11 Months!

Avery will be 11 months old tomorrow! It's hard to believe that next month at this time I will have a one-year old!!So crazy! I haven't posted because there really isn't much to update. Avery is still sick. She is still coughing and has a lot of congestion. She is taking antibiotics still ( has one more week to go on them) and it doesn't seem to be helping so I am guessing it's just a cold. It could also be allergies, I don't know. The nasal swab sample that Dr Love took last week was negative for Flu and RSV so that is good news.  I think Avery is starting to teethe. She has been waking up in the middle of the night and crying for what seems to be no reason. I put my finger on her gums and it seems to be pretty hard on the bottom middle part. When I move my finger farther back, it gets much softer. I can't wait for teething. This should be lots of fun (I am being sarcastic in case you couldn't tell.)

This is my arsenal of meds I take everyday

Ready to go for a walk

Now I sit to play with my playmat. I don't like being on my belly so I will probably never crawl

I like to chew everything, even Tigger

I love looking at my buddy, Chewie

I also like to look at Daddy

Hi!

We went out to eat and I sat like a big girl in the high chair!

Like I said, I like to chew on everything

This is how daddy dressed me for daycare today. It was cold outside!

Now that I can sit up, I can pick out whatever toys I want

Scarlett is jealous I have all of these toys and she doesn't! She has been really good about not chewing any of my stuff

What else is new? Sick again!

Avery started sneezing, was congested and was coughing really bad on Thursday night so Tim decided he was going to take her to the doctor's Friday before it started to get worse. I didn't feel very well when I got up but didn't think much of it. I went to work at 6:30am. I started feeling really nauseous and sick. I ended up going home around 10. Thankfully, I made it home in time. After countless trips to the bathroom, throwing up 3 times, a fever of 101.5 and feeling hot/cold and like I was going to faint, I pretty much spent the whole day in bed.

 Tim took Avery to her appointment. They said her cough just seemed to be from a cold. They want us to start breathing treatments again and they gave us a prescription for cefprozil. We were to wait a few days and only get the script filled if she was doing worse. They decided to take a viral culture from her nose to send it for testing and they put a referral in for her to see Pulmonary due to her wheezing in the past. Thankfully, they didn't hear wheezing on Friday.

When Tim came home from the appointment, I was in bad shape. I felt like I was going to faint just walking to the bathroom; there was no way I would be able to carry Avery around and care for her. Tim had to get some work done so his mom was nice enough to pick Avery up after she got out of work around 2:30 and watched Avery for awhile. What a lifesaver!We can't thank you enough!! We really appreciate it. Tim picked Avery up about 4 hours later and then he was the lifesaver..taking care of both Avery and I. I owe him big time because I am sure it wasn't easy. Us girls can be demanding sometimes :-)

Saturday morning I still wasn't feeling great and Tim had to do some work so Tim's mom was kind enough to watch Avery for a few hours. Again Mom, we can't thank you enough! I was able to get some rest and finally able to eat more than two popsicles, which is all I ate on Friday. I started feeling about 60% better by Saturday night.

Avery's coughing woke her up Saturday night and she couldn't stop so I gave her a breathing treatment at 2:30am. She finally went back to bed. She woke up this morning and she seemed to be coughing more than yesterday so we decided to start the prescription. I know you aren't supposed to use antibiotics all the time but I just get nervous. I worry that whenever Avery is sick, it could get bad really fast so I try to stop it before that happens.

Avery was in a pretty good mood today besides the coughing. Hopefully these antibiotics will do the trick. The last time we went to the doctor, she recommended we get this thing call the Nose Frieda. Its this tube and one end goes in the baby's nose and the other end in your mouth. It's basically a snot sucker. The doctor swore by it so I was like, yeah it's gross, but what do I have to lose? I ended up buying it and it does work great when Avery lets me use it. If we don't end up using it for it's intended purpose, we can let Avery have it as a toy. I let her hold it the one day and she played with it for over 1/2 an hour. She put it in her mouth(the right end even!) and then was twirling it around her head. She loved the thing and was mesmerized by it. (There are pics of it below but I don't have a pic of the part that you put in her nose).

I am playing with the snot sucker

How cute am I?

Still playing with this nose sucker thing

Yep, still playing

Wow, I can't believe it took me almost 11 months to find these things. Feet are so fun!

Forget the nose sucker, I can play with my feet!

 I love Chewie! He lets me climb all over him

This other puppy lets me climb on him too!

I am in a good mood even though I keep coughing

A Busy Bee

Avery is finally starting to feel better. I am sure she will get sick at daycare again soon though because that always seems to happen. She finished her dose of steroids and we are no longer on the albuterol/nebulizer. 

Avery has been really busy the past few days. We went to the St. Charles carnival and got to hang out with my friend, Karen, who now lives in South Carolina. We then had lunch with our friend, Jeremy. He said he doesn't hold babies (see picture below). We went and visited my mom at work on her birthday. Avery had a couple firsts this past week..she went swimming and she went to Kiddie Park. 

She is now sitting up really well and she tries to grab everything she sees. She finally started grabbing her feet. 

I won at bingo at the St Charles carnival! I picked out a little rocking horse!

Mommy's friend, Karen, helped me play bingo.

How can he not want to hold me? I am so cute.

I love hanging out outside.

Everything I grab now goes straight into my mouth.

Kaitlin and I visited grandma at the hospital on her birthday

Us grandkids visiting Grandma

Mommy says when it's sunny out I have to wear this hat

I like to play with my sunglasses but I don't like to wear them

Swimming in the pool

Playing with tub toys in the pool

Riding on my lion

 Mommy put a banana in this mesh thing. Chewie sneaked a couple licks of it when Mommy wasn't looking

I can't wait until I can ride all the rides at Kiddie Park

We rode the Merry Go Round but sat on the bench. I didn't have a very good view...lol

I love watching this barnyard movie

Here is a pic of me smiling since everyone always says I look so worried :-)

Yep, You guessed it...more doctor appointments.

We decided to take Avery to the zoo on Wednesday with my sister and her kids. Avery still had the cough but she seemed to be feeling ok. She seemed to really enjoy the zoo. She loved looking at all the people and animals. I can't wait to take her again. 

She had a follow up appointment for her cough scheduled Wednesday night. We saw Dr Love. She is the one who has been somewhat stuck with us ever since Dr So was out sick one day. She is always running behind but that is because she spends so much time with each patient. She never rushes you and always listens to what you have to say. Our appointment was at 6pm so I knew she would be running behind by then. We got called back around 6:40. She listened to Avery and still heard wheezing so she decided to have Avery get a chest xray.

Wow, I have never seen anything so traumatizing in my life. Seeing her get that xray was horrible. They stick her in this thing where she is somewhat sitting/standing. Tim had to pull her arms above her head and this clamp came around each side of her chest around her ribs. He said it was horrible because she was screaming and was looking at him the whole time. The clamp pulled/got stuck on her g-tube and I was yelling "wait wait, it's stuck!". Avery was screaming the whole time at the top of her lungs. It was horrible. 

This is not a pic of Avery but I wanted you to see what it looks like for a baby to have a chest xray. The plastic part that splits in the middle of her chest is what got caught on her g-tube. Thankfully it didn't get pulled out or we would have had to go to the ER. 

We then went back up to the exam room. Dr Love said the xray looked unremarkable. Her lungs and heart looked good and she didn't see anything else abnormal. She said she doesn't know what is causing the wheezing. It could be a number of different things. It could be allergies, it could be the start of asthma, it could be RSV or it could just be from the Upper Respiratory Infection she had a week and a half ago. She decided she wants to start Avery on steroids for 5 days. She thinks it will help the wheezing. Another benefit is that most of the time, steroids increase your appetite/metabolism so Avery might gain some weight when she is on it. The downside is that steroids sometimes make people a little ornery or mean. 

She got her first dose last night. Today she seemed like she was in a pretty good mood but she did not eat well at all at daycare. When I got her home from daycare, she did end up eating a little over 3 ounces of Pediasure. We go for another follow up on Saturday to see if the wheezing has gone away.

I like to hold on while I get my breathing treatment

Daddy is reading me a book called "Daddy Loves Me". Mommy got it for Daddy for Father's Day so he could read it to me.

Daddy, me, Eddie, Kaitlin and Aunt Janet at looking at the elephants

My cousins are silly

I was having a good time at the zoo. I was awake the whole time!

Eddie said that if the camel spit at him that he was going to spit at it

Kaitlin was a big help. She pushed me around most of the day!

Look at the big ears she has!

Family photo by the elephants

Eddie riding the turtle

 I liked looking at the swan

Still looking at the swan

Yep, still looking!

 Just monkeying around

The monkey and I

Who is this guy sitting next to me??

This is a picture from when we were at the doctor's on Wednesday. We were there 2 1/2 hours! It was exhausting for everyone

I am getting so good at my breathing treatments that I take it and put it in my mouth