December 2010! 12 months

Finally the cold is gone now onto teething! Maycen finally began teething, I first noticed her bottom tooth on Dec. 14th.  She was sick at the beginning of the month with a fever for three days and it was higher than a teething fever so I was a bit concerned.  I know her Physician really wouldn't say much but give her a few days, so I had one of my co workers check her ears and on my days off we just hung out and watched her fever and napped.  Now that that passed she finally seems to have gotten ride of the snot factory but now she is a bit fussy with the new teeth.
She is standing up or should I say dancing on her own now without holding on and she has made baby step attempts, no pun intended, on walking on her own.  I think she will have it down by Christmas but she is close! 
Jared and I have just been taking it easy we have had something planned or working every weekend so this last weekend we just hung out. Jared got some exciting news and has been offered a Job with a Finacial Planning company outside of the Military.  We are struggling to make a decision about this.  Jared only has 7.5 years till he retires and he would then get a retirement paycheck every month and benifits for the rest of our lives.
But being close to family with little ones is also important however all the heavy snow in the midwest is really making it hard for me to say, "Yes, let's move to MN".  Jared said I would have to shovel if we move there.  Other than the obvious about California which we are also considering, we are considering all things, the economy, a job and possible school for me, schools for our kids and also staying here in Washington.  Now that we are thinking of leaving we are realilizing there is so much that we enjoy about this area and we have barily explored any of it.  Really reminds you that you have to make the most of the time you have, no somedays and bucket lists because you just don't know when there may be a big change that changes everything.  The one thing about California at least where Jared is from is the climate and the scenery are very simular to here in Tacoma with the mountains so close.
So I will keep you posted on the latest, right now it seems to change every few weeks, so I will just wait it out and see where we are in a few months.  I have learned to not get all worked up over these crazy Job ideas Jared has come up with.  But I do have to say I am proud of him for getting the offer and hope that if it is an interest he will pursuit it, if not now than down the road after we retire from being GI Joe and Nurse Jane!

Holiday Greetings!

Merry Christmas and Season Greetings to You All!

 I hope this Holiday letter finds you all doing well, or at least finds you… for those not so internet savvy.  I thought this would be a fun earth friendly way to get our greeting out to you all and for you to see what is new with us if you never have been to our blog before.  I am not as good about updates and pictures anymore but usually ever few months I get going again.

Things are going well in the Toppenberg home.  We have had a wonderful year celebrating all of Maycen’s firsts!  She will celebrate her first Birthday on December the 30^th! She is almost walking, has just a sliver of a tooth showing through on the bottom and has what we think is the sweetest personality. Chopper our Dog just turned two on Thanksgiving and although we had a bit of stress with his $1000 broken toe incident he seems to be doing just fine now.   

Jared and I are settling into parenthood, and some of the challenges that come with it. I went back to work in April after we used our timeshare in Hawaii while I was on maternity leave. I still work on the floor as a Pediatric Nurse at the Military Hospital.  We’ve had a few challenges with finding the right Daycare this year and Jared’s Job kept him away for most the summer, which made working 12 hour shifts a challenge.  Some of the away time has been nice though, We were able to celebrate Maycen’s Baptism in Arizona with our family and our good friends that are now her Godparents while Jared was at training.

Jared and I have both considered different jobs this year.  Jared is in his 12^th year in the Service and is now flying full-time National Guard he was promoted to W3 (Warrant Officer) and also is looking into taking a position he was offered in Financial Planning.  This could allow us to move but that is all up for debate right now. We were fortunate enough to be able to spend time in Minnesota and California showing off Maycen to our family and friends.  Jared recently got to Golf Pebble Beach with his dad thanks to Crystal for coordinating a wonderful gift from the family, we bought his dad for his 60th birthday around of golf for the two of them. 

Our families are both doing well and have been pretty healthy.    

Some of the hold ups this year, you can read more about them in the earlier blogs and upcoming ones, have been the daycare drama, we actually got asked to be on Judge Judy for it and although we are not going to do that our Civil Suit is this Month.   The ordeal with Chopper and his $1000 broken toe.  Lastly, the most recent news is that we sold our rental property in Alabama and our renter in Minnesota has been very challenging, we are in the mist of major water damage repairs and eviction at that property.

Overall it has been a great year and we feel so blessed to be in good health and having new job opportunities in this market!  We are really looking forward to the year ahead and all the potential it holds but most of all we are looking forward to spending time with family and enjoying some good holiday traditions!

Love and Peace and Health,

So much to be thankful for! 11 months

Maycen’s New favorite food discovered on sample day at Costco is Cheese Progies. Tomatoes left Maycen’s bottom with a red burn after she digested the spaghetti. This happens to me around my mouth whenever I eat certain Tomato products. Poor thing we will be holding off on Tomato products till she is potty trained.

We were lucky enough to get off a few days in a row together after Jared was at NTC for National Guard training that we were able to visit Jared’s family for a pre thanksgiving celebration. We actually went to celebrate our niece’s Birthday’s. Brittin 18 , Demeri Sweet 16 had a bonfire and Paris turned 8. While I am on Birthday’s it was also my niece in MN, Lindsay’s Golden Sweet 16 Birthday! Although it rained for the Bonfire and then later Snowed in California no less it was great to spend time with the family and have them all meet Maycen many for the first time. She is way more active and fun than when Grandma and Papa T came out when she was just 3 months old. While going through the desert buffet Maycen stuck her hand in the Frosting of the big pumpkin cake and made a big mess.

Jared and his Dad played Pebble Beach!

Daycare drama this month was a little one had scabies, Maycen still has a runny nose and lots of congestion…I wonder when will this end, I thought breastfeeding was supposed to help your little ones to have a better immune system.

Poor Chopper! Our $200 dollar Military discount dog is now worth $1200.

While Jared was at NTC our Dog Chopper broke his leg.  I am not really sure what happened it was raining outside and I was throwing his ball and he slid on the cement in our garage chasing it and ran into some boxes but nothing that seemed like he would have been injured.  He began limping and refused to bear weight on it so the next day I took him to the vet and the doctor told me it would be $1000 dollars to fix it they would need to sedate him just for the Xray.  Ok so my dog is very well behaved so much that he will roll from side to side while I clean his ears.   He does not need sedation for an xray.  I just can’t believe how awful the Staff at PetSmart make you feel. OK let me just vent for a moment, In the medical field we don’t sedate our patients that come in from horrible child abusers when we do a full skeletal x-ray of each bone in their child’s body.  Maybe we should but honestly the risk of sedating someone including a dog is far more dangerous and traumatic with IV insertion than the risk for radiation exposure to have to re-shoot the image. Besides she wasn’t even certain it was broken.  So after the X-Ray which I demanded be done without sedation and of course caved into giving my dog $100 dollars worth of  pain medication.  So she came back with yes it is broken...his phalange which in non medical terms is his toe. She said she needed to sedate him to splint it  and reset it $800.  She also tried to convince me that he would need to buy Chopper $250 in antibiotics, Ok there is no break in the skin and the dog does not have Osteomylitis so I was like are you kidding me.  There is no way this is necessary.  So Jared went back to Petsmart for the third time and carried in our gimpy dog with a splint on later that night.  The next day we both had to work and Chopper had not messed with his splint all evening so Jared put him in the kennel.  Jared came home to the splint chewed through and choppers leg was all puffy.  We paid to have them re-wrap it.  Then we had to go out of town and we kenneled him he had a cone on this time but the first night he got the cone off, I guess it was too small for him and chewed through the cast.  They called the next day and said that the integrity of the cast was poor and thought it be best if they take him to their vet to have it fixed.  Mind you there was a crazy snow storm in Washington, closing roads.  
Anyway the vet calls me and says that they took x-rays and two vets can't find a break.  I am thinking what $800 dollars later and a huge headache and no break!  They also said that the Splint that Petsmart applied was too small for a 40 pound dog and had cause him to have wounds cause by pressure sores, no wonder he was trying to chew it off.  When we got home we removed the splint and have kept Choppers activity low.  He seems fine apparently the xray did show a small break when we had the radiologist read it but really only needed to be splinted for a few days and given anti inflammatories.    

Excited for halloween guess who I am going to be...

Excited for halloween guess who I am going to be...

October

Maycen officially started using formula this month and I am only pumping about once a day when at work and feeding her usually in the afternoon and evening when I am home. It is nice not having to pump so often but I am still trying to do it in the mornings before work and we are transitioning her off the bottle. It has been really nice having Jared home to help out and do the daycare drop-off. She is crawling everywhere and cruising on all the furniture. Chopper is still a little wary of her but will now lay nicely still, whining occasionally, while she climbs all over him. Maycen has mastered the stairs this month. Still loves strawberries and Blueberries.  Said the word Doggie this month!

We made a family trip to the Pumpkin patch and I took some photo’s of Maycen.

My mom came to see us in October for Halloween. It was nice to have a little break and Jared and I got a few date nights in which was great and much needed! It was nice to spend the time with her and have family to celebrate one of my favorite days. Maycen was an elephant.

She still has been getting sick off and on and one of her classmates came back RSV positive with Pneumonia. I am pretty sure she had the same junk. 

Here is her favorite play pal Isaac!

8 months

Maycen is 8 months and it seems as though everything kinda happened all at once for her this past few weeks.  She has been scooting and thinking about crawling for almost a month and a half now and I thought for sure she would be crawling by the time I came back from Minnesota.  She didn't really start crawling until September the 18th.  I went to work the weekend and came home and she was pretty much crawling.  That quickly progressed to her pulling up on things later that weekend and now she will cruise around the room holding onto her Winny the pooh table that slides on the wood floor, it is like her walker, she does this with my foot stool as well.  She has finally figured out how to go forwards and backwards in her baby walker ( I know, I know...these things are not recommended, bad peds nurse...I feel better that our pediatrician also has one:)  she loves it and is so mobile she now chases the dog around.  It saves us lots of bumps and bruises as chopper is not very good at being careful of her and gets a bit excited when she chases him around.  The bad news about this past month is that she has gotten bite at daycare twice now.  One is a bite on the face that is pretty bad the biter is supposed to be removed from her daycare this next month because she has bitten so many kiddos.  The other bite was on Maycen's hand and from another child that is in her daycare.  Goodness, I just don't understand why they are putting these little ones in with old children that have teeth and allowing them to crawl on top of the babies and then bite them.  Maycen can't even defend herself she hasn't poked out one tooth yet.  She is eating lots of new foods but I have found it a little challenging with working nights since we are not eating as healthy meals when we are on the go or in passing to find healthy finger foods for her to eat.  I have some veggies that I steamed and then froze but I feel like I am already being repetitive of some of her foods.  Maycen loves Strawberries, this worried me at first because a lot of people have strawberry allergies.  But she seems to do fine with them.  That is all the updates I have for now.  Finally able to move out some of the Baby stuff and put it away and I went through all her clothes and put away all her infant clothes.  We are now in 9-12 month stuff.  Thanks so much Jessica for all the adorable hand me downs!  You and the DuPont sales we have here have saved me!  It really has been so nice!   Today is also my Mom's Birthday! Happy Birthday Nana!

Quality time!

Jared and I finally were able to connect for a night or two!  I left for MN on Thursday and Jared returned to Washington the next day. Talk about passing trains.  I came back from MN and he was home over the long weekend but go figure my work scheduled me all 4 days he was home.  The next weekend I am off and he is home but he has guard all weekend...We just can't win.  With our crazy schedule Jared managed to drag me away from the house and all my unpacked laundry to have a little Washington Fun.  I swear if it wasn't for him I would be a cross between hermit and Cinderella doing chores all day long.  So anyway we rented a fishing boat from the MWR and went crabbing.  Since he did all the fishing work...(I tended to Maycen and kept her happy in her puffy life vest) I can't really take credit but we got 5 crabs to keep and they were delicious!  Needless to say the house is a mess.

The great MN get together

Alright well we didn't actually make it to the fair, so bummed I didn't get to try the camel!  Yuck! But I was able to spend my short 5 days home in MN with some great company! It was packed full of visits. Maycen was able to meet many of my friends and family and she got plenty of love from Nana during our stay.  On Friday Maycen got to meet Auntie Stacy for lunch and my grandparents on my Mom's side came over to meet her and had Pizza for Dinner. Saturday we went out to see Jon and Sheri and their daughter Addison. I even was able to have some fun nights out with girlfriends and Maycen got to play with Nana and Grampa.  On Sunday my mom had this great BBQ and my family all came to meet her.  We even squeezed in play date with babies Maddie and Jaden, Jill, Kate and Anne!

  My friends from Spain who are also expecting a baby girl were in town as well and made a visit.

Spending these days with Maycen was great because it was nice to have her to myself instead of having to do the daycare juggle and rushing around to do errands. She did great on the flight, she slept most of the way there and did really good on the way home too.  It was nice to just have some down time to just be with her.  She really is a very happy baby when given the one on one attention she truly deserves, she is so predictable when she is on my routine but the minute she is back at daycare, the poor thing is just so exhausted.  It breaks my heart because it really affects her personality on top of her endless daycare colds.  She is really fun right now and has the best smile with dimples and giggles, a bit too lazy to get crawling but why crawl when Nana will hold you and bring you all your toys, OK...  I am sucker too!  She is almost crawling just gets her foot stuck underneath her, she will push herself backwards. She loved this little stuffed dog that Nana gave her and she is really into things with strings, pots and pans and drinking out of water bottles and cups.  She will play peek a boo and Nana got her laughing when she put the donuts on top of her head and they would fall off.  She is pulling herself up on things a bit more this week too.

On our last day we made it out to see her Great Grandma Smith, I think she is 92 years old now.  She looked great and got all dressed up to see her.  Maycen was a bit of a pill at this visit because she was so tired from all the running around we were doing so we didn't get to catch up on much but she enjoyed seeing Maycen and watching her play.

The sad part of my trip was on Thursday when I arrived. My Mom and I stopped with Maycen to check on my townhouse.  I gave the tenant notice but apparently she was not expecting us.  The locks had actually been changed from all the construction so I was locked out but then when we went around back to check out the new sliding door I realized it was open. I entered the dark drape covered apartment to find a horrid mess and the worst smell of cat pee and poo.  My tenant is not even supposed to have cats.  The apartment was a disaster with bowls of food on the stove and around that had maybe been there all week.  Clothes and junk everywhere and a filthy litter box overfull.  Some minor damage to blinds, carpet and bathroom fixtures and the toilet looked like it had not been cleaned in years.  It was so disheartening.  The good news is the construction on the windows and doors and siding is done and looks great and the west end will be a great area to own property once we gut out the place from this renter:(  Oh well!  Another sad note was saying goodbye to Nana.  I now understand her hugs when she squeezes me so hard.  Good byes are never fun but always so much harder when you have no control over the situation.  I just feel so lucky that I have such good friends that make the effort to keep in touch and be part of our lives!

Hand Holding!

I don't always write about my work although many times I am away from my computer and I think I should really write down my thoughts about this.  It is rare when you can hold someones hand these days, as an adult, in such a busy fast paced world really the only hands you hold are that of a child or a spouse.  I love some things about my job that also make many of my work days the saddest.  I think of it as an honor when you can sit at the bedside of a dying child and hold their hands or to hold the hand of their parent while they say good-bye.  As a nurse you are often metaphorically hand holding at lots of moments, in teaching, in learning about a new diagnosis or sickness of a family member.  Those are moments that as a nurse you either chose to take on wholly or you turn your shoulder and shy away.  I am a bit picky about my families that I like to hand hold with.  I noticed a change that occurred when I became pregnant and I pulled away from such opportunities to get involved and attached like I would normally do. Maybe for the sake of protecting myself, you do get burnt out and I think the thought for me of knowing too much and worries that my child could be born with medical problems or become ill were just so terrifying it was easier to not get so close.

Today I got to hand hold.  Almost a year ago one of my patients passed away from leukemia (ALL) he was such a cutie.  Every time I pass a toy department and run into the Icebreakers game I think of him .  Today his Mom came to visit us and to promote a benefit they are starting on his behalf to raise money for cancer.  I think the Flyer is below if anyone is interested in donating.

His death although likely eminent with his prognosis and how sick he was was kind of unexpected and sudden.  There was no drawn out passing it happened rather traumatically in a few hours of getting really sick. His mom is still working through her grief and it was really hard for her to visit the floor today and I asked her if she had been to the PICU where he spent his last hours and she said she hasn't been able to go back there yet.  I asked if she wanted to go there and see the nurses there and give them the event information and she said she didn't think she could go there and I said I will walk you down if you would like.  She seemed so relieved and even though it was something so little and an easy walk for me I knew it was hard and sad for her. We made our way down the hallway, she had spent many sad times, I held her hand and we walked into his room where he passed away.  Tears in her eyes, mine too. I felt honored to have been a part of their lives and to help walk her through the next phase in the grieving process.

The last time I saw him he said, "What do you have in there?" Pointing to my recent baby bump.  He said, "there is a Baby in there".  I am thinking what a smarty.  "yes, I said there is a baby in there, J. Is it a boy baby or a girl?"  I didn't know yet myself.  He said,  "it's a girl baby and she is my girlfriend."  I had to laugh, the funny thing is is that J. was obsessed with twirling his mom's hair, his mom had a lock of hair cut off and placed it in his casket.  Which I can totally understand now because Maycen is obsessed with holding my hair, she likes to suck her thumb and hold my hair in the same hand. 

She may be mad but music to my ears!

Maycen is talking a lot more these days!  Yesterday she was babbling and singing Ahh, Mmm, Brey Brey and Even though it may not have been intentional a few Ma ma's so this morning she woke up at 4:45am while I was getting ready for work and was not so happy I was making her wait for Breakfast. And out came a plea to be picked up, I am sure it was intentional and words no less from my little smarty!  Mam-ma... even sad the best words!

So close to crawl!

Maycen is almost crawling!  She is trying but hasn't really gotten anywhere just yet!

We have enjoyed the summer as much as we can.  There have been a few warm days that we got to hang out in the sun.  Here is a picture from earlier in the summer when Jared was home and we took the dog down to the water with Maycen.