One Month of School Completed; It's time for a Vacation!

No really, this week is vacation.  All of China will be off celebrating a national  "Golden Week" and we'll be getting the heck out of dodge.  It's been a busy first month of school, I do think a break sounds good.  

ChinaBean headed back to her little preschool at the beginning of September.  Could she be any cuter?!  She attends a Chinese preschool three mornings a week.  If you ask her, she eats rice and soup every day for lunch (which is probably true).

ChinaBean was walking home from school pretending to talk on her wooden iPhone.  She's a woman with a mission.

EBean was very excited to be recognized as her class's Golden Child.  She was honored during the weekly school assembly for her perseverance while trying to write sentences.  We celebrated with the traditional visit to Cold Stone.

EBean has also been taking swimming as part of her PE classes this term.  She loved it!

Nice form EBean!

Girl Scouts has resumed.  This is the start of my 4th year as a leader!  Now I have a better sense of how women end up leading for 20+ years...they must have several daughters too.  LBean is a second-year Brownie and EBean is finally a Daisy.  The poor girl has watched her sister do activities and make crafts for the last three years and she is super excited to be an official member this year.

Our troop has grown so much that my friend Sarah will be leading the Brownies and Juniors and I will be taking on the Daisies.  We have around 21 girls in our lovely troop.

Bridging ceremony.  Time to welcome the new Brownies. 

EBean playing a game at our first meting.

 Each class at the girls' school takes a turn to give a class presentation at their school's weekly assembly.  LBean's class performed at one of the first assemblies and I think it's nice to get it out of the way.  Her class performed a skit, sang a song, and showed a video about endangered and extinct animals.

LBean with one of her closest classmates

Taking a selfie

Class 4D at Dulwich

LBean's entire grade took a 3 day, 2 night school trip.  The kids were bused to Taihu, a lake situated about 1.5 hours from Suzhou.  They took a ferry to an island called San Shan where they learned about ancient temples, hiked a Buddha trail, picked oranges, made s'mores, watched a movie, took a night walk, and lots of other interesting sights.

Packed and ready to go!

Selfie has been mastered.

I was teasing LBean about this picture.  I asked her if she
realized that this was someone's underwear.  She said
that one of her teachers made a joke about the undies being
ancient artifacts!

Let's see, I know I'm leaving out something...homework, after-school activities (knitting & ballet for LBean), lunch-time club (ballet for EBean), violin practice, birthday parties, orthodontist appointments, colds, strep throat for me, and on and on and on.

Maybe we really do need a vacation...

Typhoon Tuesday & Tuna Tradition

A typhoon was passing through the area today, so it was too wet to be outside.  Instead, we stayed inside after school.  We played with some pumpkin-spiced homemade play doh.  Everyone played with the play doh for over an hour, even Ayi!

ChinaBean giving the "V" for victory.

EBean made several birthday "cakes".

After I explained to Ayi that, even though I had cooked the play doh on the stove, we don't eat it!  Instead we played and played some more.

Love Ayi's smile!

We ended the evening with a new-ish tradition.  Jamie is in Japan all this week and for a long time we have eaten tuna noodle casserole for dinner when Jamie is traveling.  The tradition was born when I was trying to decide what to make for dinner when Jamie was gone.  It seems that the dinner expectations are lowered a bit when he is away.  I tried to think of something that we might enjoy, but that Jamie wouldn't mind missing...tuna noodle casserole came to mind.  He hates canned tuna (he's so refined, I am not, I love the stuff).  The girls enjoy it too, so although we miss daddy very much when he's gone, we try to enjoy our "girl party" and canned tuna.  See you soon daddy!

Out in 8

Watching Frozen one last time
before being discharged.

Well, ChinaBean never ceases to amazes us.  We were told to expect 14 days in the hospital and ChinaBean was ready on day 8.   I was shooting for 10 days, so I appreciate her over-achieving ways. 

I think the smile says it all!

Buckled up and ready to leave.

We returned to my hometown to spend time with the grandparents and extended family.  ChinaBean will have a follow-up appointment next Monday.  The doctors will be looking for any type of fluid build-up around her lungs.  They are also monitoring the blood flow through the new conduit around ChinaBean's heart and the oxygen levels in her lungs.  For the next 6 weeks ChinaBean has some "Special Care Instructions": 1) we're supposed to keep her away from large crowds (lots of germs); 2) We are not pick her up underneath her arms, which would cause her incision to pull, and instead we scoop her up underneath her tush; and last but not least 3) she is on a pediatric low-fat diet which restricts her total daily fat intake to 15-20 grams (I feel ideas for a cookbook coming on).  For the last year we have been trying to get her to put on weight.  Our goal was 15 kg (we didn't make it) and peanut butter and Nutella were daily staples.  We'll have to switch our goal for the next few weeks.  As I understand it, the low-fat diet, will help prevent fluid build-up in her lungs and prevent unnecessary strain on the heart.  

The big sisters had made a welcome home sign and they
were very excited to have ChinaBean home!

For now, we get to enjoy all the best things that summer has to offer...working in the garden, very (very) slow and safe rides on the Gator, playing outside, picking flowers, digging in the sand and playing in the water.

Checking the garden with Papa Joe.

Riding on the Gator (slowly).

Flowers for Grammy! 

Playing keep away from ChinaBean.

Just checking the crops.

A little time in the sandbox.

Amelia's surgeon and cardiologist were very understanding and moved up ChinaBean's 6 week post-op appointment one week.  If her incision looks good and her heart & lungs sound good, our entire family of 5 will be able to return to China together (as in, on the same flight) for another year of adventure & memories!  That is good news for this mama as EBean starts kindergarten the Monday after we are scheduled to return.  I don't want to miss that!

Recovering (and still watching Frozen)

We're still camped out at the hospital and it's been an interesting few days.  

We met another mommy whose daughter has a special
heart like ChinaBean's.  The mommy had been saving this
Lambie (from Doc McStuffins TV show) for a special
little patient and she gave it to ChinaBean.  It says
several things including "You fixed my heart!"

ChinaBean likes that Lambie can sing & dance.

ChinaBean was making steady progress until yesterday morning.  She had started to point to her chest tube sites and say "ouchie", but we weren't quite sure what was going on.  By early morning it became evident that she was in pain and that there was something more significant than just some soreness.  In the process of notifying the attending physician, I could hear a new sound that wasn't there before.  I almost dismissed it as the sound of ChinaBean's chest tube bulbs rubbing on the inside of her pajama shirt.  As Jamie and I listened more closely it sounded like a faint bubbling/gurgling sound, almost like when you're drinking through a straw and hit the bottom of the cup.  And, the sound only happened when ChinaBean would take a breath.  

A second chest x-ray was ordered and it showed that ChinaBean's left chest tube had slipped out some.  The physician looked at it and determined it had slipped out enough that the chest tube had to be removed all together.  Normally the removal of a chest tube is a cause for celebration because it means that the fluid around the lungs has decreased enough that the tubes are no longer needed.  However, in ChinaBean's case her left lung was still putting out a decent amount of fluid.  

We were told that we needed to watch ChinaBean's breathing and that fluid in her lungs could build-up over the next day, which we require inserting a smaller drain tube.  It was really difficult to see ChinaBean in that kind of pain, especially after she had made such great progress.  On top of that, my parents had brought LBean and EBean to the hospital for a visit.  I had really hoped to have everyone in the same room and to enjoy having us all together.

This is what happens when I tell her
she can't watch Frozen again, she
falls asleep.

About 30 minutes after the chest tube had been removed ChinaBean started to calm down and I felt like I could leave the room to see LBean and EBean.  I hadn't seen them in a week and I couldn't wait to wrap my arms around them.  They had some exciting things to tell me about their week with both sets grandparents and their Aunt Michelle.  I decided it was worth trying to bring LBean and EBean into ChinaBean's room for a visit.  We talked about how she wasn't feeling well and that if she was upset we would leave the room and go play in the activity room.  My prayers were answered because ChinaBean was calmly watching Frozen (again) and the older sisters were excited to watch too.  

My friend Cara had given us muffins earlier in the week and I had some fresh fruit.  We joked about having Sunday brunch and watching a family movie,which is very normal, but the setting just happened to be at the hospital.  Before the big sisters left, we used them as motivation to encourage ChinaBean to walk part of the way to the activity room.  It worked!  She walked a good distance and we all enjoyed playing together.  The big sisters and my parents left and headed north to the Wisconsin Dells for a few days.

After they left, we got the news that a room had opened up on the other side of the hallway, which meant would officially be on the PIC side of the 4th floor.  ChinaBean's new room is 2 doors down from the activity room and we are excited that it has a real door (yay for more privacy).  Uncle Matt came later on Sunday afternoon and he was our first visitor in the "new" room.

Removing the chest tube greatly improved ChinaBean's mood and appetite and that continued today.  She is showing more of her normal personality...laughing, giggling and talking more.  We made it to the activity room twice today and she walked all the way there, instead of riding in the wagon for part of the trek.  One of the fun things we did today was to paint ChinaBean's toenails and fingernails.  That started a running joke about how the hospital was the most expensive spa we've ever been too.  In fact, it is so exclusive that you have to be invited to come.

Getting a sponge bath and hair wash.

Time to be clean.

Pedicure anyone?

We had another visit from some special friends.  Some of the associates from Kohl's came to the 4th floor for a visit today.  They found us in the activity room and gave ChinaBean a stuffed monkey and a book.  

Enjoying her new book and stuffed
animal from Kohl's.

Grandma DiDi & Grand Larry came for a visit this afternoon.  ChinaBean enjoyed seeing her grandparents and she took them on a very long tour of the PIC floor in the early evening.  She scooted herself around for over an hour.  That's the longest she's been active since her surgery.

Hoping on the tricycle and ready to ride.

She wore herself out!

There is a rumor going around that ChinaBean might get her other chest tube out tomorrow.  Let's hope the rumor is true!

This Year's Recovery: Brought to Us by the Movie Frozen

Seriously folks, I think ChinaBean has watched the Disney movie Frozen 10 times in the last 48 hours.  But, since ChinaBean is the one recovering from heart surgery she gets to choose the movie.  The hospital put the movie on their hospital entertainment network about 2 weeks ago and I can guarantee that it has the best money they've spent.  One nurse told us that before that the hospital only had 2 copies of the movie and they had to track which room had the movie for fear that the movies would not be returned.  

Watching it with mama.

And again with Baba.

ChinaBean has officially been moved down in her level of care to Pediatric Intermediate Care, which means the nurse to patient ratio is 3:1 instead of 1:1 or 1:2.  The hospital is at full capacity on our floor, so even though she's stepped down in care, we haven't moved rooms.

ChinaBean walked a little yesterday during one trip to the activity room and today we bumped it up to two trips.  Her pain is being managed by Tylenol and Ibuprofen now and she is making good progress.  We're still waiting for a few non-heart related systems to return to their normal functions, but that will come with time. 

Playing on the iPad in the activity room.

And a tea party with Baba and a doll I affectionately call Stinky Baby.

Even though Elsa & Ana are ChinaBean's favorite princesses right now, we did get to see many of the other Disney Princesses today.  Some students from the choir at IVC (Illinois Valley Central) have started dressing up as different princesses, and Prince Charming too.   They visit the hospital to sing to the children and hand out stuffed animals.  Cinderella performed for us and we really appreciated their visit.

Prince Charming and the Disney Princesses 

My princess with the other Princesses.

We are starting to see glimpses of ChinaBean's personality.  She talked more today, smiled some, did a little of her dramatic arm movements for the song "Let it Go" and even gave her day-time nurse a good-bye wave.  Everything is moving in the right direction.  Jia you!

On the Road to Recovery! "Jia You"

ChinaBean's Fontan surgery went well and she is successfully on the road to recovery!

The night before her surgery we decided to combine the best of East & West cuisine and we dined on Chinese and pizza.  It was a good "last meal" before the big day.

Mmm pizza & rice!

ChinaBean stayed up so late the night before her surgery; she was being silly and could not get herself to sleep.  I think that it worked in her favor because she was so tired in the morning that she forgot to ask about breakfast and water.  She was pretty relaxed going back to surgery (a little medicine helped with that too).  

Cuddles under a warm blanket with mom.

We arrived at the hospital a little after 6 am and they took ChinaBean back to surgery around 8 am.  We were in the waiting room for about 5 hours or so until we were called upstairs to see her.  Several visitors came to visit, both friends from our time in Illinois and Suzhou, as well as support from the Grandmas and Grandpas.  

Can you tell they're related?

ChinaBean's first night went well.  She had some nice long stretches of sleep and the nurses kept on-top of the pain.  Her first day post-surgery we got ChinaBean up and sitting in the chair and taking a few steps.  She has started eating and she will be on a low-fat diet until she is discharged.

We had a brush with local fame yesterday.  Julie K (http://juliekmusic.com), a local singer and performer, was at the hospital. The Child Life Specialist brought her to our room for a private concert.  Thanks for stopping by Julie K!

Thank you for all of the cards, texts, messages and videos!  We have enjoyed looking at them.  We're still working on getting a good smile from ChinaBean and it's nice to have things to cheer her on.