Need caffiene ...

Well, it's been an awfully long, stressful week. On Tuesday, Alex's school called me around 2:30 and said he was running a fever (102.4) and that I'd need to come pick him up. He'd had a runny nose for a while now but it hadn't been too bad yet. So I also call the dr to go ahead and have his ears looked at - try to be more proactive than reactive these days when it comes to his ears. By the time we got to the dr at 4, his temp was right under 103. They tested him for strep and flu and both were negative - whew. Said it's probably just a virus so we left with a prescription for Augmentin and headed home. I decided to keep him home with my mom on Wednesday since he can't go back to school within 24 hrs of having a fever..

So fast forward to Wednesday ... he ran a fever off and on - between 101 and 102. When I picked him up at 5:30, it was 102.9 so I gave him Tylenol. By 6:30 it was up to 104. At 7:30 it was still 104 so I called the doctor's office after hours line. That number is answered by nurses at Medical City Children's Hospital. The nurse seemed concerned that the fever wasn't coming down with the Tylenol and suggested we bring him in to be looked at.

So at 8pm, Dan, Alex, and I headed out to the ER. The room was filled of coughing kids (and some adults) and Alex was so good the whole FOUR hours we were there. Even though he certainly did not feel well, he went back and forth between people watching and laying his head on my chest (one thing we've found is that when he's sick, he definitely wants his mama *smile*)

So they take us back (finally) and he even slept through his rectal temp - I bet somewhere in there he was asking "What the...?!?!". 102.4 They took us back to a room in the ER and ran all kinds of tests - another flu and strep, and the worse was the catheder. They wanted to check for a urinary tract infection. Let's just say he did NOT like that one. Nor did I like having to stand at his head, holding his arms while they stuck that tube in ... never mind, you get the point. Once it was over, he just wanted to be held. (Can't say that I blame him!)

After more waiting... results finally came back. Strep throat. (didn't we just get a neg result the day before???) Also has an upper respiratory infection. So we left with a prescription for a new antibiotic and our fingers crossed. By the time we left the hospital, dropped off and picked up the Rx, it was 2:30 am before we finally got in bed.

Last night his fever was creeping back up to almost 103. Just kept giving him Tylenol and Motrin (switching off) hoping to give the antibiotic more time to kick in. This morning it was 101 so I'm hoping it'll start going back down any time now. I know my mom has to be sick of me calling to check on him. Poor thing is exhausted and didn't fall asleep until 10:30 pm last night, when he's normally out cold by 7:30.

So we'll see how the weekend goes and hope that the meds start working - SOON.


Funny Emily story: Dan was printing his tax paperwork the other day and asked Emily to get it off the printer for him. She picked it up and said, "Do you have to fill all of this out on your own? That's entirely too much for one man to have to do by himself." HAHA

Part Time Party Planner

It's been a few weeks since I've updated my blog, but that's because I've been terribly busy planning a first birthday party! That's right.. our baby boy is ONE years old now. Wow, that was a FAST year. It's like I blinked and now it's a year later. I was thinking yesterday, though, that one year ago to the day (on 2/19/08) Alex had his first set of casts put on. Now we're a year into his cf treatment and potentially only have a year to go! A coworker told me yesterday, "Remember when he was born and you said you can't believe you have two whole years till he doesn't have to wear his braces? And now you're halfway through it!" There's a lot of controversy out there on whether the braces should be worn for 2 years, or 4 and our dr seems to be more on the 2 yr fence, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I think it will depend on how his feet look by then. So far they look fantastic and he gets a glowing approval from the dr every visit! So fo far so good!

Now, back to the birthday party... wow, what an exhausting day/weekend! Not to mention the weeks leading up to it. Why do parents put so much into a day that the child won't even remember?? That's right, it's so WE as parents remember it. Our original plan was to only have parents and close friends. Then when we decided to invite our close friends that have a baby Alex' s age, I thought, "oh, we should also invite so and so because they have a baby close to his age.." and then it snowballed from there. I think we ended up with 20-25 people there. I bought way too much food and decorations. But I'm always of the mindset that I'd rather have too much than not enough, and I definitely succeeded in that area for this one. Oh well. He will only have one first birthday party, right? :) He got lots of toys and clothes. He got 3 different Little People sets -and loves ALL of them. They play music and have these little "people" that are plastic and he prefers chewing them vs actually playing with them at this point, but hey at least they're not just sitting in a toy box collecting dust.

Speaking of chewing.. we now have FIVE teeth. That's right, those boogars just keep popping out every time we turn around. Guess he's making up for lost time! Poor thing has been so fussy because of it but hopefully he'll get a break soon.

And he is now officially on whole milk - YAY! No more formula. AND we were able to switch him to a forward facing car seat - double YAY. He was getting way too big for that infant carrier, not to mention too darn heavy for us to carry him in it! He went to the dr on his actual b-day and he weighed 22 lbs, 3 oz and was 30 inches long. When he was born, he was 7 lbs 2 oz and 18 in long, so my baby boy is definitely growing! lol

Here are some pictures from the party, and also his "official" one year pictures. He's such a handsome little boy! (not that I'm biased or anything... ) Anyone that knows my husband always says, first thing, that he looks just like his daddy. That's where he gets his handsome-ness from. :) Every once in a while I see a little of me, and he's always looked like my dad (imo) because he arches his eyebrow and that is my dad 100%.

Anyway, happy birthday, Alex! Here's to hopefully only one more year of sleeping with braces. Every single day of his life, minus the first 7 days, he has slept with either casts or braces on. He won't know what to do to be "free" at night! :)

Good morning, birthday boy!

He wasn't a fan of the party hat..

He was, however, a fan of the cake (more so the icing)

By this point, I think he'd had enough cake... :)

My cup runneth over

Wow. Today I experienced something that I have literally waited for my entire life. (How often does one get to day that?)

See, when I was a little girl, if anyone had asked me the usual question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" My answer was always, without a single doubt, "A mom!" I have finally reached that goal and have two beautiful children in my life.

Alex has been saying "dadadadadadaa" for a couple of months now and we assume that he's actually speaking to/about my husband, because a lot of times he says that when he's either looking for Dan, or sees him (or a picture of him.) Secretly, I have been very envious wishing that I would hear my sweet baby boy talk about me one of these days, but I knew I needed to have patience. Well, that day finally came today, and it literally brought me to tears.

The last few days he has been saying "mumumumum" off and on, but not directly to me, but I figured, "we're getting close, right?" This morning I was taking him to school, and when I opened up the back door to get him out of his car seat, he looked directly at me and said (very loudly, I might add), "MAMA!" Oh my goodness. I started laughing and crying at the same time. I picked him up and gave him the biggest hug, and loaded him with kisses, and told him how much I loved him. Then I couldn't stop smiling. After I'd left him in his classroom with his friends and teacher, and got back to my car, that's when the emotions took over. I kept thinking, Wow. I have waited my entire life to hear someone call me mama, and it just finally happened. And it was SO much better than I ever could have dreamed.

I feel so full of love right now, that my cup literally runneth over. (To the Hope Floats fans out there, I know you know what that means.) My life is so blessed. I have such a wonderful husband and family, and I wouldn't trade one minute of this for anything in the world.

Subject changer...

So last night we went to our good friends' house to watch the Superbowl. I am in amazement to watch Alex and their little girl (who is 3 months older than Alex) interact. Those 3 months have always been such a huge difference, and now that they are getting "older", that 3 months isn't so different anymore in the developmental world. They are closer in size, and the only major difference is that Alex doesn't walk yet, although he is standing and pulling himself up on everything still. But I know it will be awesome to watch them "chase" after each other - look out!

Alex has had lots of "firsts" the last few days (besides saying "mama"!). He has tried lots of new foods - a slice of American cheese, a banana, crackers, colby jack cheese. And he loved all of it - yay! I am so looking forward to being able to give him more table food. Since he doesn't have any teeth yet (still just the top 2 front ones that just broke through a week and a half ago) I haven't given him many table foods, because he hasn't done very well at gumming/chewing food quite yet. But he did great with everything new he tried, and I'm looking forward to trying even more things!

Now I'm off to work on planning his birthday party.... at least I got the cake ordered this weekend!

Creepy crawler

I took a video of Alex crawling with his braces on. You can certainly tell that they do NOT slow him down in any way. He is only in them for 12 hrs a day so this was taken right before bedtime. He was "army crawling" for the longest time but now he is starting to crawl on his knees. He definitely gets where he's trying to go, though - no doubt about that!

I thought I would post some pictures of our journey with Alex's club feet...

This one was taken right after he was born. His little feet were turned in at 90 degree angles. Since we knew ahead of time that he was going to be born with club feet, we had plenty of time to prepare and research. Our pediatrician immediately said that he would refer us to Scottish Rite Hospital, and we have received wonderful treatment so far. We are using the Ponseti method, which was created by Dr. Ponseti, from the University of Iowa. He is 94 yrs old and just recently stopped seeing patients on a regular basis. He is such a blessing to all the thousands of little feet he's corrected!

Alex was put into his first set of casts at 7 days old. This picture was taken when we got home from the hospital. They told us to elevate his feet, which is why there is a folded towel under his legs. Wow, what an emotional day this was for us. I was fine on the way to the hospital, and I was fine until the dr said, "Ok, let's roll some casts." I will never forget that moment. My little 7 day old baby was lying on that table, and he was about to have his little feet turned and manipulated and put into casts. It was my job to protect and care for him, and there was nothing I could do. Luckily my husband was in the room, because I had to excuse myself and said I had to go to the restroom. Instead, I went to the waiting room and cried. Cried like a big baby. But I had a turning point while sitting there in the waiting room at Scottish Rite Hospital, where children are treated for much worse deformities, burns, etc. I saw a few children wheel by in their wheel chairs, and some did not even have limbs, or they had artificial ones. Then I suddenly felt very selfish for crying for my baby, who in the end, would be completely normal, and would have no memory of this. The memories would stick with me and my husband forever, but at least it is a blessing that Alex will have no memory of it.

It only took a few minutes and the casts were finished. I looked up and saw Dan carrying Alex down the hall toward me, and I went to them. Then I started feeling guilty for not being there for him. Motherhood is just one big emotional rollercoaster ride, I suppose.

This is Alex after we had his 2nd set of casts put on (14 days old).

This was after we got his 2nd set of casts removed.

After 5 set of casts, Alex was then put into his braces (technical term: Foot Abduction Brace (FAB)). He wore then 23 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a 30 min break in the morning, and another 30 min break at night for baths.

Fast forward 11 months to today. Now he only wears the braces at night time and he is totally fine with us putting them on. The most difficult part is getting him to lie still long enough because he is becoming so active! He stands up a lot now, even while wearing his braces. I will post some pictures soon of that. I also have a video of him crawling with them on, so I'll try to get that on here, too.

We were watching the news this morning and they mentioned something about President Obama and the Oval Office. Emily asked Dan, "What's the Oval Office?" He said, "It's the President's office, where he works." Then he asked her what shape she thought it was and she said, "Oval. It's kind of obvious, daddy. Why else would it be called the oval office?" HAHA

Children are such blessings ...

It's been icy/wintery weather here this week, so I've been working from home the last 2 days. I've had Alex home with me, so I didn't get as much work done as I would like to, but I have LOVED being home with him. He is changing so fast, every day, and I know one day that these "baby days" will be gone, so I am trying to soak up every single moment of it/him that I can. He is standing and pulling himself up all the time now and I know it won't be much longer before he's taking his first step and walking/running. It is so hard to fathom, but I know it's just right around the corner. But I tell ya... after everything we've gone through with correcting his feet this first year, I will never tire of seeing him standing on his perfect little feet.

At one point today, he was playing on the floor and started crawling away from me (very fast, I might add). I "caught" up to him and started tickling him. He was laying flat on the floor, laughing as hard as I've ever heard him laugh. It was such a WONDERFUL moment. And I was honestly laughing just as hard, if not harder, than he was.

I thought I would have a theme to my blogs by adding a funny quote/story at the end. Here's the one for today ..

Emily and I were driving home from the store tonight and I asked her if she was going to watch the Superbowl this weekend. She said, "Why would I watch the 'superball'? I said, "For the commercials - remember you told me one time that's why girls watch it, to see the new commercials." She said, "commercial, schmercial. Besides, after they show them on the 'superball' they'll show them on tv all the time, so I'll see them again." That girl CRACKS me up. As we pulled into the garage, we were both singing Taylor Swift's "Love Story" at the top of our lungs - which resulted in some funny looks from Dan as he came out to the garage to meet us. :)

Our kids are such a blessing to our lives, and I thank God every single day for them.

First time blogger

I have considered starting a blog before, but have never actually done it. I have a few friends, and now my husband, that have started one, so I figured what the heck. My biggest "dilemma" was where in the world do I start??? And who knows if anyone will actually follow or read this blog.. but it should be fun to have one, so again, what the heck?

The most obvious place is to talk about my family. My wonderful husband - I am definitely the luckiest girl in the world. We have been married for a little over 3 years and life is good. And I have a beautiful 7, almost 8, year old stepdaughter that is such a joy to have around. She keeps us in constant laughter, and sometimes tears, but every day we are amazed to watch how smart she is and how quickly she is growing up. At least once, usually more, times a day, I sit in amazement after having a conversation with her, because I can usually not believe how intelligent she sounds, at such a young age. The years are going by way too fast... she's not so much a little girl anymore and seems more like a little lady. And we have an 11 month old son that is also quite an amazement. He is growing and changing every single day and I find myself constantly just staring at him, thinking, "Wow. God is good."

So, a little about our son. He was born with club feet; we found out at my 22 week sonogram and neither one of us knew nothing about it. Our case was called a "genetic fluke". But we were referred to Scottish Rite Hospital and have received excellent care. Our orthopedic dr told us on day one that he will be able to "run, jump, play, and be normal." And he repeats that same sentence to us at every single appointment. When our son was born, both of his feet were basically turned in at 90 degree angles. That is called "bilateral talipes". He was put into casts at 7 days old, that were changed out every week and turned out at a higher degree each week. After 6 weeks of that, he was put into an FAB (Foot Abduction Brace) that he wore 23 hrs a day/7 days a week. We took them off for 30 min in the morning to give his feet a break and check for pressure sores, and then another 30 min in the evening for bathtime. After 3 months of that schedule, on July 4th (coincidence?) we got to go to 16 hours a day. Wow! What a difference just those few hours can make. He is almost a yr old (in 18 days!) and we are now only wearing the braces 12 hours a day - so we put them on at bedtime and take them off a little bit after he wakes up. He is able to have a somewhat normal "infant-hood". He is starting to stand more - pulling himself up on the furniture, and wow - after everything his little feet have gone through - what a site to see!

And he finally had his first teeth (yes, that's plural) break through yesterday! His two front top teeth. After 11 months, we were beginning to wonder if/when those boogers were ever going to break through! So we are keeping a supply of Orajel closeby because our normally happy baby becomes Mr. Grumpy Pants when those gums/teeth start hurting. 2 down... lots more to go!

So as I type this, my husband is sleeping on the couch and it's time to go wake him up and check on the kiddos before I turn in myself. Bye bye for now.