Quarantine

   This week Michael and I have both been off from work, and luckily, we are still getting paid from both jobs. My job is considered essential, since I work with answering 9-1-1 calls and talking to the deputies on the radio. Michael, who works as a special makeup effects teacher, has been off for a couple weeks and won't go back until April 30th at the earliest. I was off this week because we were supposed to take a vacation to the Georgia mountains as we did last Spring, but the day before we were supposed to leave (Friday) the cabin owner emailed to say that we had to cancel because Georgia was banning the use of rental properties. I was very disappointed as I get very excited when looking forward to vacations, but it saved us some money and two days we would have spent in the car. We are talking about trying to go again in November. We'll see how everything is going with the Corona Virus at that time.
   For us, being quarantined really isn't any different than how we have been living since July 2018 when I went back to work after my maternity leave. Side note that needs to be mentioned ~ My bosses were so great to give me a full 12 weeks of maternity leave once Emma finally came home from the hospital after being in the NICU for almost 11 months, even though I had been granted medical leave for a total of 18 weeks during her time in the hospital: three weeks after she was born in June 2017, almost all of September that year --since my fiscal year started over in October and I had four weeks of unused medical leave, they let me spend more time with her-- and the 11 weeks we were in Michigan for her surgeries! As well as the six weeks I was on mandatory bed rest by my Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor since he was very concerned with how small she was/ before they learned of her dwarfism. You can read all about that at the very beginning of this blog!! :)

So much growth since 2 1/2 years ago!! Emma will be 3 years old on June 12th. 

   Michael and I have always had to take turns working so one of us is home with Emma. We tried nursing for the first week of May 2018, but that didn't work for us, and it didn't even really matter because my insurance only covers 60 days of nursing per year, according to what my job pays for in their insurance plan. Emma requires two adults to be in the car when we take her anywhere: one person to drive and one person to sit in the back and watch her/ suction her/ supply extra oxygen if needed, etc. She does not often make noise when crying or if something is wrong, so we have to physically be watching her. At the hospital's safety class, before bringing her home, we were strongly advised against getting one of those mirrors (or any other loose toys/ objects) to go on the headrest above the baby so they can be seen by the parent/driver through the rearview mirror. Plus, if she had a problem, it is a lot safer to have someone ready to do whatever is needed, rather than either me or Michael (if we were driving alone) to have to pull over quickly and get out to suction her or "bag her" if she wasn't breathing. Basically, it is almost impossible to take her anywhere alone, so whichever parent is home that day, we are "stuck" in the house until the other one comes home from work. Or if Emma has a doctor appointment, we have to do it on a day I am off, because now it is easier for Michael to get a day off from work.
   Anyway, my point was that this time in quarantine has not been really any different for us. If anything, it has actually been better because Michael is home all the time so we aren't "stuck" in the house all day. We love being able to spend so much time together and have been referring to it as "almost Michigan mode". (Our marriage was the very best it had probably ever been while we were in Michigan- probably because neither of us had to work for almost three months.) Right now I can come and go as I please because Michael is there to watch Emma. I have only gone out to go for walks around/ near our neighborhood, to get groceries, regular medicine from CVS (we have been staying healthy!), and we got lunch to-go from Chipotle, which was ordered online ahead of time.
   One thing I forgot to mention in the previous Corona Virus post is that we have put a pause on Emma's therapy sessions- or at least the part about the therapists coming to our house, as they have been since August 2018. We have the option to do therapy through a video chat, but for the past three weeks we have just been doing therapy with her as she has been taught for the past several months. Her physical therapist made a specific video and emailed me instructions on what she wants Emma to be working on. I'm not sure if we will see the therapists again since it seems like it might be a while before all these virus issues calm down, and Emma "ages out" of the therapy program in June. Their cut off is age three and then it gets turned over to the school system, but with Emma's developmental delays, we don't plan on her starting school (it would be a special classroom for kids with medical needs with several nurses on staff) until she is probably five years old. Not sure what the plan is for her speech, occupational, and physical therapies between this June and August 2022..
   Here are some pictures of walks we have gone on this week, as well as the vest Michael made out of wetsuit material for Emma as a precaution after her trach got pulled out somehow, causing her to be unconscious for an unknown number of minutes, and Michael had to call for an ambulance in February!!

^^ Here you can see the Velcro holding her vent tubing in place better.
This way any pulling comes from her vest and not her trachea!! 

^^ So sweet! She actually grabbed Sasha's paw twice, but she kept pulling away from Emma.

Silly girl, playing with her favorite "toys". She rarely touches her many stuffed animals. 

   A family walk that we went on, on Monday. I thought it would be a great idea because the weather was overcast and cooler (around 78 degrees) since it had rained/ drizzled all day on Sunday, which was great because we were in a drought. But I forgot that the post-rainy weather brings out all the mosquitos! And there were a lot of them under the trees. In the pictures of Emma below, Michael is spraying and rubbing Babyganics bug spray on her. We used some for ourselves too, as well as putting Babyganics sunscreen on her when we aren't walking under the trees. (This post is not sponsored by Babyganics or any of the other many companies we use daily for Emma, darn it.) 

^^ Mosquito City!!

   She usually takes her naps when we get back from walking because being pushed around in a stroller is so exhausting! Also notice that we have a small portable fan (with battery pack) that we keep on the stroller for her, which has been used during all of our family walks lately. Below: a beautiful dog we have been saying "Hi" to when we do the 4-mile loop through a large neighborhood across from ours. 

"If you can't take the girl to the mountains, bring the mountains to the girl!" 

   Obviously Emma doesn't care about missing the Georgia hiking trip as much as Michael and I do, but I was glad when I remembered that these virtual walking tours exist on YouTube. It was my first one and I picked the South Kaibob Trail in the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It was two hours long, but I made it through half today. I didn't carry Emma in the hiking backpack for long, but she enjoyed it and was laughing a lot. I'll need to check to see if there are ones specifically for the Appalachian Trail, which is where we would have been hiking in Georgia this week if we had been able to go. Tomorrow we might hike in Hawaii! ;)

  **Also, feel free to click on all the links that I have connected in this post (there are a bunch at the top) to specific phrases that will give you a blast from the past to previous posts in Emma's little life!!**