January happenings

 The aquarium with Shia

 Aliya loving on Maia (Kirsten and Matt's baby girl)

 Jaxon showing off his artwork

 Fisheye lens

Our playroom

Jaxon update

Jaxon is doing great in preschool. He is improving very well with his reading as well as his attention span and following directions. The teachers are always so happy when they see Jaxon. He is a goofball and brings light to the class. Last Friday I asked Jaxon what he wanted to bring for show and tell that started with the letter N. He quickly responded, "Me, I have N in my name so I am going to bring me!" He had a huge smile and was so proud of his decision, very different from a monster truck the week before and Legos before that. I asked him again as we were walking out the door and this time he responded with, "Mom, I am going to bring Nothing next to me, because nothing starts with N and my name ends with N"
When I picked Jaxon up Ms Mardee told me how smart she thought Jaxon was because of his show and tell choice. She thought it was so original and was quite impressed with him. Jaxon is always going to be a boy that looks outside the box, he is not going to be the "traditional, go straight" thinker and I am quite proud of that. I don't want him to be just like everyone else. I want him to express himself the way he chooses. I think sometimes we as adults, I as well, try to mold our children into what society thinks should be the norm.

Aliya Juel is potty training... Again

I feared that all the stuff going on with Aliya would ruin her for being potty trained early. Once again I was glad to be wrong. As soon as the pain went away she started to tell me when she had to go potty again. We are on day 3 and she has only had one accident each day the past two days. She signs and uses her words to tell us when she needs to go.
Parents always fear taking their children out in public when their kids are first potty trained in fear of having an accident. I don't think I will have to worry about that. Aliya loves going potty in public. EVERY single store we in she has to go potty... and actually goes. I think it is her way of getting out of the cart half the time.

Aliya Juel...

Aliya is still very sick and we still have no answers. Her fever is down to 103+, Tylenol continues to work for the first hour. Aliya will not go pee pee in the potty. It still hurts very bad and she is terrified of the potty. It is breaking my heart to see how uncomfortable she is. She spends most of the day/night crying or whining. I call Jer at least once during the day so that he can be in my life at that moment, while Aliya Juel is screaming and all I can do is hold her and love on her. I have never seen my baby girl this sick, there is nothing I can do. We sing Itsy Bitsy Spider at least 100 times a day, this is the only time she calms down.
Well here is to another day of no answers...

We have some answers. YAY!!!

Aliya has a bladder infection and a UTI. We switched antibiotics and an anti-fungal to avoid another yeast infection. Yay! We are thrilled to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I was so excited to sleep that night. WRONG!! Aliya woke up at 11 PM, a half hour after I drifted into a long awaited dream land. She was restless and cried all night. At 6:30 AM I passed her off to Jer so I could sleep an hour in order to get me through the day with her still not feeling well. She repeated this the next night. I woke up exhausted and in desperate need of sleep to keep my patience in check. I googled Omnicef and sleeplessness, sure enough multiple people complained of it causing sleeplessness in babies. So Friday afternoon I gave her Benedryl to make sure that it put her to sleep rather than wake her up. It worked!! I daydreamed of sleep, I hit a brick wall and knew I needed sleep.
We gave her Benedryl, put her in her crib (after a week of sleeping in our bed on my face), I feared that she had been ruined and would never sleep in her crib again. I was never more ecstatic to be wrong. She slept the entire night in the crib. I slept the entire night in my own bed, with out a baby on my face and crying. YAY!! Our house is well rested and feeling better. I feel a cold coming on but am trying my hardest to fight it off before it overtakes my body.

Thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts sent our way. It was a very difficult week not knowing what we could do to help our baby girl. XOXOXO

Aliya Juel continues to get more sick

Aliya got a little bit of a fever Friday, but nothing Tylenol couldn't take care of. I dropped her off at Grandma's in the morning and didn't think twice about how her day would be because she was happy and had enjoyed a normal breakfast. When I picked her up she was motionless, quiet and very snugly. I put her to bed with some Tylenol and didn't have a worry that she wouldn't be alright. Around 11 PM Aliya Juel woke up on fire, her fever was 105.7 and it had only been 3 hours since she had last had Tylenol so I waited half an hour rather than an hour to give her more. It helped to bring down her fever for an hour and then it was back up to 105+. She was naked with a fan blowing right on her with no luck of bringing it down. I waited 4 hours and gave her some more medicine. Her fever came down again for an hour then shot up again. Aliya would scream and say "pee pee, OWIE!!!" She let us know that it hurt for her to go pee and would grab herself and scream (this had been going on for 3 days, I assumed it was from having diarrhea after having the flu). I had to go to work for a few hours so I called the Dr and got Jer to take her in first thing. I knew she had a UTI because of the pain she was experiencing from going potty. I requested Jer to have her get a catheter to test as well as empty her bladder to give her some relief. The Dr said it didn't look like a UTI and that her ear was getting infected so gave her antibiotics.

Aliya's fever stayed over 105 for the next 36 hours so we went to the Dr Sunday night. Aliya peed on the nurses as they tried to Cath her, I was quite proud :) The Dr warned me that the tests would be negative because of the antibiotics in her body. Sure enough they all came back negative. We were sent home with no answers and a very sick baby that was in a lot of pain. We would wait and hope that the antibiotics treated her UTI (Mom knows).

Our week

I have been super busy with my work moving locations then Aliya got sick Saturday night, we took her to Kids Care after 3 hours of continuously throwing up and choking herself every time. The Dr decided to watch her for an hour to decide if we should go to the hospital. Of course she quit throwing up and we were on our way. She woke up like she was never sick. Now Jaxon is running a fever :( I am just grateful they are both sick now... Before I have to work 4 full days this weekend.

Big news this week...
Aliya Juel decided this is the week she wants to potty train herself. What?! She says or signs when she has to go. She usually has a dry diaper all except at sleeping times. I am waiting until next week for the panties and go full board with it. I am excited and dreading it all at the same time. Today we made three stops and she had to go potty at all three of them. I am glad that she tells me away from home too, but dreading the mad dashes to the potty, change of clothes and all that Jazz. But super excited to sell all my cloth diapers and filling our landfill when we do use disposable.

My MacBook was going to die so I finally dropped it off, after a week of backing it up and cramming in as much work as I could. It will be hard not to have it for 2-3 weeks, but I am also looking forward to not getting sucked into work and wasteful browsing. I am sure my kids will LOVE it!!


- Posted from iPhone

Grandpa Richard's on Christmas Day

The we were on our way to Grandpa Richard's for bonding, presents, and lunch. Jaxon got more Lincoln Logs and Aliya Juel got baby doll clothes. Then we were headed to...