Prayers Needed

I wish I was just writing about the birthday celebration we had for Chloe, but I'm not. What's on the forefront of my mind is Chloe being sick.  She's had a fever last week and on Saturday and then she has a cough, but now it seems she barely has a voice.  Poor girl, we're afraid this is turning into RSV - which just means a cold that she can't handle well by herself. Luckily we have some arbuterol from last year (I thought we didn't but we did).  It helps open the airways so we started giving that to her. I'm calling the doctor in the morning. Chloe just had her 2 year appointment on Friday and the doctor mentioned not liking the sound of her lungs, but Chloe wasn't cooperating well as she knows that room is the "bad" room where she gets her shots.  She just had the last sets of RSV shots on the 18th.  These don't prevent RSV, it's suppose to help fight it so she doesn't end up in the hospital. Grrr, sometimes I feel like a hamster on a wheel. Round and round, same thing as before.  I trust God and his plan, but I hope we are not being negligent somehow - not taking her to the ER or something along those lines.  At least, Joel pointed out, she is still acting like herself, wanting to play. We are watching what she eats because it does seem her appetite has decreased.  We are pumping her full of fluids, though. I even got some Pedialyte. She missed her party on Saturday.  She was so cranky at the start of it that we put her to bed and she didn't wake up at all (except when I woke her to change her diaper and put her into pj's). 

I wanted to talk to about how she is almost 30 pounds and is 33.5 inches long.  That her party was a "Dress Up" party.  I got the idea Thursday night.  She likes dressing up, so that was the focus.  We put out the dress up stuff and Kylie and her (they were the only kids except a 6 month old) dressed up.  Then we had "dress you salad" and "dress your dog" with some other food as well.  It went really well, except Chloe wasn't there.  She opened her gifts today. Kylie wants the Dora costume and swim doll that Chloe got.  Oh boy.  Great time to learn lessons in sharing and you can't always have what others have.

I also wanted to post pictures.  Someday.

The main focus is just making sure we are attentive to Chloe.

2013

2013 has arrived.  It feels like my accelerator is stuck at 80 mph and I can't slow down. I need to slow down as soon I will crash, but I don't know how.  Work is worse than home, I think. Or that's the way it feels because at home I can stay up late to get some things done whereas at work, I have to leave at 5 to get the girls. For some reason I feel like my workload is 5 times that of what it was last month. But it's to be expected now that year end is done and we have goals to meet in 2013. I just have to find a good way of managing it. My cubicle has exploded with paper recently. I don't notice so much because I work on a computer so I don't really notice until I'm leaving for the day or walking into the cube.   It's bad because we have a policy at work that we need to lock up confidential information, which is every paper.  I'm playing it safe.
As for home, I got down the Christmas decorations last Friday. That's not too bad, but my filing system at home has also exploded for some reason and we have tons of paper and other things that I need to take care of soon.  Plus the taxes. Plus filing out school registration for Kylie when that comes in the mail (should be soon). Plus keeping up on bills. Plus Chloe (and Faith's) 2nd birthday on Tuesday (plus getting a birthday card in the mail for my dad as the girls share his birthday, he was born waaaay before them : ) sorry dad, it's true).  Plus I'm scrapbooking this weekend - more for a get away and maybe birthday party planning than actually making progress on a scrapbook.
I may have fallen behind at home because I'm trying to do more with the girls as they are only this age once and we should be having fun.  The other night I told them to play dress up. Kylie was all over it. Chloe, a little hesitant to put on a princess dress, but she is all about the shoes. I did get a dress on her and she didn't seem to mind once it was on.  I see Kylie as the princess and Chloe as the hip mom when it comes to play time. I also found some games in a cupboard that Kylie could play (Scrabble Jr, Nemo, and Boggle Jr) so we play one or two a night after Chloe goes to bed. I love games. We even got Joel to play Nemo with us last night : ) He's not really a board game person.

We finally received a bill from the pharmacy for Chloe's RSV shot.  Strange thing is it's for the November shot. Not sure why it took so long.  The pharmacy called me today to get consent for the January shot and told me I had two bills outstanding. I told her I only got one, so she is sending the other one for December.  What are we paying out of pocket for 2012 you might wonder? Just for these shots: $1,287.  Good thing we have an HSA account. Each month total cost is $5,855.  Just over $29,000 for 5 months!  I have a high deductible of $2500 before insurance starts paying 80%, so I know what January's bill will be. WOW!
I was looking at the 2012 claims and a month of these shots is almost equivalent to a day in the hospital. The dosage is based on her weight and she weighs about 29 pounds so that's why it cost more because it comes in 2 vials. So when we go to the doctor's office, they get 2 nurses to each shoot up a leg.  She is going to be so scared of that place in a few months, poor baby. She doesn't cry for long, but still those crocodile tears make me sad. I know it's for her own good with her in daycare, kids are always sick there.

Hopefully I'll post some birthday pictures next week. Stay tuned...