My Little Girl is Standing!

Sammy has been pulling up for quite some time now but tonight I watched her letting go of the things she was holding onto for support.  So I decided to stand her up in the middle of the room and see how she did and she stood for over 30 seconds and only came down because she wanted to sit, not because she fell down.  I'm so proud of her!

We also did some new things this weekend.  I figured Sammy might like to get out of her car seat and so when we went to BJs, we put her in the shopping cart.  And we also broke out the second seat for our stroller and she had a blast while we went for a long walk.

And the weather was so beautiful today (it was 74 degrees!) that my husband and I both left work a little early to spend some time outside with the kids.  We walked 2 laps around our neighborhood while Ian rode his bike.  He was so psyched to wear his new Lightning McQueen helmet!

I think I've grown into motherhood as Ian has grown up a bit.  He was a really difficult infant and toddler for me, but now that he's a preschooler and almost 3 (!), it is pure joy to be around him.  He is so bright and curious about everything.  He remembers things I told him months and months ago even though I only said it once.  He holds my hand when we walk in parking lots and gives me hugs for no reason.  He wrote his name last week after learning to trace letters and is 100% potty trained.  Tonight after he already went to bed, I heard him get up and go to the bathroom on his own!  Amazing.  Let's hope he will do that in the middle of the night too because he's been waking us up around 2 or 3 am each night for the last 3 weeks so that we can help him go to the bathroom.  

It's amazing to watch my children grow up into such wonderful little beings!  And I leave on this note - Sammy was so incredibly wiped out tonight.  She didn't nap that much at daycare and by 6:45 pm, was really ready for bed.  She was sighing and putting her head down on our shoulders.  It felt sooo good.  I wanted to hold her like that forever.  Here is my husband's lucky time with her.

Proud Mama

I'm so proud of my big boy.  He did AMAZING this week with the potty training having only 1 or 2 accidents ALL week.  And instead of having to hound him about having to go, we can now let him take the lead and he lets us know when he needs to go.  He even called out from bed tonight to go poop on the potty.  Hooray!  We put all of his extra size 5 diapers into Sammy's closet because no more diapers for Ian!  We are still putting him in a pull up at night because it's touch and go whether or not he wakes up dry.  More often than not, he wakes in the middle of the night to have us take him to the bathroom.  And if he does that, he usually wakes up dry.  

I thought he looked extra adorable tonight and so took a picture of him riding his Plasma Car - a.k.a. the "wiggle wiggle."

I can't believe he'll be 3 in only two more weeks!

My Son is Potty-Trained!

Yahoo!  I'm so excited.  It seems like such a silly thing to be SO excited about, but Ian appears to be potty-trained.  He had only one accident on Saturday and one accident on Sunday.  And today, at school, he had ZERO accidents!  I asked his teachers to take him every 45 minutes and it seems to have worked.  He doesn't even need the sticker incentive any more either.  My little boy is so proud of himself.  Every single time he pees, he gets this big grin on his face.  Now he's attempting to pee standing up, which is quite cute.

Sammy is 10 months old!

Sammy is 10 months old today!  Here is the obligatory chair photo:

She's been super drooly these days and so I'm guessing another tooth is going to show up soon, but there are no overt signs yet.  And she wants to walk so so so badly.  She is thrilled when anyone takes her hands and walks with her.  Check out this cute video we took in our basement this morning.

She remains an incredibly happy baby and I feel so blessed to have her in my life.

We started potty training Ian this week (after a huge failure over Thanksgiving).  He didn't do so great at school - he came home every night with 4-6 wet pairs of pants.  But today, we had him in underwear all day and he only had one accident.  And in that accident, he realized he was peeing in his undies (because he felt the wetness) and was able to finish peeing in the potty.  So after being really disheartened last night, I was truly encouraged by his progress today.  I need to talk to his teachers on Monday and make sure they give him enough attention.  They have to take him to the potty every 30-45 minutes and can't wait for him to initiate.  I think after 1 week of that, he'll truly get it.  It would be fantastic if he could be trained before he turns 3 next month!

Update from the ENT

My husband and I took Sammy to the ENT this morning.  She passed the hearing test, which was a little ridiculous.  I sat with her in the listening booth and they decided that she heard the sound if she turned her heard towards it or stopped sucking her binkie when the sound played.  But she seemed to react to the sounds just as much as she didn't react.  I wasn't worried about her hearing.  I knew she could hear alright.  But I thought the test was a bit bogus on a 9 month old.

The ENT said her ear looked fine.  Of course it did.  She's been on antibiotics now for 13 days.  And we knew after day 7 that the antibiotics had worked.  So now we play the waiting game.  If she gets another ear infection soon, she'll need tubes.  It's apparently a 5-7 minute, fairly painless procedure and they'll use gas to knock her out (so no IV or drugs going into her bloodstream).  The tubes will fall out on their own and there should be no long-term effects of getting tubes.  I am crossing my fingers and hoping that the past 5-6 weeks was just bad luck with one nasty-ass infection and the antibiotics used were ineffective at clearing the infection.  But in my gut, I'm guessing that she's going to have another ear infection shortly and require tubes.  Time will tell.

In the meantime, look how cute Sammy is in this outfit!

Ian's 3rd Birthday Invitation

I'm so excited for Ian's 3rd birthday party!  It's not until next month, but I wanted to share with you the invitation (with some of the details blurred out in order to maintain our privacy).  I asked Ian to pose with his toy Lightning McQueen and the picture came out so cute!  So I found a woman on the internet who was able to take his picture and make the invitation using the Disney/Pixar characters.  I ordered some 5x7 prints from Snapfish and they're supposed to arrive tomorrow.  I can't wait!

The Ear Infection from Hell

Sammy has had a rough time of it lately.  At the end of December, she had a high fever, a bad infection in her right ear, and periorbital cellulitis on the right side of her face.  She got intramuscular shots of antibiotic to help eliminate the cellulitis quickly and then she started a 10 day course of Augmentin.  Two days after stopping that course of Augmentin, Sammy had another fever.  Sure enough, her right ear was infected.  The nurse practitioner that we saw gave us another course of Augmentin.  She thought the first course of antibiotic helped Sammy because her cellulitis went away and while her ear was infected, it no longer had pus in it.  So she thought we just needed more time on the Augmentin.

Two days after stopping the second course of Augmentin, Sammy had another fever.  Oh hey - guess what - her right ear was still infected!  So her pediatrician put her on a 5 day course of Zithromax.  Sadly, 2 days after we stopped the Zithromax, she spiked another fever.  That was this past Tuesday night, after the regular doctor's office already closed.  Given her history, I didn't want to go through the night without getting her on antibiotics again so off we went to the Newton-Wellesley ER.  Sigh.  Three hours later, I walked out of there with another diagnosis of a right side ear infection (surprise surprise) and a prescription for Suprax.

Sammy had a persistent fever on Wednesday, but we thought we just needed to give the Suprax more time to work.  By Thursday morning, when Sammy still had a 101+ fever, we went back to the doctor.  The pediatrician looked at her ear and while it was infected, the ear drum wasn't bulging and it didn't look like an ear that had been infected for close to 6 weeks.  So she recommended that we give the Suprax one more day to work.  Except this morning, Sammy still had a 101+ fever, so off I went back to the doctor.  The same doctor looked at her ear and saw a noticeable improvement.  This time, Sammy's ear drum moved nicely when the doctor puffed air into it, which means there isn't a large amount of fluid behind it preventing movement.  So she thought Sammy was getting better on the Suprax and recommended against switching antibiotics at this time.  She even got a second opinion from a more experienced doctor because it was sort of weird that Sammy still had a fever even after 60 hours of being on the antibiotic.

But today, things started looking up.  12 hours after we last gave Sammy ibuprofen, her fever was only 99.6.  So I put her to bed with another dose of ibuprofen and I'm crossing my fingers she wakes up fever-free.  We're also going to head back to the doctor next Tuesday to double-check that her ear is improving.  I also have an appointment set up with the ENT on the 13th because of this persistent ear infection.  I don't want Sammy to have to get tubes, but if it means not going through this again, I'm all for it!  My poor little baby girl.