and we have a 3rd tooth!

we now have the upper right central incisor!!!

and i think i've realized what the signs of the dude's teething are:

 - diaper rash

- clingy!

good thing we've already started brushing his teeth in the morning and at night too.  gotta keep those pearlies....well, pearly!  luckily he doesn't mind at all when i pull out the finger brush and infant toothpaste and scrub his little toofers!

on the move!

it won't be long now until we have a full-time walker on our hands!!

i highly recommend this little dino too.  the dude somehow knew what to do the very first time he was put in front of it.  doesn't tip over when he pulls up or anything.  it's great!!  and he's so proud of himself when he walks to you from across the room!  :)

foto friday

what else is there to do while you're getting ready for the next force of nature to hit us this week!

spaghetti!!!

good thing it's bath night tonight!!!

earthquake!

as everyone has heard, we got rocked pretty hard with a 5.8 magnitude earthquake today!  i've only over felt one other earthquake down in richmond when i was in college.  that one was a mere 2.something.  a baby if you will.  i know california people are probably laughing at us east coasters, but for us....this was BIG!  

the whole quake lasted about 30 seconds.  the first ten seconds my coworkers and i were puzzled as to what was happening, but then when my line of sight was bouncing up and down i realized it was an earthquake.  once the floor stopped moving i headed right for the doorway.  i at least remembered that's what you were supposed to do from elementary school i think!

the lines were nuts and we couldn't get through to anyone.  we were all okay though.  i finally got through to school to check on all the little ones.  graham, in classic dude style, was sleeping during the whole thing.  ha!  it was actually nap time for all the kids, so only a few were awake and playing to feel the quake.  probably a good thing!

this will definitely go down in our history book as the biggest earthquake we've ever felt!

10 months!!!!

i won't say it again, you all know what i'm thinking.

what.....10 months already!!!

in the past month little dude, you have definitely started to become your own little man!

here's what you've been up to:

- you weigh a whopping 23.7 lbs!!!

- pretty much wearing 12 months clothes now.  you still fit in some 9 month stuff.

- still wearing size 4 diapers during the day and 5's at night.

- still sleeping 11 hours or so at night.

- eating all solid food now.  you always want to feed yourself.  the only thing you'll let me feed you is applesauce and yogurt!

- some of your favorite foods right now are yobaby yogurt, bananas, yellow squash, sweet potato & black bean hash and homemade chicken nuggets that mommy makes!

- normally find you standing up in your crib when you're ready to get out.  you'll play with seahorse or llama for a little bit before you let us know you're ready though.

- can pull yourself up on pretty much anything and you scoot around.

- said MAMA!!!

- met aunt star and cousins kaeli and kamrin for the first time.

- apparently you're taking after your mother and take your baths standing up.  we had to move you to our bathtub since it's deeper!

 - got your second tooth.

- took our first solo road trip to richmond.

- has developed a few ticklish spots: bottoms of your feet and if you blow raspberries on your thighs.

- met great aunt evie, uncle mark and cousin tiana for the first time.

- LOVE blocks and have started putting all your blocks in and out of things deliberately.  

- was admitted to the hospital for the first time.  mwrrrr!

overall you are still a very happy go lucky baby.  we love you so much and love seeing all the new things you learn everyday!!

hawaii hertels

graham is a lucky dude that his great aunt evie, uncle mark and cousin tiana flew all the way from hawaii to visit him!!!  ;)  okay, well maybe they flew all the way out here to move tiana into her dorm at georgetown....but they did drive ALL the way to suburbia to visit the dude!!

we had a great time and enjoyed some delicious famous daves bbq for lunch!  thanks for making the trek out here guys.  i know you were all beat after driving and moving in!  the dude appreciated it, especially since he is on a pretty strict neb regimen.  

hopefully we'll be able to see more of the hawaii hertels with tiana is going to school in dc! 

guess what?!!!

we're breaking out of this joint!

 

 okay, well we're not really breaking out, we're getting discharged!!!  woo hoo!! almost a full 24 hours at the hospital, but not quite!

diagnosis:

bronchiolitis (again!) and the start of ear infections in both ears!!

treatment:

albuterol every three hours until our follow-up with the peds office on monday

pulmacort (inhaled steriod) twice a day

oral steroid twice a day until sunday

antibiotics once a day for 9 more days

OMG!  sounds like we're going to have our hands full this weekend with treatments!  looks like not a lot of sleep for us either....again!  but hey, as long as it gets the dude feeling and breathing better i'll do it!!

future:

sounds like we'll be using the pulmacort twice a day for awhile now as a preventative measure.  we also need to try and figure out what is causing these episodes, which leads me to the fact that we will most likely be seeing a pulmonologist once the dude gets better to discuss prevention, treatments, etc. 

pediatrics wing

welcome to our room!   

i'm thankful that i don't have any updates from last night after being brought up to our very spacious room in the pediatrics wing (i'm standing in the corner where the full size pull out couch is that i 'slept' on).  the dude's oxygen absorption levels stayed at 90% or above all night, which meant he didn't need oxygen at all overnight.  woo hoo!!

he got one neb treatment right after he fell asleep (which was at 12:30am!!!), and then another one around 4:30am.  he slept through both, but was awake around 7 and was nothing but his normal cheery self!  

since he had the monitor taped to his toe measuring his oxygen levels, we couldn't do much exploring when he woke up.  he didn't seem to mind watching cartoons and having breakfast in bed though!

from what i understand, we'll continue with the neb treatments until the doctor comes to see us.  hopefully we'll be able to go home today!!!

wednesday adventures

we started off in the right direction.  it had been a long night of neb treatments every three hours, but grady and i took turns and it seemed to pay off.  the dude was sounding better, not 100%, but better than the day before.  we went in for our check-up and dr. rodriguez agreed he sounded better, but had a long way to go before he was completely better.  like 4 weeks or so to go!!!  oi vey!  

she liked that he was sounding better and told us we could continue the pulmacort and oral steroids, but to try and give the albuterol every 4-6 hours now instead of every 3. 

morning and afternoon passes.  still had to give neb treatments every 3 hours as the dude would start to sound worse at the 3 hour mark.  then finally, at 6pm, only 2 hours after his last treatment, he was sounding worse again and i could see a little retraction again.  not good!  so i call the doctor and ask if i could bring him in for them to check him out, just to make sure he's okay.

we head to the doctor, dr. fernandez looks and listens to him and says the dreaded words "you need to head to the ER!!!!"  mwrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!  they give the dude another neb treatment to hold him over until we get to the ER, then we get in the car and head over.

by 7 we're back in the pediatrics triage room and the doctor was super nice.  she agreed with everything our doctors had told us to do previously with medications and treatments, and was glad i thought to bring him back in to be checked.  they gave him another type of neb treatment (not albuterol, but can't remember the name of the medicine) and it REALLY helped clear him up.  the doctor wanted me to feed him and try to get him to fall asleep though so she could observe him a little more.

apparently, when little dudes (and dudettes) fall asleep the oxygen absorption level can sometimes drop.  and that's exactly what graham's did.  :(  it dropped pretty low, to like 86, and the doctor started him on oxygen right away.  i wasn't quite sure what to think because the dude was fast asleep and he looked normal.  i guess thoughts of 'how long has this been going on' were running through my head and i started to feel a little guilty.  oxygen definitely helped bring the absorption levels up, but unfortunately that meant we were going to have to be admitted to the hospital for overnight observation!

the dude has definitely been a trooper through everything so far.  couldn't have asked for a better boy!

this is the dude sleeping with just oxygen coming through his cool dragon mask!

sent home

so today was not a good day.  i had to drive to richmond to drop a proposal off, and halfway down school calls saying graham is crankier than usual.  doesn't have a fever, but doesn't want to eat, sleep, and is breathing a little hard.  we decide we'll see if tylenol might help the dude sleep whatever was bothering him off and school would call if he didn't get better.  

well, an hour later i get another call.  we need to pick graham up.  he's not better and it seems like he's having a harder time breathing now.  ugh, i had JUST gotten to richmond and wouldn't be back in town for another two hours.  luckily grady's boss understood the situation and let him go get the dude.

grady gets him home and gives him a nebulizer treatment.  on my way home i schedule a doctors appointment for later in the evening (LOVE that our dr's office is open until 8!).  i finally get back home and grady is holding him when i walk in the door.  i can hear him right away and can tell from looking at him that he's not feeling well.

i go upstairs to change his diaper and look at his chest.  to my dismay i notice his breathing is retracted.  not good!  it had only been an hour or so since his treatment and i knew right away that the dude couldn't wait for his appointment to see the doctor.  i call the office and they agree.  bring him in and we'll take a look at him.

we get to the office and they were glad we had given him a neb already.  they give him another one to see if it helps even more.  it does a little, but dr. bill thought he might need a little more umph to kick this one out.  so the dude got a shot of steroids and then our directions were to give the dude albuterol treatments every three hours (even through the night), pulmacort (inhaled steroid) twice a day and finally an oral steroid twice a day for 5 days.  we also made a follow-up appointment for wednesday morning so the dr's could check him out.

it's going to be a long night!!!

ps....HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY to mr. mason man!!!

in the box

the dude's latest trick is putting things in and out of whatever he can find.  whether it be the wooden box for his sorting blocks, the back end of his cement truck, in the bowl or cup in the bath tub, etc.  he is so proud of himself after he figures out how to put something new in something else too.  we have a smart one on our hands! (not that the head circumference didn't give that away!  hehe!)

LOVE freecycle

reason #1548 why i LOVE freecycle......free complete set of wooden blocks for the dude!  in the offer it actually said just a bag of wooden blocks, so i figured there would be just enough to replenish the blocks that we might not be able to find!  NOPE!  it was a large rubbermaid bin FULL of wooden blocks.  i actually had a hard time picking the bin up and putting it in my trunk.  

the dude LOVES them (as you can see from his face in the one picture).

thank you freecycle!!!

silly dude

the dude and i had a little bit of fun after he was done eating dinner.



and might i mention...look at those two chompers!!

black bean & sweet potato hash

here's another one of graham's recent favs!  and i must say...i could eat a serving of this as well.  just might bring some into work with me for a snack!

black bean & sweet potato hash

1 large onion

3 teaspoons dried tyhyme leaves

3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil

1 sweet red pepper (optional)

4 cups peeled, cubed sweet potatoes (1/2" cubes)

2 15-oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed

pepper to taste

in large skillet, saute onion and thyme in oil until onion is tender, about 5 mins.  add red pepper and sweet potatoes; saute until potatoes begin to soften, about 8 mins.  stir in black beans and cook until potatoes are tender, about 5 mins.  season to taste with pepper.  

makes a GREAT finger food meal packed with protein and iron!

beautiful ladies

we had such a great weekend staying with aunt sarah in richmond.  we did a lot of playing on saturday, then went to my all time favorite mexican restaurant, Mexico (appropriately named!) for dinner.  we met up with becky for dinner and then met her back at the sarah's house to hang out for a bit.  the dude got some more playing in before he hit the hay.  it was a big day for him, so it didn't take much persuading!

then, this morning we had the great pleasure of momma and poppa g stopping by to have breakfast with us before we hit the road again.  it was so good to see them.  momma g, you look GREAT!  we are so amazed at all the progress you have made and we'll continue to send positive healing thoughts your way!!  oh, and the dude LOVES his new ball.  :)  and thank you aunt sarah for making some delicious pancakes.  there wasn't a single piece left on the dude's plate!

after breakfast it unfortunately was time for the dude and i to head back home.  again, i was a little apprehensive about driving alone with him, and just hoping he would have a repeat performance from the day before.  lucky for me....he did!!  10 minutes into the ride he was out again!  and thankfully there was absolutely no traffic, so it only took me 2 hours to get back.  we were probably about 10 minutes from home when the dude woke up.  perfect timing!  and something stinky was also well timed, because right as we pulled in, the dude greeted daddy with a little present!!  hehe!

thank you again for having us aunt sarah.  we can't wait to see you again soon!

<3

visit to aunt sarah's!

this weekend the little dude and i took our very first solo road trip.  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little apprehensive traveling with him for 2+ hours each way by myself, but i crossed my fingers and said prayers the night before that he would be a good backseat driver and just sleep the whole way.  so ride down, 15 minutes into the ride the dude is out!  woo hoo!  i hit a lot of traffic and it ended up taking me 3 hours to get to richmond, but luckily for me the dude slept the entire way and didn't wake up until right before i pulled into aunt sarah's driveway.  

the dude was SO happy to get out of the car and stretch his little legs.  and to his surprise, there were different furry little ones at aunt sarah's!  oh boy!  graham, meet goldfish.  goldfish, meet, well...umm...graham.  sorry about pulling your fur!  he was such a good sport about it though and didn't bat at the dude or anything.  by the end of the day they were good ol pals!

the dude also took to goldfish's toys.  he LOVED the yarn rattle toy and thought his scratching post made quite the lounger!  again, thanks for being a good sport goldfish.  and hey, at least he didn't eat any of your food like he does with rudy and stella!!

Baby Chicken Fingers with Apple

i made these for the dude and he devoured them!!


Baby Chicken Fingers with Apple (7/8+ months)

8oz (1 C) ground chicken/turkey
1 medium carrot
1 medium apple
1/2 garlic clove
1/2 small onion
1 small egg yolk, beaten
1 oz (1/4 C) breadcrumbs
pinch of dried thyme
ground black pepper to taste

Peel and grate the carrot, apple, garlic and onion.
Place into a mixing bowl, along with the ground chicken/turkey.
Add the beaten egg yolk, breadcrumbs, thyme and black pepper.  Mix well.
Take small balls of the mixture and roll into 8 little sausages.
Place on a grill pan (broiler) and heat under the grill for 10 mins on each side.
Allow to cool.
Serve, or store some in the freezer for future use.