Fighting The Dragons: Rowdy Rowdy Eleanor Goudie

I started this post this morning and it was titled "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime" and was basically just photos from the past month. I didn't get a chance to finish it because Eleanor woke from her nap a little off and we have spent the last 5 hours watching her like hawks. The last four days have been very busy. We stretched our girls pretty far and had them out late and going all day. Penelope was pretty obvious when she got fed up. She would cry and cling tightly to me or Kris and not make eye contact with any admirers. Eleanor, however, was the centre of attention. She was bossing everyone around ("more Jingle Bell Rock?") and was the life of every party. She loves the spotlight and turns into a little Energizer bunny. She just keeps going and going and going and going...

Bossing her beloved Jack

But it seems that today she really hit the wall. She woke up groggy and played a little bit, but then was content snuggling and watching Winnie the Pooh. She nearly sat through the entire thing, which is unheard of for her. Kris made her favourite yummy dinner (yummy chicken - everything is yummy at the moment) and she wouldn't touch it. Her temperature was high, but not quite a fever. We gave her some Tylenol and another dose of cortef and waited an hour. Nothing changed, so we gave her another dose of cortef. That seemed to do the trick and about an hour later she started eating and drinking again. Her temperature came back down to normal and she perked back up. Kris and I had a moment of "what the fuck?" because seriously? Too much Christmas sends this kid into adrenal crisis? She has had an incredible year and has been in such good health, I feel totally overwhelmed when something like this happens. I hope when she wakes up tomorrow she is back to her regular self. We are cancelling the rest of our holiday parties, though! Girlfriend likes to pretend she can keep up with the big boys, and she is such a good little actress I thought she could.

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I've spent a good deal of time over the holidays thinking about the ghosts of Christmases past. We have had four with Eleanor, FOUR. That feels like so many for such a tiny girl. The first she was only two weeks old, and I spent most of it lying on the hide-a-bed in the tv/playroom at my parents house, watching episode after episode of Mad Men and nursing Eleanor. It was pretty awesome. The second was awful. We were discharged from Children's with the intent of having a quiet Christmas and instead ended up in the PICU at Vic General and watched a young man die. We got out just in time to celebrate, but ended up back in the hospital on Christmas Eve when she pulled her NG tube out. Last year everything was good, but we had no family around, so it felt a little lonely. This is the first Christmas she has been healthy and I guess I got a little carried away with how much she could handle. It doesn't help that this holiday season came right on the tail end of a very busy month of hospital visits.

Anyway, here are some of the lovely photos of our very special Christmas - our first with Penelope!