One of the hardest parts of having Peanut get sick over the last month is the food aversions she’s developed. She won’t go near baby food any more. If it’s on a spoon, she wants nothing to do with it. She also ignores the cubed avocado we offer her. Until she got sick, this was her favorite. The baby food is understandable. She never really cared for most baby food from the beginning with the exception of spinach, carrots, and sweet potatoes. But, she loved avocado – and her leap in weight gain was at the same time she started eating avocado. (Fortunately, she had gained the weight she did. She lost all of it while she was sick.) We had hoped the added fat and calories in the avocado would help her catch up.

That got me thinking – how do you hide avocado? Short of making fresh guacamole, I really hadn’t thought of “making” anything with avocado. What did we ever do before the internet? Did you know that you can swap out butter or oil in most baking recipes for the same amount of avocado? You may need to make up for the liquid of the oil in some recipes, but normally just a 1 to 1 swap will work – now I had an idea.

I pulled out the old faithful zucchini muffin recipe and started modifying. I cut the recipe in half – I wanted to limit my investment in case this bombed. One of the main restrictions on Peanut’s diet is sugar, so the next thing I did is cut the sugar. The original recipe (when cut in half) called for a cup of sugar – I went with a 1/4 cup. I then added 2 mashed avocado, a splash of olive oil, and an extra egg to replace the oil that was called for. The zucchini that is shredded and then froze always gets very watery, so by the time I added that to the mix everything was just about right.

The muffins baked like normal,smelled like normal, and (with the exception of a slightly green hue) looked like normal. The true test would be how they tasted – and not to me, but to Peanut. So when the next snack time rolled around we had the official test test…

Success! At least for the time being.

Things are slowing wrapping up in the garden. The nice part about this time of year is that the weeds are done growing, so there’s a lot less up-keep and a lot more harvesting. We started the year with 150 one-quart freezer bags that were strictly used for anything coming out of the garden that went into the freezer – there’s about 10 bags left.

The Connecticut Field Pumpkins did much better than any of the other pumpkins we planted this year. They didn’t get huge – rather, just the perfect size for carving.

And best of all, the fearless guard dog hasn’t tried eating any of them yet this year.

The pepper plants seem determined to go strong until the first frost. These were sliced and frozen for use in chili, casseroles, and fajitas this winter.

We planted three butternut squash seeds and ended up with over a dozen large squash. We’re hoping these will keep so we can use them this winter as cubed finger food for Peanut.

The Musquee de Provence pumpkins are taking forever to ripen. They should go from a dark green to a brownish orange. There are only three of them, but they are supposed to be great for cooking. Once they fully ripen, we’ll find out.

Finally, there are the raspberries. They were extremely late in blooming for a fall crop this year and at one point I didn’t think we’d get any berries at all before frost. In hind sight, with the warm fall and excessive amount of bugs we’ve had, their timing is about perfect. The bugs have thinned out with the cooler nights and berries are just peaking.

There’s a long history of me taking on a rather extensive home improvement project only to have it interrupted by a medical emergency of one kind or another. For example, there was the time we were in the middle of remodeling the basement in our prior home when Jill went into labor six weeks early with Lulu. Or, the ER visit we had while laying a hardwood floor in the kitchen of that same house. So, it should come as no surprise when Peanut got sick on Saturday I had something tore apart – two somethings to be specific.

Shortly after moving in, the DW and I realized what the seller’s definition of a “slight” water leak in the basement was. Let’s be clear, the house was finished in 1917 and a portion of the foundation is rock – I wouldn’t be realistic if I didn’t expect some water. The problem was the cement patio outside that was intentionally sloped towards the house. To make matters worse, when the cement slab was poured, it covered a window well. Not a sealed off window well, but a window covered with a board and filled with dirt. I think you get the picture on where the water was going and how it was getting there.

Earlier this spring I removed the majority of the cement patio. It significantly improved the situation, but still didn’t correct the problem. Last week, in conjunction with painting the house (more on that later), I started digging out the old basement windows so they could be sealed off properly. After taking about 18 inches of dirt away from the house, here’s what I found…

Yup… that’s the original glass and wood frame holding back the dirt that was piled against it.

And this one was so rotten most of the window frame was gone.

With both of the areas dug out and cleaned up, the plan was to brick the areas in to seal things up tightly. And that’s where I was on Saturday morning… with two 36″ x 18″ holes in the side of the foundation and rain forecasted for later that day… as I was on the way to the UIHC with Peanut.

This is were I’m lucky to live close to family. A short time after the DW and I had left with Peanut, my dad had rounded up my brothers. (For the record, this is the same crew that bailed me out on the basement remodel and hardwood floor project.) Mortar was mixed and blocks were set in short order – though rumor has it they got more than a little wet from a heavy rain before they were finished.

Once things dry out, all that’s left is to shape the lawn back up (making sure the dirt slopes away from the house). Dirt will cover all but 3 or 4 inches of the top blocks.

Just a quick update…

Peanut’s doctors were pleased with her response to the early treatments for bacterial overgrowth in her intestine and decided to send her home late yesterday. (I’ll explain more about it once we have a little better understanding.) I’m not sure who was the happiest she was back home. Peanut will now continue on daily rounds of antibiotics that rotate on a week by week basis to keep the bacteria in check. Though her appetite isn’t back to 100%, she’s leaps and bounds ahead of where she was just a few days ago. If she can stay on track, her surgeons are hopeful that she can still have her reconnection surgery yet this year.

The last few days have been incredibly long. Early Saturday morning Peanut fully embraced the same vomiting/diarrhea regimen that landed her in the hospital a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, this time it hit her much harder and by the time she was seen at the UIHC on Saturday afternoon she was wiped out and dehydrated. Needless to say, Peanut was started on an IV of replacement fluids and readmitted to the hospital. She spent her weekend in and out of sleep, only waking when the cramps from the excess gas caused her to grab at her stomach and cry.

The last time we went through this, Peanut was diagnosed with c. diff and the on-call doctor originally assumed this was a recurrence – but that’s where the medical debate begins. Without getting into a bunch of detail, c. diff bacteria “brews” in the colon – Peanut doesn’t have a colon. How can someone without a colon get sick from a bacteria that needs the colon environment to thrive? Unknown to us, that was a topic of extensive debate and research by the GI doctors at the UIHC in the days and weeks after Peanut’s last stay.

In order to attempt to answer that question and confirm a proper diagnose, Peanut’s GI doctor scheduled Peanut for a procedure on Monday that would allow a camera to be inserted in her GI tract while tissue samples where collected. The process was relatively short – Peanut was put out, examined, recovered, and taken back to her room in under two hours – though by my “rate-the-seriousness-by-the-number-of-doctors-in-the-room” calculator we were at an 8 or 9. It was hard to tell because there were several that came and went and a few med students that were interested in the potential learning opportunity. The results? We’re still waiting for the results of the biopsies, but from the visual inspection the doctors were able to rule out a c. diff infection as the cause of the illness. Instead, they believe it’s an overgrowth of bacteria in the what’s left of her small intestine – a fairly common problem for “short-gut” kids.

Hopefully, we’ll find the right combination of antibiotics to help realign things and she’ll be back to full speed in no time. Until then, Peanut was already starting to feel better – at least enough to sit in her crib and play the tambourine.

The DW and I have always wanted a roll-top desk. For the style we wanted, anything new was out of the question. Since it wasn’t much of a priority we asked the DW’s parents to keep an eye out when they were at household and antique auctions for something that might go under the radar. Nothing.

Then, a few weeks ago, I was killing time one night running through craigslist ads when a photo caught my attention – it was an old roll top desk in the style we were looking for, but painted. It didn’t quite add up, as the asking price was about 10% of anything thing else we’d looked at previously. After discussing it with the DW, I shot the owner an email asking for the history of the desk. His response was that he thought the desk was from the 80’s, but he wasn’t sure as he had just recently acquired it and had no use for it. Again, it didn’t add up. I scheduled a time to go see it.

It didn’t take long to decide what to do after seeing the desk. The seller purchased abandoned storage units and was just trying to move a desk he found along the way (along with hundreds of boxes of clothes). He claimed to have no furniture knowledge. Clearly, as the desk wasn’t from the 80’s. The paint was light enough to tell that it was solid oak – everywhere. All of the drawers were dove-tailed at the corners. And, it was trimmed on all four sides. The desk probably pre-dates WWII (or so I’ve been told by some of the people who I’ve had look at it). The paint likely is covering any type of branding that may have originally been on the desk. If we ever get crazy enough to strip the paint and refinish it we might find it. Until then, we’ll just let it set as is.

I grabbed the camera last night thinking I’d get a couple quick picks of the latest project we’ve been working on for today’s post. Instead, when I turned it on I noticed the battery was almost dead and the memory card was half full – a little shocking since I had just cleared the memory card a few days ago.

It turns out Lulu must have swiped the camera at some point this week and had quite the time with it. You may recall, this isn’t the first time she’s done this. Of all the picks she took, I thought I’d share a few.

First, there were the toy pictures…

That’s “puppy.” Puppy has become Lulu’s favorite stuffed animal lately. There’s no chance of going to sleep at night if puppy isn’t at her side. There were a lot of pictures of puppy.

I think this was supposed to be a picture of some of her other stuffed animals she had posing for the photo. There were also a lot of pictures of Lulu’s finger.

At some point, Lulu must have taken the camera outside.

I think that’s the dog’s tail.

The yard.

The cows are in the distance. I think that or the swing set was what she was going for.

And then there were a pile of selfies (I wonder if Sissy will believe us now when we tell her she’s a huge influence on her little sisters.)

And Lulu was thoughtful enough to take some pictures of her little sister. Though most of them looked like this…

I’m not sure if Peanut was jealous she didn’t have the camera or simply scared. It was probably the later.

It’s hard to be mad when I found the camera right were it was supposed to be. But, once I talk to Lulu about it I’m going to find our old camera and make sure it’s set up for her to easily use. I may get just about as much entertainment out of it as she does.

I totally dropped the ball on this one, but last week – September 15, to be exact – was Neonatal Nurses Day. The day was established in 2000 by the National Association of Neonatal Nurses (NANN). On this day, members of the neonatal community honor nurse colleagues and show their pride in being a neonatal nurse.

Neonatal Nurses Day provides an opportunity to celebrate the hard work and dedication of neonatal nurses and the NANN community. On this day, we celebrate the gifts that neonatal nurses bring to healthcare. Their contributions and commitment to the tiniest patients makes a difference that lasts a lifetime.

Here’s just a few of those nurses that had a hand in Peanut’s care…

Peanut Catches Up with Nurse Jessica

Nurse Mikael

Nurse Tammy…and Peanut eating her hand 🙂

It really takes a special person to do what they do on a daily basis. A special thank you to all of the Neonatal nurses at the UIHC that have cared for both Peanut & Lulu while they were there! We cannot thank you enough for the dedication and exceptional care you provided our girls!

We go through a lot of taco seasoning around here. Of course, we use it for traditional tacos. But we also use it in other meals, like Texas Stew, for a little more punch than the original recipe calls for. Instead of buying envelop after envelop of taco seasoning, we found the following recipe to be a very close replacement. Not only is it less expensive, but it allows for the DW and I to adjust the heat in our taco meat based on who we’re cooking for.

Allrecipes.com – Taco Seasoning Mix

There was no post on Monday. Instead, the DW and I felt like we had stepped back an entire year to where we were at last September with Peanut in the hospital at the UIHC. Here’s how we got there…

About a week ago, Peanut came down with what we first thought was the stomach flu. Sissy and the DW had a day they felt queasy so we figured it was just a bug running through. Peanut would vomit, once or twice a day – normally in the evening – and had obvious intestinal discomfort. We kept her GI doctor in the loop and waited for things to clear up. But, it didn’t. After 5 days, Peanut started refusing any food that was offered and was willing to just sit with Lulu… Peanut never turns down food and the two of them never just sit together. Something was wrong.

Without any signs of improvement, Sunday morning Peanut’s GI doctor told us to bring Peanut to the UIHC. By early afternoon, Peanut was admitted to one of the pediatric units, had an IV for replacement fluids, and full battery of labs underway. (I always gauge how sick Peanut is by the number of staff in the room at one time. At one point on Sunday, the number was 5 or 6 and I was starting to get a little nervous. The only saving grace was that there was only one doctor in the ranks.)

While waiting for lab results, the DW and I worked on distracting Peanut. I don’t know if there could be a worse age to have a child in the hospital. She wanted to crawl around – but couldn’t. She wanted to chew on her IV line – but couldn’t. She didn’t want to be held all the time and she didn’t want to sit in her crib. Thankfully, between the Disney Junior channel, the huge collection of toys and books stocked by the hospital, and a floor mat, Peanut had enough new distractions to be ok with the restrictions.

Late Sunday, we learned that Peanut was suffering from a c diff bacteria infection. C diff is resistant to antibiotics and is common in in-patient settings – hospitals, nursing homes, etc. It spreads by spores that can survive most of the typical household cleaners – when you see cleaners that kill 99.9% of viruses and bacteria, c diff is one of the 0.1% they don’t cover. Most onsets of the infection occur while the patient is on some form of antibiotics that kill the majority of the bacteria in the gut and allows c diff an open field to flourish. It results in severe diarrhea with a distinctive odor (check), abdominal pain from excessive gas (check), and general flu like symptoms (check). Ironically, c diff is commonly found in the colon – Peanut doesn’t have a colon.

Peanut was discharged on Tuesday afternoon, but she may still have several weeks or even months of recovery from the infection depending on how she reacts to the treatment. Unfortunately, this will delay her reconnection surgery for at least some time. Hopefully, this is just a bump in the road.