With Ella recovering fairly well after the surgery, the medical team cleared her for having hospital at home the next day. She still needed lots of care and medications, but it was much nicer for everybody to be in a peaceful home environment.
When I dropped around in the late afternoon, she was lying on the lounge with Daniel, still looking pretty wiped out, but more alert than in hospital. My mum found a few 'Ella' and 'Scarlett' sticker books to give the girls, which she had a look at.
As usual she was watching the Lion King, along with Anita and Zoe, with Scarlett wandering around and trying to eat her sticker books.
She was still quite shaky and unbalanced, but she wanted to go outside in her new special backyard, so I helped her over to the cubby, where she lay down on the pile of cushions in the corner.
After a little while Emily came out to see if Ella was doing ok. Still somewhat sleepy, she and Emily sang a song. I think I need to do some more research on kids' songs; I either don't know what they are, or only know a few lines, while Ella generally knows the whole thing.
Everyone else was having pizza for dinner, but Ella wasn't really interested in eating yet, and gingerly walked a few laps around the trampoline.
She then got some pizza from Daniel, but only so she could use it to finger-paint a window, with Scarlett a willing accomplice.
They decided the car should have some pizza sauce decoration as well.
Wandering over the other end of the yard, Ella went inside her cubby again, putting a shoe in front of her face for some reason, followed by reading a book.
Scarlett thought it would be fun to use Emily as a trampoline and claw her eyes out.
After playing outside for a little while, Ella crashed again, looking very worn out while Emily held her on the lounge.
One of her medications involves some rather nasty nose drops, the administering of which isn't much fun for anybody.
With the brief but unpleasant experience over, Ella settled back down to dozing in Emily's arms.
Daniel carried her off to bed, where she woke up a little bit more, insisting that Daniel read her a bedtime story before she went to sleep.
She looked a bit calmer, still quite washed out, but doing relatively well, and soon drifted off again. Simply going to sleep in her own environment was a lot less stressful, without constant beeping, talking, noise, crying and coughing typical of a children's ward.
Here you can see their Christmas tree is only partially decorated, due to Ella thinking the baubles were food, and Scarlett thinking they were bouncy balls.
