6 Month Well Baby Visit

Audrey had her 6 month well child visit today.  Paul took her again because tomorrow I will be out of school for part of the day for my LASIK eval and I couldn't miss that much time (still in the negative as far as sick time goes thanks to maternity leave and all Audrey's illnesses pre-swallow study!)

Her stats:

Weight: 14lbs 13oz (75th%)
Length: Well, we don't actually know because Daddy can't remember!  Last time I send a man to do a woman's job....  I'll measure her tomorrow to find out, haha!
Head Circumference: See "length" above...;)

The pediatrician said she looks good and gave us the go-ahead to start rice cereal and other 1st foods.  She got several shots today but Paul said she was only upset for just a second- not the total meltdown we've had in the past.  She goes back in one month for a flu-shot booster.

I love the look on her face here....like, "Ok mom....bleck!"

Big belly baby!

Tonight we tried rice cereal for the first time.  She loved it!  She did really well and probably ate a tablespoon total.  I guess we'll do the same procedure we did with Emily and will do rice for a little bit (3-4 days) and then do all vegetables for a week each, then all fruits for a week each.  I can't believe it's time for her to be eating solids already! 

Finally...today was Dr Seuss' birthday so I just had to share my getup for school today....I also had to pick Emily up at school and BOY did I get some crazy looks!!

Audrey is 6 Months Old!

I can't even believe we are halfway to Audrey's first birthday!  (But I have to know...are YOU surprised to know that I already have her party things bought?! haha!)

I am stunned at how quickly the time is passing.  She is growing bigger, stronger, and more interactive every single day.  It's amazing to see her develop so quickly now that we have her swallowing issues under control.  I tell Paul ALL the time how it seems like she was asleep for 3 months or something, and has now woken up.  Of course she wasn't really asleep, but due to her aspirating fluid during every bottle she was constantly so sick she wasn't able to do things other babies do.  So I'm THRILLED that she's moving so fast now!  Here's a snippet of what life is like with sweet Audrey right now:

- she is rolling!  Tummy Time is basically a thing of the past- it only takes about 30 seconds or so for her to roll over to her back.  She also rolls to her tummy from her back and I've even caught her sleeping on her tummy too...be still my heart!  I wish she'd just stay on her back!

 

- She is transferring toys from one hand to the other, and constantly has her hands in her mouth.  She grabs at everything (hair, jewelry, clothes...you just better watch out!) It's so cute to watch her grab hold of anything she can and drag it to her mouth. 

- Speaking of her mouth, we're expecting to see more teeth in there any day now.  She has 2 upper incisors that have been through the skin just barely for almost a month now.  Tonight we were looking and her bottom 2 teeth might be next- the gumline was raised and redder than the rest of her mouth.  I know she's hurting- she's been super fussy and hungrier than normal.  Poor pumpkin! 

- She loooooves to play in the exersaucer!  It's amazing to watch her develop a little more every single time she gets in there!  At first she would just look around (overwhelmed!) at the toys.  Now she's grabbing them, turning the pages on the book, spinning the ball/wheel toy, squeezing the plush toys...all in a matter of a couple weeks.  She also has figured out how to spin the chair around in a complete circle.  We have the exersaucer in the kitchen and she watches us cook and move around the room. We love it!

- She continues to adore Emily.  I wish I had a video camera I could sneakily pull out to catch their little moments together- they melt my heart!  Tonight Emily was holding Audrey on the couch and Audrey was just blabbering away to her.  She always stops playing whenever Emmy comes nearby and Emily stops to give Audrey kisses and hugs.  Tonight Emily was even cheering for Audrey as we noticed she was playing with a new exersaucer toy.  Precious!

- She is in size 2 diapers now and is eating 5oz every 4 hours.

- Tonight, given the go-ahead from the pediatrician, we are going to let her try solids for the first time!  We are so excited to let her try rice cereal, even though we know she's not going to like it at all probably.  I can't wait for this big milestone!

That's about all we have now.  She is going to go to WV with us in a couple weeks to close on our new house (Emily will stay here with my in-laws since we'll be painting and stuff and Emily can't shouldn't help with that, haha!) We're looking forward to the closing, of course, but also to having a few days with just our little girl.  Life is good!

Emily is 3 Years and 4 Months Old!

Hard to believe another month has passed!  Here's a glimpse into life with our big girl!

- Emily has started to notice differences in people.  Recently we were in Walmart and our cashier was an elderly lady.  Emily said, "Look at my new shirt Little Old Lady!" Thank goodness Walmart is about the loudest place on earth to shop and the lady didn't hear her...

- Alongside this realization that people are different is Emily new love of asking EVERYONE what their name is.  It goes something like this:
Emily notices a complete stranger- anyone, anywhere. "What's your name?" (and then, before then can answer...) "My name is Emily Claire Ferguson.  My mommy's name is Allison."
The person usually responds and then she will talk to them about how she is Tinkerbell (or Cinderella, or Ariel, or some made up name she created right there), she is 3 years old, etc. etc.  I want to talk to her about not talking to strangers but I feel like I'd be wasting my breath!  For now I'll settle with not letting her out of my sight...

- She wrote Paul's name this month- I am not even kidding!  She asked him how to spell his name while she was playing on her MagnaDoodle.  He spelled the letters and she wrote them down-- I think she did an amazing job:

 

- She has gotten to play outside a little bit as we've had some warmer weather.  It's so nice to let her run and play!  And of course she loves it too: 

- She is back to napping most days at school, thanks mostly to her sticker chart.  She loooooooves earning stickers and prizes!  It was so stressful for us to hear that she was having behavior issues at school and she certainly is easier to manage at night if she's had a nap..so it's definitely a win-win for everyone. Part of me wishes she would just nap out of the goodness of her heart, but she won't and that's ok. If she needs to earn stickers then that's just fine.

- She has decided (much to my dismay) to stop attending Dancenastics class on Saturdays.  For whatever reason (I think it's because the class now has about 12 girls in it regularly instead of the original 4-5) she has decided that it's not fun anymore and she doesn't want to go.  We forced her to go last weekend and told her she had to try it one more time...after class she was still saying she didn't want to go again and so we are not going to push it with her.  If she's not having fun anymore I'm not going to make her go to something she doesn't like.  Once we move back home this summer I will look into getting her into another class- maybe dance, maybe tumbling, maybe soccer? Who knows?  I wish she had made it to the recital this spring because I'm sure it would be PRECIOUS but I don't want to make her do it if she doesn't like it anymore.

- She is completely obsessed with The Little Mermaid. I mean OBSESSED!  She is constantly either watching it, pretending to be in it, playing with the figurines, etc.  She was watching the other day and Granny asked her if Prince Eric was good looking....Emily looked straight at her and said, "Uh, YEAH!"  It was so cute. I keep teasing Paul that she's in love for the first time, haha!

- I am contemplating a haircut for her (again).  Since her birthday, when I cut it for the first time, it has grown a lot and it is SO hard to manage!  Every single morning is a fight- she hates to have it brushed (despite using detangling spray), runs away, cries, yells, etc. It's misery!  I want her to be happy and more and more I wonder if that means having shorter hair.  I am filled with dread every morning when it's time to do hair!

That's our update for this month.  Make sure you look for more pictures on the Picasa albums!

My precious girl

Last night I told Emily goodnight and mentioned I wasn't feeling well. 
She asked me why. 
I said I thought I was getting a cold. 
She asked why I was cold. 
I said I wasn't COLD, I was getting a cold...when your nose is runny and your head hurts and you don't feel good. 
She said I should take some medicine. 
I told her I would. 
She touched my cheek so gently and said, "I will make you feel better, my precious girl." 

Melted. My. Heart. I don't know where this sudden burst of sweetness is coming from, but I love it!  She is compassionate, gentle, loving...it's so precious.  She is melting Paul and I both with the unexpected hugs and kisses.  I love that sweet girl so much it hurts.

Valentine's Day 2011

The Ferguson family just had Valentine's Day. Audrey slept through all of it :).  Emily loves her new Disney Fairies doll from Daddy!  She was so excited and keeps flying Vidia (doll), all around the house.  Vidia matches the Tinkerbell doll that Grandaddy bought her and she noticed on the back that they also sell Silvermist, Rosetta, Fawn, and Iridessa... so I see some potential gift options for her in the future!

Daddy loves his gift from me, a photo scrapbook of our journey together over the past 9 years. And I love my two 1-hour massage gift certificates from him!! Love my sweet family so much! We're making a special dinner tonight- braised short ribs and garlic mashed potatoes...mmmmm! Happy Valentine's Day!

Baby's First Hospitalization

We've had quite a rough couple of days with poor Audrey.  As I mentioned in her Monthly Update, she has been sick again recently.  Over last weekend, she would have periods of looking rough- lots of retracting, grunting, tugging, etc., but then it would sort of get a little better and we wouldn't feel AS worried. We specifically noticed a huge decline in her appearance and heightened breathing trouble after she would drink her bottle. However, we decided to go ahead and send her to Miss Jamey on Monday since she appeared to be better on Monday morning.

On Monday afternoon Jamey let us know that Audrey wasn't looking very good and so Paul called and got her an appointment with our pediatrician.  He took her in and she received a breathing treatment (albuterol) to see if she couldn't do better.  Her pulse oxygen level was in the high 80s...normal is close to 100.  Our pediatrician observed her for a while and decided she needed to go to the emergency department at the hospital to be assessed there.  Around this time I was getting out of work and called Paul, who told me what was happening.  I quickly called my in-laws to come down and help us, and called Jamey to see if Emily could go over there for a little while while we took Audrey to the hospital.  Luckily it worked out that my in-laws could make it and Jamey was a saint and allowed Emily to come play over there too.  We were (and are!) so grateful to all of them.

I met Paul at the hospital and we were seen by the peds residents and attendings.  Audrey was checked for RSV and the flu and tested negative for both of them.  She had a chest x ray and it was found that she has a pneumonia in one of her lungs. At this point we started talking about doing a barium test on her to rule out any malformations in her digestive tract or esophagus, and a swallowing study to see what was causing her to have such trouble breathing after she eats.  Unfortunately, neither of those tests is available in the middle of the night (well, probably if it's an emergency they are but this wasn't an emergency), so she got admitted.  We headed up the the 6th floor around 10:30 and got settled.  Paul went home and got me some clothes, my contacts case, toothbrush, etc., and then I sent him home to get some sleep. 

I stayed with Audrey and she was very uncomfortable.  Her O2 sats kept going around 90-91, which was better, but still not good.  Between her machines beeping, vital signs every hour, the helicopter landing, etc, I think I slept around 2 hours!  It was such a long night!  Thankfully in the morning Paul came and brought me some breakfast (for whatever reason, the food at the hospital is kind of crummy, but their breakfast is amazing!  I was so glad to be there for that meal, lol).  After breakfast the team rounded on Audrey and told us that they had ordered the barium and swallowing studies so we could be getting ready for that.  We headed upstairs and waited just a little while before the tests began.

First was the upper GI x ray... for this one they had her drink 2 ounces of a barium solution and then x rayed her while she drank it.  She liked the drink but HATED being confined to the x ray table- as with all babies, she had to be velcroed to a board with her arms over her head...definitely NOT her favorite position for sure!  The x ray showed that she didn't have any malformations but that she DOES definitely have reflux-- we watched the solution go down, down, down into her tummy and then some of it came right back up into her esophagus.  She was already receiving Zantac for that so we will just keep on giving her that.  She had 2 more of these x rays throughout the day to make sure she has no intestinal problems and everything looked clear and normal- so thank Heavens for that!

Next was the swallowing study.  She was put in a little carseat-like chair and they took xray video of her drinking a variety of different fluid consistencies (all with barium for contrast).  THIS was the test that gave us our answer!  It turns out that when she is drinking plain formula or breastmilk- consistency liquid, she is aspirating fluid up into her nasal cavity (causing her chronic runny nose and congestion) and also into her lungs (causing her frequent upper respiratory infections AND the pneumonia that was discovered the night before).  The test was AMAZING- to see her swallowing everything and aspirating some of the liquid.   speech pathologist was conducting the test and she was SO nice and gave us so much information...but I was just so impressed with how well she did her job.  My highly untrained eyes were missing the aspirations so she slowed down the playback and pointed them out...we're talking like a SPECK of white on an x ray film and she was catching that every time.  We experimented with a lot of different consistencies and finally got the right mixture for Audrey to successfully swallow-- something called "nectar thick". 

Basically, we have to add a gel thickener to all her bottles to ensure that she doesn't aspirate the fluid anymore.  We ordered the gel stuff (it's super expensive AND not covered by insurance...AWESOME!) and the hospital gave us a bunch of samples to use until that arrives.  I can attest to how much of a difference this stuff is making already- just the first few bottles she's had have been entirely different than her usual feeding behavior!  She is still coughing a little and sputtering after she eats but that probably has more to do with the fact that she definitely has pneumonia and the attending yesterday said she believes she's fighting a virus right now too.  Poor girl!  But just in the past day she has improved so much... we are so thankful for all the resources that are at the hospital here that helped her to get diagnosed.  It's so wild to think that this swallowing problem has accounted for most of her illnesses this winter!   We are so relieved to have an ANSWER and to know that she's not just some sickly little kid who catches everything she gets exposed to.  We are definitely looking forward to her getting better and being so much more comfortable when she eats.  Thank goodness for modern medicine!

Sweet Sunday

 Here's a glimpse into our morning this morning:

Emily put a huge hat on Audrey- do you see the joy in Em's face here?!