Just a quick update for tonight - Alli was approved to go to rehab on Friday.  Unfortunately, she spiked a really high fever,  so we stayed put in the ICU over the weekend.  If all goes well, then she should transfer to rehab tomorrow.  Hopefully we will go home from there.

It has been an exciting week in the PICU.  On Monday, Usher's son was admitted down the hall from Alli.  I wish I could say this motivated me to shake out my post-pregnancy best and blow dry my hair every day, but alas, I stuck with my comfy hospital uniform - t-shirt and pants with flip flops.  I did practice in my head what I would say to Usher, should I be lucky enough to meet him in passing in the hall.  Luckily we didn't run in to each other as I couldn't think of anything clever or funny to say and if you can't be funny or clever in those situations then it is just embarrassing, ala my experience meeting Will Ferrell at Carl's Chop House - a story for an entirely separate blog entry.

Samantha has been doing a great job at mass lately.  She has been playing quietly and has started to show interest in various parts of the celebration.  She cares enough to ask me now if she is behaving.  Huge sigh of relief.  Before we leave I always ask her if she has anything she wants to discuss with Jesus before we leave.  Today she asked Him to please help Alli get better so she can come home and be with our family.  Her prayers are so sweet and innocent.  Sometimes we pray for her clock or Louie the rooster (another story for another blog post), but then she comes up with real winners like her heartfelt sentiments today, or when she remembers a person that we have mentioned to her is sick or having a hard time.  She has also become obsessed with saying a daily novena.  Since we finished the novena to St. Joseph, we moved on to a novena to Padre Pio.  She asked if we could learn about some other saints and start a new novena, so I will take her over to the Catholic bookstore one day this week to pick out a new one or maybe two.  We are open to suggestions.  Lately she has taken to turning on her lamp and looking at her books when we put her to bed at night.  Then, when I get home from the hospital, I go in tuck her in and turn off the light. Last week when I went in to her room at the end of the night I found her asleep amidst an array of St. Anthony prayer cards we received from the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement.  She calls them her "prayers from the mail."  It was quite a sight.

It is possible Joshua is teething.  He's drooling like mad and has been a tad bit fussier than normal.  I'm not truly convinced that this is the case, as both Samantha and Alli didn't cut teeth until close to their first year, but I suppose it is possible.  He continues to charm everyone around him regardless.

Ok, I think that is all for now.  Samantha is back in school as of Wednesday.  We'll keep you posted on Alli's progress in rehab.  Have a great week!

What a day!

We had our angels working over time today.  Samantha and I continued our novena to St. Joseph, as promised, and the condo sale was finalized today.  For those of you who might not appreciate the significance of this, since we moved out of the condo in 2011, it has always rented, or in this case, sold, on the exact day we needed it to without having to come out of pocket to pay the mortgage.  Given the economic circumstances, and what we know about other friends who have tried and are trying to sell condos, we feel very fortunate.  Given that we have been down to one income the last few months, we were concerned at the prospect of having to cover the mortgage if it didn't sell in time.  Our tenant moved out on Saturday.  St. Joseph took good care of us.  As any of you who deal with real estate know, things often happen at the last minute before closing.  Our sale was no exception.  There was one last detail that came up this morning that could have caused a delay.  Samantha and I said some extra prayers together when this came up, and everything was able to move forward without incident.  Jason was able to work through things and the deal closed on time.  We are relieved to have this off of our plate.

This morning, in between getting ready for the house to be cleaned, and extra prayers to St. Joseph, we had a play date with my good friend Emily and her two children Drew (3) and Sophie (10 months).  Emily and I went to college together (we actually grew up about 10 miles from each other and knew each other in high school, but didn't become friends until college...I digress) and she lived in Atlanta for a short time, but moved back to Ohio to be closer to her husband's family (novel concept).  At any rate, it was wonderful to see her and so fun to see Drew and Samantha play together.  She also brought some of Drew's hand me downs for Josh.  Since he was born (and even before) we have been the recipient of numerous hand me downs and I wondered if it would be too much, but somehow she brought just what we needed - pajamas and play clothes.  Jason and I had just had a conversation this morning about how Josh has grown out of his 3 months pajamas and I was debating buying him more, since we didn't have many 6 month pajamas.  So, now we're all set!  Many thanks to Emily and everyone else (Mindy, Jenn, Jane, and Corey) who have lovingly and generously sent us clothes.  Josh is very well dressed...and I have to say that every time he puts on one of these outfits it makes me think of the person who sent it and how grateful we are for their friendship :)

Alli should hopefully be transferred over to rehab tomorrow or Wednesday.  We had hoped she would go today, but there were some logistics that had to be worked out with her bi pap machine.  In the end that ended up being a good thing for us as we needed some extra flexibility today.  She continues to get better and stronger every day.  I haven't given as many details about her illness this past time, but it has left some lingering neurological impacts that we are praying will continue to resolve as she recovers.  She turned septic just prior to being admitted to the PICU and was unresponsive for about 24 hours.  When she started to wake up her eyes were deviated upward, she had stiff posturing movements in her arms/legs (we ruled out seizures), and no longer brings her hands to midline.  We are seeing slow improvement in all of this - the posturing has stopped, she is starting to bring her eyes back down to center, and she is starting to show more purposeful movements with her arms.  They also took her cast off since x-ray showed that the bone had healed enough for it to be removed.

So, that is the update from here.  Today is a day where I don't know where I would be without my faith.  Lots of challenges - some of them more significant than others - but we got through each one of them.  I am hopeful that as my children grow up they too will find strength in prayer during times of adversity.  The Lord always has a way of letting me know that He hears me and I hope my children know that He hears them too.