Back to work...

Well, I thought about just writing... "back to work, enough said!" but it wasn't that bad... Because Pacey is still recovering from her procedure yesterday, Mom came to the house this morning so I did not have to take her out in the weather. I took Elliott to Becky's for his first full day of babysitting and had to be at a teacher in-service by 8:30 in one of the other centers... not bad. It was snowing this morning when I left and the roads were not pleasant, they wound up letting us go at 12:30, so all in all, not a bad first day back to work... baby steps.

Rock Band

On the 15th, Eric's brother, Vince came into town for the Metallica concert... the boys have gone to every show since 1995! I had bought matching Metallica tees for the kids back in the fall when the boys got their tickets... Pacey kept referring to them as "the rock band"... enjoy the pics.

Pacey Leigh

Pacey's recent double ear infection made for 3 ear infections since November, so her ENT wants to put more tubes in and remove her adenoids in the process... this should give her the much needed relief from the ear infections and colds... she is always sick, hopefully this will help. Her surgery is tomorrow - Monday the 26th... the day I was supposed to go back to work - oh, well... please say a little prayer for Princess P... I told her that Dr. Kleiman was going to put tubes in her ears again and that I really wanted her to be brave, she told me that she was not afraid of that, only shots... I told her that she will go to sleep and while she is asleep, Dr. Kleiman will put the tubes in (I didn't scare her with the adenoids) her response was "He is going to come to my house?!?!?" ahhh... out of the mouth of babes... The procedure will actually be done at a surgical center with no over night stay.

WWB - wimpy white boy

Well - I am sure you all were thinking that things must be going well because Carrie hasn't posted in a while.... WRONG-O! I believe I told you that Pacey had a double ear infection a couple of weeks ago??? if not, she did... after her fifths disease rash showed up so did some cold symptoms (on Friday the 9th) by Monday morning she was complaining that both ears were hurting so off to the doctor we go... double ear infection, antibiotics... 2 days later on Wednesday, Elliott started with some congestion, we foolishly assumed that he had just caught Pacey's cold. Thursday morning I called the doctor's office and spoke to the nurse... told her what had been going on and that I needed a refresher course in how to manage a sick infant... she gave me some pointers and we both agreed that he did not need to be seen at that point. However, if his symptoms worsened or his cough changed we would need to bring him in... fast forward to Saturday morning... bad cough and hard time sleeping, so we took him to Nighttime Pediatrics, they did a test (swabbed his nose) and reported back that it was RSV... I knew that RSV could be serious but wasn't exactly sure of what it was... the doc explained that in children over a year old, RSV looks like a bad cold but in infants, it could quickly progress to pneumonia or bronchitis... FANTASTIC!!!!! He also said that I could look it up online but not to google it because I would be scared by the results... he suggested that I go to WebMD so I did. See for yourself... http://children.webmd.com/tc/respiratory-syncytial-virus-rsv-infection-topic-overview The doctor told us that since Elliott was on day 4 of symptoms and looked as good as he did, that he would likely be fine but to keep an eye on his breathing (GREAT!) and rush him to the ER if he turns blue (FANTASTIC!) ... so needless to say, I did not sleep much that night up every hour with the baby... OH I FORGOT TO MENTION - that Eric was zero help because his back went out and he was doped up on muscle relaxers... sigh...

Sunday I called our on call pediatrician because Elliott sounded a little wheezy, she said to follow up with our regular doctor on Monday - Duh! So, Monday we took Elliott in - by now, Eric is awake and off work for the MLK holiday. Dr. Ginsburg said that RSV is typically a 10 day virus and from here on out he should be getting better, if not come back... I asked her if he was having all of these issues because he was a boy because Pacey was born 2 weeks earlier than he was and never had any of his issues... I asked if girls were just stronger than boys... her response was that in the NICU the black baby girls are the strongest and the white boys are the weakest... and that the NICU nurses refer to the them as the wimpy white boys!

Well, he continued to be miserably sick for the rest of the week... occasional low grade fever, severe congestion, cough, projectile vomiting, etc... Friday I took him back because I did not want to go into the weekend without seeing our doctor... he certainly was on the mend but sounded so hoarse when he cried or "talked" but he checked out ok...

This weekend he definitely seems better - woke up happy the past 2 days - this has NEVER happened before, always wakes up crying... maybe the 5 month mark will be his turn around... lets hope so!

pics and vids

Here are some pictures and videos from this week... Pacey with her red face, Pacey and Phoebe playing dress up, and Elliott in his jumper, ... enjoy!

all's well... sort of

Well, Elliott went back to the orthopedist on Tuesday morning. Dr. Lashgari told me that he had shown Elliott's x-rays to another doctor for a second opinion and that they agreed that it was likely nothing more than nursemaid's elbow. The splint came off and he is fine. We do have to be careful though as it will likely happen again, especially when Elliott is learning to walk... if we are holding his hands and he stumbles and/or falls, we could yank it out again. ~**sigh**~

I got a call from Pacey's school while I was at Elliott's appointment on Tuesday morning, apparently Fifths Disease has been going around the center and landed on Pacey's face. For those of you unfamiliar, Fifths Disease shows up as a lacey rash 4-20 days after cold like symptoms. Once they have the rash, they are no longer contagious but I still had to pick her up and take her to the doctor to confirm it. Fortunately, we already had an appointment scheduled for that afternoon so away we went. Dr. Ginsburg looked at her face and checked her legs, the next place the rash could show up... sure enough, yesterday it was all down her legs. On top of that, she woke up yesterday morning coughing and hasn't stopped. So, the aroma of Vick's vapor rub fills the air... ahhh!

Also yesterday, Elliott had his 4 month check-up... all is well - he is lean and long, 20th percentile for weight and 90th for height. We decided to add cereal to his bottles in hopes of him keeping it down. His acid reflux is still pretty bad. I gave him his first cereal bottle this morning. He liked it but had to work hard, as it made the formula pretty thick. So far so good, only a few little spit ups, no major blows...yet...

I have decided to return to work... my first day back will be Monday, January 26th - the last day of the marking period. We will have 2 days without students that week, so I thought it would be a good transition for me and the class. Not bad, I guess - I was able to be off half of the school year - can't really complain. We have made arrangements for our friend Becky Young to watch Elliott 2 days a week. She has 2 girls, Elyse and Lyla. Elyse is Pacey's age (6 days apart) and Lyla will be 2 in March. Lyla was a fussy spitty baby, just like Elliott so Becky has been there and, lucky for us, is willing to go there again. The kids will be with either Mom or Eric the other days. We are still trying to work out the details, but Eric may be able to work and alternate schedule to be home some - stay tuned.

Not so funny - bone...

Wednesday evening Elliott was extra fussy... he let out several big burps and toots so we just assumed his issue was gas... we noticed that he wasn't really using his left arm but didn't think much of it. We had to hold him most of the evening but he did settle down and slept through the night. Thursday morning, the gas was gone but he continued not to move his left arm. Whenever we would move it, he would cry out - otherwise it was limp. We called the doctor, while waiting for the on call doc to call back we googled arm pain in infants and discovered "nursemaid's elbow". When the doctor called back she said the same thing and that we would need to take him either to Nighttime Pediatrics or the Emergency Room to have it set. Since it was New Year's Day we wanted to avoid the ER so we got in at Nighttime Ped's around 10:50am. The doctor performed a "maneuver" to set the elbow and it was instantly better. We were told that Elliott might favor the arm for a day or so since it had been out for so long (yes, we feel like awful parents). Friday morning, Elliott was still not using his left arm so we called our regular pediatrician, Dr. Ginsburg and took him in. She also did the maneuver but was not convinced that the elbow was back in and suggested that we follow up at the Saturday walk in clinic at Orthopedic and Sports Medicine. She also suggested some Motrin for any inflammation. He had 2-3 doses of Motrin last night and woke up feeling well this morning and using his arm pretty normally but we decided to take him in anyway, JIC (just in case). We were lucky, the doctor running the clinic this morning was an Elbow and Shoulder specialist. We had to wait about an hour to see him, then he xray'd the arm (and Eric's hand) to rule out a break. It came back clear and he determined that it was set properly but wanted to immobilize it so that it could rest for several days. So, Elliott is sporting an ace bandaged wrapped splint... it is the saddest and cutest thing I have ever seen.

Video clips...

Here are some cute clips of Elliott... enjoy!

***Be sure to scroll down and pause the music player at the bottom of the blog so you can hear the sound in the videos.***

This first one is of Elliott's "Grand Jan" singing an impromptu song inspired by Elliott's shirt which reads "good things come in little packages".



This next one is of Elliott laughing at Eric and Pacey.

Catching up... (updated)

Once again, it has been a while since my last post... if you are reading this, please leave me a comment so I can know that I am not alone in my blogger world. If you do not have a "blogger" account, you can leave a comment as "anonymous".

Anyway, I hope you all had a marvelous Christmas! We did... on Christmas Eve, my parents came over along with our neighbors, Aaron, Kris and Baby Lane for some holiday cheer. We decorated Christmas cookies and munched on some yummy party food.

***On a side note - Baby Lane was born exactly 3 months after Elliott, weighed exactly 3 lbs less, and was 3 inches shorter!***



So we had fun decorating cookies - Pacey was only allowed to eat 2 cookies but probably decorated at least 10 - and of course had to lick the icing off of her fingers! Some light hearted (wink, wink) competition broke out amongst the adults as to who had the prettiest cookie... I think I won -then again, it's my blog!



After everyone left we got in our jammies and watched Wall-E before setting out cookies and milk for Santa. We also hung a special key on the door so that Santa could get in since we don't have a fire place, and of course we had to throw some carrots out front for the reindeer. Eric and I did ok... we were in bed by 12:30 - much earlier than last year.




Pacey woke us up around 7:45 Christmas morning - which is pretty early for her. She ran upstairs and told us that she knew Santa had come because there were presents under the tree wrapped in paper with Santa's pictures on them! A tradition in our house... This year we put the tree in our dining room - sounds funny but for those of you that have been to our house, you know that is where we have the most space. We got our tree so late this year (week and a half before Christmas) that we had trouble finding a lot that was still open and stocked - but we did and got ripped off in the process - apparently the sales tax in Maryland was raised to 10% ?!?!?!?!?





Ok, I am rambling... so Christmas morning... Pacey got the "purple barbie beetle with a remote control that is a phone" from Santa while Elliott got some toys that he is not even interested in yet. Pacey was a very helpful big sister, as she opened Elliott's gifts and showed each one to him. Eric got me a Wii - which was quite a surprise as they are impossible to find - but pretty much everybody I know got one this year. Eric's most exciting gift from me was a NASCAR ride along that he can use the next time we go to Charlotte. We hung out at home most of the day and went to my parents in the late afternoon.















We had a fun evening with my parents, Bryan and Summer, and our friends, Scott and Jim. We opened LOTS of gifts and finally ate dinner around 9:30 - cuz that's how we roll! Oh, I forgot to mention that Elliott was sick all day with a low grade fever and way more spit up than usual - he was better the next day but pretty much had to be held all day... thank you Summer and Jim!

** side note - Scott just completed his PhD in psychology, so as a gag gift, I got him a medical doctor's kit, Pacey made him check her pony's temperature.***