Hip Surgery

Cally hit the nail on the head, the snow was gone from the yard on May 5th.  And thankfully, we haven't had any snow added since then.  It has, however, been incredibly rainy.  It was finally beautiful on Saturday.  Lilly and I went outside to go to the library and her first words outside were, "No raining!"

On April 28th, Nick had his second hip surgery.  He had his first hip surgery almost two years ago.  Things seemed to be going really well for awhile after the surgery, but then things stopped getting better.  At times his hip would be so unstable he didn't trust himself to carry Lilly.  Originally the surgery was scheduled for December, but he had a few perfect weeks with no hip pain, so it was put off.  This time the surgeon tacked down a couple more loose pieces of cartilage in the hip.  The surgery was in the Twin Cities, last time it happened in the summer, so we spent the week with my grandma.  This time he stayed with his parents in Eau Claire.  My mom got a week of family medical leave and helped me out with Lilly for the week.

Family photo before Nick left

Lilly has never had a parent gone for more than a night before, so she was having a hard time processing just what was going on, especially with daddy's hip.  She recognized that dad couldn't do as many things because his hip hurts, so we talked about how daddy was going to get his hip fixed.  Which sort of worked, but he has a long recovery ahead of him, so it still isn't "fixed."  Monday at day care she apparently was working on processing what was happening, saying repeatedly, "Dada hip fix.  Mama work.  Nana coming!"  Putting her to bed that night was rough, she spent about ten minutes crying for her dad.  I told her that he was at Grandpa and Grandma's house, resting and healing.  Her response, "Lilly.  Gampa Gama house now."  

But as the week went on, she got over it and had lots of fun with my mom.  Neighbors looking in our windows one of the nights might have seen quite the entertaining scene - the three of us dancing like ballerinas.  I am pretty sure that actual ballerinas were spinning in their graves watching us "dance".  Lilly's dance moves eventually turned into her turning somersaults.  Here are some photos from the week:

Playing with Play-Doh

Blowing bubbles in the back yard.  It was cold.

Watching a robin on a walk.

Bringing May Day baskets to teachers at day care.
It was also rainbow day, Lilly picked the color white.

 Nick came home on Thursday, with crutches, a brace, lovely foam boots to sleep in, compression socks, and a passive motion machine.  He can't pick up Lilly yet (which has been a great excuse for me to get out of going to meetings after school - I have to pick up Lilly from day care), so much of their time together is spent on the floor, reading books, playing with Duplos, reading Curious George on the iPad.

Lilly checking out Nick's "sheen".  He had to spend four hours/day on his
back having this machine move his leg up and down.

The passive motion machine was picked up by UPS on Monday, he doesn't have to sleep in the boots any more, and the compression socks are in the trash.  The brace is by the basement door waiting for me to bring it downstairs.  He still needs to use the crutches, but the stitches are out and he's well on the road to recovery.  Lilly is quite excited to have her dad "chase you" again but each day he can do a bit more.

Past mother's days we've gone to Houghton Falls and went for a hike.  Not possible this year, so instead we went to the park.  It was beautiful the day before (pictures coming later, but it is time to go to bed) but we weren't quite ready for how cold it was going to be at the park on Sunday.