11 Months

Guess who's 11 months old today...

This girl!

She's still working on her phone skills though...

She seems to be starting to feel better. The cough is less frequent and she's mostly back to being her usual happy baby self. She's still pretty congested, but her appetite is better and she's sleeping better. Not well, but that has nothing to do with her being sick ;-)

Happy 11 month birthday tiny love!

Haaaaaalloweeeeeeeen weeeek!

It has been a heck of a week. Here's a really long post about what we did... if you just want to see Fiona in her costume, feel free to skip to the end :-)

Monday: Awesome Fall/Halloween party with Mommy group friends. Fiona was Thomas the Tank Engine and Adele was a ladybug.

Tuesday: Adele began early intervention (EI) this week because she was boozing it up before lunch. Ok, no, not that kind of intervention. It's a system where the school sends out a team to assess her and make a plan to help her hit the milestones that she's a little behind on. Mostly she's behind on gross motor - she's not rolling over, and not sitting up yet. The big thing we'll be doing is just giving her more tummy time to strengthen her upper body, and people will come over every couple of weeks to check on her and suggest new exercises/activities, etc.

Also on Tuesday: Fiona moved into her very own big girl bed. Those of you who have been reading for a while may remember a previous attempt months ago to move Fiona out of her crib... it worked for a few days but then she really wanted to sleep in her crib again, so we switched back. This time instead of just a regular twin bed (that she kept falling out of) we tried a toddler bed with guard rails and she LOVES it. She just gets in, snuggles down and goes to sleep.

(That's the gorgeous quilt Grandma made for her when she was born)

Wednesday: I had a late night meeting at work and Ben took care of the girls. This is good because it reminds him of just how awesome I am. Unfortunately neither of them were in bed when I got home, but they were both still alive, so it was an overall success.

Thursday: EI follow up appointment. Playdate with friends. Flu shots for both girls in the afternoon.

Thursday night: Fallout from flu shots. Fiona cries whenever she sees her bandaid, but won't let me remove it. Adele is up all night miserable with a 103 fever.

Friday morning: Fiona doesn't want to take a bath in case her bandaid gets wet. Adele is crabby. She's had the cold and a cough for weeks and in combination with her flu shot ache and teething pain is in a baaaaaaad mood.

Friday afternoon: I make Adele an doctor appointment because she seems really sick. She's coughing endlessly, and frequently coughs so hard that she throws up all over whoever is holding her. Which is me 100% of the time. I am concerned that she's having some king of nasty flu shot reaction.

Saturday morning: As soon as Adele wakes up it's clear that she's really sick. She's wheezing - making this scary whistling noise - and coughing, coughing, coughing. I take her in for her appointment and it turns out she has bronchiolitis. This is when the tiny passages in your lungs get all full of crap causing coughing, wheezing, etc. She's more vulnerable to catching nasty viruses that cause things like this because her lungs are not as tough as those of a full term baby, and the worst part is that there's not much that that can be done, we just need to wait for it to run its course. Last night she was up for the majority of the night coughing and throwing up on me, and today the cough seems more infrequent, but more severe when she gets going. It's really awful, and exhausting for both of us, and it makes me nervous for what's in store for us over the next 5 months of winter.

Sunday: On a brighter note, today was Halloween! Fiona and I practiced how to trick or treat all day, and she was super excited to go out trick or treating with her cousins (and Daddy). Today is the day that having kids really pays off... she came back with a lot of candy!

(L-R Andrew - ninja, Fiona - Thomas, Emily - Cleopatra, Adele - Ladybug, Ryan - dementor)

Fiona loved her Thomas costume so much (thanks Aunty Cathy!) and had a wonderful time trick or treating. Adele and I were sad to miss it, but it was way too cold to take her out. Hopefully we'll all be able to go next year! Happy Halloween!

$2000 dog toy

Monty's surgery went very well. They removed the blockage and the vet said that his intestines looked good, and he expected him to recover well. Now we have to hope that the kidney failure and pancreatitis were effects of him being extremely dehydrated, and not a coincidental additional problem. He's home now and seems to be in pretty good spirits, considering.

Luckily he didn't have an intussuscuseption of his intestines (where the intestine gets stuck inside itself) and he didn't have a tumor or growth. So what was in there? Did he eat one too many woodland creatures? No... for some unimaginable reason he swallowed a piece of one of Brodie's dog toys making this, I think, probably the world's most expensive dog toy. Brodie has jaws of steel and will occasionally manage to chew off a chunk of his super heavy duty almost indestructible red rubber dog toy, which Monty apparently thought would make a tasty snack. It's very strange. This toy is old and filthy (Brodie plays with it in the yard) and I don't even like to touch it so I cannot imagine why Monty wanted to eat it. Yuck!

He gets to start on some small portions of food tomorrow, and we're hoping he'll start eating and drinking again and will be back to his normal happy self in no time. Until then, Monty says... "I've had a hard day, please let me sleep..."

Monty Update

So Monty appears to have some sort of blockage in his intestine. It's not bone because it's not showing up on the x-ray, so it's either some big furry lump of woodland creature, something man-made that he ate because he's none too bright (like a piece of a toy), some kind of weird intestinal mishap (where the intestine kind of folds in on itself) or some kind of growth or tumor. He's scheduled for surgery tomorrow morning and then the mystery will be solved.

He's still not eating or drinking and we're still having to give him IV fluids to keep him from shriveling up like a kitty raisin. It is odd that kidney failure initially accompanied this, but hopefully it is all related to this problem and after he has it removed he'll get back to being his normal happy self.

Here's a picture of him when Brodie was added to the family... showing him who's boss. Brodie grew pretty fast though and this didn't last for long. They're friends now though because they're both too old to tango like this any more...

Mr. Monty Mo

Those of you who have met him know that our cat Monty is without a doubt the world's most awesome kitty. When I first moved here from Scotland Ben convinced me that we should just go and look at some kittens, because I'd never held a kitten before. As soon as I met Mr. Monty I was smitten. He was so tiny and sweet and cuddly and licked us with his tiny pink kitten tongue. Since then I've learned that Ben is sneaky, and can be pretty convincing after we "just go and look" at something, and now I try to resist looking at things like cars and computers and tvs and kittens and puppies with him, but that's another story...

That Thanksgiving the three of us drove from Ann Arbor to Minneapolis. The drive is about 12 hours, and 12 hours in a car with a kitten was an interesting experience...

This week Monty has been really sick. On Monday I noticed that he was throwing up and seemed really unhappy. He felt really strange to touch too, kind of stiff, it was very weird. On Tuesday morning I took him to the vet, who was immediately very concerned and told me he was really dehydrated. He ran some tests and learned that he was in kidney failure, as well as having pancreatitis. He started saying things like "we have to hope this works, or we might not get him back"... poor Monty was not a happy kitty. He spent all Tuesday at the vet being given IV fluids and an antibiotic, and then came home on Tuesday night and just kind of sat around miserably. On Wednesday he spent another day at the vet for more of the same, and by Wednesday night he was much perkier and his test results were back to normal. We took him home with a big bag of fluids and antibiotics to inject into him twice a day (which is really awful for everyone). Today he's still better than he was, but has no energy, and is still not eating or drinking despite being tempted with his very favorite foods. We have to take him back in to the vet tomorrow morning to give him some medicine to try to increase his appetite, and decide if we should be trying anything else.

The vet doesn't know what happened. It's possible that he consumed something that poisoned him and caused the kidney failure. He catches and eats woodland creatures sometimes, so it's possible that something didn't agree with him or there's some kind of foreign matter stuck in his tummy causing him problems and making him not want to eat or drink. Or it could be something else entirely.

I hope we figure it out soon though! I'm still worried about him and hope that he'll be back to his normal happy kitty self before too long!

The internets are trying to tell me something...

I know it's been a long time since you all got an update. We've been doing things, but mostly we've been going to the doctor, so there hasn't been as much fun to share. Fiona has had the cold non stop since she started daycare in January, and in February she stepped it up and had two ear infections. Last Saturday she got a high fever and has been complaining of a tummyache, resulting in a trip to the emergency room on Sunday. They didn't find anything wrong with her that could be causing it, so we're just waiting it out. She seems better today, so hopefully she's getting over it. Adele has been back and forth to the doctor for various reasons... not pooing, conjunctivitis, general weigh checks. I think on average we've seen or spoken to some kind of healthcare provider 2 or 3 times a week since mid-January. ROLL ON SPRING!!

In happy news, Fiona LOVES her little sister.

As soon as Adele starts grumbling or crying Fiona starts looking for her sucky and yelling 'sucky, sucky'. She loves to give her kisses too, and sometimes will ask to hold her.

Her favourite thing is to help with diaper changes, which mostly involves climbing up on the changing table and poking at Adele's bellybutton. She tries to encourage me to change Adele so she can have access to the bellybutton by pointing to Adele's diaper and saying 'poo' or 'potty'.

Fiona has become endlessly entertaining. She talking a lot now, and is working on learning her alphabet, colours, and counting to 5. Every day she does something new and goofy that makes me laugh, like chasing Brodie around for hours draping towels on him...

Or clumping around in my fancy shoes...

Adele is 3 momths old today (but 3 weeks adjusted) and is now sleeping better at night. Last night she slept from 12-2, then 3-7 which was by far the best night's sleep I've had lately! Somehow the internets seem able to sense my tiredness because today on facebook they were trying to sell me "nuvigil" which is "a prescription medicine used to improve wakefulness throughout the day" and is targeted at adults with excess sleepiness. They have a quiz on their website to assess your level of sleepiness, and after admitting that there is a slight chance of me dozing in my car at a stop light, they told me I scored a 19. Apparently 10 or more means you should hit up your doctor for a nuvigil prescription, which does sound totally awesome. But really, who doesn't fall asleep reading, watching tv, at movies, in meetings, in the car, and during conversations?

That's all for now. I've been sitting down for more than a few minutes and I'm falling asleep...

Regularly scheduled programming

This week was the first week when we all went and did what we'll usually be going and doing. Ben went to work, I took the girls to playdates and worked, Fiona did some daycare. It was a long, tiring week, but we managed to fit everything in. Here's the three of us ready to face the week...

Fiona managed to catch yet another cold, and this one's a doozy. Luckily she seems to be in a pretty good mood despite it, but unfortunately she also gave it to Adele. Adele's really congested and can't breathe well lying on her back which causes problems when it comes to bedtime. After getting almost no sleep on Thursday night we finally gave in on Friday night and let her sleep on her tummy. Every healthcare professional that has even seen Fiona or Adele has stressed the importance of babies sleeping on their back to reduce the risk of SIDS, so I kept expecting a team of flying monkeys to burst in the window and carry me off to live in eternal shame on bad parent island. Luckily that didn't happen, and we all slept a little better. She's still on the heartrate and breathing monitor too, so that gave us a little more peace of mind.

Adele has also been working on her pushups. She's getting bigger and stronger every day, and when doing some tummy time managed to push herself up a little with her arms and reposition her head. Her neck is much stronger, and she has so much more head control. She's really doing well!

Fiona is still in love with Elmo, and is growing up right before our eyes. She will lie him on the changing mat, lift his legs up and say 'butt, butt' as she wipes his bottom with a baby wipe. I think it mush have been Daddy she learned that word from! Her biggest achievement this week was learning how to change the DVD's in the player. We watch part of either Elmo or Finding Nemo while I'm stuck sitting on the couch and need to distract her, and she will choose the one she wants, open the drawer, put the disc in, close the drawer, and bring me the remote control. It's a very useful skill!

My new job is going fine. One of the funny things about it is that I occasionally send out emails to a list of thousands of recipients, and part of my job is to act as a human spam filter and approve emails sent to this list by other people before they're sent. This way we can avoid random companies who happened to get hold of the group email address sending their spam to thousands of people. Usually they are just boring adverts, but the one I filtered out today made me laugh... there are some excerpts below...

"To be slim is something very important nowadays. In order to play with your child, to go with pleasure at work, or just to take care of your garden, you need to spend a lot of energy. But this energy can take all your health sometimes.

I have some experience with this problem. I was a fat guy and it was hard for me to work or just to go around the shops. My girlfriend advised me to go to the gym. I tried this, but every time I went home I was exhausted. So, this was not for me. Then, I tried running. It was successful, but I was as exhausted as the first thing (the gym). Then, I tried to forget everything and to be fat, I was exhausted without any result.

However, I have tried more than 5 ways to burn fats. Finally, I found one very great way to lose weight. I was very sceptic how it works. Then, I phoned a friend, who had just tried this way to be slim, and he recommended this product for me. I tried it and in no more than 4 weeks, I was slim. LIKE A MAGIC".

Like a magic. I'm sold. Where do I sign up?

There isn't really much more news. I'll try to do something more exciting next week!

Fingerpainting adventure

On Wednesday Fiona had her 12 month checkup.  She weighs exactly 20lbs (32nd percentile) and is 29 inches tall (47th percentile). Her gigantic noggin is 44.8cm in circumference (42nd percentile). She has had three UTI's now, so the doctor used a catheter to take another urine sample to make sure the antibiotics are clearing them up properly, and I guess she's so used to it (this was her 5th catheterization) that she didn't even seem to care. The immunizations were more cry-worthy, but she recovered from that surprise as soon as she spotted my cell phone. She did great, and was rewarded by the doctor with a new book full of pictures of messy baby faces, which she laughed at for quite some time. 

She's started to think pictures of other babies  are hilarious. It's really cute!

According the the 'developmental milestones checklist' that the doctor gave me, around this time she should start responding to the word 'no'. Well, being the smarty-pants that she is, she already does! Unfortunately her response is to laugh in my face. This afternoon she had something I needed (like my credit card) and was doing something bad with it(like trying to insert it into Brodie's ear) and I said 'no' and tried to take it. She held it out of my reach and laughed at me. Iwonder how long that will last... oh, right... forever. Sigh.

Earlier that day she had made quite a mess on herself with her lunch. I decided that I couldn't take her to the doctor with so much food plastered all over her, and she'd need a bath and a change of clothes, so I figured simce those had to happen anyway, what better time to do some finger painting!

Fiona LOVES to put her hands in her food and smear it all over the place, so finger painting was right up her alley.

And only a very small amount of paint accidentally went in her mouth! 

Here is her finished masterpiece:

What talent! :-)

Feeling sorry for myself

Yesterday afternoon I went outside for about 45 minutes to do some yard work. I don't know why, but I was under the impression that it was still too early in the day, and also in the year, for mosquitoes to be much of a concern, so I neglected to use buy spray. Wow, that was a mistake! By bedtime last night the full extent of my stupidity was revealed as I could count twenty huge, incredibly itchy mosquito bites. Ben said I should take pictures, but I didn't want to put anyone through that so instead I have created a bite diagram. When you include the two old ones on one side, and all the new ones on the other, it's not a pretty picture.

According to Wikipedia, female mosquitoes are the ones that bite, and require the blood to nourish the her unborn mosquito eggs. Due to my generous donation I think I may have just singlehandedly tripled the Minnesota mosquito population for this year. 

There have been many studies done to try to figure out why some people are so much more attractive to mosquitoes (and their equally evil Scottish cousin, the Midge). My brother Robert and my dad actually took part in one such study a couple of years ago, as Robert is very rarely bitten by insects.

James Logan, a research student at the Rothamsted Research in Herfordshire and Professor Jenny Mordue of the University of Aberdeen, found that "unattractive" individuals give off different chemical signals compared with "attractive" individuals. They tested the behavioural reaction of yellow fever mosquitoes to the odour of volunteers.

According to the January 2005 BBSRC Business, in one experiment, the mosquitoes were placed into a y-shaped tube and given the choice of moving upwind down one of two branches. The air flowing down one branch was laced with odour from the volunteer's hands. The other was without this odour. Their results suggest that differential attractiveness is due to compounds in unattractive individuals that switch off attraction either by acting as repellents or by masking the attractant components of human odour.

This theory differs from that of other research groups who have suggested that unattractive individuals lack the attractive components. The researchers are now testing these theories further using foil sleeping bags to collect whole body odours from volunteers.

They took part in the 'foil sleeping bag' study. I'm not sure what the final finding was, but if it was that he gives off an odour so noxious that it repells even mosquitoes, well, I could have told them that years ago... 

Anyway, as if the joy of 20 mosquito bites wasn't enough, I also have a bladder infection and feel terrible. The doctor told me to drink fluids, and get lots of rest, but apparently Fiona disagrees with her medical opinion and has not been remotely cooperating with the 'resting'plan. 

Oh well. On a lighter note, it's definitely warm enough for summer clothes now, so here are a few gratuitous pictures of Fiona looking really adorable. And if you see a mosquito having trouble flying due to the fact that it has swelled to she size of a small dog from consuming 1/3 of my blood, please approach it with caution, then take it out with a tennis raquet or something. Thanks.

Hugging her BFF Brodie

Looking cute!

Fiona's adventure at the E.R.

Don't worry, she's ok!

Last night Fiona had a slight fever, then this morning when she woke up she had more of a fever and was completely miserable. She threw up all over me (why, why always on me?) and was shaking and seemed to be in a lot of pain. We called the nurse, who told us to make sure she stayed hydrated and call back if she didn't stop throwing up or got worse. After a delicious tylenol-gatorade cocktail she seemed to perk up a little, and managed to eat some lunch, but when her tylenol wore off her fever got pretty high and she went right back to being miserable. We called the nurse back, and she had the doctor call us, who thought that since she had two urinary tract infections in the past, we should bring her to the children's hospital today to have her checked out rather than waiting until tomorrow to see the doctor.

After quite a lot of waiting they brought us back to a room to wait for the doctor, and even gave Fiona hor own tie in the back hospital gown to wear! Here are a couple of blurry cell phone pictures...

After some more waiting they catheterised her and took a urine sample, and after a lot more waiting they found she did have a UTI. Then there was some more waiting and they gave her an antibiotic injection, and then after waiting again (to make sure there was no allergic reaction) we were allowed to leave. Total time spent in E.R. with very unhappy, tired, cranky baby: almost 6 hours. Which I think is probably on the shorter side!

Unfortunately Ben and I were going to see Leonard Cohen tonight, and we had to miss it. Luckily we managed to sell the tickets for almost face value to someone else, so it wasn't a complete loss, but I was looking forward to it. Oh well. She's sleeping peacefully now, and seemed more comfortable already when I put her to bed, so I guess I'll forgive her for the inconvenience ;-)