Catching up...Weeks 7, 8, 9, & 10

So, where did I leave off?...I know that at the end of each blog entry I say I will be better about updating and blogging more frequently, but obviously that isn't working. So, here we go with weeks 7-10 of my 52 week blog for 2012. We're going to start with Valentine's Day...

Valentine's Day 2012 was VERY low-key this year. Jason and I decided to skip the gifts this year, so to celebrate I made him one of his very favorite meals - complete with homemade cheesecake - and we enjoyed a nice dinner together after putting Ryder to bed that night. I do have to say that having my little Valentine made the day much more enjoyable than previous Valentine's Days have been.

My little "ladies man"; he's the best Valentine a girl could ask for!

 

 

Valentine's Day is about the only eventful thing that happened during week 7. I had to work the weekend of February 17-19 which gave daddy and Ryder lots of bonding time. I think Jason was ready for the start of another work week by the time Monday rolled around!

Grocery shopping with mom!

Weeks 8 and 9 were equally uneventful with the most exciting thing being Jason's wisdom teeth removal and Ryder's 9 month check-up. And I almost forgot...Jason built the washer/dryer stand that I found on Pinterest. It turned out so good!!! Thanks for building it, honey!

Pinterest inspired...

 Our little guy is weighing in at 21 pounds 4 ounces (I don't remember how tall he was...). Dr. Jacobson said that Ryder is right on track for where he should be growth wise and is ahead of the game as far as his development goes. Hopefully we'll stay out of the dr's office until our planned appointment scheduled in May!

Look who's 9 months old - Ryder's first experience eating an Oreo.

Week 9 also brought the start of a new month...Can you believe it's March already! Lyndie and Jordan came down to visit us during the weekend of March 2-4 and it was very nice to spend some time with them. Ryder LOVES Jordan.

Hanging out with Lyndie and Jordan

Week 10 is coming to an end as we speak. I'm working the weekend again, so Jason is busy chasing Ryder around the house. Our little guy as finally mastered crawling and as you can imagine is getting into EVERYTHING!

Is this right, mom?

Getting so big!

As I look towards the upcoming weeks I see many weeks full of nothing but work and cuddle time with Ryder Roo. My parents are planning to come visit this coming weekend, so it will be nice to spend some time with them. Other than that it's looking like lots of boring days ahead, and in our life boring is good!

Much Love - Danielle

Weeks #5 & #6, a LOT late this time...

My goodness am I far behind! It has been a little hectic around our house the last 2 weeks. In my last entry I mentioned that Ryder had a stomach bug all weekend that kept me home from work...it took him a few days to get over the stomach bug, and he was just starting to feel better when he came down with yet another illness...

When we put Ryder to bed on Thursday night (2/3) we noticed that he had very mild cold symptoms, so we turned on his humidifier and applied some baby Vick's to his chest and back. When he woke up at 2:00 for his bottle I quickly noticed that his "cold" symptoms were much worse; his lungs were wheezy and coarse sounding (mommy got out her handy, dandy stethoscope) and he was breathing very labored at a rate of about 80 breaths per minute. I quickly gave my little man a nebulizer treatment, which we had on hand from the fall when he had RSV, and waited for his breathing to improve. Normally the nebulizers work almost instantly, but this time I noticed NO difference at all. I woke up Jason and told him that I was really worried and thought we should take him in, so off to the ER we went.

When we got to the ER the nurses took one look at Ryder and brought us immediately back to one of the critical care rooms...now mommy was starting to get scared...After being quickly assessed by the doctor it was determined that Ryder had RSV (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/respiratory-syncytial-virus/DS00414)...again...great! The nurse in the ER gave Ryder a different kind of nebulizer, and his breathing started to improve slightly, but it was still worrisome and I was concerned that we were dealing with something worse than just RSV. The Dr. ordered a chest x-ray and told us that they would be sending us home and that we should just continue with the nebulizer treatments and plan for Ryder to get worse before he got better. Having heard this speech before with our first round of RSV, I wasn't very excited for the days to come. I convinced the Dr. to keep us at the ER until Ryder's chest x-ray came back and thankfully I did because his x-ray showed bilateral pulmonary infiltrates, a.k.a. pneumonia.

I have never, in my life, been so happy to hear the word pneumonia come out of a Dr's mouth! This meant that my little Ryder Roo would get put on antibiotics. So instead of just getting sent home to "watch" him, we would actually be doing something to treat him. The nurse gave Ryder his first dose of antibiotic before we left the ER that night, and we headed home with strict instructions to bring him back if he got any worse.

Sharing chew toys with his puppy...

I don't have any pictures of Ryder when he was sick, so you'll have to settle for this picture of my cute little guy taken on 2/8 when he was starting to feel better (finally)...

To say that the next few days were rough would be an understatement...Our usually happy and content little guy was super fussy, clingy, and whiny for the next 3-4 days. I wanted so badly to make him feel better. Why couldn't I have pneumonia instead of him? Seeing your child sick is not a lot of fun. It made me feel so helpless. And it didn't help that he HATED the antibiotic which made it a struggle with each and every dose (for the entire 10 days), or that he HATES getting the boogers sucked out of his nose. Holding your 8 1/2 month old down while you force-feed them medication and use the bulb-syringe on their nose does not make you feel like a very good or nice person. Deep down you know that you are doing it because it's what best for them, but in that moment you feel awful. Ryder and I both did a lot of crying that week!

On Monday (2/6) we had a follow-up appointment with our primary Dr. Ryder's lungs still sounded very wheezy and coarse, but Dr. Jacobson said to just continue what we were doing and that he expected Ryder would be better in about a week. My other major concern at this point was that based on the Ryder's weight at our appointment; he had only gained 3 ounces in the past 3 months. I was expecting that he wouldn't have gained a ton of weight since he hadn't really been eating for the past week and a half, but I wasn't expecting his weight gain to be so small. Dr. Jacobson assured me that his appetite would eventually come back and to continue offering him food as normal but to not be discouraged if he continued to want nothing to do with food. (Dr. Jacobson ended up being exactly correct, because that following Monday (2/13) we had our happy, smiley baby back, and he's been eating like a little piglet ever since!)

You would never guess he was sick...

Still into EVERYTHING despite being a sick little boy...

 To add to the fun in our family that week, Jason went to the dentist on Friday (2/3) for a toothache and found out he has to have his wisdom teeth removed. He was also started on antibiotics and an appointment has been made for February 28th to have the teeth extracted. Let's hope we don't have any more medical/dental issues for a good, long while!

We did have some fun during week #6 (much needed). That weekend we headed out to Tracy, MN to spend some time with our dear friends Drew and Tori Hesse and their 6 1/2 month old Linkin. It was great to see them and it's always fun to see how Ryder and Linkin interact with one another. I even left Ryder with a babysitter (Drew's mom, Deb) for the first time that Saturday night so we could go out to dinner with no babies. It was a lot of fun and the food was great, but I missed my little guy like crazy and couldn't get back to him soon enough! **I will be sure to add pictures of the boys together as soon as I'm able**

The hubs and I at dinner...

Tori and her brother, Treig

Jason and Drew think they are SO funny...

On our way back from visiting the Hesse family we got to spend some time with my parents and with my in-laws before heading back home to Rochester on Sunday evening. It's always so nice to see and spend time with our families, and I love watching Ryder with his grandparents.

Well, if you've made it to the end of this entry, congratulations! I think that pretty much sums up weeks 5 and 6 of 2012. I plan to blog again tomorrow night about week 7, so stay tuned for that entry as well as for some new photos.

Week #4...2 days late this time!

My posts just keep getting later and later. I keep telling myself that I will do my posts on Sundays but this makes 2 weeks in a row that it hasn't happened. I do have to say that I have a good excuse for not blogging on this past Sunday, though.

My little Ryder Roo was sick all weekend with a stomach bug. It all started with his 1:00 am bottle on Friday morning. Shortly after drinking his milk Ryder coughed a couple of times and started throwing up...projectile vomiting is a better description of what happened. I got him cleaned up, changed his crib sheets, and put him back to bed thinking that it was just a fluke, one-time thing. Fast forward to 7:00 am when we were getting up for the day. I was sitting on the couch pumping so Jason got Ryder out of his crib and brought him into the livingroom and put him in his walker. Almost instantly Ryder started projectile vomiting again...it was a LOT of vomit. The good thing was that Ryder seemed very un-phased by throwing up, so that made it a little easier to deal with for this momma.

Later that morning Ryder drank his bottle and kept it down, so again I was thinking that it was a fluke thing and nothing to be worried about. Ryder napped as usual and was in decent spirits - he was a little cranky, but I was blaming that on the 3 teeth he was cutting. That afternoon I again gave Ryder his bottle and this time he was only able to get down 2-3 oz before projectile vomiting it all back up. I gave him a break for a few minutes and tried again with the same results. I started thinking about things and realized that he had only kept down 5 oz at the most since bedtime the night before...now I was worried! I promptly called the nurse line and was at first told to take him straight to the ER...now I was really scared!!! The nurse decided to page our doctor to see what he recommended for us, and it was decided that we could keep him home but that we would need to give him a small amount Pedialyte every 5-10 minutes while he was awake and to not give him any breastmilk or other foods until the next morning at the earliest. They also instructed us to directly to the ER if he did not improve or would not take the Pedialyte.

So, all this intensive hydrating meant no work for this momma (I was supposed to work night shifts all weekend). My sister brought us some Pedialyte and we got to work instantly on trying to get our little man hydrated. Thankfully he drank it - I was worried he wouldn't because he has never successfully drank anything besides breastmilk despite our best efforts. So all Friday night and into Saturday morning this momma was busy making sure her baby boy didn't get further dehydrated. It was a long, sleepless night...

Ryder seemed to feel better on Saturday morning but was still not himself for the rest of the weekend. Thankfully he only vomited once on Saturday, but unfortunately the vomiting was replaced by diarrhea...lots of diarrhea. We're still battling that beast (in much smaller quantities) today - only once so far today thank goodness - but fortunately he is back to drinking breastmilk in his normal times and quantities. He is still not too interested in eating real food though; we'll keep trying!

So, that was our weekend. I was only able to work on Sunday night, so there goes 24 hours of PTO! We do have some exciting news, though; while our little man was battling his stomach bug he cut 3 top teeth. That makes a grand total of 6 teeth for him already! To summarize everything else, here goes: he's still army crawling instead of "regular" crawling, he still loves bananas and sweet potatoes over everything else, he ate his first real banana and LOVED it, he continues to love taking baths in the big boy tub, and each day he fills my life with so much love that I can barely stand it!

Well, I think that's it for us for this past week. Can you believe tomorrow is already February? Time is flying! Less than 4 months to Ryder's first birthday...