Daphne is Two!

This week we celebrated Daphne’s second birthday.  She has a bit of a Hello Kitty obsession so we had a Hello Kitty birthday party for her. 

 

 

 

As a two year old, Daphne is delightfully determined!  In a less charitable mood I would call her a little dictator.  She is extremely opinionated on what she wears.  It is very difficult to get her to wear anything without an animal on it.  I was very happy to find a cute new outfit for Easter that had a Pegasus on it.  For some reason even choosing her pajamas in the evening requires a couple of different choices until she finally settles on one. 

 

She is very much a girly-girl.  She loves to comb her hair, unfortunately she will not let me put accessories in it.  Makeup is never safe around her.  Its not uncommon to see a big smear of concealer under her eyes or on Hello Kitty’s face. 

 

 

She is also very difficult to keep contained in a stroller.  We rarely use one these days.  But that does mean she will try to run off on adventures of her own.  If I pick her up to get her going in the correct direction, her usual response is an ear-piercing scream!  She loves to scream.  She did this in front of a police officer when we were walking through WEM and I was worried he might think I was kidnapping her!  She has also embarrassed me in Costco with her scream.  For some reason I had used the word “scream” in conversation with Rowan while both girls were sitting in the cart and she sure was listening.  She screamed automatically when I spoke the word.  She is also developing quite the sense of humour.  The other day when I was playing with Rowan and Daphne and they were being quite hyper, I said “I think you girls need to chill out.”  And with a big smile on her face, Daphne screamed as loud as she could.  As if it say “How’s this for chilling out!”  I have a hard time not finding all of this extremely adorable. 

 

Another bad habit is pushing chairs all around the kitchen to reach whatever she would like.  She sure likes to get involved in cooking dinner. 

 

 

She is also a very reluctant sleeper.  She loves to draw out bedtimes by doing the cutest things.  Sometimes she goes over her entire vocabulary, including animal sounds, before bed.  Sometimes she insists on offering me her "suckie" repeatedly.  Sometimes she even goes so far as to kiss each one of her toes goodnight before bed!  I always put the girls to bed at the same time and we snuggle up on the bottom bunk, just to tease her Brad always tries to give just the girls goodnight kisses, but Daphne never lets him get away with that.  He has to give mommy her goodnight kiss as well. 

 

 

Daphne also has a super sweet side.  She loves holding hands with Rowan and laughing at her sister’s antics.  She loves giving hugs and kisses to all her friends and family.  Mommy seems to get the most kisses!  She also loves her stuffies.  She gives them kisses, tucks them in, carries them around.  Her favourite night-time stuffie is a stuffed octopus we call Ockie.  She also loves her pink Hello Kitty we let her build at Build-A-Bear.  It’s her transplant buddy.  Instead of putting the heart in it when they stuff it, we put a liver in it I had made at home.  Rowan picked out the dress for Daphne's new Hello Kitty stuffie. 

 

 

 

 

Daphne also loves coffee.  She loves any kind of coffee or cappuccino ice cream.  She always tries to steal my coffee and loves when I let her finish the last sip. 

 

 

Puddle jumping is something she has discovered recently.  She loves it, and is so happy any time we pull out her rubber boots.  We have all been cooped up long enough, all of us are eager for all the snow to melt and spend time outdoors again. 

 

 

Medically she is doing well.  Currently we are on our longest run out of the hospital with her!  After her transplant discharge she was on 15 different meds.  Now they are down to 5.  None of which are injections.  She is on monthly bloodwork, monthly transplant clinic appointments, and monthly paediatrician appointments.  And a very recent development is that Daphne is tube free!  She has been tube free for a few weeks now.  That means she is taking her meds all orally now.  She has her grumpy moments where she is not happy to take them, but for the most part she does great with them.  And luckily for us the most important one, tacrolimus, is her favourite! 

 

Well, this post was all about what Daphne is like now that she is two.  We are so thankful for her everyday.  I always say to her "Are you Mommy's little angel?"  She usually replies by nodding her head.  I'll end with a very poorly shot "Birthday interview video" of the girls. 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I know this blog post is long overdue.  I have always been a procrastinator.  With the busy-ness of Christmas and the busy-ness of school, putting off blogging was just too easy to do. 

Here is a quick run down of Christmas.   This was a very special Christmas for us.  This was Daphne’s first Christmas at home!  It’s amazing to think how far she has come this last year.  Last Christmas Daphne was in the PICU.  It was Boxing Day that they took her off the ventilator.  This Christmas she was busy helping us decorate.

She also has quite the appetite and can usually be found eating. 

Daphne is definitely not a wimp when it comes to Edmonton winters.  She loves any opportunity to go out!

Here is a video of Daphne and her cousin Meaghan hanging out. 

Here are some pictures of the girls enjoying Christmas festivities.

This is Christmas Eve, the girls are very eager to open presents.  We have never had such an easy time getting Rowan to eat everything off her plate, since she was told there would be no gift opening until she was done!

They were sure tuckered out at the end of the night.

In the morning there was another gift-opening.  They were sure delighted!  Rowan kept saying “This is the best present ever!”  And “That’s what I always wanted!”  Except for when she opened her present that was a book, “That’s not what I wanted.”  I think she takes after her father in that department. 

The very next day was another gift-opening at her grandparents’ house.  It was very special because this was Daphne’s first time in Bow Island. 

Enjoying some Granddad time!

Medically, Daphne is doing fine.  Toward the middle of December, Daphne’s hemoglobin kept dropping.  We were worried that she was having a bit of internal bleeding.  Her aspirin was discontinued and we started giving her iron.  She was also scheduled to have an endoscope done.  I was very uncomfortable with having it done so quickly.  I preferred to wait and see if the changes in her meds would work before having a procedure done, but we went to her scheduled endoscope anyway.  Daphne had quite a stuffy nose at the time and the anaesthesiologist was also uncomfortable with it.  GI was consulted and it was decided to put off the endoscope.  I felt very relieved about this.  Her hemoglobin since then has improved and the endoscope hasn’t been mentioned again. 

We still hung out in the day surgery ward all morning and a nurse seemed quite surprised that despite having nothing done the entire process took so long.  I told Brad this later and we joked that it must have been her first day working in healthcare!  We have definitely learned a great deal of trust and patience when it comes to medical care.  We have always felt that everyone has truly had Daphne’s best interest in mind, so when a decision takes a while to come to, we trust that is because it was a difficult decision to make.  We have also had our share of emergencies with Daphne where there was no hesitation or delay in giving her the best care possible.  So whenever we are stuck waiting around for things, I can’t help but feel blessed that we are not in a life or death situation that makes everyone drop what they are doing to get to Daphne. 

As for my Christmas, I had the best present ever; my whole family at home together, happy and healthy.  Daphne and Rowan are such super sweet girls.  They are both very active, climbing all over everything!  Rowan is very loving.  Sometimes at night time she tells me “I love you soooo much.  I love you too much!  I am never letting you go to work again.”  Daphne is also very sweet.  She loves to cuddle and carry her dolls around.  She feeds them and insists I put real diapers on them.  When I come home from work they are always so happy.  They usually scream with glee.  Our house is quite a noisy one, but it is a joyful noise.