Teeth!

Man!
After all that crazy sickness garbage and our awesome trip to Chicago, we found a surprise in Burkley's mouth.
Earlier this week, I was letting him try sipping some water from my glass and since I could see through the cup to his bottom gums, something white caught my eye!
Once in awhile I think to check his gums for any signs of teeth, but I never get far because he sticks out his tongue or otherwise moves his mouth into a position where I can't see anything. But, I know I saw something this time!

Thinking it was just the "white line" under the gums that everyone asks me if I've seen yet, I stuck my finger in and felt around. No, this white line was not under the gums. It was sharp! Woah! A tooth!!!

Then, later that afternoon, I looked again and felt again, and there was another one right next to the first one! Two teeth in one day!? I can't help but wonder if maybe all that coughing and fevering was teething and not a virus. Hmmm... if so, I sure hope every tooth doesn't come with a sickness that bad!

Unfortunately, this week he has had his cranky moments and he isn't sleeping as soundly as usual.
Today I went and got him some new amber beads at the craft store and whipped up a new bracelet/anklet for him.
The necklace we had gotten a few months ago got mostly eaten by the dog, I salvaged some of the beads, made an anklet, but then lost it just a few days ago. Perfect timing.

The teeth aren't all the way out yet, but they are sharp when you stick your finger in for a feel! So strange. I wonder what he will look like with teeth!

Silly face! He loves hanging out in the walker!

One more silly face!

Bouncing Back to Normal

Hooray!
Not 100% better, but I'd say...oh...90%!
After the worst night yet of this illness (crying, writhing in pain for hours and hours all night) it was a great day! Burkley was pretty much back to his normal self today.
Praise God!!
Thank you to those who were praying for him.

a little air guitar action

His famous Zoolander face

Smiles! Haven't seen those in four days. I was beginning to get depressed.

I love that while sick, he hung out on the couch for days on end. It's just like I did (do) when I was sick as a kid! A brought down a pillow from the bed --wait, I didn't have to bring it down, it was already down on the couch since Daddy's been sleeping on the there in order to get good rest for work. It's hard to sleep with a coughing sicky in your bed. Anyway, he lounged on the pillow lots this week, but today he did so with smiles!

And his appetite is back! For dinner he had half of a banana dipped in mashed sweet potatoes. Not something I'd try, but hey, he loved it. Oh, and some garlic bread too. Might as well make it a balanced meal, haha. :)

Here's hoping for a good night.
Our trip to Chicago for my sister's birthday was supposed to begin this afternoon, but we're going to give him one more night to rest up and try to leave in the morning! :)

:)

Battling Croup! Part Two- It's not croup!

Look at my little sicky!

Wednesday, 2:30AM
Burkley hasn't nursed since 9:00 last night. I woke up to pump for about five minutes. The sounds of the pump brought me back to the NICU days...a place I'd rather not return, emotionally.
Maybe he's not sick, maybe he's just starting to sleep through the night! ha. ha.

Wednesday, 3:30AM
Burkley woke with a fever of 100.0. I gave him a half dose of Tylenol and took him outside to breathe the cool night air. Coughing fits ensued.
Brought him in and gave him 10mL of breastmilk via syringe.
He coughed lots and threw some of it up.
Sucked oodles of nasty snot out of his nose to help him breathe better.
Changed poopy diaper (this kid isn't eating/drinking much, but he's still having wet and dirty diapers, so no concern there.)
Rocked a sleepy, weak baby to sleep.
He has red, puffy eyes, and red cheeks from the fever.
Zonked out by 4:00.

Wednesday, 6:30AM
Burkley woke up. Nursed for a great feeding.
A little coughy, watery eyes, snotty nose, moaning.
Fever: 101.3

Wednesday, 8:05AM
Another good feeding.
Fever 101.6
Steamy bath with eucalyptus oil.

Since the fever wasn't going down, I called the doc to see if we should head to the ER (since the crazy/mean nurse on Monday had told me that if he got a fever, we needed to go to the ER- lest he die since I didn't vaccinate him-). They said no, come on in and they'd check him out. We saw a nurse practioner since our pediatrician wasn't available till much later in the day.

She checked his lungs. Clear.
Checked his ears. He did not like that!
Checked his throat- super red and swollen.
She heard him cough several times, as he was happy to demonstrate how sick he was. :)
She said the cough was not croupy, it may have been a few days ago, who knows, but this was more like a gagging of mucous more than anything. She prescribed him steroids for the inflammation in his throat and ordered a strep test.
I HATE STREP TESTS so I was nervous for my little guy.
But, he was a trooper and the nurse was in and out with the little swabbies and within minutes we got a negative result. Hooray! No strep = no antibiotics.

So, it was determined that it's just a virus-- a super bad one--I guess one that is sort of disguising itself as strep, judging by the wince of pain I see on his face every time he swallows or coughs. Anyway, he was prescribed some steroids to help with the inflammation of his airways and get him breathing better.

Here's hoping he's better soon- we are supposed to be going to Chicago this weekend for my sister's birthday!

Red eyes and moaning. :(

 

 

 

 

Battling Croup!

I have this shirt that says, "I am so blogging this," and it certainly applies to most situations in my life. I even wore it while in labor with Burkley!

Me, right after having Burkley- feeling great and acting goofy!

We've been dealing with croup for the past couple days and I keep thinking, "I am so blogging this!" Mainly because I do want this blog to serve somewhat as a baby book of sorts, so I want to document things like this to preserve them in our memories.

So, to sum it all up, I will just say CROUP SUCKS.
But, if you want the long version, read on.

Sunday
We were at a birthday party and while I had noticed Burkley had been coughing all weekend, it was nothing major, but at the party I could feel the phlegm in his chest while he was breathing by just putting my hand on his back. It was weird. Maybe I should have noticed a problem then.

Later that night as we were heading to bed, I noticed the cough getting much worse. Things just got progressively worse quickly at this point. During the night the cough turned into a barking-type of cough and he kept waking up moaning in pain and somewhat wheezing. I started to get super paranoid that he had pertussis and got online immediately to research. I was frantically praying that he didn't have it (he's not vaxed against it) and I posted a question on Natural Parents Network's facebook page (love those mamas!) and they were gracious to give me advice. They diagnosed him with croup- though I didn't get to read their comments till morning- as did several of my friends on my own facebook page. Doing some WebMD research on my own (gotta love it that anyone can be a doctor thanks to the internet!) and I too came to the conclusion that it was croup.

Monday
We started "treatment"-- steaming the shower, breathing the cool air outside and/or in the freezer, etc. It was crappy. He'd have these loud coughing fits and sputter and spit and look otherwise miserable. I could tell he was achy and his eyes were watery and his nose was runny. I called the doctor's office that afternoon to see if we could get in, as I was seeking an official diagnosis. When I called, I found out that the doc was booked for the day, but the nurse listened to me describe the symptoms and she said she was certain it was croup. She gave me some tips, which included everything we'd already been doing. Then she asked if he was up to date on his vaccinations. When I told her he wasn't, that he hasn't received any, I was berated and told that this croup will kill him and my choices will lead to his death and all sorts of other super insensitive, unprofessional things that I disagree with. (After that I promptly made some calls and got us switched to a new doctor- but that's a blog post for another time).

We lounged like this most of the day.

Then, Monday night, we headed to bed and I could tell it was going to be a long night. It was! We were up every hour from about 1:00am-4:00am. He was not interested in nursing, as he didn't have the strength to latch on. The coughing fits were scary, but more than that was the sad moaning.

Tuesday
He seemed to get a second wind or something around 4:30a.m. and he nursed well. Then he nursed a bit at 6:30a.m., and pretty half-heartedly at 8:30. At that point my dad stopped by to check on us. Burkley gave him some smiles and then we both headed back to bed (I'm battling a sinus infection, so I also feel like crap). We slept in till 11:30! Woah!! It was like we were in college! haha! But, we hadn't really eaten well since that feeding at 4:30a.m. I kept offering it, he kept lazily latching on, having a coughing fit, crying out in pain from his sore throat, and then I'd try to calm him down because I didn't want him to get hysterical and have his airways swell up making it even more difficult to breathe. However, he kept getting more upset and kept coughing and turning red and getting very limp. I started to freak out.  I called my mom to see if she could come over and take us to the hospital (hubby was at work with our only car). I was thinking maybe he needed a nebulizer treatment of some sort because his breathing was appearing to be difficult. But, by the time she came about ten minutes later, he was much better. He had calmed down, was breathing better, and I asked her to take him downstairs while I pumped. He hadn't eaten really since 6:30 in the morning and by this time it was noon. I was feeling the pain! So, I pumped for the first time since being in the NICU with him. :( I was so thankful to have that pump- my aunt had given it to me and I'm so glad we have it. As I was pumping, I was pondering what we should do.

I assumed that if we took him to the hospital, other than any breathing treatments, they would probably want to do two things. One, they would put him on an IV because he wasn't nursing and was possibly getting dehydrated. They would also probably put him on antibiotics because he had a low-grade fever, which could lead to an infection. Now, I am not against either of those treatments, per se, but I was wondering if there was anything I could do from home to treat those things. So, my mom and I bounced some ideas off each other and here's what we did. Using what I had pumped, I offered him some breastmilk in a syringe (he has never had a bottle and I figured why start now?). He took it happily. I gave him, oh, I don't know, 5 or 6 syringes full. He perked right up. He was hungry, he just was too weak to latch on! So, I thought, the breastmilk will help hydrate him and serve to fight off any infection! I poured the rest of my pumped milk into my ice cube trays, put in some toothpicks (to serve as handles), and popped the tray in the freezer to make some momsicles. I knew once they froze he would enjoy them because the coldness would help reduce the swelling in his throat and that way he could also get more nutrients in his little sick body.

The rest of the day we just lounged and he napped a lot. Before bed we did another steamy bath with eucalyptus oil dropped in and then he got rubbed down with lavender lotion mixed with eucalyptus oil. We've also got the oil in the diffuser in the humidifier on. He's snoozing next to me as I type and I'm hoping tonight will go better than last. I also hope he eats more during the night than last! In his sleep he keeps sneezing in a way that I can tell hurts his throat. Then he gives a little moan in pain and dozes right back off. Overall, he's less congested and hasn't really had that barking cough for a couple of hours. I'm hoping we are on the upswing of this thing.

We shall see!

(I have some more super pathetic pictures of my little sicky from today, but I haven't loaded them onto the computer yet and the camera is downstairs where my poor hubby is sleeping so Burkley's coughing doesn't keep him up, as Hubby works very early in the morning and needs good rest. I don't want to go down there to get the camera and risk waking him, so maybe I'll post those in a follow-up post. Stay tuned!! I know, you're all on the edges of your seats...for now, how about this sweet pic of Burkley before the birthday party on Sunday!)

Burkley, before things got bad Sunday evening.

 

What's New?

Lots! And at the same time, not much!
Life just keeps going on day by day without too many eventful happenings.
However, Burkley just keeps growing like crazy. Growing older, mainly.
He is sitting really well now and loves to play with his toys.

He loves this silly little drum!

He interacts with so many people and we get comments everywhere we go about how expressive he is.
He also took a bath in the big bathtub without his little whale tub! It was a bit slippery, but he had fun!

He was trying to keep his balance in the slippery tub!

As far as babyled weaning, we are having a blast!
He has eaten cucumbers, tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, cantaloupe, green peppers, sweet potato and regular potato wedges. We finally set up his high chair which makes him seem so old! :/

Enjoying some sweet potato wedges- baked with a little butter and garlic salt!

 We also had his six-month pictures taken, and you can see some of them at the top of this blog in my new header. So crazy that he is six months old, and it just dawned on me that in a week he's going to be seven months! Man, time really flies.

One of my faves from his photo-shoot- so fun that we got some family pics!

At the risk of rambling, I have two other thoughts I wanted to share.
1. I'm really getting excited for summer! This week has been uncharacteristically hot and while I have not enjoyed sticking to my baby for three days straight, I am looking forward to going swimming a lot this summer and hanging out and having fun with friends and family.
2. Now that our little guy is six months old, the milk I had pumped while he was in the NICU is expired. :( He never used it, except the little that he ate through his feeding tubes in the NICU the first few days of his life. He has never had a bottle and I've got all this milk in the freezer...that is now expired. I can't bring myself to dump it. While I at first thought I was being irrationally weird about this, one of my good friends reminded me that it's okay to feel sad about dumping it, as it represents our beginning and serves as a reminder of how far we've come. So, I want to do something special with it. I've thought about sending some in to make a necklace like I've seen some people do.

Do you have any ideas for me?

Wordless Wednesday

New trick!

Babyled Weaning Week One Recap

This past week has been a lot of fun.
Burkley has tried a few different foods and has seemed to like all of them.
He didn't have any food over the weekend because we were so busy with birthday parties, weddings, and other family gatherings and there wasn't much available in stick-form for him to try. When he gets better at grabbing things, we'll be able to offer him the foods we ate (tacos, pizza, etc.).

Cantaloupe! He actually got a little chunk off of this. You can kind of see how he did it in the video at the bottom.

Sometimes eating your bib is just as fun!

Carrots! These baby carrots were a little slippery, but we always have carrots when we have pizza (which we always eat in the living room!) so he got to have some with us! He would not let go of his blanket, so he did some gnawing on that as well. :) He just sucked on the carrot. In the future maybe I will cook some for him so they are soft.

Yum, green peppers! We were having enchilidas and as I cut up the veggies to go in ours, I saved him some pieces of raw green peppers. He liked sucking on this as well!










We are still not expecting him to be getting any nutrition from his food, or any feelings of fullness, as we are still in the exploratory phase of BLW. And exploring, he does! It's been a fun start. :)

Question for you parents:
I've heard of people using the baby's 1st Birthday cake as the child's first taste of desserts and sweets.
Any thoughts on this? What did you do?