tuesday. We finally made it home around 2:20am and had collapsed into bed, including sexy eye patch, by 2:45 or 3am.
Tuesday was spent running errands, picking up prescriptions at different pharmacies, taking my sister to the doctor and setting up my own appointment, picking up Jilly, then going to work. The new program offered at Wal-Mart, Target, and Fred Meyer, of $4 generic prescriptions saved me so much money! It could have cost me over $60 for just one of them, so you can only imagine how relieved I was to use the program. I also got a new eye patch, a cool black pirate looking one for during the day. The one from the hospital had three pieces: a gauze pad to close the eye, a metal colander looking cover, and an elastic band to hold it all together. It works fine at night (when it stays on) but during the day it really irritates my eye. The black one doesn’t tough my eye, so it protects it from the light, when it’s too bright, but doesn’t prevent the eye from opening.
Now, it’s Friday and things haven’t improved tons, but at least I know it’s being treated. I’m learning to live with it, but it is getting more annoying. My right eye can’t squint or close without artificial help. It’s still watering a lot, but I felt it starting to get dry last night, so I had to put the eye lubricant in earlier in the evening. I can’t open my mouth all that wide, so eating can be a hassle. And even though the tongue numbness improved from Saturday, it’s still there, and food is still not as pleasing as it should be. Dr. Pepper is still gross, which is probably the greatest travesty in the whole matter. I can’t close the right corner of my mouth either, so now I’m drooling more. Oh joy. And drinking and eating need to be done carefully, so as not to spill and dribble all over myself. I started twitching a little again, like in the center of my upper and lower lips, and below my right eye, but it’s only on occasion. I can feel more of the paralysis in my face, like above my upper lip and below my eye. My cheek feels a bit weird from not being used like it normally is. But my face isn’t actually numb. Nor is it drooping. So it’s still not noticeable until I tried to close my eyes or smile. I can feel it when I talk, but no one can really tell. There are a couple random things though. Because my mouth has trouble closing completely (you know, other than my typical constant chattiness ;-)), it’s hard to spit, like when I’m brushing my teeth, as well as take my pills, and actually say my own name when I answer the phone at work. Hehehe. Oh well. Like I said, no one else can really tell. It’s mostly my own impatience with it. I have been quite blessed throughout this thing, my mom was able keep Jilly all night and call in a generic prescription for me. My major facial function hasn’t been affected and I’m not droopy at all. And I didn’t have to have the imaging tests at the ER that could have made my bill skyrocket. I’m sure this will all work out fine. I have a follow up appointment with the doctor at my regular office this afternoon. After that happens, I’ll post about what they say, plus I’ll see if I can get a picture or two to show off the sexiness that is Bell’s Palsy. Until then, my loyal followers, adieu!
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