Conversations With Emily

I picked Em up from school yesterday and her teacher had put a side pony-tail in her hair....

Me: "I like your side pony-tail, Em."

Em: "It's not a side pony-tail.  It's just one pig tail on the side of my head."

Weekend Recap (Including Allergy Testing For Em)

We had a lot going on this weekend!  I think I'll actually start my recap with Friday.  About a month ago, Shawn took Em to see the dermatologist because her ezcema was getting so bad.  They did some allergy testing and based on the results, they referred us to a pediatric allergist.  Shawn took Em in Friday morning and we found out quite a lot of information.  Basically every type of food is an irritant for Emily.  I'm talking milk, wheat, soy, egg whites, you name it.  Luckily none of those are severe enough to where we need to remove them from her diet.  Which is good since I'm not really sure what she would be able to eat.  Along with that, we found out she is very allergic to a few things.  One of those is peanuts.  We had a hunch all along that she had some kind of allergy to peanuts.  One time when Em and I were making peanut butter cookies, she rubbed her eye and it swelled up like I've never seen before.  We just weren't sure how bad the allergy was.  Well, it was bad enough that the dr. was very nervous that we didn't have an epi-pen for her.  So needless to say, we now have one! No peanuts for this girl.  We also found out that the thing she is most allergic to is cats.  :(  The dr. thinks this may be the biggest cause of her ezcema.  This was super sad for me to hear.  As most of you know, we have a cat.  I've had Lily for 8 years, so this was not the news I wanted to hear.  While it makes me very sad, I have to put my daughter's health above everything else.  So with that said, we are now on the search to find a loving new home for Lily.  :(

Saturday morning, I took Em to dance while Shawn and Evan stayed home.  After dance, me and Em went and watched my niece's soccer game.  I'm planning on signing Em up for soccer in the fall, so it was fun to watch 4-5 year olds play.  It makes me look forward to the fall.  After the game, Em and I went to lunch with my brother, sister in law and 2 nieces.  We had fun catching up and the girls always have a blast together.  While we were gone, Shawn and Evan went grocery shopping.  That afternoon Shawn left to go to a bachelor party and me and the kids played at home.

Evan LOVES his little chair now that we moved it into the gameroom next to big sisters.

Grocery shopping with Daddy

Sunday we had a bit of a relaxing day.  Shawn got home late morning and we spent a lot of the afternoon outside enjoying the nice weather. 

They both look sooo big to me in this picture.  I ask Em all the time if I can keep her little forever and she says yes.  I don't think she's doing a good job of it. 

I'm loving his little crocs.  He only kept them on while he was standing at the water table.  As soon as he was done, off they came.

Conversations With Emily

Today at dance she was pointing to her friends hair and said:

Em: "I don't have brown hair like her."

Me: "Nope, you're right."

Em: " I have silver hair." 

Then later this morning:

Em: "What are we having for dinner tonight?"

Me: "I'm not sure yet.  It's just you, me and Evan tonight."

Em: "I know what we'll have then."

Em: "You'll have cereal, Evan will have grilled cheese and I'll have chicken nuggets."

Haha . . my girl knows my cooking well.  :)



Conversations With Emily

This was our conversation before school this morning. . .

 

Me: "Come on, missy.  We need to go."

Em: "Why do you call me other names?"

Me: "They are just nicknames."

Em: "You can call me Princess Emily."

Me: "Oh, is that how you want me to refer to you?"

Em: "Yes, Princess Emily sounds good."

 

Tubes

The time finally came for Evan to have tubes put in.  I wasn't looking forward to this day, but I so badly just wanted him feel better that I was ready for it to be done. 

Evan wasn't allowed to eat after midnight Thursday, which I was really worried about.  Evan loves his food, so I thought this might be the hardest thing we had to deal with.  Evan had started coming down with some kind of cold on Wednesday and I think this ended up being a blessing in disguise in terms of his appetite.  I tried waking him up around 11:15 to feed him a bottle, but he really wasn't interested and just wanted to sleep.  When he woke up Friday morning, he looked around for his bottle, but never fussed for food. at. all!  I think with him just not feeling great, he really didn't miss his bottle or breakfast. 

We headed to the hospital at 7:00 on Friday morning and got all checked in.  He wasn't due to have the procedure done until 8:35.  The waiting and keeping him occupied was the hardest part.  He is just so busy now, all he wants to do is crawl around.  Luckily while we were waiting, he was in the best mood!  He was clapping and smiling at all the nurses.  Poor guy had no idea what was coming.  :(  We got some good news around 7:45.  They were running ahead of schedule and he'd be going back before 8:00.

Waiting in pre-op

The anesthesiologist came and carried him back around 7:55.  Shawn and I waited only about 10 minutes and we were told we could go over to see him in recovery.  The dr and nurse had warned us that the 30-40 minutes after the surgery is the hardest, so I prepared myself for the worst.  Truthfully, it wasn't really bad at all.  He did awesome!  Yes, he cried quite a bit while waking up, but he really just wanted to be held and snuggled.  After about 30 minutes and a bottle, he was good to go!  As soon as he was in the carseat, he was as happy as could be.  We were home before 9:00! 

He did really well at home.  He did sleep quite a bit more than usual, but we expected that.  The dr. said he had a lot of fluid in both ears, so I know another infection would have been right around the corner.  We have high hopes that these tubes will make him feel better.



Back at home.  Look at those little hospital bracelets.



Unfortunately, our hopes of a happy boy this weekend were dashed on Saturday morning.  He woke up Saturday morning with a fever and more snot than you could imagine.  :(  We kept him home all day hoping that's all it would take to make him feel better.  Sunday morning he woke up and still had a fever.  This time the fever kept getting higher throughout the day.  Finally by around 7:30 that night his fever had reached 103.  I decided to take him in to see the after hours dr.  I wanted to make sure the fever had nothing to do with his ears.  The dr. didn't see anything that should be causing a fever that high, so they took some blood work which indicated it could be a possible bacterial infection.  So they gave him another antibiotic injection (he just got 3 of those last week for ear infections :( ).  I stayed home with him on Monday and took him to his pediatrician for a follow up appt.  The dr. said he can't be sure what caused the fever.  He could have gotten a bacterial infection during the surgery, could have just had some kind of virus or just be 1 of those kids that is lucky enough to run a fever after surgery.  Either way, his temp was completely gone and as the day went on he was finally turning back into his old self.  I was so relieved to see my happy, healthy boy back.  He's back to school today!  Here's to hoping he doesn't make a trip to the dr. until his 1 year well-visit!!



Waiting at the dr's office Sunday night.  All he wanted to do was snuggle up and sleep. He did not feel good!



Monday night. . . night and day different from 24 hours prior.

On a side note. . .on Saturday, Em's school had their annual spring fling event.  We had planned to go as a family, but when Evan got sick, him and Shawn ended up staying at home.  But me and Em still went and Em had an absolute blast!  There were bounce houses, inflatable slides, a fun bus, sno cones, pony rides, games, a fire truck, cotton candy, petting zoo, etc.  Emily loved everything and could have stayed there all day!  The one thing she was super excited about was the pony ride.  She has been talking about wanting to ride a horse for months.  These are the only pics I took of her the whole time. . .but look how happy this girl looks on top of that pony.  :)

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Sunday afternoon we went to the Frisco Roughriders game with our friends, The Gists.  We love going to these games.  The ballpark is so family oriented and the kids always have a blast.  We couldn't have asked for better weather. . .sunny and high in the 80's!  We bought grass seats in the outfield which allowed us to spread out and the kids to play.   Unfortunately Em didn't feel great, so I don't think she enjoyed this game nearly as much as she has in the past.  And Evan got a bit frustrated because he couldn't really crawl around due to the hill we were sitting on.  But even with all that, we still had a great time.  I'll be honest.. . I'm not sure I even watched much of the game. . .haha.  I just had fun enjoying the nice weather, playing with the kids and catching up with friends.  I see many more baseball games in our future!

Wordless Wednesday

Bluebonnets

I can never pass up taking pics of the kids in the bluebonnets.  This year was even more fun because it was Evan's first bluebonnet pics.  Unfortunately, neither Em nor Evan were really up to taking pics, but at least we got some.

Ten Months

Dear Evan,

Happy 10 months little man!  I can't believe you are now into double digits!  You're getting too old for me.  With only 2 months to go, I'm thinking I better start getting on the ball with planning your 1st birthday party.

This month you have really taken off with crawling.  You crawl quickly and are just into everything!  You haven't taken any steps on your own, but you are able to pull up on things and then let go while still standing up for a few seconds.  You are able to walk while pushing a walker.  You love following around Emily and Lily.  You will crawl really quickly whenever you see something you know you aren't supposed to have.

With you getting into everything now, we've had to start telling you "no" lately.  You don't like being told no and will sometimes cry.  You totally test your limits now.  I will tell you no and then you will do it again while looking at me.  I can already see the differences between having a boy and a girl! I'm sure my world is about to be turned upside down by you. Your sister loves telling you what you can and can't do.  I'm pretty sure you probably feel like you have 2 mommys sometimes.  :)

Emily is still your favorite person.  You always want to know what she's doing.  If Emily gets upset about something and starts crying, it makes you very upset too.  You don't like to see people upset, especially her.

You are strong, little guy.  You will literally wrestle Em for her toys sometimes.  She's not a fan of this.  I know it's only a matter of time before you will be bigger than her.  You fight us a lot when we are changing your diaper and getting you dressed.  You also fight us a lot when you're tired.  I just can't believe how strong you are!

This month you have really started understanding how things work.  For example, you have figured out how most of your toys work and will put the rings back on the stand, put the balls back in the ball popper, etc.  I'm pretty sure you're a genius.  Haha.  You love anything that you can push around the floor.  It could be your cars, Em's little chairs or your ride on truck.  If you can get it to move, it's way more fun.

Unfortunately, it's been the same story with your ears this month.  You've been fighting a double ear infection for most of the month.  We tried 1 antibiotic only for it to not keep it away.  So then you had to get 3 rounds of antibiotic injections.  This was not fun for you or Mommy!  Needless to say, after all the ear infections we have officially scheduled surgery for tubes.  I didn't want it to come to this, but at this point I'm just so over all these ear infections!  I'm hoping after the tubes, I'll be writing next month about how you were healthy all month long.

You still love your food, little guy!  They say at school it's like man vs. food (haha).  They know not to get between you and food.  You have decided that you do not like to be spoon fed.  We apparently don't move fast enough for you.  As a result, we now have to find food that you can feed yourself.  You will pretty much eat anything and a ton of it too!  You usually have no problem eating all your food and finishing up some of your sister's food too!   You also are very particular about your sippy cup.  You do not want it on your highchair tray unless you need a drink of water.  Otherwise it just gets in the way of your food and you will throw it off.  With your sister we always have to worry about her not eating enough, with you it's the total opposite!  I'm pretty sure it won't be long before you are eating us out of a house.  Haha.

You celebrated your first Easter this month, as well as sat in a highchair at a restaurant and in a shopping basket for the first time.   You also stayed apart from Mommy and Daddy for the first time this month while we were on our trip.  You did great, although I think you were ready for us to be home.  We missed you just as much!

Happy 10 months little guy!!

10 Month Stats

Weight: No appt. this month
Length: No appt. this month
Eating: 6 oz of Gentlease every 3 - 4 hours during the day.  We're working on getting you down to 4 bottles a day. That actually hasn't been too hard lately since you're now eating so much table food.  Having 3 meals a day of only table food and you drink water out of a sippy cup.
Bedtime: Around 7:30 pm
Awake: 5:30-6:30 am is the norm, however since you were sick this month it wasn't unusual for you to sleep in until 7:00 or 7:30.  One day, I had to wake you up at 9:00!  That's how I definitely knew you weren't feeling well!
Naps:  You take a morning nap and afternoon nap, however, the times aren't always consistent. You usually need a night time cat nap too.
Diapers: Size 3 Pampers.
Clothes: mainly 6-12 months, some 9 month stuff
Favorites: eating, snuggling with your lovey, chasing Lily, playing with Emily, pushing your toys, crawling and pulling up on everything.
Development: crawling, pulling up, standing without holding on, understanding how toys work.
Teeth: 2 bottom ones.  It's been several months since new teeth have come in, however, we know you are teething.  Your uppers gums were all swollen and purple last week.  But nothing has broken through yet.

Our Week In Iphone Pics

Friday:

Em woke up before I was ready for work, so she laid in our bed and watched TV.



After school on Friday. . .somebody thinks she is a princess.

Saturday:

Em and I played outside while Evan slept (he was sick).  She told me she picked a flower - one of our flowers we planted.

Sunday:

Poor Evan didn't feel well and just wanted to lay on someone. 

He loves to chew on his foam bath letters.

 

This pic didn't turn out great, but I love it none the less.

Monday:

Shawn stayed home with Evan on Monday.  Poor baby still didn't feel well.

Em started swim lessons with her friend Aubrey.

Tuesday:

I stayed home with Evan on Tuesday.  He did a lot more of this!

But he did manage to get some energy to play for a little bit.

Wednesday:

Someone was too busy watching Caillou to look at me.

Thursday:

Em was in charge of passing out Evan's snack

1 for you, 1 for me. . .

After 3 rounds of antibiotic injections, my boy is finally feeling better.