Off for more tests

Well the pedi called back. She is also concerned about Julia having a high fever this long without any other symptoms. She thinks Julia might have developed a bladder infection from the antibiotics she was on.

So I have to go pick her up and go back to the Children's Hospital for more tests. She wants a urine culture and more blood work. She is also going to do a strep test. I am worried that with Julia spitting out part of the antibiotics, that maybe they did not knock out all the strep and it is back.

I hope they figure something out!

This is getting old

Julia's high fever is back. I have a call into the Pedi to figure this out.

I just don't understand it. After Wednesday's high fever, she only had a low fever on Thursday, none on Friday, but it started to come back Saturday evening. By Saturday night she was burning up again. Yesterday she was just miserable! Her fever was spiking over 104.5!!!! Even the Motrin could not bring it all the way back down.

I just want my baby to be better....

"I burp"

I think Julia got her daddy's sense of humor. She thinks burping and farting are hilarious!!

She will burp then go "I burp" and just laugh! The other night Jerrod farted and she went "I burp" and laughed. Which of course had us laughing that she was claiming Jerrod's fart as her burp.

Yes, we are a twisted family....

Screaming

Julia has discovered the joy of screaming. Not screaming because she is crying, just screaming because she can!

While I love that she is learning new things and is expressing herself, the screaming needs to be limited to the outside. She especially loves to scream in the car. A closed space with her loud, high-pitched screaming, Oi! It is almost as bad as nails on a chalkboard.

I think I might need to invest in earplugs! Telling her to stop last all of about 10 seconds!

On the mend?

I hope I am not jinxing myself, but I think Julia is on the mend.

She only had a very low grade fever yesterday and this morning her temp was normal!

Yesterday and today she has been running around like a fool, so she must be feeling better!

Swimming classes start tomorrow and as long as she does not take a downturn till then, I think we are safe to go. She will be so excited!

Even higher fever

So much for Julia getting better.

She just woke up from her nap with a fever of over 104!!!!

Called the pedi and they are squeezing us in.

It scares me when her fever gets that high, even if they said a high fever in kids is not as serious as in adults.

*Update*
Pedi thinks it is just a virus. I am not convinced. This is just how thing started last time. I have to wonder if the antibiotic did not knock out all the strep and now it is back.

I will not let this go on as long as last time. It went on for 8 days before I demand they do something.

Another high fever

Urgh..... Julia just got over being sick!

I noticed that Julia was a little warm on Saturday and Sunday. I figured she was either running around too much or she was teething again. She acted just find so I did not think too much about it. On Monday she seemed fine, maybe just a touch warm.

Yesterday morning when I got her up, she seemed a little warm. I took her temp and it said it was about 100. She was still acting fine so I thought it as either from teething or from sleeping all cuddled up with her Blankie.

BUT.... I get a call at lunchtime saying Julia is running a fever of 102.5 and that I needed to come get her. By the time I got her home and took her temp it was up to 103. Luckily, she took the Motrin like she used to and I did not have to force it in her like I did the antibiotics. Motrin brought the fever back down and Julia was back to running around.

Unfortunately, the Motrin wore off before the next dose was due, so she spent about an hour on my lap feeling awful.

So today I am home with Julia. Boy, I have been really going through my sick leave lately. Jerrod is working on a big project at work, so he cannot stay home with her.

Fortunately, she is doing much better today. Still running a fever, but it has not climbed as high. Hopefully, it was just a little bug that is on its way out now.

Latest Julia tid-bits

Julia has been so fun lately.

She loves to sing. They do what they call "circle time" at daycare almost everyday. I think circle time is when all the toddlers sit in a circle and sing songs. It is really neat to hear Julia to start singing a song, complete with hand/arm motions. Most of the time I can even pick up what song she is singing! Her current favorite songs are: The Wheels on the Bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider, BINGO, Old Mac Donald, Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, ABC's, among others.

Julia is also obsessed with colors. Right now she can identify blue, yellow, green, and purple. If she sees any of these colors she makes sure you know it! She is also starting to get the other colors too.

She is starting to count. The other day she was climbing the stairs and was counting each one on the way up! I did not think a 20 month old toddler was supposed to be able to count and say her ABC's! I work with her, but I think the daycare plays a big role in this.

Julia's vocabulary and language skills continue to amaze me. This was a conversation between Julia and Debbie (MiMi).

Julia (to Debbie) - Did you poop?
Debbie - Um....Did you poop?
Julia - Yep!

I think Julia is going through a growth spurt because she has really been eating. A LOT. Sometimes it really amazes me just how much she can eat. I am not sure where she puts it all. Last night she had have her first Oreo cookies. It took her less than 20 seconds to figure how to take the top off and lick the filling!

Finally, I signed Julia back up for swimming classes. She loved swimming so much this summer, I wanted to have her take swimming classes this winter just to stay comfortable with the pool. The classes start this Saturday. They are a bit of a hassle, but Julia really enjoys them, so they are worth it.

Not my taste buds!

My German taste buds cannot handle spicy/hot food. Growing up, our food was always pretty bland. We liked it that way. Jerrod likes his food on the spicy/hot side. It has only been in the last several years that I am actually starting to tolerate some spicy/hot food. Not as spicy/hot as Jerrod likes it, but it is a start.

Julia, on the other hand, must not have inherited my German taste buds. She loves spicy/hot food! She loves Mexican food and even Indian food (especially curry!!!!)! On Saturday night we went out to a Mexican restaurant. Julia got her own bowl of salsa. At one point she gave up trying to eat it with chips and was eating it with her fork! Chucks of tomatoes, onions, and all! She finished off her bowl and was asking for more. She then ate most of her burrito too! She just loves Mexican.

It is so weird for me to see a toddler eating salsa and curry. It makes for some REALLY nasty diaper too!

Back to normal!

Well, we are never "normal", but we are back to "life as it is".

We lucked out and got power back on Saturday. Apparently, some crew supervisor for DP&L was driving around and saw our power line laying in our front yard and so he told his crew to get over to our house and fix it!!! YEAH!!!! We would still be waiting for power if it was up to DP&L dispatch to send someone out. The crew supervisor stopped about 10 minutes after the crew left and asked if we had power back. I told him yes and that is when he told me he was the one that sent the crew to our house! I almost kissed him!!!!

Julia is doing MUCH better now that things are back to the way they should be. She actually slept in on Sunday. (Which means she was up by 7:30am but played in her crib and let me get a little more sleep. I think I finally went in and got her about 8:15-8:30).

Now my fridge is squeaky clean inside from having to clean it out. I need to get to the store and re-stock it.

Up means down!

Julia is so funny.

She has the "up, up, up.." thing down pat. She is constantly saying "up" when she wants picked up. But she is having a little trouble remembering "down" even though she knows what it means. So when she wants down she says "up", even though she is already in my arms. It is so funny to be holding her and have her say "up, up" when she CLEARLY wants DOWN! LOL Every now and then, she remembers to say "down" instead of "up" when she wants down, but most of the time it is "up" when she really wants down. Silly girl!

Still no electricity

We still have no electricity. Last report said it will probably be next week before we get it back.

This is getting really old, really fast. I don't like having to do everything by flashlight. I am tired of soup and peanut butter sandwiches.

And tomorrow we are going to take on the task of trying to clean up our yard. The city has a place we can take all the limbs and tree debris. So at least we don't have to worry about chipping it up and finding a home for the big stuff. It is just going to be a LONG day.... I finally took pictures of the yard, but until we get electric on back home, I cannot upload them to the computer to post them.

I think we are going to spend some time at someone's house who has electricity this weekend!!!

Oh, Julia is still all upset about everything. When Jerrod got up this morning at 5am, Julia was crying in her crib. Since the baby monitor needs electricity and I cannot hear Julia from our bedroom, I have no clue how long she had been crying. She just seemed so scared. She refused to go back to sleep, so we just got up and got going. I was in the office EARLY this morning...

Edited to add - I just called the power company and they said it would be at LEAST next week before we would get power back!! I think we will be spending most of the weekend somewhere else!!!

Poor confused Julia

The remains of Hurricane Ike blew through on Sunday and unexpectedly picked up power. We were one of the millions effected. We lost several HUGE trees and the tops of of many more. Our electric line has been completely snapped off from the power pole and is laying in our yard. Some minor damage to our house (spouting ripped off, hole in the screened-in porch, etc..), but we are without power. We have been told it will be the end of the weekend or even the beginning of next week before we get power back. (My work has power, that is how I am posting this.)

All of this is really confusing Julia. She is old enough to understand that something is wrong and different, but not old enough to understand what is going on. I think it really confuses her that we are eating in the dark and the TV has not been on for several days. I also think the whole thing is stressing her out. She picked up on our stress on Sunday and Monday (we have now got things under control and have no problem riding it out), so she is also stressed. Everything is different to her and she does not know why. Normally her room has a nightlight, so I think that is scaring her some too, having to sleep in the complete dark.

Then this morning you could just see the stressed/confused look on her face when I dropped her off at daycare and they too were in the dark. Several days without going to daycare and when she finally does, it's also has no lights (they have plenty of windows, so it was not REALLY that dark).

Poor girl. She does not deal well with change anyway, and to have all these strange things happening, well it must be hard on her.

MINE!!

Oh, give me strength!!!

Julia is getting very demanding and vocal about her things as of late.

For the last couple of day when we try to take something away from her or she really wants something she screams "MINE!!"! Oh my!!! We no longer get "please", we get "MINE".

If someone keeps this up, she just might discover how fun "time outs" are!

(I think someone is slightly spoiled!!)

Hurt, hurt....

Luckily, we have NEVER had a problem with diaper rash with Julia. We knew she had sensitive skin, so we were really careful about constantly changing her so she never sat in a wet/dirty diaper. So we rarely had to use any diaper cream.

So imagine my surprise when Julia started to develop a rash on her bottom. I put a little diaper cream on it figuring it would clear right up. But it didn't. It did not really spread, but you could tell it was hurting Julia. She would squirm and fussy when I would touch it to put cream on it.

The other night she pooped in her diaper and then immediately grabbed her butt and starting whining. I went to go change her. As I set her down on the changing table, she lifted up her butt so it was not touching the pad and said "Hurt, hurt". I cleaned her up, all the while she was saying "hurt, hurt".

With her being on antibiotics and the rash not clearing up with regular diaper cream, I figured it had to be a yeast rash. Called the pedi, who called in a prescription cream for Julia.

It is looking much better today, but she is still fussing and squirming every time I touch it to put the cream on it, so it most still hurt.

Poor baby.....

But in good news, she is back to feeling 100%!!!! We also finished up the antibiotics this morning, so no more struggling to get it into her.

Language EXPLOSION!

Julia has really had a language explosion over the course of the last 2 months or so. Multiple new words daily. More and more sentences. And not just simple sentences anymore, she is moving to complex sentences!!! Just constant jabbering...

The other night DH was changing cat litter, Julia and I were in the living room. She saw where DH went then looked at me and said "I go where dad go" before taking off after him.

Also, multiple times a day, Julia will look at one of us and jabber a sentence over and over. She obviously knows what she is saying, but because she is still working on her annunciation, we don't always understand what she is trying to say. She is so proud of herself for talking in sentences, but gets so frustrated when we don't understand her.

She is also fascinated by big trucks. Every time she sees one or hears one it is "big truck". She also knows what a bus is too and will say "bus" when we pass one. Monday morning the garbage truck came by as I was dressing Julia. She saw it out her window and she stood there the entire time it collected the trash watching it and saying "big truck"! We could not continue getting dressed until the "big truck" finished and drove away. Some parent at daycare drives a Hummer, and every time Julia sees it she makes sure I know it is a "big truck"!

Such a girl!

I know I have said it multiple times already, but Julia is really scaring me with how much of a girly-girl she is!! This is new territory for me!

The other night Julia took being girly to a whole new level!!

Picture this - She has a bracelet on each wrist, purse slung over her shoulder, her sparklely play dress-up shoes on, sparklely sunglasses on, and is pushing her shopping cart around the house!!! I really wish I had the camera handy for that scene! I was too busy laughing and being in a state of terror at what the years ahead will bring!

More potty training success

Julia has yet to actually "go" on the potty at home, but she is having some success at daycare.

When I picked her up from daycare yesterday, they said that she actually pooped a little in the potty chair!!! That is the first for that!!! I think it helps that she sees all the other kids using the toilets and she wants to do the same.

I think she is starting to get the concept though...

On Sunday, Jerrod went to use the bathroom. Julia followed him in (we don't discourage her watching, we figure it will only help her figure it out). So she watched Jerrod "go". As soon as he was done and flushed the toilet, she grabbed her potty seat (it fits over top of the regular toilet), and put it on the toilet. She then tried to get undressed so she could sit on the potty. I guess she thought it was her turn. Unfortunately, she did not go. But she is really starting to understand the concept. Hopefully, she will have it figured it out soon.

Colors and "phew"

I have not really worked to hard on colors with Julia yet. We go over them occasionally when reading certain books, but generally I am not pushing it yet. Well, apparently she is picking it up anyway! She has known the color blue for a long time now, but she is now added yellow to the list of colors she knows.

This morning I was getting her dressed. I was getting ready to put yellow socks on her. I soon as I started putting one on her foot, she pointed to it and said "yellow". I told her "that is right, your sock is yellow". I then put on her other sock, to which she pointed and said yellow again. She then looks up at me all proud of herself. Then she saw the shirt laying on the dresser that I was going to put on her. "Yellow", she said as she picked up the yellow shirt.

So we got blue and yellow down. We will just have to work on the other colors. Although she is also getting pretty good with "red".

I have accidentally taught Julia how to say "phew" when I change her diapers. Her poppy diapers smelled so bad, that usually once I opened the diaper I would go "phew". Well, Julia has picked up on this. Now when ever I change her diaper, regardless if it is poppy or not, she says "phew" as soon as I open it up!!

Oh, Julia saw a squirrel playing in the yard this weekend. She watched it intently and kept saying "kitty, kitty". Gavin has a pretty fluffy tail too, so it must be hard to know that a squirrel is not a kitty!! I just don't think that "kitty" will let Julia pet it!!!

Sick Julia update

It has been a little crazy....

Fortunately Julia is FINALLY on the road to recovery.

After talking to my pedi early Friday afternoon, I ended up taking Julia down to Children's Hospital for a bunch more tests. They did x-rays, bloodwork, and another urine culture. All that and we still did not have any real answers. The pedi switched the antibiotic that we were giving Julia. Although, Julia's strep throat culture came back negative, my pedi felt VERY strongly that the strep had settled into her body somewhere, especially since I had strep throat at about the same time her fever started.

Poor Julia hated all the tests and would start crying "all done" as soon as anyone in scrubs would walk in the room. It broke my heart to hear it....

The change in antibiotics seems to have done the trick though. Because she was feeling better on Saturday and her fever did not spike very high. By Sunday, you would have never known she was sick at all. She had no fever and was running around playing.

Getting the medicine into her is a trick in itself. I even paid EXTRA for the pharmacy to flavor the meds, but Julia was having none of it. She had always been wonderful about taking medicine up until this point. I would just hand her the little cup and she would drink it up. But now Jerrod has to put her in a big bear hug, pinning her arms to her sides. I then hold her nose shut, tilt her head back and squirt the medicine in the back of her throat. She has to swallow it if she wants to breathe. Although she still manages to spit some out. I think we are lucky if she actually swallows half of the medicine she is supposed to get.

This is also the first time in Julia's life that she has had to have antibiotics.

The whole ordeal wore me out and had me quite worried, but Julia seems no worse for wear.

Very concerned and so tired!

We are now on day 8 (EIGHT!!!) of the high fever!!!! I am getting really concerned. This long with a high fever cannot be good for her, neither can all the Motrin I have giving her to keep her fever under control.

I am getting conflicting opinions from the pedi office. Our regular one called yesterday morning put her on the antibiotics, since I has strep throat last week, she figures she caught something from me. The other pedi in the office (the one we saw on Weds) called yesterday afternoon to ask about her. When I told him she still had the high fever, he wanted to do chest x-rays and bloodwork. When I told him the other pedi prescribed antibiotics several hours ago, he relented on the other tests and agreed to give the antibiotics 24 hours to work first.

Luckily, Julia is still drinking fluids and I have been really pushing them. I don't want her to get dehydrated. I have been watching her diapers for it. She will also eat if the Motrin is working.

She was up at 4am this morning crying. She was just shivering!! (she has been like this the last 3 mornings). The house is not too cold and she is wearing pj's with long sleeves and pants. So I wrapped her up in a quilt and we just rocked. Less than an hour later, the shivering was gone replaced by the fever. She then vomited on me TWICE!! This was all before 6am!!!! She has not vomited for days. I think it happens when her fever spikes too high. Unfortunately she just had a dose of Motrin at 4am. By now, she really wanted something to drink, but I was afraid of giving her too much and then it coming back up. It was so sad because she was holding her cup up to me saying "more, more", in a pathetic voice.

My in-law's are watching her today so I can at least get some work done at the office this week. I am about to call and see how she is doing so I can call the pedi to figure out the game plan.

I am really worried about my baby and I am so tired from the lack of sleep!! I am actually surprised they have not put her in the hospital yet. This just seems too long to be waiting it out....

Worried about Julia

Julia has had a high fever since Friday. The pedi said at our appt on Saturday that it was just a virus. It has now been 6 days and she is still running a high fever. So we went back to the pedi today. The pedi was also concerned that the fever is dragging on this long. Her ears are clear, her heart and lungs sound fine. Her throat was a little red, but nothing to indicate she caught the strep throat I had last week. But they took a swab of her throat anyway and are culturing it overnight. They also collected a urine sample to rule out a UTI. The initial tests looked fine, but they are also going to culture it overnight.

The pedi said he is not sure the cause of the fever. If the cultures are negative tomorrow and Julia is still running a fever, they would be doing bloodwork to figure this out.

This afternoon, her temp spiked up to 104.2!!! Luckily it was time for another dose of Motrin and once that kicked in, the fever came down. She is not eating well, but she is luckily still drinking. It is times like this that I am glad she is on the chunky side, so I don't have to worry about too much weight loss on top of everything else.

I am worried about my baby.....

Still puny and the result of colic....

Still trying to get over the plagues here. I am feeling MUCH better now that our wonderful pediatrician gave me an antibiotic that actually will get rid of strep throat! My throat is still sore, but I doing so much better than I was. I thought Julia was doing better, hardly any fever at all on Monday, was happy and playing. But then around 10pm last night, I heard her crying. I go check on her and her fever had spiked back up to 103! So I gave her more Motrin and just rocked her for awhile.

This morning she just acted so puny. No temp, but she was actually shivering!! Her feet and hands were cold and slightly blue!! She had on pj's with long sleeves and pants, and it was not that chilly in her room, so I am not sure where that came from. She just wanted held, with her head buried in my chest/shoulder. I gave her another dose of Motrin, even though she did not have a fever, I thought it would help her feel better. Luckily, my mom was able to watch her today, so I could go to work. By the time we got to my parent's house (a 45 minute drive), the Motrin had kicked in and she was perking up. The pedi said that it could take 5 days for the virus to completely work through her system.

Poor little girl. Makes me so sad to see her like this.



I think this is an example of JUST how much Julia cried when she was going through colic......

The speaker in the baby monitor stopped working. Since Julia sleeps on a separate floor and there are 2 closed doors between us at night, I don't feel comfortable going without a monitor yet. I told DH I will get rid of the monitor when Julia is big enough to get out of bed (she is still in a crib) and come get us if something is wrong. But until that time, we need to have a monitor.

Luckily, the monitor I have has too receivers, but since one speaker already went out (and the fact I really like two receivers), I think it is time to replace the whole monitor system. Our current one was fairly cheap and was given to us as a gift. The main problem with our current monitor is that when the receivers are plugged in to an outlet (and they always are, otherwise it would eat through batteries), you hear a LOT of static coming through. It is REALLY annoying and I want to avoid it in our next monitor.