First, Happy Valentine’s Day! We had a wonderful morning here and spent it taking Emily to the local Children’s Museum. She had a SUPER GREAT time playing and being with all the other children! We finished the morning with a delicious pizza from a great spot downtown. Emily was so cute all morning- ver loving and excited. It was so much fun to see her “in her element” so to speak and having so much fun!

As far as updates go...well boy is there a lot to update! I won’t share everything because then I’ll have nothing new for my Month 16 update next Saturday, but here’s a few snippets of what’s been happening in our house lately!


1.Emily has learned how to RUN! Have I mentioned this before? Anyway, she is a holy terror in the house, running as fast as she can, wherever she can, whenever she can. She cannot be stopped! So far she’s great at the running part but needs some practice in the “stopping” and “turning” departments. She is a tough girl though- she falls down and hops right back up-- no tears, kisses from Mommy, etc. She just keeps going!


2.Emily has also figured out how to blow raspberries on MY stomach! Isn’t that hilarious? There are pics of her doing it in the Month 16 album. It is so funny and makes me burst into giggles every time. There is a downside, however... now she is even more determined (if this were even possible!) to lift up my shirt at any time (any place, in front of any one....are you seeing the problems with this?) We had some friends over for the Superbowl and suddenly she was lifting my shirt up in the middle of the kitchen!! Thank goodness they were close friends! Haha!


3.She is saying SO MANY new words. It’s seriously going to take me a couple days to write them all down. Notable new ones include “help” (soooo helpful! I love this one!), “outside”, “hot dog” (no no- NOT because she is eating them! Because of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song, ha!), and....drumroll please....... I’m pausing for dramatic effect..........

LOVE YOU!! Yes-- it’s true! She says “Love you!”. But really only just repeating when we say it. But try wiping the big grin off my face when she says it....just try. :)


4.She has become such a big girl with the Goodbye every morning when I drop her at Jamey’s. I decided to just tell her goodbye instead of trying to sneak out and it’s working MUCH better- she gives me hugs, kisses, and sometimes will even say “die die” (bye bye”) to me. It makes my day!


OK- so that’s all for now. Like I said, the 16 month update is coming next weekend so I’ve got to keep some stuff for later~ Thanks for checking on our girl. Make sure you look at the new pics in the Month 16 album!

Asthma

We noticed Emmy coughing and having a lot of runny nose and sneezing on Sunday night but didn’t think much of it. When she woke up yesterday morning she was snotty and crabby but seemed to feel better after breakfast so we went ahead and sent her to Jamey's so she could play-- all morning she had been saying "Dee Dee!" (Jamey's son) so we knew she wanted to go over there. We gave her a breathing treatment before we sent her and then took her over. Paul and I were at lunch when we got a call from Jamey saying Emily was very fussy and seemed to be breathing hard. As soon as we could we went back to her house- her sister in law was there (Jamey had an OB appointment) and Emily was having a SUPER hard time breathing- tugging, grunting, pulling, breathing really fast (over 60x/min) and felt hot like she had a fever. We called the pediatrician and begged them to get us in, which they did. We took her over and they wanted to watch her and give her breathing treatments and also oral steroids. Her pulse/ox was 80 (good is 100) but we were having a hard time getting a good reading so we weren’t sure about whether to believe that. Her temp was 100.1. They watched her there for 2 hours and weren’t satisfied with how she looked so they sent us on to the ER.

When we go to the ER they checked her pulse/ox again and it was 89. Her heart rate was close to the 200s but albuterol can increase it so they weren't super concerned about that. She had to be strapped down to the board again for a chest Xray which later came back clear. They put her on 1L of oxygen but later cut it back to 1/2 a liter and then turned it off completely. We got the "official diagnosis" that she is most likely asthmatic and we will need to have an inhaler with us, or readily available, at all times (like, we don't have to take it every single place we go but we should always have the prescription filled and have it in a place where we can find it or get to it easily, and take it with us if we are traveling out of town or something). She was treated and released from the ER last night and I stayed home with her today. I already took her to the pediatrician for her follow up and saw a different doc than yesterday who said she looks much better but to stay the course and do the albuterol every 4 hours until this evening and also to finish out the 4 days of steroids they had us get.


I don't really know how I feel about all this- I am disappointed to have the 'sick kid' but I'm hopeful that asthma meds have gotten so much better now that she will be able to live a normal life. I hate to see her in the hospital but I hate even more that we will have to be vigilant with her and exposure to allergens, etc. . Most of all, I just hope she gets completely better. The doctor today said most kids have a 50/50 chance of outgrowing the wheezing and airway issues by age 5 but when I told him Paul is asthmatic and Emmy already has excema he seemed less confident that Emily would outgrow it. I guess we will have to see!! For now I am just relieved that she was able to be treated and released and that she is her same wild self today.

15 Months Old!

I say it every month so why make this one any different-- I can’t believe she’s growing up so fast! Emily is now 15 months old and is getting bigger, wilder, and more energetic (if that was even possible!) every day. Sit back and relax for a moments folks, while I fill you in on 15 Month Old Emily Claire!

---She has new words!! I think she knew I was secretly getting nervous about the lack of vocabulary expansion between months 12-15 so this week she really stepped it up and started using new ones! Here’s what she says so far:

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)


--- She is a walking machine now!! A lot of her time is spent on her feet, walking around our house. She will tell us “bye bye”, walk into the next room, and come back in a say “hi”. It is so funny! She plays it constantly.


---She is understanding SO much of what we say now. I read that she is probably in a stage of Language Acquisition known as the “passive phase” in which she is absorbing all of what we say and deriving meaning from it, but not necessarily saying all of what we are saying. (Did that make sense?!) So, we’re trying to help her associate different things with the words to describe them. For instance, while I was drying my hair the other day she turned the faucet on in our bathroom and, before I could get to her, she put her hand under the hot water. Right when I got to her I said “ouchie! ouchie!” and now when she sees that bathtub she says “ouchie!” and will not touch it! Not too shabby, if you ask me!


---Related to the language/talking, she has simple vocabulary flash cards a friend of mine gave to her-- they say things like cat, dog, car, corn, apple, shoes, etc. and each one has a different part of it that is texturized (like the dog and cat each have a patch of fur). About 2 weeks ago Paul and I were AMAZED when, out of curiosity, I held up the cards 2 at a time, and asked her to show me what each one was. I changed the hand I was holding the correct card in and she correctly guessed every single one!! We were blown away. It just further shows that she’s in the passive phase...but she is obviously understanding so much!


--- She is learning to take off her clothes! Ok, so we’re not thrilled about this one, but she is learning how to help us get her dressed and undressed. Just the other morning we were putting on her pants and she was standing up, holding on to my shoulders....made me realize that she was putting them on the “grown up” way!


---She loves to eat vegetables, specifically the green beans/peas/carrots/corn medley kind. I heat them up for her every dinner and weekend lunches too...she gobbles it down like it is candy!


---She is learning to eat with a spoon and fork! Plus, we have gotten her some more dishes and she has been pretty cooperative with using them, but leaving them on her tray. Also, she has decided that at Miss Jamey’s, she should eat at the table with the other kids. Jamey now has to lower the highchair and let Emily join the others...Jamey, we love you and you are a saint for putting up with our crazy lady!! :)


---Tonight, she used the potty for the first (and second!) time!! I was SHOCKED! She was trying to make “poo poo” and I said, “let’s let her try it on the potty instead” since I knew that’s what she was doing. You see, whenever Emmy has to poo she goes off by herself and tries, but she tries by sitting down on her bottom....thus making it MUCH more difficult to go. So, I grabbed her up and put her on the potty, and then hugged her because she was a little confused about everything. I just wanted her to try sitting there- I didn’t think anything would really happen...when all of a sudden, we heard a little plop!! She went in the potty!! (Side story- I was trying to put her diaper back on and wipe her bottom and she reached and very nearly reached into the potty to get her “deposit” back OUT. Yuck!) A few minutes later she assumed the position again so we ran back to the bathroom shouting “poo poo!! Let’s poo poo in the potty!” and voila-- she did it again! Now please-- we are not starting potty training now by any means, but I am seriously thinking of trying to have her poo in the potty because it makes it so much easier on her-- I don’t mind changing diapers at all but it is frustrating to see your baby struggling so, all because of her position. So maybe this is our answer?


---She loves to play “I’m gonna get you!” type games-- LOVES them! Right now her fave is to walk too close to me and then I’ll say “Emmy!” in this scary voice and she will laugh hysterically, walk a little faster, and then look back at me. It’s even better if I will chase after her stomping my feet hard or crawling on the floor. She gets completely worked up over this game and laughs so hard!


--- She LOVES to dance! She has a big Fisher Price toy set that plays a lot of songs and she loves to dance to it--- but her dancing is hilarious right now. It starts out as simple heading bobbing, back and forth...but then grows to be like, head loosely flowing from side to side, with whole body swaying and arms in the air. It is so funny to watch!! Another favorite activity is playing the music, dancing, and then turning to make sure Daddy and I are also dancing. If we don’t dance she gets SO mad!! She checks after every song to make sure we are bobbing our heads too...so funny!



So there you have it-- a synopsis of our girl right now. She is so much fun and this is an incredible age. I always feel like I love her current age the best but this time I really mean it, haha! She is tons of fun to play with and we love spending our time with her.

FINALLY feeling better!

After nearly 3 weeks of being sick, Emily is FINALLY feeling better! What a long Christmas break/vacation time (for Paul) we have had! Emily had viral bronchiolitis, a bad cold, and double ear infection! In addition to the ear infection, she was completely unable to hold down food for 5 straight days and lost a full pound....talk about stressed-out Mommy and Daddy! Thank goodness she is finally better and back to her old self. That is one 3-week span I do NOT want to relive!

Baby's First ER Visit!

Emily and I have been fighting a nasty cold for about the past week. On Saturday morning at about 230a I woke up and checked on her-- she had been extremely fussy and was having a lot of difficulty breathing due to excessive congestion and a plugged up nose. When I went in her room I found her sleeping, but breathing very rapidly-- about once per second-- and very sweaty. I woke Paul up because she didn’t seem “right” to me. He looked at her briefly and decided that yes, she needed to go to the Emergency Department. All along he was thinking she would need an Albuterol breathing treatment but of course we didn’t have the Albuterol nor the spacer to administer it....so, off we hurried in the middle of the night.


When we got to the ED she was seen very quickly (thank Heavens!) Her oxygen saturation was only in the low 80s (good is 90+, great is 100%). Also, she had a fever of 102. She was breathing about 60x per minute (my previous estimate had been right on). In addition, her heart rate was between 170-190 bpm...pretty fast, even for a baby. They took her back to a room and gave her a nasal cannula with 1 liter of oxygen. She hated the cannula-- I cannot say this enough! She tried so many times to tear it off! Then she was examined by the Peds resident on call that night, who said she sounded congested and had low O2 sats and possibly had RSV. At this point, I started getting very scared. People were talking in hushed tones, Paul thought he heard the term “rapid response” which is another way of saying “intubation” and that really freaked me out. All I could think about was how much she had been out with other people recently- traveling, going to the mall, playing with other kids, etc. Last year around this time we were practically quarantined trying to NOT get RSV. The only good thing was that this year, she would be 14 months old battling RSV instead of 8 weeks.


I held her tightly and tried to console her-- anytime someone came near her she just cried and cried. She was so confused about being up in the middle of the night, being bothered with wires and weird people coming to listen to her, touch her, take her temperature rectally (she is definitely NOT fond of that...who would be?!) I kept rocking her and it seemed like she would finally fall asleep, only to have a machine start beeping, or someone come in to look at her, etc. So annoying and stressful! At one point she had to have a screening done for RSV- this involved sliding a flexible-tipped syringe up inside her nose and withdrawing a sample of mucous...I don’t have to tell you how much she hated this. Poor muffin. Also, a respiratory therapist came and gave her an albuterol breathing treatment, which, while very traumatizing for Emmy, provided instant relief. She could breathe bigger breaths, her heart rate slowed down, and her O2 sats came up to the 90+ area. Big relief.


Once the RSV and influenza screens came back (both negative, hooray!) we were admitted to the pediatrics floor of the hospital.

(We had to wait for the screening to come back so they would know if we needed to be in Isolation or not-- it turns out that there Isolation sign was hung on her doorway anyway, even though both screen came back negative). She rode in my lap in a wheelchair up to the 8th floor. We got her settled into her room at about 5am and she was seen by a few more doctors and nurses. All during this time she was eating, drinking, making wet/dirty diapers, etc.


Around 10 I left to go let the dogs out and get that poor girl some toys-- all I had grabbed before we left was her “Silky”, a small satin/velour blanket thing that she sleeps with. When I got back to the hospital she had been lowered to 1/2 liter of O2 and had pulled her cannula over to really her cheek area, not anywhere near her nose. Then the docs decided that she could try no oxygen at all, and she kept her sats up around the 94-100 mark on room air which was so relieving.


She was served a tray of Inedible Delights for lunch so Paul’s mom Jane (Granny) went down to the cafeteria and got her a grilled cheese sandwich, which she picked at. She MUCH preferred the ice cream that was on her tray, but I only gave her a few little bites (maybe 2-3 tsp total) because it was only the second time in her life to have ice cream and I was afraid she would get sick from it.


She finally took a 1 hour nap (keep in mind, we had all been up since 2am!) but was back jumping up and down in the metal crib shortly after. The nurses kept coming in and saying, “What is she doing? It must be the albuterol-- it can make them hyper” but we just laughed and said that jumping in her crib is just what she does! Albuterol had nothing to do with it!


Around 3pm I had the nurses page the on call resident again- I really didn’t see any reason for her to stay in the hospital where she obviously couldn’t rest if she was having good saturations, her heart rate had slowed, and she was eating/drinking/making dirty diapers. Luckily for us, the resident completely agreed and discharged us. At 3 the respiratory therapist returned and gave her albuterol treatment #3 and we were home by 4pm. I figured she would go right to sleep in the car and I would put her to bed very early, but when we got home she was up and ready to play again! Can you believe that? So, we played with her and kept her up until 6pm, at which time she had a quick bath, cup, and bed. She jumped in her crib until about 6:15 (seriously....I wish we could bottle up her energy and sell it!) and then I didn’t hear another peep from her room until 6:30am the NEXT morning! I went to bed at 6:30 (also exhausted from a very long day!) and, aside from going in to check on her 4-5 times during the night, slept completely uninterrupted until she got up at 6:30 Sunday. Bliss!


Today (Monday) we took her to see her regular pediatrician for a follow up visit. She said Emily looks great but still is congested. She said not to use the albuterol “just because”-- to save it for when she really does need a treatment. We had brought it with us just in case she needed it but the doctor said she was OK. We are so glad to have her home and (sort of) healthy. I don’t want to go back to the ED for a long, long time!

Baby's First ER Visit!

Emily and I have been fighting a nasty cold for about the past week. On Saturday morning at about 230a I woke up and checked on her-- she had been extremely fussy and was having a lot of difficulty breathing due to excessive congestion and a plugged up nose. When I went in her room I found her sleeping, but breathing very rapidly-- about once per second-- and very sweaty. I woke Paul up because she didn’t seem “right” to me. He looked at her briefly and decided that yes, she needed to go to the Emergency Department. All along he was thinking she would need an Albuterol breathing treatment but of course we didn’t have the Albuterol nor the spacer to administer it....so, off we hurried in the middle of the night.


When we got to the ED she was seen very quickly (thank Heavens!) Her oxygen saturation was only in the low 80s (good is 90+, great is 100%). Also, she had a fever of 102. She was breathing about 60x per minute (my previous estimate had been right on). In addition, her heart rate was between 170-190 bpm...pretty fast, even for a baby. They took her back to a room and gave her a nasal cannula with 1 liter of oxygen. She hated the cannula-- I cannot say this enough! She tried so many times to tear it off! Then she was examined by the Peds resident on call that night, who said she sounded congested and had low O2 sats and possibly had RSV. At this point, I started getting very scared. People were talking in hushed tones, Paul thought he heard the term “rapid response” which is another way of saying “intubation” and that really freaked me out. All I could think about was how much she had been out with other people recently- traveling, going to the mall, playing with other kids, etc. Last year around this time we were practically quarantined trying to NOT get RSV. The only good thing was that this year, she would be 14 months old battling RSV instead of 8 weeks.


I held her tightly and tried to console her-- anytime someone came near her she just cried and cried. She was so confused about being up in the middle of the night, being bothered with wires and weird people coming to listen to her, touch her, take her temperature rectally (she is definitely NOT fond of that...who would be?!) I kept rocking her and it seemed like she would finally fall asleep, only to have a machine start beeping, or someone come in to look at her, etc. So annoying and stressful! At one point she had to have a screening done for RSV- this involved sliding a flexible-tipped syringe up inside her nose and withdrawing a sample of mucous...I don’t have to tell you how much she hated this. Poor muffin. Also, a respiratory therapist came and gave her an albuterol breathing treatment, which, while very traumatizing for Emmy, provided instant relief. She could breathe bigger breaths, her heart rate slowed down, and her O2 sats came up to the 90+ area. Big relief.


Once the RSV and influenza screens came back (both negative, hooray!) we were admitted to the pediatrics floor of the hospital.

(We had to wait for the screening to come back so they would know if we needed to be in Isolation or not-- it turns out that there Isolation sign was hung on her doorway anyway, even though both screen came back negative). She rode in my lap in a wheelchair up to the 8th floor. We got her settled into her room at about 5am and she was seen by a few more doctors and nurses. All during this time she was eating, drinking, making wet/dirty diapers, etc.


Around 10 I left to go let the dogs out and get that poor girl some toys-- all I had grabbed before we left was her “Silky”, a small satin/velour blanket thing that she sleeps with. When I got back to the hospital she had been lowered to 1/2 liter of O2 and had pulled her cannula over to really her cheek area, not anywhere near her nose. Then the docs decided that she could try no oxygen at all, and she kept her sats up around the 94-100 mark on room air which was so relieving.


She was served a tray of Inedible Delights for lunch so Paul’s mom Jane (Granny) went down to the cafeteria and got her a grilled cheese sandwich, which she picked at. She MUCH preferred the ice cream that was on her tray, but I only gave her a few little bites (maybe 2-3 tsp total) because it was only the second time in her life to have ice cream and I was afraid she would get sick from it.


She finally took a 1 hour nap (keep in mind, we had all been up since 2am!) but was back jumping up and down in the metal crib shortly after. The nurses kept coming in and saying, “What is she doing? It must be the albuterol-- it can make them hyper” but we just laughed and said that jumping in her crib is just what she does! Albuterol had nothing to do with it!


Around 3pm I had the nurses page the on call resident again- I really didn’t see any reason for her to stay in the hospital where she obviously couldn’t rest if she was having good saturations, her heart rate had slowed, and she was eating/drinking/making dirty diapers. Luckily for us, the resident completely agreed and discharged us. At 3 the respiratory therapist returned and gave her albuterol treatment #3 and we were home by 4pm. I figured she would go right to sleep in the car and I would put her to bed very early, but when we got home she was up and ready to play again! Can you believe that? So, we played with her and kept her up until 6pm, at which time she had a quick bath, cup, and bed. She jumped in her crib until about 6:15 (seriously....I wish we could bottle up her energy and sell it!) and then I didn’t hear another peep from her room until 6:30am the NEXT morning! I went to bed at 6:30 (also exhausted from a very long day!) and, aside from going in to check on her 4-5 times during the night, slept completely uninterrupted until she got up at 6:30 Sunday. Bliss!


Today (Monday) we took her to see her regular pediatrician for a follow up visit. She said Emily looks great but still is congested. She said not to use the albuterol “just because”-- to save it for when she really does need a treatment. We had brought it with us just in case she needed it but the doctor said she was OK. We are so glad to have her home and (sort of) healthy. I don’t want to go back to the ED for a long, long time!

Merry Christmas to All!

Tonight is Emily’s second Christmas Eve! Although we are lonely tonight (Paul is on call at the hospital all night) we still tried to keep up our traditions that Paul and I started last year. Some of them will have to be modified (like a portrait of Em with each parent on Christmas Eve) simply because we weren’t both present and it’s too hard to try to take photos of myself! For the most part though, we did the things I wanted to do to remember this night.


First, this afternoon my friend DeeDee and her little girl Brielle came over. DeeDee’s husband Kevin works at the same hospital as Paul and was on call tonight as well, so we girls got together and made cookies (meringue, oatmeal chocolate chip, and peanut butter no-bakes) to take to the hospital tonight for the Daddies and everyone else working in their departments. We met Kevin and Paul for dinner and then after we got back home we did the rest of our traditions:

1.Put out treats for Santa and the reindeer (this year he is having pretzel sticks, meringue cookies, and water)
2.Emily is dressed in her Christmas jammies and bunny slippers
3.Left the lights on on the tree (usually we turn them off at night)
4.Hung up the stockings by the fireplace
5.Read The Polar Express (although here’s a little confession....Emily was NOT feeling the story tonight so I admit...she did get the condensed version. It’s the thought that counts, right?!)
6.I tucked Emily in nice and tight and said her prayers for her, telling her the story of Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus.


It is lonely tonight without Paul. I know next year will be better, happier, because we will all be together. At least he is just 6 miles away at work-- I cannot imagine the aching hearts of families with loved ones overseas tonight. I am so grateful that her Daddy is just down the road, not halfway across the world.


Tonight I am thankful for so many things- for my beautiful baby, my loving, supportive husband, our families, the relative ease of moving to North Carolina, for my job, which I do actually love, even though it’s a Tough Love kind of feeling a lot of the time (just ASK how many times I’ve thought of my little friends and worried for them....and I still have another 10 days before I can check on them!) We have been so very lucky and blessed this year and for some reason tonight it all seems so obvious to me. I am thankful....so very, very thankful.


Tonight, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Thank you for being a part of our story and for checking on us.