The Baylor Family Blog

We’ve had a rough week of sickness in this house. Some days Eli seemed more sick and other days Abi seemed more sick. They both started coughing last weekend, so we decided to stay home from church last Sunday. Both kids started having fevers on Monday that were pretty constant, cycling down with Tylenol and then back up again. Both kids were miserable and clingy. Abi quit sleeping on Monday night, cluing us into the possibility of an ear infection. Knowing Eli isn’t prone to ear infections and he is more able to kick these things, we decided to only have Abi seen. Both kids were extremely lethargic and fell asleep on me at the doctor’s appointment. Sure enough, Abi had a double ear infection, but fortunately the RSV test came back negative. She tends to throw up antibiotics, so we’ve been working hard at getting her to hold it down. We’ve succeeded some and failed at other attempts. She still isn’t sleeping great at night, but she hasn’t had a fever in 24 hours now and is starting to play a little bit. So I think her ears are feeling better. However, she is now coughing a lot more and throwing up, so she isn’t completely out of the woods. We’ll be following up with the pediatrician to check her ears and discuss getting tubes put in after she finishes her antibiotic.

Unlike his sister, Eli still has a fever…six days in a row. I ended up bringing him into the doctor on Thursday as his cough has gotten progressively worse and his fever higher. The doctor said it was viral and to wait it out. They weren’t able to get his O2 sats to register, but his lungs were clear. He has been having coughing fits lasting 30-40 minutes, especially at night. He hasn’t been eating hardly anything. The only reason he is drinking is we tell him he has to. He hasn’t wanted to move around much on his own and wants carried. He’s been watching a lot of PBS this week. I started him on nebulizer treatments to help him come out of his coughing fits, and he has been a good sport. When his fever is up and his coughing fits start, his heart rate is going up to 160+ and his respirations are 40+. Pretty scary to us. I called the pediatrician and they told us to continue watching him, but they weren’t concerned.

This morning Eli is very clingy, feverish, and wants carried everywhere. We noticed a lot of green mucous on his blankey that he apparently coughed up during the night. After some debate, we decided to check back in with the pediatrician. They told us to bring Eli to urgent care. So Matt and Eli headed over to our favorite urgent care. To our suprise, Eli’s O2 sat was in the 70’s. Its supposed to be above 90. And his lungs were clear. He had a chest xray that came back clear. They put him on oxygen and gave him a nebulizer treatment. From Matt’s report, Eli was a trooper. Poor kid. Eli appears to have bronchitis. The doctor was pretty concerned and on the fence about sending Eli over to the hospital. Well, after the nebulizer treatment, Eli’s O2 sat was able to come back up to 92%. The doctor let Matt bring Eli home. He’ll be on a couple different nebulizer treatments, oral steroids, and a strong antibiotic. We have to watch his heart rate, respirations, and coughing fits carefully…but hopefully we’ll be able to treat him at home. I had assumed since his lungs were clear (I listened to them this morning) that his O2 sats would be okay. But that wasn’t the case with Eli. And I’m wondering if his O2 sats could have been low at the pediatrician on Thursday, because they were unable to get a reading. Its hard to know. So I’m a little anxious about his breathing, since he isn’t showing the typical signs of labored breathing I would have expected. Hopefully if we stay on top of the treatments, he’ll be okay. Poor kid. If all goes well tomorrow, we’ll plan to follow up at the pediatrician on Monday.

So Happy Valentine’s Day! I don’t think we’ll be getting out of the house much this weekend!

On Saturday, the day after Abi’s 1st birthday, we welcomed somewhere around 40 people into our home to celebrate! We are so grateful to the friends and family members who have walked beside us through Abi’s first year!

Matt and I carefully crafted a butterfly cake, with Matt as the head cake-icer! We enjoyed using some fun neon-food coloring to add some fun colors to the cake and some fun candies we found at a local candy store.

We served breakfast burrittos for the party-attenders to enjoy for lunch. Though Abi usually enjoys lots of the foods we put into burritos, I think she was a little overwhelmed during lunch and didn’t eat much. Or maybe she was saving plenty of room for cake!

Abi wasn’t too sure when we initially gave her the birthday cupcake.

Eli was quick to come to Abi’s side for encouragement!

Abi wasn’t too sure about the gummy butterfly at first, but she quickly grew fond of the taste and managed to gum down the whole thing!

Abi worked at eating her cupcake for about 45 minutes. I think the smile proves she thoroughly enjoyed it!

With her daddy’s help, Abi opened lots of presents, some bigger than she was! Of course, she had plenty of help from Eli and her cousin, Nathan, too! Abi was spoiled with many things, all which are being well-enjoyed by both Eli and Abi!

Abi snuggled right into her new heart pillow!

And Abi proudly posed for the camera in her movie-star sunglasses, which came in her brand new pink purse!

Of course, the kids soaked up attention from lots of people, including their Gran-B and Poppy.

To our delight, Abi seemed to be in a great mood and enjoyed having lots of people around to celebrate her first birthday! Thanks for all who made her first year so special!

…and I’ll CRY IF I WANT TO!!

One year ago, on January 22 at 5:17 p.m., we welcomed sweet Abi into the world. If I thought Eli’s first year went fast, Abi’s sped by even faster! My prayers were answered after delivery, and I got to experience holding and cuddling my new baby girl right after birth. Little did I know, hours later, Abi would land herself in the NICU with trouble breathing from an infection. The NICU was all-too-familiar for Matt and I, as we were greeted by many of the same staff we met during Eli’s stay. Those seven days felt eternally long as our family was divided, Abi and I at the hospital and Matt and Eli at home. Seven days of antibiotics later, complete with bili lights, a spinal tap, and oxygen, we were able to take Abi home. We survived two months of dragging an oxygen tank everywhere with us and numerous overnight oxygen tests. Abi overcame reflux, a milk allergy, pneumonia, a very long lasting GI bug, and plenty of other GI issues. Though small, she somehow managed to keep her weight barely on the charts, keeping the doctors from worrying to much! She has babbled and crawled her way right into our heart. Her calm demeanor and independence has been a pleasant addition to our family.

One year has come and gone. Little did I know that on Abi’s first birthday, I would be over halfway through the pregnancy of her little brother. Little did I know one year ago, that Abi would be extra special in my heart as my one and only girl.

Though I had big dreams of somehow making her actual 1st birthday extra special, Abi had other ideas. To fit with the rest of the week, she spent plenty of the day on her birthday crying and screaming, desparately clutching her blankie for comfort. She didn’t know what she wanted. She just knew she wasn’t happy. Perhaps her first birthday was having a bigger emotional toll on her than I realized. But we survived the day, much of it filled with preparing for her big party the next day.

We ended the day with a trip to our favorite local ice cream shop, Rizzutos. It was as much a little celebration of Abi’s birthday as it was a treat for Matt and I for surviving yet another day with a very fussy little girl. Abi had her first tastes of ice cream. It was amazing how the ice cream fizzled her tears away and her face instead filled with glee. That was more the face I was hoping to see on my little girl on her birthday. But I’ll take whatever I can get!

Happy First Birthday, Abigail Joy!
We are so thankful that you are part of our family!!

Eli got a bike helmet for Christmas. He thinks its really cool.

Who says bike helmets can only be used when riding a bike?

And just so you know, this boy doesn’t only use his snow shovel in the winter!

I’d say he has pretty good technique for a two-year old, though. His daddy has taught him well!

The day after we played in the leaves, we woke up to a couple inches of snow outside. Being the first snow with enough accumulation to play in, I bundled the kids up for some fun outside. Fortunately, it wasn’t too cold!

Eli loved carrying around his snow shovel, tasting the snow, making hand prints and foot prints, being pulled around in his sled, and going down the slide.

Abi wasn’t too fond of her snowsuit. It was a bit too big on her, and quite frankly, she couldn’t move. As long as she was being carried around, though, she was quite content! I tried to stand her up, but she lost her balance and got a face full of snow. She wasn’t too happy about that! Oh well!

Contrary to Abi, Eli loves his snow gear. If he could, he would wear his mittens all the time! And it took a while to convince him he didn’t need to wear his snow boots every time we left the house (especially since the snow melted that day).

Since this snow, we had another big storm come through. Though lots of snow was predicted, we only ended with 5-6 inches here. However, the wind, cold, and ice closed many schools and some businesses. We were blessed with a “snow day” for Matt, too! Because the roads weren’t that bad (in my opinion), I took the opportunity of having Matt home to watch the kids, and I headed off to the dentist (who had lots of cancellations) and to get my hair cut (finally!). Its always nice to have an extra family day!

Abi is at a stage in life where she is simply changing sooo fast! Do I dare say too fast? A couple weeks ago she started pulling herself up to the standing position and falling over. We thought it was so cute. Now its her favorite past time. Her biggest motivation to crawl is to a place where she can pull herself up to stand. And she just stands. She no longer plays in the bath tub. She just stands and holds on to the side. She stands holding on to the fire place ledge. She stands at the kitchen table, holding on to a chair. She pulls herself up by my leg to stand by me. She pulls herself up in her crib, though she found it difficult to sleep while standing up.

Which leads to a skill we forced her to learn: how to sit back down! Now she is pretty good at it in general. She over balances on the way down sometimes, but overall, I’ve been impressed.

Because she was starting to stand on her crib bumper, we took it off. I kept thinking, she is just so young. She’ll bump her head or get her leg stuck. But its hitting me: she is at that stage. With mobility comes bumps and falls and boo-boos! It has all happened so fast! Her cute little music mobile is also packed up. Her crib looks so different. And I realize that Abi looks so different from the day we brought her home from the hospital.

Truth be told, though…I love watching my kids learn new things. Though bittersweet at times, its so worth it!

And standing is not all she’s doing. She is “furniture walking.” As long as she has something to hold on to, she walks along it. She can side step over 12 feet from one side of our fire place ledge to the other. She can hold onto an upside down laundry basket and walk across the floor. She walks along the couch. She walks holding on to our fingers.

Did I mention she is only 8-months old…yesterday, actually!

Since we have so many stairs in her house, we’ve started some lessons with her. Eli started crawling up the stairs at 8-months. So we thought, why not? It was so nice that he mastered stairs at such a young age, so we are hoping Abi may too. She gets this great big smile at the top of the stairs like she’s climbed the biggest mountain. She has shown zero motivation to crawl over to the stairs and practice on her own. We are savoring our days, though they might be short-lived, without baby gates.

Sigh.

Oh, if all that wasn’t enough…Abi graduated from her infant carrier to her backwards facing bigger baby car seat. She loves it. Eli gets a much better view of his little sister, so he is much happier, too.

Its hard to believe that at the beginning of the year Eli could only say about five words because now he never stops talking. We are adjusting to the constant “noise” in our home. But we are thankful that the “noise” includes understandable words not unintelligible whines and screams. Eli has recently started doing some pretend play. Its fun overhearing him talk as he plays with his cars or take care of his yellow monkey. He has also started singing songs spontaneously. He will often miss a handful of words or verses, but its been pretty easy to figure out what he is singing. One of his new favorites is “Ring Around the Rosie,” though he sometimes calls it “Spin Around the Rosie.” He loves falling to the ground at the end!

Eli is one big ball of energy. This morning Eli was running back and forth between all the bedrooms at full speed. That didn’t seem to drain much energy, so Matt told him to flap his arms like a bird and try to fly. So Eli took off at full speed with his arms flapping trying to fly. I’m not sure it drained much energy like we hoped, but it sure cracked us up watching him.

I divided up most of the toys in our house into four big sterilite containers. I’ve started pulling one container out at a time. After a week or so, I pack up the toys and bring out a different container. There are fewer toys out, but they are somehow more exciting because of the rotation. Toys that Eli has ignored for months are now becoming his favorites. And even better, he is taking bigger segments of time playing on his own! I also like that there are fewer toys to spread all over the house and eventually clean up! So far, its been a great system for us!

Eli’s memory has also taken off. He’s learned his alphabet and can count to twenty (most of the time). He also talks about places he’s been, people he’s interacted with, things he has done and so much more. He loves looking at pictures and talking about what we were doing or who he sees in the pictures. One thing that has really helped Eli for a long time is telling him what is going to happen so he knows what to expect. We used to do this only moments before the event happened because otherwise he wouldn’t remember. But now he remembers things that will happen quite a bit in the future, like how we are going to fly in an airplane to see grandparents in a few months!

We are finally starting to see more signs of flexibility in Eli, too. Though he sometimes cries when going to childcare at church, he recovers very quickly and does great. We can also move his nap time and bed time around to accommodate our schedule. He still desperately needs sleep, but if his nap time is short, we can make up for it at bed time and vice versa. We have waited a very long time for some flexibility with Eli’s sleep!!

These pictures may very well serve as blackmail in the future. But, yes, Eli has developed a keen interest in Abi’s shoes. Not wanting to be left out of the excitement, Eli needed a few pictures of his own, you know, wearing girly shoes. To make things more interesting, Abi’s shoes were indeed a few sizes too small for him.

“Is pink my color?”

“I think I can, I think I can…make these shoes fit!”

“These shoes might take some getting used to…”

“How do girls walk in these things?”