Unexpected Easter

Normally my posts are all sunshine and no rain, but we've had a rainy kind of weekend and we're just going to admit it. Not all days in the life of an infant (almost toddler) are glorious and this weekend was a true testament to that. Actually, this past week has been a tough one for Catherine Ellis - our normal, playful, into-everything, fun loving girl has been kidnapped by a sick, irritable, restless and lifeless version of our sweet girl.

It all started Sunday - we thought she was cutting her molars and just dealing with side effects of that - and in our defense she is cutting her molars. She was restless all night, cried out on several occasions and sometimes couldn't be comforted back to sleep. By Wednesday night we knew something was up, but still thought it was just a bad case of teething. We gave her some Motrin and that seemed to help - by Thursday morning she woke up with a 101 fever and we kept feeding her Motrin and it would seem to break - Friday morning it never broke and they finally called from school to tell us that she needed to go home. We still headed to Jasper, she has no other symptoms of illness - no runny nose, no sore throat, we didn't think it was her ears - didn't seem to be pulling on them, no cough -nothing that we could see was wrong, so we carried on with life as we know it.

Saturday morning mid-morning she took a turn for the worse and her fever spiked at 105 - scary! We immediately called our doctor - they said come back to Birmingham to Children's - so we did and spent the rest of the afternoon at Children's. They ended up having to catheterize her for a urine specimen, prick her and draw a vial of blood for all these tests to try to determine why she had a high fever but no other side effects (visible to the human eye). As you can imagine, none of this was fun for our sick baby and it has to be one of the worse feelings in the world to have to sit there and watch her in pain when there is nothing we can do. They finally came back and said she has a UTI - we didn't even know babies could get them. Apparently they can and that explains the high fever she's had and the spike yesterday morning. They gave her a shot of antibiotics and she slept until they okayed us to go - when we arrived home she was MUCH better - so we decided to head back to Jasper so Sam (David's Dad) and Stacey (David's sister) could spend a bit of time with her - they are both missing her birthday next weekend because they'll be back at work. The ride back was not fun, but once we arrived she seemed to have a bit more life. Another rough night - its hard to sleep when you're burning up (fever hovered around 103) and we knew Easter was not going to be as planned.

But, as all of us know, plans don't get us anywhere most of the time. So, we rolled with the punches. She did feel good enough to get up and head to church after a nap - she looked precious but there were no smiles, not much laughter, and LOTS of irritability. We made it through Easter, even if it's not the way we had it planned. However, we'll take it. We have a child that is almost a year old that has been sick (more than a cold) twice now in her short life - we'll take that. I know lots of Mommies that have had to deal with lot more than two illnesses within the first 12 months of life. We are blessed. So, like the saying goes, after every storm there is a rainbow - and that's ours. Thank you Lord that she can be cured and will feel better in a few more days. Thank you Lord for doctors that figured out what was wrong with her the first time. Thank you Lord for in-laws (and parents) that care enough to pray us through it, help us take care of her, and soften the blow. Thank you Lord for a child that even when she's sick, still is not too difficult to deal with - it could be so much worse. So while Easter didn't turn out the way we expected it to, we're on the road to recovery and are so thankful that our Lord has Risen.

We love this verse so we thought we'd share it on this Easter Sunday - John 3:16-17

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. "For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.


We did take some pictures and a few turned out pretty well for a sick little girl:

The Cains

Pop with his children and grandchild

Pop and Catherine Ellis checking out the blooms

Cains minus Gran (we swapped)

Rare Family Photo of all 3 of us

Even more rare - Mommy & Catherine Ellis (I'm usually the photographer)

Rise & Shine & Give God your Glory Glory!

Funny Daddy...he did a great job today (it was hard to make me smile)!



Yay for good doctors and medicine!


Yay for the Easter Bunny!

Wait, who is the Easter Bunny? This guy?

Blowing kisses

Happy Easter Everyone!

Cain and Emma say Happy Easter too!

The Easter Bunny visited us - he must be getting old because he visited us not once, not twice, but three times - Catherine Ellis is much loved!

Look what The Easter Bunny left me!

And last but certainly not least, we practiced a bit for our upcoming BIG day this week! This time last year (Easter was a week later) we brought our little bundle of joy home on Easter Sunday - in 5 days, we'll be celebrating her first birthday! What a joy this past year of our lives has been - so get ready for some walks down memory lane this week. I'll do my best to keep the blog fun and hopefully in the midst of my biggest event of the year (the day before CE's birthday) I'll find the time to enjoy and savor the memory of a full year with our little one!

Happy Easter and have a great week!