Day 2/Homecoming

*This first part was obviously written on Sunday, but instead of writing it as it happened in the past, I'm saving it like it was when I was writing it right then.  I do wish I had something better than my iPhone to blog on.  Sometimes you gotta blog from somewhere other than your house and I'd like it to be as authentic as possible.

Day 2 wasn't too bad in the hospital, except for the fact that we never wanted to be here in the 1st place. Ezra didnt get anymore sleep than usual but did seem to sleep a little better last night. The grunting/whining that he was doing at home seems to have subsided some. He's still getting proactive antibiotics every 6 hrs and they are treating his thrush and diaper rash. His vital signs are taken 6x a day and luckily he's had no fever since yesterday at 4-5pm. Other than being bored and tired there's not much going on around here. There are some super nice nurses and the ped ward only has one other patient so were getting alot of attention. I went home this morning to get Gage from his friends house to take him home to play w/ Nana and Grandiddy who just got here today. Luke went home too but unfortunately gage was napping. Geez, that kid has been through alot lately and had a lot of adjusting to do. He's done fairly well. I also met Gage and my parents for dinner so I could spend a few extra mins with him today before heading back to the hospital. Yesterday we had a special Mommy/son morning when I took him to soccer instead of Daddy and then took him to the library. We didn't even get to read the books we got because we had to go straight to the hospital when we got home. Good thing he and Nana got to read all of them today. If all is well, we'll get to go home tomorrow at 5pm after all the cultures are tested for 48 hrs. I am so ready to get this kid back home and to sleep in my bed. This room is teeny and Luke and I have been sharing a hospital bed! You do what you gotta do. Also today, Ezra had his renal US since we were already at the hospital. Everything looked normal there so we are thankful for that as well- it appears the skin tag is just superficial. Stay tuned...

Finally on Monday all involved were optimistic that we'd get to come home that evening.  The ped stopped in and said he looked good, all the tests were negative and just to contiue the antifungals for his yeast infection once we got home.  He said to follow up with our ped later this week, but he didn't see any reason we couldn't go home. Thank God.  We spent the whole day anticipating going home and milking the free food at the hospital.  Luke came home and got some things done around the house and Gage was having a blast with my parents.  He probably didn't even care Ezra was in the hospital!  Ezra's IV did malfunction and they were going to have to put it in again for his last dose of antibiotics, but thank God since he had been doing so well, the doctor cleared him and he didn't have to have it reinserted.  Let me tell you, they probably stuck my poor child 10's or 20's of times to get that 1st one in.  Have you ever seen them try to find a vein on a 3 week old?  You don't want to.  At 5pm, we were given the go ahead that the 48 hour cultures were back negative and we were free to leave!  Wahoo!  I will tell you that I have a whole new appreciation for parents of children in the NICU or just in the hospital in general.  It's not that I thought it wasn't hard, but now seeing that just for 2 days going back and forth between kids and home/hospital and my child not being as ill as most in the hospital, it's rough times.  Again, thanks to friends and my parents, Luke was able to be there with me as much as possible and we were able to see both of our boys in the 48 hours Ezra had to be there. We are thanking our lucky stars it wasn't any worse and that it was just a minor hiccup in life.  We will follow up later this week and my heart will probably skip a beat if my kid ever feels hot again.  Thankfully we're out of the danger zone in 4 more weeks.  Here are some sad pictures of our little man while hooked up to all his monitors.

I took this picture because it was sad to see how many different meds he was on and he wasn't even that ill.

IV's, a heart and breathing monitor- we couldn't even put clothes on him for the 1st 24.

Snoozing

yay!  Ready to go home.  Albeit in a newborn outfit we had forgotten about that had to be retired last night since we couldn't really get it buttoned!

100.4

As new moms we've probably all heard that if your newborn has a fever greater than this it's an emergency. I've read it 100 times and was reminded at Ezra's 2 week checkup and I even said to Luke, how would I know?? I mean I'm not going to check his temp all the time.

Since we've brought Ezra home though I would describe him as a hot baby. One that sweats and turns red, etc. However, today I said to Luke again, damn he feels hot. I can't believe how hot babies are. That led us to take his temp for no reason other than that. Then the dreaded happened. 100.9. We took it again b/c clearly it was wrong and we weren't going to take our kid to the hospital, 100.2 this time. Still too high for my liking:(. 3rd time: 100.7. Off we went, clearly expecting to be home for dinner, especially since it was Gage's nap time and all hell would break loose if we weren't home in an hr or 2. But here, at a quarter to 10, I lay in a hospital bed next to my sweet baby, who has been admitted due to an unknown fever. I'll post more about the whole day later, but for now, keep us in your thoughts and hope that Ezra has nothing serious. Today we underwent a spinal tap, blood culture, saline lock, and a UA and we're tired folk. Thank God for good family and friends to look after Gage while we hang with our little one at the hospital.

Three things.....

1.  My sweet little "baby" slept on this at day care on Thursday. He's officially a big boy now.  *tear*

2.  Gage's new Power Wheels Daddy bought him

3.  Unfortunately how Gage has been feeling all weekend.  A leftover cold, cough, fever PLUS a stomach flu of sorts AND new teeth!

A fever, AGAIN= no beach, AGAIN

Alas, we were supposed to take off work on Monday and have a nice weekend in the OBX to celebrate my Mom's birthday....we should've known that wouldn't happen.  grrr....After last week's run-in w/ the stomach flu, Gage woke up Thurs. am w/ a 102 degree fever.  As he does when he has a fever, he acted no differently all day, played normally, ate normally and overall didn't seem like it bothered him too much; however, the fever hung on.  So....being that I'm a responsible;) mother, I couldn't send him to day care today w/ a fever (although some parents do) and b/c Luke took off yesterday, I had to be home today.  All fine and well, except that I was going to take the day off on Monday instead so we could watch the Super Bowl in the OBX and drive home in no traffic on Monday.  WRONG!  B/c I took the day off today, Luke and I decided that we couldn't take Monday too, so once again, beach trip canceled!  Luke says Gage doesn't like the beach.  This is the 2nd time we've canceled a beach trip in the last 2 months b/c he's been sick.  In any case, I will keep on trying....I have got to get some OBX time in soon.  Our next plan is for President's Day weekend, wish us luck!

Happy Friday!  Have a stellar weekend.

Happenings...

I warn you now that this post is just full of the mundane happenings of the last few days and probably not interesting to 99% of the population. 

I have been out of work for the last 3 days due to snow.  I teach at a high school and the kids had their midterms this week...and missed all but one of them!  I'm sure they couldn't be more thrilled.  However, now, of course they have been postponed 'til next week, oh well, I'll take a few more half days of school.  Anyway, there wasn't a ridiculous amount of snow (not like last year anyway)- about 7 ins., but w/ a county the size of ours we never go to school if it snows that much.  In any case, we've had a Winter Break around these parts.

Wednesday, although we didn't have school, I took Gage to his school.  I knew we would probably be out Thurs. and today and I wanted to get our money's worth.  We pay entirely too much for him to go only half time b/c he's sick or there's snow.... AND I actually was productive and worked out for the 1st time since March of 2009.  hah....I am sooo embarassed to say that, but it's true, I'll fess up.  The funny thing is that I've been going through my old posts to label them in case I ever want to find something and I think I mentioned like last March that I was going back to the gym soon.  Those women who actually do go back to working out only a few months after having a baby, you're more the woman that I am.  In any case, I'm happy that I got back on the workout wagon and hopefully I am there to stay.  I also took some Mommy time to get my nails done, but don't tell anyone. Anyway, Wednesday afternoon came and so did the ice.  If you haven't seen it on the National news, I'm surprised but that commute Wed. night was one of the worst ever in history in this area....which is already one of the worst areas EVER.  It took people 10-12 hours to go 20-30 miles and there were abandoned cars everywhere.  It really was the craziest thing ever.  Anyway, while some of our friends were on the treacherous roads going NOWHERE fast....we were at home praying the power didn't go out while we took care of our PUKING baby.  Yes, the stomach flu got us again....and it was bad.  Poor Gage got 2 baths w/in 20 mins. in the middle of the night.  He spent the rest of the night next to us in his Pack n Play and thank God didn't get sick again.  Lucky for him, the two times he's gotten it, it hasn't seemed to keep him under the weather for very long.  And 2 days later, he seems to be all back to normal.  It's been close to 48 hours and my stomach's been cramping all day.  It's so much fun to count down the hours to when I'll be hugging my toilet....sigh.  I can only hope for as quick a recovery as him.

Since Wednesday night, it's been pretty uneventful around here.  Gage and I have been sleeping when possible and I sanitized every last toy and book of his last night hoping for a reprieve. Today it snowed AGAIN so our plans to go out on the town were a little thrown off.  We spent the day inside and did a whole bunch of nothing.  And I spent the day, as always, trying to rack my brain to figure out what the heck I can feed my child that he will actually eat.  No veggies/meat is his motto.  He'll eat pretty much anything but that, but let's face it, they're both pretty important.
Also, this morning was his LAST bottle ever.  I can't believe I'm finally gonna do it, but tomorrow we rid ourselves of the bottles.  I'm going to feel so bad in the am when he asks for it, but just like everything else, we'll get over it and move on. I seriously doubt he'll ever drink milk again, but eh....I guess I'll get over that too.  AND I'll  keep you posted on the no bottle situation.  Don't worry though, no caving here, just a miserable baby probably.

That's all for now, hope you all have a fabulous weekend.  Oh and my kid is up to 25 words!  Too bad he can't walk!

Tubes...

So this morning was the big morning- Gage was getting his tubes put in.  We've been worried about it for the last 3 weeks, what if he's sick and they won't do it?  What if it doesn't make his ears better?  What if it's late in the afternoon and he has to STARVE until then? Well of course, it's over now and no worries.  Gage did wonderfully as I should have predicted since he is the best baby ever!

We were a little disappointed when they called yesterday to tell us that his appt. wasn't until 915am this morning.  I was totally stressed about starving him for that long.  He usually eats 3 times before 10am and he now asks for his bottle as soon as he gets up in the morning so I was dreading having to tell him no.  Anyway, we made the decision last night to give him whatever he wanted for dinner, which wasn't hard- we know the favorite menu:  grilled cheese, yogurt, oranges and a cookie.  We also, against our better judgment offered him a bottle before bed.  He drank about 3 oz.  Finally, Luke wanted to wake him up at 1am to give him his last bottle so maybe that would curb some of his hunger this morning. Whether our kid is just wonderful or our plan worked, he didn't ask this morning once for food and was a perfect angel playing here at home and in the surgery center before he went back.  The nurses raved about how good he did (I'm sure they  tell everyone that) but nonetheless, my stress disappeared about starving him and moved to the surgery. 

Luke went back with him, as I didn't want to see them put him under.  He came out quickly and said it was pretty sad and that I would have cried.  (Read:  Daddy almost cried.)   Doubtful, but I'm sure I would've been sad, too.  Anyway, about 15 mins. later the procedure was over.  Gage was fine until he saw me and then it was so sad to see him cry and jerk his head around b/c he was still disoriented.  It only took him a few minutes to calm down, but he was still pretty out of it.  By the time he got home, though he was crawling around and ready for a bottle.  He's napping now, but we have confidence that when he gets up he'll be back to his old self again.  Whew....hopefully the hard part is over and we'll be on the mend soon!  Thanks for your thoughts.

On another note, just Wednesday night Luke and I wondered why Gage still, at 14 mos. was refusing to walk with us when we held his hands.  I know some babies do this by like 9 mos. of age, but Gage has never been interested.  Just like that, last night Gage was running all over the place w/ us barely holding on.  It really did happen 'just like that'.  So now Gage is having a blast walking and is going sooo fast.  Is walking like riding a bike?  Can I just let go once he gets going?  hah....it won't be long.  Happy Friday!

Here's my sweet baby in his hospital gown

Stay tuned....

for the tale of a fasting 14 month old....

Monday, Monday....

It seems I have been a delinquent blogger since I haven't posted anything since last Wednesday.  I didn't realize it had been so long.  I've been reading blogs and I added Gage's vocab list to my sidebar, so I felt like I had been blogging. Ah well....let's see, what's new?

Gage will be getting tubes put in his ears on Friday the 21st. We are looking forward to this hoping it will make him feel better, eat better and maybe even balance better.  Gage has had fluid on his ears for probably close to 3 weeks now, but w/o an infection there's not much they can do.  He had fluid last Monday when we went to the ENT and I figured it would be an infection by week's end.  But Gage went for his pre-op on Friday and still fluid, but no infection.  Gage has been sleeping through the night the last couple of days, so maybe they are not bothering him as much as I thought.  Also when Gage went to the dr. on Friday, he weighed in at 4 oz. lighter than 6 weeks ago. That worries me a little--he has been sick, but I feel like he's been eating ok as well.  Some days are better than others, but I've read that's typical of a child his age.  I guess we'll see what they say at his 15 mo. appt. next month. 

It seems I know so many babies lately that have gotten/are going to get tubes.  And it seems that Gage happens to be one of the  happier ones.  For the most part, his infections don't seem to have bothered him too much.  However, after the tubes, who knows what difference we will see.  We are so thankful that his infections haven't delayed his speech, he definitely has that going for him.  I have some cute pictures to post soon, but maybe I'll wait 'til Wednesday.  Here's hoping to see a little snow tomorrow night.

Merry Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all.  I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating with your families, big or small.

We didn't travel this year and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It was nice to not have to deal with the holiday hustle and bustle.  Since neither of our families are in town, we decided even before we had kids that we would alternate holidays, spending Xmas one year with Luke's family, one year with mine and one year at our house.  Every kid needs Christmas at their house, right?  Since I had no out of state family growing up, we had Christmas at our house every year and I just can't imagine Gage celebrating any different.  However, I know that at least once every 3 years we will have to travel to TX.  My parents aren't so far away, so that trip is more attractive, but I still love the idea of Santa coming to visit Gage at his own house.

Our Christmas morning was somewhat uneventful but Gage enjoyed tearing the paper out of bags and looking at his new books. He didn't get much this year, he got a lot of toys for his bday so there wasn't much he needed, plus we figure we'll buy him some stuff in the spring when his interests change or he becomes ready for other toys.  His big present this year was a personalized beanbag chair. Gage loves to roll around and be silly yet also LOVES to read his books so I figured he would like it.  He sat in in for quite a while tonight while he read books.  I think it's going to be a winner. 

Other than cooking and just hanging out, we did have to make a trip to Patient 1st today to get Gage's ear looked at once again.  As we suspected from his crankiness the last few days, his ear was infected again.  So yet, another round of anitbiotics, at least until we can get in to see the ENT at the end of the week.  Tubes are in our near future, ladies and gentlemen. 

We didn't take too many pictures this morning, we just were enjoying Gage soaking in his 1st 'real' Christmas.  I'll try and get the few we did take posted soon.  We're supposed to be traveling tomorrow but Old Man Winter  might postpone that trip for us.  In any case, Gage will get to see his Uncle B from CA in just a few days!  Until then.....Merry Christmas to all and Best Wishes for the New Year!

Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

Pardon the random stream-of-consciousness post....

As I sit here and type this, I'm listening to Gage not be able to nap b/c he has a nasty cough.  Seems like ever since his birthday he's been sick....grrr.  I'm ready for it to be over!  We've been dealing with antibiotic after antibiotic for ear infections and we're looking at tubes next.  Luke took him Mon. pm to the dr. to check on his ears and they said there was no infection, but gave us a  prescription anyway in case he starts to run another fever.  I'm trying to avoid the antibiotic if at all possible.  They listened to his lungs too and said everything sounded clear, yet his cough is getting worse.  Plus, his top 2 teeth arethisclose to busting through his gums.  It makes me hurt to even look at them.  I think my child truly will get his 2 front teeth for Christmas! Which I guess will be kinda neat.

In other news, I know that it's ENTIRELY too early to be thinking of potty training but for the last 3 nights in a row, Gage looks up at us while he plays and says 'poo poo'. Where he even learned poo poo from, I have no clue.  Anyway, he says poo poo and then about 3 mins. later, he poops!  Are you kidding me?  A 13 month old knows when he's going to poop?  That's like the number one thing with potty training is that the kid has to know before he goes.  We're thinking of buying a potty, just to show him where he would go if he does have to 'poo poo'.

We are still fighting the bottle battle.  Ask me again how it makes sense that a child that only had bottles 40% of his life is sooo attached??  I am pretty sure he would rather starve hisself instead of drink milk from a sippy. We have cut out the afternoon bottle and only offer him milk in a sippy cup.  He just doesn't drink it, hasn't for a week and doesn't plan to.  He'll just have 2 bottles a day and that's all the milk he gets. Doesn't seem to phase him.  Please someone tell me how to get my kid to drop the bottles, the dr. doesn't seem to think it should be that hard and have met not ONE real live person who has ever had this problem....grrrr.

Gage's vocabulary is growing daily and although he still has no interest in walking, he definitely wants to talk.  Lately he's added 'kiss tree' for Christmas tree, 'tree' for any kind of Xmas lights, 'boo', 'pee ah boo', 'hi' and 'bye'  and he can 'meow' like a kitty.  He still cannot say Momma, however, we have noticed that when he 'moos' like a cow, he really 'boos' and that he really doesn't say the mmmm sound at all.  Now, every time we say Momma or point to my picture, he says 'Babu' so maybe that's just his way of saying 'Momma'.  Oh well, it'll satisfy me for now.  Babu is better than Daddy, right;)

Gage's aversion to photographers

As you all know by now, I'm a delinquent blogger and we had so much going on this week that I never had time to sit down to write, although there were several topics I cared to discuss.  I have found that in the few seconds of free time I have each day, I'd rather read people's blogs than to write my own.  Right now, I sit here while Gage naps knowing I need to clean my house and not blog, so I'll just post quickly.

It has come to our realization that Gage has an aversion to professional  photographers.  The very 1st time Gage was photographed at 2 mos. old, an old friend of mine at home did the pictures and since he had never gone before, he had no idea what he was getting into.  He did great and only got fussy when it was time to eat.  The pictures came out very special and we were excited to have some more when he was older when he started to sit, stand, etc. 

We scheduled his 6 mo. pictures right on time and he ended up having a slight fever the am of the pictures.  So we cancelled and moved on.  The next weekend, we ended up taking him in to Picture People, and although we got a few cute pictures, we had an awful experience.  I think that was the beginning of the end for him.  He decided, hell no, no more photographers. 

He turned 9 months old in August and we scheduled more pictures, this time at Target, having heard positive reviews from a few friends.  The night before the pictures Gage got a horrible runny nose.  He wasn't really sick, but had yellow, sometimes, green snot running down his face so we decided we'd  postpone 'til the next weekend.  Ironically enough, it seemed the next day Gage was fine again. The next weekend came and Gage ended up w/ another fever and we weren't sure what was wrong but we didn't want to chance a grumpy child, so once again we rescheduled.  Mind you, this is about 3 times now that I had changed the appt.   I  had gone on the website, b/c it's so easy to do online and had changed my mind like 439 times on what time would be best.  Once again, nothing came of the fever.  So at 10 months, Gage finally went to Target to get his 9 months pictures taken.  The lady even went as far as to say she thought we were a 'bogus' family b/c I had made and cancelled so many appt's in the last few weeks.

Because we just got pictures at 10 months and the very next week got school pictures taken, Luke really didn't want to spend any more money on pictures at a year old, but I insisted we needed at least a few.  The weekend after Gage turned 1 came and went and w/ all the commotion I never scheduled anything.  So I decided that it might be nice to get them done over T'giving and my Mom could come.  I figured she'd enjoy it.  Appt. was made for the Sat. after T'giving.  That day our never-fussy chlid pitched a big old fit while we were dressing him for pictures and I thought...oh great.  He had gotten in the habit of napping in the late afternoon so I thought he should have another good hour in him.  Needless to say, we get to Sears, there's  3948 people waiting (my fault, we got there too early) and after waiting a half hour, he had a complete meltdown when we got in for pictures.  I think the lady took 2 before he crumbled to the floor in a tantrum throwing mess.  He did the baby flop and wouldn't cooperate at all.  I decided it was best just to leave and that was that.  After a nap, he was good to go.  I, however, had decided to give up on 1 year pictures.

Fast forward to this weekend when I said, Dammit, I've got to have some kind of picture for his 1st birthday and it's so close to Christmas that I might as well dress him in some holiday garb as well.  Target is running a special where you can get greeting cards and 2 other pics for like $30, so I thought perfect.  Also, I was able to get the 1st appt. this am so we wouldn't have to wait (I had seen that debacle last weekend).  Again, perfect.  7am this morning and my alarm goes off.....not the baby one, but the real one and I thought, I can't believe he's not awake.  Of course, when I went in to get him he was snoring away.  I knew I had to get him up and in the bath if we wanted to make it on time. That's when I realized he was one HOT potato.  Temp....100.7!  Not that this is especially high, but he's never had  a temperature this high....so we thought not sure what the problem is, but I won't torture him getting his picture taken, right?  I mean, he was still sleeping and who wants to get their picture taken after they're drug out of bed. So.....I cancelled the pictures AGAIN, are you kidding me??  After a few minutes, Gage seemed like he felt fine, ate a great breakfast, played all am and giggled, as usual.  Way to fake sick AGAIN, kid!  He seems to be pretty good at it, can't wait 'til high school. 

So what do I do? Try again, or finally throw in the towel??

I know, this post was supposed quick, right?  Off to clean, I go.

Pictures canceled:(

Gage didn't seem to feel well this morning and has a runny nose, so we postponed the pictures 'til next Sat. Hopefully he'll be feeling better then! Keep you posted.

A day in the life of a 7 week old- babies have bad days, too

After the couch purchase on Saturday, we thought that wasn't enough and needed also to drop another grand on Sunday on a new mattress. Oh well, hopefully the little sleep we are getting will now be in more comfort and buying new furniture is always fun. However, mattresses are probably the last thing on the list of fun new furniture.

Anyway, I am counting down the days until I have to go back to work and trying to cherish every one of them. Gage is beginning to smile and interact much more and I will be so sad to leave him. I am jealous that Luke will get to stay home with for another 4 weeks! Our little boy has still decided that he will not sleep before 1am, however, we can't complain about his night feedings. He eats at 11pm and then at 5am, which if he keeps it up will fit perfectly into our schedules when we go back to work. It could be much worse.
However, yesterday, he slept ALL day long, I think he was up for only a few short hours and we were worried he might be sick. He is his most alert at night and wants to play. It's a shame...he is so cute at night but we don't want to play with him too much since we need to wind him down for the evening. He did put himself to sleep last night though. After hours of trying, I gave up and put him down when he was just a little drowsy and after 10 minutes of talking to himself he went right to sleep.

Today was a different story......today we started the morning with eating and his favorite activity-- the bath. He smiled and cooed and all was well. We went to his room to go through all of his clothes and pack away the ones that don't fit him anymore, etc. He was laying on the floor flat on his back and had been for about an hour when he projectile vomited EVERYWHERE. So...we took another sponge bath and ate again. All was well for another hour. Gage took a 20 minute cat nap and woke up with another belly ache. The vomit continued....We ate again and the cycle continued. The amount of vomit got smaller each time since he didn't have a full belly, but none the less, it continued.

Being a 1st time mom and the fact that it had happened 3 times in a row, I called the doctor to ask if I should be concerned and they told me to bring him in. What?!? We have been to the dr. every 2 weeks for his whole life! Anyway, they 'examined' him and said everything looked good and that it was only one day. Thanks....you could've told me that on the phone and saved me $20. They said only be concerned if it continues and try smaller portions more frequently. Again, they could've told me that on the phone. I was told to call back if it continues through the night and they will do an ultrasound tomorrow. I'm hoping it was just a bad day...

I was supposed to get my nails done tomorrow while Gage plays with Jacob.....ah, babies.