Summer Vacation - Week #1

 Sleeping Sick little boy

Channeling Madonna

Pretty girl

Brooklyn and Cousin Payton

Playing so peacefully back-to-back

I have pledged to blog each week that I am off to detail all of the exciting things we are doing. I was so excited about my first week off, but it turned out to be pretty slow and scary. Early in the week Tayden started running a low grade fever. He showed no signs of illness so we started treating him with Tylenol and Ibuprofen. On Wednesday evening he was not sleeping well at all, and during the night his fever spiked to 104. He was really fussy, shaky, and wouldn't let us put him down. This was heartbreaking for us!!!! It is so hard to see your child in such pain and not be able to give them instant relief. Tim and I were extremely worried and were trying all different things to comfort him and bring his fever down. We gave him a bath and continued alternating the medicines. He threw up and we were preparing ourselves for an ER visit, but his fever dropped to 102 and he was able to sleep for a few hours. Tim took him to the doctor early the next morning. His fever had dropped to 99 and he was acting much more like himself. After drawing blood and inserting a catheter to get a urine sample (this required them to scoot the table out to the middle of the floor and three nurses to hold him down), they determined that he had a non-contagious viral infection. She said that it would take 3-5 days to run its course and that we should continue the medicines we were already giving him. For the rest of the day he played as usual, but then that night his fever spiked to 103. It was a very rough night with very little sleep and a lot of crying. The next day (Friday) he slept almost all day long! This seemed to be just what he needed and from then on we have been on the up and up. His appetite has returned and there has been no more fever! Brooklyn didn't miss a beat during brother's illness and kept us on our toes - as usual.


On Friday evening my sister Jamie came over for a playdate. The cousins had a great time playing together. Tayden was still pretty tired, but Payton and Brooklyn had a great time chasing each other around the living room. Brooklyn would laugh hysterically when Payton would come after her. We turned on music and laughed so hard at their dance moves. Payton would jump up and down for minutes at a time, and at one point he was feeling the music so much that he started knocking on the floor. It was greatness!!!

Brooklyn continues to be independent and is always exploring her surroundings. She loves putting things on her head and on her arm like a purse. She then prisses around the living room to model for us. She still loves to get in the toy box and play with the plastic Elmo Easter eggs - go figure! She has also discovered a passion for doors and likes to close them. She is definitely our dramatic child. If she falls down she will cry super loud until we look at her and acknowledge that she fell down, then she is magically better and continues to play. She loves to play like she is talking on the phone and will put any item to her ear and say, "Yeah, Yeah, bye." HILARIOUS!!! We got her some new shoes this week and as we watched her walk around the house, it hit us how grown up she is. Our precious little baby is becoming a precious little girl.

Tayden is still my little cuddler. He is almost always smiling and/or laughing. He has a way of finding any open door or safety gate in the house and tries to escape the first chance he gets. He also loves the plastic Easter eggs as well as climbing up the back of the slide. He doesn't ever want to slide, just climb up and stay at the top, while shaking the whole thing back and forth. His favorite toy is the shape sorter and he will patiently put each shape in the right hole (we point out the right one for him). He is for sure our charmer and still loves to flirt with the ladies. We finally had his annual ECI evaluation today. We had to cancel last week due to his fever. The coordinator told us that he has made great gains and is definitely closing the developmental gaps of a preemie. He is still behind 1-2 months in a few areas, but she gave us great suggestions on how to help him. His lowest area was verbal expression, which baffled us because he is always jibber jabbering and knows around 8-10 words. He did qualify to continue receiving occupational therapy once a month and will also be seeing a speech therapist. We are going to see if this therapist could work with Brooklyn while she is here. The coordinator told us that in the next year he will make huge strides and that any gaps will almost certainly be closed. It is hard to hear that your child is behind the "norm," but we have to continuously remind ourselves of where we started. We are committed to working with him to help him get caught up. We are so blessed to have a precious, healthy son and we are so proud of every milestone he has reached.

My grand to do list has remained on the kitchen table, completely untouched. Rather than organize closets I decided to read Water for Elephants. It was a really great book and I am now looking forward to seeing the movie. I must now get in the "to do" mode. Tune in next week for more of our summer fun!