Happy Birthday

This post is a bit late in coming primarily because I've been working on a video for Payton's 1st year.  I've given up a bit simply because all her photos from the first 5 months have been put on an external hard drive by Dwayne (my lap top was conking out with the data overload) and we can't find the power souce cable for the external hard drive.  Uhhhgg.

So, a quick Happy Birthday to my Baby Girl.  What an amazing year its been.

In a brief recap as to what is new with Payton, we are so excited to say that she started walking 100% about 4 days earlier.  While she had/has been taking a number of steps, many voluntary, many not, as of a few days ago she has simply decided that crawling isn't for her.   What a determined and stubbron little girl she is.

And, what makes it so exciting is how incredibly pleased she is with herself.  For the first few days she would walk from point A to B and once she arrived at her destination she would laugh, squeel and clap, congratulating herself like we did when she first started.

(In retrospect, as Í'm writing this 10 days later Payton continues to accomplish challenging things like getting on and off the couch and will continue to clap, squeel and congratulate herself on a job well done).

She has a few 'words' (I say this in quotation because while they don't sound like much, they certainly mean a lot to such a little girl).

Of course she knows the "daa" part of "daa peek-a-boo" and loves to play.

She also says:
 'dagh' for dog
'baa' for bye
'ge ge' for gentle (though she doesn't act on it)
and the puh sound in up...(this one being my favourite as she sounds like a quite little fish)

We've also established that Payton is going to the holy terror in the family.  Livy was a very amicable little baby/toddler (until around 1.5) while Payton is a little scrapper.  She's hitting already when you take a toy away, she'll grab and hord toys/objects when she gets them and she has this high wail/screech when things are not going her way.  Defense mechnism born from all she has endured?? Maybe.  One thing is for sure, she's a fiesty little fighter so watch out world.

Happy 1st Birthday Payton!

Voluntarily Walking

So I won't quite say she's walking 100% of the time but as of yesterday, Payton's voluntarily walking. 

She'll stand up in the middle of the room and take a few steps.  Both Dwayne and I saw it but like the ellusive Saskwatch, chasing her around the house with the camera only caught our cute little crawler and no signs of our brave and fearless walker.

I did manage to get a prompted walk on video to prove she can at least do it.  So the count down is on...1 year minus 4 days we can say she's voluntarily walking (and has the ability to walk) but we can't actually say she IS walking.  That will have to wait until her main mode of transportation is bi-pedal.

Go Payton Go!!

Little Trooper

So as usual, when things are a bit bumpy you see us posting more.  This week has been a tough one on Payton and while she's not happy, she's fighting through it reminding me of what a little trooper she is.

Yesterday I recieved word that Payton had started with a rash on her torso.  Now, like a good mama I did read the paperwork that came with her medications for her antibiotics and knew that a rash was one of the side effects but also recalled that the medication cautioned that a rash could signal an allergic reaction.

So, Payton got trucked off to the doctors again.  After a 2 hour wait (at the walk in clinic this time) I was pleased when it was the same doctor we saw in the ER on Monday (the one who had ordered the x-ray) on shift.

She looked at the rash and (with my  mother's input of a penicillin allergy in our family) determined it was indeed an allergic reaction.  Thus, its been determined that Payton is allergic to penicillin. 

Its not such a big deal except for the fact that the rash has now developed on her whole body and even her head/face is covered by the rash.  And, she is miserable.  The rash is having much more of an impact on her than the high fever ever did.

Coupled with that she's been having a terrible cough when she sleeps.  I'm a bit worried that it may be an asthma cough since we're dealing with haze from the Siberian forest fires (even I find I'm coughing and slightly weezing a bit, blaming the poor air quality).

I'm desperately hoping that a day with benadryl helps with the rash and our little warrior is back to even 50% of her old self again by days end.

Sick Children

So I've been a bad CDH parent, I'll admit.  I fell victim to the same scam Payton pulled on the doctors in the NICU.  She lulls you into that false sense of security that she's a tough little cookie that can handle anything thrown at her only to have us realize that "no, she's still quite fragile".

On Friday she started with feeling just a bit off.  A few small vomiting episodes and just a bit warm (keeping in mind we're finally getting summer here on the west coast) with a clear runny nose.  Saturday saw a small vomit and again a bit warm and the start of more yellow thicker mucus.  Still, she had good energy, and was happy. 

Through the night I noticed her temperature had risen to a slight fever (38C which is about 100F).  The next morning she was cuddly, lots of thick mucus to keep us on our toes but all in all she seemed fine.  No coughing, breathing issues.  Just what appeared to be a good snotty cold (similar to one I saw on a girl in Fernie last weekend and I was eyeing up to see what she was touching to try to avoid).

By 3 pm on Sunday Payton's temp had reached just over 39C (just over 102F).  We stuffed her full of Tylenol and put her to bed. 

That night she continued to feel warm but I was out of my sticker thermometers and I knew my ear one wasn't working right.  So at 6 am I took her to the ER to get her checked out.

At the ER her temp was 36 and change (normal) and the doc listened to her breathing (all clear), checked her ears (all clear) and her throat (a bit red) and simply told me to keep an eye on her but if her temp went up again to 39 to bring her in for bloodwork.

At 11:30 am her temp was over 39 again.  We took more Tylenol and waited to see if it helped.  At 2 pm we were back in the ER as Tylenol wasn't working.  The new doc checked her ears (one was infected), checked her breathing (a bit raspy) and ordered an x-ray.  Sure enough, pneumonia!!!

The little rascal went from "all clear" to pneumonia in both lungs in a matter of 8 hours!!

We also learned that Payton doesn't respond to Tylenol to lower her temp but responds very well to Advil.

Both Monday and Tuesday night were rough for Payton. Her temp peaked Monday night at about 39.7 (~103.5) and then on Tuesday night (Wednesday at 2am to be exact) her temp peaked at 40.2 (104.3F). 

She wasn't due for Advil for a few hours so we tried some Tylenol and some cold cloths on her head (all the while keeping the room cool with our AC).  45 minutes later I opted to 'over dose' my child with Advil (about 1.5 hours before she was supposed) but I figured an Advil addict for a child was better than a brain fried one. 

The Advil (love this stuff) got her temp down right away and as of now (almost 4 pm, 14 hours later) I'm happy to say that Payton's temp has stayed down. YAY!!!

She had me scared for a few days there wondering how much more she (or I) could take.  She was a trooper through it all and other than just wanting to be held, she hardly complained.

On a positive note, after 4 days of virtually only fluids, Payton has learned to sign for milk.  Its crazy cute with her little hands squeezing away.  She's also developed the squinty cry that Livy used to do.

I want to get a video and put it together with Livy's.   Sooo cute.  In reality all kids likely do it at some point but I remember it being soooo cute with Livy and find it funny that Payton does it as well.

So, that's been our weekend and beginning of the week thus far.

A good reminder for me that kids are hardy but can be so fragile and CDH babies especially.  While they can surprise us, they also need constant diligence and I almost missed it thinking she was so much stronger than she was.

Ode to the Long Weekend

What a whirlwind of a weekend we just had.  Happy to be back at work this week for the simply purpose of ‘resting’. 

The weekend consisted of a 10 hour long drive out to Fernie, BC for Dwayne to take part in a 3-day stage mountain bike race.  Olivia, Payton and I tagged along to make it a family event and an actual summer vacation.

On one hand, traveling 10 hours in one direction isn’t my idea of a great start to a family get away BUT we did get some sun while there and that was a decent trade off (if we had stayed home it would have just been rain).

First off, Dwayne’s race wasn’t all he expected it to be. Years ago we had done some mountain biking in Fernie and had fun.  At the time it was nice to try different style of trails (different terrain and different trail builders) but we were very grateful to return home to ride our back yard after a couple of days. 

8 years later Dwayne had high hopes for the growth of the mountain biking in Fernie but unfortunately was somewhat disheartened to learn that 3 days in a row he would have to ride some of the same single track (much different than his expectation of a new experience 3 days in a row).  So suffice to say he wasn’t overly disappointed when his chain broke during the 3-day of the race. 

On another note, Dwayne ended up in the hospital after day 2 because he was having such a bad time with his chronic hacking cough.  A few test later and it was determined his oxygen levels were low and he was an asthmatic.  Alas, perhaps Fernie was a good thing in that we can maybe say goodbye to Dwayne’s middle of the night coughing that is loud enough to wake the whole house.

On the Payton front, big advancement for such a little girls.  On Thursday, June 28^th (exactly 11 calendar months) she started voluntarily taking her 1^st steps.  After a week of it she’s still a bit shaky but she’ll tak a step now, balance herself and take another one.   Today she's even progressed to standing and taking a few steps with no one in front of her encouraging her.  I think her record is about 5 steps before she reaches her target.  Still a ways off from full time walking but forward progress none the less.  The other thing I love about it is she's ultra cautious.  She always has an exit strategy (she makes sure she's balanced so that when she falls its on her butt).  Not that she's cautious with everything. She's keen to climb on anything she can and today took a nasty spill off her quad bikeand ended up with an egg sized lump on her forhead  (not sure where her helmet was...).

Payton is also now a kisser (sort of).  She’s always been quick to share a kiss but hasn’t yet mastered the closed mouth kiss (instead she zooms in with a wide open mouth).  We’ve taught her to say “mmm-mah” when you say “kiss” to her.  Unfortunately she follows the mmm-mah with an open mouth kiss. 

This morning was the 1^st time she’s waved ‘bye-bye’.  This little trick has been a long time in coming and I can only guess its because she doesn’t want to say goodbye.  Still, its in every baby’s repertoire to wave bye bye so now we’ve joined the masses in that department.  

We now have a mixed bag of tricks to share at parties including: the standing balance act, the High-Five, the Clap your Hands, Arms Up trick, turning on and off a light switch, taking a few wabbly shaky steps and now waving Bye Bye.

As for Olivia, I think its safe to assume she’ll be a thrill seeker.  On the drive back from Fernie on Monday we stopped in Osoyoos to give the girls a break.  We initially were planning on swimming in the lake but we drove by a small theme park (bumper cars, rides etc).  Dwayne had a great idea to stop there instead.  We loaded up on some ride tickets, 1^st stop the tea cup ride.  Dwayne and Livy survived the tea-cup (or the parks version of it) only to notice the bungee tree (a harness, ropes and a trampoline).  This was by far Livy’s favourite and she LOVED flying through the air.  She kept asking the ride operator to go higher.  I finally had to tell him she was going high enough.

We have video so I’ll post when I get a chance.

If it wasn’t the puking episode at hour 2 on the ride back (several hours before we arrived at the park) I would say Livy had an iron stomach like her mom.  Mmmm, must reassess that one.