Always be prepared AKA my little boy scared me!

What a crazy two weeks this has been?!  Where to start? 

This past Sunday, I ventured to IKEA for the first time with Tate after his nap.  Now he's had a cough for about 2 1/2 weeks.  I know he has seasonal allergies as diagnosed by our allergist, so I wasn't terribly concerned.  I've been running the cool mist humidifier (and freezing my bum off and my black girl hair is not appreciative either, but I digress) for him every night.  Yes, we share a room!  I also suction his nose when I think he'll only kick me every other second.  In any event, we all know he has a pretty severe egg allergy.  We get into IKEA and he's really starting to cough.  And cough.  And cough.  I try to get him to drink some water...no go.  I give him a mum mum which he devours then resumes his coughing.  He doesn't want to be in the stroller which is totally not like him.  He doesn't want to walk.  He doesn't want to be carried.  Again, pushes away the water.  And still continuing to cough.  We're on the second floor of this ridiculously huge store (I had never been there), and I realize something is really bothering him.  He's getting worse, and I cannot get out of this place fast enough.  I decide to put him on me in my baby carrier, and that seems to calm him a bit, but he's still coughing and now starting to seem to be having difficulty breathing.  We finally get out of that place, and some nice ladies help me get my stroller in the car.  But he's starting to look miserable.  He's constantly coughing and looking disoriented.  I vacillate...do I drive us home or try to calm him down.  I don't have the epi-pen because we weren't going to be eating, so why would I need it!!  Furious with myself, and of course I don't have benadryl with me...who carries benadryl in their purse?  (well me now)  I put him in the carseat and race out of the parking lot.  Tate does not look good.  I keep shaking the carseat to keep him awake.  We finally get home, and I race him upstairs and get some benadryl in him.  He's really struggling to breathe in between the constant coughing.  In addition his eyelids are severely swollen (he's been rubbing them now like crazy and his ears are bright red)  My best friend hears him on the phone when I call to see what her daughter's first asthma attack sounded like, and she said 'not like that, and I don't think he sounds good at all'.  I call Lindsey to please come over and ride with me to the ER because I don't want him in the back seat alone where his head could loll forward and occlude his airway.  Thankfully she's only about 10 minutes away.  When she gets here thank God he is no longer struggling to catch his breath, and the coughing has subsided.  I'm still not sure if we should go to the ER, so I call the ped on call.  The nurse is awesome and tells me what to do.  We give Tate a bath, saline and suction his nose and monitor him.  She also tells me he'll probably need another dose of benadryl in 5-6 hours as the symptoms may recur.  Sure enough around 930 Tate wakes up and his eyelids are swollen again...not as bad though.   We saw his ped yesterday, and she feels he had some sort of allergic reaction to a food whereas I thought it was something at IKEA with all that furniture and dust.  However whether it is a food or not,  I have no idea what it could be.  He didn't have anything with egg in it, so it's got to be something else.  So, now we have to figure out what it could be and be hyper vigilant about what he eats until we do.  So from now on I'm giving him fresh fruits, veggies and meats.  We're really going to avoid anything not homemade.  Which is going to be interesting seeing how little I like to cook.   As for the cough which was back to his 'normal' cough yesterday, he's being treated for a sinus infection...my ped was less than thrilled he had had the cough for so long.

So, tonight I am so grateful my little boy is doing so much better.  He's his happy little self...playing, running around, bringing me books to read and his cars to push, and constantly asking for 'gurt' (yogurt)  I cannot express how very scared I was this time.  I don't usually panic about much, but this was more than I thought I could handle.  As I was racing home in the car, I was beside myself wishing I had a partner in this child-rearing to hold my hand when I get scared.  I wanted someone else to help me to decide...'do I call an ambulance or do I drive to the ER' 'which ER do I go to' 'you grab his diaper bag, I'll grab the insurance info.'  Never have I felt so alone as an SMC.  Tate only has me to depend on, so next time I'm going to be prepared.  I'm buying a small baby bag or something of the sort and packing it with essentials, and it will be downstairs by the door for in case of a run to the ER.  I'm going to go to the little ER clinic up the street and ask them do they see babies comfortably.  I now will carry 2 epi pens all the time (the ped said I need 2, and I've given another to his daycare as well).  I will determine which is the closest, best choice for a hospital for a child.  And next time I will simply call an ambulance if I feel it is warranted.

Oh and I should have known that shopping someplace cheap like IKEA would be a bad idea.  Now I know!!  Ethan Allen has outfitted my home beautifully...no dust there!  We're going there this weekend!!!

Chicago Marathon! Go Aunt Lindsey Go!!!

Well it's been a whirlwind weekend!  Friday morning, Lindsey, Tate, my parents and I took a 7:25 AM flight to Chicago to watch Lindsey run the Chicago Marathon on Sunday 10-10-10!!  We had a fabulous time. 

I wasn't quite sure it was going to be a great time though!  Here's why!

Aunt Lindsey spent the night Thursday night, so we could drive to the airport together.  We finally get into bed after loading the car...bah...the amount of stuff for a 14 month old is staggering.  We would come to be glad I overpacked.

320 am I wake to the sound of Tate gagging, coughing and retching.  My poor baby has thrown up all over himself, his crib and all his little crib friends.  Now, he's had a cold for about a week, with this cough and allergy gunk all in his nose.  Blech.  So I assume he has thrown up because he was coughing so hard.  I throw all the stuff in the wash and run it.  Get the sheet and mattress pad off as well for the laundry(thankfully there are still 2 layers of sheets and waterproof mattress pads underneath!!).  Strip Tate and into the bathtub, most unhappily I should add, he goes.  329am the washing machine is going, Tate is back in bed asleep and I'm off to dreamland as well as we have to wake at 445am.

445 am I'm up, dressing, loading the last bits into Lindsey's car.  Lindsey is moving around downstairs.  I get Tate up and dressed, and we are walking downstairs and I feel his little tummy rumbling.  This cannot be good, but nothing comes up! (I do see him swallow pretty hard...EEWWWWW!!)  But again, don't think much of it. 

530 am We're in the car on our way to IAH.  I'm in the backseat with Tate and he's happy as a clam. 

6 am Aunt Lindsey drops us off at the airport with ALL of our luggage.  We check in and yay there are Grandmommy and Granddaddy!!  Lindsey gets back to the terminal, and we're off to the gate with more stuff than should be allowed.

7 am I give Tate some breakfast...cheerios, milk and banana. 

730 am Tate falls asleep.

750 am We take off for the Windy City


825 am Tate throws up all over himself in his sleep and wakes up beside himself.  Aunt Lindsey is horrified and can barely bring herself to look at him.  So much for all my 'help.'  Tate and I make our way to the teeny tiny airplane potty, change his clothes from head to toe.  He is then a happy camper.  I now realize he has some sort of stomach bug.  I'm praying it's not like the last time he had a stomach virus because then I came down with it 48 hours later, Aunt Lindsey was sick 60 hours later and Grandmommy was sick 72 hours later.

10 am We're at O'Hare.  Lindsey, Tate and I are picked up by our driver and off to downtown we go, while Grandparents get to their far away from everything airport hotel.

11 am We check into the Swisshotel, get situated and off we go to see the city I used to live in! In the meantime I've spoken to the very very nice triage nurse at our pediatrician. We're to buy Pedialyte, give Tate bland bland foods once he's held the Pedialyte down more than 4-5 hours.
1 pmish Tate can't keep the first sips of Pedialyte down...time to change clothes AGAIN. We visit Niketown, Water Tower Place, Legoland and attempt Garrett Popcorn but the line is too long. The grandparents have joined us as well. Lunch was outside at a little bakery in the unseasonably warm, but gorgeous Chicago weather.

 

225 pm More pediatlyte same result.  But he's a happy boy and in yet ANOTHER outfit.  We decide to start all over with a couple of sips every 30 minutes per Fay's advice as I had given him about 1/2 cup.  This seems to do the trick, however Tate has no food whatsoever on Friday except breakfast.


5 pmish we all head back to the hotel, pick up salad for me for dinner and my parents grab some yummy sandwiches.


630 pm Lindsey leaves to meet a girlfriend out in the city


7 pm Tate is asleep in the pack n play.


The rest of the weekend was just awesome as well.  Saturday morning we all headed off to the Marathon Expo on the Marathon shuttle...a yellow school bus!!  Tate's first time on a school bus...he was not impressed.  He just oohed and awed at everything.  Lindsey and my parents went out to lunch after the expo, and I headed back to the hotel to get Tate down for his nap and to give him a bite of plain yogurt which he kept down!  Yay!!  We napped about 2 1/2 hours...in fact Lindsey and the parental units joined us for about an hour of that nap, so all the Cunninghams were well rested.  Granddaddy stayed at the hotel to watch football, and us girls grabbed the baby and headed off to Navy Pier.  Lindsey and I took Tate on the HUGE ferris wheel then I took him on the Carousel.  It was an early night for all as Lindsey had to be up at 5am to run the MARATHON!!!

5am Sunday came quickly!!  Lindsey was out the door to meet her girlfriend, Kelsie for the race!!  The grandparents arrived around 7am and we swooped Tate out the door after some cheerios and banana (his tummy was doing so much better!!).  He was super excited and we outfitted his stroller with a balloon to cheer Lindsey on!!  We found primo spectator spots in a position about 2 minutes into the race.  You can hear Tate in the second video saying 'woohoo!"  It was an amazing feeling to see all those beautiful runners out there and overwhelming to know my baby sister was out there amongst over 40,000 people running 26.2 miles!!!

We traversed the city to get to great spectator spots to see Lindsey run.  Our timing was a little off, so we didn't see her, but we saw some wonderful, dedicated people.  Those walking and running, old and young, healthy and hurting.  But they were all out there!!!  I met an older gentleman (about 65 to me) whose wife is a 3 year cancer survivor and this was her second marathon!! 


Tate and I had to leave to catch our flight at 1115 because sadly I have to work tomorrow, so we didn't get to see Lindsey finish the  marathon or party with her afterwards.  (bah I hate working)  She finished in about 4HR 45MIN.  She had some major trouble with her quads really tightening up and had to stop at the medics about 3-4 times to get some massage to help her out.  I spoke to her tonight, and she sounds like she's really hurting, but she's thrilled she's completed her 1st marathon.  They'll be home tomorrow and she'll be picking Tate up from daycare which he LOVES.


Oh and Tate has had a boom in his vocabulary!!!


He says....


Lindsey, ok it sounds like Dinsey, but it's very obvious he means her.
Vincent, so you have to know he's talking about the cat, but when you do it's pretty clear :)
He said 'bye bye' clear as day to some stranger on the plane on Friday.
cat, car, 'i did it', uh-oh, mama (and means it more these days)

Oh and he loves clapping his hands.  As I rock him at night he'll be laying with his head on my chest half asleep then he'll pop up and clap his hands 3 times or so, grin at me and lay his perfect little head back on my chest!!  LOVE IT!!!





Beachcombers!!

Well, apparently my little guy is a fish!!  He LOVES  the water!  I already knew he loved pools, but didn't know about the beach.  I needn't have been concerned.  We went to Galveston yesterday (yes we went a few weeks ago with Aunt Lindsey, but we didn't go to the ocean, just the lame Moody Gardens Beach).  My dear friend, Susan, rented a beach house with her family and invited for a shrimp boil and all the festivities that entails!  Tate and I took off Saturday morning at 9am...he cooperated and napped the entire way there!!  (we're only about 50-60 minutes from the beach, however Susan's beach house rental was almost to California, so it took another 20 minutes to get to it!).  I took Tate down to the beach along with Susan's 4 and 7 year old to 'just take a walk'...no one was to get wet.  Well Tate took one look at Alex and Katherine skipping in the water and was all over that.  Off came his pants and he was thrilled!!  

Later after a second nap and lunch we ventured back to the ocean in the appropriate gear.  Uncle Dan took Tate waaayyy out into the Gulf!!  Tate was in heaven.  My little guy was just laughing and having a fabulous time.  This is probably one of the best parts of being a mom...seeing your child so happy and so excited.  The joy on his face was just priceless!!  And after all the fun, he wanted to just snuggle up with me...it made me reminiscent of those newborn days.  Actually even now, Tate will curl up on me when he's tired and bring those little long legs of his up under himself.  I love that feeling!!

We spent the night at the Hilton Hotel courtesy of my boss!  Our office summer party was this weekend, and she footed the bill for a night out for the entire staff.  It was Tate's first night in a hotel.  Suffice it to say, crazy rock stars trashing hotel rooms have nothing on what a 14 month old can do to a hotel room!!  

We went to brunch today at Rita's new house, and Tate fell in love with her dog!!  He was a little skittish at first, but warmed up quickly and followed Maddie all through the house!

We've also had a week of amazing things!!!

Has started calling me Mama off and on!!

Says 'Bye Vincent'

Says car, cat, what sounds like 'I did it'

Loves when singing 'The Wheels on The Bus..' hearing the lyrics 'the baby says waa-waa-waa'...he   

    cracks up when I sing that verse.

He gives great hugs!!

Loves hugging Vincent!

Tooth #I erupted!!

Allergy season is here :(  he's quite congested!!  As is his mommy!

All in all a great end to September!!!