TEEEEETH

The teeth, they just keep comin'!

 Morgan was in a good mood while we waited for Daddy to have lunch with us at the hospital (he was working all weekend).  It was the only outing we'd had in DAYS due to us both still being sick. 

Morgan is mostly better, save for a snotty nose that she HATES having wiped.  

I am slo-o-o-o-o-owly starting to feel better.  On antibiotics.  Coughing a lot.  Trying to rest.  My sister & nephew had to return to Minnesota early this morning so it was back to the usual.  I am going to miss having her here, helping with Morgan and the house!  It really was a blessing.

In other news, Morgan is LOVING climbing the stairs.  I have another baby gate arriving on Tuesday to keep her off them because I've caught her up about 5 or 6 stairs by the time my pregnant sick slow self can get to her, ha!  Both the hubs and I have been right there with her when she climbed the entire flight of 14 stairs!  So now we know she can do it.  Yikes!

What do you mean "Get off the stairs", Mama?

I'm just going to pretend I didn't hear you.

I have another OB appointment tomorrow - just the routine check.  Baby #2 has been moving around a ton lately -- he or she probably can't rest with all the coughing I've been doing.  This week the weather is supposed to be EXTREMELY nice - like mid 70's.  That's just what I need to snap me out of this sickness funk and get on with life!  It was near 70 today, so I put Morgan in the stroller and we got out of the house for some fresh air and sunshine.  We both needed it.  We didn't go far, I can't believe how worn out that little walk made me, but it was good for us.

Sickies

I knew I was calling down the thunder, bragging about how we made it to one year without Morgan getting sick. 

But I was not at all prepared for this week....

Long story short:  Bronchitis (me) + pneumonia (me) + sick one year old + six months pregnant = one very sick and worn out Mama.  I went to the ER last night after being sick all week, and showing no improvement.  I also started developing a fever yesterday, so I knew that wasn't good.  Earlier in the week, I had taken Morgan to her Pediatrician to rule out an ear infection or RSV.  While she had neither of those (thank goodness), he did notice "blisters" on the back of her throat.  Poor thing was miserable.  The dr. said it was viral and to give her Motrin to keep her comfortable.

Luckily, my sister and nephew came for a visit this week.  How fun for them to be in a house full of sickies :(  They have been a HUGE help to me and allowed me to get some rest too.  Morgan has loved having them around as well.  I'm hoping I recover enough very soon so that we can do SOMETHING fun while they are here.

I'm just going to rant a bit here since I'm sick & irritable anyways (ha ha, I must be starting to finally feel better!) that I called my OB's office yesterday to see if I could get in and be seen.  The receptionist told me "If it's cold like symptoms, he doesn't deal with that - you'll need to call your Primary Care Doc."   So I call my Primary Care doc TWICE, leave 2 messages, and NEVER GET  A CALL BACK.  12 hours later I'm in the ER with a fever and chills & feeling like I'm on my deathbed.  I'm a little disgusted with my healthcare providers right now if you can't tell.  In the ER, I kept telling the nurse I was firing my Primary Care doc because I don't like it when boys don't call me back, lol.

So when I crawl out of this sick hole, I will come back to blogging.  Until then, rest, fluids, and a Z-pack are my new bff's.  And you can thank me later for NOT including any sickie pics, ha ha!

Monday -- back to the grind

This lovely Monday morning, I woke up to see this:

SERIOUSLY???

 Snow.  In March.  When we haven't had any snow really all winter long.  Maybe Winter didn't get the memo, but it can go away now.  We're done with you.

I have a chest cold and Morgan seems to have something too -- she is sneezing and producing lots of yuckiness from her nose.  Booo!!

And here's lunch time (and every meal time in our house for that matter lately):

She has gotten SO picky!  I addressed this with her Ped and he said don't give her the things she "likes", really push the veggies & fruits first.  I had gotten into the (bad) habit of giving her crackers to munch on while I fixed her meals.  This really helped with her dexterity and her ability to feed herself.  Plus?  She loves 'em!  But then she would cry when I'd give her something else.  So now no more crackers for a while.  Some days I'm at a loss for what to feed her.  She doesn't eat much meat (unless it's pureed and masked).  She can't really eat chunks of meat either, they just end up sitting in her mouth or she spits them out.  So protein has been a challenge.  I still do cheese, yogurt, lentils, etc.

On a bright note, I hired a handyman to come this morning and fix our leaky faucet.  It had been driving me NUTS for a YEAR.  Yes, a year.  It's amazing how  you just learn to live with some things isn't it?  I also talked him into hanging a large picture way up on our crazy high wall in the Living Room.  So I'm a happy camper.

Off to finish the 18th load of laundry for today, or maybe it just feels like that many, lol!  My sister and nephew are coming for a visit this week and I'm trying to get the house in order.  I'm so excited for them to come!!!

Thank you for reading if you still are -- I know this post was SUPER exciting ; )

Florida recap & some 1-year stuff

Whew...what a busy last couple of weeks!  I swear I'm still here ; )
We returned from Florida and had a great time.  The weather was PERFECT.  It was SOOOO nice to get out of winter for a while and into 80-degree temps & sunshine.  Oh how I love the sunshine.

The trip was a little rough on Morgan though.  Teething, ear pressure problems on the plane, off-schedule naps, unfamiliar environment....eeeshka.  I won't lie, the flight down had me contemplating jumping out of the plane, it was that bad.  The flight attendant even came up to me and saw I was ready to cry and offered her help, advice & support (which was really nice of her).  That Saturday flight was comprised of an overbooked plane full of retired elderly people and babies...so mine wasn't the only one pitching a fit.

FINALLY off that flight...got a fresh outfit change...chillin' waiting for the rental car.

We stayed with Joe's cousin, Brian, who recently moved into a beautiful home.  He had such a wonderful setup for us - we basically had our own private "wing".  Brian's mom gathered a bunch of baby items for us to use (a pack & play, blankets, a monitor, toys, a walker & a booster feeding chair) that made life so much easier on us.  By the 2nd or 3rd night Morgan was back to sleeping through the night.  She also loved chasing after Brian's big fluffy cat, Ash.  I think Ash liked Morgan too, because he could have run away and hid, but he let her come after him every time and pet him.  So cute.

Playing with her cousin Cooper.  This pic cracks me up because Cooper is only 2 WEEKS older than Morgan, but waaaay taller (and has some killer hair, I might add!)

Visiting Butterfly Garden

If you look closely you can see the buterfly perched on top of Morgan's hat.  They were everywhere...so pretty!

Oh hey...I'm just chillin while my mom & dad shop some more for ME!

We couldn't resist hitting the largest outlet mall in the US (I think that's what Brian told us?  Don't quote me on that!) since we were RIGHT THERE.  That seriously would've been a crime in my book!  Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall...it did not disapoint!  And it is supposedly shaped like an alligator on the outside, ha ha!
We went to the beach in Ft. Lauderdale one day and that didn't go so well.  I covered Morgan in sunscreen (which she hated) and her sun hat (which she also hated).  Then she played around in the sand and it stuck to her everywhere.  She rubbed it in her eyes, her hair and it got in her mouth.  (Thankfully, she's not into eating sand or things she picks up!)  Plus her soggy swim diaper got filled with sand too, so I'm sure she was SO uncomfortable!!

We were standing in the ocean here and it was really loud with waves crashing onto the shore.  She was very skeptical, lol!

 Just for the record, it should be noted that we were are SO white & pasty that passersby voiced their concern as to whether or not we were wearing sunscreen.  Like, Edward Cullen white.

Beach Baby

Poor thing, rubbed sand & sunscreen in her eyes....she was miserable.

 So we decided to rinse her off at the outdoor shower. It might not have been a bad idea if it wasn't an ice cold SUPER PRESSURE WASHER hard spray. She screamed bloody murder and then passed out. She must think we were torturing her, poor thing!

Passed out on Daddy after an icy cold shower

One thing she LOVED:  When we'd swim in Brian's pool, we put her in a floaty car thing that let her legs dangle in the water.  We'd push her around the pool, back and forth between me & the Hubs and she got the biggest kick out of that!

I got the biggest kick out of her in her little bathing suits!  SO CUUUUUTE!!!

I hope that all didn't sound like the biggest Debbie Downer post of the year -- because the trip was good and it was so wonderful to get away.  But the Hubs and I decided, vacations are HARD on babies & parents.  Future vacations may have to be sans-babies....but of course that is dreaming because I don't think I could ever leave my baby!  I don't know how I'm going to do it when Baby #2 arrives and I have to leave Morgan to be in the hospital....

On to a different topic:

Yesterday we had her official one-year checkup.  I wanted to include this so I have it somewhere...

At 12 months, she weighs 19 pounds, 11 ounces and is in the 24th percentile. She is 29 inches long (43%) and her noggin is 18.2 inches around (79% - big headed baby, lol!)  She is right on track growth-wise, although a bit petite.  But the doctor said we are doing a perfect job with her!  When I texted my Hubs this info his reply was "How does she not weigh 30 pounds?"  We always joke about how heavy she feels sometimes, ha ha!

In doing his assessment, he noticed a murmur he'd never heard before.  He referred us to a Pediatric Cardiologist to have it checked out and said it's probably nothing, but better safe than sorry.  So we will go see that doctor next week and I'm sure Miss Morgan has an echocardiogram in her near future.  She also got a few more shots yesterday, along with a finger prick to check for lead levels in her blood and has been especially cranky (more so than with just the teeth) and burning up since then.  I've been alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen to keep her comfortable.  Poor thing.

She's been standing and cruising non-stop lately so I tried to get her to use one of her new walk-behind toys.  What do ya know -- she did it!!  She took about 15 steps the first time, I couldn't believe my eyes!  My little baby is so close to walking.  Hold me?  {{I tried to insert the video here but it's not working....*sigh*}}

And in somewhat puzzling, near-devastating news, my Droid has been acting up lately.  First it started with no longer downloading new emails at the beginning of the week.  Then yesterday, all my pictures and videos were GONE.  I had hundreds & hundreds on there (which was giving me the error message about storage space getting low.  Yeah yeah yeah).  I may or may not have had a mini anxiety attack.  Yikes.  Now today?  My pics & videos are all back....so weird.  But still no email.

Eventually {I swear!} I'm going to do a bump update on Baby #2!!!