Today I gathered my courage and responsible parenting skills and took Lily to LabCorp for the bloodwork Dr. Derco asked us to have done over a month ago. He thinks that nothing is wrong, and that we shouldn’t worry, but he wants to be certain that nothing else besides her poor appetite is keeping her from growing. I personally hate LabCorp - they aren’t very nice to adults, let alone kids, but today was fine and Lily did wonderfully. Better than me!

I held on to her and my dad held her arm straight out. After the initial stick and about 10 seconds of crying, she chatted (albeit nervously) through the removal of three vials of her blood and even invited the phlebotomist to the mall with us later. Dad said, “You look pale,” and the woman thought he was talking to Lily. When she realized he was talking to me, she started laughing. I wasn’t laughing - I was trying not to combo puke/faint/cry while talking to the back of Lily’s head (she was on my lap). The point of this story is to say that kids do better than adults with things like this - at least the first time, when they don’t know to expect pain or trauma. I wish I could be as good as she is when having my blood drawn. She’s my hero.

We took pictures of her today dressed in the Flyers cheerleader outfit Lois gave her for Christmas - complete with an “on strike” sign above her head. Mom didn’t get the joke, but that’s okay. She’s not much for hockey. For some unknown reason I forgot to get a copy of the photo so I can’t post it here.

Arden and Mike both have runny noses, but seem to be surviving. After a night of listening to him snore his head off (pay back for nine months of hearing my pregnancy snoring), he’ll be sleeping in the guest room tonight. Arden is back to waking up every 3 hours (I thought 3 months was the magic number?!?) and I’m getting back into that hazy, foggy, seriously-sleep-deprived mode. Every night I go to bed and pray for a silent night . . . so far no luck.