Maybe once a year?

Yet again it has been quite a while. Joel and I are currently living with a second cousin in South Jordan. Emmalee is almost two! She is getting so big! She talks like crazy and in my opinion she is the cutest toddle ever.

And she totally knows she's cute.

For Thanksgiving we went to Reno to visit Kari, Steve, and Simon. It was so much fun! I miss you Kari!! Emmalee loved Simon, even if he did try holding her hand. Even now she occasionally asks to see "Sii" which is how she says Simon.

My little chunk. She's not really very chunky, but boy are those cheeks great!

She really loved the stairs.

For some reason my camera didn't really like taking pictures inside their house, but Emmalee is giving Simon a kiss on the cheek and he is hugging her. When Simon would sit on the step she would go over and sit next to him. It was really cute.

Moving backwards, Emmalee was Apple Dumpling (from Strawberry Shortcake) for Halloween. My mom made the costume and sent it out in time for her to wear it for our halloween parties. She especially loved the hat. She doesn't normally like hats, but there was just something aout that floppy yellow hat with the flower on top that stole her heart.

Here is a picture that I took of out little family about a month ago. It's not very flattering for any of us, but I was trying to figure out how to use the tripod.

And this final picture is especially for my sister Katie, mostly because I think Emmalee looks a lot like Naomi in this picture. She is learning how to rock out to head phones from Daddy.

Ignore the very messy room in the background. It really is much cleaner now. This was during last semester when I was pretty much only home to sleep at night. And Emmalee was learning how to reap disaster.

I just uploaded (downloaded?) about 300 pictures from my camera to my computer so after I sort through them I'll add more.

Family Photos

So, I haven't posted in a LONG time. Emmalee is now 1 year old. Time flies crazy fast with her! She is so much fun. She has a very strong personality and is extremely independent and stubborn, which isn't so bad until meal time. For her birthday we had a small get together at my in-laws house. We bought a frog kiddie pool for the little ones. It has this cool spout thing on front that spray water into the pool, but the kids didn't like it so much. The kids got into the pool just fine, but when we turned the spout on it kind of sputtered to life and scared the kids pretty bad so they went screaming out of the pool. When I get a copy on the video from my mother-in-law I'll upload it. Poor Emmalee wouldn't go back in the pool after that without being held. She was pretty cranky the day of her birthday party, which was sad, but it was still fun. And she quite enjoyed the frosting on her giant cupcake.

We had family photos taken back at the end of May, and I finally got around to picking up the CD from the photographer. She is amazing and did a wonderful job if you live in Utah County and are interested you can visit her site. Her prices are pretty reasonable. You can pay to buy the CD and printing rights, which is nice. She can also do professional prints. We got a 16 X 20 professional print from her and we really like it. Here are some photos:

Fevers

Towards the end of March I noticed that Emmalee sure had a lot of fevers (well, I noticed before then, but this is the first time I decided to do anything about it). I talked to my mom and she suggested making a log of when she had fevers. So I did. And it turns out that I wasn't imagining it! Emmalee has had a fever for 2-3 days a week every week since then. Earlier in the week I called the pediatricians office because Emmalee's eyes were looking funny (she had red-rimmed eyes and bags under the eyes, but not just when she was tired). They told me it was probably allergy related and asked if anything else like fever, runs, vomiting or anything unusual was also going on. I told the nurse she had a fever, but that's not anything out of the ordinary because she has had a fever every week since the last week of March. She has had strep throat once, and has cut about four teeth since then (three of them in the same week as the strep), but besides that most of the time she has no other symptoms. The nurse told me I should take her in to see our pediatrician while she had the fever so we could make sure it wasn't anything and discuss the frequency with the doctor. So I took her in for a 9:30 pm appointment (I was actually in the doctors office then hospital for a CT scan for me before then) and we were at the office until 11:30. I am grateful for after-hours. The performed a straight catheter on her to get a urine sample and did a rapid strep and throat culture. Everything was normal. The pediatrician was pretty upset by the fevers with no apparent cause. He was also very disturbed by their frequency and consistency (they are almost always Monday and Tuesday, sometimes into Wednesday). So, now we get to keep a diary every day of what she eats, when she naps/sleeps how long and how well, when she fusses, and bowel movement information. I am back at work full-time so unfortunately much of this task falls to my sister-in-law who watches her for us. At the beginning of July Emmalee will have blood work done and then at her one year check our pediatrician will decide based on the diaries and blood work whether or not to send us to a pediatric immunologist. Joy.

On a happier note, Emmalee started walking about two (maybe three) weeks ago. She started right before I went back to work full time, so I got to see her start walking around independently. I love it! However she now gets into even more (I didn't think that was possible) and she also now climbs onto everything. It's exciting to see my baby move on to being a toddler, but I miss the baby stage (though not all the crying).

We got family photos done a couple weeks ago, so when I get those I'll have to post pictures. There were some absolutely beautiful ones of Emmalee.

Spring Break

For those of you who don't know, I'm getting my Post-Bac teaching licensure from UVU. I will be doing my student teaching about this time next year. But what's cool about this is that for the first time since I graduated high school, I get almost a week off of school for spring break! It actually ended up being a bit more because I had to go into a classroom and teach for a couple days so the education department gives their students an extra week off of classes. Cool, huh? Well, spring break officially started yesterday. And how did I start my spring break? With surgery. That's right, the first time I've ever had surgery, or even stitches for that matter (besides the ones I got with Emmalee) was on spring break.
My surgery was a pretty simple one. I had to have my gallbladder out. I have been having attacks for about the last 14 months. Each time I get one they get worse. I was in the ER both Saturday and Sunday this last week. After the second or third attack the only thing that helps take the pain away is morphine. On Sunday they had to give me Dillodan (I'm not sure of the spelling) which is evidently pretty much morphine but 10 times stronger. On Sunday the ER doctor decided to do an ultrasound because my liver enzymes were very high (and have been for almost two years) and on the ultrasound they saw a nice pile of stones in my gallbladder. He wanted to do an emergency surgery, but the on-call surgeon didn't think I was quite bad enough. So yesterday I went in for an outpatient surgery and he took it out. They gave us some pictures, and on the picture of my gallbladder cut open Joel counted 33 gallstones, but there were probably more because it looked like they went on outside the picture (like they were falling all over the place). We figured it we kept going to the ER with every gallstone we would have ended up paying $4,950 in ER copays alone. We didn't go to the ER for every attack, but the last couple ones they had to give me IV's because I wasn't holding anything down. I had Lortab prescribed, but every time I had an attack I started vomiting profusely, even if I took an anti-nausea medicine as soon as I started feeling uncomfortable.
I feel okay today, I've definitely had better days, but all things considered I think I'm doing pretty well. I'm sore, and it's hard to pick up Emmalee (which I'm not supposed to be doing anyways) but other than that it's really not too bad. This is way better than having my attacks. It got to the point that passing a gallstone hurt worse than labor (but then I did have an epidural for labor).
On happier notes, Emmalee is officially over to her new formula and quite likes it. Even without her appetite stimulant she eats much more than she did with her appetite stimulant for the other formula. She is over 16 lbs now (we think), and she is getting quite the little pot-belly. She not only eats a lot more formula, but she also eats more baby food. She now eats between 6-8 ounces of baby food every meal! I love it. And she is such a happy fun baby. I truely feel blessed. She sleeps through the night (most of the time) eats enough that she is still growing on her growth curve (she has one now:) and is such a happy baby. She is so fun to play with. We are staying at my in-laws right now while I am recovering and she loves playing with grandma and grandpa. While grandma was giving her her bath tonight she was having the best time splashing the water and blowing raspberries. I love my baby!

Do you know the Muffin Man?

Well, Emmalee does. Last Saturday while I was at work, Daddy and Emmalee were having quite the day at home. On Friday we had picked up a dozen of Costco's oversized muffins for breakfasts and snacking. Well, Joel was enjoying Saturday afternoon when he realized it was time to come pick me up from work. So he put the muffin on a bookshelf he didn't think Emmalee could reach in the living room, then left her in the living room to play with toys while he went to get ready to come pick me up. Where there's a will, there's a way. When he came back in the living room, she was not playing with toys. She was on the floor in front of the bookshelf eating his muffin. And from what he tells me she was quite enjoying it. The last time Emmalee had milk-based formula she broke out in hives and rashes, was vomiting blood (not a lot, but enough to worry me, it would more blood tinged spit up than actual blood), and had a very difficult time breathing. This muffins not only contained the dreaded milk, but also wheat, soy and egg. Allergy city. He grabbed her up, washed her mouth out thoroughly and washed her hands (which had been her utensil of choice while stuffing her face) and called me. I was worried so I called the pediatricians office. The nice nurse told me if Emmalee had any signs of breathing difficulty at all to rush her straight to the ER, and not to let her fall asleep for at least two hours, even if she was acting okay.

After all of our stress, something amazing happened. Well, actually nothing happened. That's what was so amazing about it. We hung out at the hospital for about half an hour after I got off work just so that we'd already be there if need be, but she was completely fine. I was so relieved! So was Joel, who was feeling pretty bad by this point. I was actually pretty pleased about the incident because I have been growing increasingly uncomfortable about her being on Neocate for so long. Neocate is a completely Amino Acid based medical formula which has been keeping the allergy monsters at bay with Emmalee. After the muffin incident I gave her pediatric G.I. doctor a call to discuss the idea of maybe changing her formula. So today we officially changed her formula to Nestle Good Start Protect Plus. It's a milk based formula with whey hydrolysate proteins, so partially broken down proteins, for easier digestion and added probiotics. He GI doctors thinks that she will benefit from the added probiotics because of all of her stomach problems. So far everything is going well with it and she doesn't seem to have any reactions to it. Her doctor said he was pleasantly surprised to hear about her lack of reaction to the muffin. He said he normally expects most of his patients to outgrow their allergies between 9-12 months, but he wasn't expecting her to outgrow hers--at all. He pediatrician was also positive she would never outgrow her dairy allergy. We still don't know about soy (she had a bad reaction to soy formula as well) but that was also in the muffin, so who knows.

I'm hoping that this is a good sign and our pleasure over this won't be short-lived. I so happy that my baby is no longer miserable all the time! I also feel lucky that she outgrew (hopefully) her allergy so quickly. She is eight months right now which is still pretty young. I'm so grateful that her colic and most of her growing problems have finally ended (or at least they seem to have ended). I know so many people who have had to deal with it for so much longer. She is still on one of her medications, but going from around 5 down to one is okay with me. She is on cyproheptadine which is an antihistamine that is being used in her as an appetite stimulant. It seems to help calm her gut down and allow her to eat. We also still bring her to the chiropractor three times a week which I think has made a world of difference. Yay for professionals in their field who can help big people and little people feel better and help get their bodies to function properly!

Crawling, "walking", and no doctor's visit

Emmalee has actually been crawling for a while now. She started trying at 3 months and finally mastered it a couple of weeks ago. The day after she mastered crawling, she decided it was time to move on to walking. Luckily her muscles aren't strong enough to hold herself up yet, but she sure does try. First it was using my pant legs to pull herself into a standing position, then anything she could get her hands on. Then the problem was that she seemed to think that since she could "stand" she could walk. I watch my nephew (who is almost 2) during the week so I blame him for her trying to grow up too fast :) She sees him walking so she wants to (he's also the one who taught her to crawl). So she would pull herself up to standing, then try to turn around and walk. This always ends in tears! Poor thing, she just can't get all of the muscles to work together yet. Now she has discovered that if she holds onto something that she can move, then she can go almost anywhere she wants to. Joel and I had left her alone in the living room the other night and when we came back in she was in the middle of the living room pushing a box accross the flooor. She is so cute! We put her toys in old diaper boxes because we're too cheap to get a toy box so she goes over to her toys, empties the box, and then pushes it around the room so she has something to hold on to while she walks! We are in big trouble once she starts walking because I think running won't be too far behind. She's not even seven months old yet! This is how we found her in the living room the other night.

I am also very happy to say that we have only seen our pediatrician once in the last month, and that was for her 6 month well child check. She responded to her shots better than ever (no fever and very little crankiness). Right after her check-up with the shots we brought her to her chiropractor for an adjustment which probably helped. Just a plug, I highly reccommend chiropractic for children. I was EXTREEMLY skeptical at first, but it has helped her SOO much. We have not been to the doctors office for a sick visit since she started going to the chiropractor. The crying stopped (she still crys when she's tired, doesn't feel well, etc but it's not all the time anymore), she's eating and sleeping well, she doesn't scream when she's in her car seat anymore, it's just wonderful. We did start an appetite stimulant at the same time, but I don't think it would have had these good of results before the chiropractor. I wish I had done this sooner! I would suggest chiropractic for anyone with a colicky baby. Joel also notice that she always seems to be starving after getting adjusted. She's actually EXCITED to see the bottle now. Which is so awesome.

I wish we had done this sooner because everything else we did seemed to help some, for a little while, but nothing seemed to really help that much. I wonder if we had done this from the beginning if I would have been able to keep breast-feeding instead of having to switch to the bottle. It's definitly something to keep in mind for next time (which won't be for a very long time).

So that's my plug for chiropractic, take it or leave it. I still immunize. This last time was a nice surprise because my doctor said since they don't get any shots at nine months he likes to spread the six month shots between the two visits so that they don't get as many at once. I like that a lot. He also suggested giving her a flu shot which I politely refused. We have had members in our family who have had negative reactions to the flu shot (including Joel), and I just don't think it's that necessary. His comment was that with how sick she's been the flu could be very dangerous. Which is why I got my flu shot and try to keep her away from sick people. But in the end the flu shot doesn't really make it so that you don't get the flu, it just lessens the symptoms. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the flu shot entirely (H1N1, maybe) I just don't want to give it to my six month old. I told him I would reconsider at one year. I also still love our pediatrician and hope to continue seeing him for a long time. I still consult with her GI doctor some, I trust him and know that he has a lot of knowledge, but I'm grateful that we don't have to talk as much anymore. But I am happy to have added chiropractic to her health care repertoire.

One pound in two weeks!

With Emmalee it seems like life is a constant roller-coaster. Just when I think her health has reached a turning point--it's time to nose-dive. About three weeks ago Emmalee had a very rough week. On Monday we went to the doctor's office for a consultation because one of my neices has Chiari Malformation type one which has very similar symptoms to what Emmalee has been going through and we were seeing if it would be worth it to check it out. He decided we should screen for it just to make sure. We set up an appointment for Friday of that week just to make sure. Well, Tuesday she cried all day, wouldn't eat, and had a fever so we went in again to make sure she didn't have an ear infection or anything. They said to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't start vomiting more. Wednesday she vomited EVERYTHING and wouldn't eat and had not urinate for more than 8 hours so we got to go in again. She had white stuff in her throat so they did a strep culture, but it was negative. Thursday we were up at my in-laws and Joel and I had fallen asleep on couches so my Mother-in-law was putting Em down in her room since Emmalee had already fallen asleep as well. Well, she is quite the accomplished roller now and rolled off the bed and bonked her head and started screaming (of course) but more disturbing she started vomiting profusely (which she hadn't done all day, and she didn't have a fever Thursday so we thought she was doing better). My mother-in-law woke us up. I was a bit confused because I was still mostly asleep but she was throwing up and acting a bit funny. We decided to call the on-call nurse just to check and she said to bring her to the ER since she is so young. When we put her in her car-seat she fell asleep. Joel thought maybe we should call the nurse back because for adults you're supposed to keep them awake after a head bump and we weren't sure if the same rule applied for kids. The nurse said we didn't have to keep her awake, but to make sure that we could wake her up if we needed to, or just make sure that she responds. We were pinching her nose and cheeks and flicking her hands and wiggling her toes and ears and nothing. So we were a rather concerned on the way to the ER. Of course as soon as we got there she woke right up and was all smiles. They did a CT scan of her head and neck and everything looked fine. They said it was a mild concusion (which just means a bump on the head) and to keep an eye on her. My poor mother-in-law felt so bad! But Emmalee is perfectly fine and I think it just frightened her more than anything else. Well, Friday was the big day for the MRI on her brain. So we went to the hospital bright and early. She had to fast for it so she was a bit cranky about that. And they had to sedate her for the procedure. While they were trying to place the IV they blew two veins (that just means the vein "broke" because she was dehydrated and she's so little anyways) and finally got one in the arm. She was MAD! She screamed the whole time. They said the sedative should work quickly and the longest it would take was 15 minutes though they had never seen a baby take that long. Well, she took the full 15 minutes, they thought they were going to have to give her another sedative. She did wake up once during the procedure so they had to give her more sedative, but other than that it went really well. The MRI was fine and they didn't find anything abnormal. She was really tired the rest of the day and just wanted to cuddle, which I shamelessly enjoyed. That night after work I came home to what sounded like a barking seal! She was having a really rough time breathing, we were suctioning her nose out and standing with her in the bathroom with a hot shower going and putting her right over a humidifier and she was still just having a really tough time breathing. I finally called the on-call nurse and she said to bring her into the ER to have her checked out because she would most likely need breathing treatments. I got off the phone and cried. It was a really long week and I REALLY didn't want to see another doctor. When I went into the room to tell Joel he had finally gotten her to fall asleep and her breathing had calmed since she was calm. We decided if she woke up having troubles then we would take her in but we wanted to let her sleep. She slept through the night but was still having trouble Saturday morning so we brought her in then. The NP in the office said she had croup and gave her a shot to help open her lungs up. That helped A LOT! Sunday we stayed home from chuch because croup is highly contagious and our ward had a baby boom this summer and we didn't really want to get half the ward sick. Then Monday she decided to only eat two ounces even though her breathing was better and she had no fever so we got to see her doctor again. When we weighed her at that visit she had lost 11 ounces since the previous monday. We told her GI doctor and he said that if she didn't regain it by her 6 month birthday she would be put on a tube. Now to the title of my post. That was almost two weeks ago and we haven't had to bring her to the doctors office since then! Her Gi doctor put her on an anti-histamine which works as an appetite stimulant. It had worked wonders with her! She eats two to three times as much in a day as she used to. It's amazing! I went into the doctors office yesterday and asked if we could weigh her while we were there and she weighs a full pound more than she did at her last visit nearly two weeks ago! It's so exciting because she actually seems to like eating now. When she sees the bottle she gets really excited and starts reaching for it. I love it! It may just be another peak of the roller-coaster, but this peak has lasted for a while and I'm really enjoying it. Oh, and she started crawling. She more inch-worms than anything else. She can use all fours but she seems to prefer the inch-worm style. She's also been working on getting into a sitting position from crawling and she's getting good at it. My parents are in town because I've been having a really rough time with Emmalee. I've really enjoyed having my mom here to help out. It's been great to have her here and Emmalee absolutely loves her!