18 Months Old!

It’s that time again! Emily turned 18 months old on the 21st and is getting bigger and brighter every day. I know I said I wasn’t going to attempt to write all her words anymore, but I can’t resist....this is really the last month though- I can’t keep up! Here’s what I can remember so far (new words in bold print):

1. apple

2. uh-oh (in response to falling down or dropping something)

3. doggie (FINALLY!)

4. Mama

5. Dada/Daddy/Dadadadadadad

6. more

7. more please (this one makes me *extra* proud!)

8. uh huh (yes)

9. uh-uh (no)

10. no (getting quite good at this one....ugh!)

11. Booker (sounds like “ocker”)

12. bite

13. ouchie

14. bye bye

15. baby (sounds like bee bee)

16. hi

17. hello (heyo)

18. poo poo

19. DeeDee (Jamey’s son’s name)

20. cookie

21. eat

22. cheese

23. GO!

24. help

25. up

26. grapes (gape)

27. happy (from “If You’re Happy and You Know It”)

28. outside

29. stack (for her stacking blocks)

30. RAAH (like a scary roar…we do this back and forth sometimes)

31. LOVE YOU

32. brush (like toothbrush)

33. cracker

34. cookie (sounds like “cocky”)

35. teeth (as in “brush teeth”…sounds like “teesh”)

36. shirt

37. socks

38. shoes

39. cup (sounds like “bop”)

40. Emmy (as in, her own name! I have an adorable video I will have Paul post…so cute!)

41. juice

42. pizza

43. Hey Dad!

44. Hey baby/ yay baby!! (see funny story below)

45. potty (poppy)

46. push buttons (sounds like “pusha buttahs”. She says this in the garage so she can push the door button, or with my computer mouse, or my phone…basically all over!)

47. I-E-I-E ( this is how she asks to sing Old MacDonald Had A Farm- she says I-E-I-E instead of EIEIO. So cute! She also attempted to say “Old MacDonald” but it sounded more like “Doda Dahduh” and she only did it once so I’m not counting it.)

48. Hot dog! (from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse closing song…she loves Mickey!)

49. Elmo (pronounced “elbow”)

50.bathtub (bottub)

51. bath time

52.brush teeth

53.shirt off

54.numbers 1-7 (see story below)

55.what’s this?

56.yogurt

57.good girl

58.sorry

59.cool girl

60.fall down

61.clean up

62.go play

63.flush it (this comes out as 2 swear words put together, so we’re sort of avoiding it for now, haha!)

64.ready, set, go!

65.telephone

66.show (as in TV show)

67.sheep

68. cow

69.duck

70.car

71.hungry...eat!

72.snack

73.Bless you (when someone sneezes)

74.thank you!

75. Booker

Pretty impressive vocabulary, right? I am SO proud of her. I know none of my former teachers would be shocked to hear that I am the mother of such a talker!

And now, for the part you really love, the stories and anecdotes:

-- She has learned to climb onto the couch (yikes!) and has a wonderful way to get back off it. It is totally safe and definitely the most efficient and surefire way to get back down: she sends herself headfirst onto her little pink chair, then continues the slide all the way down to the floor. Nope, nothing unsafe about that!

-- She has started saying some hilarious things- in the middle of the night the other night I finally gave in and gave her a cup of milk hoping she might go down and sleep for awhile. She finished the drink, sat it on the nightstand, and said, “Brush.....teesh..........brush.........teesh!” I told her no (I had ZERO idea where she was going with this but was not about to let those little feet touch the floor at 3am!!) and she yelled, “PLEASE?” like it was killing her not to brush her teeth!

--Emily is counting! OK, so counting might be a stretch, but she IS saying the numbers. She can say up to about 7 right now. We are mostly counting her breaths while she is using her inhaler in the morning and evening taking her FloVent. Most of the time it makes her so angry but the counting helps!

--She is starting to ask questions and use 2 words together to make a response. The other morning Paul was making breakfast with me and he handed her some bacon. She looked at it and said, clear as day, “What’s this?” That part was shocking but moreso than that was when he reponded that it was bacon and she smiled and started eating it!

--She is doing so well on the new drugs. We also got permission from her pediatrician to start giving her Zyrtec for her allergies and it is not always easy, let me tell you! She seems to be getting better everyday though, thank Heaven.

-- She is dabbling a little bit in “terrible twos” behavior...and we don’t like it! It is hard- she had to take orapred (oral steroid) this week and it makes her aggressive and moody....on one hand I am tempted to discipline her but on the other hand I feel like it’s not “really her” so I shouldn’t....thankfully she is coming out of it now but it is very difficult. There are some things that I feel are unacceptable, whether she is medicated or not (hitting, for instance). Thankfully, Time Out seems to work for her and I really do think she “gets it”. Tonight, she hit me in the face when I told her to stop throwing her food all around. I picked her up and put her on the floor for TO. When I let her up, she came over, hugged me, and touched my face very gently. Now, tell me she didn’t know she was in TO for hitting!

-- If you read the blog post about Em being hospitalized then you have already heard this story, but she would talk to all the docs, nurses, and therapists who came to her room, welcoming them with a big Hello! After they tried to check on her though, she would starts yelling “Goodbye!” at them like they had overstayed their welcomes and it was time for them to go. It was pretty hysterical!

-- She has learned the words to a few more books now, and if we leave the words out she will say them for us. This is a little bit amazing to me, since this is a skill I am teaching to my first-graders! Granted Emily is not reading, only repeating, but she is very good at it!

--She is getting so funny and her vocabulary is amazing. The other day she brought me a bag with 100 shapes in it. I told her her we needed to clean up before we got those shapes out, and she stood up and proceeded to yell “Clean Up! Clean Up!”

-- She keeps us on our toes all the time. Tonight we filled her kiddie pool with water and put her in it wearing her bathing suit but not diaper underneath. She proceeded to have a BM in the pool, and then when I brought her inside the house to clean up she peed on the floor! You can’t turn your back for a second!

Well, I am worn out (see previous paragraphs!) and it’s time to go to bed. Thanks for checking on our sweet girl. Have a great weekend!

Hospital Trip....Again.

Just wanted to update you all on Miss Emily. We have had an eventful weekend! Friday, she spent the entire beautiful day playing outside. Saturday, she woke up with a very runny, nasty nose and had a nagging cough, but nothing serious. We attributed her fussiness to playing outside and getting exposed to all kinds of pollen (we found out Saturday that the pollen count that day was the highest it has been ALL YEAR!) We basically hung around the house and did our best to soothe/console her. She is also getting her incisor teeth right now so we were not sure if her teeth were hurting, she had a cold, or was battling allergies.

Sunday morning, she woke up extremely sick. She kind of laid around the house, not really playing (totally out of character for her) and around 10am I put her in the shower with me, thinking the steam might help break up the mucous all in her chest and nose. When we got her out of the shower she took a fast turn for the worst-- she was breathing very fast, working hard to breathe, and her heart rate was very high. We tried treating her with her albuterol inhaler but it didn't seem to do the trick, so we packed her up and took her to the ER.

When we got her to the ER she was listless and looked bad, but not horrible. They hooked her up to the pulse oximeter and we discovered her pulse/ox was 77...normal is upper 90s to 100, so 77 is pretty bad, especially for a baby. The triage nurse even said the words, "Has she ever been intubated before?" My heart fell out of my chest and I got super upset but tried to hold it together so she wouldn't get scared. Her heart rate was in the 190s and she was breathing upwards of 60 times per minute- practically panting. We got into a treatment room and they started working on her FAST. She got a dose of steroids, a chest Xray, got another strong treatment of albuterol, and was put on 2L of oxygen. Slowly her stats began to improve. (She did not get intubated this trip, thank you Lord!)

We got admitted because she was oxygen dependent and her stats were not good enough to try to wean her off. It was a very long night. The poor thing was so tired (she had no nap on Saturday OR Sunday!) but she was so sweet and good natured through the whole thing, even when she was scared. One thing that was sort of funny was that she would talk to the doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists and greet them when they came in the room with a big, "Hello!" but then as soon as they would start working on her she would yell, "Bye bye!" like she was telling them they had overstayed their welcome and should leave. It was hysterical!

I stayed overnight with her and Paul went home and tried to sleep. He ended up coming back to the hospital about 3am because he couldn't sleep with us there. Together we slept on about a 2.5 foot bench/sofa thing in her room...I have slept in many places that were more comfortable! She didn't need any additional albuterol treatments overnight and her stats were looking much better by this morning.

The overall diagnosis is that she has asthma (even though she is still too young for the 'official' diagnosis). Her case was reviewed by a world-renowned pediatric pulmonologist today (he writes textbooks on peds pulmonology) and he said even though they are supposed to be 2 years old (she is 18 months tomorrow!) that this "looks like asthma, reacts like asthma, is exacerbated by allergies like asthma"....so he is calling it asthma. Hopefully the addition of FloVent to her daily routine will help us from having to go to the hospital with this anymore. It is terribly hard to have her in there, caged up like a little animal. Not to mention that she is a very busy girl and does not love the hospital crib one bit! We see her pediatrician on May 10 for her 18 month appt and hopefully we'll be able to discuss the effects of the FloVent on her from now until then.

Anyway, just wanted to clear the air and let everyone know the "rest of the story". She is doing much better now- when we left today her oxygen sat was in the high 90-100 range on room air (she's been off oxygen since about 9am). Thanks for keeping her in your thoughts and being concerned. We are very happy and relieved to have her home with us tonight and feeling so much better.

Home from Vacation!

We are HOOOOME!! Paul and I had a fantastic trip to Vegas and really enjoyed our time. Emily was well cared for by “Team Grandparents” and was tons of fun for them while we were away...hahaha! She was actually very good, if you don’t count the hyperactivity, poo-ing in the bathtub, and occasional tantrum. :) We are so thankful to have been able to have some fun “grown up style”...wonder when it’ll happen again?