I lost the will to blog...so here is all of June!

June has been super busy for us. It started with a fun trip into Manhattan for a playdate with Riley (2) and Piper (10 months). Gianna and Riley had a great time playing together. And Gianna is quite taken with Piper too. Piper introduced Mark to one of her local friends, Ryann. And these three chubs had some good staring contests. It was an unbelievably gorgeous, mild day and we were so happy to spend it all outdoors with friends! Thanks girls!

The next weekend our friend from Harvard, Kelly, came all the way from Texas to visit us. It had been a year and a half since we last saw her and it was great to reconnect. Gianna took an instant shine to her and wanted to show Kelly everything; especially her latest accomplishment: using the potty! We’re grateful to Kelly for being such a good sport and being Gianna’s potty “audience” for 2 days! (The potty training was basically Gianna’s idea and she’s been doing great! We’re so proud of her!)

The following week we went to my parents’ house in VA while Doug was in Luxembourg again. We didn’t do too many exciting things, but I got a chance to get some shopping done with the extra hands around. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

We came home Friday afternoon and Nonna made the trip with us; which was great since there was a major accident and the trip took almost an hour longer than it should have. Pop-pop came up Saturday morning. It was great to spend the weekend with them.

Gianna sporting all of her pull-ups on the trip home.

Gianna "feeding" Mark, so cute!

Last week we went to our church’s annual carnival. Gianna enjoyed the rides this year, so that was fun. It was SO hot when we were there that it sapped our energy a bit. Nonetheless it was fun to see her enjoy the rides and games.

Mark makes this face often, but it seems like the heat made it more prominent!

For the last few days Doug has been at a class and not been able to get home before the kids were in bed and was also gone all weekend. So we missed having Daddy around for sure! We’ve mostly passed the time with silliness at home, but we have had some fun outings like our trip tot he Discovery Museum. And check out our two silly videos at the end where Gianna sings happy birthday to America and Mark spins on his butt.

TEETH!

I swear, he makes this face all the time. It's not JUST because of the tiara :)

Mark loves The Supremes (he's watching a video of them)

I'm sure he would have enjoyed this "pond" more if he could crawl.

The first time Gianna has ever enjoyed a ball pit.

Grandparents and great-grandparents

The last couple of weeks have been busy. The kids and I went to VA while Doug was in Luxembourg during the week. We had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa and getting to see Aunt Elizabeth, and cousins Bella and Jack almost every day was a real treat. Unfortunately, I am a terrible photographer and there is little to no evidence that any of this occurred. But, it was a hot week, so I managed to snap a few pictures of all the fun Gianna had in the pool at Grandma and Grandpa’s and all the fun she had with Bella in the sprinkler at Nonna and Pop-pop’s. It was a great week and we are super grateful to everyone for keeping us from missing Doug too much.

Doug had a good trip to Europe, but we were so glad for him to come home Friday evening. But there’s no rest for the weary and so we were off to Binghamton to celebrate Doug’s grandfather’s 90th birthday and to see the rest of the De Angelo family (including great-grandma De Angelo, see picture). We had a great time getting to see so many family members!

As a side note, we are on day 2 of being pacifier (aka bunkin) free! I followed my sister-in-law Elizabeth’s idea of suggesting the idea of a bunkin fairy coming to take them all away and give them to babies who need them (thanks, Elizabeth!). So I’ve been mentioning the bunkin fairy to Gianna for a week or two and every once in a while I ask if she’s ready for the fairy to come. On Monday, much to my surprise, she said yes! There have been a few minutes of crying at every bedtime or naptime and some early wake-ups (but she’s been getting up early anyway, so not that much worse!) but all-in-all she’s done really well and we’re so proud of her. After her first nap without it she said, “Am I a woman now?” Sorry Gianna, just because you’ve gotten rid of your pacifiers does not make you a woman. Unfortunately, I believe she thinks the only thing standing in her way of becoming a woman now is using the potty. We’ll keep you posted on that one!

Florida and our 6-month-old!

Last week we went to Florida to visit some old friends and to go to (gasp!) Disney World for a day. (Our friend who works there got us in for free, we wouldn’t have attempted it otherwise!) Our dear friends Matt and Shannon (Matt and Shanno, according to Gianna) were our hosts. We spent the first day in Doug’s hometown visiting his high school and former teacher “Auntie” Yentz. Mark loved playing on Yentz’s bed and Gianna loved playing in her garden.

Our day at Disney was HOT and mostly enjoyable. Gianna rode some rides and loved meeting the princesses (though she had reached her breaking point just before meeting Ariel, hence the photo of just Mark and me with Eric and Ariel). I thought the wicked stepsisters and stepmother were hilarious and this was actually one of the best videos we got. Luckily after a nap, she was ready to go again and she loved the parade we saw just before leaving. So all in all, it was a successful adventure. Mark mostly slept, but I consider that a success too!

The week after we got home Mark turned 6 months old. I still can’t believe it. He seems to be getting happier every day since his hospitalization too. We feel truly blessed to see our baby boy so happy again! He is definitely thriving. He has a new found love of solid food and formula. Here are his stats: 19 lbs, 3 oz and 28 inches long (the 90th and 95th percentiles respectively). Maybe he’ll play basketball…maybe not, the odds of him staying tall are NOT in his favor. Oh, and the day after his six month birthday he got his first two teeth!

Mark and Gianna have a newfound mutual admiration for each other. They just smile and laugh at each other all the time. And Mark watches her every move. It’s so fun to see them form a relationship!

Mother's Day and Mark update

The Thursday before Mother’s Day Mark had a follow up appointment with the infectious disease pediatrician. He said Mark looks perfect and that all we have to do is follow up with an ECHO with the cardiologist in a few weeks. (This is because Kawasaki disease can effect the heart arteries. His Echo in the hospital was normal, so we would just be making sure everything still looked good. We will likely have to do this annually throughout Mark’s childhood.) The doctor also said that the test for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever came back negative. However, he also said that, though he originally favored a Kawasaki disease diagnosis, he was now more 50/50 since Mark’s fever didn’t drop quickly after the IVIG treatment for Kawasaki disease. He said that if Mark were tested for RMSF now, it might come back positive. So, basically we may never know what he had. We don’t plan to test him again, but if the cardiologist wants bloodwork done, we may go ahead and have the test. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it though. The important thing is he’s back to his old self except for one small detail. He has laryngitis. We don’t know if this is some other virus or just the result of a lot of screaming while he was in the hospital. In any case, it hasn’t gotten much better over the last week, but it doesn’t seem to bother him and it has a certain charm. Here’s a video where I tried to capture the raspiness. I’m not sure you can really tell, but it’s a cute video regardless!

My Mother’s Day weekend was very nice. My in-laws came up Saturday morning to go to a couple wineries with us (yes, NJ makes wine!). We tasted some nice fruit wines and got a beautiful tour of central Jersey farmland. On Mother’s Day I went out for a pedicure and ate way too many bad things for me. I think I’m going to start calling Mother’s Day “Fat Day” cuz it’s all about food for me. I did get a pretty good picture of me with my babies to celebrate the day too. And here are two other funny pictures. Mark looks like he just smelled his own diaper and Gianna was loving posing with her cute hairdo which lasted maybe an hour beyond this photo session!

Easter and a week in VA

This is way late, but with Mark’s illness and my general tiredness, it got put off by about a month! But anyway, here it is.

We spent a lovely Easter weekend in VA. Gianna loved all things Easter: dying eggs, hunting for eggs, and getting stuff! It was super fun to spend the day with Doug’s whole family. Gianna and her cousin, Isabella, hunted for eggs several times and looked adorable in their dresses. (Isabella has a tutu on under hers. Too funny!) And though Doug will try to take credit, Nick made a fabulous meal!

The next weekend we went back to VA again because Doug was set to spend 4 days in Vegas and I wasn’t about to stay by myself with the two kids for all that time! Luckily, my parents were happy to oblige in helping me. Gianna and Mark had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa. I’m sure they were tired from all the playing. We also got to spend some more time with Isabella and Jack. Gianna and Isabella are getting to be quite good playmates. It’s so cute to watch them and listen to their conversations.

Being silly with Nonna

Mark really enjoys eating his own socks. Hilarious.

Gianna enjoying crafts with Grandma

My new favorite picture of Mark. It's just so him.

Mark's illness

Many of you have asked for more details and I wanted to document this ordeal anyway. No cute pictures or funny stories, just the details of Mark's illness. So, inquiring minds, here you go!

Last Sunday night (2 Sundays ago), Mark developed a slight fever. I took him to the doctor Monday morning just to rule out an ear infection since he had been touching his ears too. She found nothing so concluded it was teething. Monday night he was up for 3 hours in the middle of the night with a fever of 103. We went to the doctor Tuesday morning and he said that with no other symptoms, we should just treat the fever with Tylenol and Motrin and come back Friday if the fever still existed. Well, the fever never really went away we went back to the doctor Friday morning since he had developed a rash on Thursday as well and had become increasingly lethargic.

The rash, with the fever, made the doctor concerned so he sent us to the pediatric ER right away. He also suggested at this point that it may be Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF). This seemed unlikely but given that we had been in VA (a high risk state) the week before, I thought he might be right. The ER doctors were not convinced since he didn't have all the symptoms of RMSF. So they told us he would be admitted (heartbreaking news) and the testing began. First, they sent us to radiology for chest x-rays to rule out pneumonia. Then they began getting blood. Well it turns out Mark is not generous with his blood because he has TINY veins and clots super fast (these are both great traits under any other circumstances!). So the nurses stuck him 4 times to get an IV in and they only got half the blood they wanted. It was awful! Then we saw a pediatrician from the hospital who told us she would do a spinal tap (horrors!) and get the rest of the blood herself. Luckily, I didn't have to be there for this! But she got the blood she needed and the spinal fluid was clear. So all good news.

Finally we got up to our room around 4 pm (we had gotten to the ER around 11am). We waited a couple hours for the pediatric infectious disease specialist to come see us. He came and basically told us that he had some symptoms of RMSF and some of Kawasaki disease. What?! Basically both have the same symptoms of fever and rash, but the way the rash developed was more like Kawasaki disease. (Incidentally, you cannot test for Kawasaki disease and the test for RMSF takes FOREVER to get results for so we're still waiting for that.) Even though the specialist was leaning towards Kawasaki, he couldn't rule out RMSF so he started Mark on antibiotics for it that night. We decided that, thought this medicine could turn Mark's teeth gray for life, it was worth it to prevent RMSF from progressing since it can be life threatening.

So we started the antibiotic hoping that we would see drastic results in 24 hours and not have to give him the treatment for Kawasaki disease. Giving the meds to Mark was not a fun time because he hated the taste. After the first dose, he threw up everywhere. So we knew to give it REALLY SLOW after that. He slept good that Friday night, but I did not...too worried! My parents arrived Friday evening to help with Gianna so Doug could stay with us at the hospital until late. We were SO happy they could get here so fast.

At 6 the Saturday morning, he had more blood drawn. Or I should say, they attempted to get more blood, but were mostly unsuccessful. This time, I almost fainted. Awesome. But that feeling passed quickly. Then Mark had an ultrasound of his gall bladder and an echo of his heart (both can shown signs of Kawasaki disease). The echo could show problems with his arteries and is the real danger of Kawasaki disease. Both showed no problems, which was great news, but didn't get us any closer to a diagnosis. Gianna, Grandma and Grandpa came for a visit in the morning too. It was great to see them and we are beyond grateful for the grandparents being here.

In the afternoon, we saw the specialist that afternoon and he said he didn't think Mark was improved enough to ignore the possibility of Kawasaki disease. We decided to wait the full 24 hrs from the start of the antibiotics to see if the fever went down before starting the treatment for Kawasaki disease. The fever did not come down, so at 8 pm Saturday night they started the treatment, called IVIG. The side effects of it are, ironically, fever and a rash (but more like hives in this case). And the risk of IVIG is that it's made up of people's blood antibodies. So the blood has been tested for everything they know about, but there is a very small percent chance that there is something in it that hasn't been discovered yet. Again, giving the IVIG was a risk we were willing to take to fix our little boy.

This treatment was loads of fun, wait no it wasn't. It was a 12 hour long IV treatment accompanied by aspirin every 6 hours. And we would have to stay at the hospital for 48 hours after the treatment was completed to make sure he didn't spike another fever and need another round of IVIG, so that would mean leaving Tuesday morning. But the main reason it was so awesome is because his vitals were checked every 15 minutes for the first hour and ever hour for 4 hours after that. Again not a lot of sleep for me! But Mark tolerated the sleep interruptions and didn't have any reactions to the IVIG. By Sunday morning, his fever was lower and as the day went on his rash seemed to be fading too.

Monday morning meant another attempt for more blood (unsuccessful, but in the afternoon, the hospital doctor got just enough to do a few more tests). But there was good news, Mark's rash was all but gone. Unfortunately, his fever never really went super low and on Monday afternoon got quite high again. The blood tests showed some signs that he was getting better, but his white blood cells were higher, so again, mixed results. Basically, if he spiked one more high fever we would have to repeat the IVIG. Luckily, his fever didn't get high again, but it didn't go away either. On Tuesday morning we were told we could go home if we wanted to or wait to have 24 hours fever-free before going home. We opted to play it safe and stay one more night. By the time Wednesday morning came, his fever had, in fact, been gone for 24 hours and we were allowed to leave!

At home we have to give him a few more days of antibiotic for RMSF (just in case it was that) and he has to have aspirin once a day for 4-6 weeks. We also have to follow up with a cardiologist in 6 weeks. So I guess the conclusion is that it was Kawasaki disease, but it still possibly could have been RMSF or just a weird virus. We may never know for sure.

We feel truly blessed that this did not end up being super serious. There are so many children in the world that are much more sick than Mark and my prayers are with them now more than ever. And words cannot describe how grateful we are to the hospital doctors and nurses and, most of all, to our amazing friends and family members for countless kinds words, positive thoughts, and endless prayers. We couldn't have done it without all of you and I'll never be able to thank you enough.

March thus far

I feel like we’ve been pretty busy lately, but really I think we’re just tired! The time change and Mark’s bizarre sleeping habits have done a number on us lately. We also spent a lot of time working on a photo book of our time in Europe. It consumed most of my downtime, but now it’s done and we can’t wait to get the finished product in the mail. Come to NJ if you want to see it! J


Two weeks ago we went to VA to see all the grandparents, and perhaps more importantly, to see Uncle Nick, Aunt Elizabeth and cousins Isabella and Jack. They’ve moved from Atlanta and we are SO excited to have them closer! This means lots more playtime for the kids…and adults!

The weekend was jam-packed with other visits too. We saw a couple of my college girlfriends and their kids and then went to my aunt’s home in DC where Gianna and Mark got to meet my Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Bob who they’ve never met before. Unfortunately there are no pictures of them, but we also saw my cousin Jeanne (Gianna’s godmother) and her kids; and Gianna thinks Leah is SUPER cool! Of couse, Leah IS super cool and we are so happy she likes to play with Gianna!

Then we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by wearing green, eating green eggs (I know, it looks gross), eating cookies with green icing, and coloring shamrocks. Gianna didn’t really get it. (I mean, how do you explain a holiday that is almost solely about drinking beer to a 2-year-old!) But she did enjoy our little ways of celebrating. And since there was a monsoon last weekend while we were away, we got to attend our town’s re-scheduled St. Patrick’s Day parade on Sunday. Again, Gianna didn’t really get it, but she liked the balloons and candy and her favorite part was the dancing cow in the pink dress. (What this had to do with St. Patrick’s Day, I’m not sure.)

Just this past weekend we attended an Easter egg hunt in our town. It would have been super fun if it weren’t for three things: 1) we forgot the camera (luckily I got one pic on my phone); 2) Mark was a cranky mess and 3) it was Fa-REEZING! Nevertheless, Gianna had a good time and has been playing with the plastic eggs and her bubble gun prize all week.

Yesterday we celebrated Gianna’s half birthday. She kind of understood the concept. She definitely understood celebrating. My mom always used to mention my half-birthday; we didn’t really celebrate, but it was fun to have a little reminder of being half way through your year. I admit I got the cake idea from my sister-in-law Elizabeth, but it was an especially awesome thing to do on a rainy day. So we all enjoyed a little half-birthday treat.