Friday, February 29, 2008

It's a Big World Out There

Adelaide has discovered the greatness of the outside world this week. It's finally warm enough, and she's walking well enough to explore our yard. We've been spending at least a couple hours a day outside. I'm usually picking weeds (we've got alot to do in the yard right now). She does all kinds of things.

The first day out she just walked around, checking everything out. The next I filled up a pot with water, gave her a wooden spoon, and let her pretend. Today we moved to the front yard (no fence. ah!). At first I just tried letting her walk around but after awhile the neighbors across the street came home. They've got a little girl around 5 years old. As soon as Adelaide saw their car pull up and the little girl get out, she ran, yes ran, down the side of our yard waving frantically at her. The little girl waved back but went inside. After that Adelaide was drawn to the street so I had to distract her with toys. I gave her an old formula can which she continually filled with other toys and pretended to drink them. Then I let her play with my yard gloves. Obviously she was paying attention because she was able to put them on by herself. Anyway, awhile later the neighbor came back out with his daughter. They came over to say hi. Again Adelaide had the frantic waving going on. [She's really waving alot now. Today we went to Wal-mart and she waved at almost everyone. It's so cute! I've been also trying to get her to blow kisses and she's done it once. She's got the sound down; it's just the combo move she struggles with.] Anyway, back to the neighbor. We've been suspecting forever that our neighbors only spoke Spanish. It was confirmed today when our conversation consisted of Hello and Hola. Alot can be said without words though; I'm counting on that.

Today she also managed to get into an ant pile. I checked our entire yard for piles but didn't think to check our neighbor's yard. That's where she found them. Luckily I caught her before they were all over here, but I still had to take off her pants and diaper to get them all off. I think she only got two bites. She didn't have an allergic reaction or anything so that's good. My brother is allergic to ants so I definitely watched her closely for awhile after it happened. Plus after the Tanners' son, Jude, swelled and his throat closed up after ant bites I've been freaked out by ants.

It's hard to get good pictures of Adelaide these days. She doesn't sit still for long, but here's a few from our time in the yard today. I like the ones of her trying to figure out the gloves. She also really liked playing with our gardenia.





Here's another random photo. Yesterday was Rocky's birthday and the Tanners, our neighbors, made Rocky a special plate of birthday cookies:

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The news


Adelaide is on the road to recovery! We went to the pediatrician and the ear, nose, and throat doctor too. They both had good hopeful things to say. Basically without going into a really long story, one ear is 90% better, the other is 95% better. The third antibiotic finally worked! I'm so pumped! At the ENT they did a hearing test, and her hearing is a bit diminished right now but it's not too bad. I did notice that on Saturday it seemed like she was hearing me again. For about a week and a half when I said "no" Adelaide acted like she didn't hear me. It's probably because she didn't! Both doctors basically said the same thing. If she gets another cold, she's very susceptible to another ear infection, and then giving her tubes will her more likely. They were hopeful though because cold and flu season is almost over. So if she can avoid a cold for the rest of the winter that would be awesome. Hopefully by next fall, she'll have outgrown this problem. Her poor little Eustachian tubes are just not big enough right now it seems.

Today Adelaide's back to sleeping in her crib. She even slept in the church nursery this morning during my bible study. Her appetite's still not great which stinks 'cause the pedi wants her weight up to 21 pounds by her birthday. I'll see what I can do. I'm trying. Plus today she has pooped 7 times! That's not helping us out. Hopefully when she gets off the antibiotics tomorrow her appetite will return and the diarrhea will be gone. Oh, here's some weird info. Antibiotics diminish appetite and stunt growth. So on top of it all, Dr. Spencer said she probably won't be at 75th percentile in height OR weight. Sad.

On a good note, we've been having so much fun now that Adelaide's feeling so much better. We went to the park, played around, and had our first family picnic the other night. We all had PB&J. We'll Adelaide had SB&J (soy butter and jelly since she's too young for peanut butter just yet). She is such a big kid these days. She had a great time swinging (as evidenced above) and climbed up the slide on her own and then would slid down. Every time she slid down her hair would all stand out because of the static electricity. Then on the way home Adelaide mimicked us. We'd roar, she'd roar. She's buzz our lips, she's buzz her lips. We'd smack, she'd smack. It just added to the fun evening. I'm so glad she can hear us again.

She can walk around outside now. It changes things alot. Like today when I got out of the car my hands were very full so I put Adelaide down and she followed me to the back door. How cool is that!

Anyway, that's the update. The news was encouraging and she's doing much better. Thank God.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Fed up

I know it seems like all I've been posting about is that Adelaide is sick. That's because that is all I've been posting about. She's been sick since New Year's Eve. That's right. It's going on 2 months now. Believe it or not, the sweet girl has only had 2 colds in her life, but both times she could not kick them. In October and November she had a cold for 8 weeks. She was snotty for the longest time and like this time, it eventually led to an ear infection and antibiotics. This time is lasting as long, has led to a horrible ear infection too, but she's going through drug after drug this time without clearing things up.

I'm tired. Every day normal things are a challenge. I'm fed up with it and so is she. She's sleeping in her swing and has been for going on 3 weeks. She just can't get comfortable laying flat. I've learned to change her diaper on the floor in front of the tv downstairs so I don't have to wrestle with a crying, squirming kid. I've accepted that she doesn't have much of an appetite so I just shovel in whatever she'll eat. I'm so ready for her to feel normal.

Tomorrow's the big day-- her second follow up appointment for her ear infections and our first appointment with the ear, nose, and throat doctor. I really wish they were today. I can't wait to hear what they both have to say. At this point I'm ready to try just about anything for my sweet girl to be well. Tubes? Bring it on.

On a positive note, Adelaide is becoming an amazing walker. She's all over the place. I found her next to the trash can the other day dumping toys inside. It was so funny I had a hard time not laughing when disciplining her. A friend of ours commented that it's amazing she took her first steps in the middle of all this ear infection junk. She said it must be really hard for her to balance well. Just goes to show we've got an amazing kid on her hands. :)

Monday, February 18, 2008

Adelaide's follow up appt.

Today was the 10th day on the antibiotic for her ear infection. We went in for a follow up appointment so the doctor could check her ears again to make sure the infection was gone. I had no idea what he was going to say. Adelaide has been fussier than normal this week but she's also cutting some teeth so I didn't know if it was that. Plus she's still happier than lots of kids even on her fussiest day so we were just wondering if her personality may be changing a little.

Adelaide had 1 ear infection prior to this and it cleared up with some amoxicillin with no problem. Well, that wasn't the case this time. Adelaide's been snotty now for over a month and a half and was already on amoxicillin once so they put her on suprex this time. Suprex is supposed to be super powerful, but it wasn't powerful enough. The doctor said her ears were off the charts bad 10 days ago and now they are a 9 out of 10 as far as severity. No good.

He said her throat is severely irritated due to the post nasal drip and the mucous she's got is causing all of her vomiting. She's been vomiting about once or twice a daily for the past few weeks. She weighed less today than she did 10 days ago and I realized today that she weighs now what she weighed at her 9 month well check 2 months ago. This sickness is causing her to lose weight. Poor girl. This is what really got to me today. She was in the 75th percentile for weight before so she's not dropping off the charts or anything now but it's still hard to watch. The doctor said she should have gained about 2 pounds since then instead of 1 ounce like she did. I knew she was thinning out but I didn't realize how much. She's now able to fit into clothes she outgrew months ago. Some of her pants that used to be snug are falling off of her.

Anyway, the doctor had one last recommendation-- trying yet another antibiotic, augmentin. He said this is the most powerful antibiotic he's got. He said it can be difficult on a kiddo's system so we need to keep giving her probiotics to try and help her from getting a yeast infection and diarrhea. It's once again going to be a 10 day course.

I'll head back to see the doctor again next Tuesday. If these antibiotics don't clear it up, we'll be seeing a specialist at that point. As horrible as that sounds, it could be a good thing. It seems like all of Adelaide's lingering sicknesses are caused by poor drainage. Tubes may help her out with that. As I told Rocky today, it seems like she's got some bad wiring up there. Anyway, keep our little girl in your prayers. It's been a hard few weeks for her. She's in alot of pain. It's been a hard few weeks for me. I feel helpless and so sad for her.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

Proof and other recent stuff

Rocky is always the last one to believe me when I say Adelaide's doing something new so since I began telling people Adelaide was taking steps he kept denying it. Well, Rocky, here's your proof:





Adelaide is a very confident kid. She knows want she wants and what she doesn't. She will really make her opinion known. Rocky was trying to feed her green beans a few weeks ago. I don't think she wanted them:


Rocky hates to let Adelaide get messy during dinner but I insist that sometimes we let her "learn by doing." Last week we decided to have a "feed yourself" night. Normally we let her feed herself things like banana chunks, avocado, but that night we let her feed herself everything.

That's why after dinner we did this:

My dad's been in town for the past week. It's been fun. Here's some pics and videos of our time together:





I'm starting to let Adelaide have more freedom outside. She generally crawls around outside and doesn't try to eat things which was a big concern of mine. I guess I won't have to worry about the knees of her pants getting dirty much longer though. Here's a picture we took in the backyard a couple of weeks ago.


Adelaide's been a bit fussy this week, understandably with all the sickness and teething and all. Today I stuck her in front of the TV for the first time in months to watch Signing Time and to calm her down. It worked. She sat there focused on the show for the entire 30 minutes. That was nice. I think she looked so cute.

Dinky Diner and other Things I love

Awhile back I posted a few of my favorite baby things and I've got a couple more things to add.

Dinky Diner
I LOVE this product. I was looking online for things I thought would be useful for our trip to Thailand this summer. I wanted a portable highchair that I wouldn't mind carrying all day everyday, on public transportation. It had to be lightweight, easy to use, and do the job well. At first everything I found was too big to carry around regularly. Then I stumbled upon a totally new concept, a new one to me anyway-- the fabric highchair. The first ones I found ran about $40. That's alot. So I kept up the search and stumbled upon the Dinky Diner on ebay. It was only $12.50! It works great on almost any chair, will come in handy when we're in a generally highchairless country this summer, and I'm already putting it to good use. Tonight for instance the restaurant we went to was super busy and out of high chairs so I pulled the Dinky Diner out of the bag and voila-- instance highchair. Holding her throughout dinner wouldn't have been the end of the world, but this made things alot easier. Anyway, these are pics of Adelaide in our chairs at home.



Here it is in its handy carrying bag, next to a diaper to show its size. Sweet, eh?


Pampers Swipers
Another thing I've been meaning to post about for awhile is diapers and wipes. As I mentioned in my post on diapers long ago, Pampers are hands down my favorites. I love Pampers Cruisers and Swaddlers in particular but Baby Dry will do also. Well, when I originally posted that, Pampers contacted me and sent me a package of diapers along with some Swipers, the corresponding wipes, to test out.

Up until this point I'd been using whatever kind of wipes I had. I actually still have wipes I received as gifts from my baby showers (which is super sweet). I'd mostly used Huggies and Target brand until then. Well, the Swipers were awesome. Adelaide had been having some ongoing diaper rash and the swipers were softer and thicker like a washcloth or something and seem more mild. I think they helped clear things up. They smell great too, not just for wipes. They smell great in general. And they help clean up the messes of a kid that is eating lots of solids. They sort of grip the poop (I don't really know a polite way to put it) better than other brands I've tried. Anyway, as much as I love Pampers diapers, I love their wipes just as much. I look forward to using the Clean 'n Go ones next. And another great thing is that their wipes along with the diapers have Gifts to Grow points to redeem for cool toys and stuff. Adelaide's Christmas gift from us was a freebie from Pampers. (Yes, we are cheap parents). For what it's worth, there's my 2 cents on wipes.

Fisher-Price Walking Toy
This was the best $17 ever spent (by my mom. Thanks, Mom!). Adelaide loved this thing and used it so much as she was learning to walk. There are others out there for more moola but why get those when this one works fine.

Saturday, February 16, 2008

She's a Walkin'

Tonight we were at a friend's house for dinner, and Adelaide decided she'd walk for the first time. She was holding on to a dining room chair and walked about 4 or 5 feet to a walking toy she'd been playing with. Then as we were getting her ready for bed she walked from the bedroom door to a basket of toys about 5 feet away again. When we got her out of bed  minutes later after we found her covered in vomit (poor girl's still sick-- she chokes on mucous) and cleaned her up, she was walking all over the place downstairs. She went from couch to couch, from person to person. I'm a proud momma. We'd love your prayers by the way that she would get completely better soon. I'm currently trying her off dairy to see if that helps get rid of some of her snottiness. 

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Fun with Grammy

Some fun pics from the week with Rocky's mom. Yes we did have some fun even though Adelaide was pretty miserable alot of the time. Since it was such a hard week it was so nice to have some help. There were a few times when I didn't know how I would have done it alone.

Here's Adelaide with the little crocheted monkey Rocky's mom brought for her. It was Rocky's when he was a kid. Adelaide loves it. She nibbled on the little banana he's holding and tried to get the monkey to eat it too.

We walked to the neighborhood playground one day. We had a good time on the slides.

It was drizzling on the way back home so we put Adelaide in her "bubble." She loves it as you can tell from her expression.

We did spend alot of time around the house with Adelaide being sick and all. Here's some pics around the house.

I think Adelaide looks so big on this toy. She really IS so big. I'm struck so often these days.


Here's Adelaide peeking around the side of the gate at Scooter.

She's been standing up on her own alot recently. She can stand up in the middle of the room no problem and she's even been taking steps on her own initiative.

We did get to get out some. We went to Rudy's upon request, and Adelaide didn't get BBQ but instead had spinach. Look at her disgust at the taste.

Rocky's mom brought Adelaide some Valentine's day presents. Do you think she likes them?

Adelaide's addiction to hugging continues. I have a video of her hugging herself. I'll have to post it sometime soon.

Friday, February 08, 2008

An 11

Well, here's what the doctor said. If you don't know what I'm talking about just read my last post to see what was going on.

The visit started out like always: the doctor commenting on how happy Adelaide was. Then he asked what was up. I recapped the horrible night we had but said other than that she'd just been snotty. He proceeded to check her ears.

As he was checking them, he told me that at Adelaide's age the first things he considers when there's major crying and no sleeping are ears and throat. Leaving me in suspense I asked, "so what are you saying? What's the verdict?" He said on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst possible ear infection, one ear is an 11 and the other is a 9. An 11! He said her eardrum has a chance of rupturing. He said if it does, it will relieve the pressure but puss and blood will come out.

About this time I'm freaking out. I think he's starting to realize it too. I'm picturing permanent hearing loss here along with general freakiness. He goes on to assure me that there won't be any long term effects though, that the eardrum would mend itself in a day or so. Wow, her ears had gotten that bad. It was taken a while for me to real believe what I was hearing. My little girl that was laughing in her carseat on the ride over?

Everything else was OK but I felt like a horrible parent for not recognizing this sooner. The doctor asked me I don't know how many times if she'd been pulling on her ears or fussy prior to last night and my honest answer was no. He was amazed. He said it freaks him out that she didn't complain prior to that because it's so bad. Freaks me out too. It freaks me out even more that I almost canceled my appointment because she'd been so happy all day. The kid is crazy; she could fool anyone.

So she'd got to be seriously doped up now-- strong high dollar antibiotics to fight the infection, twice the normal dosage of Motrin for the pain (which totally freaks me out), and nasal spray to fight the continual drainage since the decongestants hadn't been working. He basically contributed the prolonged snottiness to allergies since we hadn't seen any relief with any cold medicines. That's totally a bummer. Now we've got to figure out if it's a food allergy or environmental.

We'll have to go back in 10 days to recheck her; he said he normally wouldn't recheck on those antibiotics but since Adelaide obviously has the highest pain tolerance in the world and won't complain until her eardrum is about to rupture, he wants to see her.

I've always seen Adelaide's happy demeanor as a huge strong point and never really thought it could also be a downfall until today. As I type this she is finally sleeping in her swing in our room. It's so nice to know she's comfortable for now.

This one takes the cake

Last night we picked up Rocky's mom from the airport around 7:45 and then got home 8:45 or so and put Adelaide to bed. So she was already an hour or so behind her normal bedtime to start with. Then about an hour after she'd gone to sleep, she woke up crying. Not just crying, really, bawling. Rocky went up first to try and console her. Nothing. She didn't want to eat. She didn't want to be held by him. She just cried. Then I went up, same thing. She would not stop crying. Finally after about an hour, she fell asleep on my shoulder. I kept her there until she started breathing heavily and decided I'd try to lay her down. Well as soon as I even shifted my weight, she started all over again. We repeated this several times and then I decided maybe we'd try to put her into bed with us. That didn't work. I think she associates our bed with play time cause that's where we spend alot of Saturday mornings together.

Well, that didn't work so finally after exhausting every possibility including teething tablets, oragel, motrin, etc. We put her in her pack n play next to us to hopefully fall asleep on her own. She cried for only about 10 minutes to our surprise (we'd already tried that a few times) and then went to sleep. Not for long.

At 3 am she woke up again screaming. We did it all over again but this time she wouldn't even fall asleep on my shoulder. Rocky went into the attic to find her swing that we'd packed away months ago and tried that. It didn't help. We gave her some time to just play. That didn't help. She threw up lots of mucous on me at some point in there. 2 hours later at 5 am, after we realized she had some bad gas and gave her some mylanta, she finally fell asleep again. I dont' know if that's what did it or if it was just plain exhaustion, but it didn't last for long.

She woke up at her normal time of 7:30am ready to start her day with dark circles under her eyes. I tried to get her to drink some formula cause she didn't want any before bed and she refused for awhile. Finally she drank some but then threw it up instantly. Fluke? I don't know. She'd been feeling warm all night but I checked her temp about 3 times and it was always fine, but this morning I checked it at about 8am and it was 100. Again at about 9am and it was 100.5. Dang it.

So after what I'm now referring to as the worst night of Adelaide's life, I'm exhausted (you may be able to tell from my writing) and am bringing her to the doctor at 2:30pm. My kid is just not a crier so something's up for sure. I'm wondering if the snottiness she's had for over a month has finally led to an ear infection. That mixed with her getting so many teeth in driving her over the edge? Don't know but I'd appreciate thoughts and prayers especially since Rocky's going out of town on Sunday.