Sunday, September 25, 2011

5 months old!

Sammy is five 5 months old today.  Last week, at the pediatrician's office, she weighed 13 pounds, 7.5 ounces.  Look how happy she is, even with a totally congested nose.  She's a rockstar.

Pink Eye, the Croup and Fevers, Oh My!

We've had a rough week.  One day last week, I noticed that the skin around my baby girl's right eye looked a little red and puffy.  I took her to daycare and asked them to please watch it for me.  When we picked her up that night, the teachers thought that she had just scratched herself and it was healing.  Fine.  The next morning, her eye didn't look better.  And it had some yellow gunk around it, but I was still going on the scratch theory.  But then when I brought her into daycare and saw her eye under those bright fluorescent lights, I knew something was wrong.  I put her right back into her car seat and brought her to the doctor, who instantaneously proclaimed she had conjunctivitis.  Sigh.  So we gave her antibiotic ointment 3x a day for the next 5 days.

A couple days later, my toddler son lost his voice and had a low-grade temperature.  I thought it was strange that he would lose his voice but he sounded so cute!  That night, around 1:30 am, he didn't sound so cute when he woke himself up with that horrible croup cough.  Ugh.  I knew immediately what that was.  So we calmed him down and got him back to sleep.  And we kept him home from school the next day because he was still sick and had a low grade temperature.  I also brought him to the doctor and got him some oral steroids to help him through the next night (because croup is worst at night).  He's been on the mend since then.  He still has a bit of a cough and a runny nose, but he's acting like himself again.

But the saga continues.  Whatever croupy virus my son brought home with him also attacked poor little Sammy.  The night after Ian woke up with his croupy cough, I was feeding Sammy in the middle of the night.  And she felt hot.  Really hot.  Ruh roh.  So I took her temperature and it was 101.6.  Crap.  I gave her some Tylenol and in the morning her temp was back to 98.3.  Great!  But then over the next 3 days, she continued to have low-grade fevers (like 99.9 or 100.1) and my gnawing motherly instinct finally told me to bring her to the doctor.  I really did think she was fine and just fighting a cold because her fevers never got worse and her behavior was otherwise normal.  But I was worried that perhaps she had an ear infection.  So I brought her to the doctor one night after work and of course, she was fine.  And now, the poor thing, is just all congested from a bad cold.  We let her sleep in her car seat last night so that she could be upright because sleeping in her crib lying down wasn't doing it for her.  I hope she gets better soon!

3 visits to the doctor in 1 week.  I hope to never repeat that again.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Busy! and Basement Drama

I've gotten pretty bad about updating my blog since going back to work 1 month ago.  But I'm SO busy.  There isn't that much extra time in the day to spend on the internet.  In the morning, we have a pretty good routine to get out the door.  I shower while my husband eats breakfast with the toddler.  Then the baby wakes up and I feed and dress her.  Then I take both kids to daycare and my husband gets ready for work after we leave.  At night, my husband picks up the kids from daycare.  We have dinner and get the toddler to bed around 8 pm.  The baby usually falls asleep around 8:45 or 9 pm after nursing and then wakes one more time to nurse before going to bed for the night.  But we can't just relax on the couch.  We have to do dishes and make lunches for the next day and I have to prep Sammy's bottles for daycare.  By the time we finally relax, I try to watch TV but usually end up falling asleep on the couch.  But as busy and hectic as it is, I love it.  I love my family and this is my reward:



And now for the bad news.  Our basement did not survive Hurricane Irene intact.  We have always thought that we had a dry house.  Last year when the neighbors across the street had 1 foot of water in their basement and our next-door-neighbor's sump pump was pumping like crazy, we were high fiving each other because our basement was dry.  Or was it?  This year, we had Hurricane Irene blow through on Sunday.  We thought everything was fine and went about our business as usual.  Then, when I went to work in my home office on Wednesday (because I typically work from home on Wednesdays), I noticed that the pergo floor in our basement was buckling up.  My stomach dropped when I saw that because I knew that it was water damage.  (I had ruined the first pergo floor in our basement the DAY after we moved in when the toilet overflowed and water got in underneath it.)  So I started looking around and noticed that the brick on the floor near the fireplace was damp.  I called my husband and had him come home from work immediately to start ripping up the floor.  I didn't want the water spreading further and into the back rooms of the basement we had JUST finished.

So we ripped up the pergo floor, revealing once again the horrible brown and beige checkered asbestos tiles on the basement floor (which were now popping up more than ever).  And we weren't 100% sure where the water had come from because the water had dried by the time we realized we had an issue.  But then came this past week, where it rained non-stop for 3 days.  And on day 3, I peeked into our furnace room, and sure enough, it was wet in the corner.  So that actually made me feel better because at least we knew where the water was coming from (and it didn't involve the chimney, which we had originally suspected because of the wet brick).

To make a long story short, we're going to spend a lot of money to fix up our basement.  First we are ripping out the asbestos tile (which requires hiring an asbestos abatement company).  Then we have to call the oil company to replace the copper oil line that will be in the way of some of the other work we need to do.  Then the basement waterproofing experts can do their thing - drilling through our foundation floor and installing french drains and a sump pump.  And then we have to put the finishing touches on - removing the dry wall that got wet, installing new dry wall and painting.  And we have chosen to install ceramic tile as our new flooring.  I'm exhausted just getting quotes for this work and over-thinking every single decision.  But I just don't want to mess around with this again.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Rolling Over!

Sammy rolled over from her back to her tummy tonight!  My husband had put her down on her play mat while we cooked dinner.  At some point, she started crying and we looked over and she was on her tummy.  My husband asked me if I had rolled her over and I hadn't.  So hooray!  And then after we re-positioned her on her back, she rolled over right in front of us.  I'm so proud of my little girl.  :-)

*Here's proof from the next night*