In sickness

Quick update on me- my hormone levels are negative. I will be tested monthly until June and then can hopefully move forward.

Ok, onto more recent matters.

Let me say that, I know everyone is probably experiencing some level of sickness this winter. The cold and flu season has been especially potent. We at the White House have been fairly fortunate. We just had colds. But Sophia's cough lingered for quite a while, waxing and waning.

And then, one morning two weeks ago, just after she woke up, she coughed so hard she gagged herself into vomiting. Poor thing. So Papa took her in to our pediatrician. He diagnosed her with double ear infections, probably from chronic sinus drainage from the cough. This was her first time with ear infections so I felt pretty lucky. He prescribed a 10 day course of Amoxicillin. All was well.

Then, 7 days into her antibiotics, she randomly slept til 9:45. This is not totally unheard of for a growing toddler. She'd been off her routine the day before. I just thought she was catching up. She acted fine all day.

The next day, she woke for the day doing the cranky/pain cry. I went in, and could tell she had a mild fever. It was 100.4, So along with her Amoxicillin, I gave her some Tylenol. And then she threw it back up on me. Great. Well, she must have kept down enough of the Tylenol because her fever went down and she acted fairly normal. But when she woke up from her nap, she was hotter than before and very pitiful. Temp was 101.4. I immediately was concerned for the flu and called the doctor for an appointment the next morning.

Again, the fever came down with Tylenol. We tried again before bedtime to give Tylenol and Amoxicillin. Vomit again. I really needed that fever to stay down so we tried Tylenol again. Same result. So, we just let it be. No one got much sleep that night. Sophie ended up spending a couple hours with Papa in the living room, then a couple hours in bed with me. Finally about 2am I woke up and she was on fire. I stripped off her fleece footed jammies, poor thing was so sweaty. I finally got Tylenol in her that she kept down, and I think we got a 2 hour stretch of sleep.

By 8 am it was time to get ready for the doctor. She actually was a little better and did not feel very feverish, so I held off on meds. At the doctor her temp was 99.9. He took a look and listen, and determined it was likely not the flu. Just a bad cold. No meds. Ears were pretty clear.

So Friday we continued our Tylenol, Motrin, herbal cough syrup routine. Things didn't really get much better, except no more vomiting. Friday night passed the same as Thursday. Poor baby was clearly miserable. Coughing, sniffing every 5 seconds, low-grade fever, achy.

I worked Saturday and since it was not the flu, went ahead and had Papa take her to great-grandmas. Well, when we picked her up that evening it was clear to me that things were worse. She kept asking to go home, her poor eyes were red and dark, she was moaning constantly. I decided to take her to the after hours peds clinic. She needed at least something to help her rest.

We had an excellent experience there. Flu and Strep swabs were negative. Pediatrician there said she had a lot of fluid behind her ears and that may be what made laying down uncomfortable. She also listened to her thoroughly. She said she appreciated fine crackles in her lungs and wanted a chest x-ray to see. Thankfully that was done in the same building and was read within 20 minutes. She said Sophia had a viral pneumonia. What virus had caused it, she wasn't sure. There are quite a few going around right now. But her oxygen levels and breathing were fine. She said that she was going to put her on two antibiotics, to cover if it was possibly a bacterial pneumonia also. I asked about meds for her racking cough, but she said cough meds weren't safe until 3 years old.

Sophia also had a slight rash on her trunk that I mentioned to the doctor, but she did not seem concerned.

My poor baby has never looked so puny

A tiny lead apron 

She did really well!

The face of misery. She has quit whining at this point she was so tired.

The 24-hour pharmacy had a 2 hour wait, so we decided to pick up her meds the next morning. It was already 11pm. We continued with Motrin for the aches and pains and the herbal cough syrup. That night passed roughly too, until about 3 am at which point she slept a decent amount until about 10am. But when I got her up and gave her a bath, I could see that the rash was worse.

Sunday morning, finally some rest

She's had a rash once before after a 24-hour fever and I know lots of viruses can end with a rash. I put a call into our doctor just to check, all things considered. I did not hear back. But, Sophia actually got better on Sunday. She ate a little, smiled and played some. The fever was gone. She was still on Motrin and herbal cough syrup and now antibiotics. Her cough was still racking, but not constant.

She only woke up twice, both before midnight, then slept til 8am. But when she did get up, I could see that the rash was much worse. I called our doctor and got an appointment for that morning. They may not have good after-hours service but their weekday service is great. They are a small practice in an old facility and there's only about 5-6 employees total. But I will take the older facilities for the quality time they spend with us and the same-day appointments.

Anyway, our pedi looked her over well. She still had a lot of fluid behind her ears "blue ear" he called it. But with the rash pattern, which was all over including palms and soles, but most concentrated on arms and face, he decided she likely had Fifth's Disease. He also looked over the radiologist's report from Saturday night. He was not so sure Sophia had pneumonia. And if it was a viral pneumonia, the antibiotics were unnecessary. He said her symptomatology from a few days ago sounded like the flu, or a flu-like illness, and that can turn to pneumonia. He left it to my discretion whether or not to complete the antibiotics. I did ask if he thought she could have anything for cough. He agreed to give her something.

The reason FDA put the black label on cough syrups for kids is because of the high potential for overdose. All the reactions kids experienced were in settings of overdose or improper use. The solution was weight-based rather than age-based dosing. The age-based dosing was too broad of a range. The FDA asked the drug manufacturers to do clinical trials for weight-based dosing, but due to high cost they declined. So instead, they're no longer safe OTC. But, being that I'm a nurse and he trusts me to strictly follow the dosing instructions, he gave me some cough syrup for her.

So now, we just treat the cough and the aches, and wait for it to pass. Fortunately she's no longer contagious, unfortunately when she was in the nursery Wednesday night she probably was. We are notifying our church.

It's been an un-fun 5 days for us, and especially her. It's very hard to see your kids, or any kid, sick. I'll be glad to put this chapter behind us.

Sunday morning after a bath

I could see the rash spreading

Monday morning. Things are worse.

Dirty Mouth? Clean it up!

So Wednesday Sophia and I were at a friend's house having a mom/daughter playdate (she has a little girl 7 months older). We were in the nursery sorting old clothes (so that I could pick out some to borrow, score!) when Sophia started gagging.

I looked over and Sophia was spitting and it was a bit foamy. I then realized there was a small decorative soap in her hand, with a chunk out of it.

Of course I snatched that away. Poor baby girl was gagging and spitting and her eyes were watering.

Then about 2 seconds later, she full on blew chunks. Only about 1/3-1/2 a cup, but she was quite frightened by the whole thing. She's never vomited before.

She looked so pitiful, trembling, foaming, eyes watering, gagging, puking.

Thankfully it only lasted a few seconds.

But she was pretty sedate for awhile after her ordeal.

If only she were old enough to truly remember it. Then if I threatened to "wash your mouth out with soap" she'd actually take that as a serious threat with dire consequences.

It was both pitiful and just a little funny.

Accustomed

So I got rather "spoiled" by my lack of work over the past couple months. But alas, my bank account and savings account have also been "spoiled" but not in the same way I have. So when an opportunity for a lot of work arrived, I had to take it.

So, out of the 28 days of February, I am working 21 of them. Two of them will be only 6 hours and 2 of them will be only 4 hours (weekend days). But still, after being home a lot, that is a lot of time away from home for me.

So this morning I dropped Sophia off at great-grandma's, I tried not to cry. First because she still clings to me when I drop her off. She doesn't go as happily as she does at grandma's. I did make it better this morning by putting her down by some toys instead of handing her straight to great-grandma. She didn't cry.

But, I will be leaving her with either John or great-grandma for some portion of the day for the next 8 of 9 days. I have every Wednesday off and one of two weekend days off (except this weekend when I work both). It's hard to think about. I tried to think of doctors, hospital pharmacists, even just regular full-time workers who have their kids in daycare 40+ hours a week. To be honest, it didn't help me. That's just not what I want for myself or Sophia and I'm not going to feel bad about earnestly desiring and even demanding it. I'm not going to feel bad about sacrificing friend's expensive wedding gifts, co-workers sympathy plants, Thirty-One parties, Scentsy parties, dinners out, or even mission projects. I'm not sacrificing precious time with my daughter just to be able to afford the things society thinks you should. No judgement here if you want to work full-time and have nicer things. That's totally your choice. It's just not for me.

But, my more-rigorous-than-normal work schedule is not about saving for a cruise or buying new clothes. We're down to it being a necessity of keeping the "four walls" covered at this point after a lean couple of months for my job. So I'll suck it up and be grateful for the chance to play a little financial catch-up. But I'll still be missing my Sophie.

Parenting is the start of second guessing

I guess I've lost a little of my enthusiasm for blogging. I have more enthusiasm for "real" life these days. That's not so bad really.

But tonight I was talking to a friend of mine who's sister just had a baby. Her sister was induced at 41ish weeks. The baby didn't tolerate the induction very well and she had to have a c-section. My friend was saying she's sure her sister has some "mommy-guilt" about being induced and that leading to the surgery. I told her parenting is the beginning of a lifelong journey of "what-ifs".

What if I wouldn't have been induced?
What if I would've tried harder to breast feed?
What if something's really wrong and I'm just letting him/her scream?
What if he has a food allergy reaction?
What if I picked the wrong daycare?
What if vaccines give him/her problems?
What if they aren't eating enough?
What if they're eating too much?
What if the food isn't enough variety?
What if I hold them too much?
What if I don't hold them enough?
What if they're a bully?
What if they're too shy?
What if they aren't developing quick enough?
What if they have an ear infection?
What if it's something really serious?
What if they do poorly in school?
What if I'm a bad example?
What if I lose my temper?
What if I'm too lenient?
What if they break my heart?
What if they're irresponsible?
What if I can't give them all I want to?
What if I could have done better?

For me at least, those first few months of parenting are filled with SO MANY QUESTIONS. And that's coming from a maternity nurse! There are soooo many decisions to be made, and lots of them don't have clear cut answers. And you'll hear so many different suggestions for the same problem. And they all have worked for someone. But you have to figure out what works for YOU! and YOUR baby!

That's the thing. In Christ He equips us to be the parents our kids need. But it is such a monumental task. We all do the best we can. Some days your best is just getting by, spending the day in jammies, no bath and eating takeout. Some days you'll have it together and get out for a walk, go to the park, do a craft, clean the house and make dinner (at least I hear some moms can do all that in one day!).
A lot of times you have to just take in the options then go with your gut.

For instance even just now. Sophia is starting to get a cold. She's congested. I made sure she had some Tylenol, a bath, a nice full belly and warm PJ's. She went to bed fine, but woke up an hour later. John put the humidifier in her room. I aspirated her nose, checked for fever, gave her a bottle, some Hyland's teething tablets (she's still not fully cut her top molars) and the other half of the bottle she didn't finish at bedtime. She finally quieted down as I was rocking her. Then after a few minutes she decided she wanted to get up and walk around the room and be awake and play. I tried to get her to cuddle and rock again. Nope.

So I decided to just put her in her crib. Poor thing, I felt she wasn't going to sleep at all unless she was just totally exhausted. And I'm going to have to be up with her tonight so I want some rest too. I know it was miserable for her, but I just let her cry. She cried about 30 minutes. In the moment of hearing it it feels like forever. But now she is quiet.

She hasn't been consistently sleeping through the night for about 3 months. Some nights she does, but that's becoming the exception and not the rule. To be honest, I can get up once maybe even twice a night and it doesn't even phase me. But getting up 3 and 4 times a night is tiring for sure. It's just seemed like every time I'd resign myself to doing cry-it-out bootcamp, it would be inconvenient. We'd be going out of town, she'd be kinda sick, breaking teeth, other reasons. Sleep bootcamp is not all that fun for parents either, initially. But it has rewards :)

So last night she was up 3 times. I wanted to let her CIO the second time, but John thought she sounded hungry and so he fed her. Plus he can't sleep through her screaming. Between 8:45pm and 7:20am she had 3.5 cups of milk. Crazy! So then I start second guessing the CIO. I'd sure hate for my baby to be awake because she's hungry. But maybe she's just using the bottle for a crutch? She should be able to make it through the night at this age. She has been able to since she was very young.

So today I made sure to offer her more food and milk during the day. I stuffed her as full as I could. Which isn't easy because she's either being very picky or very willful these days. Lunch involved a lot of tears and me yelling once, ashamedly.

But now I'm trying to remedy months of poor sleep while Sophia is fighting a cold. Another inconvenient time! But I'm determined to get us back on track, soon!

So educate yourself, go with your gut, and try not to agonize over every decision! There are too many of them to be made to major on the minors.

Here's to happy parenting and a full night's sleep!

Sophia's One year old Stats/Summary

I wanted to take the time to tally up all of the milestones Sophia has reached in the last year. We just had her one year visit to the pediatrician and everything went well. (We saw the other MD in the practice and we were much happier with her than the doctor we saw the first time. Whew!)

Weight: Birth- 8 lbs 6 oz (93rd percentile), 1yr 21 lbs 4 oz (79th percentile)
Height: Birth 21 inches (99th percentile), 1 yr 30.75 inches (95th percentile)
So she remains tall for now. In fact she's about on par with most 16-18 month olds.

Firsts: Sophie took her first steps! It was about a week before her birthday. The max she has gotten to is 3. However she's not walking yet. The interest just isn't quite there. She can stand on her own for quite a bit. But most times when we try to get her to walk, she just squats down and crawls.

(2 second video of first steps here)

Talking: All her vocabulary now includes Momma, Papa, bye-bye, no, hey, hi, alright, ok, uh-oh, whoa, oooooh and sometimes thank you. Everything is pretty clear except thank you. She is quite the mockingbird these days. Sometimes she repeats you exactly and sometimes she just gets the basic inflection.

Foods: We are almost done transitioning her to whole milk instead of formula. She has tolerated it fine other than some bowel changes. Her doctor said this is perfectly normal when changing her diet.
We're also working on weaning off bottles and solely to sippy cups. I think this will be easier once we're not using bottles to measure and mix formula then trying to remember to pour to a sippy. So far she eats an ounce or two less from the sippy than the bottle.
Breakfast is usually a combination of two of three things: whole milk organic yogurt, unsweetened applesauce or homemade cinnamon raisin oatmeal. Some staples in her diet are cooked chicken (she especially loves rotisserie), mandarin oranges, fruit cups and black beans. She really loves roasted or baked turkey too. She continues to love broccoli and not like peas very much. She loves to chomp apple cores and even corn cobs! The list of foods she has tried and likes are too many to list now. Generally she eats whatever we eat for dinner, supplemented by some of her "staple" foods if she doesn't each much of ours. She had a few bites of pumpkin pie over Thanksgiving and really loved it. She actually smiled! She doesn't do that very often at all over food.

Speaking of chomping: teeth. She still has the same 7 she had last time I updated, over 3 months ago. I know there are molars and lateral incisors needing to come through! Come on already!

Sleep: Sophia's sleep was disturbed for about a month. On the worst nights she was waking up 3-4 times. Some nights were very hard. She had various things going on: transitioning to whole milk, a short cold, teething? and night terrors. Sometimes her night terrors are really bad. It's so pitiful because she cries uncontrollably until we can finally get her woken up enough to realize she's being comforted. We tried just rocking, then pain meds, then finally feeding. Which one did the trick was different every night. Finally the last few days I felt like it was becoming a habit and she was forgetting how to self soothe, so I would only comfort her a few minutes and then put her back in bed, rather than rocking her to sleep or giving a bottle. She had to CIO a couple times, but it was only for about 20 minutes max. Last night she slept through her full 12 hours!

Vaccines: until now we hadn't given Sophia any vaccines. I'd made a plan to start when she turned one. I just felt (and of course did research) that her little body didn't need to be pumped up with all those medications until she was more developed. I'm still going to follow Dr. Sears recommendation of only having 2 vaccines at a time. I knew I wanted to start with TDaP and either HIB or PCV. The doctor recommended PCV over HIB because they still see pneumococcal infections but very rarely HIB infections. I want to delay until 2 or possibly not at all for MMR. That one is so controversial and the conflicting data scares me. Heck even the handouts on the vaccines she did get, which are put out by the CDC, were pretty ominous in their side effects and occurrence rates. I'm not sure we'll do Polio either since that is eradicated in the whole Western hemisphere. And we won't do Hep B until she has a much greater chance of coming in blood contact with an infected person, like in contact sports. In six weeks we'll go back and start the HIB series.
We were both very grateful that the doctor did not demean or chastise us for our decisions on vaccines. She was very friendly and acted like it was not a problem at all. The only "flack" we got at all was that the medical assistant who checked us in wanted to know if we wanted any vaccines and if so which ones was she do for. I explained that we were just starting vaccines that day. And she said "Ok, so do you have your own shot card?". I explained we didn't because she hadn't had any vaccines yet. She asked again which vaccines did I want and did I know she was like "Way behind?" I explained I wanted to start and wanted DTaP and either HIB or PCV. She said "Do you want to talk to the doctor to decide which one?" which I appreciated and did. She was very nice about it and I know it all just came from our decisions being outside the norm of what they do every day. So all in all it went well.

Play: Although we have continued to try different toys with Sophia, she still prefers household objects the most. Her favorites are laptops, remotes, cell phones, dishes in the dishwasher, toilets, trash cans, dog toys and keys. She also likes acrylic straws, things in the pantry, paper, laundry, laundry baskets, pens, earrings, rings, nail clippers, plants, dirt, balls and pushing dining room chairs around. She also likes board books, sometimes for reading but mostly for chewing. She has an awesome play table, a cool pink motorcycle walker, a ball popper, a rock-a-stack, a musical cube and a xylophone. She doesn't play with any of them for more than 2 minutes.

Overall, she is developing perfectly and right on track. We are so pleased with and proud of our baby girl. We just love her to pieces!

Here are some photos from her birthday shoot credit to Lauren Seymore of Seemore Photography

Sophia is 1! {Party Post}

I can't believe it finally came...and went. My baby's first birthday!
It was a great time. I would say it was bittersweet, but really it was only sweet.
Sure, I may have gotten a bit misty and squeezed her extra tight putting her to bed the night before her birthday in her special birthday PJ's. But even that is sweet.

Sophie had a nice party here at the house. I considered a park, but wanted all her creature comforts in easy reach in case she got tired or cranky.

I read a blog post about celebrating birthdays from a mother of 6 children. Her first advice was to NOT visit Pinterest for ideas. I wanted the party to be easy and stress free. So I didn't! Even a simple party is $50, so I decided not to up the cost with supplies for a bunch of DIY deco and crafts. I used tissue poms from her baby shower (that hang in her room full-time) and all my other decor was from Dollar Tree. My best friend Sarah made cupcakes and cake pops. I made chili and broccoli cheese soups. It was tasty and simple to do.

Maybe some year when Sophie can really appreciate the effort, I'll throw some DIY themed party that takes months of prep or hundreds of dollars on Etsy. Not this year.

Sophie got many wonderful presents. I was really blessed by everyone's generosity. She also got lots of really cute clothes.

Sophia is 9 months!

Sweet Sophia,

    You're getting to be more like a toddler than a tiny baby. Although, I still think you're a baby and think that "baby" covers up to age 2. I don't want you to feel pressured to grow up too fast, and I don't want to coddle you so much that you grow up too slow. For instance, I still hold your bottle. You can hold it, but you like to shake and slosh it around and spill milk everywhere. So it's somewhat convenience on my part too. But, I'd like to think if you were still breastfed I'd be holding your "bottle" for you :)

    Oh but in almost every single other area you are Ms. Independent. I wondered if you might be a bit headstrong, being a first born and all. But, I'm told this is just part of normal development. You want to stand even though you can't, you want to feed yourself even though only 10% of your food makes it in your mouth, you want to grab and swipe and hold everything you get near, especially if it's something you shouldn't. I'm not even sure why you have your own toys. You rarely want them. You crawl over to the dog's toy basket 90% of the time. Bottles of all kinds, pens, sunglasses, straws, phones, jewelry and electrical cords are just a few of the things you're keen on. Oh and shoes, you love to chew those, yuck.

    You've said several "words" but I think we can say your first real one is "uh oh". It's the only one you use appropriately (sometimes). I'm not sure why you picked that one. It's cute though! You are mimicking words a lot now. You've tried to say "no no, mama, night night" and today you added "papa". Your dad was so excited!

    We went to your new pediatrician for your well check. You're no longer off the charts for height. You're 28.75 inches and 20.25 pounds. That puts you around 90th percentile for height and 80th percentile for weight. Still a big girl :) Tonight I tried to put a 12 month sleeper on your (open foot style) but it was too short. I got it snapped but you were so cranky in it I changed you back to your onesie.
You now have a total of 7 teeth! Four on top and three on bottom. You also finally started hands and knees crawling, although you only go a few feet at a time. Your pediatrician said we need to cut back your formula and increase your solids. We're working on that. You don't eat very much in the way of solids so I'm not sure we'll completely follow her advice. She was nice but we still miss your old pedi a lot :(

   You had your first fever. You ended up being feverish for a little over 24 hours. The nurse practitioner checked you and said it was likely just something viral. It was really worrisome. You woke up in the middle of the night (which is fairly unusual) and dad checked on your, re-tucked you in and you went back to sleep for about two hours. You woke up crying again and I checked on you. I decided to pick you up to comfort you and I was very taken aback. You were burning up! I called for your dad and the thermometer. Your temp was 100.4, but you felt very hot. You got a tepid bath, sips of water, and Tylenol. But you wouldn't go back to sleep unless I was holding you. So you slept on my chest on the couch for a couple hours. You were so pitiful and it heart mine and papa's hearts so much. And exhausted us all! It was as if the world stopped for a day and we were consumed with you. Mama is also not used to sleep deprivation anymore since you're such a good sleeper. It was hard on us all.

Your 9th month also included a trip to Disney World! It was just for about 8 hours but we had fun. You did really well and took two naps! It was a busy week with family so I think you were pretty tired. Now I know you really can sleep anywhere if you're tired enough. You actually fell asleep in my arms on the Haunted Mansion ride and then slept through walking, talking and two more rides.

Disney day was also your papa's birthday. That night we went out for Hibachi and you ate a decent amount of vegetables and noodles/rice. But- your papa was holding you when they sang to him and brought him a cupcake. He had a bite, then fed me a bite. Usually you explore new foods before eating them. But at lightning speed and in one fluid motion you grabbed a handful of cake and stuffed it in your mouth. We were all very surprised and everyone had a good laugh. I'm telling you, you only want the stuff you aren't supposed to have!

Mama and papa love you so much pretty baby! We couldn't have known how much joy you'd bring.

On our car ride to Tampa. You thought throwing paper balls was hilarious!

At a baseball game

"No pictures please"

Pool time!

Teeth!

Eating a leaf on vacation in Orlando

With your papa and grandpa

Great Grandma Joan

Aunt Tiffany and Aunt Hali the night before Disney

Disney day!

Giving kisses!

With your papa having fun!

With the aunts!

Your Aunt Hali ADORES you!

And so does your papa. It makes my heart overflow.

You're also enamored with your Uncle Jeff

And Grammy Melanie wants to bite you!

And you're the light of MeMe and MawMaw's lives!