hi! pip is doing much better, so we hear. we are still too sick to go to the hospital. how is that for ironic? what matters is, piper is finally awake! <-and p***ed off about it. although she isn't completely stable with her vitals and such, she is well enough to start the weening process. her vent settings have been so high and her medication cocktail is likely one of the highest ever. so, hooray for lowering them. i spoke with her doctor at blythedale today, hooray for returning! we are doing all we can to avoid the same song and dance of blythedale-wannaque-picu, so hopefully we can scare people into giving us our way. i'm really just thrilled to be going back to blythedale, even though it will likely be at least a few more weeks....and we will be going to the yellow unit. yep, green unit is for two year olds and under. she only sneaked her way in staying in green because she was re-admitted a few weeks before her 2nd birthday. so we will have new nurses that we dont know! kind of sad. really, can't complain though. this pipture is from about 3 days before piper got sick. pretty crazy that it was such a good day. i would have never believed the battle we were in for that week.then these piptures are just some old ones i came across from june 2008. i can't believe how little she is! this was just after her 1st birthday! she couldn't even sit up by herself yet and she is wearing a newborn romper. so nuts. also, those are katie-kate's fat feet in the background. this was their first cousin meeting.

she really was like a little baby in my arms. now she is so big! even though it takes much longer than the average kid, it still seems to fly by. wow....that's what i say to all that piper, jake and i have been through together.

"your funeral" was what kelly had to say when i told her i wanted her to drop her kids off with me while she was coming to town for a girls trip. i was so excited to spend two days with these girls. i had all kinds of fun stuff planned out that had to be rearranged because of the rainy saturday we had. but as you can see, we wound up playing in the rain anyway. i never met a puddle that i didn't like.

i wish my hair would just stay like this all the time.

little katie-kate the sweet. i feel kind of like satan after what i put kate through. i'm pretty sure she thought she was kidnapped and had a small handful of melt-downs whenever it was time to sleep. i think sleep time is where she knows that it is for sure weird that mom isn't around. i tried everything...i was all "kate you can see her tomorrow. kate, i'll give you some sugar if you stop crying for mama." and my final plea was "if you don't stop crying she will never come back". ok, bs on that last one.

for ser's though, seeing such a little scared person cry is heart breaking. i felt like satan i tell you...

the good news, she didn't miss her mom at all during the day. in fact, a few times she loved me and jake. she would run up to us with a big smile and hug our legs...especially to jake. when i was a nanny, the wee tot i watched (one of the four) was kate's age, and there is a BIG difference in their behavior. kate is very happy, loving and not spoiled at all.

seeing the pip: if kate would have allowed it, pipsey would have pulled her hair and poked her eyes all day. but kate didn't. here is proof that piper jane is totally guilty.

meg is a very good older cousin. she was SO excited to see piper jane. she kept asking me when we were going to see her. when we got there, she was gentle and interested in everything going on. meg is a very special girl to me. when i lived in atlanta, i got to babysit her a few times a week and we really bonded. she doesn't call me "mae mae" anymore, and she now calls her favorite movie "sleeping beauty" instead of "sleeping Judy", it's a little sad to see her getting so big, so fast.