"I love Chop."

Receptionists hang children's coloring pages all over the walls of the check in desks at Children's Hospital. As I admired them while checking into Cardio I saw this cute little Minion page with a big "I Love CHOP" written on it. I sing their praises all the time, but kids tell it like it is.  Selene has loved her trips to the "hostital." She loves their snacks, the stickers and the fabulous nurses and doctors. I guess it's good then that we still get to go back ;-) I thought we only had to go back at 6 months, but apparently its now every 3 months for the next year.

Anyway. The appointment was great! Dan and I got to go together while Nana managed Ainsley and Kalina. After the obvious drive through Starbucks (tried the mobile order for the first time! I ordered while putting shoes on and packing my bag and was in and out in 30 seconds!) we were on the way. Selene was pretty uninterested in us and preferred looking out the window. Thankfully the city guy was driving because he managed to use all his shortcuts around the ugly traffic and we made it on time (despite leaving over an hour to get there, I hate morning traffic!).

Thursdays are waaaay chiller than Tuesday clinic. But we still had to ask the lovely nurse to get the lab moving since we had an 11:00 appointment in Cardio.  They took us back to the lab (the new lab in Buerger is AMAZING) and Selene made a request for a tv show. Because clearly that's more important than the needle and 12 vials sitting on the table.  After an uneventful blood draw we got to see Ellen and the team. Sadly doctor Olson wasn't there, they said he was sad to miss Selene :-) But we were basically given the all clear to live our lives! We do have to wait for the results to come back on whether we can get her vaccinated. They say it's not uncommon to need to wait a little longer since they want her little immune system all set to pump out those titers.

After that fun appointment, that involved way more laughing, giggling and tickling than you would expect from a scary hospital we bounced over to Cardio for her EKG and Echo to make sure her heart is in tip top shape.

Our final stop (well, before Jimmy Johns because JJ is the best) was to say hello and thank you at the BMT unit. Luckily some of our favorite nurses were meeting in the front hall way. We got to say hi, give hugs and give them some snacks we made for them as a thank you.

By then Selene was whooped. So Dan carried her back to the car (after our JJ stop, I was famished, no way were we going without my Turkey Tom!) Where she had plenty of energy to eat her sandwich and then the cookie.  She also proved that she has a great grasp of bigger and smaller. Because when I asked for half her cookie and she broke it she almost handed me the big piece but promptly switched the piece she offered me after a quick size assessment. Thanks Kid. But hey, at least she gave me more than the usual crumb. She must have been in a great mood.

Overall it was a little anticlimactic. I'm not sure what I expected. Balloons and confetti maybe but overall I feel joy and relief at this huge milestone! Next big moment on deck-March 9!

There was a ton of giggling and kicking going on here.